by Lakes, Lynde
One of the blurry forms grabbed something and rolled. A gun discharged twice. “Damon!”
“I’m okay. You only grazed me. Don’t worry. I got to the gun first.”
“What about the other shots?”
“Your prisoner and the head guy tried some funny business. They need an ambulance ASAP.”
A gust of wind ripped in through the door. “Reed, you okay?” Ku’s rough bellow had never sounded better in spite of his oxygen mask. He clamped an extra one over her face while his men took her prisoners into custody.
She squatted next to Damon, and after taking a couple of breaths of oxygen, she gave him her mask. When he nodded his thanks, he winced.
Needing to strike out, she stood and lashed out at Ku. “Where the hell were you?” Someone handed him another mask, and he pressed it to her face. The rest of her words were muffled by thick plastic. “The party got rough.”
“Figured that by your fleeing guests.”
“You got them?”
He nodded.
Relief surged through her. None of the terrorists had escaped.
“Let’s get you outta here,” Ku said putting a beefy arm around her.
She wished it was Damon’s arm. She looked back at him. She locked her gaze with his, seeing pain and weariness in his bloodshot, swollen eyes. “I have to help Damon. He’s been shot.”
“We’ll take good care of him. We have several ambulances standing by.” Ku looked her up and down. “You look pretty beat up yourself.”
“Just the usual love taps from a psycho,” she quipped, forcing a brave front.
As he led her out into the blustery weather, her knees almost buckled, but somehow she managed to walk under her own power. The grounds outside the lighthouse bustled with activity. The two terrorists who’d fled the scene were handcuffed, lying on their stomachs on the rain-soaked ground.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and someone wrapped a slicker around her. Medics rushed past her with stretchers. Damon was stretched out on the first one, his eyes closed, his oxygen mask still in place. He was so still. “I want to go with him.”
“First, your debriefing.” Ku paused beside a motorcycle. “Are you up to riding on this with me to the main road? I have a unit waiting for us. We can talk on the way to the ER.”
Drawing on the last dregs of her dwindling bravado, she nodded and eased herself on to the bike behind Ku. When she couldn’t suppress a groan, she silently cursed herself for being such a wimp.
“Sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“Just no fancy stuff,” she muttered.
When they approached the main road, she saw the media swarming around like hungry vultures, their cameras rolling. When she climbed off the motorcycle, reporters stuck microphones in her face.
Ku waved them away. Detective Reed needs medical care. She’ll talk to you after she gets it, not before. That didn’t stop them. Malia heard questions about the terrorists and the condition of the injured. She wished she knew. Al had done untold damage to Damon before she arrived, and then, Damon had saved her life by taking down the two terrorists who meant to kill her. She closed her eyes. Please, God, let him be all right.
She and Damon had worked well as a team. Neither of them could have survived this alone. Wouldn’t it be grand if they teamed up for life? They’d both be better and stronger together. Unfortunately, there were mounting reasons why he’d probably never risk it. What man would want to spend a lifetime with the woman who put a bullet in him?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Malia was operating on her last meager reserves of strength. She’d been X-rayed, stitched and bandaged. The doctor had wanted to keep her in the hospital overnight, but the idea of confinement was unbearable. She was eager to go home to Auntie’s place and climb into bed in a room that smelled of lilacs not antiseptic, and surround herself with people who loved Damon as much as she did; but although she could barely keep her eyes open, she couldn’t leave until Damon came out of surgery, and she knew he was all right.
To avoid the stabbing pain around her middle from the cracked rib, she sat very still. After the way Al had battered her against the parapet railing and slammed her to the deck and after the barrage of flying bullets when the terrorists charged in, she figured she’d gotten off lucky with just a cracked rib and a minor shoulder wound.
Damon wasn’t so fortunate. Although she’d only grazed his hand when she fired, his other injuries were serious. He’d been whisked away to surgery to repair his spleen, damaged from repeated kicks to the body. She shuddered, thinking of the intensity of pain he must’ve endured during their struggle to turn the tables on their captors … and to survive.
