Moon over Maalaea Bay

by H. L. Wegley

  The scene near the detective’s desk caught his attention. Ramirez was talking to a group of officers. Numerous papers and folders lay spread in disarray across his desk. It was an interesting development. What if…

  He stopped on the opposite side of the desk. The detective, still engrossed in conversation, hadn’t noticed him.

  Lee scanned the papers on the desk looking for any morsel of helpful information. One paper caught his eye. Someone had scribbled Amber Alert in large letters. Below the two words were many words written in small letters.

  He stepped closer and read, Grand Wailea Resort, Chapel Wing, Room 414. Below that was a name, Bertha Renner. He memorized the information, then walked to the room where the detective had questioned him.

  Near the door, Lee stopped. A laser printer sat on a table beside the door. Beside it lay an opened ream of paper. He slid a sheet of paper from the stack and folded it into fourths. After he slipped into the room, he wrote down the contact information for Bertha Renner.

  Lee was certain of two things. First, the police would have thoroughly interrogated this witness, pumping from her everything she knew. Second, Yagi hadn’t told him everything Bertha Renner had seen.

  5

  Under a circle of electric tiki lights, Franklin James sat at a table on the deck of his yacht anchored off Makena. He looked at the short, bald Asian man who sat across the table, a revolting man, but nevertheless one he needed…for a while longer.

  James drummed his fingers on the table. “So, do we complete the deal or just kill her?”

  Nguyen frowned. His eyes said he was calculating, slowly, the only way this man could calculate. “She almost single-handedly dismembered our business. We will lose fifty million dollars this year because of Jennifer Akihara, Mr. James. She must pay, but we must be paid also.”

  “One correction, Nguyen. It’s Jennifer Brandt now. You were not supposed to let that happen.” James watched as Nguyen’s forehead wrinkled.

  Nguyen sighed. “Too bad we couldn’t have taken her before the wedding. Things got a little too hot in Seattle. But no harm done. We took her in Maui instead, right after she arrived. Given her worthless religion, she’s still salable as unused merchandise.” A smirk bent his lips. “Maybe her Christianity is worth something…to us.”

  His smirk sickened James, but he remained silent and allowed Nguyen to make his point.

  “So, Mr. James, I think we should give the prince his million-dollar baby and people will learn not to interfere with our business. This will send a strong message.”

  James wondered about Lee Brandt. The man was a genius like the woman. He might give them trouble. “So what about the bridegroom?”

  Nguyen laughed in staccato bursts of mirthless tones. “We will pay him appropriately, with torture. We let Mr. Brandt live. Then we leak false pictures onto the Internet, showing his bride in a brothel in Ranong. That will repay him for his role.”

  James thought through Nguyen’s suggestion. There was a risk he refused to overlook. “Lee Brandt will come looking.”

  Nguyen released two long bursts of mock laughter. “Let him search every brothel in Thailand. The prince will have her in his compound in—”

  “Silence!” The word exploded from James’s mouth. His fist pounded the table. James lowered his voice to slightly more than a whisper. “You can trust no one with her whereabouts. Not even crew members on my yacht. If the prince thinks we betrayed him, he will kill us as surely as the sun rises.”

  Nguyen’s bald brow wrinkled. “Then perhaps we should eliminate your entire crew.”

  James sneered at the idiot’s suggestion. “I think you should just eliminate your loose talk. Or perhaps someone will loosen your tongue…completely.”

  Nguyen’s hand jerked to his mouth then returned to the table. He swallowed hard. The temperature was only in the seventies, but perspiration beaded on his bald brow. “So…so how do we hand her to the prince and collect our fee?”

  It was good to learn the secret fears of those one did business with. One could use the knowledge to manipulate them…or to pay them. James smiled. “We will slip her onto his catamaran south of Lahaina. The prince pays us, then she becomes his problem.”

  Then one day soon I pay you, Nguyen.

