Survival Instinct

“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.”

Abby took Marilyn’s hand and introduced herself, her expression kind but not pitying. “Thanks for letting me tag along with you guys today, by the way.”

“Oh.” Marilyn’s face fell. “Well, let’s hope you still feel that way once all of this gets sorted out. I hope we haven’t ruined your day.”

“Nah.” Abby dismissed her concerns. “I could use a little more excitement in my life.” She smiled and turned to face Scott. “Ready?”

Scott checked with his mother once again to make sure she was okay with him leaving, and then headed back up the road with Abby. “Did you leave anything on the boat?” he asked once they were out of earshot of his mother.

“No.” She gestured to her purse. “I’ve got everything I brought right here—not that I have much anyone would want, probably.”

“I’m sorry we got you stuck out here. I guess Captain Sal couldn’t resist the temptation of running off with all those diamonds. I don’t understand whatever possessed my mom to leave them on the boat, or to wear them out on the lake in the first place.”

“It sounded like Mitch thought it would be okay,” Abby noted, walking carefully beside him. “Anyway, I don’t know how much he’ll get away with, but surely not enough to make up for his trouble. There’s no way he’ll get anywhere near Bayfield again, not without being arrested. It’s not like a big city where people can slip in and out anonymously. Whatever business he had here will be over after a stunt like this.”

Her comment piqued Scott’s curiosity. “Is he well-known in this area?”

“I’d never seen him before today, but if the Park Service concessionaire recommended him to you guys, he has to have been around a while, or at least had legitimate references. I’m just saying it’s a small town, and word travels fast. His reputation will be ruined.”

Scott’s steps slowed, but his heart rate picked up considerably. “The Park Service concessionaire,” he repeated. “Did you find Captain Sal through the Park Service?”

“No. I was going to go by, but I thought I’d stop by the dock first to take a look at the lake and see how many boats were out, and whether anyone was in pier. Several of my friends have boats and I thought I might try to bum a ride with one of them if they were going out. None of them were around, but then I saw Captain Sal pulling in his For Hire sign.”

Scott knew the rest. She’d come walking down the wharf just as they were about to head out, and she’d asked where they were headed. When they’d told her they were going out to Devil’s Island, she’d asked to tag along. Mitch had frowned at the idea of another passenger, but his mother had been excited to have another woman aboard. Scott had cast the tiebreaking vote. Though he hadn’t seen her since college, he’d always liked her easygoing personality and pretty face, and wasn’t about to turn her away, especially since he hadn’t been looking forward to spending the day with Mitch anyway. He’d told her to climb aboard. She hadn’t hesitated.

But now her voice faltered. “You booked him through the concessionaire, didn’t you?”

Scott stopped in his tracks. The road was getting steeper, which hampered their progress on the slippery path. He looked Abby full in the face as he admitted, “I don’t know. My mom and Mitch are planning to drive around the Great Lakes to see the fall colors. They got a room in Bayfield last night, and I drove up from Saint Paul this morning. By the time I arrived, they’d already booked the boat.”

“Did they mention—” Abby began, but Scott shook his head.

“They didn’t say anything about it.” At the look of trepidation that crossed her face, Scott wished he could tell her that Mitch would have done the right thing, but he really had no grounds for such assurances. In fact, in his experience, Mitch tended to get things wrong pretty consistently.

Abby seemed to understand. “If he wasn’t booked through the Park Service, no one else may have a record on him.” Her voice held steady as she explained the possibilities. “There are plenty of places he could go on this lake. He may not go back to Bayfield. He may not even be named Sal. In fact, it seems, just based on what we know of the situation, that the Captain didn’t just fall prey to temptation. He may have planned on pulling a stunt like this, and just got lucky that your mom was so willing to leave her jewelry on board.”

Her words articulated the vague fears Scott had felt ever since he’d seen the Helene speeding away from Devil’s Island. But he took one of Abby’s hands and squeezed it. “That’s all the more reason why we need to get to that radio and alert the authorities promptly. The sooner they get after him, the better chance they have of catching him.”

“Right.” Abby pasted on a smile for him, but he could still see the fear in her sapphire-blue eyes and hear the slight tremble in her voice. “Let’s get going, then.”

They had to pick their way up the slimy road, and it was slow going. Abby nearly wiped out twice, so Scott didn’t let go of her hand until they reached the keeper’s quarters. The sturdy old whitewash and brownstone house looked solid, almost impenetrable.