At the slap of sandals and rubber slippers on linoleum, she looked up to see Kiki’s parents hurrying across the waiting room, their faces pale, pinched. Seeing their dear concerned faces was almost too much. Malia fought tears. “Auntie Kopa’a, Uncle Toby!”
“Ku called us,” Toby said in a booming voice.
His Aloha shirt hastily buttoned in the wrong slots, barely covering his protruding stomach showed his haste to get here quickly find out about Damon. Malia had never known in-laws so devoted, or a man more deserving. She stood to greet them, wincing in pain.
“Oh, Honey,” Auntie said. “Detective Ku said you were all banged up and had a broken rib.” She paused and stared at Malia’s face, looking aghast. “I’d love to hug you, but where can I touch? Even your face is bruised and swollen.” Her gaze lowered. “And what is that bandage on your shoulder?”
Malia tried to smile, but worry about Damon made it impossible. “Just a graze from a ricocheting bullet. I’m not as bad as I look, but as much as I need a hug, let’s save it for later when hugging won’t be so painful.”
Toby, looking helpless, motioned for her to sit down. She eased slowly to the thin cushion one of the six connected chairs. Auntie sat on one side of her, and somehow Toby wedged his bulky frame into a chair on the other side.
“Any news about Damon?” Auntie asked, her voice tense.
“Still in surgery. But he has the best doctor on the island, and the ER nurse told me the prognosis is good. It helped that Damon was in great shape before the beatings.”
“Beatings? Was there more than one?” Auntie’s voice rose. Fear intensified in her eyes.
“I’m afraid so.” Malia didn’t want to alarm them, but she wouldn’t lie to them either. She made an attempt to soften the news. “Luckily his Air Force physical training kept him fit and taught him endurance and sufficient toughness to take the blows.”
Auntie rolled her eyes. “Save the sugarcoating. Give me the hard truth.”
Malia sighed. “He was beat up pretty badly.” Her throat constricted, but she cleared it and went on. “He has a damaged spleen, which they’re repairing now, and he suffered a concussion from a hard blow to the back of his head.” She paused, fighting a pinching sensation at the back of her throat. “He’ll need another surgery to repair fractured facial bone.”
“Dear God,” Auntie cried.
With a groan, Toby propelled himself from his chair and eased down next to Auntie. He clasped her hand. “We have to be strong,” he told her. “Like Damon.”
“He’ll expect that from all of us,” Malia said softly. “He went through hell, and in spite of all those brutal blows to his head and body, he stayed tough and backed me up every step of the way. I owe him my life.” During the ordeal she’d seen Damon wince … heard his groans … witnessed the pain in his eyes, but like a wounded lion, he’d fought on bravely and unstoppably.
Auntie locked gazes with her. “You’re in love with him.”
Malia’s face warmed. “I fought it, Auntie, for Kiki, but my heart has a mind of its own.”
“Well, thank God for that!”
Auntie didn’t look shocked or upset. Before Malia could clarify exactly how Kiki’s mom felt, her parents bustled through the door.
Her mother gasped. Dad put his arm around Mom an
d consoled her with a squeeze.
Malia sat perfectly still. She’d worried them. Again. Although she finally understood the depth of their fear of losing another daughter, she was too tired and in too much pain to ask for forgiveness now.
Dad towered over her. He looked down and gave her an analytical once over. “Rough day on the job, Baby?” His husky voice was brimmed with emotion, emotion that had been missing from it for years.
She let her dad’s words hang in the silence of the room unanswered while she steeled herself for his usual tirade about quitting. When it didn’t come, she was so grateful that she drudged up the strength to apologize. “I’m really sorry if I worried you. And I mean that. I understand now what I’ve put you and Mom through with my career choice. But I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t done everything possible to get Kiki’s killer and save Damon.”
