“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.”