Dangerous Depths

by Colleen Coble

  “Sit down a minute,” Hotshot said. He took her arm and guided her toward the smelly cot.

  She tried to pull her arm from his grasp, but he was too strong. “I’m tired of sitting. I want to go outside. It stinks in here.”

  “Well, you can’t.” He pushed her toward the cot.

  Eva was wishing more and more she’d never come with him. She thought he was her friend, but he wasn’t acting like it. Leia said friends helped one another. Hotshot wasn’t helping her at all. “I want to go home and see my dad.”

  “Your dad will be coming to get you soon.” Hotshot drew the back of his hand across her cheek. “It’s too bad you’re a dummy, Eva. You’re so beautiful.”

  Eva’s cheeks got hot. “I don’t like it when people call me a dummy. Leia says people who call others names are weak themselves and are only doing it to make themselves think they’re bigger than they are.” Hotshot’s face got red, and his eyes got all squinty. He squeezed her arm hard enough to make her cry, but she gritted her teeth instead. She wouldn’t cry.

  “Why don’t you just shut up?” He shoved her away, then stood and stomped to the window. When he turned back around, he was smiling his normal smile. “Here comes your dad now. Earlier than I expected, so it’s a good thing you weren’t as affectionate as I’d hoped.”

  Eva’s eyes widened when he took a gun out from behind the waist-band of his shorts. “What are you doing with a gun? They’re bad.”

  “They’re useful. Just sit down and shut up.”

  Skylarks warbled in the trees around the clearing. The ancient fishpond was dry of water-and of people. Rushing up the path from her grandmother’s cottage where they’d left the bike, Leia hoped to see her father soon. “Let’s try the cabin,” Leia suggested. She ran ahead of Bane and Mano along the path to the old cabin.

  “Slow down.” Bane rushed to catch her and grabbed her arm. “We can’t go rushing in like a Swat team. There’s too much at stake. Your father and sister both might be in danger.”

  She knew he was right, but nervous energy strummed along her veins, hurrying her steps. The urgency she felt clouded her thinking. “Just hurry.” She caught sight of Mano’s face. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead, and he was pale.

  “I’m so stupid,” Mano admitted. “I was so worried, I forgot breakfast. I remembered a few minutes ago, but I don’t have any-thing with me, not even glucose tablets.”

  “I don’t have anything for you to eat either.” Leia often carried hard candy in her purse, but she had left it behind on the ship. She had no homepathics with her either. “We cleared the food out of my grandmother’s house, but the clinic will have glucose tablets. Go there and get some.”

  “Call someone else to go with you. You need backup.” Mano’s voice was anguished.

  “There’s no one to call. We’ll be all right.”

  “I’ll rush back as soon as I eat. Call me in half an hour.”

  “Can you get back by yourself? You don’t look good,” Bane said.

  Leia wondered the same thing. A hypoglycemic reaction was nothing to fool around with. “You’d better go with him, Bane. I’ll just go watch the cabin. I won’t go in until you get back.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Mano insisted.

  Bane took another look at his brother’s face. “No, you’re not. She’s right.” He turned to Leia. “You should be the one to go with him. I don’t know anything about medicine. I’ll wait for you.”

  She started to protest, but he held up his hand. “I’ll just observe from the trees. I promise. I’ll call Mano’s number in half an hour to see where you are. Try not to worry. I’ve got it under control.”

  “We’ll hurry.” Everything in her wanted to shout no, but she knew it made sense. Mano was probably feeling bad enough with-out a temper tantrum from her upsetting him even more. She watched Bane disappear into the forest, then she and Mano went back down the trail toward town.

  “Sorry, Leia. I’m such a dork.”

  “No, you’re not. It was an upsetting morning. Let’s just get you feeling better.” Were his hands trembling? She picked up her pace when she realized his hands had a slight tremor. He was a big guy. If he passed out on the path, she wouldn’t be able to cart him to the clinic. They passed the rest of the trek in silence.