  Nguyen’s crooked smile remained. “I know that his Dash 8 is fueled and ready at Lahaina Airport. Lee Brandt’s precious million-dollar bride will soon be sold to a man who collects the most beautiful women in the world for his perverse entertainment.” Nguyen smirked. “After he’s finished with her, she won’t be fit for Amsterdam or Manila. He will probably dump her in Calcutta, collect some pocket change, and she will die there unknown and unrecognizable.”

  Everything about the man sickened James. But he must tolerate this fool for a while longer if he wanted to attain a ten-digit income next year. At the appropriate time, he would relieve Nguyen of his duties…and his life.

  The bald man’s smirk grew into a smile. “Should we let her know what the prince will do to her? I would like to see her reaction. It would ease our pain to watch hers.”

  “No, Nguyen. Trader underestimated her and Trader is dead. Let’s not make her too desperate too soon. It would be a shame if she forced us to kill her. We should let her wait patiently for an opportunity to escape—one that will never come—until we have our money and she becomes the prince’s problem.” His fingers tapped an anapestic rhythm on the table. “It would not be wise to try to torture her now with stories of the torture she will soon experience.”

  ****

  Jennifer tried to snuggle closer to Lee, but he was so muscular, and he hadn’t shaved. Were they lying down? No, they wouldn’t do that…not yet. Her fuzzy thoughts swirled like cream stirred into her coffee until she could no longer distinguish one from the other.

  Lee became a hard floor, and her warm thoughts of him suddenly morphed into their antithesis. This is only a nightmare. But it felt like one she’d had before.

  She opened her eyes and all five senses sounded alarms. She tried to gasp. She couldn’t. Tape covered her mouth. Her wrists were bound behind her. She’d felt like this before. But when? She tried to concentrate. Clarity eluded her. What had happened?

  Slowly the fog dissipated. She felt this way after Trader drugged her.

  So, I’ve been drugged.

  What happened before that? She tried to concentrate, to remember.

  She stood at the jewelry counter at the back of the Kihei shops. Beyond the light of the jewelry shop was the darkness of the unlit parking area. In the periphery of her vision, three shadowy figures emerged from that darkness, grabbing her before she recognized the danger. A hand clamped over her mouth and pulled her into the dark parking lot. An arm bent around her neck squeezing so tightly…she must’ve blacked out. It was the sleeper hold.

  That’s how Katie described her abduction by Trader. The sleeper hold and then drugs.

  But Trader is dead.

  If there was a connection to Katie’s abduction, it must be from higher up, maybe from an international organization. But why would they—

  An answer came to mind. It was the only one that made any sense. The international organization wanted vengeance, and it wanted to send a message—mess with us and you disappear. Disappear to what? She could guess what their plan was for her.

  Footsteps sounded outside the door.

  Jennifer needed every advantage she could get. She closed her eyes, breathed slowly, and kept her face towards the door.

  The door opened.

  Cracking her eyelids was a risk. She took it.

  A man stood studying her. He was tall. No, long. He was long and skinny. Though he stood upright, something about the man reminded her of a snake.

  No doubt a poisonous one.

  She memorized his description and named him Viper.

  Viper turned to someone behind him, someone outside the door. “She’s still out. That was a strong dose for a small woman. But she’s breathing OK. Let�
�s give her another hour, then we’ll try waking her.”

  His voice sounded like a snake, more air than vocal chords. She heard the other voice. “Close the door, Snake.”

  Despite her situation, she bit her tongue to stifle a laugh.

  Idiot, you don’t need to chew on your tongue. Your mouth is taped. But Snake? No. I’ll stick with Viper.

  The conversation continued. The second man had an accent. Maybe Chinese. She would call him Mao and pray he wasn’t as ruthless as his namesake.

  She needed to focus, to glean any intelligence she could, any details of her whereabouts, and of their plans.

  Mao continued talking. “We can’t move her now. The boss said to wait. Some do-gooder saw us take her and thought she was a teenager. Now we have an Amber Alert to deal with. The Feds locked down the whole island.”

