Dangerous Depths

by Colleen Coble

  He knew better than to argue with her. “Where will you stay?”

  “In my cottage. Or maybe I can stay with Candace.” She glanced at her friend, who nodded.

  “Once we find out who is behind this—or find the treasure ourselves, it will be safe to go back,” Bane said.

  “Are you still going to try to find the treasure? You really think it’s buried somewhere near Koma’s house?” Candace asked. “It would solve a lot of problems if you could find it. You probably haven’t heard this, but Shaina has filed for a paternity test to be done. If Tony really did father her child, I’m in even more trouble than I thought.”

  “Candace, I’m so sorry.” Leia put her arm around Candace, and the other woman wilted against her.

  Though Candace was still beautiful, the past days had left their toll in the dark circles under her eyes. Bane wished he could promise he’d find the treasure. “We haven’t given up yet,” he told her. He directed his next question to Leia. “Did Koma have any friends?”

  “Just my grandmother. Oh, and one other man. Paulo Niau. I think he’s ninety-five. He used to run the general store in town, and Koma worked for him years ago. They played konane together regularly.”

  Bane had never played the ancient Hawaiian board game that was similar to checkers and chess, but he’d seen older natives playing it. “How could he have told Paulo anything while playing konane? You’re not supposed to talk.”

  She smiled. “Maybe they broke the rules. It’s worth talking to him, I guess.”

  The door to the shop opened, and Detective Ono stepped inside. He was smiling in his usual genial way. “What’s this I hear about some men wanting to kidnap you, Pilgrim?” He winked at Bane. “I might try it myself if it wasn’t for my wife and the frying pan she’s liable to hit me with.”

  Leia began to smile, and Bane knew she was finally getting over the shock of the afternoon. He listened to her tell the detective about the men. Ono jotted notes in his pocket notebook, then put it away. “Do you have any leads on Koma’s death?” Bane asked.

  The detective shook his head. “Some poachers were shooting birds in the area. We found some bloody remains a few yards from Koma’s body. I was beginning to suspect it was a hunting accident until Leia told me her story. Now I just don’t know. I’ll check it out though.” He looked at Leia. “You’re sure you didn’t recognize the men?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t see them well enough to be able to tell who they were. Only the tops of their heads.”

  “Maybe you should have made a noise so they’d look up.” He laughed.

  Ono smiled, but Leia frowned. “I’m not some flighty female, Detective. This is more serious than you seem to think. Bane ran off an intruder last night, and now we find I was the target. I don’t want me or my grandmother to end up like Koma.”

  Ono held up his hands. “Kala mai ia’u. I meant no offense.” He smiled again. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Another thing—a man attacked Bane underwater with a knife just this morning.”

  Ono shook his head. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “It was on the water. We called the Coast Guard. They’ve prob-ably notified your office by now,” Bane said.

  “I’d better get back then,” Ono said. He whistled as he sauntered out the door.

  “He won’t find anything,” Leia said, her voice thick with disgust.

  “How about dinner when you get off work, and then we can run out and talk to Paulo?” He ignored Candace’s knowing smile and kept his gaze focused on Leia’s face. Say yes, say yes, he thought.

  “I guess that would be okay.”

  He controlled his elation. She just wanted his help, he reminded himself. That was all. But if he could just get under the shell she’d erected and find out what went wrong between them, maybe the next date would be different. Tonight might be his one shot at the truth.

  Nineteen

  Leia dusted the counters of the dive shop, then emptied the trash. The afternoon had dragged by, and she gazed longingly out the window at the surf pounding the rocky shore. She’d rather be out on the water than stuck here inside with the scent of rubber swim fins. The shop had been dead too. Even dealing with tourists who didn’t know what equipment they needed would be preferable to this silence.

  She heard the crunch of gravel through the open window and looked up to see Pete Kone getting off his Harley. Her gaze went to his hands to see if he was carrying a new court order, but they were empty.

