Megan's Island

  Her voice broke, and for a few seconds she and Sandy clung together.

  “We’d never want to leave you, Mom,” he said, sounding gruff with emotion.

  Mrs. Collier managed a teary smile, speaking over the top of his head. “Can you try to understand, Megan? I thought I was protecting you. And now Daniel’s detective has caught up with us. Though he doesn’t know we’re here right this minute, does he? We could still follow through on my plan, go to a new town, take the new job, and hope he doesn’t find us again. . . .”

  “Karo,” Grandpa Davis said gently. “All Daniel has said is that he wants to talk to you. According to this Mr. Picard, he doesn’t want to take the kids away from you, he only wants to see them. Wants to make them part of his life. You can’t blame him too much for that. You’ve proved that you can take care of the kids, that you’re a good mother. Even his money can’t argue against that. He probably couldn’t get custody of Megan and Sandy now if he did take the matter to court, and he’s sworn he won’t do that.”

  “And you think I should talk to him.” Mrs. Collier sounded subdued.

  Grandpa hesitated. “Yes, since you’ve asked me, that’s what I think. In the meantime, until you decide, we’ll just pretend the kids aren’t here, if Picard comes back. So where’s the risk? Daniel isn’t going to give up looking, if you disappear again, so you’d eventually have to go through all of this another time. And think how it would feel to stop running and hiding.”

  Ben, who had listened to all this without speaking, suddenly moved from where he was leaning against the post at the top of the steps. “Uh, I guess I better go on home and see if Dad found my note. I’ll see you later, guys.”

  Megan leaped up, too. “I’ll walk partway with you,” she offered. She didn’t want to sit there any longer and hear more things that would frighten her, make her heart ache. She didn’t want to look at her mother’s face.

  Megan bounded down the steps, not looking back, and Ben trotted at her side. Neither of them said anything until they were on the beach, heading toward his house.

  “I almost wish I didn’t know the truth about my father,” Megan blurted. “Who’s going to like me, if they know?” She couldn’t even think of him as Daddy anymore; he was a stranger, a horrid stranger who had done terrible things.

  “Kids aren’t going to dislike you because of your father,” Ben said halfheartedly. And then, when she flashed him an angry glare, he shrugged and admitted, “Well, maybe some of them will. They’re the stupid ones, though. The ones worth having as friends will like you for yourself.”

  “Kids can be cruel,” Megan said. “They make fun of people who are different—someone who limps, or has to wear glasses, or can’t talk plain. Or someone whose mother is fat, or whose father is in prison.”

  Ben jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looking at the sand rather than at her. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Some kids are real jerks. But they aren’t the ones you’d want to be friends with anyway. I wouldn’t stop being friends with somebody because their dad’s a bank robber.” He considered that, before adding, “Maybe my mother would. I mean, she might not want me to associate with a bank robber’s kids. But I’d do it anyhow.”

  “You’re different,” Megan said, and knew it was true, and that she didn’t resent Ben any more. He’d already proved he was a friend.

  Ben laughed, though not in a way that suggested he really thought it was funny. “You’re right there. I’ve been kicked out of three schools because I’m different. My stepfather can’t stand me, my mom thinks I’m a nuisance, and my dad’s too busy to notice me except when I do something that makes him mad. Listen, just because you know about your dad now doesn’t mean you have to have a bumper sticker made about it or wear a sign on your forehead. Just say he’s dead, that’s the truth, and let it go at that.”

  Megan supposed he was right. Ben was usually right, or thought he was. He knew how to solve everybody’s problems—except, she suddenly realized, his own.

  Megan made a small, strangled sound. Her mom did care about her, for all that she’d kept so many things secret, and so did Grandpa Davis . . . and maybe this new grandfather would, too, though he’d been so mean before that she didn’t know if she believed that. “I guess I’ll live,” she said finally.

  “Yeah. Me, too,” Ben said. “Listen, we don’t have to go back to the island to hide, so why don’t we go swimming after a while? After you get through talking to your mom and everything.”

