by Edie Claire
"Will you get a coat?" Zane’s voice demanded irritably. I had no idea where he was, but I could hear him. "You’re going to freeze in that dress!"
Matt reached the door and started to open it for me, but after surveying me with another approving look, he stopped. "You might want a jacket or something," he said helpfully. "It can get pretty windy."
"Right," I said tentatively, my head beginning to spin. I appreciated the concern—at some level—but if Zane didn’t cut out the disembodied-voice thing, this was going to be a very long afternoon. I grabbed my mother’s jacket, since my own fleece hoody was still clammy from last night’s adventure, and hurried back toward the door. Zane was still nowhere to be seen, but just in case, I mouthed a silent plea backwards down the hall: "No interference!"
We descended the steps to the driveway and hopped into Matt’s car—a modest sedan that probably belonged to his dad. He put his keys in the ignition, then turned to face me. "Anything in particular you want to see? I hear you’ve already done the base and the North Shore, which is good, because the base is boring and I totally suck at surfing."
I laughed. "Well, I can’t even swim, so no problem, there. But I would like to see more of the coast. Or maybe we could drive by some of the high schools around the base? I don’t know where I’ll be going yet."
He considered a moment. "Okay. We’ll drive up to Turtle Bay and down the windward side. You’ll like that. Then the high schools. Mine’s the best, of course."
"Of course. What do you like about it?"
Our initial awkwardness eased up as I coaxed Matt into talking about what were obviously his favorite topics: football, wrestling, and water polo. He enjoyed talking about them so much I had little opportunity to ask some of the questions that popped into my head as we drove northeast, like why such a huge stretch of beachfront property was devoted to placidly grazing sheep, where the famous Banyan trees from Lost were located, and whether it was really safe to buy shrimp out of a van on the side of the road. But I didn’t mind. Though a tad self absorbed, Matt was also refreshingly humble, talking more about his screw-ups than his successes. I was soon so at ease with the normalness of it all that I managed to forget about Zane altogether.
"We’ll get out here for a minute," Matt announced, turning off the main road into a residential area. "It’s called La'ie Point; you’ll like it."
I wasn’t worried about Matt being a serial killer. Not really. But as he proceeded to drive through a tight maze of small houses and tiny residential alleys that looked like they couldn’t possibly lead anywhere, I felt just enough of a flicker of apprehension to let my eyes stray behind me.
Zane lounged casually across the back of the sedan, his hands locked behind his head, his feet stretched out on the seat cushion. Dressed impeccably in a tailored black business suit, crisp white shirt, and polished shoes—complete with opulent watch, mirror-lensed sunglasses, and the unmistakable bulge of a shoulder holster—he was the perfect image of a secret service agent. Or at least the Hollywood version of one.
His expressionless face swiveled my direction. He nodded.
I turned quickly back around.
"Rain’s coming," Matt announced, bringing the car to a halt in a parking area by the vast ocean that had appeared out of nowhere. "That’s one thing you’ll get used to out here—blue sky one minute, pouring rain the next. Makes life interesting, I guess. You want to walk around?"
I opened my door and stepped out.
The weather had indeed changed dramatically. The sun was gone, occluded by one of the many clumps of low-hanging purplish clouds that drifted rapidly across the sky. A wicked wind blew in off the water, which had turned from azure blue to a smoky gray. There were no giant waves here, just a vast, heaving soup of whitecaps that broke and splashed as far out as the eye could see.
I grabbed my jacket as I shut the door, cutting off what was possibly a wind-muffled "I told you so," coming from the back seat. My chivalrous escort—the live one—came quickly around the car to help me get the jacket over my shoulders.
"I’ve always loved this place," Matt said cheerfully, not the least affected by the ominous feel to the weather. He led me up to the edge of the lot, where gravel and ground changed abruptly to irregular mounds of lava rock. Ahead of us was a spit of land that led far out into the ocean like a pier, and which already hosted a couple pickup trucks and some locals with fishing gear. The view from the end would be fabulous indeed—nearly 360 degrees of ocean, with the mountains of the windward side clearly visible in the distance.
Unfortunately, it was starting to sprinkle.
"Check this out," Matt said, tugging my arm to the left and leading me out onto one of the lava mounds closer to the car. I kept my eyes down as we went; the surface was like walking on mangled iron—full of pits, sharp curves, and jagged edges—and my flip-flops were less than ideal for the task. But before I could sprain an ankle Matt stopped and pointed out toward the ocean. "Isn’t that cool?"
He pointed to a long ridge of rock several hundred feet offshore, which rose from the ocean to tower an indeterminate number of stories in the air. Right through its center was a giant, gaping hole. "Tsunami punched that out," Matt explained. "All in one day. Wham. Wind and water have got some pretty serious power out here, huh?"
I hugged my jacket tighter around me. The view was beautiful, but I couldn’t shake a certain apprehensive feel about the place. Maybe it was the violence of the churning water, or the clearly impending cloudburst. Maybe it was just the shadows. There were an awful lot of them here, which made them harder to ignore. Over Matt’s left shoulder, a man in overalls and no shirt perched precariously on the edge of the cliff, reading a letter. Half a dozen fainter people in Polynesian garb milled about all over the rocks, and some hippie types were making out on the land spit, right next to the secret service guy.
I blinked. The latter was Zane, of course, taking in the view. As I watched, he glanced back at me, then gestured dramatically out toward the open sea. I looked in the direction he pointed, and my heart skipped. "Look!" I said excitedly to Matt, pointing myself. I had only seen the movement for a split second, but I had watched enough nature programs to recognize it. The flash of bold black and white that had appeared above the churning gray water was nothing less than a breaching whale.