  He shoved open the door with effort and stepped into the shop. “Aloha, Leia. I was hoping I’d find you here.”

  “Any more news on your bones?” She came around the counter to greet him.

  His dark eyes shone with enthusiasm, and he nodded. “More bones washed up this morning. And more ancient tools. We’ve definitely got a site out there of something big.”

  “Any ideas what it might be? How would the bodies get into the ocean, and then wash ashore?”

  “We know that the ocean has covered over at least one burial cave in this area. I suspect it might be close to where you’ve been diving. A storm surge could have washed the bones out of a cave.”

  She studied his face. “You don’t seem angry that your injunction was stopped.”

  He shrugged. “You care about our history. Bane does too. I don’t think you’d willingly allow any damage. So what about it—did you see anything down there that might hold the bones?”

  “There is a cave.” She bit her lip. “It may not matter for any of us, Pete. A seamount is forming. I saw the lava with my own eyes. It’s getting too dangerous to even go down.”

  Pete stared, his eyes growing wide. He sighed. “Maybe Pele is protecting the dead in her own way—keeping them from desecration—but I’d hoped to find the cave and seal it with an explosion from further erosion. We don’t want these bones exhumed by the sea.”

  She’d always known Pete adhered closely to the old ways, but she hadn’t realized he took it so far as to believe in the ancient gods. At least her parents had made sure she learned about the one true God, even if she wasn’t sure she could trust him anymore. “God may be protecting them,” she corrected.

  The smile Pete flashed was full of amusement. “You don’t really know where you fit, do you, Leia? A little of your dad’s Hawaiian beliefs, a little of your mom’s Swedish stoicism, and none of the passion for our spiritual heritage from either. This land belongs to us, not the haoles. Pele will protect her people from the rape of the land.”

  He’d put his finger close to the truth about her beliefs, but she refused to let him rile her. “Well, Pele hasn’t done such a good job of that in the past. I’m as Hawaiian as you are, Pete. Your grand-mother was Asian. Pele didn’t stop the kingdom from being ripped from us.” She stopped short of telling him he was praying to the wrong god. He was smart enough that he would get her inference.

  “I went to church with my aunt a few times. Who wants to fol-low a god who passively submits to whatever comes his way? I want a warrior, a god who will help me fight this battle.” He turned toward the door. “Keep your eyes open for a cave and let me know if you find it. I know you love our history too, Leia. You won’t want it destroyed any more than I do.”

  He was right about that. She felt a connection with her culture and her people with an ache that went clear to the bone. Could the cave above the sunken ship hold a burial site? Though she knew it wasn’t safe, she longed to find out. Pete was right—it needed to be sealed off for protection from the sea. Maybe God would use the volcano to do just that, but if not, she owed it to her heritage to help take care of it.

  Where are we going?” Leia shouted over the sound of the wind. He was captaining her boat.

  Bane grinned and shook his head. “I’m not telling,” he shouted back. He’d spent all afternoon making the arrangements. It hadn’t been easy to get a beach dinner catered. She stuck her tongue out at him, and his grin widened. This was going to be a great e
vening, he could feel it. The wind whipped her hair around, and a long strand touched his face. He focused his thoughts and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. No talking just yet, he reminded him-self. They’d have a nice dinner, and he’d woo her again. Once she’d mellowed, maybe he could get her to open up about the real reason she’d broken their engagement.

  “Did you hear the news?” he asked. “I called Ono to check on the investigation, and he said they’d found the missing drugs at the hospital. The initial inventory was wrong. If the toxicology report comes back with that in Tony’s blood, the murderer had to have gotten it somewhere else. Your mother is off the hook.”

  She closed her eyes. “Thank God,” she said. For the first time in quite a while, she realized she meant it. She shut off the engine, and he dropped the anchor overboard. “Here we are,” he said.

  She looked around at the deserted beach. “What do you mean, here we are. I thought we were going for dinner.”

  “We are.” He nodded toward the beach. “Our restaurant, madam.”

