He left Ajax exploring a school of wrasses. Diving deeper than the dog could go, he snapped pictures of the banks of bright coral and the outline of the seabed. It extended back to the cave he had wanted to explore. Down here, it was difficult to see the full scope of the site. They’d have to do some excavation. Maybe the cave would be the place to start so they didn’t disturb the coral unless they had to. Bane was adamant about preserving and reviving the ocean’s coral reefs, and he wasn’t willing to toss that away for a sunken ship of dubious value.
He motioned toward the cave, and Ron swam with him to the opening. Bane’s powerful halogen light probed the recesses. Good, the sharks were gone now. They were only reef tips and not really dangerous normally, but invading their lair might rile them enough to attack. He entered the cave. The sides were about forty feet apart, and the ceiling zoomed over them about twenty feet up. Lichen and shrimp clung to the cave’s surfaces. His small shovel clanked against the side of the cave as they entered. Bane checked his dive computer. He still had another forty-five minutes, long enough to dig a little. His beam swept the sides and ceiling of the cave. He fumbled with his shovel and finally got it in hand, then began to dig at a long symmetrical line on the seafloor. Digging underwater was never his favorite pastime.
Ron joined him. Bane kept checking his computer as the minutes slipped away. They went down through silt until his shovel brought up something he recognized. He touched Ron’s arm, then hefted the palm-sized cannonball in his hand. Bingo. They’d struck pay dirt. Ron’s grin was wide. He took the cannonball and rolled it around in his hands. Jabbing his thumb up, he swam toward the cave opening with the artifact still in his hand. Bane glanced around, reluctant to leave. He had another ten minutes of bottom time. Ron paused at the mouth of the cave and motioned him energetically. Bane shrugged and swam to join him. Further exploration would have to wait for another day.
He wished Tony were alive. This ship was old—old enough to have seventeenth-century cannonballs. It just might be Tony’s Spanish galleon.
Amass of red-and-white ginger flanked the front door of the Kahale home. The embrace of its sweet scent eased the tension in Leia’s shoulders. Candace’s grief had sapped her energy like cold water drained her body temperature. A movement to her right caught Leia’s attention, and she turned to see her mother, Ingrid, and her cousin, Malia.
“You’re just in time to help,” Malia called. She wore her long, dark hair swooped to one side and draped over her left shoulder. A white orchid nestled behind her right ear because she was unmarried, and a mass of orchids, plumeria, and ginger lay around her where she sat on the grass making leis. Malia was tiny and petite, a classic Hawaiian beauty, and Leia towered over her.
Leia detoured from the path to join them under the shade of a giant monkeypod tree. Eva lay on her back on the grass and watched Hina stalk a gecko. Leia picked up a finished ginger lei and draped it over her neck, inhaling the heady fragrance, before dropping to the soft grass next to Malia. “You look almost done. Are these for the hula festival in O’ahu?” Malia’s leis were renowned in the islands and commanded a premium price. Her shell leis rivaled those sold on Ni’ihau and sold for hundreds of dollars.
Malia nodded, her gaze lingering on Leia’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“I take it you didn’t hear the news? Tony Romero died on a dive today.”
“Aloha no!” Malia said. She put down her lei.
Ingrid patted Leia’s arm. “Eva told me. Are you doing okay? Tony’s been your friend a long time.”
Leia had been damming up how she felt, but at the touch of her mother’s hand, she wanted to burrow into Ingrid’s lap and inhale her familiar plumeria scent. She knew better than to give in. Her mother didn’t hold with obvious shows of weakness, which would have surprised most of Ingrid’s patients. As chief of staff at the tiny Moloka’i hospital, Ingrid was warm and understanding, but as a mother, she kept herself aloof.
Leia shrugged, and her mother’s hand fell away. “Candace is a mess, of course. Maybe the autopsy will show what happened. The funny thing is that his weight belt is missing. It should have been on the seafloor, but it’s nowhere to be found.”
“What does that mean?” Her mother picked up the twelve-inch-long lei needle and began to slide orchid blossoms onto it.
Leia took a spare needle and began to thread it through a blossom. “I’m not sure. It seems odd, that’s all.”
Malia’s gaze sharpened. “Odd as in strange or odd as in suspicious? Are you thinking it might not have been an accident?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. Everyone liked Tony. I can’t imagine someone wanting to hurt—” She stopped, remembering the threats from Hans.
“What?” Malia demanded.
“Do you know Aberg Hans?”
Malia nodded. “Vaguely. He owns the other dive shop.”
“He came into Tony’s shop just before we went out. He was mad that Tony was taking all the island’s clients. He claimed Tony was using his treasure-hunting spiel to run him out of business.”
“Was he?” Ingrid asked in a quiet voice.