Megan swallowed, almost hating him for having said it, yet knowing it was true, that somehow she’d given away the place Mom had hidden them. To keep them safe, that was what she’d said: They’d be safe here.
She wanted to cry, but with Ben watching her she was determined not to. “I’ll tell Grandpa, as soon as he comes home,” she said.
She hoped that wouldn’t be too late.
Chapter Eleven
Wolf was in and out of the boat several times while they were loading it in front of the log cabin. He left wet footprints on everything, shook himself dry over their supplies, and generally made a nuisance of himself in his eagerness to be as close to his new friends and benefactors as possible.
Ben grew impatient. “He’s making a mess of my blankets. Make him get out, Sandy, before he eats any more of that cheese. He already got the bologna. There isn’t room for him in the boat, anyway, if we take this last box.”
Reluctantly, Sandy ordered the dog out of the boat, and the others climbed in and pushed off for the trip to the island. Wolf, however, was very unhappy to be left behind.
He ran along the shore, barking and whining. When Sandy ordered him to stay, and then to sit, Wolf ignored the commands, simply driven to further frenzy by the sound of the boy’s voice.
“We’ll bring him on the next trip,” Ben offered, but then he muttered a curse under his breath.
“What’s the matter?” Megan swiveled all the way around so she could see, and there was Wolf, striking out after them, swimming.
“We gotta go back,” Sandy said after a moment. “He can’t swim all that distance. He’ll drown.”
“He can probably swim it,” Ben said, though since he didn’t sound completely confident of that, Sandy was not reassured.
“What if he doesn’t? We can’t haul him into the boat out here, even if we wait for him. We have to go back, Ben.”
Ben scowled. “And do what? Is somebody going to stay on shore with him? We still don’t have room for him!”
“Well, maybe Megan could stay with him, unless she’d rather unload the boat and haul the supplies up to the tree house,” Sandy suggested. “There’s a lot of heavy stuff, though, this trip.”
Megan stared back, swallowing hard, watching the dog’s dark head as he came toward them, seeing the empty beach behind him. There was no one at home, either at the Jamisons’ or Grandpa’s. She’d never thought of herself as a scaredy-cat, but she was afraid now of being left behind by the boys.
Still, it was clear that that fool dog was going to drown trying to keep up with them unless someone stayed with him. And if she didn’t do it, it would have to be Sandy.
She swallowed again. “Okay. Put it into shore in front of our place. I’ll stay. Only come and get us as soon as you’ve unloaded, all right?”
Ben obligingly lifted one oar out of the water and pulled deeply with the other to turn the boat. Wolf immediately turned to follow the new course, and he was in the shallow water by the time Megan jumped out and waded ashore. He shook all over her, ecstatic that someone had returned to keep him company.
“Come on, stupid,” she told him. “We might as well go out and see if the mailman’s come yet. There might be a letter from Mom.”
Anything, she thought, was better than sitting and waiting for the boys to come back for her.
Wolf was perfectly happy now that he hadn’t been abandoned. He frolicked around her, licking her hands when he got close enough, his tongue lolling out. He looked silly, this huge beast acting as if he were a puppy, but Megan couldn’t quite be amused.
She got annoyed with Ben and his know-it-all ways, but in this case she had to admit, at least to herself, that he was right. She hadn’t thought out the business of letting Annie know where she was. If the stranger thought they were here, it could be because of that letter to Annie.
The reason her mom hadn’t let her call and tell Annie where they were going, Megan realized belatedly, was that she wanted to prevent just this kind of thing from happening. If no one knew where they were, no one could tell anyone else who came snooping around. And Mom had known there would probably be someone asking questions.
If only she would come home! If only she would explain!
She walked through the silent woods, along the dirt road that led out to the paved main road. It was warm and peaceful; small birds twittered in the surrounding trees, and it should have been a pleasant walk. Yet Megan couldn’t forget that something frightening was going on, and that she was all by herself.
Wolf took off after a squirrel, barking ferociously, then returned panting when the small creature scurried up a tree out of reach.
How easily the squirrel had escaped an enemy! It wasn’t so easy for people, especially when they didn’t even know who the enemy was, or why they were an enemy.
She heard a car coming along the main road. Megan stopped, staring through the remaining trees, every nerve tightening as the approaching car slowed down.
It was white, with a wine-red roof. She could see it clearly through the fringe of birches between two towering pines. And it was stopping at the row of mailboxes.
She felt as if the blood grew thick in her veins, as if she were suddenly unable to breathe, or move. Wolf was now pursuing a tiny yellow butterfly, with no more success than he’d had catching the squirrel. Megan didn’t look after him; she was watching the car.
The driver was a man, though she couldn’t make out what he looked like, only that he wore a pale blue shirt. He turned and glanced back over his shoulder as he began to back the car down the road.
To turn around, or to drive on this road that led around the edge of the lake?
Megan took several quick steps off the dirt road and dropped to her stomach amidst the ferns as soon as the driver of the white car nosed his vehicle onto the side road.
