That morning for the first time, the sun was peeking through the canopy and the sky was a rich azure overhead. She knew now which direction led to the ocean, but she still had no idea of the distance. She could hear no murmur of surf or drone of motorboats. It might be a long trek through bogs and mountains. Without food, Tyler would grow too weak for the journey.
“Ever eaten bugs, Tyler?” she asked gaily as she began to pull together the filaments of a vine into a rudimentary net.
He made a face.
“In Asia they are a delicacy. Do you remember? They eat cockroaches twice the size of my thumb. I don’t think there’s a ready supply of cockroaches here, but crickets and grasshoppers fried up with some berries will do the trick. Butterflies and beetles too. You can use this net to catch them.”
She counted herself lucky that he didn’t reject her outright. Once she’d finished the small net, she handed it to him and looked around to get her bearings. She considered scaling the tall nearby ridge to get a better view, but wasn’t sure Tyler had the strength.
“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “Onward to the coast. You watch the sun. Wherever we go, whatever detours we have to make, try to keep it just to our right. And by noon, when it’s almost overhead —”
“Our shadow will be pointing north,” he answered.
“Right.” She smiled. “Did your dad teach you that?”
His shoulders sagged. “Jason did. When we went camping last year.”
“Ah. If he taught you any other useful stuff, you tell me, okay? Like which of these berries are edible and which will kill us. Because I know a lot about Asia and Africa, but not as much about these woods.”
Tyler pointed to the scarlet berries she’d been eating. “Bunchberries. Jason called them the hiker’s friend. And these violets are edible.” He leaned over to pluck a plant and stuffed the leaves into his mouth. Kaylee had been ranging far into the woods, but she returned now to follow along. Amanda hoped she had found some mice or squirrels to keep starvation at bay.
As they walked, Tyler collected a small cache of insects and plants while she pondered the challenge of catching something more substantial. She had just decided it was time to cook up what he had, when they struggled over a rise to see a huge pond spread out below them. Amanda felt a thrill of excitement.
“Do you think that pond has fish in it?” she asked.
“Salmon and brook trout, maybe,” he said. “Jason took us fishing once in a lake like this.”
She was already salivating as she slithered down the slope to the water’s edge. A large boulder a few yards offshore provided a perfect vantage point. She took off her boots, waded out to it, and climbed up to study the brown water. She tossed a few berries onto the water and watched the water come alive with silver flashes.
“Dozens of them!” she shouted. She sent Tyler to find a straight, sturdy willow branch while she set about designing a hook. During her time in Africa, she had seen simple hooks fashioned from wood and hemp. It took her a few tries to find a sliver of wood that retained its strength when whittled to a point. Together they scoured the shore for dried reeds or fibrous stalks that could be braided into cord. All over the world, she’d seen baskets and rope woven from grasses, so she knew it could be done. As he watched her struggle with grasses that broke and unravelled, Tyler fretted.
“Why don’t we make a spear?” he asked. “Like the cavemen.”
“Great idea! You’re the Newfoundlander, go ahead. We’ll have a race to see who catches the most fish.”
He dragged branches out of the deadfall and whittled away at a few before throwing the broken sticks away and slumping down on a log wearily. Amanda’s heart ached. The old Tyler would have loved the challenge of beating her, but this Tyler gave up with barely a fight. Was it just the hunger, or had the trauma of his father’s death drained all the spirit from him?
Instead, she redoubled her efforts to catch some food. The sun was well past noon by the time she assembled a passable fishing rod and threaded an earthworm onto her hook. She climbed up on the rock, praying the hook would catch and the flimsy, twisted cord would hold.
It took three snapped lines, but she finally managed to wrestle a brook trout onto the shore. It was a glory to behold, a foot and a half of glistening silver. Tyler built a fire while she gutted it. She tossed the head to Kaylee and threaded the body onto a stick over the roaring flame.
Nothing had ever tasted so fabulous. By the time Amanda had licked her fingers clean and fed a portion to Kaylee, the sun was slipping toward the ridge to the west and the shadows were growing long. Tyler was slumped against a rock by the fire, drowsy from the heat and the food.
She had hoped to hear helicopters overhead, confirming that people were searching for them, but so far there had been nothing. If they were going to be found, they had to find the coast. I’m sorry, Tyler, she thought, I know you need to sleep but we have to keep going just a little farther, while we still have daylight.
The three police officers formed a silent, respectful ring around the body, which Chris had tried to protect with his jacket. He knew the scene was hopelessly contaminated, both by himself and by whomever had buried him there, but he’d covered the body more out of compassion than out of any desire to protect the scene. Phil looked so vulnerable splayed out on his back in the woods, prey to any beasts and insects attracted to an easy feast.
Above all, Phil hated to be vulnerable.
The two other officers, Sergeant Amis and the incident commander Sergeant Noseworthy, had made very good time up from Conche, thanks to the powerful Zodiac now pulled up on the shore. It was mid afternoon, leaving several hours of daylight despite the unnatural gloom of the forest. But even in the scant couple of hours since Chris made his urgent call, the flies had multiplied and the fragile flesh around Phil’s eyes had begun to bloat.
Chris turned away, pretending to study the surrounding woods, while Amis prodded the body carefully. “Rigor’s gone. Been dead a couple of days at least.”
“How long before Dr. Iannucci and the crime scene team get here?” Chris asked.
“I had to ask HQ for extra personnel,” Amis replied, wrinkling up his nose as if in distaste. He eased the body onto its front and bent close to inspect the bullet hole. “They’re sending a team over from St. John’s that can be on the ground in the morning. They don’t want the body removed until they can have a look. But meanwhile we need to develop a working hypothesis. All hell seems to be breaking loose around here.”
“I don’t think he was killed here,” Chris said. While he’d been waiting on shore for the officers to arrive, he’d taken a closer look at the damaged boat that Phil and Tyler had presumably used. Waves and spray had washed some of the blood away, making it difficult to detect at a casual glance, but he had found red smears and streaks on the seats as well as a small pool on the floor at the front of the boat. He had pointed it out to the officers as he led them up the shore, but Amis was more intent on getting to the body and hadn’t given it a second glance.
Now he straightened and stared at Chris through narrowed eyes.
“I think he was shot either while he was in the boat, or just climbing into it,” Chris said. “Probably back at Old Stink’s place.”
“For the love of God,” Amis snapped. “The victim has a name. According to government records, Allister Parsons.”
“Parsons?” Chris said in surprise. “Like the shrimp fisherman who hauled the body out of his net?”
Noseworthy, who was peering into the dense tuckamore, gave a dismissive grunt. “Half the Northern Pen are Parsons, or related to them.”
As if