But Abby seemed to know just what to do. She dropped his hand and immediately began tipping back the large fieldstones that encircled the autumn remains of a flowerbed at the front of the house.

“What are we looking for?” Scott decided to interject a little humor. “A trapdoor?”

“No.” She gave him a chuckle that only sounded a little bit strained. Then she lifted another rock, plucked up a slender object from the earth, and announced triumphantly, “This.”

Abby wiped the key on her jeans and took the front stairs two at a time, explaining, “Seems that once, many years ago, some Park Service staff came out here and forgot their key, then had to turn around and go all the way back to headquarters. They lost a full day’s work. Ever since, there’ve been keys to just about everything hidden on each of the islands. You just have to know where to look.” With that, she slid the key into the modern brass dead bolt and gave it a turn.

“I’m so glad you came along today.” Scott bounded up the stairs after her and had to stop himself before he instinctively gave her a hug.

“Thank me after we’re rescued, okay?” She barely glanced around before heading through the tomblike chill of the old house to the back kitchen.

Scott spotted the radio communications box on the counter just as Abby reached it and began flipping switches, waiting impatiently and then scowling when she didn’t get a response.

“I don’t understand,” she muttered, flipping a toggle down and up again.

“I think I do.” Scott reached past her to the lifeless power cord. He held up the severed end for her to see. “It’s been cut.”

TWO

“Cut?” Abby looked from the cord to Scott in disbelief. “But tampering with Park Service equipment is illegal. Who would do such a thing?”

The line of Scott’s mouth was tense and white. “Perhaps the same person who would leave four people stranded on an island just so he could steal their jewelry and credit cards.”

“No.” Abby backed away, bracing herself against the counter for support. It didn’t add up. “No, it’s not worth it. I mean, I don’t know how much your mom’s jewelry is worth, or her credit cards, or—What did you say she drove?”

“An Escalade. Next year’s model.”

“Okay.” Abby nodded. “So that’s an expensive vehicle, but think about the risk. The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is a national park. That makes his crime a federal offense. And leaving the four of us here, with no way to communicate with the mainland, with no way to get back…” The reality of their situation came crashing down on her in waves, and she crumpled back against the cupboards. “The temperatures get down well below freezing at night. We don’t have any food, we don’t have proper clothing. This island has wolves, foxes, bears—all kinds of dangerous animals. The tourist season was over weeks ago. No one’s likely to come by here until after the spring thaw.” She felt her eyes widen with realization as she lifted her head to look at him. “We could die out here.”

“No.” Scott shook his head and reached for her, his hand warm on her shoulder. “We’ll get off the island. We’ll be back in Bayfield this afternoon.”

Abby wanted to believe him, but she knew the island too well. “How?”

She quickly saw that his words were empty hope.

“I don’t know, but there has to be a way.” He fingered the raw edge of the power cord. “Maybe we could splice this back together again.” He tipped the machine over and looked at the back. “I’m sure whoever cut the cord took the backup battery, too.”

“Wait.” Abby headed to the far wall. “I thought of this just before you showed me the cord.” She flipped the light switch into an upright position. Nothing happened. She flipped it back and forth a couple more times just to be sure, then headed to the refrigerator. The light didn’t come on when she opened the fridge. She checked the freezer anyway, and found two full ice trays, which she pulled out and showed to Scott.

“Look,” she said, staring down at the little rectangles of ice that floated in thawed puddles in each compartment. “This freezer had to have been running until recently. I wonder how long it would take the ice to thaw this much.”

“In this weather, maybe a couple of days, maybe less, who knows? Either way, it looks like Captain Sal went to a lot of trouble to make sure we wouldn’t be able to get that radio up and working.” Scott took the ice trays from her and put them back in the freezer. He was apparently optimistic about getting the power back on.

That thought would have been enough to make Abby smile if it weren’t for the cold dread she felt. She tried to shake the feeling. “Do you think it’s just a weird coincidence?” she posited. “Captain Sal would have had to know somebody wanted to come out to this island, and that he’d be able to steal enough from them to make it worth his trouble. What are the odds of that?”

“What if he had prior knowledge my parents were coming out?” Scott challenged.

