Skiff Dock

Excerpt From A Darkness More Than Night

     McCaleb walked out on the pier and then down the steps to the skiff dock. He found his Zodiac among the other small boats and climbed aboard, careful to put the videotape and the murder book in the shelter of the inflatable's bow so they wouldn't get wet. He pulled the engine cord twice before it started and then headed off down the middle lane of the harbor.  There were no docks in Avalon Harbor. The boats were tied to mooring buoys set in lines that followed the concave shape of the natural harbor. Because it was winter there were few boats in the harbor, but McCaleb didn't cut between the buoys. He followed the fairways, as if driving a car on the streets of a neighborhood. You didn't cut across lawns, you stayed on the roadways.