“I’ll be praying there’s good news waiting at home for you,” Kaia said, touching her lightly on the arm.
Annie wished she could absorb some of Kaia’s optimism. Something was very wrong. Leilani might be thoughtless, but this kind of antic was unlike her.
Five
Leilani Tagama lay huddled on the hard cot. She wasn’t sure how she got here or where she was. Had she consumed that much liquor last night? She groaned and pressed her throbbing forehead into the blanket. She was hungry and hurting. The top she’d worn was gone, and in its place was a man’s aloha shirt that reached clear to her knees. She couldn’t remember what happened to her own clothes.
Struggling to sit up, she winced at a stabbing pain in her arms and realized her arms were bound behind her. Red hot needles of sensation poked her where her arm had fallen asleep. She managed to prop herself against the wall. It was too dark to see much. Just shadows. Dim light shone from around the edge of the blind that covered a tiny window.
She gasped and fought to free her hands. “No,” she moaned. After several futile moments of struggle, she realized the bonds wouldn’t budge. She forced back the panic and looked around. She was alone. Scooting across the hard cot, she swung her legs over the side and tried to stand. A rope tied her feet together and then tethered her to the steel post of the cot. She gave it an experimental tug. Maybe she could work the rope loose.
Fifteen minutes later she gave up. The only way she’d leave here was if someone let her go. Panic fluttered in her chest. What if she’d been dumped here to die and no one ever came back? She opened her mouth to scream, but the door opened and a huge shadow moved toward her. A suffocating cloth that stank of a chemical smothered her voice. She fell into the waiting darkness.
The black cinder road that led to Aloha Shores was full of potholes. Mano swerved to avoid one that looked hungry enough to chomp on the undercarriage of his small rental car. The action threw Annie against him. She yanked her shoulder away and righted herself.
“Sorry,” he told her.
“No problem.” Her cheeks were red, and she looked out the window.
There was something different about her this morning. Mano couldn’t put his finger on it. Her glossy black hair lay tucked behind her ears and just touched her chin. She seemed older, more mature than the young girl he had remembered. Surely the tragedies of the last year had changed her.
She also seemed annoyed.
“Where are we supposed to meet Sam?” she asked without looking at him.
“At the entrance.” Mano focused on the road and narrowly missed a wild mongoose that dashed under the wheels of the car. “Look, let’s clear the air. What’s your beef with me this morning?”
She finally looked at him. “You mean other than the fact you show up here accusing my brother of some kind of espionage? Then you tell me he’s still alive, even though you have no proof.”
He flinched. “Are you questioning my truthfulness?”
“Maybe more your sanity. Maybe your guilt made you think the man who called was Tomi.”
“I know his voice.” Mano supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised at her attitude. After all, he hadn’t believed it himself at first. But didn’t she know him well enough to believe him? “He said he was coming to Hawai’i and would call you when he got here.”
“I hope you’re right. If he’s alive, then I can quit worrying about Leilani, since she’s probably with him. But until he calls me, let’s drop it. I don’t know what to believe.”
“Fine,” he said tightly. With a supreme effort, he relaxed his jaw and nodded toward the bleak landscape. “Have you ever been out here?”
“A coworker, Monica Rogers, lives out here. She loves it. Of course, she put in a generator for electricity.”
“What about water?” Mano slowed the car to a crawl as the road degraded even more.
“Most everyone out here uses catchment systems to collect rain water. It seems to work out okay.”
They stopped at the NO TRESPASSING sign, which warned of dire consequences to uninvited visitors. “I don’t see Sam,” Mano said. Hardly anything moved here. He’d expected to see children playing on this Saturday morning, but the harsh landscape, devoid of any life, stretched in all directions. Houses stairstepped up the steep lava rock hillside and seemed to peer down suspiciously at them.
“You’d better call him.”
Mano nodded and dialed Sam’s number. The detective answered and told him he’d been called to a break in. “I’ll see what I can find out,” Mano told him.
“Let me handle it.” Sam’s voice was impatient. “Look, I have to go. Don’t make any waves. Leilani will turn up.”
Mano hung up the phone without answering.
Annie raised an eyebrow. “No Sam?”