Distant Echoes (15 page)

She laid her hand over his then looked toward the cottage. “Where’s
Tutu kane
?”

“I’m right here.” Her grandfather stepped through the front door and came toward her with a welcoming smile on his face. His gaze went to her bandaged foot. “Klutzy as usual, I see.” He handed each of his grandsons a glass of soda.

“It was either fall or get eaten by a cane spider.” She shuddered at the thought. She’d had nightmares about that one.

Bane whistled. “No wonder you let go of the tree limb. But you never said what you were doing in the tree in the first place.”

“Climbing it, what else?” She poked Bane in the ribs.

“But why?” he persisted.

He was like Nani with her ball. The only way she’d get him to leave it alone would be to find him something else. “You have to report back to work in two weeks, don’t you?”

Bane grimaced. “Don’t remind me. I’ve been enjoying my leave.”

“Will you still be on the Big island?”

He nodded. “No sign of new orders.”

“How’s it going with your navy work?” her grandfather asked her.

“Okay. But I haven’t quite caught on to sleeping during the day yet.”

“How much longer do you have to do this?” Mano asked. “I hate that you’re helping them.” He took a swig of his soda.

“Get over it,” Bane said sharply. “I don’t know what’s happened to you, Mano. You didn’t use to be so militant. And you’re navy yourself.”

“Just until I can get out.” Mano took another swig.

Kaia watched the muscles move in his broad back. How could she get him alone to question him about Nahele?

Bane turned his gaze to her. “Did you see the paper this morning?”

“No. Something interesting in there for a change?”

He nodded and went to fetch it for her from the porch. “Look here,” he said, pointing to a front-page article.

She scanned it, and her heart fell. “Oh great. Another lab says they’re close to having a breakthrough in dolphin communication.” She tossed the paper aside. “And here I’m stuck with this navy detail when I could be working more with Nani and the others.”

“You think the paper is right?”

“There are a lot of groups working on the same thing.” She tried to treat it lightly, but in truth, it looked like all her dreams might come crashing down. She glanced at Mano. “Would you mind running me over to the base to get my truck?”

“Sure. No problem.” Mano drained his glass. His eyes grew wide, and he threw the glass across the yard.

“What is it?”

“A scorpion in the glass.”

Kaia shuddered. Scorpions were even worse than spiders, if that were possible.

“Was it still alive?” Bane walked to the glass and scooped it up. He began to grin. “This your big, bad scorpion?” He dug into the glass and came out holding a hideous-looking specimen.

“Don’t touch it!” Kaia said.

When her grandfather began to chuckle, she knew they’d all been had. “
Tutu kane
, is that rubber?” she scolded.

He laughed, a delighted sound that made him sound sixty years younger.

Mano flushed, then he began to laugh too. “You’d think I’d learn after all this time.”

“Life is meant for laughter,”
Tutu kane
said. “Not for dwelling on gloomy things.”

“What enjoyment do you get out of making us look like fools?” Bane asked. The amusement on his face softened his question.

Their grandfather shrugged. “A cheerful heart is good medicine,” he said, quoting Proverbs 17.

“If that’s the case, you’re never going to die,” Mano quipped.

They all laughed, and Kaia felt her spirits lifting. Her grandfather had always been able to do that to her. In the dark days after her mother left, he’d kept a cheerful banter going that soon made her forget her abandonment. Or at least she’d tried to.

Oke smiled at her. “How about I fix us all lunch tomorrow after you get off work and have a rest.”

“Sounds great.”

“There is something I want to talk to you about,” her grandfather said. “But it can wait until tomorrow.”

“What is it?”

He waved his hand. “No matter. We can discuss it tomorrow. I want all three of you to be here.”

She frowned.
Tutu kane
didn’t often call a family meeting. “I guess I have to wait then.”

“You are always so impatient,
lei aloha
. It will keep.”

She wasn’t going to get anything out of him today. He was still smiling inanely over the rubber scorpion.

She ducked inside and brushed her teeth with a spare brush she kept at her grandfather’s. She checked in the mirror for any spots she’d missed then put her toothbrush away and hobbled outside.

