Dangerous Depths (7 page)

Malia winced. “You’ve riled her again.”

“You brought up
Tûtû
,” Leia pointed out.

“Sorry. I didn’t think it would reopen the subject of your chosen profession.”

“Bane showed up today too,” Leia blurted, watching her cousin’s face.

“His plane fell into the water,” Eva said, sitting up. “We saved him.”

Malia was beginning to smile. Leia dropped her gaze. “He’s with Pimental Salvage now, the company that Tony had gone into partnership with to find the Spanish galleon he always talked about.”

“Bane Oana. What a yummy man. Did you talk to him?”

“I had no choice. We plucked him out of the water, like Eva said.”

“You two belong together. God has opened the door again. Don’t let him get away this time.”

“Nothing has changed. He is still too rigid and structured. I hate being put in a box.” Besides, she didn’t want to run the risk of Bane figuring out the real reason she’d broken off the engagement.

A
school of wrasses sensed the movements and darted away. The tiny earthquakes, barely large enough to disturb the current, vibrated along the seafloor and moved through the sea cave. Ripples of tiny waves from the swarms—several quakes back-to-back—caused the sleeping shark to awaken and escape the enclosed space with a flick of its tail. The swarms finally subsided and left no evidence of their activity except for a tiny crack that opened on the seabed, right under the garden of lobe coral. The crack was barely a quarter of an inch across, but it stretched along the seafloor more than a hundred feet before it petered out at the edge of the abyss. A moray eel poked its head out from under a rock and grabbed a wrasse that got too close. Life and death resumed its usual placid rate.

Five

L
eia still wasn’t used to living alone. She’d lived at home until she went to school and then endured six years of sloppy room-mates and late-night parties when she wanted to study. The luxury of having all her clothes lined up neatly in her own closet wasn’t something she took for granted yet. Though it was only a small, one-bedroom cottage, it was all hers, thanks to her father’s generosity. He couldn’t live in it anyway. The only people who lived in Kalaupapa were those with Hansen’s disease and those like her who worked in the little clinic down the street.

She sat on the lanai with her Bible. Her gaze drifted across the yard to the distant water. She opened her Bible and tried to focus on the passage she was reading, but capturing her wandering thoughts was difficult lately, especially when she tried to read her Bible. Ever since she’d given up the idea of being a doctor and come home, she and God hadn’t been on the best of terms.

She should work on her
tapa
for a bit. Maybe that would clear her head. She shut her Bible and moved to the garden. The pun-gent odor of fermenting bark welcomed her. She plunged her hand into the glutinous mess and extracted a clump. She laid the fermented bark on a stone anvil and picked up the
kua kuku
, a round beater that had been her grandmother’s. Her muscles coiled and released as she swung the tool and beat the
tapa
. The ball of fermented bark began to flatten and spread. The sound of her
kua
kuku
striking the stone reminded her of buoys offshore the day she’d told Bane she was breaking their engagement. She pounded harder with the
kua kuku
. She didn’t want to remember the hurt in his eyes when she refused to answer his questions. But how could she tell him the truth? He was an honorable man. He would have said he would marry her anyway.

The day he began talking about the children they would have, the death knell for their relationship sounded. Her unease blossomed into full-fledged panic before she’d finally gone in for genetic testing. She shut her eyes and threw all her strength behind her arm. Anything to block out the memory of sitting in that doctor’s office and hearing the verdict. A verdict that had doomed the love between her and Bane. If only he hadn’t come back into her life today.

She opened her eyes again and wiped the tears that had rolled down her cheeks. A movement caught her eye under a large banyan tree in her backyard. She squinted, not sure if it was branches moving in the wind or someone standing in her backyard. The movement came again, and she realized it was a man staring at the house.

The hair on the back of her neck rose. A rash of burglaries around Moloka’i had been all over the papers, but she had nothing of value. Anyone looking at the peeling paint on the house would know she didn’t have anything worth stealing, and Kalaupapa wasn’t exactly teeming with wealthy residents. Most subsisted near the poverty level. She put down her tool and started toward the man to find out what he wanted. He took off running, evidently realizing he’d been spotted.

