Silent Hunter

by Maggie K. Black

  “Oh, trust me, you’re not the only one. Just because I love working for George, doesn’t mean I’m ever going to have the amount of money to buy this place out from under him. The land itself is worth far, far more than the business standing on it.” She reached to touch his shoulder. Then caught herself midair. “You’re a sport’s reporter, not a millionaire.”

  “George asked me to come up because he had something important to talk to me about before the canoe trip. Do you know what it was?”

  She sat straight. “No. I honestly don’t.” For that matter she didn’t really know why George had wanted her to take down the old boxes of camp records and photographs. “I just presumed he wanted to talk to you about a newspaper article.”

  To their left, an aquatic obstacle course hung over the surface of the water in a collection of nets, tires and climbing ropes. They glided past it. Then, to the right, they could see the small sliver of murky sand that formed the island’s only beach. A thin wooden dock ran along one side of it with a red-and-white sign that warned potential trespassers they were entering Camp Spirit property. She tossed the rope around a pillar, caught it on the first try and pulled the craft in to the dock.

  They climbed out and she sighed. The beach was a mess of driftwood and seaweed. Trevor was supposed to have done a proper cleanup of the campsite earlier in the week. Apparently he hadn’t bothered.

  “Looks like I’m going to need two pairs of hands, after all. I’ll run ahead to the campsite and make sure it’s not a mess. If you could stay here and clear some of this mess off the beach...that would be amazing.”

  “You sure you’re okay going off alone, after everything that happened this morning?” Luke sounded concerned. He had no reason to be. Whether they were on the mainland or the island, this camp was still her baby.

  “Absolutely. You’re probably more sore from catching me that I am from crashing into you.” Light rain began to fall, dimpling the water and denting the mud by her feet. She started up the beach. The ground was scuffed with footprints. Even worse. Trespassers always made a mess of things. “Also, it looks like the island had a visitor recently. Fortunately, whoever they were, they’re gone now, otherwise their boat would still be here. There’s nowhere else on the island they could’ve safely moored.”

  Luke ran his hand through his hair. “Thanks again for letting me come with you. I know this isn’t the ideal place for us to talk, but I thought it was important we cleared the air as soon as possible.” There was a smile back in his voice again.

  But this time she didn’t smile back. Between the rain, Trevor’s failure to get his work done and the signs of a trespasser, her evening had just gotten a whole lot busier. “I appreciate that. But it’s okay. Really. You’ve apologized. I’ve accepted it. And I had a whole half-hour-long boat ride to let it sink in.” Because that’s what adults did in situations like this. They got over things. They didn’t let themselves fall into a cute guy’s arms and cry, no matter how stressed, worried and tired they felt.

  She turned toward the woods. Branches were broken along the path that led to the campsite. Whoever had stopped by the island had also done some exploring while they were here. There was an arrow imbedded in the tree ahead of her. Slim, vicious, with jagged metal in the head. A titanium hunter’s arrow. She grit her teeth and yanked it out of the wood. “Looks like our trespasser is also a hunter, and decided to use the trees for target practice.”

  Luke snorted. “Well, that’s a super-expensive arrow for someone to go shooting into trees on a little island like this. That’s the kind of gear you’d expect from someone who’d just dropped a few thousand bucks on a high-tech compound bow because they figured they’d go illegally bag a few bears or moose.”

  She blinked. He was absolutely right. But she hardly expected Luke to know that. “You know archery?”

  “Now I do.” He stepped closer and looked down at the arrow in her hands. “Been taking lessons for years and brought my bow up just in case I got the chance to shoot a few at your range on the mainland. I didn’t actually know the first thing about archery back when you knew me before. Just pretended I did to impress you. But the way you used to talk about it left me itching to try it. Even learned enough woodworking to make my very own recurve bow.”

  Her heart stopped. She’d been huge into woodwork that summer, too, and had spent days carving him something special. She could still remember the pounding in her chest when she’d handed him the wooden animal she’d carved. Not to mention her devastation when she’d run to their meeting spot the next day to find it empty and wondered if her clumsy attempt at a gift had been what scared him off. Despite everything her brain might say, her heart could remember it like yesterday.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” His chest was so close she could almost see his breath rise and fall. The raincoat he’d grabbed from the boat still hung open. The shirt underneath was almost soaked through. “Look, I know you said you’re okay to just head off alone. But I can tell you’re upset. I can see it in your eyes. I get you’re just being professional about everything and I really respect that. But don’t feel like you have to put on a brave face around me. We used to tell each other everything, Nicky. We used to be friends. If there’s anything I can do, I want to help.”

  She bit her lip. The memory of his arms wrapped around her swept through her core like a visceral ache. Yeah, she wanted a hug. No, she wasn’t about to let him give it. “No, Luke. I used to tell you everything. I was honest with you. That apparently never cut both ways.” She sighed. “And it was probably a mistake to let you come along.”

  She tossed the arrow onto the beach and strode up the hill.

  * * *

  He watched her go, feeling his gut sink into the sand at his feet.

  He’d hurt her. Badly.

