Maggie K. Black - Silent Hunter

“No.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. George would’ve. But the only other person on-site now is Trevor, and he probably won’t realize there’s something wrong until sometime tomorrow. Have you ever met him?”

“Trevor?” Luke turned his face toward the sheet of rain. “Years ago.”

“Well, Trevor’s just kicking around for a few weeks, trying to scrounge up enough to go traveling again. He’s the kind of guy who hates the idea of being tied down to anything.” She frowned. “I can’t imagine him keeping the place after George is gone.”

Luke nodded slowly. “Is it possible that he had something to do with all this?”

“Trevor? No!” First Neil, now Trevor? Was he still beating the bushes for random suspects? “Look, Trevor knows he’s going to inherit this whole place—mainland and island—from George one day. As Trevor likes to keep reminding us, the camp may be struggling, but the land is worth a lot. He keeps pushing his dad to invest in things that push the property value up. Setting dangerous fires that could’ve destroyed the forest and allowing scary trespassers who could randomly attack strangers are exactly the kinds of thing that do the opposite of that. Now, if George and Trevor had any enemies who wanted to both see the camp fail and the land become unsellable, that would be different.”

“Like someone at Ace Sports?”

They were back to suspecting Neil again? She rolled her eyes. This was the problem with random theories. Suddenly everyone was a suspect, whether it was logical or not.

Luke pulled his raincoat off and spread it on the ground. His shirt was so wet it almost looked as though someone had painted it across his chest. He rolled up his sleeves and undid the top buttons of his shirt.

She tried not to stare at how the firelight danced along his skin. Her eyes slowly traced the snakelike scar cutting into his skin. She jumped to her feet. “I don’t believe it. You even lied to me about your scar.”

“I did what?” His face was blank.

She leaned forward and pointed at the puckered white line that gashed across his perfect golden chest. “You told me that you’d been bitten by a dog, and I believed you, just like I believed every other lie. But I’ve seen enough camp injuries over the years to distinguish one kind of scar from another.” Her fingers brushed the edge of his shirt. “That’s a burn.”

* * *

He winced as he watched the sting of betrayal fill her eyes. Well, of course he’d told her that. He’d been both too immature and frightened back then to even consider telling her the truth. Moments such as this made it hard to forgive himself for the man he used to be .

“Looks like you were just incapable of telling the truth about anything. How ironic you became a journalist.”

He leaped to his feet. “Nicky, wait—”

“The lightning has stopped, and we’ve got a boat to find.”

“Please. Let me explain.” He reached for her hand.

She pulled away. “What could you possibly say now that would make any of this okay? I cherished my happy memories of you. Don’t you get that? Even though you’d left. Even though you’d hurt me, I could still look back and know that just once in my life I had a short, perfect, summer romance with an incredible guy. Something real and true, that nothing else ever compared with since.

“I told the story of you to so many heartbroken teenagers who needed to know that they’d get over their first breakup, too. But now you’ve just turned up and trashed every good memory I had. You’ve erased any good feelings I was able to have looking back. Part of me almost wishes you’d just left me with my happy memories, whether they were true or not.” She turned to the rain. “Yes, I do forgive you. I’ll be professional about this weekend and I get that right now we’re in this mess together. But as far as the past is concerned, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Fine. Then just look.” He pulled his shirt open, feeling the buttons pop one by one. Then he slowly peeled his arm out of the sleeve. She gasped as her gaze traced the labyrinth of burn scars running down his chest and shoulders.

“What happened?” Her voice brushed softly through the dark air. The cave walls seemed to shrink around them.

“Boiling water. My mom said she spilled it by accident, but I don’t really know. I was pretty little at the time, and my mom spent most of my childhood drunk. So it’s hard to know what to believe.”

Her fingers slid through his. “I’m sorry. How did your dad—?”

“Never met him. Which was a good thing.” His voice sounded gruff. She was so close now he could almost feel her untamed hair brushing against his jaw. Had he pulled her toward him without realizing it? Or was she the one who’d drawn closer to him?

“Look, I’m genuinely sorry that I hurt you. I wish I could turn back time and undo every lie I ever told. When you met me I was nothing but a runaway teen with a criminal record for shoplifting and petty theft, hiding out in an abandoned cabin. Definitely not a camp counselor, let alone at Ace Sports.” The back of his fingers touched her cheek. “You listened to me, Nicky. You prayed for me. You were the first decent, kind person I’d ever met in my life. I repaid you with lies, and I didn’t have a clue how to love you. Not like how you loved me. But leaving you was the kindest thing I could’ve done, and I don’t regret it.”

She stepped back. A light flickered in the woods. Then a bright flashlight beam swung across her face, just long enough for Luke to see the deep pain echoing in her eyes.

“Hello? Nicky?” The voice was male, young and uncertain. “You out here?”

“Trevor? Yeah! Yeah, we’re here!” She glanced back toward Luke. Then she ran out into the storm.

FIVE

The Friday morning sun beat down against the surface of the lake. Luke stood on the hill on the edge of Ace Sports’ property. He watched as a lithe, dark-haired figure in jeans and a plaid shirt arranged canoes down the beach, their bows jutting out into the water. He sighed and pulled out his cellphone. Thankfully, he was still in range to use Ace Sports’ Wi-Fi signal.

Nicky had barely said two words to him last night after Trevor had rescued them. To anyone else it would’ve probably looked as though she was just relieved George’s son had taken the initiative to come looking for her and was in a hurry to file a police report about the stolen boat. Not to mention exhausted. But even through her relief, he’d seen just how tightly she’d pressed her lips together and how she hadn’t once looked his way. Well, he was sorry if he’d destroyed her fantasy of what they’d once had, but the truth was leaving her then had been the right thing to do.

His phone began to ring. It was Jack Brooks, Torchlight ’s most tenacious crime reporter and a solid friend. “Hey! How goes the book tour? As glamorous as they say?”

“Sure.” Jack laughed. “If your idea of glamor is drinking coffee in a highway hotel while your fiancée’s half a country away planning your wedding. Got your voice mail. I thought you were in a forest this weekend?”

Cars were pulling into Camp Spirit’s parking lot. Luke watched as Nicky left the beach and strode up to greet them. “I am. Arrived yesterday. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Luke quickly filled his colleague in on both the fire and what had happened on the island.

Jack whistled. “So obviously you think there’s a connection between the fire and this hunter guy?”

Relief spread over Luke’s shoulders. It felt good to hear someone else say it! This is exactly why he knew he’d been right to call a fellow reporter. “Yeah, I do. But the police don’t and Nicky doesn’t. I don’t even know for sure the man I saw running away from the lodge is the same man who jumped us on the island. Honestly, I was half expecting you to tell me I was crazy.”