She charged across the backyard. “Hey, you there!” The man vanished into the jungle that touched the back of the property. She jogged to the tree line and stared into the tangle of vegetation. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, and every nerve ending tingled with something that she told herself was caution, not fear. Prudence said not to go into the forest alone, but what if he got away and just came back when she was sleeping? She would much prefer to face an adversary in the daylight when she could see him. She should call the police. She went back to the lanai and picked up the phone. No dial tone. The phone service in town had been spotty lately.

Leia stepped back outside, and Hina ran past her legs. The cat dashed into the trees. “Hina, come back here!” She ran after the cat, but stopped at the edge of the thick growth. She heard nothing. Maybe the guy was gone. She turned to retrace her steps when she heard Hina yowl. The distress in the cat’s cry made her turn and plunge into the forest. She wasn’t afraid, she told herself. Holding her hands in front of her in the jujitsu pose, she took a step into the trees, then another one. Her breathing was loud in her ears. Everything in her screamed for her to go back, but she would not be ruled by fear. Besides, Hina needed her. The cat cried out again, seemingly in pain.

Leia started to call out, but she didn’t want to give away her position in case the man was the cause of her cat’s distress. Stopping near a palm tree, she listened, but there was no sound but the soughing of the wind in the treetops. She forced herself on. There was a clearing out this way and a small cabin Koma said was inhabited by Ku. She smiled at the thought of the old man’s insistent claim.

The trees parted, and she stepped into the clearing. She heard a sound, and something came at her. She dove, her chest slamming into the dirt. Hina landed on her back. Leia lay on the ground with her heart punching against her ribs. “You just cost me a year of my life, you bad kitty.” She rolled over and grabbed the cat. All Hina’s fur stood up, and her eyes were huge. Something had frightened her badly. Leia ran her hands over Hina but didn’t find any sign of injury. She got to her feet, held Hina under one arm, and dusted her clothes before looking around the clearing.

Her feet carried her closer to the cabin, even though alarm bells were beginning to go off in her head. The cabin had a closed, secretive feel with its tightly shuttered windows and bolted door. The sound of her shallow gasps filled her ears, and she forced herself to take deeper breaths. Thick vines crawled up the sides in a suffocating mass. She knocked on the door, an unpainted surface that looked as though someone had hewn it with an ax. The rough prick of the wood against her knuckles made her feel more in control.

Her touch caused the door to swing inward a few inches, creaking, and she noticed the latch was broken, almost as though someone had forced it open. She pushed the door open a few more inches. “Is anyone home?” Keeping her hand on the side of the door, she opened it the rest of the way and stepped inside.

The dirty windows let in only a bare minimum of light. Leia waited until her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Once she could see, she let her gaze sweep the room as she moved across the floor. A sudden flurry of movement made her jump, but it was just a family of mongooses who raced for the safety of an old sleeping bag heaped in a corner. A battered Coleman cooler stood open in the middle of the room. She glanced inside but only saw a dirty plastic bag that looked as though it had been chewed by the mongooses.

Another sleeping bag lay on the other side of the cooler. If Ku lived here, he ate and slept like any other human. She squinted in the dim light at a heap of clothing in another corner. Approaching it, she realized it wasn’t clothing but diving gear. The deep-sea suit was state-of-the-art and looked like it hadn’t been here long. Nothing had chewed on it or disturbed it.

She hefted the helmet in her hand. Could this be Koma’s Ku? He’d never left the leper colony, so the sight of a deep-sea diver might look like an ancient god. She would have to show it to him and see if the creature he saw might have been an ordinary diver. Dropping the helmet back onto the suit, she turned to go. Something about this place made chicken skin rise along her back and arms, and she couldn’t leave the cabin behind too soon.

E
va sat on the bench and pawed through the stuff in her Big Bird backpack for a Take 5 candy bar. She opened the wrap-ping and bit into it as she watched the children playing on the schoolyard. She wished she wasn’t too old to still go to school, even if the kids had been mean to her sometimes. It was more fun than working at ARC, the Association of Retarded Citizens. She liked the thought of being a citizen, but she hated it when people called her retarded, especially when her mother was around. Her mother’s eyes got all squinty and sad. Eva didn’t like it when her mom was sad.

