Stormy Cove (23 page)

“For the meal or her pretty smile?”

“Take care she doesn’t feed you to the sharks!”

“Who’s afraid of sharks? It’s women you’ve got to be afraid of, man!”

“Sharks only eat mainlanders, not Newfies. Newfies are too tough, eh?”

“Where did you get that from, boy, that’s—”

“Quiet! You guys hear that?”

They sat motionless, listening. They didn’t have to wait long. An extraordinary sound arose, soft at first, then more and more penetrating. The scream hit them like a thunderbolt. A mournful, ear-piercing howl and whine. Like a terrified animal that can only emit distorted sounds. The wailing receded, then blared like a siren until it became unbearable.

Nobody on the boat said a word. No funny remarks broke the spell the unearthly whining cast. Now it sounded like a begging, heartrending moan that crescendoed into an alarming howl.

Then a sudden quiet.

There they sat, glued to their buckets. Lori was aghast as she looked into the men’s now haggard faces. Before she could open her mouth, Archie stood up.

“That’s enough. We’ve still got nets to pull in.”

He went to the wheelhouse and started up the engine.

Ezz, who was staring at the island in a trance, said to Lori, “He wants to move on because he thinks this will bring us bad luck.”

“What will?” she gasped. “What
was
that?”

“The demons,” Coburn told her.

“What demons?”

“Who knows?”

Now they all talked loudly and all at once.

“It’s the dead baby of that French princess they marooned out here.”

“The island’s bewitched.”

“They say she had a baby, and it died, and its ghost haunts the island.”

“And her lover’s ghost, and her maid’s.”

Lori’s hands trembled. She was choked with fear.

“Has anybody seen a ghost out there? Has anybody ever looked? Maybe it’s a wounded animal.”

Ezz’s laugh sounded forced.

“You can try. Maybe you’ll find something. But nobody’s going to go with you, eh, Cob?”

Coburn shook his head.

“Folks have been hearing that howl for a good long time. Father heard it a lot and Grandfather, too.”

“Practically every fisherman has. I heard it once a few years ago at night, when it’s even creepier. We couldn’t sleep, remember, Bill?”

“Mmm. Wouldn’t have thought I’d ever hear it again. And in the middle of the day too. Wouldn’t be surprised if . . .”

Bill didn’t finish his sentence because Archie returned, glowering. She very much wanted to ask Bill what he wouldn’t have been surprised by, but her instincts told her he wouldn’t give her an answer as long as Archie was around.

After that, the taciturn men pulled in net after net, but didn’t bring up the subject again, making it all the more sinister.

When the familiar houses of Stormy Cove appeared, Lori’s stomach was still tense. She saw the
Mighty Breeze
some distance away, bobbing up and down. But she was still under the spell of the howling demons, the blood-curdling wailing and howls ringing in her ears. Even when she spied Reanna strolling around the wharf, she hardly felt a twinge. She couldn’t see Noah anywhere; maybe he was busy with his boat.

Coburn helped her off the boat, and she took pictures of Archie and his crew unloading the fish. But it didn’t take long for Reanna to find her target. Lori first tried looking away and ignoring her. But that blond shock of hair was ever present no matter where she pointed her camera.

Don’t get worked up. Summer’s just beginning.
She’d have lots of opportunities later to get shots of fishermen unloading their boats.

Suddenly Noah appeared, walking heavily in his rubber clothing and boots on his way to Archie’s boat, where Bill was piling up crates.

“Well, how was it?” Lori asked him. “Big catch?”

“Not bad,” Noah answered. “Two thousand pounds. But the engine gave us problems at first. We had to come back and fix it.”

He gave Lori a searching look, his baseball cap shading his eyes.

“How’d it go with Archie?”

“Amazing, actually,” she replied. “We saw humpbacks that jumped really high. And a shark in the net. A mackerel shark. We cut him free and he swam away.”

She refrained from mentioning the Isle of Demons because Archie joined them, satisfaction written all over his face.

“We’ll take her out again. She brought us luck.”

Not a word about the ghosts.

She gave him a slight, joshing shove.

“Other people want me to bring them luck, too.”

