“Perfect. Lead the way.” Fawn got off the bed and followed Annie down the hall.
Annie hadn’t been in Tomi’s room since she cleaned last week. His futon was unmade, and two drawers hung half-open out of the black-lacquer chest. A T-shirt dangled from the Kyoto lantern. “It didn’t take him long to mess it up.” The boxes were piled in the closet. She hauled them out into the middle of the floor. “I’m not sure what all is in these.”
Fawn opened a box and began to root through it. “Looks like books and toiletries in this one.”
Annie opened another box. “This one has pictures and scrapbooks. Tomi is a terrible pack rat.” Wilson snatched a small album from her hand and dragged it under the bed. “Wilson, come back here with that.” She flopped on her stomach and scooted under the bed to retrieve the album before the mongoose could chew it up. He growled but gave it up and scampered out the other side of the bed.
Annie scooted back out from under the bed and sat up. The book was open. “Oh, this is one of his scrapbooks of the year he had the diving business.” The year before he joined the navy, Tomi had bought a boat and taken divers out to the volcano to dive. She propped her back against the bed and began to flip through the pictures. Her heart hurt at the sight of her smiling brother, carefree and happy and unsuspecting of the trouble that would soon plague him.
The girl and man standing with Tomi in the next picture looked vaguely familiar. She glanced at the newspaper article on the facing page. It documented a dark day in her family’s history. Tomi had dropped the divers at the volcano, then left as was the standard practice. A dive boat couldn’t anchor in the waters at the volcano because the ash would foul the engines, and the high water temperatures would cause them to overheat. When Tomi came back for them, he couldn’t find the buoy that marked their position. He’d scoured the region for over two hours before it got dark. Then he called in the Coast Guard. The two had drowned.
She glanced back at the picture and stared into the girl’s dark eyes, then gasped. “Fawn, look.”
“What’s wrong?” Fawn sat on the floor beside her.
Annie shoved the album onto Fawn’s lap.
Fawn studied it. “I’ve seen them before.”
“Me too. It’s Gina’s husband and daughter.”
“You’re kidding.” Fawn glanced at the newspaper article too. “The family brought a wrongful death suit against Tomi, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, but it was thrown out because the buoy was defective. Tomi wasn’t at fault.”
“How odd that Gina has never mentioned it.”
They both absorbed the implications in silence. Annie didn’t want to think of what this discovery might mean. “Could Gina have taken Leilani?” she asked slowly. “For revenge?”
“I can’t imagine her doing something like that,” Fawn said. “But I don’t understand why she’s never told you who she is.”
“This doesn’t feel right.” Annie got up. “Let’s go talk to Gina.”
“Not without backup. Call Mano. He’ll be glad to go with us. In fact, I’d better stay here. If you’re not back in an hour, I’ll call Sam.”
“Maybe we should call Sam first.”
“And tell him what? It’s possible that their deaths are just too painful for Gina to talk about. We might be barking up the wrong tree.”
“Maybe.” But Annie didn’t think so. Something was very wrong with this picture. Gina had been too close to them to have kept it secret this past year. She grabbed the phone and dialed Mano.
“Mano, can you get away? Something has come up.”
“What is it?”
“It’s better to show you.”
He was silent a moment. “The investigation here is almost wrapped up. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Annie clicked off the phone. “He’s on his way,” she told Fawn.
“I have another idea.” Annie went to the computer in the corner and called up Google. She put in BANOS ALEX SARRIS. She followed several links and found one that made her eyes go wide. Before his death, Alex Sarris had been CEO of the company. “Look,” she told Fawn.
Fawn bent over behind her to read it. “Oh, Annie, I think this proves it. She hasn’t said anything about her connection to the casino either. Let’s see if your dad knows anything,” Fawn suggested.
Annie frowned. “I hate to upset him.”