by Kim Hornsby
There was nothing Jamey could do from outside the cave. If he risked coming in, they would be even worse off, with two bodies tumbling around inside this washing machine. As long as her air held out and the waves didn’t get worse, she had a chance of surviving.
When the next pull gradually built to take her near the mouth, she let go of the sandy bottom. The familiar slow suck of a dwindling air supply kept her from getting a full breath. Shit! One more breath and she’d be out.
She was going to suffocate in this cavern, die with Hank. Oh, my God! Jamey would never know what really happened. She didn’t inhale, knowing she had maybe a breath left, then nothing. Getting to the opening was now absolutely imperative before she blacked out. She needed a breath. Pulling hard on her regulator, she got very little back—a crumb to a starving person. No use sucking anymore. A quick ascent might get her a tiny bit more expanding air as she surfaced, but this was a cave with a roof. Her only hope was to try to get out the blowhole. Somehow, she had to get past Hank’s body to the surface, even if it meant getting thrown out the top at an explosive force to be dropped on the rocks below. Suffocation was the only other option.
But then, Jamey rounded the corner against the force, and her plan changed. No blowhole. Getting to Jamey was the plan. Jamey’s tank. She was going to pass out. Reaching his air supply to buddy breathe was the only way to save her life now.
When the wave tornadoed into the cavern, Jamey let something trail in front of him like a filament, a lifeline. As blackness threatened the edges of her vision, she could see Jamey was too far away to grab the rope. She made the sign for out of air. Now she’d be taken up to the blowhole. With Hank. At least, Jamey would know how she died.
Chapter 27
Tina was out of air. And the 300 psi left in his tank meant about another minute or two of breathing. That might be enough to save her, and maybe even get them out of this dark hole if he could reach her. His return to the boat to get a line of rope had taken a lot of air. At least he’d snorkeled on the surface. He could have changed tanks at the boat, but he was desperate to get back to her. Now time was even more crucial.
His heart flipped as he watched her go limp and float upwards.
Jamey pulled against the force, and as the movement of the water switched directions, he aimed for Tina’s body, now headed for the roof of the cave. When he shot forward, he grabbed her hair with his fingertips and pulled her to him. They crashed into the cave wall. His second regulator was already in his hand. Jamey shoved the mouthpiece through Tina’s lips and purged it to force air into her mouth.
She jerked and her eyes flew open. She sputtered in the regulator and took a breath. He put out his free hand to try to prevent them from being knocked against the rocks, and then watched her take another few breaths, coughing into the mouthpiece. He’d have to hold his breath as long as he could.
Hooking Tina’s jacket to Obi’s leash, which he’d brought back from the boat, Jamey looked directly into her mask to see if her eyes showed that she understood what was happening. She looked terrified but conscious. He motioned for her to hang onto him and crawled along the side of the wall, towards the mouth. Tina’s bubbles made a gurgling sound behind him, and he risked a shallow breath for himself. It wouldn’t suit anyone if he passed out.
Inching along the wall, Jamey figured it would take another minute to reach the opening, if they could resist the force trying to pick them off the wall. If.
Then he noticed the shark. It was tucked in under a ledge in front of them, directly in the doorway’s path. The beast was big for a white-tipped reef shark. Weighing the risks, he continued to pull them to the light, towards the shark. He had to take another breath. When he did, it was like sucking through a narrow straw.
They were running out of air. Tina must’ve felt it, too.
Jamey hoped to hell they could make it before both of them blacked out. If not, they would die in this blowhole, together with
Hank’s body. How appropriate. Maybe that was always their fate.
The shark swam past them, and then Jamey felt himself being pulled back. No! Away from the opening. He looked to see why and noticed that Tina had grabbed the shark’s dorsal fin! Attached to Tina by jackets, he had no choice but to go with her. The shark rounded, and Jamey was eye to eye with the beast for one long second as it headed to the cave opening. His lungs were going to burst.
The shark swerved against the flow of water coming through the cave doorway, and within seconds they’d rounded the mouth of the cave and were outside in the sand and light. Freedom.
Tina let go and the shark continued out to deeper water as they kicked towards the surface, dropping weight belts to ascend faster.
Jamey exhaled his way to the surface to prevent an air embolism.
Breaking through to the air, they ripped off masks and gasped. Jamey held tightly to Tina’s jacket. They were too close to the rocks for safety.
“Let’s go!” He exhaled. The force threatened to smash them against the jutting lava points if they didn’t get out of there fast. With everything he had, Jamey kicked against the force, pulling Tina with him until they were forty feet out, where the swell wasn’t dangerous. “You okay?” One of her eyes had burst a vessel and was blood red. “Your eye.”
“Is it red? It’s okay.” The boat was about three hundred feet away. “I don’t know how you had the strength just now.” She lay on her back and heaved a sigh.
“Kandahar obstacle course,” he said. “I’ll pull you.” He grabbed the neck of her jacket and, as she lay on her back, kicking slightly, he took off. When the surface swells rose too high and obscured the boat, Obi’s barks kept them on course.
Jamey reached for Tina’s hand to pull her to the swim step and felt a jolt of horrific sadness. She must have found the body in that cave.