  They reached her grandmother’s yard. Mano was sagging against a tree. Sweat ran down his face in rivulets, and the tremors in his hands were more pronounced. She grabbed his arm and started to help him to the sidecar. He collapsed into the seat and closed his eyes. She slung herself onto the bike and drove to town at seventy miles an hour. A nurse met her at the clinic door and rushed for some glucose tablets. She ran back to the sidecar and gave them to Mano.

  “Mahalo,” Mano muttered. His head lolled back, but she could see the effort he was making to stay conscious.

  “I could help you manage your diabetes with homepathics, Mano. When this is all over, I’d like to show you.” With the offer, Leia realized she had to take the residency in natural medicine Dr. Kapuy had told her about. She wanted to cure people, not just treat the illness. Leia waited for the tablets to work, turning to look out over the sleepy town. Not many tourists here today. A familiar figure caught her eye, and she waved at Candace. Leaving Mano to recover, she advanced a few steps to meet her friend. “What are you doing here?”

  “A guy chartered the boat to come out here today. He was willing to pay an outlandish price, so I couldn’t refuse. He just wanted to wander the place and take pictures. I guess his great-grandfather died out there. I thought you’d be out on the ship. How’s the excavation going?”

  “It’s a bust.” Leia hated to burst her hopes even more. She told her about the morning’s events. Candace closed her eyes and sighed. “Try not to worry,” Leia said, pressing her hand. “It will work out. You’ll see. God has it under control.”

  Candace opened her eyes. “I don’t think so, Leia. I think I’ll have to move to the mainland, find some way to support us.”

  Leia hated to see Candace so discouraged, but the minutes were ticking by. Mano should be recovered in another few minutes. The cell phone in her pocket rang, and she opened it gingerly and held out a few inches from her head. “Bane?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. I just got to the cabin. How’s Bane”

  “Recovering. I’ll meet you at my grandmother’s, and we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

  “Is something wrong?” Candace wanted to know.

  “We’re looking for Eva. I thought she might be at the old cabin up the trail from my grandmother’s. Bane went to look, but she’s not there.”

  “I could help you look,” Candace offered. “The guy said he’d be here a couple of hours and I have nothing else to do.”

  Leia glanced at Candace’s attire: slim-fitting sundress and high-heeled sandals. Not suitable for hiking through the jungle. “It’s okay, we’ll find her.” She tried to keep her tone light and unconcerned. Word about what her dad had done couldn’t be allowed to get out, not even to friends.

  Twenty-six

  Mynahs squawked from the trees, and Bane looked up. He wished he had a clue where to go. A fishpond. No other places came to mind. Kicking ajar the unlocked door, he stepped inside the empty cabin. Its dampness enveloped him. It didn’t feel as if anyone had been inside recently. He prowled the room, looking to see if anything appeared different from when he was here last. His gaze settled on the old table. EVA had been carved in block letters on the surface.

  He touched the lettering. She had been here! He dug out his cell phone and dialed Mano’s phone again. When his brother answered, Bane told him what he’d found. Mano told him they were at Ipo’s cottage and could be at the abandoned cabin in minutes. Bane shut his phone and continued his search. He checked the cabinets, the rusting metal cooler, and the heap of sleeping bags in the corner. He pulled the blankets from the bed, but there was nothing under them but stains. He tossed them back onto the cot and looked around. He’
d checked everywhere. His gaze fell on the cot again. Except for under the mattress.

  He dragged it from the metal frame and hit pay dirt. A small yellow Big Bird backpack he’d seen Eva tote around forever was pushed under the cot, clear back to the wall. He tossed the mat-tress off to the side and pulled the cot out from the wall, then grabbed the satchel. It was heavier than he’d thought. As he unzipped it, he heard Mano’s voice calling him. “In here,” he yelled.

  Mano and Leia rushed through the door. He held up the bag. “It’s Eva’s, isn’t it?”

  Leia nodded wordlessly. She held out her hand and walked toward him. He gave her the bag. “Look inside and see if there are any clues to who has her, anything unusual.”