  A smile teased the corners of her lips. “What a romantic idea. Did you come up with it yourself, or did Kaia suggest it?”

  “It was all hatched in my own brain.” He hopped out of the boat, and they strolled to a table covered with a white tablecloth. The server in the van parked by the sand waved to him and began to haul out the food. Pleasure suffused her face with color. She squeezed his fingers. The pink-and-white sundress she wore fitted her figure perfectly and showed off her shoulders and arms. He could barely take his eyes off her.

  The warm caress of the trade winds was like a touch of heaven. He seated her at the table. The server brought drinks and rolls, and the entertainment arrived. Within a few minutes the live entertain-ment—three singers and a bevy of hula dancers—began to per-form. The sound of the slack-key guitars set the mood, and he could see Leia relaxing.

  She fingered the tiny, adorable scar on her lip, but her eyes smiled at him. “I’m impressed,” she said. “This is wonderful. But, Bane—”

  He held up his hand. “No buts. We’re going to forget our past for a little while and just enjoy the evening.”

  “I think you’re expecting too much of tonight. This was just supposed to be dinner.” She stirred the lemon in her iced tea and didn’t look at him.

  He knew he should wait until they’d eaten, but the words burst out before he could clamp them back. “I want to know what happened, Leia. Why did you break our engagement? I know you still care about me, so what is it? Let’s fix it and build a future.”

  She still wasn’t meeting his gaze, and the color had leached from her cheeks. She sat back and sighed. “We get along better when we’re not talking about us and the future. Do you remember that time we stopped at Kepuhi Bay and we had the whole beach to ourselves?”

  This wasn’t going to be easy. “Why do you always look back, Leia? The future is much more exciting than the past.”

  She bit her thumbnail, then put her hands in her lap. “I’m afraid, okay? I never know what the future is going to bring. There’s always some new trial that seems to come along. The past is safer.”

  He leaned across the table and took her hand. “We can weather anything if we have each other to lean on. We’ll build a family together.”

  She exhaled. “There will be no family. I don’t want any kids, Bane,” she said softly.

  “You’ll be a better mother than your mom. You shouldn’t worry.”

  A frown crouched between her blue eyes. “You’re misunderstanding me, Bane. It’s not because of my mother. I don’t want kids.”

  He opened his mouth, but no words came to mind. He’d always wanted a bunch of kids running around. Her blunt state-ment altered everything. “No kids?” he finally managed. “You seem to love kids.” He felt like he was floundering in uncharted waters. This wasn’t going according to the script in his head.

  “This isn’t easy.” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I lied to you, okay? Our final argument had nothing to do with you taking charge. I’ve always liked the way you try to take care of me. I just didn’t want to tell you the real reason, so I picked a fight.”

  “I—I don’t understand.” A sour taste came to his mouth. “How could you lie to me?” He realized he was raising his voice and made an attempt to lower it. “You know I hate lies.”

  “I know.” She wet her lips. “Birth defects run in our family. I won’t put a child through what I went through.”

  “You don’t have any defects,” he blurted. “You’re beautiful and perfect.”

  She touched the faint scar on her lip. “This wasn’t a cat scratch like I told you. I was born with a cleft lip. I had half a dozen surgeries by the time I was five. And Eva has Down’s as well as a cleft lip. I don’t want to bring a damaged child into the world. And don’t think we can adopt. I’ve thought it all out. Adoption is as much of a gamble as having my own baby. So no kids, not ever. Do you understand now?”

  He stared at her. “Damaged? You are looking at it wrong. Sure, Eva has special needs, but she’s a joy to be around. Don’t you feel her wonder and excitement when you examine an anthill with her? God has her here for a purpose. Who are you to say she’s damaged?” He was having a hard time holding on to his temper. “And what about your life? Do you enjoy it less because you have a tiny scar?” He stopped and stared into her face. “You moved to Kalaupapa, right in the midst of lepers. Do you think they have no significance because they were once called unclean? You’ve got a skewed version of what makes life worthwhile, Leia. Accept the gift of life God and your parents gave you and be grateful for it.”

