the ferry’s horn. Once a day it brought supplies, mail and possibly people. And a troop of fear. That was the one chink in this otherwise perfect armor.
Out here in her refuge of growing fog, she listened for Bert’s footsteps on the rocky path that were the pre-arranged all-clear signal. Only the gentle lap of water against rocks reached her. Was there a problem this afternoon? Had someone suspicious gotten off the ferry? She fiddled with the aperture ring on the camera Bert had loaned her. Let it go, Abbie.
Bert wouldn’t spill her secret.
Strains of “High Noon” crept into her mind as Abbie imagined five-foot-two Bert in a showdown with one of Rafe’s thugs. She laughed out loud and the fog swallowed her voice, replacing it with the quiet push and pull of water on rock.
After the chaos of the past year, this quiet was a blessing. She lifted the camera and forced herself to relax into the calming rhythm of nature around her. Back to basics, Abbie. The first essential of a good photograph was awareness. What personal statement did she want to make today?
“Part of finding your God,” Bert had said when Abbie first showed up on the convent doorstep begging for sanctuary, “is finding yourself.”
And here in the cool afternoon air, with a pale white haze on the horizon, Abbie could almost believe she’d have a chance at connecting with her lost self—and surviving for another eight days.
Though the Sisters of Sacred Heart were in the midst of their summer tourist season, Bert—Sister Bertrice Storey to everyone else—had found a room for her in the old granite convent. People came to Retreat Island at times of transition—divorce, death, milestone birth-days—that made one want to look deep into oneself or beg some higher source for answers to questions that really had none. But the quiet did heal and it had a way of leading one to some sort of peace.
There were no televisions here, no mad schedules, no hectic running from one appointment to the next. There was room for a dozen overnight visitors to find their own voices in the silence. They could join the sisters in their daily prayers. They could work in the gardens. They could walk in the woods. If someone needed to talk, a sister was there with a willing ear. Chapel bells woke the residents at six every morning, and small signs on the walls discreetly reminded guests that their silence was their gift to their companions.
Though Bert had insisted they had a full house, the island was big enough that Abbie hadn’t run into any of the other guests. They, like her, were seeking solitude. And two days into her ten-day retreat, that sense of peace was starting to envelop her as thickly as the fog bank tucking in around the island.
Fear retreated and she lost herself in the beauty of nature around her. Viewpoint and composition. Light, form and tone. Texture. Pattern. Through the lens of the camera she searched. The scent of spruce and sea air and damp earth connected her to the here and now and grounded her to her surroundings. Crouched among the rocks and boulders that lined the western shore, she aimed the camera at the departing ferry that was moving into the fog like some sort of spaceship and snapped the shutter.
Fog folded in around the ferry’s departing bulk, swallowing it whole. Bert’s footsteps crunched on the path. All was safe for another day.
Her sigh filled the night air. With a smile she straightened, threw her head back and spread her arms like Julie Andrews at the beginning of The Sound of Music, then twirled on her rocky perch to meet Bert. Before she could start singing, the sight of a wind-carved spruce bending over a ledge of rocks caught her eye. She lifted the camera and focused on the image that gave the impression of a pointy-hatted gnome stroking its long, bristled beard.
Bert’s footsteps stopped on the trail.
“What took you so long?” Abbie asked, moving one foot to a neighboring boulder in order to accentuate the spruce gnome’s nose. “I was starting to think something happened.”
“Your Sister Bertrice is one tough cookie. It took me a half hour to convince her I was one of the good guys.”
At the sound of the male voice Abbie jerked around, lost her footing on the wet rock and landed hard on her backside. Fear serpentined through all of her limbs, setting them shaking. How could Bert have trusted anyone after what Abbie had told her? Men—all men—were a threat to her. No matter how charming—especially if they were charming—they belonged to Rafe, and the only thing Rafe wanted from her was permanent silence. Scrambling, she managed to get up and over the rock, away from this threat.
“Abbie! Hey, wait, no!” The dark shape scurried after her, swearing as he slipped on the slick rocks. “It’s me. Gray.”
“Gray?” Heart hammering, she froze, holding the camera against her heart like a pitiful shield. Gray had once had a way of making her feel as if her mere presence in this world made it a better place. What teenage girl didn’t want to see herself as a goddess in a handsome boy’s eyes? Then she’d ruined it all with just a few words. “What are you doing here?”
“Can we climb down from here?”
“No.” She needed distance. This was too unexpected, too startling. Gray, here, now. Wrong time. Wrong place. She shivered and wished she’d worn a sweater over her sleeveless blouse. He detached himself from the fog, and she sucked in a breath.
Familiar features formed as he drew closer, and the sizzle she’d thought of as teenage infatuation stirred her blood. His sandy hair now sported a salon do instead of the home-butchered bowl cut. His high cheekbones still begged for a camera’s attention. His lips were still tempting. He still wore the mirrored shades he’d taken up in high school. Cool then, scary now because she couldn’t read his intent in his eyes.
Her hands tightened around the camera and she struggled with her desire to inch it up to her eye to capture this ghost from her past. That sleepy smile. That careless pose. That air of endless time on hand. They were all a skin he wore to protect himself and hid a steely determination. She’d admired that survival instinct in him, that fire to succeed that no one could douse no matter how much water they threw at him. That relentless ability to pursue suited his job, but it would also return her to a captivity that doomed her to die. “Stay where you are.”
“I’m here to help you, Abbie.”
“I was safe until you showed up.” She stepped up to the next boulder and away from the frustrating tug of outgrown teenage hormones that had once made her do crazy things like swan dive into the quarry to get his attention.
Balancing himself on the slippery soles of his leather shoes, he followed her. “I don’t work for Vanderveer. I don’t work for the Marshals Service. I work for a private firm. I’m here to help you. You know me, Abbie. Trust me.”
“I can’t. Leave me alone.” She continued putting distance between him and her on the path of rocks she’d traveled time and again over the past few days. She couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone. She was learning that lesson blow by painful blow. Look where trusting Bert had gotten her. Where would she go now? “How did you know where to find me?”
“A lucky guess.”
“Brynna.” Tears blurring the path, Abbie reached out to steady herself on a neighboring boulder, then continued her upward climb to the stand of spruce. How could Brynna have sold her out? Even to Gray? Especially to Gray?
“She didn’t say a word.” Gray puffed too close behind her. “Why won’t she open the door for me?”
“You
