call or turn up at the launch site,” Jason said, “I tried to phone you. But I couldn’t reach you. I phoned Sara, and at last I got hold of her. I wanted to come out here late last night. But Sara convinced me that the water was just too rough. So we waited out the storm. I’m kicking myself now. We got plenty of rain, all right, but Sara and I could have made it out. That gunman could have killed you.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I understand.”
“What are you doing on this island, anyway?” asked Jason. “You know it’s off limits.”
“Oh, I know, all right,” I said. When I looked back at Gerald, he slunk off behind a bush to change his pants.
“Hey!” cried Liz. “Orcas!” We all watched the huge, majestic creatures roll through the waves as they swam between Bone Island and the shore of Vancouver Island. Liz was spellbound. Her hair blew around her face as she watched thepod pass. I had never seen a sight more beautiful than Liz watching the orcas.
“I really do miss this,” said Sara. “Being out here. With you.”
Sara turned to me, but my focus was on Liz. Sara held up her cell phone in front of me. “I’ve been getting those calls, too,” she said.
That got my attention. “What did the guy say?”
“He threatened me,” Sara said. “He said he knows about you and me.”
“You and me?” I led Sara away, so Liz, Jason, and the others couldn’t hear. “Listen,” I said. “Is there any chance the caller, the stalker, might be your husband? You said he was jealous of our trips together, of you and me.”
“Dave?” Sara laughed. “I wish he cared enough to do something like this. Hell, he doesn’t even buy me flowers on our anniversary.”
“I’m sorry I suggested it,” I said. “I just wish to hell I knew who this guy was.”
“It’s pretty clear he’s trying to scare you away from these sacred sites. For your own safety, I would listen if I were you. Why not just runthe day trips around the bay with me? You can sleep at home every night.”
“No. I’m getting the cops involved. I’m not going to let this stalker ruin my business.”
As if on cue, my cell phone rang. I opened my phone as I scanned the bush along shore and the cliff above us. Was the stalker that close, I wondered, that he could hear our conversation?
“Mike?” The caller was a man, but he wasn’t the stalker. At least his voice wasn’t bent out of shape by voice-changing software.
“This is Dave,” the caller said. “Sara’s husband. Have you seen Sara? She told me she was staying overnight at her sister’s place. I tried to reach her on her cell phone early this morning. When she didn’t answer, I phoned her sister. Jenny told me Sara hadn’t stayed there last night. I tried phoning you earlier, too, but I couldn’t reach you.”
Suddenly everything fell into place. Sam had hit the nail on the head yesterday: men always underestimate what women can do. I felt like the guy in the movie Fatal Attraction , stalked by a sick woman. And that woman was Sara. The stalker had to be her. She knew not only my cellphone number and Liz’s, but my clients’ as well. She knew our tour route, where we were going.
Sara must have shot those holes in the kayaks to keep us here on Bone Island and then kayaked home. She was a strong kayaker, nearly as strong as me. She could have weathered the storm, no problem. Then she would be nowhere near Bone Island in the morning. No one would suspect that she was the stalker. After all, she met Jason at the launch site so they could come out here. The one thing she hadn’t counted on was her husband’s phone calls. First to her sister, and then to me.
I looked right at Sara as I answered Dave. “Sara’s here, on Bone Island, with Jason and Liz and me.”
Sara stared back at me for a moment. She knew her husband was on the phone. She knew she had been caught. She knew I had figured out that she was the stalker.
Sara walked away from me, back