Grave Deeds (19 page)

I backed out of the hut and sat up on my heels, my face turned to the sun and breeze. How good it felt. How glad I was that the tent was empty. As long as I didn't find her body, there was the chance that she was still alive. Lost and frightened, perhaps, but alive.

Assuming that Hank had taken the girl, where could they be? I climbed to the top of the rocks and surveyed the field. None of the holes looked new, the earth uniformly black and slightly steaming as the sun dried the residue of last night's storm.

“Think,” I said out loud. How long had Megan been gone now? I looked up at the sun. It seemed directly overhead, a golden glaring pulse. Say it was noon — Ryan and Megan had gone down to the dock after breakfast. Megan disappeared when Ryan came up to the cottage about half an hour later. We spent another half-hour or so talking and searching for her. Say it took me an hour to reach the beach and fool with Hank's boat before finding my way here. In that two hours, would Hank have had the time to persuade Megan to come with him,
bring her here, hurt (don't say kill) her, and hide her (don't say body) before taking himself off? And how would he get away?

I looked more carefully at the wall of trees. Something glinted at the far west end of the field. I shaded my eyes, squinting against the glare. It appeared to be a building of some kind.

A hard-packed trail had been swept clear of debris, skirting both fresh and dried cow patties. It led to a small corrugated iron shack at the end of a rutted lane. Its door had buckled and hung half open. I peered in. It was a storage shed, containing a hodgepodge of shovels of various sizes, an enormous pick-axe, a box of smaller trowels, several empty buckets, a stack of burlap bags, and a wheelbarrow. Looking up the lane, a track roughly hacked out of the underbrush, I recognized the glossy green of poison ivy leaves between the ruts. My bare feet were already sore and burning. This early in the season, they weren't used to hard walking without shoes. I had no idea where the lane led or how long it was before it hit either the cottage road or the highway. Looking closer, I saw something else: a set of tire tracks gouged into the soft mud as if a car had been stuck here recently and rocked free.

Just then, in one of those sudden pauses between birdsongs that shock with the depth of their silence, I heard the revving of a car engine labouring up a hill deep in the woods. Whoever had Megan was going away. Perhaps it was Hank. Or Bonnie with the police. But surely, if it was Bonnie, she would wait for me, knowing that I was coming in to the beach by water.

The quickest way back to the cottage was by boat. Hank had said so himself last night. I jumped up and ran around the field to the path that led to the beach. The waves were still rolling in, large enough now to back up the creek, flooding the boardwalk so that at times I had to feel for the logs with my toes before moving on. A heron burst out of the marsh right by my side, its huge wings pumping the air as it rose. I tripped, fell to my knees, my left hand plunging through murky swamp water deep into the muck. Leeches! I stumbled to the sand, holding my arm well away from my body until I could wash it off in clean lake water. I had scratches and insect bites galore, but nothing else.

I didn't bother taking off my jeans but plunged into the lake and waded out to the boat. I put one foot on the propeller and grabbed the motor, hoisting myself on to the transom. A wave caught the boat broadside; the sudden jerk toppled me and I fell in, swallowing lake water, coming up coughing and blue with the shocking cold. I got on board on the second try.

When I was sixteen I had spent every weekend of my holidays at Annie's family's summer cottage on Lake Huron. Her cousin Simon kept a speedboat there and we all took turns driving it while the others waterskied. That was a long time ago. And the controls on his boat had been a simple on/off switch and a gear lever.

Can't be much different than driving a car, I assured myself. I contemplated the crowded dash, then turned the key; the engine coughed, caught. I left it running in neutral and went back to haul in the anchor. By the time it was aboard and I was back in the driver's seat, the waves had pushed the boat almost into shore. I pulled the throttle full back. The motor bucked and roared; I fell backwards over the seat as the boat spun, bouncing and tipping from side to side. I scrambled back to grab the wheel and get it headed straight out into the waves. The propeller churned up a mass of sand and weeds but didn't stall the motor. I pointed the bow at the spit of land that marked the river mouth.

