“What?”

“Nothing. Just call them back.” Leslie clutched the phone and switched the

wipers to high as rain battered the windshield. Her chest tightened and out of the

blue, the ß uttering started. She blinked as a wave of dizziness swept through

her and she shook her head angrily to dispel it. “I don’t have time for this.”

To her relief, the brief episode passed and her vision cleared. She concentrated

on what needed to be done. If her mother didn’t reach Natalie, her choices

were few. In fact, there was only one choice.

The parking lot was empty, as were the grounds, as Leslie roared into the lot.

She jumped out and sprinted through the steady rain to the lodge. The wind had

picked up, and she noticed that most of the leaves had turned over, their

bottoms to the sky. It was a sure sign that the barometric pressure was falling

and a big storm was on its way. Eileen met her at the door.

• 146 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

“Did you reach Natalie?” Leslie gasped.

Eileen shook her head. “The ranger in the ofÞ ce promised to get a message to

her. She knows Dev is out there, Leslie. She’ll get her.”

“Natalie’s going to be lucky to get all the campers out of the campsites. And she

has to do that Þ rst. She has to. Besides, she knows that Dev is better equipped

than anyone else to ride out the storm, so she’ll leave her till last.” Leslie hurried

to the small ofÞ ce beyond the dining room and snatched up the two-way.

“Dev? Dev, do you read me?”

“Leslie…hear you.”

Even through the static, the sound of Dev’s voice instantly quieted her racing

heart. “Hey you. I’ll be there in an hour. Everything okay?”

“Don’t …co…ere. D…you read…on’t… Les…”

“An hour, Devon. See you then.” Leslie switched off and turned to Þ nd her

father watching from his wheelchair in the doorway. Hastily, she bent down and

kissed his cheek. “Hi, Daddy. Welcome home. I’m sorry, I have to go right

back out.”

“Your mother told me about your friend.” Paul Harris backed his wheelchair up

to allow Leslie room to pass. “It’ll be rough out there on the water, sweetheart.”

“Good thing you taught me how to handle the boat, then,” Leslie called on the

run.

“Check your gear before you head out,” he shouted after her.

“I will. Don’t worry.” Leslie pulled her mother’s rain slicker off a coat tree just

inside the back door and slammed out. Pulling it on, she hurried down to the

docks. There wasn’t much of a margin before the storm really broke, but she

calculated there would be just enough time to get there and back. She jumped

into the boat and did a quick check in the storage lockers for the critical items—

battery-powered searchlights, the GPS transmitter, an inß atable life raft, and

PFDs. She shrugged into a life vest and zipped it up, then released the tie lines

and pushed the boat away from the dock. As she turned the key in the ignition

and revved the motor, she thought grimly of backwash and the effect of the

propellers on the sediment in the shallows. Right now, that seemed far less

important than reaching Devon. In fact, she couldn’t think of a single thing that

felt more critical.

She hunched her shoulders against the driving wind, narrowed her eyes in the

pelting rain, and thrust the throttle to the max. The boat leapt forward, the big

motor whining as the bow crashed heavily in the

• 147 •

RADCLY fFE

troughs between the waves. Her teeth knocked together painfully, and she

clenched her jaws and spread her legs to steady herself, keeping a death grip on

the wheel. She didn’t think about the impending storm or the rising chop. She

thought about Dev. This time, she had no intention of leaving Dev to face danger

alone.

• 148 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Leslie! Leslie, do you read?” Dev held the two-way close to her ear with one

hand and dragged her tarp over the equipment cases she had piled in a rocky

cul-de-sac near her campsite with the other. She waited a full minute for a

response, then jammed the radio into the front pocket of her anorak. “God

damn it.”

