Read Online Black Otter Bay by Vincent Wyckoff - Free Book Online Page B

dropped a bit but was still a long way from setting, and bright reflections off the water flickered through the early summer foliage.
    To be on the safe side, when Abby came to the roadway, she followed it from just inside the treeline. She didn’t expect to see anyone at this hour, but considering the events they’d witnessed that afternoon, there was no sense in taking chances.
    Through a series of short curves, the overgrown roadway led Abby to the old boat landing. As she’d expected, no one was there. She paused for a moment at the water’s edge to catch her breath. Scanning the lake surface, she saw that much of the ice had disappeared over the afternoon, with the remaining floes a dark gray and mottled with holes and standing water. Abby stood on the spot where the big fancy car had parked. Looking at the ground around her, it seemed as though the gravel and weeds were more disturbed than the passing of one car would warrant. Then she remembered the second vehicle approaching as she’d made her escape, the pickup truck she’d glimpsed through the trees. Studying the tracks, she wondered if the ground could have been dug up this much by just the two vehicles turning around in the small clearing. Finally shruggingoff the mystery, Abby took another deep breath, and then turned into the brush to retrieve the backpacks.
    Fifteen minutes later, she still searched. Nothing. Everything was as she remembered, except their belongings were gone. She even got on her knees at the exact spot where they’d first noticed the car. She found where the backpacks had been, where they’d started eating their lunches. Nothing. At the water’s edge, she stood where they’d fished, looked back at the spot on the grassy bank where Ben had kept the fish wet. But other than a few places where the brush had been disturbed, a person could easily have thought that no one had been here since last fall.
    Then she remembered the trout they’d caught. Scrambling along the shore, she came to the spot where she’d stored the freezer bag of fish. The anchoring rock was there, but no bag. She considered the notion of a bear wandering in and stealing the backpacks. And the nose of a bruin would have easily detected the bag of fish. But as she studied the vacant space at her feet, Abby’s heart suddenly began pounding again. This time it had nothing to do with the run through the woods. In the mud next to her tennis shoe, she spotted the print of a large boot. Squatting for a closer look, even in her relative inexperience she could see that the impression had been made by a big man. Next to her own footprint, the indentation was huge and deep. It was smooth-soled, like a dress shoe, a style the big man in the fancy car would have been wearing.
    Abby grunted in bewilderment, then hurried along the shoreline searching for any sign of their belongings. Her thoughts went to hip waders, how every pair she’d ever seen had thick-lugged soles. The man must have removed them, she decided, before searching the area. Scrambling back to the open boat landing, Abby stood still long enough to take a deep breath. She looked back up the road behind her, and out over the lake. The breeze had died down, making for a peaceful stillness at this early evening hour, but to Abby, the silence echoedwith mystery. Things had happened here after her hurried departure earlier today, events with no witnesses. Big Island could have told her a few things if it could talk, or those loons calling back and forth to each other.
    She wondered why the man had taken all their gear. There was nothing in the backpacks to interest a grown man. He’d even taken that stupid fishing pole, and the freezer bag of small rainbow trout. He’d taken everything, including their notebooks containing their names and address.
    That was the factor that turned Abby aboutface and thrust her at a full run up the road. The man knew who they were. He