“Welcome to the Dawn Patrol,” the boy with the spiky dreads, Matteo, said to me with a smile.
Makeda poured a cup of coffee from a tin carafe and offered it to me. I gratefully accepted it, and sat in the sand nearby. The heat of the fire did feel good.
There were half a dozen people gathered. A few I recognized from last night. They all had on wetsuits. Dre wasn’t there.
Through the flames of the bonfire, I could see the beautiful petite brunette who had been nasty to me the day before. She was sitting across from me, staring. I smiled but she looked away. I heard her say the same thing Dre had, “Fucking Benny.”
I raised an eyebrow and looked at Makeda. She laughed. “Means you’re not a local.”
“Yeah, no shit.” I said, but the girl kept avoiding my eyes.
Matteo leaned over and said something in her ear, and she shook her head.
Then I heard the sound of a motorcycle up on the road.
Makeda and the ponytailed boy exchanged a look. The girl stood. As she did, the boy beside her reached for her hand, but she shook it off angrily. She turned to walk away.
Makeda stood now.
“Keiki?”
The girl stopped.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Makeda said.
“I don’t care,” Keiki said.
“We have rules,” Makeda said.
“I don’t give a fuck about your rules,” she said and glanced over at the motorcycle on the road. “I’m on this island so I don’t have to follow any rules.”
I followed her gaze. The blonde boy, Dre, was waiting on the road.
The ponytailed guy, Arrow, stood. “The rules are for your own good. You voted on them, too. You agreed.”
“I changed my mind,” she said. “And so did Dre.”
She turned and walked away while we all watched her in silence.
I was intrigued.
Makeda turned to me.
“Dre is going to take her to X.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Arrow said, “He controls the supply around here.”
“That’s too bad.” I tried to play it cool. They were finally opening up to me.
“It’s not her fault,” Matteo said. “Keiki!” He shouted, cupping his mouth so the sound carried.
She paused and turned back to look at him.
But a few seconds later she climbed onto the back of the motorcycle.
“This X? Could he have anything to do with Rose’s disappearance?” I asked.
We all watched as the pair left on the motorcycle. Matteo started to swear and run toward the road, but it was too late.
“It’s better that you just get your dog and leave the island,” Makeda said, suddenly short with me, her face hard and closed. No expression. No softness.
“I’m not leaving until I find Rose.”
“She’s probably not even on the island anymore,” one of the Australian guys said.
Looks were exchanged.
What were they hiding?
“Who the fuck is this X?” I said, standing. “I need to know if there’s any chance he had something to do with Rose’s disappearance.”
“You better hope not,” Arrow said.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
Makeda stared at me, chewing on her lower lip, but did not answer.
“What are you fucking talking about?” I asked again.
Arrow looked at me.
“Girls who go to his house are never seen again.”
Frustrated, I stood and headed back toward my hut.
This time I walked along the wet sand. After I was some distance from the bonfire, I came across an older man with a metal detector. He had on a khaki fishing hat, oversized pants and a shirt. His head was bent, and he shuffled along. When I got closer, he looked up and gave me a grin. I smiled back. I could tell immediately that he was mentally disabled.
Then some surfers came out of the water nearby.
“Get out of here, old man,” one of them said.
I turned, ready to tell them off, but Matteo was already there.
“Apologize to him. Right now.”
Matteo wasn’t large, maybe just under six feet tall, but he was imposing. When he spoke, you listened.
The surfer bowed his head. “Sorry.”
Then Matteo broke out into a grin and took the man’s arm. “My man, what kind of treasures have you found lately?”
The man smiled widely and began to talk animatedly. They walked off together, Matteo dipping his head to listen and nodding enthusiastically.
5
Joseph Charles Smith stared at the laptop on the table in front of him.
The first rays of morning sun were streaming in the window behind him, casting a bright orange glow on the screen, illuminating the message that had sent him into a fury.
His body was shaking with rage. Who was this man who dared to tell Joseph Charles Smith what to do? Okay. Maybe in the past people had told Joseph Charles Smith what to do, but they didn’t tell X what to do. X did what he wanted when he wanted. X had created this little slice of Paradise on this island at great risk. It had taken a lot to afford this hideaway.
And now, goddamn it all, his carefully cultivated world on the island was now in jeopardy.
It was hard to comprehend.
He’d been so damn careful. But somehow this asshole had figured out who he was and where he was. It was nearly inconceivable. But it had happened.
And now he was being ordered around like a fucking child. X didn’t follow orders.
X didn’t like being told what to do. Neither did Joseph. Never had. That’s why Joseph had done what he’d had to in order to create this life for himself. That’s why he’d become X.
That’s why he would kill himself before he went to prison. That’s why he wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone and anything that got in his way.
The thought of being told when to sleep, eat, and shit, was the worst sort of hell he could imagine.
