The Writer Read Free

boat.
    “Is that the same boat?”
    The boat in question was a forty-one foot, red, white and blue, wooden-hulled Chris Craft. Adele had seen photos of it while scanning the Internet for the information pertaining to Calista Stone’s death. She knew the boat to have been built in 1961 and purchased by Decklan and Calista shortly after they bought Wasp Island in 1986, following the bestselling success of Manitoba .
    Will scowled as he tried to avoid Adele’s eyes. His response was a barely audible grumble. He appeared not to want to look at the boat any more than he wanted to look directly at Adele.
    “Yes, it’s the same boat. He has Old Jack come out every six months to keep her looking right.”
    Adele had no idea who Old Jack was, but made a mental note to follow up on the name. She then took out her phone and snapped several pictures of the boat, the dock, and the hillside. It was an undeniably beautiful place, with rock-strewn beaches, abrupt, dark- stoned cliffs, and majestic evergreen trees that rose up like towering, silent sentinels that kept watch over the small island.
    “The path begins at the end of the dock. It’ll take you to the house. If I remember right, it gets a bit steep, but a young, pretty woman like you should have no trouble at all.”
    Again Adele noticed how Will would sometimes use a word or expression that didn’t quite fit with how a man his age would normally talk.
    Not sure what his thinking I’m pretty has anything to do with my being able to get up the hill.
    Adele readjusted her backpack. Then she offered her right hand, which Will quickly took in his much larger and calloused appendage.
    “Thank you for helping to get me here, Mr. Speaks. I hope to have a chance to speak with you again soon.”
    Will gave Adele a forced smile and shrugged.
    “I can’t make any promises about that. I don’t want to cause any trouble with Mr. Stone. He pays me good to bring him his supplies and jobs like this aren’t exactly easy to come by around here. Oh, when you call me to say you’re ready to be picked up, you might have to use Mr. Stone’s regular, uh, the old kind of phone. Cell phones don’t always work out here.”
    Adele smiled and then readjusted her backpack again, realizing she was doing so more out of nervousness than necessity.
    “OK, I’ll do that. It shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”
    After she took several steps on the dock toward the awaiting trail to Decklan Stone’s home overlooking the waters that surrounded his private island, Adele heard Will call out to her.
    “You be careful, Ms. Plank.”
    Adele tried to reassure him with a smile.
    “I’ll take my time getting up there. Don’t worry. I won’t slip.”
    The smile normally affixed to Will’s face vanished. His eyes narrowed as he gave Adele a long, hard stare.
    “I’m not talking about you getting up to the house. I’m talking about you getting back.”
    It was at that moment Adele wondered why the seemingly affable, albeit childlike, Will Speaks wasn’t escorting her to the writer’s home that was almost entirely hidden behind a wall of trees.
    “Have you been to the house, Mr. Speaks?”
    Will shook his head.
    “No, not for a long time.”
    “Why not?”
    Will peered up at the faint outline of the Stone residence through a gap in the tree line.
    “Mr. Stone doesn’t allow it. He’s made that clear. I drop off the supplies on the dock, and then leave. At the end of the month a check is mailed to my dad from a place in New York with a list of supplies to be delivered the next month. That’s what my dad tells me to do and so, uh, so that’s what I do.”
    “And why do you think I need to be careful when I get up there?”
    Will looked down as he shuffled his feet, appearing even more like a nervous child than a grown man. He felt as if he was being watched from above.
    “It’s just that I think people who meet someone who they think they know are kind of let down. And you’re not the