As Abby looked into Scott’s face, his I-dare-you-to-deny-it expression made her wonder whose side he was on. But then his eyes crinkled into a smile and she dismissed her fear. “Would he have any way of knowing that?” she asked.

“Who knows? Mitch has always liked to run off at the mouth. He could have been blabbering about their plans all over town yesterday. Anyone could have overheard him and noticed how much jewelry my mom was wearing. I doubt it was some grand conspiracy.” He shrugged. “We don’t know why we’ve been left here. But it seems to me we’re going to have to do something if we want to get off this island.”

Abby agreed. “You’re right. And we need to get back to your folks and let them know what’s happening.”

“No, Abby, wait.” Scott’s hand caught her shoulder, pulling her gently back toward him.

She looked up into his eyes, and for a second, she was a lovestruck freshman again, sitting in a desk next to the coolest guy in school, all too aware of how close she was to him.

“Please don’t let on to my mother that anything is wrong. She’s been through some tough times lately, and I don’t think she can handle all the complexities of our current situation right now, at least not until we have a plan to get us out of here.”

The moment he spoke the words, Abby realized Scott was exactly right. She’d seen how shaken Marilyn had been earlier, and the situation hadn’t been nearly as frightening then. “I’m sorry.” She bowed her head penitently. “I should have thought of that. We don’t even know what we’re up against, and it’s not as though she’s in any position to help. We need to examine our options.”

“Right. What are our options?” He gave her a sheepish look. “You’re the expert here. I’ve never even been to this island before.”

Abby was tempted to ask why he’d come, but there wasn’t time for chitchat. “Well, as far as I can see.” She led him into the front room, where a huge mural of the islands covered one large wall. She reached up and put a finger on Devil’s Island, the farthest north of the twenty-two Apostle Islands. “We’ve got three main options. One, we can get off this island by ourselves. Two, we could be rescued, either by contacting someone on the outside, or if we get really lucky, drawing the attention of a passing boat.”

Scott looked impressed. “What are the chances we could draw the attention of a passing boat?”

Abby took a deep breath. “Have you seen any passing boats?”

“No.”

“There are shipping channels six and twelve miles north of here, where the big ore ships travel. But they can hardly see the island from there. I mean, we could write help in driftwood on the beach, but there’s no way they’d see it.”

“What about airplanes?”

“Ditto. The only thing likely to come close would be a small sightseeing plane, but they’re rare enough in the summer months. The tourist season is over for the winter, and most local pilots are just as wary as the boaters about going out this late in the season, anyway. Storms blow up quickly around here, often with very little warning, and getting caught in one out here tends to be deadly.”

“What about a signal fire?”

Abby had to smile at Scott’s creativity and persistence. “That would be a great idea, if it hadn’t rained last night. Most of the wood around here is probably too soaked to burn. Besides, people burn campfires out on these islands all the time. Unless the fire was enormous, most people would just think it was a campfire, if they could see the smoke at all.”

“So, you said we had three options. What was our third?”

Lowering her hand slowly from the map, Abby tried to remember. What had she been thinking? “Pray,” she said finally in a soft voice.

“I guess we should be doing that anyway.” Scott took both of her hands in his.

It took Abby a moment to grasp what he was doing.

By the time she’d realized he was serious, he’d closed his blue eyes and tipped his face up imploringly. “Dear Lord,” he began, and only then did Abby come to her senses enough to snap her eyes shut and pray with him.

“We’re in over our heads here, and we don’t understand what’s going on,” Scott continued in a confessional tone. “This is way more than we can even begin to deal with, but we trust that You are watching over us, and providing whatever we will need. We need Your help. We need You to protect us throughout this ordeal that’s before us, so we can live lives that are glorifying to You. In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

Abby kept her eyes shut a minute longer, her heart filled with wonder. In spite of the damp chill of the house, she felt oddly warm. She couldn’t recall when she’d last prayed with another person, unless she counted the corporate prayers at church. For her, praying had always been a private thing, so private she rarely prayed aloud. When her eyes popped open, she realized a stray tear had escaped down her cheek.

“I’m sorry.” Scott brushed it away with his thumb. “I guess I didn’t even ask you if that was okay. I seemed to recall from college days that you were a Christian.”

“Yes, I was. I am,” Abby assured him, clearing her throat to raise her voice above a whisper. “I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed with everything.” Like the ring in her pocket, and how Trevor would react if she didn’t get it back to him. She straightened and pulled her hands free of his, the contact too lasting, too intimate, especially after the prayer. “You’re used to praying with others, aren’t you?”