Once on board, they laid the gear on the floor. “Oh, my God!” she said. They embraced. Tina’s small body was wracked with sobs.
“He’s in the cave, stuck in the blowhole,” she cried.
All Jamey could do was hold her until she’d calmed. He stroked her head with one hand, held her tight with the other, and absorbed her misery. When she finally pulled away and fell into the captain’s chair, Jamey wrapped a towel around Tina’s shoulders. “That shark saved our lives.” He shuddered to think how close they’d come to dying.
“I had a hunch that if I grabbed the fin, it would leave the cavern,” she said.
“Is that normal shark behavior?” Jamey asked.
“I doubt it.” Her face was drawn, pale, her eyes empty. She sat down. “Noble’s dead. He killed himself.” Her monotone voice struck fear in Jamey. She looked up at him. “Did you know?” Jamey shook his head. “He fooled me too.”
“I remembered, down there. I was the one who found his body. In the cottage.”
The look of confusion on her face made his heart hurt. He laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll call the police,” he said. “Then we can talk about Noble, if you want.”
“Wait. I remembered something else I need to tell you.”
***
The night before James left Maui, ten years ago, Kristina had dreamed of a wedding. She was the bride, but she didn’t recognize her dance partner. Unlike her new boyfriend, James, this tuxedoed groom was lanky, with long, dark hair. He had had a slightly rakish look to him, like a pirate. Whoever he was, he was not the fastidiously neat James. And the strange thing was that she’d observed the scene from the sidelines, as a second Tina.
The couple danced to a favorite love song. She looked radiant. Blissful even. And her groom looked smitten as well. From the far side of the room, her parents did not look nearly as happy. Her mother wore her fake smile, the one she used when pretending to agree with something she vehemently opposed, and her father’s expression was one of neutrality. No smile, but no grimace either, which Tina knew to be his attorney face, usually saved for courtrooms. Why were they not happy for her?
Knowing it was
just a dream, her attention returned to the dance floor, and to the couple dancing. When the dancers twirled, Tina jumped back. Her partner now had a skeleton’s head. The groom’s tuxedo was hanging off the bones of his frame, and the only remnant of the former man was his long, black hair. The guests didn’t seem to notice, nor the bride, who continued to dance with the skeleton. Tina wanted out of this dream and instinctively turned to run. Bumping into a man, she woke up and realized she was in James’ condo. She let out the breath she’d been holding and snuggled in closer to James. It had only been a bad dream, rooted in her own insecurities about her beloved James’ departure to Seattle in the morning. Soon it was a forgotten memory. Until now. In the cave, she’d had a flash of memory that showed the skeletal body on the dance floor, and then the dream appeared, like a movie in front of her.
“I saw it too, but I’d forgotten,” she told Jamey. “Last night when you told me about having that dream, there was something familiar about it, like déjà vu.”
He nodded. “I must’ve jumped into your dream that night. Even back then...” He looked into her eyes. “This means it was your precognitive dream and we were able to dream jump together ten years ago. Has this been happening all your life?”
“No. I don’t think so. Maybe it’s just when I’m around you.”
They contemplated the possibilities until a pinprick in the sky became a helicopter. It got bigger until the chopper flew over them, its noise adding both dread and hope to the moment. The chopper landed a mile away at the Kalaupapa airport. Soon after, Jamey’s cell phone rang to say the police were on their way.
Tina sat perfectly still, clutching Obi, until a Coast Guard vessel approached from the other direction. “Here comes the cavalry,” she said quietly, knowing this was the beginning of the official ending.
When the vessel pulled up alongside Maui Dream, one of the men jumped on board. “I’m Officer Hensley.” He shook both Tina and Jamey’s hands. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Perez.” Tina nodded.
When the police arrived from Kalaupapa, the boat filled with people. Questions about the body’s position were tossed around like dinner party plans, but there was nothing festive on Tina’s end and she looked pleadingly to Jamey. Handling most of it, Jamey switched to cop talk while Tina cringed to hear her husband spoken of as a corpse. The boat rose and fell with the swells as they waited for the dive rescue team. Tina, who sat in the bow hugging Obi, was unneeded for now.
The blue sky had clouded over, and wind moved in to stir the surface. The rescue divers arrived by boat, and Tina gave them her best idea on how to get into the cave safely with a rope system, keeping in mind there might be a tiger shark waiting. “Wait! What?” Jamey said. “A deep-water shark?”
“Yes.” Tina was surprised he hadn’t noticed. “That was a small tiger.”
The shark was Hank’s manna, his totem, wasn’t it? This was all too strange to comprehend.
After the rescue team suited up and launched into the water armed with a sack of ropes, pulleys, and motorized scooters, Jamey made a request. “Can someone take this woman back to Maui?
There’s no need for her to witness this.”
“I don’t want to leave him.” She meant Hank, and Jamey knew.
“I’ll be here.” He encircled her with his arms and the silver space blanket crackled between them. “It’s only a matter of another hour or two. I’ll stay.” He looked at Officer Hensley. “Where will you take him?”
“Wailuku. To the coroner.” The man looked from Jamey to Tina.
