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Chapter Seven


“Okay. I’m officially worried about Nick,” AJ announced, letting himself onto Kevin’s tour bus.

Kevin was laying across the couch seats, watching a movie on Netflix. He paused the playback and sat up, “Just let yourself in, why don’t you?”

“Ain’t like you’re gettin’ laid in here like the old days,” AJ answered. He switched gears back to his original intent, “Dude, I texted Nick yesterday and that mofo ain’t answered yet.”

Kevin nodded, “I’m havin’ the same problem. We all are.” He took a deep breath, “Eddie hasn’t called me back yet to explain what’s going on, and I, too, are getting worried about him.”

AJ threw himself onto the couch next to Kevin. “I wasn’t worried ‘til it’d been twenty-four hours without any text messages. You know that asshole averages 20 texts a day? Just to me.”

Kevin nodded.

AJ gnawed his lip. “You think he’s okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“But he’s Nick, I mean, he has to be okay. Right?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin replied again.

AJ folded his arms over his chest.

“I’m gonna call Eddie.” Kevin stood up and got his phone off the table, where it was sitting plugged into it’s charger. AJ sat forward eager to listen in as Kevin dialed the phone number.

“Hello? Hello? Nick?” Eddie’s voice was anxious.

“No it’s Kevin,” Kevin said. He paused, “I take it you ain’t heard from Nick, then.”

“No,” Eddie replied despairingly.

“Neither have we,” Kevin said. “So yesterday, you were in a rush to hang up. You said Nick missing had something to do with some… hold up?”

Eddie sighed. “The night before last, we needed gas and Nick was whining he had to pee and get snacks, so we pulled off the highway and go to this 7-Eleven… Well we start gassin’ up the bus and Nick goes inside and apparently the store was being held up, so he sees this guy get shot in the head and he freaked out, obviously…”

Kevin rubbed his forehead, “Oh Jesus.”

“What?” AJ asked, and he got up and inched closer until Kevin tilted the phone so they could both hear.

“I know. So after he comes back out as the gunman peels off, and he’s all upset, babbling on that the gunman’s gonna come for him. Well we call the cops and reluctantly Nick tells them everything and then he was panicking so we asked the PD to come talk to Mike about heightened security…”

Kevin couldn’t imagine the level of nervous talking Nick must’ve been doing since.

If they listened real close, they could probably hear the unending stream of consciousness that Nick would undoubtedly be unloading to anyone with ears within listening distance to him over that kind of anxiety.

“This is where the story gets kinda fuzzy. See, Mike and Nick had a separate room and this person comes to their door with a police badge and says Nick’s gonna be in the Witness Protection Program --”

“It was Mafia he witnessed?” Kevin’s voice was sharp with surprise.

AJ’s eyes widened.

“No,” Eddie said, “Which is one of the reasons we know whoever this Witness Protection Program gal was, she wasn’t for real. Unfortunately, nobody realized it until after she left, taking him with her.” Eddie paused.

AJ looked at Kevin, then at the phone. “Wait the fuck up,” AJ said thickly, “So Nick’s not missing, he’s been fuckin’ kidnapped?”

Eddie took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said finally.





“Okay this area’s gotta been named by a Blockhead,” Nick announced. He was staring at a map of the ferryboat’s destinations while they waited in the car for the boat to return for it’s next trip across Lake Champlain. He giggled like a little kid.

“A blockhead?” Avery asked, glancing over.

“Yes,” Nick was ecstatic, “There’s a place called Knight Island,” he said, “And it’s in Jordan Bay.”

Avery stared at him.

“Dude. Jordan Knight.”

Avery raised an eyebrow, “The New Kid on the Block guy?” Her voice dripped with just a little bit of disdain.

“Dude is fuckin’ awesome, we’re friends,” Nick said. “But look. Knight Island in Jordan Bay. Isn’t that funny?”

“Sure,” Avery said with a shrug.

“No seriously, I wish I had my phone ‘cos I’d tweet the crap out of that.” He folded the map so the island showed center of the folding. “I’m saving this. When this is all over I’ma give this map to him. He’s gonna think it’s bad ass as hell.”

Avery pulled a lip gloss out of her purse.

Nick sighed and turned back to the map. “My friends would appreciate it,” he mumbled.

“I’m not your friend, I’m your police duty,” Avery replied. “You aren’t supposed to like me.” She put the lip gloss away and leaned back in her seat, watching the little bridge that would allow them into the boat, cat and all, whenever it arrived.

