Freefall (11 page)

“Mo bettah?”

“You know; good, bettah, mo bettah.” He slid her a smile.

“And
da kine
?”

“Mostly means ‘the kind’—like da kine fruit, da kine flower—but it can stand in for anything you can’t think of. You got any da kine?”

“Seems to be all I have.” And the reminder was discouraging.

His eyes softened. “Yeah. Well. You can also throw it in anywhere the way people use
um
or
you know
.”

“I see.” She slipped her Ziploc into an outer pocket of her pack and stood up. “Thank you for the lesson. Are you ready?”

“If you are.”

She turned and memory stirred, something dark and frightening. “I think the stream forks up ahead.”

“We’ll see when we get there.”

His
modus operandi
. Wait until the evidence smacks you in the face, then accept it. An hour later, the channel they’d followed met back up with the larger river.

Cameron eyed the fork. “Could this be where you got separated?”

She stared out through the native forest along the other cataract, trying to remember. Had someone been with her in the water? She couldn’t picture it, only her own struggle.

“I don’t know. He could have gone that way.”

Cameron planted his hands on his hips. “That way’s west. If the river runs all the way down, it would end at the Na Pali coast, but passage might not be possible. That side of the island’s not developed.”

She swallowed. “What if he’s out there?”

“Then it’s out of our hands.”

Into whose? Frustration choked her. She’d given Officer Kanakanui all she had, including her picture to broadcast, and he’d just crossed his beefy arms and said it wasn’t much to go on.
Please
. Her spirit reached out.
Help me find him
.

“Jade.”

She turned.

“There’s nothing we can do if he’s out there. You have to focus here.”

He was right. She couldn’t search the whole island. But she’d been compelled to retrace her steps, and she would.

The valley above the fork cut deeply. They’d have to inch along the slopes, or get into the water and progress against the current. She chose the river, but as she lowered herself into the cool, waist-deep water she had an overwhelming sensation of being carried away. “There aren’t … piranhas on Kauai, are there?”

“No piranhas, no snakes.” He slid into the water. “Unless you’d apply that term to me.”

“Had noticed the fangs.” Especially earlier.

“Only venomous snakes have fangs.”

“If the skin fits.”

“Ah, but it’s the skin that’s shed.”

“Only when the thing’s outgrown it.”

He laughed. “Okay.”

Moving against the current proved harder than she’d thought. Disorienting, too, when she watched the stony river bottom to avoid catching her foot or slipping. If she didn’t look, the motion of the water pushing against her had an equally disturbing effect. She suddenly felt herself underwater, tumbling, churning. Panic gripped. Somewhere ahead was a critical point, a place where she had no control. She faltered.

Cameron reached her. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” The current strengthened as the grade rose, and with it, her feeling of helplessness. She fought it physically and mentally as fear took hold. Cameron had told her to pay attention to her feelings, but now she had to ignore them or she’d be swept away. She grabbed on to the roots dangling down the rocky walls. A little rest, then she’d press on, in spite of the dread swirling and tugging, threatening once again to wash her away.

Cameron came up tight beside Jade, feet planted, hip to the rock wall. He entwined one arm in the roots and caught her waist with the other. She might not like it, but he’d seen her flail, and it was easier to hold on to her than catch her if she got swept away. He scanned the precipitous banks, cloaked in green but inviting no trespass. “How much farther?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It feels close.”

She’d been right about the fork and seemed to be remembering sights along the way. She must have been processing information the first time she passed through and holding on to those memories. The doctor had said new ones were sometimes keener than usual.

She shuddered. “There’s something bad ahead.”

He studied her face, flushed with exertion; this woman who’d stumbled off the mountain into Nica’s life and, therefore, his. “Bad how?”

“I don’t know.”

In spite of the fact that she’d awakened talking about lies, he believed her.

She swiped at the damp strands of her hair. “I think I was reacting at this point. Stunned, maybe. I don’t think I had a plan.”

Yet she’d found her way out, even with a head injury. Given the terrain and stormy conditions of the mountains, she could have panicked, given up, or miscalculated and died. Or else she was making it all up.

Turning to look ahead, she said, “What if the drowning dream wasn’t symbolic? What if it’s prophetic?”

He tightened his hold on her waist. “You won’t drown on my watch.” He pulled her in, breathing the damp fragrance of her hair, feeling the warmth from her skin. The desire to hold her had ignited the evening before. Now her mouth drew his like a hibiscus bloom luring a bee. He hadn’t spent such intensive time with anyone in years, and she was brave and strong and desirable.

A tendril of wet hair clung to her neck. Her blond was darker, her eyes greener than Myra’s stormy blue. But the similarities were strong enough to bring him back to reality. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Aloha
was one thing; anything more would be masochism. He pulled away. “Let’s go.”

TEN

The nylon netting on the pack had proved
harder to remove than he’d expected. Or else he was weaker than he wanted to admit. The malevolence breeding inside drained him even in his sleep, which was fitful and shallow. Hunger bored a hollow that rivaled the pain. If he didn’t eat soon, what strength he had would be gone.

The idea to remove the mesh pockets and tie them together into a fishnet had come between dozes in the night, when the heat inside his body had cracked his lips and stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He’d forced himself to think of one thing he might be able to do and come up with the net idea. He couldn’t attempt it before daylight.