I angled across the waves, holding my breath every time a particularly large white cap rocked the boat, wincing every time the bow slapped into a trough. A lot of water slopped around the bottom; there should have been an automatic bilge on such a fancy boat but I didn't know how to activate it. I fought to keep the wheel steady on course. I kept the throttle at half speed, afraid to go too fast in such rough water. Still, I made it to the river mouth in minutes. Just in time, I remembered the purpose of the line of plastic buoys and made a clear course for the channel between them. Sheltered from the wind's fury by the reed beds stretching to either side, the water here was much calmer. I slowed to navigate the narrow river. Hank must have visited often to trust finding the channel in the dark. As for me, I could hardly wait to get back on firm ground and into dry clothes.

Around the next bend, the dock came into sight. Ryan was sitting there, curled in a fetal position, arms hugging his knees, head buried, his back to the cottage. He looked up at the sound of the motor, then hid his face again.

I knew at once that Megan hadn't been found. I turned the boat in towards shore and cut back the throttle. Over the sound of the idling engine, I shouted, “Is Megan back yet?”

He shook his head no.

“Your Mom? Will?”

No to both.

“Can you give me a hand? Grab the bow when I get close enough?”

He didn't move. I turned off the power and let the current carry the boat close to shore. I stretched and caught a cleat on the dock and pulled the boat in. I secured it with the bow line and got out, wincing as my bruised feet hit the boards. The current caught the stern and swung it out wide across the pool. I considered trying to tie that end to the dock as well, but shrugged. The boat wasn't going anywhere and there was no one to bump into it.

I sat down beside the boy. Here on the river in the shade of the trees, it was quite cool. I was still wet through and trembling deep inside.

“Got lonely waiting up at the house?” I asked.

He shook his head, but still wouldn't look at me.

“It's not your fault, Ryan. My cousin, Hank, came along in his boat and took her for a ride.”

“She wouldn't go with him,” he muttered. “She wouldn't go with a stranger.”

“She's only four,” I pointed out. “And she really wanted to go to the beach. If he told her he'd take her there…”

“She wouldn't,” he insisted. “She's street-proofed. Just like me. She wouldn't go unless he had the secret family word.”

“What's that?”

“I can't tell. It's a secret code so we know if the person really is a friend of Mom or Dad's. If they say the right words we can go with them.”

“But I found her bear in the boat.” I handed it to him.

Ryan grabbed the toy and hugged it close. He began to rock back and forth, back and forth. “Where is she then?”

I had to be careful. “I found my cousin's camp in the forest. His tent was empty, but they must have just left. I heard a car going up the road. They'll be here soon.”

This news did little to comfort him. He rocked back and forth, clutching the bear to his chest. “She wouldn't leave T. Bear behind. She never goes anywhere without T. He used to be mine, but I gave him to her. She never, never would forget him.”

There was no answer for this. I shivered. “Look at me, I'm soaked,” I said, amazed myself at how chipper my voice sounded. “It's a little early to go swimming, don't you think? I fell in the lake and it was cold.”

He didn't bother responding. What a fool I must sound to him, blathering on about the weather when he was so full of guilt and grief.

I sighed and stood, holding my hand out to him. “Come with me up to the cottage while I get changed, okay?”

“You can't go up there,” he wailed. He looked up, his eyes wide, the pupils great dark holes. Something had scared him, and scared him badly.

“What happened?” I knelt down and took his chin in my hand so he couldn't look away. “Did someone come to the cottage when you were there by yourself?”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“I can't.” He shook my hand free and began that sinister rocking again.

“You'll feel better.”

He didn't answer.

Frustrated and freezing, I stood again. I didn't want to leave him alone. “I have to go and get some dry things on before I catch my death of cold. You can come with me or stay here by yourself.”

“Don't leave me.” He began to cry, great tearing sobs.

“You have to tell me what the trouble is. I can't help you if I don't know the problem.”