  “Sure,” Megan said. She didn’t really feel like doing anything, but sitting around thinking wasn’t going to make things any better.

  “Well, there you are, Ben. I wondered if I’d ever see you again.”

  They had walked right up on Mr. Jamison without Megan noticing. He was sitting on the beach, and the Irish setter lay panting beside him.

  He was a very good looking man, Megan thought, for a moment remembering the image she’d had of her own father, of the kind of man she’d thought him to be. Mr. Jamison looked nice, too.

  “This must be Megan,” Ben’s father said, getting to his feet and brushing sand off his slacks. “Is there something going on I don’t know about?”

  Ben looked at Megan. “Well, yeah. I guess. I’ll tell you later. I’m going to have something to eat, and then after a while we’re going swimming.”

  “Good. I’ve got a pot roast cooking for supper, be ready pretty quick now. You want to stay for supper, Megan?” Mr. Jamison invited, smiling.

  Ben was astonished. “How come you’re cooking? How come I can have company for supper?”

  “Because I finished my book, and now I can be a human being until I start the next one. Oh, I still have to do the revision, but that’s the easiest part. No doubt Megan has heard that I’m the Jamison dragon, breathing smoke and fire. Don’t believe it, Megan. I only do that when I’m working hard to meet a deadline, and the younger dragon in the family is inconsiderate about the demands he makes on me. Like wanting meals on time, cooked meals. Anybody who’s twelve should be able to shift for himself in that department, shouldn’t he?”

  Megan didn’t know what to say. Mr. Jamison didn’t seem disagreeable. “Thank you, but I have to go home. My mom’s here, and I don’t know how long she’ll stay. We have sort of a . . . a crisis, I guess, right now.”

  Mr. Jamison nodded. “I know all about crises. If I don’t have one of my own, my son creates one for me. We thrive on crises, don’t we, Ben?”

  He rested one hand on Ben’s shoulder. Ben’s face had lighted up, which made him look quite different from the way he usually did.

  “Does this mean I can talk to you tonight?”

  “You can talk,” his father agreed. “We’ll see you again, Megan.”

  She walked home thoughtfully. She hoped Ben and his father worked it out, that maybe Ben could stay with him and go to school instead of having to return to Duluth and the stepfather who didn’t like him and the mother who thought he was a nuisance. Knowing about Mr. Jamison only from Ben’s viewpoint had made her not like the man very well, but he’d seemed okay just now. It made her suddenly wonder if her view of her mother was distorted, too. She felt peculiar and uneasy about that.

  She plodded slowly home over the sandy beach. She didn’t want to really talk to her mother again until her own emotions were sorted out.

  When they were getting ready for bed that night, Megan stood stiffly as Mrs. Collier hugged her.

  “You haven’t forgiven me, have you?” her mom asked quietly.

  “I don’t know. I guess you did what you thought was right,” Megan responded. “I’m just all mixed up. Everything I believed about Daddy—about my father—wasn’t true. I’m not even the person I thought I was.”

  “Honey, your name doesn’t make you a different person. You’re still you.”

  “I don’t feel like me,” Megan said sadly.

  This time when her mother’s arms came around her, however, she accepted the hug, though she didn’
t hug back.

  Later, lying in the bed while her mother slept beside her, Megan watched the shadows move across the window as the moon rose over the lake. She heard the loons with their mournful cries, and something else.

  Suddenly she was wide awake, heart racing.

  A car coming in off the main road?

  Swiftly Megan slid out of bed, making her way by moonlight through the house, sliding back the bolt so she could open the kitchen door onto the side porch.

  Yes, there was a car, a car that sounded as if it needed a tune-up, because it rattled and spluttered as the ignition was turned off, not far away.

  Not Mr. Jamison. His sleek black Porsche hummed like a contented cat. Mom’s car, and Grandpa’s, stood in the yard, so it wasn’t one of theirs.

  Who, then?

