“Okay.” He helped her along the boulders. He paused on the path to the cabin and held his finger to his lips. She nodded, and he knocked on the door.
The door creaked, then swung open to reveal Kauhi dressed in warrior garb with his face painted. Annie saw a dozen other men and women crowded behind him in the room. She stifled a gasp.
Kauhi’s glower was all the more ferocious with the paint on his face. “You are trespassing.” His anger waned when he saw Tomi and recognition lit his features. He nodded to Tomi. “Take your sister and come back another time.”
“We’d like to talk to your friends about our sister.”
Annie recognized the girl who worked at the fruit-smoothie stand and the man who worked at the gas station in town. The others were strangers. “Please,” she said. “Have any of you seen my sister, Leilani?”
Their closed faces told her nothing. She tried to crowd past Kauhi, but he blocked her path. “Your sister is none of our concern. She was not serious about her worship, and we expelled her. Look for her somewhere else. We are readying for our holy night tomorrow.” He closed the door in their faces.
Annie beat on the door for several minutes, but it remained closed and barred to her. Just like her sister’s fate.
Twenty-four
Aholy day tomorrow. Annie turned it over in her mind. Tomorrow would be the night of the full moon, the akua. She and Mano had just talked about it. She shivered. “I think we don’t have much time to find Leilani,” she whispered to her brother. “If tomorrow is a holy night, she may be sacrificed then.”
Tomi glanced at her. “If that’s even what’s happening. I can’t imagine someone going so far in today’s day and age. It’s ridiculous.”
“What else could it be? There’s something else. I’d dismissed it, but it keeps nagging at me. In that first phone call I got where the voice was altered, the person boasted that they’d sent Mother to hell.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Annie wasn’t sure why she hadn’t talked about it. “For one thing, it was preposterous. We have a suicide note from her. So it was a lie I didn’t want to think about. But what if whoever has Leilani really did have something to do with our mother’s death? Maybe she was forced to write the letter.”
“Do you still have it? Maybe we should reread it.”
“It’s in my room.”
Tomi parked in the driveway. “Go get it while I call Mano.”
“Mano? What for?” She yearned to see him, to know that she hadn’t hurt him too badly, but she didn’t think she was strong enough yet. Avoidance would be better at this stage.
“I want to see if he made any arrangements for Afsoon.”
Annie relaxed. At least he wouldn’t be coming over tonight. “I’ll get the letter.” She went inside. Wilson greeted her at the door. She picked him up and carried him down the hall. Her father’s room was dark. What a blessing that they didn’t have to explain anything to him right now. She dropped Wilson on the bed and went to her jewelry box. Though she didn’t have much jewelry, she treasured the few pieces of her mother’s that Leilani hadn’t cabbaged. And the letter was in the top compartment.
She lifted the lid and pulled it out. Though she hadn’t been able to throw it away, neither had she been able to read it since the terrible night she’d found it. The envelope was creased and stained, and she always wondered if her mother had been weeping when she wrote it.
Tomi appeared in the doorway. “Find it?”
“It’s right here. What did Mano say?” She sat on the edge of her bed.
Tomi dropped into the armchair by the door. “He got hold of his contact. The guy is going to call when she’s ready to be picked up.” He nodded at the envelope in her hand. “Read it to me.”
She didn’t want to. The thought of reliving the horror sickened her. Her fingers were stiff as she pulled the single sheet of paper from the envelope. Her mother’s familiar handwriting made her eyes blur. She blinked rapidly until her vision cleared.
“My dear family,” she began. “I’m so sorry this sorrow must come to you. It appears the only honorable way out for me. At the volcano, I will find the strength to save you all. Always remember how much I love you, and remember me with fondness. Your loving wife and mother.” Annie looked over at her brother.
Tomi’s head was bowed. “I never got a chance to say good-bye. I was gone when the funeral happened. In Iran, I read the paper online and found out what had happened. I’ve been so stupid. This was my fault. She was despondent over my supposed death.”
Annie rose from the bed and knelt beside him. “Don’t say that, Tomi. She was grieving you, but rereading this note, I’m not so sure she killed herself.”