As a young boy—as Joseph—he’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. His mom controlled every single thing he did. No wonder his bio dad hadn’t stuck around long enough to meet him.
His mother didn’t have to work because of the family trust, so instead she made running—and ruining—Joseph’s life her full-time job.
From the time he was a toddler, Joseph had had a regimented schedule.
The day began with a bath, which involved hair washing, scrubbing until his skin was red, brushing his teeth, flossing and then dressing in clothes that had been laid out the night before. Only then was he allowed to have some milk and breakfast.
After eating, he was required to watch an educational video and practice the alphabet before he could have an hour of “play.” The play involved a rotating set of educational toys that his mother had researched as age-appropriate for him.
Only after that hour, was he allowed to have a “potty break” to go poop.
After being forced to wear poopy pants for the entire day when he couldn’t wait for the “potty break,” Joseph eventually learned how to train himself to poop on demand—even if it meant his stomach hurt so bad it brought him to tears.
The rest of Joseph’s day, until bedtime, was just as strictly regulated.
It involved educational activities but also piano lessons and Chinese language classes. His mom would pipe Chinese language tapes through speakers in his room during naps and night time.
When he started elementary school—a Chinese immersion school–Joseph thought that he finally would have the freedom he dreamed about. The kind of freedom he’d read about in early books or been able to watch during his one hour a week of regular cartoons. He usually chose to watch a cartoon featuring a little bald boy who had what seemed to be a dream life with dream parents who doted on him and let him live a life making his own choices.
And while Joseph did enjoy utter freedom at school, he still had to go home to his mother every day.
> Eventually, as a pre-teen, Joseph managed to convince her to knock before entering his room. It was the result of his mother walking in on him masturbating—in full ejaculation. He saw her look of horror, and it made him feel powerful.
When she gasped and closed the door, he threw a book at the door and shouted that she should knock.
To his surprise, she never mentioned the incident. Not once. But from then on, he kept his door closed, saying he was doing homework, and she seldom disturbed him, unless it was dinner time. And when she came to announce it, she always knocked.
It was the most freedom he’d ever had at home.
Joseph realized early on that the key to keeping her off his back was conformity. As long as he kept straight A’s and did well in his piano practice, she backed off.
But inside, he was bristling. Inside, a torrential storm was brewing.
X was forming in the womb, eating up the hate that Joseph felt, feeding on the shame and pain that had nowhere else to go.
With Joseph’s extreme discipline, he could finish his homework each night easily. That meant he had hours on hand to do whatever he wanted behind his closed door.
At first, he spent most of that time masturbating, simply because he loved thinking about how horrified his mother had been. Plus, it felt good—amazing really.
But eventually he found other ways to amuse himself online.
Mostly it involved pretending to be someone he wasn’t with girls who lived far away.
He’d quickly found that girls who didn’t go to his high school and who didn’t know how odd and socially awkward he was, found him attractive.
Really attractive. They’d send him nude photos or get on Facetime with him showing him their bodies as he masturbated.
That’s when he learned every skill that would birth the man he was today:
X. King of an island. With nubile young women at his beck and call. All for the price of a drug fix.
Sure, he was a fugitive, but he’d already been here six years.
If the U.S. government hadn’t found him by now, he wasn’t going to worry.
And he hadn’t worried. Until he got the email.
The bastard knew who he was and was going to blow up Joseph’s life unless Joseph did exactly as he was told.
X slammed his laptop lid closed.
As much as he hated being told what to do, he knew he would do as he was asked and then go back to his life.
He really had no choice.
6
A few minutes after Keiki disappeared on the motorcycle, Arrow grabbed his surfboard and said, “Come on, the waves are macking.”
“Yeah!” someone said. There was an excitement in the air. The waves were massive, so I figured that’s what they were talking about.
The first shimmer of light shone on the water from the east.
The group moved as one, standing and plucking surfboards off the sand, and then they were in the water, paddling out to the break.
As the flames of the bonfire died down, I sat facing the water watching the surfers gracefully swoop across the waves.
It was mesmerizing.
I thought about the surfboard propped against one wall in Rose’s kitchen and could imagine Rose gracefully navigating the waves, her dark hair flying out behind her.
Sitting around would drive me crazy. I needed to find Rose. I kept checking my phone in case the vet had called, but he hadn’t. I would stop by the vet on my way to find this X.
Just then, Arrow came out of the waves with his board.
I stood as he grew near.
“Can you take me into town?”
He looked at me in surprise. He leaned down and grabbed a bottle of water, taking a big swig before answering.
“I wish I could. I borrowed that truck from my buddy and when I woke this morning, the truck was already gone. He must’ve been up early or never came home last night. I’m sorry I can’t help.”
Fuck me.
Makeda had mentioned coming to the bonfire to get a ride to town, but she must not have known this.