  She jumped when Wolf pressed his wet nose into her hand. “Shh!” she told him, listening intently. Why would anyone come so near and not go on to either of the places on this road where anyone was living?

  She heard nothing more. No voices. Though she stood for some time in the doorway, no one appeared in the clearing in the moonlight. After a while Megan closed and relocked the door and went back to bed. She heard Wolf’s toenails clicking on the linoleum-covered floor as he returned to Sandy’s room.

  He hadn’t barked. She thought he’d have barked if anyone had come close to the house.

  It wasn’t until she had crawled in beside her mother that the thought struck her.

  Grandpa had talked to the detective from Illinois, but what about the two men in the blue car with Minnesota plates? They had come while no one was home, had snooped around trying doors and looking in windows, and driven away again. Where did they fit into the picture? Surely the man named Daniel Kauffman hadn’t sent two sets of detectives to find them.

  Who were they, then? Why had they come, and would they be back? Were they in that car that had stopped out there in the darkness and not yet driven away?

  Megan did not fall asleep for what seemed a long time, and she never did hear the car leave.

  In the morning she told everybody about the car.

  Her mother looked rested, more relaxed, this morning. She put an arm around Megan and hugged her.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, honey. Chances are you just heard someone parking in what they thought was a private place, to talk, maybe. Or a young couple, courting.”

  “But what about the two men? They acted just like the detective. They didn’t know we were watching them from the island, and they tried the doors and looked in the windows.”

  “Looking for something to steal, maybe,” Grandpa said. “I don’t suppose they saw much worth breaking in for in this place. Here, who wants the first pancake?”

  They weren’t taking it seriously, Megan thought. Maybe they were right.

  Yet her uneasiness remained.

  Chapter Eighteen

  During breakfast Mom told them about the new job, which she thought she was really going to like. She told them about the town where they’d be going to live, too, though she didn’t give them the name of it, only a description.

  “It’s on Lake Michigan. The apartment I looked at didn’t work out, so I’m going to try to find a house that’s within walking distance of the water, so you can go to the beach,” she said as she began to clear the table.

  Sandy sat up straighter. “A house? Mom, if we get a house instead of an apartment, can we keep Wolf? Can we take him with us?”

  Megan thought of how the dog had crouched with her in the woods when she watched the detective, and how he had come to her side last night when she’d been frightened by the sounds of that car.

  “He’s a nice dog,” she said, and earned Sandy’s grateful look. “And he eats everything.”

  Her mother gave a rueful laugh. “That’s what I’m afraid of. He’s a big dog, and he’ll eat a lot. Buying dog food might mean more tuna casseroles instead of more hamburgers.”

  Wolf seemed to know he was under discussion. He thumped his tail, watching closely as the plates were scraped into his dish.

  “I don’t know, Sandy. We’ll have to wait and see. If we have a place in town, it would have to have a fenced yard. I don’t believe in letting dogs run loose where they can get into traffic and maybe be hit.”

  Sandy hesitated, then decided to let it rest. He brought up another subject that Megan, too, had been wondering about. “Am I going to be called Andrew Kauffman now, instead of Sandy Collier?”

  “No. We’ve gone by our names for a long time, and I’ve even had them legally changed. I didn’t do it for several years, because I was afraid that court records would just give us away to Daniel Kauffman, if his detectives came across them. Now that he’s almost caught up with us anyway, I can’t keep changing them. So we are who we are, Sandy.”

  Megan couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. “Are you going to call our other grandfather?”

  Her mother hesitated, glanced at Grandpa Davis, and sighed. “I woke up early this morning, thinking about it. Yes, I’ll call him, though not from a place where he can trace me. I’m not sure I trust him, no matter what he says. But maybe he’s right. He’s lost his son, he admits he made some mistakes raising Danny, and he figures you kids are his last chance to do something right. Wasn’t that the message, Dad? I hope you aren’t mistaken in thinking he couldn’t take the kids away from me now that I’ve proved I can take care of them.”

