The dogs stayed back from the invisible fence. I didn’t know how they knew where it was, but they did.
I stared up at the house. The windows were all dark.
But I knew someone was watching.
X.
He’s got to be there somewhere, watching me. Waiting.
I’ll leave now. But I wasn’t done. It wasn’t over. Not yet.
I stared at the house for a few more seconds before I started the bike and headed back down the driveway.
Halfway back to the main road, I spotted a car with a man standing beside it.
Asahi.
He shook his head.
I hopped off my bike. Without speaking, Asahi leaned over and spread a tarp on the ground beside Matteo and then rolled the body onto it.
I grabbed one end, and we loaded the body into the backseat.
“Where will you take him?”
“There is a doctor in town. He handles things like this, as well.”
Asahi got inside the car and started the engine. He rolled down the window.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I see you already went to the house?”
“Security is tight.”
He pressed his lips together.
I waited until he turned his car around and headed back down the driveway before I got back on my bike. I wanted to make sure nobody else came down the driveway until he was long gone. He’d taken a great enough risk coming to help me.
Once I figured he was back on the main road, I started my bike.
Time for me to head back to the surf camp and give the bad news.
I also needed to make a plan. I needed to get into that house and get that girl while she was still alive. If it wasn’t too late.
It seemed like every way I turned I was hitting a brick wall. And it was only getting worse. Matteo was dead.
Rose was still missing.
And now Keiki’s life was also in danger.
18
Sitting in front of his laptop, X watched the woman on the motorcycle assess the situation. Even though the dogs were inches away, fur standing up, growling and barking, snapping teeth, salivating with the thought of fangs sinking into tender flesh, she didn’t flinch.
Instead, she held her head high and looked at the house. It was as if she could see right through the tiny camera hole and through the monitor to look deep in his soul.
It was unnerving. Her direct gaze and posture was unflinching.
She clearly wasn’t afraid of him.
And she was making sure he knew that.
He watched her, mesmerized, his mouth suddenly dry.
Killing didn’t bother him. It never had. Even that first time by accident, he was relieved that it wasn’t actually that big of a deal. He didn’t enjoy it. But he didn’t dislike it, either. It was a necessary evil for him to maintain his life and his lifestyle.
It was a small price to pay to avoid life in prison.
But that's where he was going to end up if he didn’t find the girl and hand her over to the psycho who had the dirt on him. Even thinking of what would happen if the authorities in the U.S. found him, filled him with anxiety.
He clutched at his chest. He knew he wasn’t really having a heart attack. It was a panic attack. He just had to concentrate on breathing.
After counting to ten and doing deep breathing exercises, he relaxed.
He was desperate, and he knew this made him sloppy.
His only leverage in finding Rose had been to get her dog. But someone had beat him to it. And that someone was most likely Rose. At this point, she was most likely off the island. The dog had disappeared in the night, before the fishermen had gone out for the day. He’d sent a man down to wait for the fishermen to return. He would kill every last one of them until he found out if Rose had stowed away on one of their craft.
Thinking this made him realize that as much as he loved his island home, he was going to have to move on. There were many more small islands in the area where he could set up shop again. With the order to get Rose, everything in his world had begun to fall apart. The people on this island were turning against him.
The girl told him this.
When she came to him the night before begging for drugs, she’d told him everything.
How the woman in the leather jacket on the motorcycle was Rose’s mother.
He rewound the security footage to where he’d left off when his panic attack had struck.
The woman started the engine on the bike and within seconds was gone.
He pushed his chair back away from the desk and watched onscreen as the dogs slunk back to the house. He could hear the faint breathing of the girl in the other room. She was nodding off from the heroin he’d given her. She had nothing to offer him in exchange except the paltry information on the motorcycle girl and a lousy, poorly executed blow job.
He wondered what she would do if she knew her boyfriend had come to save her but instead had been electrocuted and run over a few times for effect only. He’d been dead once he hit the fence.
Unlike a normal invisible fence, this one was specially wired.
Although 5,000 volts could sometimes kill someone on its own, what really made the fence fatal was the current. Most people didn’t understand that. They thought that volts killed. But it was always the current.
His fence contained 0.1 amps, which was almost always fatal. Even .007 amps racing across the heart for a few seconds could kill someone.
He had the electrical shock delivered at the level of an average person’s chest. This was the best place to jolt someone fatally. The same current across ankles wouldn’t be as potentially fatal. But across the chest? Yes.
Most people didn’t know that a lighting strike wasn’t always fatal, either.
It was crazy to realize that a lightning bolt’s billion volts and current of about 30,000 amps was not automatically lethal.
So, for him, watching to see what died on his fence was a sport. So far, two of the dogs had committed unwitting suicide. A delivery man had walked right into it and burst into flames. He was buried in the backyard. Numerous squirrels and chipmunks. A few birds. Even a monkey or two.
And now the second human—a punk kid surfer.