  “We’ll have to keep her at the house until we can move her to the yacht. But we can’t wait forever. The FBI is more likely to show up here than on the yacht,” Viper said in a voice that was breathy, almost a hiss.

  The man’s voice drove a shiver down her spine. She needed to escape before Viper could strike.

  The conversation had ended. The footsteps moved away from the door.

  So she was in a house. Jennifer looked around.

  She was in a bedroom, a dark bedroom. They worried about the house being found. It must be in Kihei, near where they took her.

  The move to a yacht worried her. Once they moved her, she could be in international waters, and beyond help, in less than two hours. Would an Amber Alert prevent that?

  Lee. Tears filled her eyes. He would be worried sick, and he would never give up trying to find her. He could be in danger, too. She needed help and sought it from the only One Who could help her when she was so helpless.

  Please be with Lee. He needs Your help now more than ever. Keep him safe and me, too. Thanks for the Amber Alert. It buys us some time.

  Jennifer inventoried her advantages. She was intelligent, but her captors probably knew about that. There would be no chess games unless the game started with her in checkmate. However, they probably didn’t know she could defend herself. The only two traffickers who knew about that, the two she had kicked, were dead.

  What should she do now? She needed to appear physically weak, to cower at physical threats, and to wait for an opportunity to escape. Hopefully she would find a situation where she only needed to take out one person.

  To prepare for an opportune moment, she iterated through a list of the most vicious defensive maneuvers Granddad had taught her.

  Whether Jennifer was on land or water, the biggest obstacle to escaping alive was the band around her wrists. Solving the wrist-band problem was her first priority—correction, it was her second priority. She looked upward and focused on her first priority.

  When it’s the right time, please, Lord, show me the way to escape.

  6

  Nearly three hours had passed since Jennifer was taken. Lee had learned that in the interim the Maui Police Department, including their Investigative Services Bureau, as well as the FBI and the Coast Guard, were involved in the search for Jennifer. So far, there were no breaks in the case, at least nothing he was told about.

  Detective Ramirez had dispatched Officers Yagi and Kaai to take Lee back to Kihei. The normally talkative Yagi was silent as the patrol car rolled along the highway between Wailuku and Kihei. The questions had all been asked, and there was no news to discuss.

  Lee was also silent as he tried to come up with his own plan to end this nightmare.

  A few minutes down the road, Yagi broke the silence. “It’s been a tough evening for us all, and it’ll probably be a long night for every cop on the island. Brandt, you need to go back to your room and try to get some rest. Like Ramirez said, if something breaks, we’ll let you know.”

  “Yeah. It’s going to be a long night.” But there was no way he could rest, and going back to the room would only drive him crazy with thoughts and worries about Jennifer. He could feel her in his arms like she was minutes before she vanished. He’d already been driven crazy, he just hadn’t admitted to himself. “Will you guys please drop me off at the lot north of the shops? That’s where I parked our car.”

  As they approached the north end of town, Kaai veered left onto Highway 31 to bypass the downtown area. A few lights later, he turned right, and they descended the hill, heading into town.

  As they approached South Kihei Road, Lee recognized their location. “Our car is in the lot on the right, about half a block ahead.”

  After Kaai stopped the patrol car in the parking lot, and Yagi opened the door, Lee hopped out of the confining back seat. “Thanks guys. Let me know the minute you hear anything, OK?”

  “Sure thing,” Yagi said. “Now you try to get some rest. Let us and the Feds do what we do best, catch the bad guys.”

  If they were trying to encourage him, it wasn’t working. “Yeah. I’ll try.”

  Lee unlocked the door of the rental car and slid in. The tropical fruit fragrance of Jennifer’s lotion lingered in the car. It created an ache so intense and deep inside that breathing took effort.