  Did she honestly believe everything they’d shared back then had been a lie? Yes, he’d only given her a nickname and he’d hidden where he was from—both rotten things to have done. But everything he’d felt for her and everything she’d meant to him had made it the most real and honest human connection he’d ever had in his life. Not that she was likely to ever believe that now.

  His mind filled with memories of just a few hours earlier—her body crashing into his arms, relief filling his chest, the smell of her smoky hair as they fell backward onto the ground.

  Thank You, God, that I actually did right by her, at least once in my life.

  He grabbed a hunk of driftwood and threw it hard into the bushes. It wasn’t as though things would be any better if he told her the whole story. He’d been a petty thief and a runaway, sleeping in an abandoned cabin and scrounging whatever he could steal. The last time they’d met, he’d realized they’d grown too emotionally close and he hadn’t wanted to risk getting caught. So he’d broken into George’s office and tried to steal the camp’s cash box. George had caught him and carted him off to the police to spend the night in a jail cell. Then, the next morning, the first man of God he’d ever met had come back, given him the cash box money for his bail, let him detox off drugs on his couch and helped him by offering him a chance to earn himself a life he could be proud of.

  And I did everything in my power to pay him back for that, every chance I got.

  The sound of Nicky running through the woods faded to silence. He had a pretty good guess about what would happen if he told her all that. Her walls would fall and her heart would overflow with compassion. She’d always been far more caring than a jerk like him had deserved.

  He didn’t deserve her sympathy. And she deserved better than him.

  A scream split the air. Loud. Terrified.

  “Nicky!” He ran toward the noise. Branches struck his body. His heart smacked hard in his chest. Her screams seemed to come from all directions at once. Then the wall of trees gave way to a clearing and a ring of tent platforms on cinder-block base
s.

  Nicky was down in the dirt, her face pressed into the ground. A figure stood over her. The man’s form was lost in hunting fatigues and a green balaclava. A compact hunter’s compound bow hung on a strap across his back. With one hand the hunter clenched the back of her head. With the other he pressed the tip of a knife against her throat. She looked over at Luke. Tears poured down her cheeks.

  Dear God, please don’t let him hurt her. Help me save her.

  Thunder rumbled in the skies above them. Luke held Nicky’s gaze, steady and solid. “It’s going to be okay, Nicky. I promise.” The determination to keep her safe pulsed through his veins. It had been a long time since Luke had found himself at the wrong end of a criminal’s knife. But the instincts that he’d once learned as a teenaged runaway had never left him. Luke turned to face her captor. His hands rose in front of him. His palms were open. But his body was tensed for a fight, if it came to that. “Let her go and no one needs to be hurt.”

  Silence filled the clearing—punctuated only by the sound of Nicky’s ragged breath and the light patter of rain. The hunter’s grip loosened just enough that she could crawl on her hands and knees, then he yanked Nicky’s head back. She winced, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of whimpering. Her eyes hadn’t left Luke’s face for a moment.

  Luke stepped forward. “This is your last warning.” His fingers tightened into fists. “You so much as bruise her skin and I will take you down.”

  Lightning flashed and then the skies opened. Heavy rain pelted the ground. The man tossed his head back and laughed. Nicky kicked back hard. Her heel caught her captor hard in the gut. Luke charged. He caught the masked man by the throat and tossed him to the ground. Within seconds the hunter had sprung back to his feet. The knife blade flashed in his hand. But before Luke could even raise his hand to land a blow, the man took off running through the woods.

  For half a second Luke watched him go, fighting the urge to chase him down. Instead, he dropped to his knees beside Nicky. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  “I’m okay.” She raised her face toward him. Her hair fell tangled and wild over her face. Rain and tears ran mingled down her cheeks. “I don’t even know what happened. I walked into the campsite and he just jumped me from behind.”

  He helped her to her feet. Nicky’s fingers ran down her muddy limbs as if she was taking inventory. “I didn’t even think he wanted to hurt me at first. It was more like he wanted to scare me. But when he laughed at you like that—”

  The roar of an engine filled the air.

  “No!” Nicky took off running through the trees. Luke pelted after her. The forest gave way to a slab of granite rock. In the water below, a small boat was speeding away from the island. She sank to her knees. “He just stole our boat.”

  FOUR

  “The keys were in the ignition.” The words slipped through her lips and into the pouring rain as little more than a sigh of frustration. It had never even crossed her mind the trespasser might still be on the island. Let alone that he’d attack her and steal their boat.

  “It’s going to be okay.” Luke squeezed her shoulder. His fingertips touched just below her shoulder blade. It was the kind of simple gesture that would seem natural coming from a close friend or colleague. But as Luke’s fingers brushed her aching muscles she could feel her body relax. There’d always been something about the simplest touch of his hand that had made her feel safe. Back when she’d been young enough to think she needed a guy in her corner and foolish enough to believe it would be him.

  Another flash of lightning forked through the sky, followed by the rumble of thunder.

  “Of course we’re going to be fine.” She gripped the hood of her raincoat with both hands and pulled it up briskly. “The Hunter obviously got here in some kind of boat. Canoe probably. Maybe a kayak. All we have to do is find it and use it to get back to the mainland. The first priority, though, is getting off this rock. We don’t want to get caught out either on the lake or in the trees while there’s a risk of lightning. Fortunately this island has caves.”

