Dead for the Money (22 page)

“Poor kid. He was her rock, and he was starting to crumble.” Bud looked around, hoping to spot a flicker of movement among the trees that might be Brodie. A crow called from a tree branch to their right, and a memory stirred. “She met a guy up here the other day, a bird watcher.”

“She mentioned it.”

Bud scanned the trees again. “Hard to miss that this is private property. It’s posted.”

“Do you think it could have been a kidnapper?”

“There’s been no ransom demand.”

Scarlet checked her watch. “It’s only been a few hours.”

Bud massaged the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the frown that would not stop. “I wish there was something we could do besides wait.”

Inside Bud’s head, a word sounded over and over. “Boat,” his mind whispered for no reason he could understand. “Boat. Boat.”

Bud looked up the north shore of the lake. The wooden boat was almost out of sight, sailing slowly and peacefully northward, a postcard-perfect image

Chapter Fifteen

“
W
HERE
ARE
YOU
TAKING
ME
?” Brodie asked the woman. She had been silent for what seemed like hours, but her fear finally spilled into words.

Cher did not even look up. “He’ll tell you when he’s ready.” With a glance upward she added, “Idiot.”

Brodie thought the word was for the bird watcher, not her, but she decided further conversation was a bad idea, at least until the puzzles ran out. Cher did one word find after another, stopping only to stub out her cigarette and light another. Sometimes they smoldered in the tuna can she used for an ashtray, filling the air with acrid smoke. Brodie was tempted to finish them off with a splash of her soda.

She saw the Sleeping Bear Dunes pass and recalled Gramps telling her the story. Chippewa legend claimed that once an enormous forest fire on the western shore of Lake Michigan drove a mother bear and her two cubs into the lake. After swimming many miles, the two cubs fell behind. The mother bear reached the shore and turned to wait for them at the top of a high bluff. The exhausted cubs drowned, but the mother stayed on in hopes that her children would finally appear. Impressed by her faith, the Great Spirit created North and South Manitou Island to commemorate the cubs. The winds buried the mother bear under the sands of the dunes, where she waits to this day.

Brodie knew that a small, tree-covered knoll at the top edge of the bluff once had the appearance of a sleeping bear when viewed from the water. Wind and erosion had greatly reduced its size over the years, but she thought now of the loving mother bear, waiting for her cubs.

No mother waited for her to return on the shore. It was possible no one cared that she was gone. They might all be glad to be rid of their problem child.

She did not know why, but Brodie counted on Bud. His loyalty and affection for Gramps would, she tried to make herself believe, cause him to do what he could to rescue her. From the time she first came to the Dunbar house, she’d believed that Bud could do anything. She told herself she had to continue to believe it now.

Finally the hatch slid open, and the bird watcher’s face appeared. “I guess you can come out now.” Glad at least to leave the smoky cabin, Brodie climbed to the deck, noting the shoreline far to her right. Nothing was familiar. The compass indicated a westerly direction, and a group of islands lay outlined against dark clouds that rolled toward them like angry waves. “We’re going to get some weather, but I know where we can ride it out,” the man said confidently.

He slouched against the transom, the tiller held loosely in one hand and a beer in the other. “You didn’t get sick down there, did you?” He peered down the stairs suspiciously.

Despite the situation, Brodie was offended at the suggestion. “I’m a good sailor.”

“That’s a relief, ’cause we’re going to be stuck down there until the storm passes. In the morning, we’ll take off early. We’ve got a ways to go.” Watching her face, he added with a grin, “C-eh?-N-eh?-D-eh? Get it? Canada!”

The word hit Brodie like a blow. Oddly, her first thought was entry requirements. “I haven’t got a passport.”

He gave her a knowing look. “You won’t need one the way we’re gonna do it.”

She got the idea. There was a lot of shoreline between the two nations. Patrols could not cover the comings and goings of every small pleasure craft. “They’ll be watching for me.”

He huffed in disagreement. “Why should they?” He ticked off his points on his fingers. “They think you went south, not north. They don’t know you’re on a boat. And nobody knows I left Canada. I plan to slip back in and pretend I didn’t.”

