Page 42 of Dauntless
It was dark, but I knew my way.Mavis’s window was closed, and the curtains were pulled.I wondered if she’d locked the shop tonight, like Sarah Hooper had locked her door.
What did they think?That Eddie Hawthorne, inheritor of his great-great-great-grandfather’s bloody tyranny, was running amok on Dauntless Island?Cracking people over the heads in some sort of mad revenge spree?
I thought of Eddie, and his big eyes, and his grin and his glasses and the way he wrinkled his nose and the way he kissed.I wished I could laugh at the idea, but I couldn’t.My gut told me he couldn’t hurt anyone, but I was tired, cold, and unhappy, and doubts were creeping in like shadows under a door.What made me so sure I could trust my gut?How well did I really know Eddie?How well did anyone know anybody?
My boots crunched against the dirt as Hiccup and I walked back down the main street towards the museum.
It was cold, getting colder, and I’d forgotten my gloves.I jammed my hands into the pockets of my coat instead, trying to ignore the fact that my fingers felt like icicles.
Hiccup and I reached the museum at last and walked down the side of the sandstone building.It gleamed in the moonlight.The backyard was a little overgrown, and it took me a moment to remember where the cellar was.It was difficult to spot even in the moonlight: a dark door lying against the grass like it had been dropped there from a great height.
I crouched down and heaved it open.No shower of dirt came with it, and my stomach clenched.Had someone opened it recently?I turned my torch on and shone it down the dark, narrow stone steps.
The beam of light hit John Coldwell in the face.
He looked as though he’d been dead for hours.
* * *
Itrudged back up the hill towards the point, glad that Hiccup was with me.I felt colder than the chill night warranted.Colder than the grave.Part of that was from descending those steps into the cellar.But most of it came from pressing my fingers to John Coldwell’s throat in what I’d known was a vain attempt to find a pulse.John was already cold and stiff.There had been nothing I could do for him.
I shivered as I continued up the hill.The beam of the lighthouse drew me on, solid and strong.
When I reached the top of the point, Eddie’s tent was still there.
I entered the lighthouse, switching on the interior lights as I stepped inside.Hiccup, like always, waited outside.She wasn’t a fan of the steep steps.
I climbed the stairs to the flag room and opened up the crates.
Would Eddie remember what I’d told him on that tour of the lighthouse?Would he remember what the flags were for?
I climbed up to the lantern room and went out onto the catwalk.
It was dark now, the wind wild, but the sunlight would hit the lighthouse first in the morning, and it would shine like a beacon.
I moved around to the leeward side of the lighthouse, where the flags wouldn’t be seen by shipping traffic.I fastened the two flags I’d chosen to the rails.
One was a blue checked flag.
The other was divided into four squares.The top left and the bottom right were red.The top right and the bottom left were white.
Would Eddie be able to read them?
The flags fluttered in the wind, broadcasting a message for those who could read it.
Your movements are not understood, said the first.
And the second said,You are running into danger.
Because the moment John Coldwell’s body was found, there wouldn’t be a man or woman on the island who didn’t assume Eddie Hawthorne was responsible for his death.And I wasn’t sure that my name alone would be enough to protect Eddie until the police arrived.
Eddie needed to stay hidden, wherever he was, and to stay safe.
Eddie hadn’t made any friends on the island.I’d even started to let doubts sneak in after hours tramping around in the dark and cold.Right up until I’d found John’s body, I’d started to wonder if it might be possible that Eddie wasn’t who he seemed to be.That he had the potential to snap in anger.And I might have even let those doubts continue to build, to twist into suspicions, if I hadn’t looked in the old icehouse behind the museum.Because how would Eddie even know the icehouse existed?It wasn’t in any of the museum brochures, and John Coldwell would never have volunteered such information to a Hawthorne.
No, the existence of the icehouse was something only an islander would know.
Which meant that only an islander could have killed him.