“I did something bad.” His voice was so low that I had to lean over to hear it.

“Broke something? I'm sure it was an accident. It doesn't matter.”

“Not that.” He paused. “Mom told me to stay in the cottage the whole time she was gone. She made me promise.”

“It's scary to be by yourself for such a long time,” I assured him. “She won't be mad at you for coming down here.”

“I waited and waited. Nobody came. I tried to read a book, but they're all about birds and boring stuff like that. Then I thought about the cars…” He bit his lip so hard a drop of blood welled up.

“The cars?” I prompted him.

“In the driveway. There was a car all covered up. You know what little kids are like — I thought Megan might have got inside and was hiding there. Maybe she fell asleep in the dark. She likes to find hidey holes. I thought if I found her no one would be mad at me any more.”

“None of the rest of us thought of that,” I congratulated him. “That was really good thinking.” I remembered, though, that Will had tried the door handles through the tarp; that car had been locked tight.

He whispered, “I pulled up a corner of the blanket to look. I couldn't see in so I took it all the way off. It was real heavy. I had to climb right on the roof.” He began to cry again.

“It's all right to take the tarp off. I'd have done it myself if I'd thought of it. Just because Megan wasn't inside … “

“There was a lady.”

“A lady?” I repeated. I put my arms around him. He clung to me, his face buried in my shoulder.

“I saw a fly come out of her nose.” He collapsed against me in a storm of tears.

I held on to him, stroking his back, feeling the knots of bone along his spine. “There, there,” I repeated over and over, as a spell against the horror. “There, there. It'll be all right.”

We should never have left him alone, I said to myself. He's just a little kid. Poor guy. I held him tightly while he cried.

It must be Marilyn that he'd found. There was that bloodstain in her bed, those precious artifacts in the trunk. Whoever killed her and put her in the car must have called Hank last night, pretending to have a message for us from her so that we wouldn't go looking for her.

Ryan seemed to have settled down. I had to get him back to the cottage; I had to get changed. Surely it was time for Will to get back. I spoke softly and calmly, leaving no room for doubt in my voice.

“We're going to go back to the cottage.” His body stiffened but I wouldn't release him. “We'll go in through the front. You won't see the car at all. I need you to make a fire for me while I get changed. That would be such a big help. It must be lunchtime too. Are you hungry? We can make lunch and have it ready for the others when they get back.”

“What about…” he began, but I shushed him.

“Let's not talk about that right now. Your Mom will be bringing the police with her. They'll take care of everything.”

“Mom will be mad at me. For looking.” His voice was a little stronger now.

“No, she won't. She'll think you're a very clever boy to have the idea that Megan might be in the car in the first place. And a very, very brave boy to stay here by the dock after what you saw.”

“Do you think so?” He drew back far enough from me to look me in the face. His own was bloated and red — in that he took after his mother.

“Of course. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't run away. My goodness, what would we have done if you'd got lost too?”

I hugged him again, then stood. He stood up with me.
Hand in hand, we climbed the hill.

I winced with every step. My feet were bruised and torn from my scramble through the woods and exploration of the field. My shoulders ached from paddling. My jeans and sweatshirt clung, an unpleasant second skin through which the wind cut with a freezing blade.

Inside the cottage, I dropped Ryan's hand. He followed me into Marilyn's room and waited while I fished out dry clothes.

“You could go start the fire,” I suggested.

He shook his head. “I want to stay with you.”

I felt awkward about stripping down in front of the boy. Part of me told me I was being ridiculous; another part shrank from exposing myself to the child.

“All right. You can stay but you have to promise not to look. I'm a little bit shy.”

“Okay,” he nodded.

I hadn't brought many clothes with me for the three-day weekend. The pink shirt and jeans I had on yesterday were still damp from last night's trip to the cars. I had shorts and another short-sleeved blouse. I wished I had brought more warm clothes. Bonnie might have something. I went into the bunk bedroom, Ryan still at my heels. Bonnie's big white sweater hung off the end of the bed. I put it on.