On Fire(2)

           



       

One -^ ^ Iviley ignored the slight tremble in her hands and jammed the  two ends of her high-performance paddle together. She zipped up her life  vest.

There was no reason to be nervous. She'd kayaked the coves and inlets of  Schoodic Peninsula since she was six years old. Today's conditions were  near perfect: a bright, clear, still September morning, halfway between  low tide and high tide.

She squinted at her grandfather, who'd come down from his cottage to the short stretch of gravelly beach to see her off.

"Come with me," she said.

He shook his head.

"You go on. You need to get back out on the water."

"I've been out on the water. Caroline Granger had us onto her yacht for a cocktail party Friday night."

"Cocktails." Emile snorted.

"That's not getting out on the water."

She knew what he meant. She hadn't been on a boat, a ship, even a kayak,  since the Encounter disaster a year ago. On the Granger yacht off Mount  Desert Island Friday night, she couldn't make herself go below. She'd  never been claustrophobic, not until the watertight doors had shut her  and Emile into the diving compartment, not until the two of them had  endured the hot, cramped, terrifying hours in the experimental  submersible.

This had to end, she told herself. She was a scientist, director of  marine and aquatic animal recovery and rehabilitation at the Boston  Center for Oceanographic Research. She couldn't get spooked about the  water.

"I shouldn't kayak without a partner."

Emile shrugged.

"You'll stay close to shore. Just watch out for fog rolling in later."

"You're sure you won't come with me?" she asked him.

"I can kayak anytime I want."

One of the perks of his exile, he seemed to be saying. After the  disaster of the Encounter, Emile La- breque had shocked the world by  retiring to the Maine fishing village where his family had settled  generations earlier. It had been his home base for years; he owned a  small cottage, where Riley and her sister had spent summers growing up.

He looked after a small, private nature preserve on a part-time basis.

The last hurrah of a legend.

He eyed Riley as she dragged her shocking pink, sit-on-top ocean kayak  to the water's edge. He wore his trademark black Henley and khakis, and  at seventy-six, he was as alert and intense as ever. She'd inherited his  lean, wiry physique, his dark hair and eyes, his sharp features--and,  some said, his single- mindedness.

"You're planning to stop on the island?"

She nodded.

"I packed a lunch. If the fog doesn't roll in, I'd like to have a little picnic on the rocks, like the old days."

He gazed out at the water. The bay sparkled in the morning sun.

Labreque Island was farther up the point, almost at the mouth of the  bay--a tiny, windswept landscape of rock, evergreens and sand that had  been in Emile's family since the turn of the century.

"I should warn you. John Straker's staying at the cottage."

"Straker? Why? What's he doing back here?" "He took a couple of bullets  awhile back. He came home to recuperate. I let him use the cottage on  the island."

Riley digested this news as if it were a hair ball. John Straker wasn't  one of her favorite people. He'd left the peninsula years ago to join  the FBI. A lot of people in his home village couldn't believe the FBI  had accepted him. She'd only seen him a few times since. '

"Who shot him, criminals or his friends?" "A fugitive who took a couple  of teenagers hostage. It had something to do with domestic terrorism."

"Right up Straker's alley. Anyone else hurt?"

Emile shook his head.

"You know, John's not much company on a good day."

"This is true. I'll just have to keep to the other side of the island.

He won't even know I'm there. I didn't realize the cottage on the island was still inhabitable."

"He's fixed it up a bit. Not much."

"How long's he been out there?"

"Since April."

She shuddered, then grinned at her grandfather.

"Well, tough. I'm not afraid of John Straker. Will you be here when I get back?"

"I doubt it."

She hesitated, debating.

"I'm stopping in Camden on my way back to Boston. Is there anything you want me to tell Mom and Sig?"

"No."                       
       
           



       

Riley nodded without comment. Perhaps, she thought, too much had been  said already. Her mother and sister--Emile's only daughter and older  granddaughter--blamed him for the Encounter, for Bennett Granger's  death, for the deaths of four crew members and friends, for Riley's near  death. For Emile's near death and the shattering of a lifetime's  reputation.

