“It’s the firearm that worries me,” R.J. said. “Stay behind me and—”
“Let you get shot first?”
“It would solve a lot of problems,” he said in a joking way, but Sara didn’t laugh. She followed him up the hill and at the top, the path turned right, leading into deep woods. They walked for a while on soft pine needles, unable to see more than a few feet in front of them because of the density of the trees. It was very quiet in the woods, as though they were the only people on earth.
When they came to the end, both of them stood still for a moment and stared. Before them was a small cabin, with a porch and stone fireplace, a deer skin and a washtub nailed to the side. It had been built on the tip of a rock cliff that jutted out toward the ocean. For all that the house below them had a great view, the cabin had a better one.
There was smoke coming out of the chimney, but no one was around.
“If I didn’t know where I was, I’d think I was on the set of a pioneer movie,” Sara said. “This is the age of the Internet and space travel, isn’t it?”
Stepping onto the porch, R.J. looked closely at the benches and the enameled pots. “Most of this stuff is handmade, and it’s not for decoration. It’s being used daily.”
“By me,” said a voice to their left, and they looked toward the end of the porch to see a tall, handsome boy with dark blond hair and deep blue eyes. He had a long string of fish in his hand. “Want some breakfast?”
“We just had—” Sara began.
“We’d love to!” R.J. said with enthusiasm. “Mind if I help you clean those?”
“If you know how to clean fish, you can move in,” the boy said, smiling, showing perfect white teeth. “I’m Gideon.”
“I’m—”
“I know who you are. Everyone does. You’re the latest patsy.” He looked at Sara. “And you must be the secretary.”
“Assistant,” she said, smiling. “I don’t type very well, as I’ve been told many times.”
“Too bad,” Gideon said. “I have some briefs that need editing.”
Both R.J. and Sara looked at him in consternation.
“Just kidding,” he said. “No briefs. Nothing that needs editing. Just fish that need to be cleaned, then cooked.” He walked around the front of the porch and they saw that he was at least six feet two. He was wearing clean jeans and a T-shirt, but both were faded and nearly worn-out. His feet were encased in worn moccasins.
For all that he was no more than sixteen, seventeen at the most, there was something about the boy that made a person relax around him.
“It didn’t take you long to find me,” he said over his shoulder as he went to a big rock protruding out of the ground in front of the cabin. R.J. practically ran down the steps to stand beside him.
Sara watched in amusement as R.J. eagerly took the fish from the boy and started to clean them. She’d had no idea he knew anything about the outdoors. “Do you have a restroom?” she asked.
“Not inside,” Gideon said, smiling. “The girls refuse to let you use theirs?”
“Yeah,” R.J. said as his knife expertly split a fish in half. “Real sweethearts.”
“They’re as mean as their father,” Gideon said matter-of-factly, but with no animosity. He looked back at Sara. “Sorry, but all I have is an outhouse and the creek.”
“I’ll wait,” she said as she sat down on a bench and watched the two men clean the fish. She was quiet for a few moments, but she couldn’t stand it any longer. “So who are you and why do you live here in this cabin and who are the twins?”
Gideon laughed softly as he put the cleaned fish on a slab of wood and started toward the house. “Come inside,” he said. “I need to get the twins fed.”
Gideon held open the door and R.J. let Sara go in first. Inside, it was one room, with a big bed in the corner, a fireplace in one wall, an oldfashioned cookstove beside it, and a few pieces of old furniture with heavy rugs draped over them. It was cozy and homey, smelled of wood smoke, and Sara felt comfortable for the first time since Ariel had arrived at her apartment in New York. She sat down on the couch and propped her feet on the pine coffee table.
“Put you through it, have they?” Gideon said as he took a chair across from her. R.J. was at the cookstove and he seemed to know exactly what to do as he lifted the iron disk and put in small branches taken from a box on the floor.
“Bad enough that we’ll do most anything to get off this island,” R.J. said.
Sara knew he was telling the young man that he’d pay a lot for transportation, but Gideon just looked straight ahead. He wants something, she thought. Whatever he tells us isn’t going to be for free. And until he gets what he wants, he’s not going to help us get out of here. She looked at Gideon. “Are you as nice as you seem or are you an illusion? Are you going to turn us over to the sheriff for trespassing?”
“You know, don’t you, that you’re not in any real trouble?” Gideon said.