Part 16 (1/2)

Ouch. No more Wild Turkey for you, missy.

But even being stone-cold sober wouldn't make those branches any st.u.r.dier. They were as brittle as old bones.

Like yours will be ... She struggled up, bolts of panic invading her at the thought that any minute now, he would return.

For one thing, as Sam had pointed out, that tide was moving. On its way out now, but when it came back in, the water would be too deep for Randy to slog through it.

And he must know that, too, that he had only a window of opportunity, that the water would be too ...

Squinting into the darkness, she spotted a thin, pale line running across the water to the sh.o.r.e. A rope. She hadn't noticed it earlier, but now she saw one end of it was tied to a cleat on the boat's front end. So if she untied it ...

He wouldn't be able to follow it back. She scrambled back up onto the rail, inched along until she was nearly to the rope. The boat's rocking threatened to push her off the narrow board she perched on, as with stiff, numb fingers she fumbled at the knot, tearing at the rope looped tightly and, worse, so unfamiliarly in the metal cleat.

The knot didn't budge. Carolyn kept at it, nearly weeping with frustration. How, how were you supposed to untie this thing? She fought with the loose end, pulling and pus.h.i.+ng it.

Still the knot held, and though she went on battling it, in her heart Carolyn Rathbone began to know it was hopeless. That she hadn't quite yet joined the company of girls in graves but that she would, soon.

That it was only a matter of time.

TRUDGING ALONG THE GRAVEL ROAD IN THE DARK, JAKE tried to keep up with Bella, who had apparently been running marathons and taking fitness cla.s.ses from Arnold Schwarzenegger when not busy scouring the kitchen sink.

”Just ... wait up a minute, will you?”

Bella turned impatiently. ”Low tide,” she said quietly, ”is nearly over. It's just about finished running out.”

And after that, the tide would begin coming in again ... . It had taken longer than Jake expected to get here, up thirty miles of Route 1 in the fog.

Which was now clearing. ”So if we want to get there-” Bella went on.

”Yes, yes, we want to get there,” Jake interrupted. But she also wanted enough strength left to lift a weapon, if necessary.

”How much farther, do you think?” she asked, then stumbled headlong over a hunk of driftwood onto a stony beach.

”Shh,” said Bella. They'd emerged suddenly from the trees. Jake saw the sky opening up overhead, and the sharp scent of the evergreens dissolved all at once into the smell of the sea.

”Now what?” The sky was nearly clear, but mist still lay along the beach and on the water's surface. Behind them, droplets pattered from the branches, the fir boughs rustling and sighing.

Suddenly the fog's curtain parted at ground level. Islands appeared, their sh.o.r.elines dark edges of rocks and seaweed. Jake crept up beside Bella.

The sandbar should be showing now, a trail leading to Digby Island. But there wasn't one, only dark water. ”Are you sure this is the place?”

”Oh, yes.” Bella began walking again, striding away down the narrow strip of beach. ”But there's no sandbar, is there?”

Jake followed. ”So, what happened? It didn't just-”

Disappear. They didn't do that, did they? It was indeed low tide; most of the beach was covered in slippery, slimy rockweed so treacherous that they had to pick their way.

Through the weed mats, huge granite slabs stuck up, jagged obstructions alternating with smooth, gleaming platforms that were even more dangerous. Slip on one of them, crack your skull on another, and bingo, that's all she wrote.

”Look.” Jake followed Bella's gesture to where a patch of paler sand spread out. Overhead, the moon pushed through, making the patch glimmer.

It was a sandbar. They'd just missed seeing it at first. But once spotted in the gloom, it was as clear as a marked trail.

Small, chaotic waves broke on it, lacy white. Jake lurched forward excitedly toward what looked to be easy walking, unbroken by rocks or weeds. Maybe this wasn't going to be such a difficult project after- ”Wait.” Bella's hand stopped her. ”Here's what we should do.”

What? Jake thought, irritated. You're going to tell me- Bella went on quietly. ”We make sure they're out there. We try to make sure they're okay. We use your cell to call Bob Arnold. Then we sit tight and let the people who do this kind of thing for a living take charge of it.” She eyed Jake calmly. ”All right? Because we should agree in advance on what we're doing.”

Which made sense. ”Well ...” Jake began uncertainly. What she wanted to do was charge out there, guns a-blazin.'

Well, one gun, anyway. Biting her lip, she stared across the sandbar. If he was here, Randy Dodd had been smart. But just as he had when he got the speeding ticket Chip Hahn had found, Randy had made a mistake.

Two mistakes, really: he'd left a blank notebook page in the Dodd House, not a map but the ghost of one, brought to life again by Bella when for once in her life she'd spread some dirt instead of cleaning it up.

And you took my son, she thought at him, staring into the night. That was your biggest mistake.

”Fine,” she said. ”But if they're not okay, then we're going to plan B, and I'll be in charge of it.”

With that, she took a step forward, tripped over a chunk of driftwood, and fell headlong onto the stones again. The satchel she carried, with her phone and a flashlight in it, flew from her hand, landing with a tinkling crash.

The flashlight, she thought as her cheek smacked hard stone. But it wasn't the flashlight smas.h.i.+ng, she realized in the next moment; it was the phone. Meanwhile ...

Pus.h.i.+ng up painfully from the wet, cold rocks, she grabbed the cell phone and raised her head just in time to see the flashlight rolling toward the water. ”Bella ...”

But Bella was busy grabbing up the satchel with one hand and Jake's arm with the other. ”Come on,” she hissed. ”If he's nearby he could've heard that.”

The flashlight kept rolling, a small dark tube moving down the sharp slope to where the waves lapped. But not all the way-a rock stuck up from the water's edge.

The flashlight smacked the rock with a small, sharp click and went on, its yellow beam like an arrow s.h.i.+ning directly at the sandbar.

Or if you looked at it from Randy Dodd's point of view, at Jake and Bella.

”Get it,” Jake whispered, struggling to rise. But something was stopping her, something around her ankle. It burned Bella scampered down the beach, crouched swiftly, s.n.a.t.c.hed the flashlight up, and snapped it off in one quick motion. But too late; an answering light appeared on the far sh.o.r.e of one of the islands out there.

Bobbing and bouncing, it proceeded swiftly toward the pale, s.h.i.+ning path of the moonlit sandbar, then snapped off. A dark shape where it had been started across the bar toward them.

”Quick,” said Bella, tugging at Jake's arm. ”Get up.”

But whatever was tight around Jake's leg wouldn't let go. She twisted to try getting a glimpse of it, then wished very hard that she hadn't, because the driftwood she'd tripped over wasn't merely a chunk, she realized now.

It was an entire waterlogged tree trunk. Washed up here by the tide, it must have been leaning precariously, propped up on a thin stick of branch now lying a few feet away.

And when Jake tripped over the branch, she'd broken it, so the tree trunk had rolled right onto her ankle. Sitting up, she strained forward, pus.h.i.+ng with both hands against the ma.s.sive old tree's dead white corpse.

It didn't budge. The shape across the water bobbed nearer. Now it was halfway across. ”Bella, I can't-”

Bella bent beside her, saw the problem. ”Here. Dig. Do it fast.”

She shoved the cup top from their thermos bottle into Jake's hands, crouched, and began digging furiously herself. Jake gouged sand and pebbles from around her trapped ankle, flung them away, and dug up the next cupful.

A depression formed. But there was her whole foot remaining to be unearthed... . It struck her that this was serious.