He thought again about the woman on the motorcycle. She was much more than she seemed. She had easily bested one of his best security guards. He still wasn’t sure how that had happened. The man had obviously forgotten to turn on the perimeter security system. X suspected it was because he’d called for a prostitute. The nanny cams he’d set up had caught this very thing happening in the past when he’d left the island on business. He’d found it amusing. And sometimes titillating to watch his burly bodyguard fuck a tiny call girl half his size.
But now he was dead. And X was faced with the hassle of replacing him. He’d have to look off island for a replacement. Then again, maybe he would just move off island, as he’d just been contemplating. The nearby island of Enganno would suit his needs. He’d go on a real estate scouting mission as soon as he found Rose and got this fucking crazy fuck off his back.
He had no doubt that he’d find the girl, but he worried it wouldn’t be in time.
For now, he’d take a long hot shower, smoke a cigarette, drink a cognac and probably jack off, since the head the girl had given him had been unsatisfying. Then, he’d sleep on his problems. The answer might come to him in the night, through his subconscious. It had worked in the past. He’d fallen asleep with a problem and woken with the solution.
Stripping down naked in the bathroom, he admired his body in the mirror. This physique and his above- average good looks had saved him from a life of poverty.
Thank you, dear mother, for the good genes, he thought.
When his inheritance had run out, he was left with his looks and charm and they had always served him well.
With the hot water beating down on his head, he closed his eyes.
His only lead had been the dog. And the dog was
gone. But something else would come to him. There would be another way to find the girl. If the fishermen didn’t have any information, he’d send his men to the surrounding islands.
If they asked around, with the right combination of brute force and a cash bribe, someone on some of the nearby islands might remember a girl and a dog arriving.
He’d just dried off and slipped on a warm robe when an alarm sounded. It was his perimeter security. He flipped on the monitor. It took him a minute to figure out what he was looking at but as soon as he realized what it was, he smiled and turned off the electric fence.
It was one of the surfers. A kid with white blonde hair. And he was holding something in his arms.
The goddamn dog.
19
Back at the surf camp, the skies over the water had grown dark, nearly black as night, and a roiling mix of swirling dark clouds loomed on the horizon.
My phone dinged. My heart leaped in my throat, but when I looked down it wasn’t Ryder. It was my best friend, Dante, calling from San Diego. It showed I’d missed five calls from him. I hadn’t realized there had been that many. I put my phone away. I couldn’t deal with it right then.
I couldn’t bear to hear the concern in his voice.
When I reached the beach, nobody was out on the water even though the waves were enormous.
Instead, a dozen or so people were huddled around two bonfires, all facing the ocean.
“These waves are the bomb for aerials,” someone said.
I took Makeda aside and told her what I’d found. At first, she seemed distracted, one eye on the water, her hands tucked under armpits.
As soon as I told her that Matteo was dead, her green eyes turned gray and cold.
I’d expected her to burst into anger or tears, but her face had turned to stone. She spun on one heel and left me standing there. I watched her robotically grab her surfboard where it was stuck upright in the sand and head for the water.
A few people tried to talk to her as she passed, but she kept her eyes straight ahead.
The waves were crashing wildly, and I felt a trickle of fear as I watched her swim out to the break. I tried to keep sight of her yellow and black wetsuit, but lost her a few times when the waves crashed over her body.
At the bonfire, everyone grew quiet when I walked up. Then all eyes turned back to the water.
“She’s gonna die out there,” a guy said, shaking his head. “Those are not waves you wanna surf.”
“Nah, man, those are some bomb waves. Double-overhead for sure,” this time it was Arrow, the guy with the ponytail, speaking.
“Definitely someplace Eddie would go,” one of the Australians said, and everybody murmured in agreement. One woman made the sign of the cross.
“Who’s Eddie?” I asked. They all laughed.
“It means it’s very dangerous,” a girl said. “It refers to Eddie Aikau. He was a rad Hawaiian surfer who would surf twenty-foot waves when everyone else was afraid.”
“Makeda’s like Eddie. She doesn’t care,” someone else said. “She’s fearless.”
Maybe that was true. But she might be out there today because of me. My throat grew dry. I’d told her about Matteo, and she was lashing out this way.
We all stood watching her wait for a wave that was rolling in from the horizon. It was the biggest wave I’d ever seen.
“I just hope she doesn’t get axed,” someone said.
“She’s too close to the rocks,” Arrow said and let out a low whistle. “It reminds me of the day that Bry …”
He trailed off.
I glanced at him and he finished the sentence.
“Died.”
“Out there?” I said, jutting my chin.
He nodded. “He was her man.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Oh fuck me. They didn’t know Matteo was dead yet. I was heartbroken for them. And furious. He hadn’t deserved to die. I would make X pay.
A girl nearby cleared her throat. “And my brother,” she said in a soft voice. It was the girl who had made the sign of the cross. She wore a thick hoodie with the hood pulled up. Her huge brown eyes welled with tears, and she turned and walked toward the water. We watched as she sat down on the sand a few yards from the breaking surf and wrapped her arms around her bent legs, resting her chin on her knees.
