Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

at high speeds and the entire second story had dropped to the ground floor. What was surprising, the coroner said, was that the injury had impacted equally on both sides of the bone. In effect his forearm would have had to have been trapped between a rigid object and the moving force in order to cause the equal damage on both sides.

“The result was like something incurred by putting your forearm in a vise and tightening it to the breaking point,” the coroner had said. Odd, but perhaps not entirely impossible in the high-impact explosion when the propane tank went off. It had been up against the outside wall of Joseph’s bedroom and sent objects flying about at warp speeds. The coroner had seen stranger things. Or, a second long-shot possibility to consider, he’d been tortured, and the fire destroyed all other signs of external damage to the body. They would probably never know for sure.

“Why in God’s name would anyone torture that poor old man?” Merlynn exploded. “For kicks? He didn’t even speak English, for Christ’s sake. And they brought along a vise? Who the hell does that?”

Clarke shook his head but didn’t respond. He’d thought he had seen everything. Danny remained silent, but the martini glass suddenly broke apart in his hand.

He didn’t seem to notice.

Chapter 39

Jared walked back along the docks towards Arrow, cursing under his breath. He’d showered on the run in and put on a sweatshirt and clean shorts and sandals. His eyes were bloodshot and he was gaunt and unshaven, but no longer head-turning scary. His polite inquiries at the marina office were met with polite responses by the woman behind the desk. She was so sorry, but she had no information as to Albright’s present whereabouts. Jared had the distinct impression that even had she known something she wouldn’t have told him. Albright was something of a celebrity, and he realized the marina staff would consider it part of their job to protect his privacy. He’d wasted the best part of the morning searching for a lead on the Blue Harp’s whereabouts and come up with nothing. Absolute zero. The gas attendant remembered the boat but hadn’t spoken with any of the crew. She’d left from the gas docks the previous day with topped-up tanks of fuel and water, but nobody knew where the Blue Harp was heading.

Jared thought the most likely destination was Desolation Sound, a roughly thousand-square-mile body of water that teemed with boats in the summer months but was still big enough to offer isolation if you stayed clear of the popular anchorages. At this late date there wouldn’t be all that many boats still out cruising and a hundred vacant hidey holes would be available. With the bad weather forecast, the Harp could be tucked up inside any one of them. It would take days if not weeks to check them all out, and there’d still be a good chance he’d miss her.

The other possibility was that the boat had headed north from Campbell River, past Ripple Rock and up the inside channel. If that was the case, then there was zero chance of locating her. The options in that direction were endless, and the narrow channels meant that Arrow would have to motor most of the way and be bucking strong tides a lot of the time. So he’d take his chances on Desolation Sound. At least there would be a chance for some sailing without the endless tooth-grinding motoring that he’d endured since leaving Vancouver.

Jared needed activity, something to keep him involved and awake. Apart from four restless hours of sleep during a brief anchorage in behind Lasqueti Island, he hadn’t closed his eyes for more than minutes at a time in the days since the fire. He dreaded the red-rimmed dreams that came in the night and filled Arrow’s cabin with smoke and sadness. He couldn’t bear Joseph’s death; it was why he’d had to leave and why he was carrying out this desolate search. He had to be doing something, apart and away from the numbing collective grief of the family. He didn’t know what would happen if he actually managed to find the Blue Harp. He supposed it would play out the way it was meant to, and recognized that fatalistic bent he shared with Joseph and the sadness rose up and enveloped him.

He arrived back at Arrow and stepped aboard, glancing up at the wind gauge at the top of the mast. The cups were spinning noticeably faster than when he’d arrived, and he flipped the switch on the wind speed display. Seven knots from the northwest. Just about enough. Once he turned the corner past the marina office and moved out into the main channel there would be more. After motoring for nearly eighteen hours, and changing the engine oil earlier that morning — a miserable, blasphemous, knuckle-skinning job in the tight quarters — he was due some quiet time. He raised the main and hardened it off midway on the traveller before jumping back down to the dock and casting off the lines. He kicked Arrow’s bow out and climbed back aboard and unfurled the jib and cleated off the sheets. Arrow moved sluggishly out into the channel, barely maintaining steerage way in the sheltered marina. He paid out the main and she picked up another knot and now she left a visible wake as she moved past the trollers and seiners tied up to the wharves. A few fishermen working on their nets glanced up at him as he ghosted past and he read the unspoken judgment on their faces as they returned to their labours. Dilettante.

He took Arrow slowly up the channel, past the cleaning station where a cloud of screaming gulls fought over offal, and turned her south in a long lazy sweep and loosed the mainsheet and let the sail run forward till it touched the shrouds and then brought it back just clear and