Stuart Woods - Dark Harbor

“That’s it,” Stone said. “At least we’re sure of which way she went.” He looked down the road. “South.”

They got into the car and drove back to the house.

“Any luck?” Sergeant Young asked as they came into the study.

“Holly ran south, then on a straight stretch. She got put into a car, so we’re at a dead end. But at least we know she ran south. Should we concentrate the search there?”

“In a car, she could have been taken anywhere,” Young pointed out.

“She could have been taken off the island in a boat, too,” Dino said.

“None of the others was taken off the island,” Stone reminded him. “I think this guy will stick to his pattern.”

“I need a drink,” Dino said, heading for the wet bar. “Anybody else?”

Stone looked at the group. “Everybody else.”

“I still don’t have the after-midnight thermal scan,” Lance said.

Dino came back with drinks on a tray. “How’s Ginny doing with the diary?”

“She’ll let us know when she gets somewhere,” Ham said.

They sipped their drinks quietly.

“At least we know the guy’s got a boat,” Stone said. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have dropped the safe in the water trying to get it out of here.”

Sergeant Young, who was staring into his drink but not drinking it, spoke up. “Just about everybody on the island has a boat.”

“Yeah,” Stone said, racking his brain for some other thought that might help.

Ginny came down the stairs with the diary and some sheets of paper. Everybody stood up as she walked toward the desk.

“What have you got, Hon?” Ham asked.

“Are you people drinking?” she asked. “Why am I not drinking?”

“Dino, get the girl some bourbon,” Ham said, looking over her shoulder as she spread out her papers.

“What I’m doing here is working backward through the thing, drying pages one at a time, then trying to read the handwriting. It’s gorgeous handwriting, but the ink has run from being wet, and that makes it slow going, but I’m copying out everything I can get and numbering the pages to correspond with the diary.”

“What is she saying?” Stone asked.

“Well, it’s mostly high school girl stuff,” she said. “The last entry is the day before the family got to Islesboro. She mentions that they have to make the five o’clock ferry the next day.”

“Is there any other mention of Islesboro or Dark Harbor in the days before they arrived?”

“She’s looking forward to going, she says, and right here, she mentions that and says ”“… especially with X and Y neutralized.”“

“Any idea what that can mean?” Stone asked.

“There’s a Z mentioned, too.”

“Are these people male or female?”

“Z seems to be female, but I can’t tell about X and Y. These could be friends of hers at school.”

“But what does she mean by ”neutralized‘?“

“I don’t know. ”Made harmless,“ maybe?”

“How do you make somebody harmless?”

“Take away their weapons; take away their freedom of action?”

“How far back have you gotten?”

“January,” Ginny said. “It’s slow going,”.

“She’s glad to be going back to Islesboro, now that X and Y are neutralized,” Stone said. “X and Y must be on Islesboro, too.”

“Z, too,” Ginny pointed out. “She says that Z will be relieved, too.”

“So, both Esme and Z would have been anxious about returning to Islesboro for the summer, if X and Y hadn’t been neutralized?”

“That could fit what she’s saying.”

“Does she give any hint about why they have to be neutralized?”

“Not so far.”

“Go back further in the diary, Ginny. Go back to last summer, say the month of August.”

“That part of the diary is in very poor condition,” Ginny said, “but I’ll try.” She grabbed her drink from Dino and went back upstairs.

“Dinner will be ready soon,” Stone called after her. “We’ll let you know.” He sank back into a chair.

A bell chimed in the little office, and Lance got to his feet. “Something coming in,” he said. “Maybe the new thermal scan.” He went into the office. A moment later he came out with some sheets of paper.

“What is it?” Stone asked.

“It’s a report from one of our people who used to be a Boston cop. You remember, we checked to see if Caleb Stone had a criminal record? His boys, too.”

“Yes, and they were all clean. The report from the New Haven police and the Yale campus cops had the boys clean there.”

“Well, this isn’t much,” Lance said, “but the boys had a juvenile record.”

“For what?”

“Don’t know; the records are sealed.”

“Can your man get at them?”

Lance got up and walked back toward the office. “I’ll ask him to try.”

Stone got up and followed him. “There’s something else I’d like to know from New Haven.”

HOLLY CAME SLOWLY out of sleep, but being awake wasn’t much different. She wondered if he was giving her something to make her sleep; she seemed to be doing an awful lot of it. Not that she had anything else to do.

He was giving her precious little sensory input. He came in four or five times a day, she thought. He emptied her, fed her another candy bar and gave her water. Maybe something in the water? She certainly had not felt wide awake since the first day. How many days was it? Two? Three? Four? She couldn’t tell. The tape over her eyes kept her from knowing whether it was day or night, and the ear plugs muffled most sound.

He didn’t seem interested in sex; he hadn’t touched her in any way, except to pull her clothing down for the bedpan. He hadn’t found her gun, either, since the sweatshirt covered it, even when she was using the bedpan. If she could just get a hand free. She tried again, but it only hurt worse. Her wrists felt bruised and chafed from trying to get loose.

Why would he keep her, hour after hour, day after day? What use would he make of her? If he wanted her dead, she’d already be dead; if he wanted sex, she’d have already been raped. It didn’t make any sense at all. She yawned and dozed off again.

LANCE CAME OUT OF Dick’s little office with a sheet of paper. “The FBI has come to life,” he said. “They’ve given us a profile, done by their experts.”

Sergeant Young, who had seemed almost asleep, came to life. “I want to hear this.”

“He’s between twenty-five and forty,” Lance read, “lives with his mother, is employed as a skilled laborer or as a white-collar worker with considerable responsibility. His father is dead or was divorced from his mother when he was a child. He’s uncomfortable around women, especially those who dress in an overtly sexual manner. People who know him think of him as quiet and pleasant. He’s not married, nor does he have a regular sex life.”

“The dress code doesn’t sound like any of our victims,” Young said, “except Janey Harris, who wore the kind of clothes teenaged girls wear these days: you know, bare bellies almost to the crotch, tight T-shirts, that sort of thing. It certainly doesn’t fit the two housewives.”

“It doesn’t fit Holly, either,” Stone said. “Any more of the profile?”

Lance shook his head. “They make the usual disclaimers about the accuracy of the profile, and they say they need more to go on.”

“I wish to God we could give it to them,” Sergeant Young said.

They all sat quietly for a few minutes.

“Anybody want to go for a boat ride?” Stone asked.

“What?” Dino said.

“I’m going to take the picnic boat and circumnavigate the island, while there’s still plenty of daylight.”