“You’re Canadian?” Why would someone come from Canada to take her back there with him?

“Yeah,” he said with an odd smile, “I’m Canadian. And so are you.”

He pointed ahead. “There’s our spot for the night.” Adjusting the tiller, he maneuvered the boat toward the islands. On one of the larger ones was a lighthouse with a building next to it, both shuttered and dead-looking. “I promise, I’ll explain everything soon,” he said, watching the lake ahead for hazards. “I’m not your enemy, Brodie. I’m trying to protect you.”

Yeah, right,
she thought
. People always kidnap other people to protect them.

He seemed to sense her objection. “Bud wants to control the money your grandfather left you. I’ll bet he’s been real nice, hasn’t he? Taking you sailing and stuff. Did he ever do that before?”

She did not answer, but her doubts about Bud re-surfaced. He had pretty much ignored her until she became an heiress.

The man was watching, so she kept her face impassive. He did not seem bothered, though. “When you know everything, you’ll thank me for coming to get you.”

I doubt that
, she thought. He turned the tiller sharply, and she sat down rather than fight the pull of it as she surveyed the unfamiliar territory ahead. The sun had disappeared into the clouds, but the air was warm and heavy. The bird watcher dropped sail and turned a corkscrew-shaped anchor into the lakebed near shore. The smallest island in the group, the sheltering land appeared to be deserted, not even a boat ramp or a dock. What it did have was a crescent shape that hugged the boat like a contour pillow, protecting it on three sides. “Just like home.” The man cheerfully popped open another beer. “We can lay up for the night without anyone getting nosy.”

The sky grew darker and the clouds leaned lower, as if their weight was pulling them down. Securing the boat with brisk efficiency, the man sent Brodie back to the cabin. “We’re in for some rain, and we can’t show any lights, so we might as well get some sleep.”

As if to underscore his prediction, thunder grumbled to the west, and the sky flickered once with accompanying lightning.

They went below, where Cher had stowed the table and readied the two benches to serve as bunks. There were sleeping bags on either side, and her puzzle book lay atop the one on the left. The man started to close the hatch and paused. “Do you have to pee?”

She did. In fact, she had felt the urge for some time but was unwilling to mention it.

“Go with Cher,” he ordered, and the two women went on deck. Brodie had an idea how the process would go. Although there were toilets on these small boats, most people used them as little as possible since they tended to smell. Instead they would add to the waters of the lake.

Raindrops began to fall, not frequent but large and heavy. When they finished, neither looking at the other, Cher gestured for Brodie to precede her down the steps. The rain came harder all at once, slapping her arms and making wet spots on her scalp where it penetrated her thick hair.

Once they were inside, the man padlocked the hatch and put the key in his pocket. He shook himself, wiping moisture from his face with a good-natured, “Whooh!” Rain tattooed against the wood above them, and he said loudly, “I’ll see you girls in the morning.” He disappeared aft, apparently to another berth. Brodie heard bumps for a few seconds as he settled in. Then the storm began to rage, coming in swells that rocked the boat and roared over their heads. The cabin seemed to grow smaller, as if the weather outside compressed its space.

Cher used a small flashlight as she prepared for bed. She plumped up her pillow, releasing a musty, damp smell that made Brodie’s nose itch. Then she plopped herself down on the bed with a long sigh, her face not two feet from where Brodie lay. Smacking her lips, Cher closed her eyes, shutting everything out but sleep. When the rain eased slightly a few moments later, Brodie heard them both breathing, Cher softly, the man snuffling like the bears at the Detroit Zoo.

Brodie rolled over, putting her back to the woman. She felt like crying, but she would not. If she could not cry for Gramps, she would not cry for herself.

The storm was nasty, loud, and scary. The best that could be said of it was that it did not last long. For perhaps fifteen minutes Brodie lay awake, listening to the rain and wind and thinking she would never be able to sleep. How much worse could things get? Would the boat swamp and leave them all floating in the lake? Would the bird watcher be too slow opening the padlocked hatch and drown them all? She was trapped, exhausted, and terrified, so much so that even the crazy voice in her head was silent. For a while it seemed the storm would last forever. And then the winds died, the drum of rain slowed, and the boat stopped rolling. The peace that followed seemed like the greatest gift ever. Despite everything else that was wrong with her life, Brodie slept.

