“Well, I know you’re thinking of Phil, but we have no proof —”
Willie took his camera out of his backpack and braced himself against the rocking of the boat as he thumbed through photos. He leaned forward to show one to Chris. At first, Chris could barely make it out but as his brain deciphered the shape, he felt his earlier relief drain away. It was a baseball cap, with the name EXPLOITS CATARACTS across the front.
“If I’m not mistaken,” Willie said, “the Exploits is the river running through Grand Falls, and the Cataracts is their hockey team. Didn’t you say your friend and his son were from Grand Falls?”
Chris nodded grimly. He could think of no excuse. No other explanation.
“The cap is pretty wet and muddy,” Willie was saying, “but I’d say it’s a boy’s size. I marked it and protected it with a piece of tarp.” He looked sympathetic. “They’ll likely be able to get DNA off it.”
Chris rode the rest of the way through the darkening seas in silence, wondering how he was going to break the news to Amanda. As they approached the brightly lit harbour in Conche, he scanned the shore for the familiar sight of a bouncy red dog and Amanda’s red straw hat. There was no sign of either. Only Casey, pacing the length of his wharf anxiously as he watched their approach.
“Any sign of your girlfriend out there?” Casey asked as he seized hold of the painter and tied off the boat.
“Amanda? No, why? Did she go out to meet me?”
“Some fool thing. Looking for your friend. Worried about his boat, but the one she’s in ain’t no better!”
“Why didn’t you stop —” Chris checked himself. Casey had already helped far more than anyone had a right to expect. He started to apologize when Casey held up his hand.
“You know her. You think anyone was going to stop her? Weren’t me she talked to, anyway. But she promised Thaddeus she’d be back before dark, and here it is like pitch, with no sign of her. The look in her eye, Thaddeus said. He should have knowed better.”
So should I, Chris thought. Damn it, so should I.
Chapter Fifteen
Amanda scrambled along the shore, hoping to catch a single bar’s worth of reception on her cellphone. She even climbed up on the barrens above the point. No luck. Damn useless technology, she railed. There are cellphone signals all over the deserts in developing countries, but none here. Then she noticed with alarm that the battery was low. Each moment it wasted searching for a signal drained it further. Reluctantly she turned it off entirely and pocketed it. No choice but to go back to Conche before the sky was pitch black.
When she turned to descend the head, she realized Kaylee was not with her. An irrational jolt of fear shot through her. Hurriedly she retraced her steps down to the shore, shouting for the dog. She forced her fear under control as she picked a path over the uneven rock, for a broken leg or twisted ankle would not help Phil. She had just reached her boat when Kaylee raced out of the tuckamore, her tongue lolling and her ears flying. As soon as she saw Amanda, she barked and wheeled about to head back into the woods. Amanda followed and found her standing over the lifejackets, whining. She’s picked up the smell of blood, Amanda thought. But the moment Amanda appeared, Kaylee pressed her nose to the ground and ran deeper into the tuckamore.
“Have you got a scent, girl?” Amanda shouted. The dog was much smaller and more nimble than she was, and she wove back and forth through the dense spruce and fir with ease. Amanda struggled to keep up, hunched low and twisting to dodge the sharp branches. She cursed herself for not having put Kaylee on a leash. She needed to go back to her boat for some emergency supplies. She had her small backpack with her, containing a first aid kit, water, power bars, and a compass, as well as the matches and canteen she had taken from the lifejackets, but she’d left her beacons, blankets, and dry clothes in the boat.
The path Kaylee was taking through the woods turned her all around within minutes. When she paused to catch her breath, she took stock of her surroundings. Nothing but grey spruce trees on all sides, so densely intertwined that she couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of her. She could barely see the path she had taken, let alone the path ahead. Just as panic was creeping in, Kaylee appeared as a flash of red motion through the grey, stopping some distance ahead to check on her. The dog’s expression was intense and impatient.
It was impossible to know how far she had travelled, nor even where the shore was. Impossible to know where danger lurked. A bear, a bull moose, a coyote … or even a killer. She was tempted to call Kaylee to lead her back out of the woods, but the dog was clearly on a mission.
Fearful and cautious, Amanda groped her way forward. A steep hill loomed ahead and the tuckamore thinned. Tangles of deadfall littered the forest floor, rotting and covered with moss. Kaylee leaped easily over the logs, but Amanda slipped and slithered. She was breathless, soaked in sweat, and scratched by the spruce spikes by the time she almost literally collided with Kaylee. The dog had stopped on the other side of a large tree that had been uprooted by some long-ago storm. The root ball formed a shelter of sorts, and behind it, Kaylee stood whining and sniffing the ground.
Amanda rounded the barrier and found a tangle of alder, spruce, and fir branches piled high. A man-made shelter! Made so recently that the alder leaves had barely wilted.
Her hopes surged. Had she found their camp? She began to toss aside the branches. But then she saw a hiking boot protruding from under the brush. Horror seized her throat. She tore at the branches with abandon, uncovering rocks piled to weigh the branches down. She hurled these aside, revealing a leg, another boot, a torso in a red jacket. The body lay on its back with its legs outstretched, its arms folded, and its fingers laced together as if at peace.
“No,” she murmured. “No no no.” She clawed at the face, brushing debris away until she could make out the features. Bleached of blood, eyes opaque, the locks of rakish hair plastered against the pallid brow …
Phil.
She stifled a wail of pain. Fought for breath and calm, rocking gently as the waves of memory crashed over her. Dead bodies littering the village square, dead eyes staring, flies swarming. The village dogs and the vultures circling. In the African heat, the carrion eaters rushed in quickly.
Here in the cold, remote northland, only the flies had begun.
She didn’t know how long she sat at his side, overcome, before rational thought began to return. She bent over to study the body. What had happened here? She could see no sign of injury. How had he died?
Then she remembered the bloody tear in the back of the lifejacket. Swallowing bile, she forced herself to reach beneath him. Grunting and struggling against his stiff, unyielding weight, she finally rolled him over. This time she screamed aloud, putting all her horror and grief into a single, primal howl that was swallowed in seconds by the dense, empty woods.
The back of his red jacket was a mass of crusted blood. She forced herself to probe through it, feeling for the injury, and found a ragged hole in the jacket. Tears streamed freely now as she poked the hole with her finger and brushed cold, rigid flesh.
She jerked her hand back and recoiled, staring at her friend’s ravaged body in disbelief. Shot or stabbed in the back. Who would do this? Why? And had that same killer then laid him to rest in a peaceful pose? Simply to hide the body or to make some small amends for what they had done?
Or had it been Tyler?
Tyler! She jerked upright, her eyes raking the grey, silent gloom. Where was Tyler? What had happened to the boy? Was he lying in another shallow grave nearby, or had he escaped and fled, terrified, into the wilderness?
“Tyler!” she screamed, cupping her hands and turning in a slow circle. Over and over until her voice was ragged and her throat ached. Straining her ears for the faintest whimper.
Dead quiet.
Amanda looked