An Introvert's Guide for Island Domination novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Does That Count?

Harvey did not sleep.

At dawn he was still sitting at the foot of the big pine, with a knife across his knees.

"Somebody cut the anchor strap about a third of the way through," he said. "Then they retied the knot over it so it would look fine. It would have held until about noon."

Dot held the strap up to the light and shook her head.

"That's Landing."

"I can't prove it," Harvey said.

Katja wrote a card, walked to the bear canister, and put it in the slot.

COMPLAINT. SOMEONE TRIED TO DROP THE BRIDGE. SUSPECT: PERSON UNKNOWN.

"Reviewed Friday," Dot said, and nodded with great satisfaction.

After that Harvey doubled every anchor on the bridge, with a flat, fast face and no stories.

At ten he came to find her.

"You can't cross that bridge again until you stop freezing," he said. "If it goes, you'd have to go down a rope. Come on. North cliff."

She held up a card.

NOT BEFORE NOON.

"It's ten," Harvey said, "and this is not a conversation. This is a lesson. I'll do all the talking."

The north cliff was a low wall of red rock at the far end of the Shelf, about thirty feet high.

It had a flat ledge at the top, and the white Floor lay beyond it.

Harvey put her in a harness, and his hands went around her thighs and her waist to check each buckle.

He did not look at her while he did it. He looked at the buckles.

He clipped her to a rope that ran up through a block on the ledge and back down to his own hands.

"I'm going to teach you to trust the line," he said. "You're going to lean back off the edge, and I'm going to hold you. That's the whole lesson. I won't let go."

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