  Panic, depression, and nausea assaulted him in a physically and emotionally crippling sequence. Lee swallowed hard and fought off the urge to vomit. His feelings of helplessness and hopelessness were overwhelming. He had to do something now, or it would send him to a place he couldn’t afford to go. Sleep, that was out of the question. So was going back to the room where he and Jennifer had planned to spend their wedding night. Wedding night…nightmare. If only he could wake up and end the dream. That wasn’t going to happen unless he made it happen.

  He started the car, turned right out of the lot, and then went left on South Kihei Road, looking for a place to think, to get some coffee, and to plan.

  Less than a mile down the road, he came to a strip mall on the left hosting a twenty-four hour restaurant. In an hour or so, there would be nothing else open. The restaurant seemed made to order. He turned in and parked.

  Lee walked into the place and looked for a suitable table, one like him, alone and in a corner.

  With only a half dozen other customers in the place, a waitress soon spotted him at his table. “Aloha and good evening. What can I get for—”

  “Coffee. Black, please. That’s all.” He didn’t feel the spirit of aloha tonight and it wasn’t a good evening.

  The change in the waitress’s expression told him she got the message. “Coffee, coming right up.”

  After the waitress wheeled and strode away, his spot in the corner seemed too confining. It was closing in on him. He felt uneasy, claustrophobic. He had to move. Now.

  When Lee stood, he was panting, struggling to breathe. He needed to settle down and think, or he would be no good to Jennifer. No good to anybody. He sat back down.

  A thought, perhaps a voice, sounded in his troubled mind, reverberating inside his heart. Do you trust Me?

  “Yes,” he whispered without hesitation, without thinking.

  Even in light of this?

  He couldn’t answer. His own heart convicted him. Yes, he trusted God within limits, within the comfort zone of Lee Brandt’s normal, tidy life. But this was a violation of trust, a violation of love, a violation of goodness.

  But who is violating goodness?

  Lee shoved the intruding thought from his mind when he shoved his chair back from the table and left the corner and the thoughts that were suffocating him.

  He moved to a table in the middle of the room.

  Two tables away, a young girl about Katie’s age, maybe sixteen, sat with a man twice her age. The muscular man in dark cargo shorts and a black T-shirt looked out of place with the young girl.

  Even here inside the restaurant he couldn’t escape the reminders of Jennifer’s abduction. The man fit the meager description Yagi had provided, but…no, he was obsessed with finding Jennifer’s captors, and he was just being stupid. This was not the perp, and he could
n’t waste time with useless—

  He jumped when a coffee cup thumped on the table. He tried to give the waitress a smile, but he had no clue what expression his face held.

  “You’re welcome,” the waitress replied, then scurried away as if to be rid of him.

  “Can’t move her now…” A man’s voice.

  Lee turned his head to see where the softly spoken words had come from. The man sitting beside the teenage girl. It must have been him. Lee stared at his coffee cup and strained to hear more.

  “…stay in the house until…”

  “…island’s sealed…”

  Both times it was the man’s voice. Were the phrases he overheard coincidence or, as unlikely as it seemed, were the two speaking about Jennifer? He had to know. Lee quickly appended two more actions onto his slowly developing plan.

  He initiated the first action by slipping his cell phone from his pocket. Moving his thumbs, he tried to imitate someone texting. Instead of pressing letters, he put his cell in camera mode and moved it until the man and the girl were centered on the display. He pressed the button to capture the image.

  When the picture appeared, it looked clear. He could see the sides of both faces and a profile of their bodies. He saved the picture, then looked up at the couple’s table, positioning his cell to take another. They were gone.

  Lee quickly scanned the room.

  The two were approaching the exit door.

  He pulled a five spot from his wallet, tossed it on the table, and hurried after them.

  After he stepped outside, Lee had to pause while his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit parking lot. He scanned the entire area. The two people were nowhere in sight.

  Only one route could have allowed them to disappear so quickly. They had gone around the corner, behind the building.

  He ran to the corner of the restaurant and looked into the darkness behind it. Without scaling a six-foot fence, there was only one path they could have taken. They had crossed an undeveloped field that sloped upward towards a residential area.