“I do it all the time in my job as a Christian counselor, usually at the beginning and end of each session, and sometimes right in the middle, too.”

“Ah.” Abby had known he was some kind of psychologist. The Christian kind, apparently.

“I usually make sure my clients are comfortable with prayer before we pray together. I suppose I forgot my standard protocol, perhaps due to the strange setting, or because you still seem so familiar to me, even after all these years.”

Abby felt herself blush. Scott remembered her. He remembered things about her. She found herself wishing they had more than just that morning to spend together before he went back to the Twin Cities. Then she remembered they were stuck on Devil’s Island, and if they didn’t figure out an escape plan soon, they might have far more time together than they’d planned on. But it wouldn’t be pleasant.

She pointed at the island on the map again. “Here we are,” she said, mostly to reorient herself. “The closest island is Rocky, two miles to the southeast. This time of year, both the wind and the waves tend to come from the west, so they’d be more or less in our favor if we headed that way, though we might have trouble keeping a southerly course.” Reciting the facts long-ingrained in her mind helped her keep her thoughts off the way being around Scott made her feel.

“Are we thinking of heading out across the water?”

“Well, if we can’t get someone to come to us, we’ve got to go to them.” She looked at him for just a moment, decided he was still too distractingly attractive, and turned her attention back to the map. “The other choice would be to go with the waves due east to North Twin Island, but that’s a good six miles or more. Depending on what we can round up for transportation, it might work in a pinch. Or we could end up there if we’re unable to stay far enough south to make it to Rocky Island.”

“But Devil’s is the farthest island north. If we drift farther north, we’ll miss landing anywhere.”

Abby swallowed back a lump of fear and stuck to the comfort of physical facts. “The north shore of Lake Superior is about thirty miles from here. If we were able to man a seaworthy craft, and if we weren’t intercepted by a vessel first, we’d end up there.”

“In Canada?”

“Yes.”

“What do you suppose are the odds of us coming up with a craft seaworthy enough to carry us all the way to Canada?”

“I can’t say until we look.”

Scott took a step closer, so close Abby could feel the warmth radiating off him as he stood behind her and reverently touched the mural on the wall. His fingers moved just below hers, to the goose-necked shape of Rocky Island. “So this is our goal, hmm. Rocky Island? And what happens if we make it there? We hope the power hasn’t been cut? We go island-hopping on to South Twin?”

Once again, the teasing-yet-practical tone of Scott’s words caused Abby to smile, in spite of the seriousness of the situation in which they found themselves. “Unless something’s changed recently, Rocky was always one of the few islands with a Park Ranger on duty year-round. There’s a house on the far east side, on the low-lying flats on the other side of the forest-covered bluffs.” She moved her hand to show which part of the island she was referring to, and brushed his fingers. “You can’t see Devil’s Island from that vantage point, so the Ranger’s not likely to see any messages we try to write on the beach, or even spot any fires we make.”

“But if we can get to the island,” Scott said, his hand nestled close to her fingers.

“He’ll be able to help us,” she finished for him, trying to ignore the way the close contact of his fingertips made her thoughts skitter like so many leaves in the wind. She tried not to think about how close behind her he stood, though she knew if she so much as leaned back she’d be in his arms.

“All right.” Scott’s voice broke the spell as he nodded his head with an air of certainty and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Now where are we going to find a seaworthy craft?”

Abby headed toward the door, retreating from the feelings she’d felt. “There are several outbuildings we can check. Who knows what might have been stashed out here over the years?” She fell back on words and action to keep herself from even considering what the emotions stirring in her heart might mean.

Abby locked the door behind them and returned the key to its hiding place before starting off toward the nearest outbuilding, a large shed not far from the house.

They couldn’t find a key to the shed. Abby even ran back to the keeper’s quarters and tried the key from under the rock, but the hole in the lock was too small. Finally she put her hands on her hips and stared at the building, trying to remember what had been inside when she’d worked on the island six years before. The insides of so many sheds and outbuildings ran together in her mind, and she couldn’t sort it out. Somewhere, though, she had a vague recollection of having seen, here and there, aging rowboats, old fiberglass dinghies and all manner of historical marine artifacts that had been kept around for educational displays for the tourists who visited the islands in the summer months.