struggled to sit and leaned against a tree to collect herself. She heard her therapist’s voice in her head. Don’t fight the fear, don’t run from it. You’re afraid. Ride with it, ride through it. Deep breaths. Let it float with you.
Bit by bit, her pulse slowed and her terror receded. She took a long breath and refocused on the present. In her head, she conjured up her topographical map. She knew that she was between Conche and Grandois, and that Phil’s boat was somewhere south of Windy Point, which was about midway. However, a large bay lay between Windy Point and Grandois, with the odd little French colonial village of Croque at the end of it.
She had not seen a trace of Croque on her wanderings, so she must still be south of the bay. But how far south? Had she backtracked so far that she was now far south of Windy Point? To her untrained eye, every little inlet and point on the shoreline looked like every other. Even if she could find the ocean again, she wouldn’t know which direction to head.
Crushing fatigue weighed her down. She just wanted to sleep. Surely it was foolish, even dangerous, to continue the search without a rest. She risked plunging down a ravine or getting sucked into a bog. She should find a dry patch of land, build a shelter of spruce boughs, eat a little more of her energy bar, and rest until morning.
She was just closing her eyes when a low rumble bubbled in Kaylee’s throat. Amanda’s eyes flew open. In the distance, she heard crashing in the underbrush. Twigs snapped like gunshots. She pulled Kaylee to her and raised her walking stick, wishing she had something more formidable.
“Tyler!” she called.
A grunt. More thrashing. Thundering. Thankfully receding. Soon there was nothing but the creak of the trees in the wind. Kaylee and Amanda pressed together, trembling. Adrenaline coursed through her. No, she thought as she hauled herself to her feet, I have to keep going. I have to find the goddamn ocean and figure out where my boat is. So I can go get the personnel and supplies to launch a proper search.
A frightened little boy is out there, and every moment counts.
Chapter Sixteen
The trip up the bay to Roddickton took Chris a little over an hour at the leisurely pace the boat seemed to prefer. The grey clouds hung low, but there was no hint of the fog Casey had darkly predicted. The crafty bugger must have been pulling my leg, Chris decided, as payback for me borrowing his boat.
Canada Bay sliced a deep gash through spectacular rounded mountains on either side. To the southwest a hulking mountain range formed silhouettes of barren, inhospitable rock, like giants asleep in the sky. They would be impossible to traverse except where creeks tumbled through. On the north side, however, trees and grasslands blanketed the hills, offering some camouflage. He piloted the boat slowly so that he could peer into the crevices and shadowy shelter of the forest.
Nothing.
Closer to town, scattered houses and wharves began to crop up along the shore. As the settlement increased, he found what looked like the main wharf and pulled up. Unlike most communities on the Northern Peninsula, Roddickton did not make its living from fishing, and the absence of fishing boats, nets, and crab pots on the pier was striking. Chris knew it was founded as a lumber town and he assumed the sawmills and lumber wharves were farther up the channel.
The afternoon sun broke through as he climbed onto the wharf. He was hot, hungry, and sore. Every bone was rattled by the pounding of the boat and the throbbing of the engine. Peeling off his jacket, he put in a call to Willington.
“No sign of anyone, sad to say,” Willington said, sounding more disappointed than sad. “But I do have a bit of intel. You’re just in time for an afternoon beer. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Beer’s an inspired idea, Chris thought, stretching his cramped legs. “Can you check with the guys in Conche first, to see if Amanda’s shown up back there? And then can we do a pass around town here?”
“Sure thing. That will take us five minutes.”
While he waited, Chris studied his map and took stock of the town. Willington was right; there weren’t many places to hide. The population of roughly a thousand people was concentrated on half a dozen little streets and strung out along the main highway that continued on to Englee. A strange woman landing in town with her dog would have been noticed within seconds.
He crossed the street and knocked on the first house on the block. The elderly woman who answered said she’d seen no one — not a woman and her dog, nor a man and his son. The answer was the same at the next three houses.
“No strange boats moored up either,” said a big, beefy man who was mowing his lawn.
Chris cursed in frustration. Had he wasted a whole day? It looked as if Amanda had not come up to Roddickton, and unless Phil had snuck in and out in the middle of the night, neither had he. For all Chris knew, Amanda was now safely back in Conche, wondering where the hell he was.
That hope was quickly dashed when Willington picked him up. There was still no word on Amanda. After a brief, unproductive search through the streets, Willington took him to his bachelor bungalow on the outskirts of town. He settled Chris on the deck out back, propped his feet on the deck rail, and popped two QVs before sitting back with a sigh.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began. “I wouldn’t be so quick to assume this fella Cousins didn’t come through here. He’s on the run so he’s hardly going to pilot his boat into the middle of town in broad daylight. He knows a thousand pairs of eyes would pick him up in a second. Likely he ditched the boat past the town under cover of darkness and walked up to the highway. Moose-hunting season starts tomorrow and this is the heart of moose country, so there’s lots of strangers coming and going. Guys are heading out to their hunting lodges and others coming in from Corner Brook or Deer Lake. Some even from the mainland. It’d be easy to hitch a ride or even stow away in the back for a bit.”
“Moose-hunting season.” Chris pondered the implications. “That means lots more trucks on the road, lots more eyes in the bush.”
Willington downed the last of his beer. “ATVs too, driving all over the backcountry. We’ve got more moose around here than pretty near anywhere else in Canada.”
“That means the danger of stray bullets and civilians getting in the way.”
Willington laughed. “And an even greater danger of meeting an enraged bull. It’s rutting season and they don’t take kindly to outsiders getting too close. Seven, eight hundred pounds of charging moose is not a pretty sight.”
“Did Amis set up roadblocks?”
“Not him, but the incident commander did, yeah. Both ends of the highway through town here, and at the turnoffs to Conche and Croque. All the major points of entry to the island, as well. But if Cousins hitched a ride out of here two days ago, it’s a case of the horse and the barn door. But —” Willington sat forward with a flourish. His eyes danced. “— I do have a few pieces of news. Want another beer?”
“Willie! Spill it!”
Willington roared with delight as he fished two more beers from the cooler at his feet. Holding one out to Chris, he laid his finger alongside his nose. “This is on the QT. Back door report. Amis and the incident commander aren’t telling me shit, but I have my sources. First off, a fisherman spotted Stink’s boat a couple of days ago, going like a bat out of hell. He was too far away to see who was in it, but it’s