T
HERE
WAS
NO
FURTHER
WORD
from the police, and the household fell into an uneasy silence. Even Arlis could think of nothing useful to say, though she periodically made pathetic attempts: “Brodie is probably at a friend’s house and forgot to call us.” No one bothered to say that Brodie did not have any friends outside the house they inhabited.

Later she tried again. “I saw the pastor speaking with her before the funeral the other day. I’ll bet she’s gone to see him, to try to find some comfort.” Again, no one commented, and Arlis lapsed into nervous silence.

They went to their rooms just after midnight, each pretending for the benefit of the others that they intended to sleep. Thunder rolled outside the window, and lightning lit the sky so often that it looked like some mischievous child was flipping a heavenly light switch on and off, on and off. Seamus heard Bud fret over whether Brodie had a place to get inside when the storm came. He almost hoped she
was
on a train to Chicago with her dad. It was better than the alternatives that kept cropping up in his mind.

After pacing for a while, paging through a magazine with no idea what it contained, and staring out the window at the darkness, Bud threw himself across the bed. Sometime after two, he fell into a fitful sleep. By that time Seamus was a wreck. “Millie?”

“Seamus?” Her voice came through clearly, and he felt some relief. She was okay, so far.

“Millie! I’ve been nuts here.”

“Brodie is asleep. I’m still trying to encourage her, but she’s very upset, and she seems to get rattled when I speak.”

“I told you—”

“She was plotting an escape,” she interrupted, “right up to when she drifted off. She is a very strong young lady, but I gather she has had to be.”

Seamus chose to stick to practical matters. “I got that you’re on a boat, but where is it now?”

“Headed north. The man says our destination is the eastern shore of Lake Huron.”

“Huron! The eastern shore of Huron is—”

“I know my geography, Seamus. He’s Canadian.”

“He’s taking her to Canada!”

Bud moaned and rolled over, disturbed by the noise in his head.

“Try to calm down,” Mildred soothed. “You’re no help to Brodie if you get upset.”

Realizing she was right for once, he paused to gather his thoughts. “Tell me what happened.”

“The man—she calls him the bird watcher—forced Brodie onto a boat he had hidden along the shore.”

“I figured that much from your message. I tried to make Bud notice it, but he was distracted and didn’t pay attention.”

“It’s a little claustrophobic. This man has a woman with him, and the cabin is really too small for four people.” Seamus smiled as Millie included herself in the count.
As if we exist
.

“Can you jump to the guy, see what his plan is?”

He felt Mildred’s resistance, as if she had taken an actual step back. “I can’t leave Brodie.”

“But we need to know what this is about.”

“She’s very fragile right now.”

“It won’t take ten minutes.”

“What if I can’t get back to her? And what could I learn while he’s asleep, anyway? He told Brodie he would explain in the morning.”

“So in the morning, you jump to him.”

Mildred was having none of that. “Whatever his plan is, Brodie will need me to help her get through it. I think she’s beginning to get used to me.”

“Millie, will you listen, for Pete’s sake?”

“No, Seamus, I won’t. And it’s Mildred. You might know a lot about investigating, but what do you know about young women? Brodie needs me.”

Seamus could have punched the wall—if he had fists. “Our job is to find out what happened to William Dunbar, not to fix what’s wrong with that kid.”

Her tone turned regretful.”I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

He counted to ten. “Okay. Where are you? I’ll see what I can do to get Bud there.”

“We anchored at a small island for the night to ride out the storm. He plans to reach the Straits of Mackinac sometime tomorrow, and he said passing through will be easy with all the racers and sightseers in the area.”

“I thought the race would be over by now.”

“It is, but apparently there are activities afterward: shorter races, parties, that sort of thing. There will be lots of boats up there, and no way for the authorities to keep track of them all.”

“So if I can get Bud to drive north, he might catch this guy in the straits?”