Mano’s truck was back from the garage, and he brought it around from the back. Shiny black, the big Dodge Ram truck was his pride and joy. She settled onto the plush seat and rolled down the window. The trade winds lifted the hair on the nape of her neck, and she breathed in the scent of plumeria. Her stomach rumbled.

“I heard that,” Mano said. “Let’s stop and get something to eat. I’ll run through Pacific Pizza and we can share. I’m hungry too.”

“Perfect.” She rubbed her ankle while she considered how to bring up the subject of Nahele.

“You’ve got something on your mind. I can see the wheels turning.” Mano pulled onto Highway 50.

“I was wondering if you’d seen Nahele lately.”

Mano’s eyebrows winged up, and he swerved across the center line. Mano gave a shamefaced grin. “Sorry. That would be more like something you’d do.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad a driver.” Was he trying to avoid her question? Her spirits sank.

He gave her a sidelong glance. “Nahele had me come by yesterday. Why?”

Rats. She had hoped Mano was completely out of it. “Do you mind telling me what he wanted?”

“It had to do with business stuff.” He shifted in his seat.

“This is important, Mano. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

“It’s nothing to do with you, Kaia,” he said.

“He was just outside naval property yesterday. And one of his goons manhandled me last night.”

Mano’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “Manhandled you?” He stopped at Pacific Pizza and killed the engine. “I think it’s about time you told me what really happened to your ankle.”

Kaia hadn’t seen him look so grim in a long time. Maybe never. Mano had always been her easy-going brother. The intensity he’d shown over this Pele Hawai´i thing had surprised her.

She sighed. “I think Nahele is trying to sabotage the missile tests.” Mano rolled his eyes. “Mano, if Pele Hawai´i had
anything
to do with Laban’s death—”

Mano shook his head. “You’re wrong.”

She told him what had happened the night before. His eyes grew flinty when she showed him the bruises on her arm where Kim had grabbed her and dragged her toward the boat.

“I’ll take care of it, Kaia. You stay out of it. I think you should quit working with the navy on this.”

“I wish I could. I just want to get back to my research. But my boss has ordered me to do this project. I need to finish it out and get back to Seaworthy Labs. This piecemeal research isn’t getting me the answers I need.”

“I don’t want you hurt.”

There was more he wasn’t saying. She squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to see the determination in her brother’s face. He was involved in this somehow.

Eleven

J
esse was waiting at the boat when he saw the headlights of Kaia’s truck. She’d left a message on his voice mail saying that her brother had taken her to get her vehicle and she would meet him at the boat at ten. It was fifteen after. Nani was waiting for them when he arrived. She splashed around in the waves and flipped water all over his uniform. She seemed to laugh at him when he scolded her. That dolphin was really something. No wonder Kaia was hooked on her research.

Kaia parked and got out of her truck. Carrying her backpack, she half jogged, half limped toward the boat. “Sorry I’m late.” She hopped on the boat and smiled when she saw his damp clothing. “Looks like Nani was getting rambunctious.”

“You could say that.” He took her backpack from her and laid it on the deck.

She felt through her pockets then frowned. “I bet I left my cell phone at home.”

“I’ve got mine.”

“I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached.” She clicked her tongue at Nani.

Jesse watched her. “You look a little tired.”

She didn’t answer, but he saw her lips tighten. She untied the rope from the dock and tossed it on the deck. “Let’s get out there.”

She must not want to talk about whatever had shadowed her dark eyes. He guessed it was worry. “You got it.” He slung his legs under the wheel and started the engine while Kaia coaxed Nani into allowing her to attach the underwater camera. Then the boat puttered out to sea, and darkness swallowed up the security lights at the dock. Nani followed.

“Where we headed today?” she asked.

“I thought we might hug the shoreline tonight.”

As Jesse turned the boat northward, Nani sprang out of the water then crashed back, throwing water over them. The dolphin surfaced again, chattering in agitation.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, cutting the engine.

Kaia looked at the camera monitor but couldn’t detect anything unusual. “I think she sees something. I’m going in.” Kaia started pulling on her wet suit.

“Not without me.” He grabbed his own suit and thrust his legs into it. She had her fins and mask on before he could get his arms into the neoprene fabric. She shrugged her shoulders into the BC, then he heard a splash as she went overboard.