“Although we still wish you’d made other choices,” Dad said, “when Detective Ku came by to tell us you’d been injured, he explained your passion to get killers off the streets. He confided that without you on the job, HPD wouldn’t have caught this crazed killer or the terrorist group.”
Malia laughed inside at Ku’s blatant exaggeration. It was actually Al’s actions that had brought the terrorist group to her. If Al hadn’t tried to contact them… “A lot of it was luck,” she said softly.
“Right, lucky for everyone on this island that someone as determined as you was on the job. Detective Ku explained about special enforcement officers like you, stressing that you were a different breed, and that you need this line of work as much as HPD needs you.”
Bless Ku. He’d convinced her parents that she was not only needed on the job, but that her job was part of her identity. Something she’d failed to make them understand.
Dad bent and kissed her temple. “We’re proud of you, Baby. And we’ll try not to give you such a hard time from now on.”
Hallelujah. Malia had never heard her dad back down on anything before. She knew what it cost him to do that, especially in front of Kiki’s parents. But she couldn’t let them believe she was some sort of super hero. “I was terrified, Dad—”
“Fear doesn’t diminish your courage, Honey. As Mark Twain said, ‘Courage is resistance to fear – not absence of fear.’”
The pride in his voice wrapped around her like a hug. Still, in her book, Damon was the real hero, and she hoped he didn’t have to pay too high a price for fighting by her side. “We’re waiting to hear about Damon.” Her voice wavered, and tears pushed at the back of her eyes. To fight the welling emotion, she pressed her lips together until it hurt.
“We’ll wait with you,” Dad said.
“Thanks, Dad.” Her throat tightened, but she had to let him know how she felt. “That means a lot to me.” Could he tell that she loved Damon?
****
Two days later, Malia returned to work. The storm had passed, and morning sunshine sent golden rays across her desk; but the storm in her heart remained, tumultuous and fierce. She owed Damon a thousand apologies and a million words of gratitude. Since Kiki’s murder, danger and emotions had soared to a high pitch. In the beginning she’d called Damon a murderer – a man who traded Kiki’s life for money. He had every right to resent her. She’d fallen into the category of just one more woman doubting him, devaluing him, putting him through hell. After Kiki’s betrayal, how could he ever feel safe giving his heart to another woman, especially a woman who had stubbornly tried to put him behind bars? And, with Kiki’s ghost between them, how could they ever hope to build on the caring and chemistry that had erupted between them like a volcano? So many sharp, bitter words had passed between them. Could love, real love grow from such hostile, adversarial beginnings? For her it had. Probably for him, too, until she’d declared that any further romantic liaison between them was impossible.
In just a very few days, Fate and her concern for Damon had tipped her world upside down and changed her. She was ready to sacrifice some of her moral rigidity and the by-the-book image she had of herself to have him.
Malia grabbed some blank report forms and forced her worry about Damon to the back of her mind. She needed a clear head to finalize the paperwork before the details of the arrests dimmed. She had just finished, when Ku stuck his head through the doorway.
“Let’s go.” He gestured with his head toward the interrogation room. “Got the first one softened up for you.”
She laughed. If anyone could do it, Ku could. But terrorists were a different breed. Most of them, even more than the usual criminal, truly believed what they were doing was justified. She shook her head at the parallel between them and Al, who was convinced that all of his killing was warranted.
She and Ku grilled the terrorists with relentless hammering until one member cracked and told them the location of their home-base. A girlfriend of the head guy had opened a belly dancing studio, and they all lived in the apartment upstairs. Malia rushed a request for a search warrant, put together a SWAT team and, with Ku at her side, headed for the address on Kalihi Street.
In the downstairs studio, Malia and a single officer named Greeley detained the two slender exotic-looking women practicing their routine. Greeley gave them an once-over, taking in their slim bodies, clad only in black belly-dancing tights and red veils. “I’ll keep my eyes on these two,” he said, giving a wry hint of a smile.
“Yeah, you do that,” Malia said, and then she and Ku stealthily charged up the stairs with
the SWAT team, guns ready.