She lay flat, her cheek pressed against a few twigs atop the mossy ground. Her heart was making so much noise she scarcely heard the car engine until it had passed her. Then she lifted her head enough to peer cautiously over a fallen log.
The car headed toward the lake, then swung to the left, out of her sight. Where was it going? As far as she knew, there was no one living on this road except the Jamisons and Grandpa Davis. Which did he want? Neither of them had names on their mailboxes, because they were only renters for the summer.
When the sound of the motor died away, Megan dared to get to her feet. Wolf came galloping up, nudging her with a wet nose.
“If you give me away, I’m going to wish I’d let you drown,” she told him in a stern whisper. “Come on, and be quiet. I want to know where he went.”
She walked quickly, all senses heightened by the apprehension that had washed over her the moment the car came into view. Maybe it was only someone wanting to look at the rental cottages farther up the lake. Or someone for Mr. Jamison. Please, please, she prayed, let it not be the stranger.
The dog seemed to sense that something was wrong. He whined and licked her hand, and she brushed her fingertips lightly over the big head.
“Be quiet,” she told him, and hoped he’d mind her better than he had when they’d tried to leave him on the beach.
The car had driven into Grandpa’s yard.
Megan stood well back in the trees, seeing that the man had gotten out and walked up onto the porch to knock. His back was toward her, but she dropped low anyway, in case he turned around.
He wore navy slacks with the light blue shirt. He had dark hair, and a gold watch glinted on his wrist where the sun struck it.
On her knees, Megan crept forward until she could see the Illinois license plate on the car. She had nothing to write with; could she memorize the number?
Miraculously, Wolf was behaving. He, too, had dropped to his belly, and when she carefully parted a clump of ferns to move closer still to the stranger’s car, Wolf moved with her.
The man on the porch knocked once more, then swore audibly and came down the steps again. For a few secon
ds he seemed to be staring directly at her. Megan’s breathing stopped until she realized that looking from bright sunlight into the shadows must have kept him from seeing her. She was thankful she’d worn an old brown shirt today; almost anything else would have stood out from the surrounding forest.
The man walked toward his car, hesitated, then went on toward the lake. He paused to look down at the sand, and Megan knew what there was to see. Footprints, and the marks where the boat had been drawn up above the water.
He studied them for a few minutes, while Megan crouched with one restraining hand on Wolf’s massive head to keep him quiet. She was glad of his warm presence, and she wondered if he would try to protect her if the man discovered her.
She was near enough now to see that the license was not from a government agency; she knew they had special plates. It wasn’t a police car. Besides, if it had been a policeman asking about redheaded kids, either back home or here in Lakewood, he would have identified himself, the way they always did on TV.
The man turned again, facing her, and once more Megan froze. He was younger than Grandpa, maybe the age of Annie’s father, she thought. He had thick black eyebrows and a wide mouth that twisted in what appeared to be annoyance.
For what must have been ten minutes, Megan hid in the woods, low on the ground, watching the man prowl around Grandpa’s cottage. He tried the door, which was locked during the daytime for the first time since they’d been there; that was because Grandpa would be away all day, and the kids had intended to be out on the island. If the intruder had known it, the key was hidden under the top layer of rocks in a tin can at the edge of the porch.
Megan didn’t know if eleven-year-old kids ever had heart attacks, but her chest really hurt when she kept holding her breath. What if she’d left Sandy here with the dog, instead of staying herself? Would Sandy have had the sense to stay out of sight, or would he have barged over and asked who the man was?
That had been Ben’s idea: find the man and ask him what he wanted. Ben had a big mouth. She wondered if he’d be brave enough to do it, himself, if he were the one involved.
Now the stranger was peering in the kitchen windows. After a moment, he went on around the porch, where he was probably looking in the living-room windows.
Though there was nothing inside that Megan knew of that could incriminate them, there were signs of the rooms being occupied. Had she and Sandy left anything in plain sight that would indicate they were redheaded, and kids? She couldn’t remember. She could only wait. The man came back around the corner on the porch, his hands jammed into his pants pockets, frowning. He tried the door again, and when he hesitated Megan wondered desperately if he were going to break in. He would certainly be able to tell, if he did, that there were two kids living there, as well as Grandpa.
And then something happened that made her literally break out in a cold sweat.
As he started down the steps, his foot struck the can of rocks that served both as a doorstop when they wanted to prop the screen open to carry in groceries, and as a repository for the key.
The can was on the edge of the porch. It went over, spilling its contents down the steps and into the yard.
Megan stared in horror as he kicked impatiently at the can, sending it across the yard. Was the key lying in plain sight, in front of him?
He hesitated, then retrieved the can and began to scoop up rocks to put back into it. So nobody would know he’d been there, she thought. Oh, please, please, don’t let him find the key so he can get into the house!
He put the can back in place on the porch, then walked to his car and drove away.
Megan stayed on her knees for a long time after the sound of the motor had died away, after her heart rate had returned to normal, feeling the cold sweat dry on her body in the warm summer breeze. Then finally she got up and went out into the open.
He had missed the key because it had fallen beside the steps rather than on them. She picked it up with trembling fingers, not daring to put it back in the same place. Instead, she slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.