When it came, his hands were shaky, and he’d dropped the knife into the pool. Now he worked to tie together the pieces. The chances of a sizable fish running into the net were small, but he might be able to scoop up some minnows and eat them whole.

If he got down into the water he might find a school of something larger that he’d heard flipping around in the pool. He could find his knife, too, if the water wasn’t too deep. He lay on his back with the net across his chest and wondered, if he went into the pool would he ever come out?

Nica walked down the red dirt path, dampened to russet clay. Her cheap rubber flip-flops sloshed as fresh rain drizzled down her bare arms. The afternoon sky was draped in gray gauze, and the mountains where Jade and Cameron had gone looked ghostly.

They’d been out all night, and concern ate away her confidence. But Cameron knew the island’s moods, and though he’d been away, he could never lose his
aloha‘āina
. The island would care for him and he for it. No matter their foreign
haole
blood, they were
kama‘āina
, people of the land.

When their parents were drowned, their friend and neighbor Okelani had taken them as her own according to the ancient custom,
hānai
. There was no paperwork to document an adoption, only a person opening her home and her heart to two grieving
keikis
. They had felt a part of Okelani’s
‘ohana
before, but now she and her brother were truly Okelani’s family. She’d been all that a natural
tūtū
could be and more.

She approached Okelani’s small cottage and tapped on the door, but the old woman was already on her way. No matter how softly she stepped, Okelani heard her on the path.

“Like a rainbow in da mist your face at my door.” Okelani smiled, her teeth gapped and crooked, yet the warmth sank in and remained. She pushed open the screen. “Come. Come.” Her
mu‘u mu‘u
had a red hibiscus pattern on a sky-blue background and softly draped her still-shapely figure.

Nica slid her feet out of her rubber slippers and left them outside the door with Okelani’s own pairs. In the shops, tourists were amused by plaques that read:
Mahalo for removing your shoes, but no take mo bettah ones when you leave
. None of the shoes outside Okelani’s were worth stealing. Nothing inside either.

They went into the one sizable room in the cottage. It was empty and had a smooth koa wood floor, stained with the ash of kukui seeds and oiled by hand to preserve its beauty. The room was for teaching and learning and dancing the hula. Growing up, Okelani had learned the moves that only the
kanaka maoli
were taught; the dance dramas that told the ancient myths, preserving a culture of awe and gratitude to forces outside themselves.

But through her friendship with the Pierces, and their many discussions, Okelani had clarified the longing in her heart, and now directed her dance to the One who provided the great bounty and beauty of her world. The Almighty was the fire goddess of the volcano, the thunder god, the god of the sea and the shark. No longer the capricious, jealous, seductive characters of the ancient stories, these forces were manifestations of God’s great power and love for his creation and his people.

This was the hula Okelani had taught Nica and which they now taught to the young girls who came every week to train their minds and bodies in the demanding steps and motions, but most of all to train their spirits. When Okelani danced, there was such reverence, such truth, Nica could hardly bear it.

When she walked out of Okelani’s three hours later, the sky had cleared, and TJ was waiting. She ignored him as she started up the path, but he turned and walked behind her, the bulk of his shoulders filling the space between the trees. The day was mild and clear. The path had dried. But she could hear him huffing with the steepness.

He didn’t complain or ask her to wait, just kept plodding after her until they reached the top, where she turned toward her yard. Again he followed without speaking. A smile touched her lips in spite of herself. The gardenias, pikake, and plumeria in her garden sent a potent welcome as she entered. TJ stopped at the edge.

She turned and glanced over her shoulder. “Well?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Your friend, Jade? Her name’s Gentry.”

Nica turned, unsure she’d heard him right. “Gentry?”

“Gentry Fox.”

“The actor?”

“Only got maybe one tousand calls. Da first hour. Now we got one recording say we know already.”

She turned and stared
mauka
. Cameron was up there somewhere with Gentry Fox, whose debut in
Steel
had earned her a Golden Globe Award. Hers was the supporting role, but she’d come out of nowhere and stolen the show. How could they not have recognized the timbre of her voice that sent her words right down inside? Not known the face that had portrayed such powerful emotion. “She seemed so … normal.”

TJ shrugged. “She nevah know who she is.”

When she remembered, would it all change? Or was she really the way she’d seemed here, when she wasn’t in front of the cameras? Cameras. “Wasn’t there … something else …”

“Da kine scandal?”

Nica nodded. “Wasn’t she in court or—”

“No court. Jus all over da news for maybe six weeks.
Oprah
. Dat kine stuff.”

Nica looked into his face. He must be humiliated. He’d broadcasted an unknown person report on her. He’d never live it down. “Did you find out who she came here with?”

“Going screen messages for da kine personal stuff. Chief going handle it now.”

She touched his hand. “TJ, you’re not
lōlō
. No one else in the department recognized her. And I’ve had her here three days without knowing.”

“Whatevers.”

She slid her fingers into his big palm. “Come inside.”

His face softened. “Yeah?”

She gave a little tug. “Come have a cup of tea. Okelani brought fresh jasmine pearls.” They climbed up past the room where Gentry Fox had slept, as helpless and needy as any of the others. Just a person. And maybe that was what she’d needed.