Free Anarchy by James Treadwell Page A

myself after a year in a place where nothing much ever happens. But after a week she admitted to herself that she wanted to be more like him, not that her parents’ genes would ever allow it.) He took her down through the stained and damp and generally unloved remnants of the Hardy fishing and leisure fleet to his own cluttered whaler, if not exactly at a jog then at least without pausing to ask what she thought she was doing. The closest he came to a reproach was just before he started the motor.
    â€œNot the greatest time, you know, man. Had a couple of guys in the station already asking about the bank.”
    One visitor to the station in a whole day would have counted as a crime wave in Alice, let alone two in a morning. “I’ll make it up to you. I can take the next few shifts.”
    He backed them through the puff of oily smoke coughed up by the outboard. She felt cold already, only a few feet from land. “So, where to, Jeeves? No, wait. Jeeves is the chauffeur. Other guy.”
    She explained what she’d seen. For some reason it was easier to say on water, as if the unlikelihood didn’t matter so much here. She had to shout; Jonas gunned the throttle as soon as he was clear of the dock. He obviously didn’t mind going fast as long as he could stand still while it was happening.
    â€œKeep going like this,” she yelled, “and I reckon it won’t take too long. No one will notice you left.”
    He leaned across to reply. “I dunno.”
    â€œYou think she can outrun us in a kayak?”
    â€œNah. Look at that.” He nodded forward.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLooks like a fog.”
    She was so used to the universal, evergreen-tinged grey of the horizon that she’d stopped noticing when it changed shape. The coastal mountains were gone, replaced by nothing. Out beyond the bay the sea and the sky mingled into a single looming presence that seemed to be equally solid and air.
    â€œCrap.”
    They powered on close to the eastern side of the bay, passing the ferry terminal and the last few holiday cabins overlooking it. (Strange place for them, Goose thought, though if her holiday choices were fishing or watching a ferry go in and out, she’d have chosen the latter.) The air was wet and chill enough to sting like sleet if she stuck her hand out of the shelter of the windshield.
    â€œHow long have we got?” she asked.
    He swayed comfortably while the boat bounced under his feet and the wheel shook in his hand. “Couldn’t tell you. Us native guys got excused meteorology class at the Depot.”
    â€œJeez, Jonas.”
    He shook his head. “One thing for sure, if that rolls in here we aren’t finding anyone in it.”
    â€œSo what do we do?”
    He thought about it for a while, then leaned on the throttle. She grabbed the cold metal of the back of her seat. “Go faster, I guess.”
    As soon as they rounded the eastern tip of the bay the strait grew surprisingly rough. From a distance it looked as even and tranquil as the utterly sheltered inlet beside which Alice sat, water so smooth that when Goose had first taken her own kayak out there she’d felt like a calligrapher marking patient lines and dots on a vast silver sheet. But here, even in the absence of anything but the faintest wind, the sea felt the presence of the ocean a hundred kilometers west. It was restless. It made itself into fist-thick ridges and troughs that smacked the skimming hull of Jonas’s whaler as if they wouldn’t have minded punching it back where it came from. Looking over her shoulder now Goose could see straight up the Inside Passage, out past the flat head of Vancouver Island toward the ocean and the north. There was no passage. The fog plugged it like mortar.
    â€œGonna be tight getting back.”
    Goose gritted her teeth in silent frustration.
    â€œMight not even be the kid,” Jonas said. “You didn’t get a look at