Hiwa meowed as she scooped her up and carried her through the house. She went through the pockets of the clothes she’d left on the kitchen floor by the washer last night but didn’t find them. She glanced on the counter. No keys. It was already nearly five, and she wanted to stop to see her grandfather before she had to report for work.
She set Hiwa on the floor and threw last night’s pizza into the trash. This kitchen was a pit. She’d punched the snooze button on her alarm too many times. Her goal for the afternoon had been to clean house, but it wasn’t going to happen today. Three days’ worth of dirty glasses sat on the counter as well as the dirty pots from making a week’s worth of granola. She was a health nut about her food, and she wished that care extended to housekeeping.
She took ten minutes to set the kitchen to rights, but she still couldn’t find her keys. What a scatterbrain she was. Where had she left them? This morning she’d gotten home at six, gulped down a bowl of granola with flaxseed, and headed for bed. No, wait, she’d thrown a load of clothes in the washer first. Maybe they were in the laundry room.
The phone rang and she grabbed it.
“Kaia, can you meet me at the pier below you? I’m about to pass it right now. Heidi took a kayak out by herself.” Jesse’s voice held a touch of panic.
Kaia didn’t ask questions. “I’ll be right there.” She clicked off the phone, grabbed her jacket, and ran out the door.
Hadn’t that woman he hired been watching Heidi? Kaia’s anger and fear grew as she reached the top of the cliff and saw the size of the swells from the storm blowing in. Easily twenty feet, they could swamp an inexperienced kayaker in minutes. Heidi was resourceful, but she was just a child, and Kaia doubted she had the expertise to manage these waves.
The navy boat was just pulling up to the dock when she arrived. Jesse’s face was grim and strained. Kaia wondered how much sleep he’d had over the past few days. She’d half expected him to accompany her on the patrol at night, but another sailor had joined her.
She hopped aboard the boat without waiting for it to dock and dropped the backpack containing her diving gear onto the deck. Jesse grabbed her hand to steady her against the rolling of the vessel, and she dropped into a seat beside him. “Any sign of her yet?”
He shook his head. “Can Nani help us?”
“I’ll call her.” She opened her backpack and pulled out the equipment she’d been carrying with her on the patrols. Leaning over the side of the boat, she put DALE into the water and turned it on. The clicks and whistles it emitted couldn’t be heard above the sound of the surf. White spray struck her in the face as the boat headed out to sea, and she licked the salt from her lips. It was hard to hang on to DALE with the bounce of the vessel.
She was beginning to think Nani wouldn’t respond when she finally recognized the dolphin’s dorsal fin running along the side of the boat. “There she is!”
Nani leaped into the air and splashed down then raced alongside the boat. Jesse told the pilot to head along Polihale Beach just north of Barking Sands. Kaia spotted a figure waving from a dilapidated pier along a piece of land that jutted into the sea. “Who is that?” she asked, pointing.
Jesse squinted. “I think it’s Faye, Heidi’s nanny.” He directed the boat to veer over to pick her up.
The woman’s eyes were red, and her mascara had left tracks of black under her eyes. She clambered aboard. “Oh, Jesse, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how she managed to slip away from me like that. A mother had lost her child, and I was trying to help find him. I was only distracted for a few minutes.”
Jesse pressed his lips together. “How long has she been gone?”
Faye glanced at her watch. “Maybe an hour?”
Kaia checked the other woman out. She recognized Faye’s bathing suit as one that had cost the earth, and she smelled like she’d bathed in expensive French perfume. The Kate Spade sandals she wore would have cost Kaia’s wages for the week. She looked Hawaiian, but Kaia had never seen her before.
She frowned. Why would a woman of such wealth be babysitting? Kaia hadn’t had a chance to ask Jesse much about the new nanny. But the woman was obviously distraught, and Kaia knew how quickly a child could slip away. She’d had a hula student wander off once, and it was something she never forgot.
“She could be far out to sea by now.” Jesse turned and looked out over the water. He ordered the pilot to head back out.
Kaia leaned over the side of the boat. She’d tried to teach Nani the series of clicks and whistles that she’d assigned to Heidi’s name the first week they’d been out together. She could only pray the dolphin remembered and had figured it out. The device emitted the sound of Heidi’s name, and Nani leaped in the water then zipped ahead of the boat.