Work was over for the day though, and she could go home and watch
Home Alone
as she did most afternoons. She was supposed to go right home after work, but she was reluctant to leave the sunshine. Her sister and her cousin might be at the house, and they were usually doing boring stuff like making leis or
kapa
. Eva had tried to get interested in both, but her thick fingers couldn’t seem to make the pretty things. She stuffed her candy wrapper into the backpack and saw a man walk across the grass toward her. Hotshot had said he’d meet her here, but she thought maybe he’d forgotten. His smile always made her happy, and he was smiling now.

“I brought you a present,” he said. He held out his hand. A pocketknife inlaid with red coral lay in his palm.

Eva clapped her hands together. “For me?”

“I saw it and thought you’d like it. It has a
honu
on it, see?” He pointed out the tiny bone turtle on the handle.

She gently picked it up out of his hand. That was one thing she liked about Hotshot—he never acted like she was damaged. Her mother wouldn’t let her touch a knife in the kitchen. “Do I get to keep it?” The knife felt good in her hand—smooth and strong.

“Yep, it’s all yours. Hey, you want to go for a shave ice?” He held out his hand to help her up.

“I brought money.” She clutched the Roxy wallet Leia had gotten her for her birthday. It had a red hibiscus on the front. Red was Eva’s favorite color.

“It’s my treat.” He was smiling as he watched her.

Hotshot’s eyes always made her feel like her feet were too big or something, and she didn’t know why. He was an interesting person and had been places like Alaska and Mexico. She liked to hear him talk about all the things he’d seen. She walked beside him as he led the way to the shave-ice stand.

“Your dad seems kind of quiet lately. Is he all right?” Hotshot took her arm and guided her through the trees. “Let’s go this way. We don’t want anyone to see us and make you go home.”

She nodded and moved the way he indicated. No way did she want someone butting in. She clutched the knife in her hand. “He’s been sad since he got fired. It wasn’t his fault though. I don’t know why the thief had to break into my dad’s museum. It’s mean to take things.”

“We all know it wasn’t his fault. You’re a good daughter to be so concerned about him. The sleds he makes are very interesting. I’d like to look at one.”

“I could take you to his workshop and show you.” She nearly bounced on the balls of her feet.

“Maybe you could get one and bring it to me to look at. I wouldn’t want to bother your dad.”

“I could do that. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“You go buy the ices, and I’ll wait here.” Hotshot gave her some cash and stepped back into the trees.

Eva swelled with pride that he trusted her with his money. She hurried to the stand with it clutched in her hand.

T
he cemetery overlook offered a great view of Maui and Lana’i across the channel. The warm breeze, heavy with the scent of the wood rose that climbed the crumbling brick walls, riffled Leia’s hair, and she craned her neck to catch a bit of fragrant air on her face. Everyone on the island had turned out for Tony’s funeral, and she half expected the building’s walls to bulge and burst any minute.

She hadn’t seen Bane in three days, and she told herself she wasn’t watching for him as she scanned the sea of faces around the casket suspended over the hole. She hoped he was dealing okay with Tony’s death. Candace stood shaking hands and receiving consoling hugs as the mourners filed past her. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and she hadn’t bothered with makeup—not that it mattered, Leia thought, gazing into Candace’s lovely, haunted face.

Leia was in line with the other divers who had gone down with Tony the day he died. She eyed the fifty-something couple in front of her and mentally composed a question.

“I can’t believe he’s dead.” Rae shifted from one slippered foot to the other. “He had such an impact on us. I still keep expecting to hear his big laugh and see him on the boat with the wind in his face.”

“The police have been talking to everyone who was there when Tony died,” Eric blurted. “You don’t think they suspect murder, do you? I don’t see how it could be anything but a weird accident.”

Leia forgot her question. “I had a message from Detective Ono in Maui on my answering machine several days ago and called him back, but he was out. I haven’t heard back from him.”