Lost & Found (21 page)

Rocky spent the next week practicing at the boathouse. By Friday afternoon she was deep into the rhythm of releasing the breath and the arrow when she heard a screech of metal against the door just as she plucked a round of arrows out of the target. Her first thought was that a tree had fallen. Had she been so engrossed with her archery practice that she hadn’t noticed the wind? She went to the door and pulled on the handle, trying to slide open the massive door. The door held fast. It had never stuck before. The door had been stubborn, had wobbled in the groove, but never stuck. She worked at it, heaved her body against the cold metal. The door was huge, large enough to let in fat sailboats that were hibernating for the winter. There was little chance that her body was going to unstick the door. The last rays of daylight entered through the windows on the loft where kayaks were stacked. She climbed the ladder to the loft and peered out the window. There was no sight of anyone.

This was the hour of homecoming, a time to have a hot drink, have a beer, come in from the cold time of day. Cooper was with Tess. Rocky had dropped him off with her in the
afternoon. Tess had looked a bit drawn and discolored. Rocky had said, “You look like you’re sick. Do you have the bug that’s going around? Melissa tells me half the school has it. Are you sure it’s okay to leave Cooper with you?”

Tess kept one hand on her belly and said, “Must have been something I ate, an out-of-season crab cake. Cooper will keep me company while I nap on the couch.”

So Tess was in no shape to come looking for her. Rocky would have to find a way out. The window in the loft was a crank window, but it only opened about four inches. She would not be able to get her head or her butt through. She went back down and searched for something to pry open the window a few more inches.

The building was remarkably devoid of anything but boats. She climbed the ladder again and found a kayak paddle and separated it into two halves and placed the fat end against the bottom edge of the window and pushed. She felt the window open one more inch. Encouraged, she pushed harder. The paddle slipped and met the glass full force before she could say breaking and entering, which is the first thought that ran through her, accompanied by the tinkle of glass.

“Jesus Christ!” she shouted as she stumbled forward with the momentum of the paddle.

Maybe this was breaking and exiting. But this time she could express remorse immediately; as soon as she got home she would call the boat guy and tell him exactly what happened and promise to pay for the replacement window. This was a chance for a re-do, a chance for complete honesty. She closed the windowless frame and stuck her head out to see how far down she’d have to jump. She had jumped this far before, back when she was in high school sneaking out of
her girlfriend’s house to meet boys. This second story looked much higher and less rewarding.

Rocky cleared the glass out of the sill with her boot, put on her leather gloves, and hung on to the window frame facing the building, edging her legs out the building. She dropped and crunched down on the broken glass. She felt nothing pierce her boots and she brushed the edges of them against a nearby tree, hoping to dislodge any glass fragments that might have hopped on.

Now she could take a look at the door around the front. She rounded the corner and stopped with icy awareness. Someone had wedged a two-by-four against the door, effectively locking it in place. The board was wedged so tightly that she finally had to kick it out with her foot. She ran inside and grabbed her equipment, tossing her arrows into the quiver. Slinging the bow over her arm with its bag dangling from her hand, she jogged to the truck.

It was Peter, she was sure of it. He’d come back after months of silence. If she’d had any doubts, when she opened her truck door, she saw a pile of neatly sawn arrow pieces stacked in a row on her dash. Rocky felt like the top of her head had opened, and the icy Atlantic water had filled her spine, grabbed her intestines and held them in a frozen fist.

How long had it taken her to get out of the building? Night was closing in, but the sky was clear and she could still easily see the outline of the nearby dock and leafless bushes.

He was bold, and somehow he knew everything. He knew where she was and he knew that she’d gone to Liz’s house in Orono and talked to the carpenter remodeling the house. She should have listened to Hill; Peter was not going to go away without Cooper.

She had spent about thirty minutes getting out of the boathouse. That meant Peter had a thirty minute lead on her. He must think that he had plenty of time to go get Cooper. He had been waiting for the perfect time and he had taken his obsession to the next level. The dangerousness of his actions registered deep in her abdomen.