Fuming, he fumbled with his suit before he succeeded in getting it zipped. He grabbed his BC and got the tank on his back.

Kaia surfaced just off the starboard bow. “I forgot my flashlight,” she said. “It’s in my backpack. Would you throw it to me? Turn it on first.”

He ought to make her come after it. She was disobeying orders already. Rummaging in the backpack, he found the halogen light. It should have been clipped to her BC. He turned it on and tossed it to her. It landed about a foot from her right hand and floated in the waves until she grabbed it.

Nani was circling, still agitated. Jesse rubbed anti-fog on the inside of his mask, then rinsed it out and adjusted it on his face. He looked around for Kaia but found only a dim glow from her light under the waves. He took a deep breath and joined her.

Under water, it was impossible to see more than the area illuminated by the light—about thirty feet in a straight line. Beyond that, it was like staring into space—a blackness so impenetrable it brought an atavistic
fear at the gut level. Anything could lie in that inky well: man o’ war colonies, sharks, giant squid. Jesse always required a moment to adjust to the differences of nighttime diving.

His fear safely stowed away, he swam after Kaia. He joined her where she floated with Nani. She was peering at a sea cave, aiming her light toward it. His light was bigger and more powerful, so he did the same.

The cave’s shadows fled and revealed the cause of Nani’s agitation. A diver was caught. Her airlines had been snagged by a rock-fall. She was gesturing wildly and trying to tug herself free. A flashlight lay at her feet, but the lens was shattered and dark.

Jesse and Kaia shot forward. Kaia grabbed her octopus regulator and offered it to the young woman. She shook her head and pointed to the bubbles still escaping from her tank. She had enough air.

Jesse pulled out his knife and pried on the rocks that held the woman’s lines. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears as he worked. A million things could go wrong before he got her free.

Nani hovered over them all, seemingly at peace now that Kaia and Jesse were helping the diver. The lava rock was soft and porous, crumbling under his sharp knife, though it still took five minutes to release her hoses. As soon as the rock released her, they all headed to the surface as fast as they dared. Jesse rose on relief alone. The moon was bright as their heads broke the surface.

The woman spit out her regulator and pulled her mask down around her neck. “I thought I was a goner!”

Jesse glanced around to make sure Kaia’s head was above the waves. She was floating with her hand on Nani’s dorsal fin. He dropped his mask and took out his regulator. “What were you doing diving alone? It’s bad enough to do it in the daytime, but never at night. You’re lucky Nani found you.” Fear made him shout.

“You’re right,” the woman said gravely. She swam toward the boat and climbed the ladder.

Kaia and Jesse followed her. Jesse insisted Kaia go up the ladder first, then he followed. He was eager to get a look at the reckless young woman and find out what she was doing out here. The fact that she was just barely outside navy waters was suspect.

He grabbed a towel and rubbed the salt out of his eyes then turned to stare at her. Under the boat’s lights and with her mask down, she was older than Jesse had thought. Probably thirty-five, with straight dark hair and hazel eyes.

“Jenny Saito! What were you thinking?” Kaia scolded. “You know better than to do something like this.”

“You know each other?” he asked. Kaia looked mad enough to shake the other woman.

Jenny nodded. “I’m Kaia’s research assistant.” She took the towel he handed her and began to dry off.

“Then you’re a professional. You know how insane it was to go out there alone,” he said.

Jenny shrugged. “I was bored tonight and thought I’d do a little shore diving. I’ve done it before. I saw Liko and Mahina playing off the point and thought I’d join them. Liko took my light and dropped it in the sea cave. I went to retrieve it, and you saw the results.”

Kaia shuddered. “Don’t ever do that again, Jenny. That was stupid.”

Jenny dropped her gaze, but not before Jesse saw the flare of rebellion in her eyes. He began to wonder if the woman was telling them the whole story. A little investigation into her background might be in order.

W
hen she left Jesse at the dock, Kaia was still charged from the night’s excitement. Working at the lab for an hour or two before heading home to get some rest wouldn’t kill her. She changed into the clean shorts and top she’d brought in her backpack then took DALE down to the lagoon. The rising sun made her blink, but it kept her awake.