“You owe me a case of beer,” Noah said, “because I gave her to you.”

“The shark didn’t eat her,” Bill joked. “She must be a Newfie.”

Without any warning, Reanna was at her side. Her nasal voice interrupted them.

“Actually, Lori is half foreigner, right, Lori?”

Before Lori could compose herself, Bill said, “Well, everything’s foreign for people like us—Ottawa, Halifax, Calgary, Vancouver . . .”

“For sure Quebec,” Noah chimed in.

The men laughed.

But Reanna didn’t leave it alone.

“I’ve heard your mom’s German. Do you go to Germany very often?”

Lori felt her anger mounting, but she controlled herself.

“My mother’s Canadian, Reanna, but she has relatives in Germany,” she replied as calmly as possible, given the situation.

“Is it true she’s a defense lawyer? Who has she defended?”

Lori counterattacked.

“What about you, are you from Ottawa? Or Trifton? Or Timmins? Or neither? We’ve heard all sorts of different things.”

Reanna merely shrugged and trained her lens on Bill and Archie. Noah was watching her intently, as Lori noticed out of the corner of her eye. Reanna prattled on without paying any attention to him.

“You don’t look like guys who are afraid of sharks, am I right?”

Bill gave an embarrassed laugh, but Archie didn’t sound at all amused when he said, “Only an idiot isn’t afraid of anything.”

To Lori’s surprise, he winked at her before leaving.

Bill and Noah went back to work, leaving the two women by themselves on the jetty.

Lori weighed the idea of asking Reanna why in the world she knew so much about her mother. But she desperately didn’t want to get sucked into another conversation, and so she shot some more pictures while the fishermen unloaded the boat and containers of fish disappeared into the buyer’s truck. What she wanted most of all was for Reanna to vanish with the fish and the truck, but the reporter was still hanging out on the wharf when Lori said good-bye to the fishermen.

Lori could see Reanna in the car’s rearview mirror, loitering around the boats. What game was this kid playing?

I should have pushed her into the water, camera and all. The men would have had a tough time saving her since they can’t swim.

The thought amused her for a moment until resentment gained the upper hand once more. She drove up the hill far too fast.

The sky above the hills was so bright that it almost blinded her. It crossed her mind that tomorrow was the longest day of the year, and then the nights would grow imperceptibly longer.

Little Molly came running over as Lori was getting out of the car. A pink blur on the bright green grass.

“You got a big package,” she shouted breathlessly. “Can I watch you open it up?”

“Where is it?”

Molly took her hand.

“Come on, I’ll show you. Mommy put it inside.”

She went in with Lori. And, sure enough, a large carton was sitting on the chest freezer in the basement. Lori looked at the sender’s name: her mother.

“OK, let me take my jacket off first, then we’ll open it.”

Molly scrunched up her nose.

“You stink like fish—eeew!”

“What? Oh, you squeamish little mouse! You’re in a fishing village, Molly! Everything smells like fish here.”

“But you usually smell different—a lot better. I want the perfume you got.”

Molly ran ahead of her as she lugged the heavy package upstairs and pushed it onto the kitchen table.

She cut through the layers of tape with a kitchen knife and had just opened the box when the phone rang.

“You can start unpacking,” she said to Molly and ran into the living room.

“I’m in luck—got you on the first try,” Mona Blackwood said by way of a greeting.

“You can say that again. I’m just back from fishing.”

“What are they going after now?”

“Cod. But we saw whales, too—and a live shark caught in the nets.”

She peeked at Molly, who was setting two small paper bags down on the table—Lori’s favorite coffee.

“Sounds exciting. I’m convinced it’ll be a terrific book. I don’t want to keep you long—I imagine you’re dying for a hot shower. When are you going to the dig?”

“The archaeologist wants to take me this week, but I told him only if you agree.”

“Go right ahead, no problem. Can we use the pictures in our book?”

“Yes, but if I understood him correctly, he’s hoping to offer them to international magazines first.”

The line went silent for several seconds, and Lori thought she might have overtaxed her employer’s good will. But then Mona said, “As long as we have some pictures that are exclusive and not published anywhere else beforehand—I can live with that.”

