I locked the window and told Andrea to lock the door to the wheelhouse after I went out. “I’m just going to check the dock. I’ll be right back. You’ll be fine with the door locked.”
I looked carefully at every boat on our finger and the next one, but saw nothing suspicious about them. “Huh! That’s funny.” The gray boat is gone.
Odd for someone to come in and tie up and then head out again after dark. Oh well. Maybe he was tired and just needed to have a nap before traveling on. Or … it was Robert and he’d made a lot of changes to his boat.
I went back to the Serenity, puzzled by the amulet showing up like that. I had last seen it the day I stopped at Robert’s cabin to check on Andrea. She wasn’t there. Gone home to Ontario, Robert said. The cabin’s ashes were still smouldering, and Andrea’s amulet was hanging on the compass light in the Hawkeye’s wheelhouse. I remember thinking then that she wouldn’t have left for Ontario without it.
Robert had to be around somewhere to have brought back the amulet. My neck hair prickled, knowing he might be watching me this very moment, but I’d have to play it down so Andrea wouldn’t freak out.
“Nothing to worry about, Andrea. I checked both fingers of the wharf and it’s all quiet and normal.”
She let out a sigh, but her grimace of fear told me she wasn’t ready to let her guard down.
“I didn’t want to mention it,” I said, “but I wondered about the gray boat that was behind us. It was tied at the end of the wharf when we went up to the restaurant, but it’s gone now.”
“You think it could have been Robert? But his boat is orange.”
“He could have painted it.” I gave a half-hearted shrug. “Anyway, if it was him, he’s gone now.”
I made a pot of Sleepytime Tea and poured us each a cup. I sat beside Andrea on the bunk next to the fold-down table and put my arm around her. I pulled her close to me and kissed her head.
“I’m here and I won’t let him get you. You sleep right here in my bunk with me and nobody will hurt you.”
She sniffed and wiped her nose with the tissue I handed her. “Okay.” She was still shaking. “Can we lock the door?”
“Sure can. And I’ll re-check the wedges in the sliding windows of the wheelhouse so no one can push them open.” I got up and pulled the curtains closed, shutting out any possibility of peeping eyes.
Andrea sat, quietly alert, listening and getting up to peek out between the curtains every time she heard a noise.
“Just some fisherman going to check his boat,” I said.
“Could be Robert,” she said. “He’s got to be around somewhere.”
“He’s gone,” I said. “I’m sure he’s gone. I really think that was his boat at the end of the dock. He’s gone.”
It took a while before she was calm enough to crawl into the bunk with me.
“I’m so scared,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry. He’s done his little stunt and now he’s run away.”
Andrea shuddered, her fist clenched around a fold of my T-shirt. “He’ll be back.”
I knew she was right.