Poison Bay by Belinda Pollard Read Free Book Online Page A

find.”
    “We probably should sit down and brainstorm it as a group.”
    “I wanted to have a plan ready first.”
    “So we’re just pretending to involve the others in the decision, are we?” She was irritated. Jack often seemed to think he knew best.
    He answered calmly. “Cal, these people couldn’t organize their way out of a wet paper bag right now. If no one has any ideas, they’ll be devastated.”  
    Oh. That makes sense. She looked up the side valley, and could see part of a mountain. Cloud hid its peak. She swung around and looked back towards the bay. “What if we walk to the point and try to hail a passing boat?”
    “We went as far as we could yesterday. The rock was sheer after that. Rock climber territory.”
    “How about the other side?”
    “Same problem.”
    Crunching stones alerted them to someone approaching. It was Adam.
    “Are you talking about where we should go today?” He was hesitant, his voice nasal from last night’s crying. Callie hated to see him reduced in this way. Under normal conditions, Adam the Outdoorsman would have been their default trailblazer.
    Jack said, “It seems like going back the way we came would take too long for Rachel, even if we could do it in the same time. I wondered if we should follow the other creek and see if we can get over that mountain to the north. What do you reckon?”
    Callie puzzled why the confident Jack of a moment ago had become passive. It hit her that he was deferring to Adam on purpose. Giving the man a chance to be himself again. Good on you, Jack.
    Adam cleared his throat. “I agree it wouldn’t be smart to try to go back. It’s the type of terrain that could keep us lost for weeks on end… But what makes you think we should head over that mountain?”
    Jack said, “We’ve been heading roughly north. Milford Sound is in the north of the national park—I did some research at home—and it’s big, at least ten or fifteen kilometers long. If we stayed as close to the coast as we could, surely we’d get to it eventually? There’d be people at Milford Sound. We might even intersect the Milford Track, and find some other hikers. It’s a popular track—there are dozens of people hiking it every day over the summer.”
    Adam raised his eyebrows. “On the first day, I wrote ‘Milford Sound’ as our destination in that guest book at the conservation hut, when Bryan wasn’t looking. And I told the cop that’s where we were headed, when we were getting in the boat. I thought people should know where we were really going.” He sighed. “But Bryan brought us here instead, so it’s probably not much use.”
    “Yes, it is. When they realize we’re lost, they’ll send someone to check that book. So if we head north, we might get into the search path.”
    Callie said, “How can we be sure it’s not another ten days walk? Bryan wouldn’t have left us near help.”  
    “Whatever we do has risks.”
    “He might have assumed we’d think the way we came in was the only way out,” she said. “He didn’t credit us with much initiative.”
    Adam looked morose. “We haven’t shown much, have we? From the beginning, I didn’t like Bryan’s secrecy about the route. It was strange, and dangerous. The more people who know exactly where you are in a wilderness, the better. But I thought that whoever was supposed to pick us up at Milford Sound must at least know where we were meant to end up, so I let it ride. And now we find out that person doesn’t exist. I assumed that even if Bryan didn’t want the whole world to know, he would have to outline the real route when he filed his ‘intentions form’, since it was an official document—but he obviously didn’t. Then we should’ve turned back five days ago when we talked about it. Our tracks were much fresher then. I probably could’ve found them. And if we’d tackled him as soon as he started talking like a loony last night, we probably could have stopped him