One of the Australian guys said, “There’s a coral reef out there and for the most part we can avoid it, but when the waves get crazy like this—if you fall, the riptide will pull you out there and batter your body, shred it.
“By the time we got out there to help him, it was too late. Even if he hadn’t drowned, he was so badly beat up by the coral, I don’t think he would’ve made it anyway.”
“That’s awful.”
“We lose about one a year that way.”
“That’s too many,” I said, turning to him. “That’s crazy. Why risk it?”
He smiled and shrugged. “This is what we live for,” he said. “We all have given up what you would call a normal life. We live for the waves.”
“And the danger,” Arrow said. “We’re all going out today. We’re just waiting for the right moment.”
“How will you know?” I said. We all still had our eyes trained on Makeda.
He shrugged. “I’d go out now, but I’m not as good as Makeda. She’s the best one here. If anybody can ride these waves, it’s her. I live for the danger, but I’m not an idiot. I have to wait for the waves I know I can surf. One day I’ll be able to surf waves like this.”
We sat there for a long time, watching her. Her graceful gliding across the waves was mesmerizing. And the dark roiling storm clouds on the horizon behind her were ominous.
“Did Rose surf?” I said into the silence.
Arrow looked at me and nodded. “She wasn’t half bad. For a newbie.”
“Yeah, she wasn’t a grom.”
I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like a compliment.
We both turned back to the sea.
The sky was turning black behind Makeda, and yet a few rays of sun were streaming down from a break in the clouds, lighting up the breaking waves.
Pretty soon people from other surf camps down the beach had wandered over to watch Makeda catch massive wave after massive wave until there were a few dozen of us holding our breaths, watching as the waves grew even larger. She somehow managed to catch them and ride them all the way in. She would immediately turn around and head back out to sea, her dark form paddling fiercely, bobbing up and down as the smaller incoming waves tried to stop her.
Then she’d be out again at the breaks, ducking under the smaller waves, waiting for the big seventh wave to come in.
This one she was waiting for looked like the biggest one yet. Someone in the crowd swore loudly.
“I don’t like this,” the guy beside me said. He was one of the blonde Australians. He took out a small dugout pipe and lit it. He inhaled, coughed, and gave a slow smile. I smiled back. He was cute in a Golden Retriever puppy way. We both turned back toward the sea.
Then the wave was on her. It felt like we were all holding our breaths as she managed to catch it and swoop up on it, riding so high it looked like she was three stories up. Any fall from that height could be fatal. And as we watched, the sunlight disappeared, sucked up into the clouds. There was a crackle of lightning and thunder behind her and still we all stood staring.
Her body dipped and spun as one with her surfboard, and then the wave fizzled out, breaking softly on the shore, bringing her in, and everybody burst into cheers.
I was giddy with the excitement of it all. But that feeling immediately faded when I remembered Matteo.
The guy beside me was stoned out of his gourd. He handed me the dugout pipe and a cheap, plastic lighter. “The rest is all yours.”
I gratefully reached for it. I wanted to numb the grief I was feeling. Matteo’s death was not only unfair and horrible, but it brought up feelings I’d been trying to tamp down.
Grief was a familiar shadow that always hovered right in my peripheral vision. It was just that usually I could ignore it, push it back, stamp it down.
Not today.
20
I dipped my head to shield the pipe from the wind as I lit it and inhaled deeply. Holy fuck. What was that? It reminded me of the first time I got stoned in Amsterdam. Everybody at that bar watched me, laughing. I didn’t understand why until the THC hit. I was hallucinating within seconds. I hoped it wasn’t like that this time. But when I lifted my head to watch Makeda again, I just felt a sultry mellowness.
Makeda was at the shore now. I wondered if she’d risk going out again, but she glanced at the lightning lighting up the skies behind her and, with seeming reluctance, plucked her board from the water and walked up the beach to where we were waiting.
A few people lined up to give her high fives. And at that moment, she was the queen, just like her namesake, the Queen of Sheba.
I took another hit off the pipe. Man. It was some strong weed. But still, I felt good, not sick like from the Amsterdam weed. Instead, I just wanted to grin all the time.
Once Makeda was at the bonfire, she stripped out of her wetsuit and then flung off her bikini without any modesty, pulling on sweatpants and a hoodie near the fire. People parted, and she took a spot warming her hands at the fire. Only then did she meet my eyes and nod in greeting.
After a while, after people stopped coming up to her to talk about her prowess that morning, she looked at me and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”
I was so fucking high. It was wrong. Her friend was dead.
We stayed silent for a while as we walked.
“You didn’t tell them,” I said.
“I’m going to when we get back.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She dipped her head in acknowledgment.
“You’re really good,” I said. “Have you considered going pro?”
Dark Vengeance Page 9