“Well that’s good,” he said, “‘cos it’d be damn hard to.”

Avery rolled her eyes.

“You are a generally unpleasant person to be around,” he commented. “Anyone ever tell you that before?”

“Of course,” Avery replied. “I deal with unknowledgable douche pants like you all the time. Of course it’s come up before.

“Okay, see, you say I’m a douche pants, but that only proves my point about your unpleasant-ness, there by making me un-douche pants because I’m just being honest.” He waved his map at Avery like the point he’d just made had struck home.

She sighed.

“You sigh a lot,” he commented.

“You make me sigh a lot.”

Instead of answering, Nick unrolled his car window and leaned out, looking at the water. They’d driven across a mile long bridge from New York into Vermont, and now they were just awaiting the ferryboat to the actual island. Nick had been fascinated by the lake since it had first come into view. “I think I see the boat,” he commented with enthusiasm.

Avery hated the boat.

It came into dock, though, no matter how hard she willed it to stay away, and soon there was a guy waving for them to drive forward onto the deck. Avery drove the car over the little bridge and onto the boat. Once it was situated, they got out and Nick practically raced to the rail, looking down at the water splashing against the hull of the boat. He breathed deeply, missing the smell of salt in the air that he normally associated with large water bodies. Avery joined him, though with less enthusiasm, and held onto the railing tightly with both hands, trying not to get seasick. Nick let out a hooting yell when the boat lurched forward a few minutes later, once the other two carloads of passengers had been boarded. Avery’s fingers tightened all the more on the railing.

“I love boats,” Nick commented, eyes gleaming with ecstatic-ness as he looked around at Avery.

She looked surprised when he stared down at her.

“What? Is my admission to boat loving a surprise to you after how excited I’ve been about getting on this thing for the last hour?” he teased her.

“No, no it’s not that,” she replied. “It’s just your eyes. They’re blue.” She bit her lip.

Nick laughed, “Yeah.”

“I didn’t notice before.”

“Aren’t cops supposed to be like observant?” he teased.

“Yeah, but --” Avery hesitated.

“But what?”

“I’m color blind,” she said. “I can only see this one particular shade of blue. And it’s exactly the shade your eyes are right now.” She stared up at him. “Wow.”

“Oh,” Nick said. He wasn’t sure how to react. He felt himself trying not to blink, like letting her see the blue, but the wind coming off the water made it hard, and his eyes kept drying out. He finally turned away. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be color blind. “Is it like a black and white picture?” he asked.

“They’re all black and white pictures to me,” she reminded him.

Nick scrunched up his nose. “That’s weird.”

She shrugged, “Maybe. It’s not weird to me. To me, seeing the color is weird. I don’t know how I didn’t notice your eyes before now, the color usually stands out.”

Nick shrugged back, “I dunno, I’ve been anxious, they kinda change color when I’m anxious. They’re only blue if I’m happy or whatever… they get more gray-ish kinda when I’m not.”

“So despite all the bitching you were just doing about me being an unpleasant person, you’re actually happy, huh?”

Nick laughed, “Yeah. I guess so.” He paused, “But I mean, I’m on a boat. Boats make me happy.”

“You are on a boat, yes,” she agreed, and she gripped the rail tighter again. She’d almost forgotten in the rush of seeing the blue in the flecks of his eyes.

Nick stared out at the water. “Can you see the blue in the water?”

“Some but mostly it’s the wrong shade,” she replied.

“Damn,” Nick said. “Well, it’s pretty.” He paused. “I’m glad I didn’t like ask you what your favorite color is or something.”

Avery laughed.

“How do you answer when people ask that?”

“I just say blue,” she answered. “Or if I’m in a mood to freak them out I say some color that I’ve heard is really horrible. Like puce or something.” She shrugged, “It’s all the same to me. Varying shades of gray.”

“So weird,” Nick muttered.

They stood there, side by side at the rail, watching the island come closer and closer, but not get much bigger. Nick consulted his map again. “So this whole island is only like seven miles?” he asked.

“Yup. It’s small.”

Nick glanced up at the island, then back down at his map. “Is the ferryboat the only way on and off? It looks like there’s a bridge up here connecting to Alburg.” He ran his finger over the map.

Avery nodded, “There is, but it’s not as fun as a ferryboat.”

He stared at her, couldn’t really argue, and looked back down at the map. “Good to know there’s more than one way off the island though, should we need it,” he commented. The wind threatened to rip the map out of his hands and he caught it only just in time and shoved it back into his pocket. “So what’s this house we’re going to like?”