Of course, everyone blamed Emile for the Encounter. Except Riley. Sam  Cassain's assessment of what had happened--his conviction that Emile had  cut too many safety comers--wasn't enough for her. She needed hard  evidence before she could damn her grandfather to the pits of hell.

But she was in a distinct minority.

Emile wished her well and started back along the path up to his rustic  cottage. Corea, Prospect Harbor, Winter Harbor, Schoodic Point. These  were the places of her childhood, tucked onto a jagged, granite-bound  peninsula, one of dozens that shaped and extended Maine's scenic  coastline. Riley knew all its inlets, bays and coves. It was here she'd  discovered her own love for the ocean, one that had nothing to do with  being a Labreque or a St. Joe but only with being herself.

It was here, too, that she'd drawn blood in her one and only act of  out-and-out violence, when she'd hurled a rock at John Straker. He was  sixteen, she was twelve, and he'd deserved it. His own mother had said  so as she'd handed him a dish towel for the blood and hauled him down to  the doctor's office. He'd required six stitches to sew up the slit  Riley had left above his right eye. She wondered if he'd had to explain  the scar to the FBI. Amazing they'd let him in. Bonked on the head by a  twelve-year-old. It couldn't bode well.

Now he'd been shot. Domestic terrorism. She grimaced. Well, she had no  intention of letting a cranky, shot-up FBI agent ruin her picnic on her  favorite island.

She slid her kayak into the incoming tide. Given the warm weather, she'd  opted against a wet suit and wore her Tevas without socks. Maine water  was never warm, but she'd be fine. Her shirt and drawstring pants were  of a quick-drying fabric, and she'd filled two dry packs with all the  essentials. One held her picnic lunch. The other held everything she  might need if she got stranded for any reason: waterproof matches, rope,  emergency thermal blanket that folded up into a tiny square, rations  she'd eat only in an emergency, aluminum foil, portable first aid kit,  flashlight, compass, charts, whistle, marine band radio, extra water and  her jackknife. And duct tape. She'd zipped an extra compass, matches  and a water bottle into her life vest, in case she got separated from  her kayak.

All in all, she deemed herself ready for anything, even a recuperating John Straker.

She laid her paddle across her kayak and walked into the ankle-deep  water, which wasn't as cold as she'd expected. Maybe sixty-five degrees.  Downright balmy for this stretch of Maine. She dropped into her seat,  did her mental checklist and set off into deeper water, her strokes even  and sure, all uneasiness gone. This was what she needed.

A solo kayak trip in the clean, brisk Maine air, along the familiar  rockbound coast with its evergreens, birches, wild blueberry bushes and  summer cottages. The water was smooth, glasslike, the air so still she  could hear the dipping of her paddle, the cry of gulls, the putter of  distant lobster boats.

Yes, she thought. Emile was right. She needed to get back out on the water.

Two hours later, she was tired, hungry and exhilarated. A fog bank had  formed on the eastern horizon, but she thought she'd be finished with  her picnic and safely back at Emile's before it arrived. The swells and  the wind had picked up on the ocean side of Labreque Island, but she  worked with them, not against them, as she paddled parallel to shore,  looking for a landing spot. The island was a mere five acres of sand,  rock, pine, spmce and a few intrepid beeches and birches, all of which  took a pounding from the North Atlantic winds, surf and storms.

The ocean side had imposing rock ledges, and the water tended to be  choppier--but Emile's ancient cottage, and thus John Straker, was on the  bay side.

The waves pushed her toward shore. Despite the island's nigged  appearance, its ecosystem was fragile, Riley knew. She wanted to find a  spot that would provide a smooth landing for her and an un intrusive one  for the island. Just an inch of lost soil could take hundreds of years  to replace. A sandy beach was her first choice; next best was a sloping  rock ledge.