  She swiped at the counter with a dishrag, then rinsed it and hung it up. “I think I’d better head on back to . . . well, head on back. I’ll call Daniel, but I want to be here when he comes to see the kids, if we agree to do that. Just have a good time here with Grandpa until we get around to it, okay?”

  “Mom.” Megan sounded husky. “If we aren’t going to be hiding any more, can I write to Annie? Tell her what’s been happening?”

  Mrs. Collier’s hesitation was brief. “Sure. Why not? I felt awful about Annie, Megan. Really I did. I hope she understands. You can blame me, and maybe she will.”

  “Could . . . could I still invite her to come here to the lake, the way we planned? Ben says there’s a bus that comes through Lakewood; she could come on the bus.”

  “If her mother says it’s all right. I’ll call her, too, when I’m sure about Daniel, as sure as I can be. Now, help me put my stuff in the car, and everybody kiss me good-bye.”

  It was quiet after her mother had gone. Sandy and Wolf went for a run down the beach, toward the Jamison cabin, so they’d probably come back with Ben, Megan thought.

  She didn’t follow them, however. She had a different idea in mind.

  Grandpa had vanished inside the house. Megan walked quickly at first, slowing to examine the sides of the road before she got to the mailboxes.

  How close had the car come last night? Where had it stopped?

  It was easy to see. There were tire marks in the soft earth beside the hard-packed roadway, though she couldn’t actually make out the tread design.

  There was something else that was interesting.

  There were footprints.

  Megan stared at them—quite clear indentations in a spot of moist earth that was free of grass or twigs.

  Someone had gotten out of the car and walked toward the cottage, leaving the car behind.

  The others had almost convinced her, earlier this morning, that whoever came in the car was harmless, not interested in the inhabitants of the cottage. Now her pulse quickened as Megan followed the footprints.

  It wasn’t easy, because they didn’t show on the road itself. But occasionally there was a print to one side of the well-traveled area, and after she’d gone about twenty yards, she realized there were two sets.

  Both were man-sized. One had smooth soles; the other had waffle treads like those on running shoes.

  Two men. The same number as had come in the blue car. What had two men been doing here in the middle of the night, when everyone at the cottage was asleep?

  Where Gran
dpa Davis’s driveway turned off the road, she lost the prints entirely because there was grass and patchy dry sand.

  She thought about telling Grandpa, then decided he would only think her foolish. It was the detective they had been afraid of, and that matter was taken care of now. After her mother talked to Daniel Kauffman, either they would meet their grandfather, or they would not, but Megan hoped they wouldn’t keep running anymore.

  Ben and Sandy were putting a couple of boxes into the boat when Megan approached them.

  “What’s going on? What are you hauling out there now?”

  “I’m going to stay overnight again on the island, and Sandy’s going until suppertime,” Ben said. “We’ve got so much stuff out there, we might as well use it up. Besides, it’s more fun than sleeping in a bed at home. You want to go out for the day, too?”

  “I don’t know if I should or not,” Megan mused. She told them about the mysterious car. “What if they come back? What if they aren’t harmless?”

  Ben shrugged. “Your grandpa’s home, so they won’t break in and steal anything. Come on. I brought hamburgers to grill.”

  “Okay,” Megan decided. “Are we taking Wolf, or not?”

  “Let’s not,” Ben said. “He takes up too much room.”

  The big dog had already leaped into the boat. After a brief scuffle, Sandy panted, “Let’s let him come, even if it’s crowded. I can’t get him out unless I throw him overboard, and then he’d probably swim after us.”

  “It’d serve him right if he drowned,” Ben said, but he shoved off and climbed in the boat without insisting Wolf stay behind. Megan thought maybe his tough talk was mostly to cover up what he was really thinking. She was beginning to understand that sometimes, when you hurt a lot, you don’t feel like being nice to other people.

  They had a good time on the island. They swam off the little cove, cooked their hamburgers at noon, built some more shelves to hold books and the rest of the supplies, and swam again in the afternoon.