The sun felt good, but she was still icy on the inside.
Who was the man, and what did he want?
Chapter Twelve
Megan sat on the porch, staring out across the lake. There was no sign of the boat, or the boys. Nothing stirred on the island. Not even a bird sang, now. The only thing she heard was Wolf’s panting beside her.
She didn’t know how much time had passed since Ben and Sandy had left her behind. They had taken a heavy load, and carrying all those things up the steep rock slope, and up the island to the tree house, would take time. Still, they would surely be starting for shore before long.
Wolf suddenly lifted his big head, listening.
Megan’s heart leaped. “What is it?” she whispered.
The dog was definitely alert, hearing something she could not yet hear. She strained to detect it, too, and then, as Wolf rose to his feet, looking toward the road, Megan slid off the porch and stood up, too.
“What is it?” she whispered again.
Wolf looked at her, tentatively wagging his tail, remaining alert.
He’d only been here since last night, she remembered. Would he feel protective of this place—of her—when he was not yet securely a member of the family?
He’d sensed her fear a short time ago, though, she thought hopefully. He’d stayed quiet beside her when she was hiding in the woods. He hadn’t betrayed her whereabouts while the man in the white car was here. He hadn’t bounded out to make friends, though he hadn’t growled, either.
“Is he coming back?” she wondered aloud.
And then she heard it, too.
A car was coming. Grandpa, returning early? Or Mr. Jamison in his sleek black Porsche? She’d never met Ben’s father, but if it was him she was going to run out and flag him down, tell him she was frightened, and why.
No sooner had she thought that than the car stopped, still out of sight, and she knew positively it wasn’t the Porsche. That had purred smoothly and quietly, and this car didn’t. This one sounded as if it needed a tune-up.
And it had stopped somewhere between the cottage and the road. There were no other houses and no other driveways, and if the car had gone past the end of Grandpa’s driveway, she’d have seen it, as they’d seen Ben’s father leaving earlier.
Why had Grandpa picked today to leave them alone and go to town? What would happen when the man came back, even if she could warn Grandpa first?
Would he dare go to the police? If calling in the authorities were an option, surely Mom would have done it before this. So what other choice was there?
For the first time Megan began to understand why her mother had gathered them up and run away. She fought the impulse herself to run blindly, with no refuge in mind . . . simply to get away from the man who menaced her family in some way she didn’t understand.
There was no time to lose. The car she had heard might be someone no more dangerous than the mail carrier, but she couldn’t take the chance.
Megan ran toward the beach, reaching for the life jacket hanging on the tree and putting it on with fingers so cold and clumsy they could scarcely cope with the fasteners. Then she shoved the canoe into the water. If the man came back, or someone else came, she wouldn’t be there.
* * *
Ben and Sandy met her at the beach on the island. They were getting ready to push off in the boat when Megan rounded the rock that formed one arm of the little cove.
They stared at her wet clothes and dripping hair as she nosed the canoe toward shore.
“What happened to you?” Sandy demanded.
At the sound of Sandy’s voice, Wolf leaped to his feet from where he had been sitting in the canoe, eager to reach his new young master. The canoe slid in alongside the rowboat, and the big dog tried to leap from one to the other.
The result was that Wolf overturned the canoe, landing both himself and Megan in the lake.
They we
re on the rocky shelf, so the water wasn’t very deep. Wolf swam ashore and shook himself, sending a shower over Megan as she rose to the surface, spluttering, and waded past a laughing Ben.
“Looks like he’s even more dangerous in a canoe than in a boat. Why didn’t you leave him on the mainland?”
“Because,” Megan said, drawing a deep breath, “he wouldn’t stay there. That’s how I got wet the first time. He swam after me and tried to climb in with me.” She twisted at her hair, wringing out some of the water. “Besides, I didn’t have the heart to leave him, after he stood by me when that man came and I had to hide in the woods.”
Ben’s amusement died abruptly. “What man? What happened?”
She told them, quickly, concisely. She didn’t admit how scared she’d been—how scared she still was—but she could tell they knew. It was in their faces; they were scared, too.
“A guy with Illinois plates,” Ben mused when she had finished. “Are you sure he wasn’t a cop?”
“I suppose he could have been, but he didn’t act like one.” She waited defensively for him to ask why she hadn’t demanded of the man who he was and what he wanted.
He didn’t. “Wonder what he’d have done,” he muttered, “if he’d found you there.”
Sandy’s blue eyes were enormous. “Do you think he’ll come back?”
“I’d bet on it,” Ben said impatiently. “If he came all the way from Illinois, and asked questions about you back home and then here in Lakewood, and came out here to the lake, he isn’t going to give up and go away just because nobody was home this morning.”
Sandy licked his lips. “Do you think he’s . . . dangerous?”
Megan felt the man was dangerous. She had been terrified, crouching there in the woods while the stranger prowled around the cottage, testing doors and windows. She was nevertheless annoyed when Ben said, before she could speak, “Of course.” The response sounded as if he meant to add “stupid” on the end of it.