“Which way do you think she would have gone?” asked Harry as they peered out at the vast lake, and Walter was suddenly confronted with the enormous futility of his task: 82,103 square kilometres, to be precise. Walter always went east, but he imagined Kate would turn the other way, towards the border, so that’s the way they went. At the very least, Walter thought, there was less water to cover that way – if they didn’t find her before the crossing at Pigeon River, they knew she had to be in the other direction. Unless, of course, she had just gone straight out into the lake, in which case they were really in trouble.

They were just past Thompson Island when the Coast Guard boats came flying up behind them, sirens blaring. Walter felt a hard knot of worry form in his chest. Harry looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “Might as well follow them,” Walter said, leaning against the gunwale, resigned. They motored through the Coast Guard wake past Spar Island and Victoria Island, then veered suddenly and swiftly away from the shoreline towards Isle Royale, across the border in Michigan.

“Oh,” said Walter softly, suddenly making the connection.

A few weeks earlier, Kate had come to him with a map. According to a book she had read, there was a tiny island outcrop off the coast of Isle Royale that used to house a lighthouse. Back in the 1920s, the lighthouse keeper had apparently been a fugitive from the law, something that wasn’t discovered until after his death. He had stolen thousands of dollars during a bank robbery in Eau Claire and hidden the cash on the island. It was blocked off from public access, and the lighthouse had subsequently fallen into disrepair, but Kate was sure the treasure, as she called it, must still be there. Walter had laughed at her, told her it was just a legend, a fairy tale. He had heard the story before. One of many myths around Lake Superior.

“You don’t know that for sure,” she said. “We should go. It will be like an adventure.”

“A highly illegal and completely pointless adventure,” Walter replied.

Kate pouted. “You’re no fun at all. What’s the point of even having a boat if you don’t get to take it to remote islands to search for buried treasure?” But she had dropped the idea. Or so Walter had thought. Now, he realized that the idea had been festering in her mind since then. He should have known. Kate was never one for dropping things.