spent nothing beyond her outlay on building materials, fuel, groceries, and taxes. Still, the CDs dwindled.
Pothunting had been a golden opportunity. Selling heirlooms from Joyeuse and from other islands her family had once owned had saved Joyeuse, pure and simple. She gave not a second thought to the fact that digging on islands that weren’t precisely hers was legally unwise, particularly when some of them belonged to the federal government. The CDs continued to dwindle, but so far she’d staved off the end.
The sunlight faded, forcing her to quit digging for the day without uncovering the first salable find. The tree shadows reached for her like the specter of bankruptcy, but tonight there were other specters on the prowl.
Two days before, two young people alone on an island had met their end. And what were she and Joe? Two young—sort of young—people alone on an island. Was she a fool to stay? There was no way to know unless someone discovered why Sam and Krista were killed.
If the killer was motivated by theft, she felt fairly safe. She owned nothing worth stealing. The field survey had called attention to itself as a possible source of fenceable electronics in a way that Joyeuse did not.
Or maybe Magda was right. Maybe her black-eyed suspect Nguyen, or another antiquities poacher like him, had been rebuffed by Sam and Krista in his campaign to find someone who would sell him artifacts. This thought made her squeamish on several levels. She owned nothing that might attract an ordinary thief to Joyeuse, but an artifact poacher might find her home interesting enough to visit.
An uglier thought presented itself. If he had chosen to corrupt Faye, rather than Sam and Krista, she would have caved easily. No, she wouldn’t have stolen from Magda’s dig, but she would happily have sold him anything she dug up on her own. If he’d only approached her first, she’d have had a new customer and her more honorable friends would be alive.
Ugliest of all was the thought that there could be another pothunter in these waters, someone who didn’t shrink from murder—someone who might not be pleased to learn that somebody else was harvesting these islands. Denial reared its self-protective head and said, Don’t be paranoid. There’s a simpler answer and, when faced with a choice between a fancy answer and a simple answer, take the simple one. It’s most likely to be true.
The simplest answer was, in a word, drugs. Gossip among some of the field crew said that this wasn’t the first time Sam and Krista had run afoul of a drug supplier. Other crew members denied it, saying that the two kids were straight arrows who wouldn’t recognize a controlled substance if it jumped up and bit them.
Faye found both positions extreme. She knew Sam and Krista and she wouldn’t have doubted that either of them were occasional pot smokers, but they were too serious about their studies, too gung-ho in their work ethic, to muddy their minds with any regularity. She couldn’t see them being so deeply involved in the drug culture that someone would boat out to Seagreen Island, stalk them, and kill them.
But the thought was so seductive. Blame the victims. If they had attracted their killer to them, then now he was gone. She was safe. Joe was safe. At least they were safe until the tax collector took Joyeuse and left them both homeless.
The battery-powered lantern shed a more-than-acceptable reading light, and the fact that it was still shining at midnight was a fair measure of Faye’s fascination with the journal in her hands. Faye wasted nothing: not batteries, not kerosene or gasoline or food. She had lived close to the economic edge for a long, long time. Sooner or later, she was bound to fall off but, when it happened, it would be through an act of God or through the malice of another human being. It would not be because she had failed to eke every bit of value out of everything she had.
Faye had yet to figure out who William
Pothunting had been a golden opportunity. Selling heirlooms from Joyeuse and from other islands her family had once owned had saved Joyeuse, pure and simple. She gave not a second thought to the fact that digging on islands that weren’t precisely hers was legally unwise, particularly when some of them belonged to the federal government. The CDs continued to dwindle, but so far she’d staved off the end.
The sunlight faded, forcing her to quit digging for the day without uncovering the first salable find. The tree shadows reached for her like the specter of bankruptcy, but tonight there were other specters on the prowl.
Two days before, two young people alone on an island had met their end. And what were she and Joe? Two young—sort of young—people alone on an island. Was she a fool to stay? There was no way to know unless someone discovered why Sam and Krista were killed.
If the killer was motivated by theft, she felt fairly safe. She owned nothing worth stealing. The field survey had called attention to itself as a possible source of fenceable electronics in a way that Joyeuse did not.
Or maybe Magda was right. Maybe her black-eyed suspect Nguyen, or another antiquities poacher like him, had been rebuffed by Sam and Krista in his campaign to find someone who would sell him artifacts. This thought made her squeamish on several levels. She owned nothing that might attract an ordinary thief to Joyeuse, but an artifact poacher might find her home interesting enough to visit.
An uglier thought presented itself. If he had chosen to corrupt Faye, rather than Sam and Krista, she would have caved easily. No, she wouldn’t have stolen from Magda’s dig, but she would happily have sold him anything she dug up on her own. If he’d only approached her first, she’d have had a new customer and her more honorable friends would be alive.
Ugliest of all was the thought that there could be another pothunter in these waters, someone who didn’t shrink from murder—someone who might not be pleased to learn that somebody else was harvesting these islands. Denial reared its self-protective head and said, Don’t be paranoid. There’s a simpler answer and, when faced with a choice between a fancy answer and a simple answer, take the simple one. It’s most likely to be true.
The simplest answer was, in a word, drugs. Gossip among some of the field crew said that this wasn’t the first time Sam and Krista had run afoul of a drug supplier. Other crew members denied it, saying that the two kids were straight arrows who wouldn’t recognize a controlled substance if it jumped up and bit them.
Faye found both positions extreme. She knew Sam and Krista and she wouldn’t have doubted that either of them were occasional pot smokers, but they were too serious about their studies, too gung-ho in their work ethic, to muddy their minds with any regularity. She couldn’t see them being so deeply involved in the drug culture that someone would boat out to Seagreen Island, stalk them, and kill them.
But the thought was so seductive. Blame the victims. If they had attracted their killer to them, then now he was gone. She was safe. Joe was safe. At least they were safe until the tax collector took Joyeuse and left them both homeless.
The battery-powered lantern shed a more-than-acceptable reading light, and the fact that it was still shining at midnight was a fair measure of Faye’s fascination with the journal in her hands. Faye wasted nothing: not batteries, not kerosene or gasoline or food. She had lived close to the economic edge for a long, long time. Sooner or later, she was bound to fall off but, when it happened, it would be through an act of God or through the malice of another human being. It would not be because she had failed to eke every bit of value out of everything she had.
Faye had yet to figure out who William
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