  “She usually carries her paper and watercolors in it. And any-thing else that’s important to her.” Leia went to the dusty table and set the bag down and began to rummage through it. Bane and Mano stood behind her and looked over her shoulder. She drew out a snorkel mask and fins, then drawing pads and colored pencils. “Her honu.” Leia held up a rock that looked like a sea turtle. Leia picked up the sketch pad and began to flip through the pages. “I haven’t looked at her drawings in a while. Maybe she did a picture of the guy she’s with. She likes to draw people best of all.”

  Bane nodded and watched her turn the pages. Eva’s talent shone in her attention to detail and the colors she chose. His gaze landed on the landscape scene Leia was about to pass over. “Wait, I know that place. Dirk took Tony and me to that cabin once to go fishing. There’s an old fishpond there, now that I think about it. I knew there was some old pond that I couldn’t remember. It’s been driving me crazy.”

  “Dirk? Could he have anything to do with this?” Mano asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bane said. “Dirk said the cabin was owned by his grandfather, but it’s rarely used. Maybe someone just took advantage of its accessibility.”

  Leia was still looking at the sketch pad. “Look here.” She showed him a picture of a man Eva had drawn. It was clearly Dirk Forsythe. Hotshot was written under it. “Dirk has her.”

  Eva held her father’s hand as Hotshot made them walk along the narrow strip of sand. She’d been here before, snorkeling with Hotshot. Makua gave her hand a squeeze that made her feel better, and she held on to it with all her strength. With her father here, she wasn’t as scared, but she still wanted to go home. “Mama will be worried,” she told him.

  “We’ll see her soon.” They climbed a small hill and soon reached the cabin where she’d changed into her suit when she snorkeled before. It was nicer than the other one. There was no dust on the tables here, and no mouse doodoo. “Now what?” her father asked Hotshot. “You have what you wanted—why don’t you just let us go?”

  “Cooperate with me and you’ll be freed. I know there’s more.”

  “There isn’t,” her father said.

  His voice boomed in a way that usually scared Eva, but Hotshot didn’t seem to flinch. Eva huddled closer to her father, and he put his arm around her. She watched Hotshot’s face and wondered why he looked so mad. Her dad had been nice to him and had even brought him some boxes of stuff. It didn’t look very interesting to Eva: old broken pottery and creepy bones. It made her shiver to look at them.

  “I read the list. I know one of the items is a priceless lâ’au pâlau. I want it.”

  Her father’s eyes widened. “I forgot. There is one small box of things that Koma didn’t get down to the cave before he broke his hip. It’s in the tree stand at his cabin. I meant to get it yesterday, but when you took Eva, I forgot about it.” He stared defiantly at Hotshot.

  Eva began to hum. She didn’t want her dad to make Hotshot mad. She’d seen him knuckle a boy’s head once when he got an attitude. It was Joe Leoki, and he had cried. Joe was a big boy, so she knew it hurt. She didn’t want Hotshot to hurt her dad. She tugged on his arm. When he looked at her, she shook her head. “Don’t make him mad,” she whispered.

  “Your daughter is smart. Don’t make me mad. Sit.” He pointed to two blue camp chairs against the wall. Taking out his cell phone, he punched in a number and spoke into it. “The rest of the stuff is in the tree stand at Koma’s. Get it, and come here.” He listened, then grunted and hung up. “If it’s not there . . .”

  They decided the easiest and fastest way to get to Dirk’s cabin would be to hike back to the cottage, get Leia’s bike, and drive to the boat. They could take the boat to the beach near the cabin. The plans went without a hitch until they raced to the dock and got into the Eva II. The engine wouldn’t start.

  “It’s got plenty of gas,” Mano said, wiping the grease from his hands after trying to tinker with the engine. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  Leia’s gaze landed on Candace’s boat. “Let’s take Candace’s boat.”

  “Can you find her to ask her?”

  “I don’t want to traipse all over the village looking for her. She said she’d be here awhile.” Nodding toward the old man casting nets from the pier, she started toward him. “I’ll tell Jeb to tell her we’ll be back as soon as we can. Maybe he can get this boat going and use it to run her customer back.” He promised to keep an eye out for Candace and tell her Leia had taken the boat. He got his tools and headed toward the Kahales’ boat.

