Fearful Discovery

Nancy kept rowing, her lungs bursting from the effort, her eyes on the rising water level. If only there was someone else in the boat to help, to bail or try to stuff something in the hole. But she was alone.

The grating of the oars was loud in the muted world of her panting and the ocean’s splashing wash. Her oar caught, jerking her painfully one way, then the boat bounced her the other and she sank into the water in the bottom of the boat for a moment before she regained her seat. Only then did she realize that she was aground!

For just a heartbeat, she let herself slump on the hard boat seat, easing the pain in her back and shoulders. Then she caught her breath and

looked around. She was aground on the rocky shore somewhere below the ridge that formed the backbone of the island. From where she stood, she could see the bulge of the land that protected the cove, but the island curved enough at this point that she could see neither the entrance to the cove nor the resort above.

“Wow, that was close, ” Nancy muttered as she got to her shaky legs and stepped out of the boat onto the rocky shore. A couple of deep breaths and she turned her attention to lifting the cooler out and retrieving the hand line from the water in the bottom of the boat. Then she returned to the boat.

“Now, let’s see just what happened, ” she said as she wrestled the heavy craft against the rocks and forced it over.

The hole was there—a small round hole so smooth that it was obviously not something that had happened accidentally. Nancy touched it and felt something sticky on her fingers, then looked into the boat, wondering if something had been plugged into the hole, something that had come loose while she rowed.

No plug was visible anywhere near the boat. Nancy sighed and tried to drag the boat higher on the shore, hoping to wedge it between the rocks strewn about the area.

Sighing, she looked up the steep hillside, knowing that she’d have an easier time getting back to the resort if she climbed up to the road. Then she remembered the big boat she’d seen. Where was it? She left the cooler and other equipment and moved out on the rocks.

The waves roared around her feet and the spray was salty on her lips as she leaned out, shading her eyes against the glare of the sun while she sought the outline of the boat she’d seen earlier. The waves washed the rocks on the hook of the cove and rolled through the opening, spending themselves on the sand.

Nancy frowned, then peered around again. There was nothing to be seen. No boat gleamed and bounced on the water, no distant motor sound reached her ears.

Could it be in the cove? Nancy hurried back to where she’d left her fish and fishing gear and picked up the cooler, aware that the fish would need to be cleaned and kept cold if they were to be dinner. It was a hard climb to the road with the extra weight of the cooler, but she made it. She hurried to the highest point of the road, and looked toward the cove between the palm trees that shaded her. A small boat was moving along near the hook of land that surrounded the cove. Penny was on her way home, too.

“Nancy? ” Her father’s voice brought her gaze back to the land, and she saw him approaching her at a fast clip. “What in the world are you doing here? ” he demanded.

Nancy explained quickly as he relieved her of the cooler’s weight.

“Do you think the plug was something that could be dissolved in salt water? ” he asked when she finished.

She shrugged. “It sure seems as if it was intentional, ” she admitted. “I was just lucky that the tide caught the boat and helped me get to shore before it sank.”

“What about Penny? ” Mr. Drew asked. “She’s on her way in, ” Nancy answered. “I saw her from the road. There was something else, Dad, ” she said. “I saw the Polka Dot! ’ “You what? ”

“It was just before my boat started to leak, ” Nancy continued. “It looked like the Polka Dot was heading for the cove.”

“Well, I’m sure it hasn’t been in the cove, ” her father observed.

“How can you be sure? ”

“We gave up on the radio-phone shortly after you and Penny left, ” he admitted. “Too much of it was totally smashed. We couldn’t salvage anything, so George and I spent most of the afternoon on the beach. I changed and decided to walk along the road to see if I could spot you or one of the islands Penny mentioned.”

“Did you? ”

“It was too hazy to see the islands, and I didn’t see any boat either.”

“How long were you up here? ” Nancy asked, frowning in confusion.

“Maybe half an hour before I saw you come scrambling over the ridge.”

“Then you must have seen the boat, ” Nancy protested.

“Honey, I didn’t.”

Nancy looked up at her father, her brow furrowed, her lovely blue eyes troubled. She had seen it, she was sure. Yet the timing was such that her father had to have seen it, too, if it had sailed away from the island. And if it hadn’t? There was no place it could have gone except into the cove—and she’d seen for herself that the water was empty.