  She kept a steady gaze into his eyes. “I’m not changing my mind, Bane. I won’t give you children. And if you can sway me later, don’t. I’m not ever having children. That’s not negotiable.”

  “Have you talked to your pastor about this?”

  “Why? My mind is made up. You don’t know what it’s like to have your earliest memories be those of hospitals and pain. That’s why I fear the future. You never know what God is going to allow to come.” She looked away. “I don’t mean to sound whiny. I’m grateful for my life. But my mother has never let me forget I was less than perfect. And it was my father’s fault in her eyes, of course. No one in her family had ever had a birth defect. I couldn’t stand it if you someday blamed me for any problems our child might have.”

  “I’m not like your mother,” he protested. “I could love any child, regardless of the problems.” But could he? A vision of the various birth defects he’d seen over the years flashed through his mind: missing fingers, retardation, muscular dystrophy. He wouldn’t accept something like that easily. He knew himself well enough to know that he’d fight to try to control it, to fix it. Did he have the right to risk putting a child through something like that? Maybe Leia was right. And if she was, would he someday blame her for their childlessness? He was going to have to consider how he really felt.

  The rest of the dinner had been quiet, and Leia wanted other people around so she suggested they head back to the peninsula. They docked the boat in Kalaupapa, and she was the first one off the deck. “Let’s check on Tûtû and Malia. Malia was going to start packing up our grandmother’s things for the move home tomorrow. I’d like to see how Tûtû is taking it.” She led the way to her bike. He got on behind her and put his hands on her waist. Maybe this idea had been a mistake. The mint scent of his breath on her neck gave her a delicious shiver.

  His voice in her ear vibrated with anger. “I never took you for a coward, Leia.”

  She frowned and started the bike. “We’d better go.”

  “You’re afraid of really living. You think God is supposed to lay your life out neatly without any pain. Did you ever stop to think that you’re the person you are now—strong, brave, capable—because of the things you’ve faced?”

  “I want more for a child,” she said stiffly. She was tempted to put her hands over her ears and hum like Eva. Bane could be
so argumentative. “You think you have all the answers, but you haven’t gone through what I have.” She started off with a jerky movement and putted down the road.

  His voice in her ear didn’t let up. “And you haven’t experienced what I have. You grew up with both parents, while I was raised by my grandfather.”

  “I know you didn’t have it easy either. I’m not asking you to give up your dream of children, Bane. That’s why I broke the engage-ment. Find someone else. Someone perfect who can give you perfect children.”

  He was silent so long she realized he wasn’t going to answer. What was he thinking? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. He wouldn’t give up his dream for her, no man would. She didn’t want him to sacrifice himself that way, and that’s what marrying her would be—a sacrifice. Bane Oana was born to be a dad. He took care of everyone around him, his brother and sister, his friends. He deserved a whole and perfect mate. And she wanted that for him—she really did. Or at least she did when she had her jealousy under control.

  Twenty

  When they entered Ipo’s cottage, Tûtû was clear-eyed and interested in talking about the treasure. Bane tried to keep his excitement in check. “Can you tell us where it is?”

  Ipo nodded. “It’s time for you to find the treasure. Look for a mango tree on the north side of the fishpond. Just to the right of there is what’s left of a giant tree trunk. Count off fifty feet to the west and then dig. The treasure is there.” She grabbed Leia’s hand. “But watch that no one sees you.”

  “I will,” Leia promised. She glanced at Bane. “Want to go out looking for it? There’s a full moon tonight.”

  “Can I eat first? I barely touched my dinner.” He rubbed Ajax’s head. “You’re hungry, too, aren’t you, boy?” The dog woofed in agreement.

  “I’ll see what I can find.” Leia stood. “You need my help get-ting ready for bed, Tûtû?”