from the island. “I don’t know,” he said. “With all this crap in the water, we’ll have to move slowly. Several hours, at least. Well after dark.”
They motored out of the bay and into the broad open water, and Mal headed the houseboat southwest.
Rose stood at the railing of the bow with Stephen and Anne,and they all looked toward the vast horizon spotted with islands destroyed in the storm, rising out of the lake like carbuncles festering in the afternoon sun. There was not a human thing in sight, and Rose recalled the words of the man who’d rented them the houseboat.
“Lake of the Woods is a place you can get well and truly lost if you’re not careful. You can go for days among all those islands and never see another soul.”
They would be careful, Rose knew. With the GPS, they would not get lost among the thousands of islands. And she prayed that there were at least two other souls they would yet see.
EIGHT
I t took Jenny three trips to bring all the materials—blanket, knapsack, and water jug—and carry the baby to the place she hoped would be sanctuary. She’d chosen a spot at the other end of the island, as far from the cabin as she could get. The baby, no longer starved but still exhausted, continued to sleep.
She spent an hour building a blind from all the waste of branches sheered off by the horrific wind. She constructed it around an uprooted pine on the far side of the rock outcropping that had protected her during the storm. The pine lay a fair distance from the wreckage of the boat, which she also tried to hide, and completely out of the line of sight from the cabin. She didn’t know if the girl’s killer or killers would be back, and she didn’t know if they would look the island over, but she didn’t want to take any chances. Against a firearm, she was almost powerless. When she finished, she created a little shelter in the lee of the fallen pine, whose roots were like a great claw spread toward the south. She wove a kind of roof of evergreen boughs overhead to provide shade from the sun. Finally, she spread boughs across the ground to give some softness there and overlaid them with the blanket she’d taken from the dead woman’s bunk. Inside this makeshift shelter, there was just room enough for her and the baby and the things she’d brought.
She understood that most of this she was able to do becauseof her father. Even before she could walk, he’d taken her camping in the great woods north of Aurora, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Growing up, she’d learned how to survive. In her office in Iowa City, these skills had seemed distant and useless. Now she was grateful.
But Iowa City had given her other skills that were important at the moment. During all her years of college, because her scholarships didn’t completely cover her costs, she’d worked in the nursery of a day-care center at the university.
Her father had once told her that life was always preparing you for what lay around some corner in the future; smart people paid attention. She hoped that she was smart enough, because God only knew what lay around the curve just ahead.
By the time Jenny had done all she could, the sun was low in the sky. She sat, very tired, and watched the sleeping child. Neglect was sometimes the inevitable result of teen pregnancy, she knew, but this child had obviously been loved and well cared for. She wondered how anyone could do the things someone had done to the child’s mother. It could have been cruelty, pure and simple. The sad reality was that some men fed on that. Or, she considered, it could have been that they wanted something from her she wouldn’t or couldn’t give them.
“Like what?” she asked aloud.
Even to begin to speculate on that one she would probably have to go back to the cabin and have a really good look around. And she had no intention of doing so.
The evergreen boughs cast a shadow over the baby, but not completely. There were places
They motored out of the bay and into the broad open water, and Mal headed the houseboat southwest.
Rose stood at the railing of the bow with Stephen and Anne,and they all looked toward the vast horizon spotted with islands destroyed in the storm, rising out of the lake like carbuncles festering in the afternoon sun. There was not a human thing in sight, and Rose recalled the words of the man who’d rented them the houseboat.
“Lake of the Woods is a place you can get well and truly lost if you’re not careful. You can go for days among all those islands and never see another soul.”
They would be careful, Rose knew. With the GPS, they would not get lost among the thousands of islands. And she prayed that there were at least two other souls they would yet see.
EIGHT
I t took Jenny three trips to bring all the materials—blanket, knapsack, and water jug—and carry the baby to the place she hoped would be sanctuary. She’d chosen a spot at the other end of the island, as far from the cabin as she could get. The baby, no longer starved but still exhausted, continued to sleep.
She spent an hour building a blind from all the waste of branches sheered off by the horrific wind. She constructed it around an uprooted pine on the far side of the rock outcropping that had protected her during the storm. The pine lay a fair distance from the wreckage of the boat, which she also tried to hide, and completely out of the line of sight from the cabin. She didn’t know if the girl’s killer or killers would be back, and she didn’t know if they would look the island over, but she didn’t want to take any chances. Against a firearm, she was almost powerless. When she finished, she created a little shelter in the lee of the fallen pine, whose roots were like a great claw spread toward the south. She wove a kind of roof of evergreen boughs overhead to provide shade from the sun. Finally, she spread boughs across the ground to give some softness there and overlaid them with the blanket she’d taken from the dead woman’s bunk. Inside this makeshift shelter, there was just room enough for her and the baby and the things she’d brought.
She understood that most of this she was able to do becauseof her father. Even before she could walk, he’d taken her camping in the great woods north of Aurora, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Growing up, she’d learned how to survive. In her office in Iowa City, these skills had seemed distant and useless. Now she was grateful.
But Iowa City had given her other skills that were important at the moment. During all her years of college, because her scholarships didn’t completely cover her costs, she’d worked in the nursery of a day-care center at the university.
Her father had once told her that life was always preparing you for what lay around some corner in the future; smart people paid attention. She hoped that she was smart enough, because God only knew what lay around the curve just ahead.
By the time Jenny had done all she could, the sun was low in the sky. She sat, very tired, and watched the sleeping child. Neglect was sometimes the inevitable result of teen pregnancy, she knew, but this child had obviously been loved and well cared for. She wondered how anyone could do the things someone had done to the child’s mother. It could have been cruelty, pure and simple. The sad reality was that some men fed on that. Or, she considered, it could have been that they wanted something from her she wouldn’t or couldn’t give them.
“Like what?” she asked aloud.
Even to begin to speculate on that one she would probably have to go back to the cabin and have a really good look around. And she had no intention of doing so.
The evergreen boughs cast a shadow over the baby, but not completely. There were places
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