Thankfully, Cooper was with Tess at her house. Rocky got in the truck and slammed the door. She did not take the time to struggle with the old seat belt. She fishtailed out of the gravel drive and headed to Tess’s house. Once she got there she’d call Isaiah and let him know that Peter was on the island and that he had tried to trap her in the boathouse. He’d never make it off the island; they’d stop him at the ferry.

In five minutes Rocky was in front of Tess’s house where the faded prayer flags snapped in the wind. She jumped out and even before she got to the door, she saw the piece of paper attached to a clip. It said, “Rocky, I’m taking the big guy to your house. Feeling sick, heading to Portland.”

Rocky felt the steady click, click, click of bad-luck dominoes falling over and she desperately needed to stop the fall. If Tess was already gone and had left the dog, then Rocky might be too late.

She got back in the truck and drove the two miles to her house. She passed one teenage boy on a bike, dressed completely in black and she almost hit him. She rolled down the window and shouted, “Get a light!” She passed Melissa’s house and a warm, yellow light spilled from the windows. She wished that the dog warden’s truck had a siren or a flashing light. No, she didn’t want Peter to know that it was her. She pulled the truck as close to the house as she ever had, challenging the recent thaw and fresh mud.

She was out of the truck before it completely stopped. She heard Cooper barking in the house. He was still there, the dominoes could stop falling. But his bark was different. Rocky had only heard him bark like this one other time, with this explosive, split-open-the-sky sound.

“Cooper, Cooper, it’s me,” she said as soon as her feet hit the deck. She pushed open the door. Cooper stopped barking long enough to greet her, but he was clearly alarmed. His black ruff was raised along his back and he turned his head as if he heard a sound on the ocean side of the house. He boiled up a growl that raised the fine hairs on Rocky’s arms.

What was the other sound? Rocky turned, followed the soft noise, and pushed open the bathroom door with the tip of her shoe. Cooper faced the kitchen windows, pulling his lips up, revealing the full danger of his teeth.

Rocky saw the small boots first, the legs folded on the floor, then she saw Tess’s body heaved against the bathtub.

“Tess!”

She put her hand on Tess and the woman immediately stirred.

“Something’s wrong,” Tess whispered. “My stomach…I can’t stand up, can’t walk.” She squeezed out the words as if the effort would kill her.

Rocky knelt on the linoleum floor and put one hand under the stricken woman. “I’m going to pull up, Tess, and get you out of the bathroom.” An odd part of her brain demanded to change the variables, change the location of Tess, to fight off death and disaster. As soon as she put an arm around Tess’s ribs, the woman shrieked, and Rocky knew a hot orange bolt of pain shot through the older woman. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but you are not dying in the bathroom. We’re going to get
you out of here. I’ll call Isaiah and he’ll get the water ambulance.” She dragged Tess to the hardwood floor in front of the couch.

Rocky punched in Isaiah’s number. Her hands shook. The dog barked.

“Cooper, stop. I won’t be able to hear.”

After six rings, the answering machine came on and Rocky said, “Tess is sick and needs to get to the hospital in Portland. I’m calling nine-one-one right now.”

She hoped that the volunteer squad was home. “We need the water ambulance immediately. Isaiah’s rental house.” She hung up without offering details. She had seen the small fire truck go out on other calls. It was affectionately known as the Tonka Truck. Now, she prayed to see it drive up. She wanted to be ready for Peter if he tried to get in.

More than anything she wanted a weapon, and despite the dog’s unrelenting barking, she slipped out the front door, did not turn on the outside light, and pulled her bow and arrows from the truck. She left the terror of the unseen behind; this was not the terror of going into a basement at night or having a car go dead in a dim parking garage. This fear was about Tess and the dog and losing what she had left. She wanted to see Peter, and she was convinced that he was there in the darkness. She wanted to run over him and flatten him like a can. The adrenaline reservoir poured out and flooded her body. Rocky slipped back in the house.

Cooper had barked so hard that foam pooled at the corners of his black mouth and his body exploded with electricity. He emitted a musky scent and his challenge of attack filled the house.

Rocky grabbed her bow and notched an arrow. She held
the bow in her left hand with the arrow pointing to the floor. The dog stopped barking for a moment and she watched him. He tilted his head to one side and listened with heightened awareness. He turned his head slowly from the ocean side of the house to the front side. He growled again and faced the door. Headlights bounced into the windows.

