I moved closer so I could hear better.
Luke looked at me as if trying to push me back with a stare.
“I’m staying,” I said as I straightened, daring him to try to shove me away.
He growled, but continued, “I think that fire was set by men making drugs. If Timothy made it to shore, he might have stumbled upon more trouble than the storm.”
To my surprise, Willie looked like he was following Luke’s logic. “I got a flare gun in my boat. I’ll keep it ready. If there’s any trouble of that kind I’ll stay out of the way and let you handle it.”
Luke nodded once. “Then we go. Drugs or no drugs, Tim might need our help tonight.”
He turned to me. “You stay here. If the rain stops, try to find enough dry wood to start a fire.”
He moved to the door without looking at me again, but when he passed, his hand slid along my back in a light touch no one else would have noticed.
“Stay put folks, we’ll find him.” Luke raised his voice to all of us. “Have coffee and blankets ready. If we’re not back in an hour, drive over to Mrs. Deals’s place and call the sheriff. Tell him we need a team out here.”
“I already thought of that. The storm knocked my phone out.” Mrs. Deals looked angry. “Find that boy.”
Luke nodded once and followed Willie out.
I felt helpless. All I didn’t understand would fill a moon crater. Why had Willie said he’d step aside and let Luke handle trouble? How did Luke know about the drugs?
We all huddled around a table and drank coffee. Mary Lynn’s dog yelped when Paul pulled up in his Jeep. He’d remembered Willie talking about signaling with a light and came as soon as he spotted it on the lake. With his hair uncombed and wearing an old pair of jeans, he almost looked like he belonged among the Nesters.
As the storm pelted the windows, I washed new thermoses and filled them with coffee. Fishermen drifted in, drawn first to the light on the lake, and then the lights at Jefferson’s Crossing. Those who had motors on their fishing boats paired up and headed out to crisscross the lake. All were familiar with the danger of being on the lake, even with the storm dying. All wanted to help.
“I’ve got to do something,” Paul said as the third search team left. “I’m doing no good here.”
“No,” Mary Lynn whispered. “You don’t know the lake well enough.”
He touched her shoulder. “I’ve got an idea. I’ll be in no danger, Mary. I can drive back and forth over the dam road. If he did get tossed out of the boat, he probably made it to shore and decided to walk home. I can pick him up along the road and be right back here.”
When I handed him a thermos, he whispered, “Stay with Mary Lynn. She’s worried about the boy.”
“I promise.”
Once he closed the door, the air in the store seemed heavy with worry. I sat with the women, feeling jumpy. Finally, my eyes met Mary Lynn’s stare.
“We have to help,” she whispered. “I know of one place to look that has not been covered by the boats or Paul’s car on the road. If Timothy did make it to shore, he might be by the old lodge, and if the men making drugs tried one cabin, they might try another. If he stumbled in on them, they might not kill him, but leave him tied up. Or he could be hurt, unable to see Willie’s light or make it to the road to flag down Paul.”
She’d thought of even more bad news than I had.
“We could go look, but neither of us can handle a boat across the lake at night, even if we had one,” I answered.
“Take my car,” Mrs. Deals snapped.
“But that road down to the cabins is terrible. It would probably ruin a car.”
She shrugged. “I need a new one anyway. Take it. There are flares in the trunk. Set one off if you find him and the men will see it.”
“Then I’m going.” Mary Lynn stood.
I ran for my clothes. “I promised Paul I’d stay with you, so I’m going along.”
Mary Lynn collected flashlights and a few blankets. “If he’s there, he’ll be wet and cold at the least.”
When I glanced back at Mrs. Deals she nodded once. “Nana and I will be right here when you get back. Don’t worry about us.”
My last thought before I climbed in the Cadillac was that Luke wasn’t going to be happy about us leaving.
Chapter 26
The rain had slowed to a drizzle by the time we reached the north boundary and turned into the area where the dilapidated lodge now haunted the shoreline. The road was as bad as I remembered it, only the Cadillac took the hits like a true fighter.
Mary Lynn hadn’t said a word. The blackness of the trees around her must have spooked her as bad as they did me. If we’d been in an old black-and-white horror movie, I had the feeling we were headed straight for the monster’s lair.
Finally, Mary Lynn said in jerky little sentences that matched the bumpy ride, “I remember when I was real little. This place was still open. Lots of church groups came out here to sit around the campfires and sing. Kids stayed at the lodge and meeting house, couples rented those tiny cabins. They walked around the lake on group hikes. I’d come over at night when my father preached.”
“That must have been fun.”
Mary Lynn nodded. “It was. I believed in him then.”
“Your father?” I’d heard the sheriff’s version of Mary Lynn’s heartbreak, but I didn’t want to let on.
“Yes,” she said. “I grew up believing everything he said, but then he left surrounded in questions.”
I guessed she didn’t want to talk about it. For a while we were silent. I tried to imagine what that kind of loss could do to a girl. No wonder Mary Lynn was so shy.
We reached the cabin closest to the road.
I jumped out and ran to an open doorway and into a single room. After one wide circle with the flashlight I ran back to the car. “Nothing.”
Mary Lynn shoved the Caddy into gear like a seasoned getaway driver.
We hit the next cabin, and the next.
The blackness pushed in on the flashlight’s beam, giving me the feeling that something waited just outside of the light. Its foggy breath blurred the light now and then. I fought to keep my hand from shaking.
As we rolled to the next group of cabins, Mary Lynn whispered, “My father said that when he was little they used to have parties here. Big ones as festive as any county fair. He told me that a little circus even stopped here once and stayed a few weeks. Then the Baptists bought out the place and the parties stopped.”
I blinked, praying none of the descendents of circus animals lived in the thick trees. I could almost hear them in the roar of the wind. “I wish I’d left my imagination at home.”
Mary Lynn laughed. “I know what you mean.”
We pulled deeper into the night.
The next cabin’s roof had fallen in. I had to climb over rubble, but I did my search, even calling Timothy’s name.
Nothing.
When I walked back to the car, I stared across the lake, letting the tiny lights of Jefferson’s Crossing ground me.
We moved closer to the water and circled around the burned cabin. I thought I saw Willie’s light far up by the dam. The beam moved slowly along the water, telling me he hadn’t found anything yet.
The next cabin was farther back in the trees. Mary Lynn got as close as she could and parked. “Should we skip this one, or walk the rest of the way?”
“Walk,” I answered, knowing it was unlikely if Timothy were hurt that he’d go so far, but if we were going to search, we needed to be thorough.
We climbed out and held hands, steadying one another as our flashlights bounced their beams off the trees and brush. After about ten feet of eroded path, the ground leveled and we walked the last twenty feet or so to the cabin. Perhaps because it had been protected by so many trees, this cabin looked in better shape than most. Its