“There’s cold lemonade in the refrigerator, ”

her father said as they neared the resort. “I’ll clean the fish while you change into something a little less fishy.”

Nancy smiled. “I guess I am a little ripe from the water in that boat, ” she admitted. “I think the last person to use it left their fish in the bottom instead of putting them in a cooler.” “I’m just very glad that you’re safe. I want to look at that boat. Maybe Penny will know what was in the hole and why it disintegrated.”

“I definitely want to look at it again, too, ” Nancy agreed.

The rear door of the resort opened, and George stepped out to greet them. “Nancy, what in the world happened to you? ” she demanded.

Nancy repeated her story as she filled the tub with warm water. George shook her dark head. “I don’t understand any of it, ” she admitted. “Why should anyone want to hurt you? ”

Nancy shrugged. “I’m just glad it was the boat I took and not the one Penny has. She went a lot further than I did.”

“Are you sure she’s back? ” George asked, instantly concerned.

“Dad and I saw her rowing into the cove just before we came inside, ” Nancy answered, dropping her fishy clothes in a pile.

“I’ll go down and tell her what happened, ” George said.

“Ask her if she saw the Polka Dot, ” Nancy called after her friend, then stepped into the water with a sigh of contentment.

Penny was waiting in the lobby when Nancy emerged, dressed now in a pretty red and white print sundress. Penny’s green eyes were worried as she scanned Nancy’s face. “Are you really all right? ” she asked.

“Fine now, ” Nancy said, “though I’ll probably be a bit sore tomorrow from all the rowing.” “George told me what happened, ” Penny said. “You must have been terrified.”

“I’m just glad it happened close enough to shore, ” Nancy admitted. “I really want you to see the hole in the bottom of that boat. It looks like it was done with a large drill.”

“No one would patch a hole like that without being very careful, ” Penny murmured. “My grandfather takes care of his boats.”

“How was your fishing trip? ” Nancy asked immediately. “Did you catch anything? ” “Between us, we have enough fish for several days, ” Penny answered. “Your father insisted on cleaning mine, too, so I was just about to get things ready to cook them.”

Nancy laughed. “I’m glad it’s going to be soon, ” she said. “I’m starving.”

“I hope our lights are secure for tonight, ” Penny murmured.

“I guess they’ll be all right if our visitors don’t come back, ” Nancy observed, then asked Penny if she’d seen the big boat.

“It didn’t come my way, ” the redhead answered. “I didn’t see anything out there all afternoon. I was watching, too. Sometimes someone will sail by and I thought I could hail them and have them call for help.”

Nancy shook her head in confusion as they went into the kitchen. George looked up from where she and Carson Drew were working at the sink. “Next time we fish and you two get to clean them, ” she announced with a grin.

“Speaking of next time, what about Nancy’s boat, Penny? ” Carson Drew asked. “Is there anything we can use to bring it back here to fix it? ”

“The golf cart should be strong enough, shouldn’t it? ” Penny asked. “We don’t have a car or anything like that. Heavy stuff usually goes on the Polka Dot.”

“Do you think we could carry it up the hill to the road? ” Nancy asked her father.

“It shouldn’t be too heavy, ” her father said. “Shall we go now? ”

“You’ve got plenty of time before dinner, ” Penny assured them. “The golf cart is in the shed over there, and the key is in it, I expect.” The trip along the road in the golf cart took only a few minutes, and Nancy stopped it just at the point where she’d come over the ridge to the road. “The boat is right down there, ” she said, pointing between two palms. “I remember that pink hibiscus. I think it’s the only one along here.”

Her father nodded, starting down the hill, slipping and sliding in the sandy soil. They were almost to the bottom before Nancy had a chance to look around. Her eyes went immediately to the rocks that had caught the boat as it washed ashore. The water level was different now, but the rocks were still well clear of the waves.

Nancy swallowed hard, staring at rocky the ground where she’d left the craft. “It’s gone, ” she gasped, then bending low to study the ground, she pointed at the man’s footprint that showed clearly in the damp earth. “Someone took my boat! ”