Silent Hunter

“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.”

* * *

He winced as he watched the sting of betrayal fill her eyes. Well, of course he’d told her that. He’d been both too immature and frightened back then to even consider telling her the truth. Moments such as this made it hard to forgive himself for the man he used to be.

“Looks like you were just incapable of telling the truth about anything. How ironic you became a journalist.”

He leaped to his feet. “Nicky, wait—”

“The lightning has stopped, and we’ve got a boat to find.”

“Please. Let me explain.” He reached for her hand.

She pulled away. “What could you possibly say now that would make any of this okay? I cherished my happy memories of you. Don’t you get that? Even though you’d left. Even though you’d hurt me, I could still look back and know that just once in my life I had a short, perfect, summer romance with an incredible guy. Something real and true, that nothing else ever compared with since.

“I told the story of you to so many heartbroken teenagers who needed to know that they’d get over their first breakup, too. But now you’ve just turned up and trashed every good memory I had. You’ve erased any good feelings I was able to have looking back. Part of me almost wishes you’d just left me with my happy memories, whether they were true or not.” She turned to the rain. “Yes, I do forgive you. I’ll be professional about this weekend and I get that right now we’re in this mess together. But as far as the past is concerned, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Fine. Then just look.” He pulled his shirt open, feeling the buttons pop one by one. Then he slowly peeled his arm out of the sleeve. She gasped as her gaze traced the labyrinth of burn scars running down his chest and shoulders.

“What happened?” Her voice brushed softly through the dark air. The cave walls seemed to shrink around them.

“Boiling water. My mom said she spilled it by accident, but I don’t really know. I was pretty little at the time, and my mom spent most of my childhood drunk. So it’s hard to know what to believe.”

Her fingers slid through his. “I’m sorry. How did your dad—?”

“Never met him. Which was a good thing.” His voice sounded gruff. She was so close now he could almost feel her untamed hair brushing against his jaw. Had he pulled her toward him without realizing it? Or was she the one who’d drawn closer to him?

“Look, I’m genuinely sorry that I hurt you. I wish I could turn back time and undo every lie I ever told. When you met me I was nothing but a runaway teen with a criminal record for shoplifting and petty theft, hiding out in an abandoned cabin. Definitely not a camp counselor, let alone at Ace Sports.” The back of his fingers touched her cheek. “You listened to me, Nicky. You prayed for me. You were the first decent, kind person I’d ever met in my life. I repaid you with lies, and I didn’t have a clue how to love you. Not like how you loved me. But leaving you was the kindest thing I could’ve done, and I don’t regret it.”

She stepped back. A light flickered in the woods. Then a bright flashlight beam swung across her face, just long enough for Luke to see the deep pain echoing in her eyes.

“Hello? Nicky?” The voice was male, young and uncertain. “You out here?”

“Trevor? Yeah! Yeah, we’re here!” She glanced back toward Luke. Then she ran out into the storm.

FIVE

The Friday morning sun beat down against the surface of the lake. Luke stood on the hill on the edge of Ace Sports’ property. He watched as a lithe, dark-haired figure in jeans and a plaid shirt arranged canoes down the beach, their bows jutting out into the water. He sighed and pulled out his cellphone. Thankfully, he was still in range to use Ace Sports’ Wi-Fi signal.

Nicky had barely said two words to him last night after Trevor had rescued them. To anyone else it would’ve probably looked as though she was just relieved George’s son had taken the initiative to come looking for her and was in a hurry to file a police report about the stolen boat. Not to mention exhausted. But even through her relief, he’d seen just how tightly she’d pressed her lips together and how she hadn’t once looked his way. Well, he was sorry if he’d destroyed her fantasy of what they’d once had, but the truth was leaving her then had been the right thing to do.

His phone began to ring. It was Jack Brooks, Torchlight’s most tenacious crime reporter and a solid friend. “Hey! How goes the book tour? As glamorous as they say?”

“Sure.” Jack laughed. “If your idea of glamor is drinking coffee in a highway hotel while your fiancée’s half a country away planning your wedding. Got your voice mail. I thought you were in a forest this weekend?”

