Emily — Boothbay Harbor, ME
There was no sight of Wilson as Emily approached Boothbay Harbor, but it had been less than twenty minutes since she left Bailey Island. She dropped anchor off the eastern peninsula and began surveying the main pier six hundred yards away through a pair of binoculars she’d found on board.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty minutes. Still no sign of Wilson. She pulled up anchor and started the engine. She had to do something. After docking at one of the longer piers away from the center of town, she put on a stocking cap, boots, and a full-length yellow slicker from the boat’s storage compartment. Thankfully, a light rain was falling from an overcast sky, allowing her to use the slicker’s large hood without drawing unwanted attention. She walked briskly up the pier into the community of Boothbay Harbor. For another ten minutes she scanned the quaint New England streets near the harbor, looking at every face she saw. Panic was starting to set in.
Finally, she spotted him standing with a group of twenty or so people in the store front offices of Montsweag’s Whale Watching and Sightseeing Excursions. Emily barely recognized him in the baseball cap and red plastic raincoat. She waited for him to see her, but he didn’t. Just as she began feeling conspicuous, he saw her. Their eyes locked for an instant. There was no mistaking Wilson’s nod of recognition.
Emily walked around the corner and down a narrow alleyway between two buildings toward the water, thinking there must be fishing boats for rent nearby. So much for their plan to avoid wasting time with boat rentals. Sure enough, there they were-three canopied catamarans and half a dozen twelve-foot outboards, all with the Montsweag’s name in blue and yellow letters. It was never too early in the season for fishing, thank God.
Emily hurried back up the alleyway and entered Montsweag’s through a side door. Wilson saw her. She turned to one of the clerks behind the counter and asked about the group of people. The woman informed her that they were about to embark on a whale-watching excursion and then asked if she cared to join them.
“Actually, I’m more interested in your twelve-footers,” Emily said, realizing that the best way to get out of there was to rent another boat and give Wilson the opportunity to leave the excursion group at the last minute. He obviously wouldn’t be acting the way he was, she thought, if he wasn’t afraid of being seen.
“The small fishing boats?” the attendant asked.
“Yeah. How much is the rental?”
“$75 an hour with bait and tackle, $200 a half day, $350 all day. $500 refundable deposit.”
“I’d like to rent one for all day.”
“Fill this out, please,” she said, handing Emily a clipboard with a renter’s agreement. “How will you be paying?”
“Cash,” Emily said, grateful for the $3,000 in one hundred dollar bills that Hap had placed in each of the escape bags. She hoped they weren’t marked.
“Fine, but I’ll need an imprint of your credit card for the deposit.”
Emily quickly filled out the necessary paperwork and read the accompanying instructions. She paid the clerk, who took an imprint of her American Express card for the refundable $500 deposit. Thankfully, Wilson had brought her purse from Venice. She watched closely to make sure the clerk didn’t process the credit card. They certainly didn’t need a transaction to show up on somebody’s computer screen. Noticing Emily’s watchful eye, the clerk reassured her that her card had not been charged and that she could tear up the imprint when she returned with the boat undamaged. “Take this to Sam on the pier,” she said handing Emily the key and a copy of the agreement, “He’ll help you.”
“Thank you,” Emily said, before timing her exit to coincide with the group of whale watchers leaving the office. Emily blended into the crowd, offering thanks for another small blessing. On the pier, she found Sam who led her to one of the twelve-footers. Sam pointed out a few things, and Emily got into the boat. At the last minute Wilson withdrew from the group and joined her in the small fishing boat. At first, Sam looked surprised at Wilson’s sudden arrival and was about to say something, until Emily smiled and gave him a thumbs up. Within seconds Emily and Wilson were crossing the bay through a cluster of anchored sailboats and schooners.
Wilson lay on the bottom of the boat telling Emily how two cars began following him outside Bath. “A dark blue Ford Taurus and a red Jeep Cherokee kept trading positions every mile or so. When I stopped at a gas station in Woolwich to put more air in the tires, the Cherokee stopped at a pottery barn across the road, and the Taurus kept going. After that, both vehicles kept their distance, but they continued following me. I stopped again in Wiscasset at an ATM, just to see what they’d do. Both cars passed me, but I saw them again when I turned onto Highway 27. After that they let me think I’d lost them.”