At the top of the landing, the leader of the team kicked the door in, and they followed the human battering-ram into the loft. The place was big and open and identical to the studio downstairs. By its barn-like design, it was obvious that, in the past, it had been a commercial suite. Now it housed half a dozen computers and ten rumpled sleeping palettes, which were lined up along opposite walls. Two of the three men sitting behind computers froze and raised their hands, while a third dashed for the window. At first, it appeared he was trying to escape. But when Ku forced open his hand, he found a key. Apparently he was trying to throw it outside to keep them from finding it. Ku lifted the man off the floor by his neck with one huge meaty hand, and, giving him the kind of squint-eyed, bared-teeth look his Maori ancestors had used to intimidate their enemies, he asked, “What’s this key for?” Ku looked pointedly out the window to the concrete alley below. “Or is this your day to die without furthering your sick cause?”
“Storage locker on Middle Street,” the man choked out. Ku kept the trembling man dangling in the air until the perp added the exact unit number, and then Ku eased him to the floor.
The whole raid and search of the apartment took less than an hour. But it paid off big. They’d rounded up these terrorists as well as the others, and one of the computers held enough subversive material for an indictment. Another laid out designs and techniques for cyber-crippling of infra-structure with just a few strokes of computer keys, all possible from outside the country. The files found stored in boxes in a closet had actual plans, targeted structures and the dates the attacks were to be carried out. Malia shivered, thinking about what might have happened if they hadn’t put this group out of business.
She called her chief about their findings. He would call in the big guns. This was definitely bigger than anything the HPD could handle, and was probably just the tip of the iceberg.
Malia, Ku, and two of the SWAT team headed for the storage unit. It was the size of a three-car garage, and when they unlocked it, they found enough firepower to start a war and enough explosives to take out a six block area. They left the SWAT guys to secure the contraband and returned to the HPD.
The media waiting in the courtyard rushed Malia. Ku had run interference for her for several days, but now she had to face the reporters and give them the gritty details without compromising the cases.
As the afternoon shadows lengthened around them, Malia turned to leave. A woman reporter stepped in front of her and shoved a mi
crophone in her face. “How does it feel to be an HPD super-hero? Do you think the upper echelons will give you the promotion you deserve?”
She hadn’t even thought of that. Of course a promotion would give her the added clout she needed to gain more respect for female officers. But that was low on the totem pole to her driving need to bring down killers … for her sister … and now for Kiki. “I’m just the line officer of an HPD team, doing my job.”
“But it isn’t every day that a homicide detective yanks a serial killer off the street and wipes out a terrorist cell – all within twenty-four hours.”
Malia let out a sigh of impatience. She didn’t care about all that. She’d wasted enough time. She just wanted to get to the hospital and check on Damon. “I’m sorry, but this interview is over. Now, please, let me pass. It’s been a long day.”
She stepped around the reporter blocking her path, and entered the building, quickly walking in one door and out another.
The surgery ward was quiet, foreboding, and it smelled of antiseptic. She paused, fearing … what? That he’d wonder why she hadn’t stayed at his side? That he’d resent her for shooting him? She took a deep breath and marched up to the charge nurse sitting behind the desk. She flipped open her ID. It wasn’t yet visiting hours, and she wasn’t taking a chance that she’d be turned away. “I need to see Damon Shaw. HPD business.” She marveled at the deceptive strength in her voice.
“You can only stay a few moments, Detective Reed,” the nurse said. “He’s under heavy sedation.”
Malia took a fortifying breath before entering room 5524. How could she be so tough and certain in her job, and so uncertain when it came to facing Damon? His head was wrapped with bandages. He lay motionless against the pillow, his face a yellow and blue mass of swollen and misshapen tissue. He had deep gashes around his eyes, nose and chin. A sharp twinge shot through her, imagining his pain. His eyes were closed, his lashes dark and thick. Her throat contracted. Dear God … he’s lying so still.