“Go back to the Hotel Molokai and wait for me there.” He rubbed her back. “We can drive the boat back tonight or tomorrow.”
“I want to see if my paintings are gone.”
“Don’t go back to your house tonight.” Jamey didn’t know what to think about Noble. If Hank was lingering in Tina’s bedroom and the ghost of Noble had run of the property, Jamey was afraid for Tina. Especially now that she remembered he was dead. Jamey needed to keep her close. “Go to the hotel. We’ll drive the boat back tonight.”
***
“Take me to the West Maui Airport,” Tina said. She had no intention of waiting at the hotel on Molokai, not knowing if the paintings were gone. She could hardly breathe until she found out. Noble might have sold them and stashed the money somewhere, and if that was the case, how would she recover from that betrayal?
Running from the helicopter, she flagged a taxi and settled into the back seat with Obi for the short ride down the hill to her home. Her cell phone still had enough juice for one call to her mother. She would’ve only just arrived in Seattle.
“Hello, Kristina?”
“Did you switch out my pills?”
The pause was all Tina needed to hear to confirm that her mother had a part in this. “How could you drug your own daughter?”
“I’d prefer to talk about this in person.” Her mother’s voice was shaky. “Philip, she knows about the pills.”
“Damned right I know. I know everything, and if you are hoping to ever hear from me again after this phone call, you’d better come up with some pretty good answers about why you sabotaged my marriage, bribed my husband, and drugged me.” The taxi driver looked in the rear-view mirror, but Tina didn’t care. Hot blood raged through her body.
Her mother sounded panicked on the other end of the line. “I understand you’re upset, Kristina. You have every right to be. We love you and didn’t want you to suffer alone on Maui.”
Her father came on the line. “Krissy?” He used his pet name for her.
“Just a minute, Father.” Tina paid the cab driver and got out.
“I had no idea that your mother gave you a sedative. All this talk about Noble being in your house had her worried you were going over the edge. The night of your birthday, you kept talking to Noble like he was standing beside us, and she put half a valium in your water. She is very sorry. Naturally, I am extremely upset.”
“Not as upset as I am, Father.” She watched Obi sniff around the yard.
“We’ll turn around now and get on the next plane, come back to
Maui to talk to you. Don’t cut us off. Your mother has been frantic.
She was worried you might try...” He caught himself.
“To kill myself, like Noble?” She could hear her mother crying in the background, a sound all too familiar. Elizabeth Greene had two emotions: cold as ice and despondent. “No, Father.” Obi disappeared around the side of the house, and she waited for him in the driveway. “I am beyond livid with that woman who calls herself my mother. She blackmailed my husband. Did you know that?” “I do now.” His voice was tense.
“I don’t want to see her. But I do want you to get her a psychiatrist as soon as possible. She is sick.”
“Sweetheart, your mother has had a weekly appointment for thirty years with one of the top psychiatrists in America, but this new turn will need to be addressed. And now that I know she interfered in your marriage, we are going to need to see a counselor together.” Elizabeth said something in the background. “Shut up, Elizabeth. For once, just shut up and let me handle this.”
The silence on the other end was what Tina needed to end the conversation. “Daddy, it’s been a long day.” She stared at her house, wondering if Noble would be gone now that she knew he was dead. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She ran upstairs and flung open her bedroom closet’s door, silently praying everything was still there. Moving everything aside, she pulled out the black container and, with the small key on her ring, opened the lock. A whoosh of air rushed in, and she pulled aside the covering. Her paintings were there. She still owned the landscapes she’d cherished on the walls of her grandmother’s house—the home she’d been forbidden to visit except in her mother’s company. Tears pooled in her eyes for many different reasons.
Pulling them out one by one, she was grateful. Thank God Hank didn’t follow through. For the first time in a while, she felt close to Hank. Relieved, yes, but it was much more
than that. He was close by. She knew it. “Hank?” She waited, but nothing presented itself. There was something different about Noble’s cottage. She knew it even before she opened the door. Like a knife through her gut, the moment she found Noble’s body flashed in her mind—his head blown to bits, parts of him all over the wall behind the couch, the gun lying beside him on the couch. The goodbye note on the kitchen counter even had splatters of blood. She’d mistakenly assumed he’d been unable to get past the loneliness without Hank. Now she understood it was the guilt that did him in.
The cottage was stiflingly hot. Who had cleaned up all the blood? The couch was gone, the wall painted. No sign of Noble or his life inside these walls. He was gone, now that she knew.
Pulling the door closed, she returned to the house, her heart heavy. The men who’d made up her happy life were now dead. Obi ran up the back stairs to his water dish. At least she still had her dog. A quick phone call to the vet confirmed that the test results were not back yet. “Probably tomorrow,” the perky receptionist said, like it wasn’t the end of the world.
“You are not sick, Obi.” She beckoned him onto the bed and got under the covers. The image of what was left of Hank’s body wouldn’t be pushed to the back of her mind. A box of tissues sat within reach on the bedside table, but tears wouldn’t come. Instead, she felt shell-shocked and dry. Her breathing was shallow, barely sustainable.