“How many men did Hap send?”
“That’s what scared me. There were six of them. Four in the Cherokee and two in the Taurus. Hap said he was sending three,” Wilson said, his eyes were full of venom as he looked up at Emily from the bottom of the boat. “When I got to Boothbay Harbor I stopped at Brigham’s Inn. A few blocks away from the pier. We stayed there once. Remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” Emily said, smiling. She swung her eyes back to the helm and the bay in front of them.
“I left the Range Rover in the parking lot next to Brigham’s and casually walked to the B amp;B. As soon as I got inside, I left through the back door into the garden and ran through the woods to a side street where I entered the first clothing shop I could find. That’s where I bought my new Red Sox cap and the raincoat.”
“How did you wind up with the whale watching group?” Emily asked.
“I knew the men following me wouldn’t stay at the B amp;B for long, which meant meeting you on the main pier was not an option. Unfortunately, the only way to let you know was to not show up. Sorry. I knew you’d figure it out and come looking for me, so I tried to find a natural cover nearby. When the whale watching group started forming a few minutes ago, I bought a ticket.”
“Thank God you saw me.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Wilson said. “Your outfit was brilliant. I saw you standing there in the rain and didn’t think twice about it. Then, when you turned, I knew it was you. I’d recognize that graceful turn of your head anywhere, no matter what you were wearing.”
Glancing at him sideways, she said, “We’re getting better at this, and I’m not sure I like it.”
Wilson didn’t respond, except to raise his eyebrows, as the boat motored across the harbor to the pier where Emily had left the lobster boat. They quickly got out of the twelve-footer and into Paddie’s twenty-four-foot lobster boat. Emily charted a course around the eastern peninsula to Linekin Bay. When they reached Lobster Cove, they began looking for a secluded place to dock so they could survey what was happening back in Boothbay Harbor. No matter who was following them-Hap’s men, Tate’s men, the FBI-compromised or not, every local cop and state trooper along the coast would soon be looking for them, Wilson thought. Sooner or later, someone was bound to check the boat rentals, and then they’d have the coast guard after them as well.
When they spotted a small pier with no one around, they docked the boat and hiked up a narrow path through heavy brush past two secluded homes and into a small clearing, which was perfect for spying.
They sat sheltered by a large umbrella from the misting rain on one of the outdoor benches and took turns scanning the bay’s environs. Wilson was the first to spot the men who had been following him.
“The two cars that were following me just pulled into the parking lot at the main pier,” he said, his eyes glued to the binoculars. “Only five men this time. One must be waiting. Hold it. Here come two more vehicles. One of them is the Range Rover. The other one is a Taurus. Beige. Three more men. The two Fords have to be FBI. The Jeep Cherokee must be Hap’s.”
“What are they doing?” Emily asked.
“Talking. Just talking.”
“Now what?”
“Nothing.”
Emily squinted, but without binoculars she could barely discern the cars.
“One of them is pointing toward town,” Wilson said. “Looks like he’s giving instructions. They’re splitting up. On foot.”
“Whoever they are, it won’t take them long to check the rental records. I think it’s time to leave,” Emily said.
“I think you’re right,” Wilson said, handing the binoculars to Emily.
She peered through the lenses at the eight men who were now walking two by two into Boothbay Harbor’s commercial district. “At least we know they won’t be looking for us back on Bailey Island,” Emily said.
“Right,” Wilson said. “And, if these guys don’t already know we’re sitting here across the bay, it means that everything they used to track us is still in the Range Rover.”
They returned to the lobster boat and headed back toward Mo Bobicki’s loft. As they rounded the point into Mackerel Cove, everything seemed normal. They docked the boat at the gas pumps where Paddie was waiting for them. He’d been hanging out in the restaurant’s bar when he saw them enter the cove. It was almost two in the afternoon.
Back in the loft, they made up the bed and futon, pulled down the blinds on the windows, and tried to get some rest since neither of them had gotten much sleep in the past few days. Wilson was overjoyed to have Emily lying beside him again. As he closed his eyes to sleep, he wondered if the FBI or Hap’s men or the secret partnership would be able to trace a call if he used the pay telephone downstairs to contact Hap. He needed to make sure their families were safe. It was the last thought he remembered before falling asleep.