Cry for the Strangers Page 0,74

woods only forty feet from the house. The house itself blended almost perfectly with the blackness of the night, and only occasional flashes of lightning revealed that it still stood, a silent sentinel on the beach, testimony to the long-disappeared people who had built it. No light seeped from its dark windows, no clue as to what might lie within escaped its walls. As he made his way around it, Glen shivered, less from the cold than from the deathly stillness that seemed to emanate from the house.

He paused when he found the kitchen door unlocked, sure that something was wrong. Then he entered the kitchen, flashing his light from one corner to another, illuminating first a wall, then the sink, next the icebox, and finally the door to the dining room. He didn’t call out, not out of a fear of alerting anyone who might be inside, but because of deep certainty that the house was empty.

He went confidently into the dining room, again flashed the light briefly around, then moved on to the living room. It was then he knew that someone had been there.

It was at least ten degrees warmer here, and the air was drier—the mustiness of the house had been dispelled in the living room, and the slightly sweet, yet acrid smell of a wood fire lingered. He went to the fireplace and snapped the flashlight off. In the sudden blackness the dull red of a banked fire glowed dimly. Glen put out a foot and kicked the remains of the fire. The thin layer of dead ash fell away and the fire leaped into life. Glen frowned at it and shook his head, wondering whether Missy really had seen the smoke that must have been curling from the chimney only a couple of hours ago. Or had it only been a lucky guess?

He moved slowly through the rest of the house, examining everything more carefully. There was no sign of vandalism, no sign that anything had been disturbed at all. Whoever had been here had apparently borne the house no ill will; even the fire seemed to have been tended to.

Glen returned to the living room. The fire had built itself up to a steady blaze. He looked around for a poker, intending to break it down again, but found nothing. He sank into the chair facing the hearth and wondered if it would be safe to leave. But as he listened to the raging storm, he decided to wait awhile, at least until the fire burned down. It would give the storm time to spend itself, and himself time to dry out and warm up. He got up and went to the window that faced north, flashed his light steadily five times, then returned to the chair in front of the fire. If Rebecca was watching she would know he was all right.

On the fishing trawler, Max Horton returned to the engine compartment for a more thorough investigation. There was an off chance that what damage had been done could be repaired and Max could get at least one of the engines going. A close examination dashed his hopes, and he returned to the deck. He cast the beam of the flashlight ahead and immediately realized that the boat had drifted around and was now proceeding stern first. He grabbed a large bucket and ran to the bow, where he tied the bucket to one of the mooring lines. He threw the primitive sea anchor overboard, hoping the current would catch it with enough strength to pull the trawler around. Then he began to consider the advisability of abandoning the boat.

The wind seemed not to be slackening at all—if anything, its intensity was increasing, and it was an onshore wind. If he could rig a sail on the dinghy he just might make it back to safety. But if the sail failed to work the ebbing tide would carry him out to sea. It was this possibility that made up his mind for him.

If he stayed on the trawler and the sea anchor held, there was a good chance he could ride out the storm, providing he missed the rocks at the mouth of the harbor. But in the dinghy he would have no chance. True, the wind might carry him shoreward, but the combination of wind and tide would surely capsize him. If that happened he would be unconscious in ten minutes, dead in twenty. In daylight he might have risked it,