Cry for the Strangers Page 0,85
at Seward Park and the lake beyond. “I wonder if we’re making a mistake,” she said, not turning around.
“A mistake?” Brad’s voice sounded concerned. Elaine faced him, letting him see the worry on her face.
“It just seems to me that maybe we shouldn’t go out there. I mean, there really isn’t any reason why you can’t write here, is there? Certainly our view is as good as the view from the beach, and you don’t have to be bothered with interruptions. A lot of people manage to live like hermits in the middle of the city. Why can’t we?”
“I suppose we could,” Brad replied. “But I don’t want to. Besides, maybe something is going on out there.”
“If there is I don’t want any part of it,” Elaine said with a shudder.
“Well, I do. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get a best seller out of this whole deal.”
“Or maybe you’ll just get a lot of trouble,” Elaine said. But she realized that there was going to be no argument. Brad’s mind was made up, and that was that. So she winked at him, tried to put her trepidations out of her mind, and went back to her packing.
She finished in the kitchen at the same time Brad sealed the last carton of books. As if on cue the truck that would move them to Clark’s Harbor pulled into the driveway.
Jeff Horton stayed in bed as long as he could that morning, but by ten o’clock he decided it was futile and got up. It had been a night of fitful sleep disturbed by visions of the fire, and through most of the small hours he had lain awake, trying to accept what had happened, trying to find an explanation. But there was none.
Max had been securing the boat. That was all.
He wouldn’t have taken her out. Not alone, and certainly not in a storm.
But he must have been on the boat or he would have come to the inn.
If he was on the boat, why did it go on the rocks? Why didn’t he start the engines?
There was only one logical answer to that: the engines had been tampered with. But by whom? And why? They were strangers here; they knew no one. So no one here would have any reason to sabotage the boat.
None of it made any sense, but it had cost Jeff dearly. His brother was gone, his boat was gone, and he felt helpless.
Several times during the night he had gone to the window and tried to peer through the darkness, tried to make himself see Osprey still tied up at the wharf, floating peacefully in the now-calm harbor. But when morning came Jeff avoided the window, postponing the moment when he would have to face the bleak truth of the empty slip at the dock.
Merle Glind peered at him dolefully when he went downstairs, as if he were an unwelcome reminder of something better forgotten, and Jeff hurried out of the inn without speaking to the little man. He paused on the porch and forced himself to look out over the harbor.
Far in the distance the mass of rocks protruded from the calm surface of the sea, looking harmless in the morning sunlight.
There was no sign of the fishing trawler that had gutted itself on them only hours ago.
Seeing the naked rocks, Jeff felt a surge of hope. Then his eyes went to the wharf, and there was the empty slip, silent testimony to the disappearance of Osprey. Jeff walked slowly down to the pier, to the spot where the trawler should have been moored. He stood there for a long time, as if trying by the force of his will alone to make the trawler reappear. Then he heard a voice behind him.
“She’s gone, son,” Mac Riley said softly. Jeff turned around and faced the old man.
“I warned you,” Riley said, his voice gentle and without a trace of malice. “It’s not safe, not when the storms are up.”
“It wasn’t the storm,” Jeff said. “I don’t care how bad that storm was, those lines didn’t give way. Someone threw them.”
Riley didn’t argue. Instead, his eyes drifted away from Jeff, out to the mouth of the harbor. “Sort of seems like the wreck should still be there, doesn’t it?” he mused. Before Jeff could make any reply, the old man continued, “That’s the way she is, the sea. Sometimes she throws ships up on the rocks, then leaves them there for years, almost like she’s trying to