“He’s not home.”
She turned, and her heart tried to escape her chest when she saw the man approaching the porch. He could have been Palani in his younger years. She wasn’t sure she could talk. She swallowed past the constriction in her throat. “Hello. I hope I didn’t take you away from your work.”
“I was just doing a little fishing. I’m not working this month.”
The young man’s wide shoulders and open, generous expression filled her with delight. He’d grown up strong and handsome in spite of her desertion.
“Catching anything?” she asked, stepping off the porch. She approached him. If only she had the courage to tell him who she was. In his firm jaw and full lips, she could still see the pudgy cheeks from his childhood.
He shrugged. “A few small ‘ono.” He tipped his head and stared at her. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”
The words lodged in her throat. “Not really,” she finally managed. “But I’m hoping you will want to. I’m your mother.”
Kaia sat on the pier with her legs dangling in the water, disheartened. DALE lay discarded on the pier beside her. Nani could repeat sounds back to her, but the dolphin had no idea what they meant. Maybe she never would.
Kaia heard a noise and turned to see Jesse and Heidi coming toward her. Jesse’s mouth was grim. She stood and moved toward them.
“Can I swim with Nani?” Heidi demanded when Kaia reached them.
“For a few minutes. We’re going to have to go to the base in a while.” She smiled as she watched Heidi shuck off her shorts and top to reveal her bathing suit underneath. The little girl shouted then ran pell-mell into the waves. Nani leaped in the air then moved to meet Heidi.
Kaia turned back to face Jesse. “What’s happened?”
He picked up her hand and squeezed it. “I’ve been relieved of my duties.”
“What? Wait, what duties?”
“My duties as security officer. Some anonymous caller accused me of being a spy.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. And the captain believed it?”
His words were clipped, and she found it hard to read his expression. “They’re investigating.” He rubbed his forehead. “Until they get to the bottom of it, I’m no longer head of security.”
“Auê ! Why would someone do that to you?”
He shrugged. “To halt my investigation? Someone planted a copy of the schematics that had been stolen from the base in my quarters.”
“Wait—what schematics?”
“Of the new missile system. They think I’m a spy.”
She covered her hand with her mouth. A spy. Could it be true? She stared into his face, her eyes noting the firm chin, the direct way he met her gaze. She couldn’t imagine he could be a spy, but wasn’t that the reason most spies went undetected? They were the last person you’d suspect.
She didn’t want him to know her doubts, so she tried for humor. “Does that mean someone else is going to order me around?”
“Was I ordering you around?” His tight mouth relaxed, and he smiled.
“You do it without even thinking.”
“Come on, you must be talking about someone else. I’ve treated you with kid gloves.”
“With nails embedded,” she said, punching him lightly in the stomach.
He caught her hand, and she unfurled her fingers in his. He squeezed them. She tried to squelch her doubts, but they kept rising. Maybe he’d asked for her help to allay suspicions at the base. She didn’t want to be a pawn—she had too much on her own plate to figure out.
She stepped away. “So what’s next? I don’t have time to tiptoe around someone else. I found out today that Curtis is going ahead with the sea park plans and will take Nani and the others in as soon as the lagoon is ready.”
Jesse frowned. “Can he do that?”
“They’re free but trusting. They would have no idea what he was up to until he penned them in. I’ve got to bridge the gap between us. So you see, I don’t have the time to give to the navy right now.”
“What about getting Mano out of the fix he’s in? We only have three days to figure out what’s going on.”
She bit her lip. Mano. She had to make sure he was out of this. “How?”
He nodded toward the boat floating in the lagoon. “Would Curtis let you take that out?”
“Sure.”
“What if I take leave and we don’t have to answer to the navy? We could patrol on our own at night. That would give us time to work with Nani during the day and run down some leads too. We can catch catnaps when we need to. It would only be for three days.”
“Won’t you get in trouble?”
He pressed his lips together. “I can’t get in much more trouble. I need your help to find who’s behind all this. That’s the only thing that will clear my name.”
She wanted so badly to believe him, to trust him. “Okay.”
“What about Heidi?” Kaia nodded toward the little girl frolicking with the dolphin.
“How many bedrooms does the boat have?”