  When she got back, the others had already boarded Candace’s boat. She untied the rope, threw it to Bane, then hopped onto the boat. Mano started the engine, and the craft pulled away from the dock. She looked back, hoping to see Candace and wave an apology, but her friend was nowhere to be seen. It was probably just as well. At least she knew Candace wasn’t going to need it anytime soon.

  Bane directed Mano on where to head the boat. Fatigue hit Leia, and she felt shaky. She sat down on the seat. Maybe if she had something to eat she’d feel better. Leia began to rummage through the cabinets in search of food. She found some Cheese Nips and grabbed a handful. They were stale, but she ate them anyway. As she put the box away, her gaze fell on a weight belt. It was damaged, the cut edges sticking up in the air. She picked it up and looked at it, then flipped it over. A red label bearing Tony’s name was still attached.

  She made a sound, and Bane looked up. “What’s wrong?”

  Wordlessly, she held out the belt. “It’s Tony’s. The one we couldn’t find.”

  He absorbed her words in silence, then took the belt from her fingers. “How would she get this? She wasn’t even down there.”

  “Dirk uses this boat too.”

  “That means . . .”

  “That Dirk not only has my sister, but he also killed Tony. He’s probably got my dad too,” Leia finished for him in a choked voice. “We’ve got to find him! He’s capable of killing them. This proves it.”

  Bane went to tell Mano what they’d found. Leia held the weight belt and tried to figure out where this all led. Dirk wasn’t with the divers. How had he killed Tony? He’d been at Candace’s house when she went to offer her condolences to Candace the night Tony died. Candace was the usual pilot of the boat, and she hated to let anyone take the boat out without her. If Dirk was onboard, so was Candace. She glanced at Bane and saw the same doubt in his eyes.

  Bane’s eyes widened. “I’d say Candace is involved too, Leia.”

  Leia didn’t want to believe it. Could all Candace’s tears about Tony’s death be hiding the heart of a black widow? “I don’t believe it, Bane. She’s been just crushed by all this. Maybe Dirk is trying to implicate her.”

  “Maybe. But consider this—Candace was an actress. Tony was always bragging about how good she was.”

  “That’s true,” Leia whispered. “But she wasn’t down there that day.”

  “Neither was Dirk,” he pointed out. “What if she was having an affair with Dirk and got sucked into the whole thing?

  “I’d like to believe that she never intended Tony harm, and that Dirk did it. But how? He must have taken a separate boat out and waited for Tony.”

  She nodded. “He was handling the shop tha
t day. He could have closed it a few hours, gone out to kill Tony, and gotten back.”

  “He would have had to tell her about it.” Bane picked up the belt. “Otherwise, this wouldn’t be here.”

  He had a point. At the very least, she was an accomplice after the fact and had helped hide his guilt. At the worst, she’d been in on it from the beginning. “Should we go back and confront her? Make her tell us where Dirk has Eva and my dad?”

  He shook his head. “It’s all speculation. She may know nothing, and we’ll have wasted valuable time. At least we have an inkling of where to look right now.”

  She was beginning to feel hopeless. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I think I can find this place.”

  She looked up to see the boat heading for shore. The barren stretch of beach held no sign of habitation other than a rickety pier that jutted into the heavy surf. “I don’t see the cabin.”

  “It’s up the hill, in the trees. You can’t see it from here.”

  The engine throttled back, and Mano brought the boat along-side the pier. Two other boats were anchored there. Bane jumped out and secured the rope. “We need to hurry. The surf is high today, and the rope may not hold for long.” He helped Leia navigate the pitching deck until she was on the pier. Mano hopped nimbly after them. “It’s up this way.” Bane charged up the hill.

  Leia followed, and he stopped to help her clamber over a pile of black lava rocks. With every step, her hope surged again. She wanted to grab her sister and hug her tight. The world would be deprived of a wonderful light without Eva. Leia almost physically ached at the thought of losing her sister. Eva was way too trusting, but that was part of her charm. The thought made her realize that she couldn’t blame God for the gift of Eva. He’d known what he was doing all along. Eva was special, and her dream about the starfish had helped save them today. Maybe God had known what he was doing with the things Leia had gone through as well.