Survival Instinct

“I have, and I will.” His voice sounded resigned. “But I need a break. You were up there and back so quickly, and they’re busy enough with their bickering I’m sure they’ll hardly notice if I slip away.” He looked imploringly toward her.

Abby’s eyes widened and she looked him full in the face for the first time. From close-up his face appeared more manly than boyish, with smile creases branching out from his eyes. She realized how much they’d both aged since college. “Sure. It’s right this way.” Suddenly self-conscious, she diverted her eyes from his face and focused instead on watching her feet as they made their way up the slick path.

They reached the road and began the steady uphill trek. The woods quickly closed in behind them. Abby felt she ought to make conversation with her hiking partner to break the awkward silence, but the only thing she could think of was the need to confess their shared history, however long ago it had been.

“You probably don’t remember me,” she started hesitantly, “but I believe we were at Northwoods College around the same time.”

“Abby Caldwell,” Scott stated with assurance. “We had a poetry class together.”

Abby’s heart nearly stopped, and one foot took a wild slip on a patch of slimy clay.

Scott grabbed her arm, steadying her. “I’m Scott Frasier, by the way.” His grin was broad, and he looked pleased.

“I remember,” she said breathlessly, far too aware of the stable, comforting grip of his hand on her arm. “You were on the football team. Starting quarterback. I went to every game.”

Scott grinned. “So what are you up to these days?”

“I live and work in Bayfield.” Abby tried to keep both her voice and feet steady as she continued up the road, Scott’s hand still on her arm. “Have you heard of the Eagle Foundation?”

“They’re a conservation group, aren’t they?”

“Yes, that’s right. I represent the northern Wisconsin region.”

“I seem to recall you being active in environmental causes in college,” Scott noted.

Abby giggled. It was a foolish, schoolgirl kind of giggle, and she immediately felt embarrassed, though the fact that Scott Frasier remembered anything about her made her giddy on a level she’d thought she’d left behind years ago.

Before she could make a bigger fool of herself, Scott’s head cocked to one side. He dropped her arm and took a step back in the direction they’d come.

Then Abby heard it—the distinct sound of a motor running, revving higher, much as the Helene had sounded when they’d first left the Bayfield pier. Concern immediately replaced embarrassment. “Is that our boat?”

“I believe so.” Scott nodded and took a few more steps downhill.

Abby moved soundlessly toward him, listening carefully for some indication that would tell them what the boat, now hidden by thick trees, would be doing running its motor when Captain Sal had promised to wait for them.

“Perhaps he’s just going around to the other side of the dock. Maybe it’s a better spot there,” Scott suggested.

Abby shook her head. “No chance of that. The west side of the dock is the only decent anchorage. On the east side the bottom is flat sandstone, which won’t hold an anchor.”

“You know the island pretty well.” Scott sounded impressed as he picked up his pace and began to trot down the hill.

“I spent most of one summer living here while I worked for the Park Service.” She just managed to keep up with him. A second later they cleared the edge of the trees, in time to see the Helene nosing for the gap between Rocky and Otter Islands.

“Hey!” Scott shouted, waving his arms in the air as he raced after the boat. “Hey, where are you going?”

He came to a stop near the end of the pier and Abby trotted up beside him, panting slightly, not just from the run, but from the oppressive fear she felt creeping up from her stomach to her lungs, its cold fingers gripping her, making it difficult to breathe. “He’s leaving us.” She could still see Captain Sal sitting at the wheel of the boat. He looked back twice and had to have seen them but made no move to communicate. Instead he hunched his shoulders, almost as though he was trying to shrink smaller and hide.

“Why would he do that?” Scott stared out in the direction the Helene had gone, though she’d soon be out of sight around Rocky’s southern tip. “Do you think he forgot something? He said he’d give us two hours. It hasn’t even been one.”

Abby shook her head, the fear sending shivers up her arms. She’d never liked Devil’s Island. It had only ever brought her trouble and heartache. And now she had a very bad feeling she was going to be spending far more time there than she ever would have wanted. “There isn’t really anywhere he could go and be back in that short of time. I think he was just waiting for all of us to be out of sight before he left. It looks to me like he’s headed back toward Bayfield but he doesn’t want to be seen.”

“So he’s just leaving us here?” The Helene was out of sight now, and Scott turned back to Abby.

“That’s what it looks like to me.” As she spoke, Abby tried to push back her fear.

Scott didn’t like the helpless feeling that crept over him when he saw his mother, Marilyn, picking her way back across the rocky shore toward the dock with Mitch beside her. He had no idea why Captain Sal had made off with the boat. At least Abby had some familiarity with the island. He could only hope she’d know how to get them back to the mainland.