Cars were pulling into Camp Spirit’s parking lot. Luke watched as Nicky left the beach and strode up to greet them. “I am. Arrived yesterday. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Luke quickly filled his colleague in on both the fire and what had happened on the island.

Jack whistled. “So obviously you think there’s a connection between the fire and this hunter guy?”

Relief spread over Luke’s shoulders. It felt good to hear someone else say it! This is exactly why he knew he’d been right to call a fellow reporter. “Yeah, I do. But the police don’t and Nicky doesn’t. I don’t even know for sure the man I saw running away from the lodge is the same man who jumped us on the island. Honestly, I was half expecting you to tell me I was crazy.”

Jack’s chuckle echoed down the phone line. “I’ve been there.” Not that long ago Jack’s gut and his fiancée’s tenaciousness had been the only things standing between innocent lives and a ruthless serial killer.

“It’s not exactly helping matters that I’ve got a bit of a history with the current camp director, Nicky, and it’s not pretty. We had a thing back in the day, and I’m not proud of how it ended.” Luke ran his hand over the back of his neck. “I still don’t know why it mattered so much to George that I came up this weekend.” There were five new vehicles in the parking lot now. Even from a distance he could spot a few familiar faces, including a local politician. “Tabitha Grey just arrived.”

Jack chuckled. “Hoping for a weekend of glamor camping no doubt.”

Luke grinned. Tabitha was striking woman in her late fifties, with a mane of stylishly coifed red hair. She was with a curvy, much younger woman with the same flame red hair. The younger woman pulled two bags from their trunk. Tabitha’s teenaged daughter perhaps?

A large man with a huge white handlebar moustache stepped out of an old pickup with Lake Huron Sports on the side—owner Russ Tusk, probably. There was also a man with a battered fedora whose face he couldn’t see, and two young men with huge mops of brown curly hair—twins by the look of it. Then a large blue van with a grizzly bear on the side pulled in. “Big Bear Construction is here, too.”

Torchlight News had a pile of unproved allegations about Frances “Bear” Wane’s shady dealings and illegal shenanigans almost three inches thick. But with the exception of one dismissed lawsuit where he allegedly waved a handgun at his workers, Torchlight had never managed to dig up enough concrete proof to run the story.

“I’m guessing I’ve got about twenty minutes before I’ve got to get down there,” Luke added. “Last thing I want is Nicky thinking I’ve bailed on her again. Then I’ve got no internet or phone until Sunday. Can you do me a favor and get someone at Torchlight to text me any background I should know about Tabitha Grey, Russ Tusk of Lake Huron Sports and ‘Bear’ of Big Bear Construction?”

“I’m on it.”

A breeze rustled the trees behind him. A suspicion nagged at the back of his mind. “For that matter, Nicky obviously doesn’t like the owner of Ace Sports Resort, Neil Pryce, and the only other person I know was around the camp is George’s son, Trevor Dale.”

“Got it.” Keyboard keys clicked furiously. “So you’re still going on the camping trip?”

“I’m not even sure I have a choice.” Luke said. “George asked me to and somebody needs to have Nicky’s back.” Whether she likes it or not. “If it were up to me, they’d either cancel this trip or send along some kind of security or police. I don’t have your investigative skills. I’m just a sport’s reporter.” Not to mention a former runaway with a history of petty crime. Being back in the local police station last night had stirred up some uncomfortable memories.

Jack snorted. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. A sport’s guy who just happens to have razor-sharp reflexes. I keep telling you that you should volunteer to coach something at the community center—”

“And I keep telling you, I’m the last guy anyone’s going to want as a role model.”

“So you say,” Jack said. “Just give yourself some credit. Nicky could do worse than you coming along.”

People were leaving the parking lot and following Nicky and Trevor down the trail to the waterfront. The young curvy redhead was near the back of the pack. As Luke watched, one of the twins—black shirt, blue bandanna—ran past her and pressed something into her hand. She slid it into her bag without even looking at it. No one else had seemed to notice, but Luke had spent enough time on the streets to recognize a handoff when he saw one.

“Still there?” Jack’s voice crackled in his ear.