“I’m sure that’s possible. I’ll pass it on to Lloyd Weston first thing.”

Molly was checking out a package of German baked goods with great curiosity.

“Lloyd Weston’s leading the dig?”

“Yes, do you know him?”

“No, not personally, that is . . . just by name. Is that reporter from the
Cape Lone Courier
still causing you problems?” Her question came out of the blue.

“Well, today . . . she was on another boat, luckily. But she kept getting in the way while they were unloading it.” Lori laughed to disguise her frustration. “It’s really mind-boggling that, of all the fishing villages up here, she just
had
to pick Stormy Cove.” She shook her head, though Mona couldn’t see her. “And now lo and behold! She wants to make a book out of it. That’s—bizarre.”

“What’s her name anyway, and where’s she from?”

“Reanna Sholler. I don’t know exactly where she’s from because she tells some people Trifton, Ontario, and others Timmins, like Shania Twain, and some that she’s from Ottawa. Maybe she doesn’t want anybody to find out much about her.”

“Really odd, as you said. I understand why you’re not happy about it. I’d feel the same way if I were in your shoes . . .”

“Plus, she’s obviously been sniffing around behind my back. She learned that my mother’s a defense lawyer and has relatives in Germany. And she wanted to find out at all costs where the dig is so she could come with us.”

Molly held something up triumphantly in her little hands.
A
rmani
soap! Lori’s mother had dug deep in her wallet.

“That’s very annoying.” Mona’s voice turned steely. “You don’t have to put up with that. I’ll think about it. Maybe I’ll come up with something.”

Lori was surprised that Mona had taken such an interest in her situation. After all, it wasn’t her problem; Lori was old enough to take care of herself. But it helped to talk it over. And she was also pleased with the compliment that followed.

“Keep doing what you’re doing, Lori. I think your photographs are outstanding. I’m eager to see what you’ll come across next.”

What I’ll come across next.

Of course, she was on a mysterious mission. Mona was subtly reminding her.

But Molly distracted her by pressing the Armani soap to her nose.

“Mmm, that smells so good!”

After hanging up with Mona, Lori’s focus was on the treasure trove scattered over the table, which reminded her of the care packages her mother used to send her at summer camp: Italian salami, various sauces in bags, goat cheese, sheep cheese, spices from India, a lemon press, two wooden ladles (Lori had told her she couldn’t find any in Stormy Cove), American magazines, including
Newsweek
and
The New Yorker
, the mascara Lori swore by, cookies—and the Armani soap Molly didn’t want to give back. Lori had to think fast.

“You know what? That’s a present from my mom, but I’ll let you have some so we can both wash with it. Isn’t that a great idea?”

Molly looked at her.

“But you only got one.”

“Let’s cut it in half,” Lori replied, picking up the knife she’d used on the package.

She cut off a big slice of soap, making a mess all over the table.
Giorgio Armani’s hair would have stood on end,
she thought, handing the piece of soap to a beaming Molly.

“I’ll wrap it up so you can show it to your mom,” Lori said. “I have to make a phone call.”

Molly took the hint and stood up. She pulled out a candy from her pants pocket.

“That’s a present from me,” she announced magnanimously. “The lady gave it to me.”

“She was delivering the mail?”

“No, the lady who came here today.”

“Who was that? I wasn’t here all day.”

“Don’t know. She left.”

Somebody coming to visit? She would ask Patience; she’d know for sure.

Molly slammed the door in her rush to get home and show off her prize.

A hot cup of tea—at last! And a salami sandwich with sheep cheese.

She went to the computer after her meal and sent Andrew a long e-mail, regaling him with tales of the whales and the shark and the spooky Isle of Demons. He was very much into ghost stories and would love it.

Then a short note to let her mother know her marvelous package had arrived and that she’d call soon.

She was browsing through her in-box when an e-mail from her mother came in, sent from her B
lackBerry.

“Did you see the article I put in there?”

What article?

Lori checked the shipping box again and discovered a crumpled envelope at the bottom.

She opened it and thought at first it was something from her mother’s library of legal journals. But then she realized it was written by an archaeologist, a woman. Lisa Finning had highlighted a passage with a Magic Marker.