Rain drummed steadily against the leaves overhead, but the canopy was not yet

saturated and only a slow drizzle was getting through to her. The wind had

picked up, though, and it wouldn’t be long before the rain penetrated the last

remaining barrier between her and the angry sky. She piled rocks around the

edges of the tarp and hastily trenched it as well as she could with the small

folding shovel she’d packed with her camping gear. Then she trenched her tent

and pounded extra stakes with additional guidelines into the Þ rmest ground she

could Þ nd. Thunder rolled and a sheet of rain sliced through the trees, hitting

her in the back of the neck, immediately soaking her shirt.

She couldn’t even be bothered to swear, but just pulled her hood over her head.

After checking one more time to see that everything was as secure as she could

make it, she skidded down the narrow path to the shore, following the trail

through the trees she’d created by her daily trek to the lake. By the time Dev

reached the shore, the wind buffeted her body and she needed to lean forward

to maintain her balance. The thin rim of sandy beach was gone, washed away by

the pounding waves. Clinging to the slippery bank with an arm around a tree,

she pulled out the radio.

“Leslie? Leslie, this is Dev. Where the hell are you?”

She hoped someone had had the good sense to keep Leslie off

• 149 •

RADCLY fFE

the lake. The surface of the water was so churned up it looked like the ocean

rather than an inland lake. The sky had darkened to the point where she needed

to use her ß ashlight to check her watch. It’d been a little over an hour since her

last communication with Leslie. Dev squinted into the rain and scanned the lake,

but the visibility was less than Þ fty yards. She jammed her hands into her

pockets, hunched her shoulders against the wind, and ignored the cold as icy

rain soaked through her jeans below her anorak.

Five minutes later, she heard it—the sound of an engine laboring somewhere in

the inky mist. She switched on her ß ashlight and waved it in a wide, slow arc

above her head, squinting so hard into the rain that her eyes ached. The air

howled like a creature in pain, and for a moment, Dev thought she’d imagined

the sound of a motor. Then a ß icker of light caught her eye, went out, and ß

ickered on again. A rhythmic on and off that she recognized as a bow light,

cresting and disappearing into the troughs between the waves as a boat fought

its way to shore. She couldn’t make out the Þ gure in the boat as the craft

wallowed, spun sideways, and threatened to go over. Miraculously, the pilot

maneuvered the bow around until it pointed toward shore again, but the water

was so rough the boat couldn’t land. Holding the ß ashlight above her head with

one hand, Dev waded into the water up to her thighs and stretched out an arm.

“Throw the line!” she shouted against the wind, knowing it was hopeless. She

could feel the words being forced down her throat before they’d even cleared

her lips. Nevertheless, a line snaked through the air and whipped across her

chest. Reß exively, she caught it and wrapped it around her forearm.

Fortunately, her jacket protected her arm, because the rope immediately

tightened like a noose. She could feel it biting into her skin even with the

protection of the nylon. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she leaned backward

toward shore, using her body as an anchor to keep the front of the boat directed

toward land. Each time the rope loosened she stepped backward, keeping the

guideline tight.

She could see Leslie’s face now, screaming something to her.

One step. Two. Three. Dev stumbled, fell backward into the lake, and lost her ß

ashlight. The rope around her arm loosened as she swallowed water and ß ailed

in the shallows just offshore. Coughing and sputtering, struggling in her boots

and wet jeans, she tried unsuccessfully to regain her feet. Then an arm circled

around her waist and steadied her. She broke the surface spewing water and

gasping for air.

• 150 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

“Are you crazy?” Leslie shouted. “You could’ve gone under the boat and gotten

tangled up in the propeller. I could have killed you!”

“Look who’s talking,” Dev shouted back. “What the hell are you doing out

here? You’re lucky you didn’t capsize in the middle of the lake and drown.”

“The storm’s coming in faster than they predicted,” Leslie said, ignoring Dev’s

chastisement. “The lake’s too rough to make the return trip now.”

“Let’s secure the boat and get to high ground!”

Even as they shouted, Dev and Leslie both grabbed the towrope and dragged

the boat as far up onto what remained of the shoreline as they could. Then

Leslie staggered up the muddy bank and began wrapping the line around a