Maggie tilted her head as her mouth tightened. She closed her eyes and rubbed at her face with her hands. “Think, think!” she commanded herself. “Come on, there must be something I’m missing… some…” She stopped, her hands flying away from her face, her eyes wide. “The camp!”

“The camp?”

“Yes!” She jabbed a finger excitedly at Candy. “That’s it! The Zimmermans have a camp up north, about two hours away. Cameron and his dad go up there every summer to hunt and fish. It’s the perfect place for them to hide out!”

Candy checked her watch. Nearly seven-thirty. A two-hour trip would put them at the cabin well after dark, which came early even in the summer at this far-eastern end of the time zone. “I don’t suppose there’s a phone up there?”

Maggie shook her head. “I don’t suppose there is.”

“Where’s this place at?”

“ East Musquash Lake, up by Topsfield. Do you think that’s where they went?”

“There’s only one way to find out. I’ll have to stop for gas on the way.”

For a moment Maggie was silent, but then she rushed forward and gave Candy a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re with me. You’re the best friend a gal could have.”

“You’d do the same for me, right?”

“You know it.”

“I wasn’t doing anything special this evening anyway,” Candy said as they started back to the Jeep. “A night drive might be nice.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, really. It’ll give us a chance to talk a little.”

“That’s right. We can talk. You had something you were going to tell me, didn’t you?”

“About what?”

“Something you said on the phone-Cameron took something?”

“Oh, that’s right!” Candy clutched Maggie’s shoulder as she remembered. “I forgot about that! And I have more to tell you-about Herr Georg, and Ray’s tree fort.”

“All that? Sounds like we have a lot of catching up to do. I guess this is a good time for a long drive.”

So as the impending storm squeezed the last light from the sky and the night deepened prematurely, they drove out of Cape Willington to Route 1 and from there turned eastward toward the small, quiet Downeast towns of Cherryfield, Columbia Falls, and Jonesboro. Along the way, Candy explained about the break-in at the house, her harrowing search with the shotgun, and her discovery that the files were missing. “I think Cameron took them for some reason,” Candy explained, still trying to sort it all out in her head. “He saw us up in Sapphire’s attic last night. He must have guessed we took those files.”

“But why would he want them? What was in those files anyway?”

“I didn’t get through all of them-but I did get a chance to look through Herr Georg’s file.” As the first raindrops splattered like giant bugs on the windshield, Candy told her about the e-mails between Sapphire and the German baker, and her talk with him that afternoon, though she kept back some of the details about his past, out of respect for his privacy.

“This is not for public knowledge, of course,” Candy finished, “but you’ve been involved with this from the beginning, so I thought you should know.”

“And Sapphire was blackmailing him?” Maggie asked in disbelief. “I knew she was evil, but I had no idea she was that evil.”

“There’s more,” Candy said. “I found Ray’s hammer.” She paused as Maggie gasped, and was just launching into the story of her discovery of Ray’s tree fort when Maggie’s cell phone rang.

“I can’t believe it!” Maggie said in a surprised tone as she dug into her purse. “Wouldn’t you know, it hasn’t worked all day, and just when we’re getting to the bottom of this story, now it suddenly works. Must be something to do with the storm.” She glanced at the phone’s display, then let out a shriek that nearly split Candy’s ears open.

“Oh my God! It’s Amanda!”

“Amanda? Well answer the dumb thing.”

“Right.” Maggie thumbed the call button. “Amanda, where are you? I’ve been scared to death.” She listened then, the silence lengthening as they drove east, her stillness speaking more than words.

When she finally lowered the phone to her lap, Candy didn’t have to look at her to know her friend was stunned. “Is everything alright? Are the kids okay?”

It took Maggie a moment to answer. “Turn around. We’re headed in the wrong direction.”

“Why? Where are they?”

“You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“I’ll believe you. Just tell me.”

“They’re at Quinn’s cabin.”

“Quinn? As in Sebastian J.? I don’t believe it.”

“It gets worse. Cameron’s holding a gun on Quinn. He thinks Quinn’s the one who killed Sapphire.”

Now it was Candy’s turn to look stunned. She blinked several times, shook her head, and slowed the Jeep to a crawl, then cranked the steering wheel as she expertly made a three-point turn in the middle of the road. With the Jeep pointed in the opposite direction, she gunned the gas pedal, and they headed back through the gathering darkness toward Cape Willington.

THIRTY-ONE

The cabin Sebastian J. Quinn had rented for the summer was located at the end of a dirt road, on a high, rocky spur that jutted out into the sea. It was a rugged section of the coast, but a cluster of small wooden summer cabins clung tightly to this piece of land, as they had for decades, standing tough against the frequent onslaughts of sea and storm that could be beyond fierce. On summer days, though, when the sea was calm, the sun bright, and the breezes warm out of the south, when the gulls were impatiently wheeling high overhead and distant sails floated lazily past out on the sharp line of the horizon, when you could sit on this piece of land with your feet up and a book in your hand and forget anything or anyone else existed, you knew there was no place else like it on earth.

Quinn’s cabin was isolated and peaceful, though the place could hardly be called luxurious. It was fifty years old if it was a day, and that was probably being kind, but it was charming in a rustic way, even though it lacked any aesthetically pleasing features. It was a simple cape, with a gray clapboard exterior and white-trimmed windows that looked as if they hadn’t been washed since Eisenhower’s presidency. On the sea side-the front of the house-was a screened porch with weathered rockers, and beyond that, out at the edge of the property, just above the sea, sat a welcoming pair of Adirondack chairs, painted blue and yellow.

Candy could picture the cabin’s interior in her mind, though she had never been inside, but she knew such places well enough. It would have a camplike feel, with a linoleum floor in the kitchen and threadbare carpeting in the living area, walls of varnished pine that held the smells of the ages, big comfy chairs and perhaps a few antique lights, and a checkerboard set on a side table, waiting for someone to play. There would be a couple of bedrooms up a narrow stairway, and a single bathroom on the first floor that had been added to one side of the house sometime in the sixties or seventies.

It probably went for about fifteen hundred a week and more than likely was never empty from May through October.

A rented white sedan sat in the parking area behind the house. Next to it was Cameron’s truck.

Candy drove up slowly behind the truck, eased the Jeep to a stop, switched off the headlights, and shut off the engine.

They sat for a moment in silence, exchanging wary looks, listening to the roar of the ocean. On days when the sea was calm, you’d never know it was there if you were facing the other direction. But when a storm blew in and the sea rose in fury, it could sound like an approaching train-or perhaps a dozen of them all at once. And if the tide was high, and gray breakers pounded at the rocky coast, driving great sprays of seawater into the air-it was then you understood and respected the power of the sea.