As he could have predicted, his mother’s face was blanched white by the time she reached the dock. “Please tell me he’s coming back,” she insisted.

“I don’t know,” Scott told her, though he had a pretty good idea, given the man’s body language, that he’d purposely left them.

“Didn’t he say he’d be back in two hours? We did say two hours, didn’t we? Maybe he thought we said ten hours.”

Before Scott could reply, Mitch barked, “Where’s the boat?” He gave Scott a look as though he’d somehow been behind its disappearance.

“Somewhere south of here,” Scott responded vaguely. His mom had been emotionally fragile ever since his father had died four years before. Scott knew the current situation would shake her even more. He wished he knew how to keep Mitch from making it worse.

“Why’d he take off? When’s he coming back?” Mitch’s face turned red from the combined effort of shouting and tromping down the dock. “Where’s your mother’s purse—and her diamonds?”

At the mention of his mother’s jewelry, Scott spun around, taking in Marilyn’s bare wrists and fingers in a single glance. He leveled his gaze at Mitch. “You left her jewelry on the boat?”

“Of course,” the shorter man shot back. “The last time we visited an island, she lost her tennis bracelet. Did you think we were going to take a chance like that again?”

Scott wanted to shake his stepfather, or at least demand to know why his mother had worn the jewelry in the first place, but he didn’t want to upset her further. She was already wringing her hands, and her face had gone as pale as the thickly clouded sky behind her.

Scott trained his attention on Mitch. “So you left all her jewelry on the boat, along with her purse, which contained…what? Credit cards? Cash? Checkbook?”

Marilyn nodded morosely. “And my cell phone, and the keys to the Escalade. Captain Sal said his lockbox was the safest place for valuables.”

At the mention of the cell phone, Scott saw Abby pull hers from the slender canvas purse she wore strapped diagonally across her torso. She flipped it open, blinked at the screen, then made a face and shut it again. “No signal,” she explained when she looked up and he caught her eye. “Didn’t figure there would be. Reception’s patchy enough in Bayfield, and that’s over twenty miles from here.”

As if on cue, Mitch checked his own phone. “Me neither.”

Though he didn’t expect much, Scott pulled out his phone, with the same result. “Fine.” He exhaled loudly, then took a steadying breath and turned his attention to Abby, once again glad she was with them. “We need to get in touch with the authorities, get Mom’s credit cards and checks stopped, tell them to keep an eye out for Captain Sal, and get somebody out here to pick us up. How do we do that?”

Abby looked from him to his distraught mother and back again, then spoke in a low voice. “There’s a radio up at the old keeper’s quarters. The place is probably locked up tight now that summer’s over, but I think I can get us in.” She put on bright smile and raised her voice, clearly for his mother’s benefit. “The Coast Guard should be out to get us in a couple of hours. No problem. We’ll be back in Bayfield in time for a late lunch.”

Scott added an authoritative nod to back up her words, but his mother’s eyes still looked haunted. “Hey, Mom.” He put an arm around her shoulders, and she immediately crumpled against him. “It’s okay. You just enjoy yourself, find some more driftwood. Everything will be taken care of. They’ll have the police waiting for Sal the minute he gets into port. And did you hear what Abby said? We’ll be back in Bayfield this afternoon. You start thinking about where you want to eat, okay?”

Marilyn sniffled and clung to him a moment longer. “I shouldn’t have worn my jewelry. I should have left it all at home. But Mitch said it would be okay, that there’s no point having jewelry if you don’t wear it.”

Scott didn’t bother to give his opinion of Mitch’s intelligence.

His mom finally took a step back and looked him in the eyes, her tears dissolving the otherwise impermeable black lines of makeup around her eyes. “Our accountant has all my credit card and bank information. Have the authorities get in touch with Kermit. His number is…” She pinched her temples and her voice wavered. “It’s on my phone. In my purse.”

Scott pulled her close again and pressed his lips to her forehead. “It’s okay, Mom. Kermit Hendrickson, right? We’ll just have them look him up. No big deal.” He placed two steadying hands on her shoulders and took a step back. “Abby and I are going to go make that call. The sooner we do that, the sooner this is all going to get fixed. You’ll be okay.”

“Yes.” Marilyn straightened and drew in a loud breath, then turned to face Abby. “Thank you for your help.” She extended her hand. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Marilyn Fra—” She stopped herself, cleared her throat. “Adams. Scott’s mother. And this is my husband, Mitchell Adams.”