  They picked their way back through the empty campground and then hiked through the forest into the center of the island. Finally they reached a place where a gaping hole cut deep into the side of the rock. They stepped into the mouth of the cave and out of the rain.

  Luke glanced into the darkness. “How deep does it go?”

  “Pretty deep. But it also gets really steep and narrow. We boarded it up a few yards in to stop anyone from going too far. Rumor is, though, if you go deep enough you’ll eventually come out somewhere on the coast.”

  “You’ve never tried?”

  “Never wanted to. It’s pitch-black down there and turns into almost a sheer drop.” She shivered. Sometimes they’d take campers right up to the barrier and turn off their flashlights, just so they could experience how dark the world could be.

  Luke leaned back against the damp, stone wall. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think for a moment that whoever I saw running into the trees back on the mainland would ever come to the island and threaten you.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Why would you?”

  “Because I saw a man in hunting fatigues outside the lodge when it was on fire, and then one attacks you here now. You don’t see an obvious connection there?”

  She sighed. Just because she used to buy his stories, didn’t mean she was just going to agree with whatever theories he came up with now. “A lot of people wear hunting fatigues up here. It’s like someone from the city seeing two people in suits in the same day.”

  “But you can’t discount the possibility someone is actually trying to hurt you or Camp Spirit. Look, if the person running through the trees is linked to this, he might have been heading to Ace Sports Resort—”

  “Or to the highway. Or to someone’s cottage. Or it could’ve just been another trespasser. We do get a lot of them.” Including apparently you.

  Nicky slid down the wall and sat on the floor. “Neil is very competitive and I don’t like how he runs the place, but that doesn’t make him a criminal. Also, I don’t see how the lodge catching fire and a trespasser on the island could be connected. Two very different things happened in two completely different places.”

  “On the same day.” Luke sat opposite her. “I just think it’s too convenient to be a coincidence, don’t you?”

  “You sound like a reporter.” She reached behind her neck and parted her hair down the middle. Then she twisted each half around her fingers to wring out the water. A deep, soft chuckle coaxed her eyes back to his face. “What’s so funny?”

  Luke looked down. “Sorry. Just seeing you do that gave me a flash of déjà vu. I always remember you having these long, curly pigtails, and you were always fiddling with them. It was cute.”

  She paused, her fingers still in her hair. Did he remember how he used to take her pigtails in his hands and gently tug her toward him until her lips met his? She stuffed her hands into her pockets. Well, she wasn’t that girl anymore. “Grab any dry leaves or twigs if you can. I’m going to build a fire and see about drying us out.”

  There were waterproof matches in her jacket. It didn’t take too long before they had a fledgling fire burning. Flames crackled softly. A long pause spread between them punctuated by the sound of rain lashing the trees, thunder sounding in the distance and the drip of water running down the cave.

  “You sure our best option is to look for the Hunter’s boat?” Luke asked. “There’s no chance someone will come looking for us?”

  “No.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. George would’ve. But the only other person on-site now is Trevor, and he probably won’t realize there’s something wrong until sometime tomorrow. Have you ever met him?”

  “Trevor?” Luke turned his face toward the sheet of rain. “Years ago.”

  “Well, Trevor’s
just kicking around for a few weeks, trying to scrounge up enough to go traveling again. He’s the kind of guy who hates the idea of being tied down to anything.” She frowned. “I can’t imagine him keeping the place after George is gone.”

  Luke nodded slowly. “Is it possible that he had something to do with all this?”

  “Trevor? No!” First Neil, now Trevor? Was he still beating the bushes for random suspects? “Look, Trevor knows he’s going to inherit this whole place—mainland and island—from George one day. As Trevor likes to keep reminding us, the camp may be struggling, but the land is worth a lot. He keeps pushing his dad to invest in things that push the property value up. Setting dangerous fires that could’ve destroyed the forest and allowing scary trespassers who could randomly attack strangers are exactly the kinds of thing that do the opposite of that. Now, if George and Trevor had any enemies who wanted to both see the camp fail and the land become unsellable, that would be different.”

  “Like someone at Ace Sports?”

  They were back to suspecting Neil again? She rolled her eyes. This was the problem with random theories. Suddenly everyone was a suspect, whether it was logical or not.

  Luke pulled his raincoat off and spread it on the ground. His shirt was so wet it almost looked as though someone had painted it across his chest. He rolled up his sleeves and undid the top buttons of his shirt.

  She tried not to stare at how the firelight danced along his skin. Her eyes slowly traced the snakelike scar cutting into his skin. She jumped to her feet. “I don’t believe it. You even lied to me about your scar.”

  “I did what?” His face was blank.

  She leaned forward and pointed at the puckered white line that gashed across his perfect golden chest. “You told me that you’d been bitten by a dog, and I believed you, just like I believed every other lie. But I’ve seen enough camp injuries over the years to distinguish one kind of scar from another.” Her fingers brushed the edge of his shirt. “That’s a burn.”