“Yeah. Sorry. Just thought I saw some kind of handoff between two of the young ones.”

“Drugs?”

He rolled his jaw. “Really hope not.”

“You want my advice?” Jack said. “Go camping, keep your eyes open and don’t stop praying. Trust that if God wants you to see something, or do something, you’ll know.”

Luke picked up his rucksack and prayed. Dear Lord, please may he be right.

* * *

The smell of the forest hung heavy in the air and mingled with the scent of ashes. The lodge’s hollowed-out shell stood like a shadow behind the beach. Nicky tucked a defiant wisp of brown hair back into her bun and jabbed it down hard with a bobby pin. Every one of the potential donors had arrived—except Luke. Well, if he didn’t show, that was on him. The last thing she was going to do was waste another moment of her life waiting around for him.

She watched as Trevor fitted the men and women with life jackets and then showed them how to find the right size paddle. Boney knees jutted out from under Trevor’s plaid shorts as if his joints were trying to escape through his skin, and there was too much gel in his white-blond hair. But his lanky stance and tone was so much like George’s it was uncanny. She’d never known the young man to be so thorough. Maybe his dad being in the hospital had kicked some sense into him. After all, he had come to rescue her last night.

A tall shadow fell over the path. A smile crossed her lips. She turned, expecting to see Luke. It was Neil. Ace Sport’s director sauntered down the beach in between Trevor and the potential sponsors, smiling and nodding at each one as he went. “Please don’t let me interrupt.”

Trevor hesitated then went back to talking about canoe safety. Neil sidled up behind her. His fingertips slid over the edge of her clipboards and down over the list of campers. He whistled softly. “Wow, that’s quite a turnout. Russ Tusk is one of our favorite gear suppliers. Bear Wanes is building a new gym for us this year. Even Tabitha Grey! You know she cut the ribbon at the opening of our new pool? I’m guessing the twins would be David and Aaron Elliot of Up Start? That’s a website that helps young people find volunteer and job opportunities, right?”

Nicky turned her clipboard over. “What do you want?”

One hand slid on her shoulder. He pulled her back a couple of steps away from the group. “Just here to see if you need anything, doll.”

She snorted and shrugged him off. Yeah, as if she was about to fall for his nonsense today.

The rival camp director raised both hands. “Hey, I just figured that with George in the hospital and your camp locked down, you might appreciate a spare pair of hands this weekend. I can be pretty handy, you know. Come on, we both know Trevor is an all right guy to have a good time with, but he’s hardly the kind of solid camp professional you need for a trip like this.”

Her back stiffened. True, Neil was hardly telling her something she hadn’t thought herself more times than she could count. But she’d take Trevor’s laziness and unreliability over Neil’s slimy attempts to weasel his way into this trip and steal their sponsors any day. “Spoken like a true ‘Acer.’ Either someone’s the best or they’re worthless.”

“Look, all joking and rivalry aside, you are a solid camp instructor, Nicky. With skills like yours...” Neil shook his head. “Off the record, you’re more than qualified to be a member of Ace Sports’ staff team. You know how rare that is for me to admit about anyone.”

Did he actually mean that as a compliment? Telling her she was good enough for his shiny, obnoxious camp? As if she’d ever doubted she was every bit the athlete as those sparkly, spandex-clad gym nuts that Ace filled its ranks with each summer.

“Our facilities rival any camp in the continent,” he went on. “And you know, when it comes to campers, we attract some of the best, most talented young people from across the country...”

She tossed her head. “Wow, you must be desperate to derail our sponsorship trip if you’re trying to tempt me to quit just as we’re about to set sail. But fortunately for all those campers who aren’t up to your stellar standards, not to mention not having Ace Sports’ kind of money, Camp Spirit has always been happy to take on people who still need a little work and don’t see their ability to toss a ball as something to laud over others.”

Neil stepped back. “Believe it or not, I’m actually trying to help you. I’m not going to apologize for being the only one in your life man enough to point out that you’re too good for a ragtag place like this.” His eyes narrowed. “I just hope that you’re smart enough to face the facts before an old man’s dying dream ends up dragging you down with it.”

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