“It’s a lake house,” Avery answered with a shrug, “It’s on the lake, lots of trees around it. There’s a little beach behind it, a dock, raft a little ways into the water, you know. The works. We used to have a Tarzan rope swing that we used to jump into the water a lot but I don’t know if it’s still there, that was ages and ages ago.”

“Did you come up here often?”

“Every summer,” Avery replied. “From the weekend after school let out until the week before it went back.”

“So you grew up here,” he said.

“Basically,” she nodded.

“How’d it become a safe house?”

Avery shrugged, “We just figured it would be the safest place is all,” she said. “Nobody’s gonna expect you to be here. Most people don’t even know this place exists.”

“I didn’t know it existed,” he conceded. “So what’s there to do here?”

“Not much.”

“Great.”

“There’s a shrine to Saint Anne on the northwest side of the island, that’s the biggest tourist draw, that and the Goodsell Ridge Preserve, which was once a quarry and is just basically a big field of rocks that happen to have a lot of fossil markings on them, so you see a lot of geologists poking around there. There’s an apple orchard, and a… well it’s a barn attached to an old house, but it’s called an art museum and they have Sunday tea and concerts.”

“Concerts?” Nick’s voice pitched with excitement.

“Don’t get excited,” Avery said, shaking her head, “I’m not talking Guns N’ Roses, I’m talking some ancient woman and a piano that’s slightly off key.”

“Oh.” The disappointment in his voice was quite apparent.

“But you’re not here to be entertained,” Avery pointed out.

“Yeah,” Nick agreed.

The ferryboat docked, sending a jolt through the boat deck and Avery stumbled into Nick, her face landing squarely onto his chest. He caught her and righted her carefully, “Whoopsie Daisy,” he said. She grabbed the rail and looked slightly seasick. “If you hate the ferryboat so much, why didn’t we take that bridge?” he asked.

Avery shrugged, “Because getting to La Motte on the ferryboat is how my parents always did it, I guess. It’s tradition or whatever.”

“Fair enough,” he said, “Can’t break tradition, I get it.”

They walked back to the car and climbed inside, and when they were directed she drove over the little bridge off the boat and onto the land. Avery was glad to be back on solid ground. Honestly, part of the reason she’d wanted to take the boat was so that he would think there was only one way on and off the island, she’d wanted to stunt his ability to escape, should he realize what was really happening. She made a mental note to try to make that map disappear as soon as possible.

Nick stared out the window. So far, it seemed like La Motte was nothing but trees - giant ass pine trees so thick they seemed like they were a million years old. The floor of the woods was covered with orange pine needles and pinecones, and squirrels ran up and down the trees in droves, carrying nuts in their mouths as they ran along, their little squirrel talons gripping the bark like Spiderman on the side of a skyscraper.

They seemed to pass nothing but trees.

Then they came to an intersection. A group of four houses, a barn, and what looked like an oversize garage. “Welcome to downtown,” Avery said with an air of sarcasm as she crossed over the intersection.

Nick glanced back, turning around in his seat to see the buildings disappear among more trees behind them. “That’s it?”

“Mhm.” Avery’s mouth was pressed in a thin line.

Nick turned back to face forward. The car emerged through a field for a moment and he could see rocks and more trees in the distance. He frowned. Then they were plunged back into trees again and came to a cross road where the one they were on ended in… well, the lake. “Wait. Wait was that seriously the whole width of the island we just drove?”

“Yes,” Avery replied, turning south on the crossroad.

“But that wasn’t even two miles. It says it’s two miles across. That was like… a mile and a half.”

“It’s only two miles across at it’s widest point,” Avery replied.

They passed a couple houses, set way far off the road into the trees with long winding driveways. Passed a couple mailboxes that didn’t seem to belong to anything at all. A sign that announced they were passing the preserve she’d talked about and then nothing for a really long time except the trees. Nick was starting to feel like they’d maybe found the end of the world.

Finally, Avery turned into a driveway he almost hadn’t seen at all because it wasn’t paved or anything. There were no markers, no mailbox. The driveway was rough, exposed roots and potholes in the dirt making it bumpy, and it wove in a swervy sort of way through low ferns and thick trees. Then they broke through the line of trees into a wide open lawn with a gentle slope that led up to a hill and on the hill sat a squat little wood-and-stone house with a semi-circle of trees surrounding it, broken only by the shore of the lake, which was down a curving path that wound around to the back of the hill the house sat upon.

“Welcome,” Avery said as she came to a stop, “To the safe house.”