Free Boar Island by Nevada Barr Page A

school everybody likes me, or I don’t even know them. You know how it is. There’s a bunch of boys who make a game of getting girls to have sex with them, and they keep score. They’re creeps, and they’ve done some creepy things—you know, posting about the girls who put out, and even meaner posts about the ones that didn’t. Both Tiff and I got asked sort of out by one of their bottom feeders—not like a date or anything, just stupid stuff by a guy who wants to be in on the game but is a total loser. Maybe the creep boys could be doing it. I don’t think so, though. I mean, at school, I’m not all that important. Why take the trouble to stalk me? I’d probably be worth, like, half a point.”
    “Half a point?” Anna asked.
    “You know, a cheerleader’s worth five points, a girl on the student council two points. Like that.”
    “Time to cull the gene pool,” Anna murmured.
    “God, I’m glad you’re here, Anna,” Heath burst out as a boil of anxiety burst inside her. “For all we know this could turn to physical stalking.”
    Anna said after a moment: “Starting next week, I’ve got a twenty-one-day detail in Acadia National Park. Acting chief ranger. Their chief is fighting that big fire in Southern California.”
    This last was said without affect, but Heath knew it rankled with her friend. Like many rangers, Anna neighed and fretted like an old war horse when fire season came around. Heath couldn’t understand this love of fighting wildfire. For some it was about overtime and hazard pay.
    For others it was an addiction. Anna belonged to the latter group. She’d taken a bullet during the Fox River adventure, and her left arm never fully recovered. Though Anna’d never admit it, she probably hadn’t the strength to swing a Pulaski for long.
    To be acting chief in a park as important as Acadia would be welcomed by most rangers, a nice step up the ladder to being permanent chief somewhere else. Anna had dithered about the promotion to district ranger. Money meant little to her. Being out of doors and away from human beings meant a lot.
    “You’re leaving?” Elizabeth wailed.
    Heath flinched, not because her daughter cried out like an abandoned five-year-old but because, for an instant, she thought she’d done it herself and was mortified.
    “They don’t need you!” Heath said, then stooped to threats. “They’re liable to give you a promotion.”
    “I’ll be sure and offend the higher-ups,” Anna said with a dry smile.
    “Send someone else,” Heath said, hating the whine in her words.
    “Wildfires in California. Everybody is short-handed,” Anna said.
    Heath said no more. She’d already said too much.
    Gwen, whose usual upbeat enthusiasm seemed to have been squelched by the points game and creeps and stalkers, perked up. “Acadia National Park? In Maine? Of course in Maine! For heaven’s sake, I’m getting dotty. My first job out of med school was near there. I have to make some calls. Heath, Elizabeth, pack. We are going to Maine with Anna!”
    Gwen kissed the air around everybody’s cheeks, snatched up her black medical bag, and blew out on the wind the way she had blown in.
    “Mary Poppins,” Heath laughed.
    “Who does Aunt Gwen know in Maine?” Elizabeth asked.
    “Dez Hammond and Chris Zuckerberg. A couple of old hippies from the day,” Heath said. Heath had met them on two occasions when they’d visited Boulder. She remembered liking them. “Chris comes from money. She inherited an island off Acadia. They spend most of their time rehabbing an old mansion and hosting artists.”
    “Where’s Arcadia?” E asked.
    “Acadia,” Anna corrected. “Northern Maine, lobsters and nor’easters.”
    “I’m going to be marooned on an island with four old ladies,” Elizabeth cried.
    “In a crumbling old mansion,” Heath said.
    “You’ll be there, won’t you?” Elizabeth begged Anna.
    Heath was annoyed that, though she had more years under her belt than Heath, Anna