I refused to believe anything else. I had to trust my gut instinct, and it told me she was guarded and closed off at times—maybe even acting out of fear in her reluctance to share information—but when she did give me information, she was a straight shooter.
“No problem,” I said, and then gave it a shot. “This X? Where does he live?”
He winced and looked away, as if he felt guilty for ignoring my question.
“I don’t get it. Why is he such a taboo subject?”
He looked up at me. “We do our thing. He does his. If we get involved, he’s going to ruin it for all of us.”
“How?” I asked.
But he’d already turned and walked away.
I caught up to him and touched his elbow.
“How?” I repeated.
He tucked his board under his arm and raced back down to the water.
Pulling my sweatshirt tighter, I headed for the road.
I would walk.
If the vet wasn’t up yet or open, I’d just hang out and wait until he was.
I needed to check on Dylan, and then I needed to go into town and start asking questions about this mystery man. I didn’t have much to go on, but it would have to do.
The road through the jungle was narrow and two separate times I had to practically crawl into the bushes to avoid oncoming cars. I tried sticking out my thumb at one heading toward town, but the person either didn’t see me or didn’t care. I also wondered if people even hitchhiked anymore. It was sort of a relic of the sixties, way before my time, that probably had faded away.
Finally, when the sun was much higher and I’d tied my sweatshirt around my waist and was wiping sweat off my brow, I reached the small village. The main road had a few shops—a small general store with a bank and deli/café inside, a gas station, a laundromat, and a garage.
I stopped in the general store and bought a bottle of water, a roll and a cup of horrendous coffee from the deli before heading for the turnoff and long driveway that would take me to the vet’s house.
When I was three quarters of the way down the driveway, I could see all the curtains were pulled back in the house. I went directly to the side door and knocked.
Asahi opened the door with a smile.
“I was just about to call you,” he said, holding up his phone. “Dylan did great all night. He slept well and didn’t really worry his bandages.”
I went inside. Dylan, who was curled up on a small dog bed, didn’t lift his head, but did raise his eyes to meet mine, and his tail wagged. So sweet.
I leaned down to scratch his head behind the ears. “Good boy.”
“As you can see, he’s still sedated,” Asahi said.
“He did have a bowel movement and urinated, so that’s a good sign. And he’s been consistently drinking water. I tried to give him some dried food, but he wouldn’t eat it, so my wife scrambled some eggs and that seemed to be more appetizing.”
I stood from my crouch and smiled. “Thank you. And please thank your wife for me.”
He beamed. “Of course.”
“What’s the next step?” I asked.
If the vet wanted to send Dylan home, I wouldn’t be able to walk back to the hut with him. And when I’d been in the store, I’d asked about a taxi service, and the clerk had just stared at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. Come to think of it, I probably was, even though she’d spoken to me in English about my order.
Asahi frowned.
“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to keep him here longer and keep him sedated so he has time to heal.”
I nearly cried with relief.
“What do I owe you so far?” I reached for the small cross body bag that I wore at all times—even while sleeping. It contained my passport and cash, cell and charger. And a tube of red lipstick. Never knew when that was going to come in handy.
I took out a fistful of cash and thrust it at him.
“Please take this for now.”
He looked down at my hand. “That’s way too much.”
I shook my head vehemently.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
He frowned, looked down at the one hundred dollar bills and plucked one of them.
“This will cover all Dylan’s care—up to now and going forward.”
I scrunched up my face. “That’s nothing. I pay that just for the exam back home, before they even treat the animal.”
He smiled. “We do things differently around here.”
“Please take more. If anything, use it to help other animals that come here.”
He sighed. “If you really want to thank me monetarily, you could give a donation to the island’s dog rescue organization,” he said. “We get our fair share of abandoned dogs here. It’s quite disturbing actually. People bring their dogs to the island to ditch. I can’t figure out if having the rescue organization hurts or helps sometimes. I worry that because people in Padang know we will care for the dogs, they bring them here to abandon instead of letting them roam free on the streets there.”
He paused. “But you don’t want to be a stray dog in Padang.”
My eyes widened. I didn’t even want to know what would happen there, but, apparently, he was going to tell me.
“Dogs are stolen out of fenced yards there. It’s awful, but there is a black-market dog-meat trade,” Asahi said.
“I thought that was just a terrible rumor or stereotype of Indonesia?” I said.
“I just read an article discussing the extent of the trade, and they estimate one million dogs are killed in Indonesia each year.”
“That’s awful.” I said and leaned over to scratch Dylan behind the ears.
“That’s why I have deadbolts on my doors.”
“What?”
“We had a break- in two years ago, and four dogs were taken. After that, I installed the deadbolts.”
“That’s awful.”
He nodded. “I count that as one of the worst days in my life,” he said. “How do you tell four people their dogs were taken?”
Dark Vengeance Page 3