Dark Moon Walking Read Online Free Page B

and he could not launch until the water had calmed, but he was filled with a sudden sense of urgency. He had heard two ravens call at dawn and it had sounded like a message.
    The cabin was a sanctuary of warmth and quiet, filled with the smell of cedar. Walker picked up the net from where he had dropped it on the floor and spread it out over his knees. Maybe it was nothing. Two days spent in the gloom of the cabin, surrounded by the noise of the storm, was enough to make anyone restless.
    It was to be yet another day before the waves diminished and the storm surge released its grip on the cove, but by the morning of the fourth day he was out on the water before the sun had risen.
    The boat hung suspended between sea and sky, the gray wood of the hull blending with the silver surface of the ocean and the soft gray gleam of morning light. She lay tilted on her side, the starboard rail and part of the cabin underwater. An eerie silence wrapped the bay. The morning chatter of birds, the soft rise of fish, the gentle drone of insects, even the sound of dew dripping from the branches, was stilled.
    Walker edged the canoe closer to the wreck, sliding slowly past the bow. The knot in his gut grew tighter as he approached the stern. He already knew what he was going to see. Over the past few days, he had experienced a growing sense of unease. He had felt it first when he saw the black ship, but he had dismissed it as some lingering association with his old world. It had returned during the storm, when he had sensed rather than heard or seen some disturbance. He had dismissed that too. He should have known better. If he had learned anything out here, it was to trust his instincts.
    The canoe bumped gently against the curve of the hull, and he reached out a hand to touch it. It looked undamaged, although that made no sense. If it had run aground in the storm, it would have hit the rocky bottom many times before coming to rest. Even if it had settled farther out and been lifted in by the tide, it should show the scars of its passage.
    Slowly, heart pounding, he drifted toward the stern. The name was partially submerged, but it didn’t matter. The letters were clearly visible. In faded yellow paint they spelled out the words Island Girl .
    As the tide fell, Walker slid out of the canoe and worked his way around the hull, half swimming and half walking. He ignored the cold that puckered his skin and sent stabbing shafts of pain down his legs. He peered in portholes and checked fittings. He saw that the kettle had fallen off the stove and was floating in the water that covered the cabin sole. It was the only thing out of place. The switches on the electronics panel were all off. The anchor was winched tight to the bow, with the brake set. The life buoy was clamped firmly in its fitting.
    None of it made sense. Claire would have had the engine running and the switches on if she had been fighting the storm. And if she was losing the battle, she would have tried to anchor. Unless she had not been aboard and the boat had come adrift from the dock. He glanced down to where the mooring lines floated in the water, undulating like seaweed in the waves. Maybe that was it. But where was the dinghy? And the kayak?
    He pushed the canoe to shore, slipped behind a fringe of branches, and slid up on the rocky beach. He needed time to think, to absorb whatever information the boat could give him. As he clambered out over the rocks, one of his questions was quickly answered. Behind a mound of jumbled logs and flotsam, a small, bright-blue boat lay wedged tightly under an overhang, a gaping hole in its bottom. He had found the dinghy. Claire was not in it.
    Much later, he let the canoe drift back out into the current and turned it toward the pass. He would take the long route to Shoal Bay. It would take him past the coves where Claire and Island Girl might have been seen if she had headed up to the big pass. It would also let him arrive after dark, and