“Take it easy, must be the fire crew. We’re going to get Tess out of here.” Rocky turned her head to yell back into the house. “Tess, they’re here!”

She pulled aside the curtains of the front door and saw a familiar outline of a man. And there were no flashing lights. It was Hill, getting out of his truck. She immediately felt a twinge of relief. At the same moment Cooper went ballistic. Hill had parked at the far side of the drive fifty yards from the house. The dog threw himself at the door, claws digging at the wood, leaving jagged streams of exposed wood. Yes, it was Hill. She recognized the outline of his thick hair, his coat. What was he doing here?

“Down boy, it’s a friend,” she said.

She opened the door a few inches with her right hand, blocking the opening with her body so Cooper couldn’t get out. Then she grabbed him by the collar and opened the door the rest of the way. The bow in her other hand clattered awkwardly against the doorframe as she stepped onto the deck.

Hill stopped when he saw Rocky and the dog. And at the same moment Rocky realized that Cooper had never seen Hill before. So why was the dog acting like this? Then the torrent of facts hit her. Hill was the one who knew everything because she had told him. He knew about the dog being saved, about the house in Orono, about Cooper staying so
often with Tess, about her friend Isaiah, oh God, Isaiah, he hadn’t answered his phone.

“Stop! Stay there or I’ll let him go,” she shouted. Cooper strained against her like a bull.

Hill took another step and said, “Rocky, get inside, don’t let the dog go!”

She didn’t have time to pause. If he got closer, and if he had a weapon, neither of them could take him down. Everything was at stake. She had to do it quickly. She turned off all extraneous power routes in her body and nothing was left except the path from her brain to her arms, connected with a fiber optic line to her eyes. In one elongated moment she let the dog loose with her right hand, pulled the bow up with her left and pulled back with her right. She saw Hill jog to the right and her eye followed him like a missile. Breath exhaled and released. Hill dropped to the ground with a howl.

Cooper spent one moment barking on the deck, then burst off the planks. He was nearly even with Hill when the man fell to the ground. But the dog didn’t stop. His muscled body lowered several inches as he ran. Rocky had seen other dogs run like this when they were in competition, either with themselves or with other dogs. They streamlined themselves, like jaguars or leopards in the final moments of running down prey. But Hill wasn’t the prey. Cooper ran past Hill as if he were a tree stump and ran straight through the thicket of brush.

Rocky leapt off the deck, bow in hand, and came closer to Hill, keeping her legs flexed, not getting close enough to him that he could reach her. Hill lay in the dim light that ribboned out from the house. An arrow was embedded in his thigh and he grabbed his leg with both hands.

“Peter is out there,” he said with a grimaced face. “Get the hell in the house. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. I found where he’s been watching you.”

Rocky turned and looked at the place where Cooper had entered the brush. She still heard him.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Cooper!”

She knew what she had to do. She took one step closer to Hill. “I was wrong. I’m sorry and I do know what I’m dealing with. You’re not going to die.” She reached into Hill’s truck and saw what she prayed was there, his quiver of arrows. Thank God this man traveled with arrows. She hooked the bag around her left shoulder and ran into the brush, following the sound of the dog.

The darkness in the trail hummed with Cooper’s scent. Rocky reached for the primitive part of her brain that operated on smell. She ran as if she could see in the tangle of dark and branches. Her lungs opened wide with the call of urgency from her legs to pound faster.

Two high shrieks, and a dog’s scream cracked open the blackness. Then silence. Peter had hurt Cooper! He might have killed him. The sound came from the part of the trail closer to the ocean. Rocky stopped, notched an arrow, and let her body lead the way to the last sound that Cooper made. She no longer thundered through the brush; now she walked with soft steps, right hand on the string, arrow pulled halfway back, crouching, deadly. The wind was above her, unable to dip down into the dense tangle. She would not have to contend with the wind when she took her shot. There was nothing else but her heightened senses; she was no longer woman, but eyes, ears, nose…hunter. A dark coil of hair fell across her eye and she flicked her head to move it.