The animal disappeared again for several seconds, then treated us both to an encore. The fluke of its tail rose high above the surf, then crashed back into the water with a mighty flick.
"A humpback!" Matt said excitedly. "Wow. I’ve never seen one of those before!"
"Really?" I asked. "Are they rare?"
"Oh, no," he answered honestly. "Other people see them all the time. I’ve just never gotten lucky. Thanks, Kali. That was pretty cool." He threw an arm around my shoulders and gave me a friendly squeeze.
"You’re welcome," another male voice said flatly.
Zane was standing right behind us. "Rain’s coming, by the way," he muttered.
The words were hardly out of his mouth before the deluge began. Rain poured down in a sudden torrent as if the sky had opened up like a sieve, and Matt and I couldn’t help laughing as we hauled back over the lava rocks as fast as we could—which was not fast at all—to get back to the relative safety of the car. We arrived dripping wet, but fortunately our jackets had taken the brunt of it.
"Don’t worry," Matt assured, starting up the car again and turning on the heater. "The sun will be out again before we get to Chinaman’s Hat. Promise."
I smiled. Seeing the whale had changed the atmosphere of the place considerably. Perhaps, in sunlight, I would have found La'ie Point perfectly pleasant. It was hard for me to tell, sometimes, which emotions were my own and which I was picking up from something—or someone—else. The fact that I could feel what the shadows were feeling was an aspect of the curse I had always resisted, and at times tried to deny altogether. It was an invasion I found hard to tolerate.
With the car heater running, we dri
ed out and warmed up quickly, and within a few minutes the skies has lightened and we were cruising down the highway with the windows cracked again.
The windward side of the island was gorgeous. Being created by volcanoes, Oahu had no shortage of mountainous terrain; but I could see that its most dramatic peaks were along the eastern coast. Here, sharp points of green and gray stood up acutely, their tops buried in misty purplish clouds, their sides swooping nearly straight down to the water’s edge. The road hugged the narrow coastline with spectacular views in either direction, keeping me well entertained while Matt—who admitted he knew virtually nothing about the area—told me more about his high school and why I should go there.
Zane remained in the back seat, but said nothing; and when once or twice I glanced at him he seemed to be absorbed in thought.
Matt stopped the car again near Chinaman’s Hat, an interesting cone-shaped island that popped out of the water a couple hundred yards offshore, just begging for a child’s game of "king of the mountain." His prediction had been correct. The sun was shining again.
"So," he said, settling next to me on top of a picnic table. "What do you think of The Rock so far?"
"Love The Rock," I said without hesitation. If only I could move Kylee and Tara here with me. My phone had been buzzing with texts all afternoon, but I had been waiting for a moment alone to answer them.
"I was thinking," Matt began, looking at me hopefully, "are you hungry yet? One of my favorite restaurants is right around the bay, in Kailua. If we eat an early dinner now, we can skip most of rush hour in Honolulu. We might not make it back to the North Shore by eight, though, if you still want to see the high schools and everything."
I worked hard to suppress a grin. My eyes floated involuntarily toward Zane, who was leaning against a palm tree a few feet away. He removed his sunglasses and threw me a pointed look.
Told you so.
I didn’t believe that Matt had any real romantic interest in me—twenty minutes with the football-playing wrestler had shown me that he was a guy who could take his pick where girls were concerned—and to date, I had never been anybody’s pick for anything but a gal pal. I was too tall, too bony, and—according to the undisputed queen of flirtation, Kylee—too unwilling to feed a guy’s ego with mindless adoration.
Matt, I assessed, was a genuinely friendly enough sort to enjoy spending an afternoon with "the new girl" for a change of pace, if nothing else. But his interest would end there. If I did happen to run into him at school in the fall, I would probably be long since forgotten.
But one never knew.
And I was enjoying his company so far.
"Sure," I answered brightly. "I’ll just call my parents and give them an update. What kind of restaurant?"
"Oh, they’ve got everything," Matt answered with a smile. "I like the kalua pig—that's barbecued pork, by the way—but you can get burgers, spaghetti, whatever." He sprang up. "I’m making a run to the restroom. Meet you back at the car?"
I nodded, and he headed off.
Zane looked after him, scowling.
"What?" I demanded. "You don’t seriously think he’s dangerous, do you?"
Zane looked thoughtful for a moment, then came and sat down beside me. "No," he answered. "He’s a nice enough guy."
There was a melancholy tone to his voice that disturbed me. A gust of wind blew off the water and whipped my hair around my face; predictably, it didn’t stir his curls at all. I frowned. His transparent ripples seemed suddenly more prominent.
"Then what’s wrong?" I probed.
He looked at me with surprise. "Nothing’s wrong," he said more cheerfully. "I mean, other than being dead, of course. But I’m used to that. Never mind me."
I eyed him suspiciously. "Liar. There is too something wrong. And it doesn’t have anything to do with Matt, does it? You’ve remembered something else. About your mother?"
"Wow," he said brusquely, sliding off the table top. "You’re pretty scary. I think I’d better put these back on." He replaced the sunglasses, then gestured toward the car. "After you. Unless, of course…"
"What?"
"Unless you’d rather I left the two of you alone." I could no longer see his eyes, but his tone had turned serious. "I will, you know," he continued quietly. "If that’s what you want."
My mind spun. It was what I should want. Wasn’t it?
I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. No-nonsense Kali, I reminded myself firmly. Just tell him the truth.
"Actually," I said matter-of-factly, moving toward the car. "I kind of like having a personal bodyguard."
I was walking a step ahead of him, but threw a quick glance over my shoulder.
He was grinning again.
Chapter 7
I could see why Matt, who had only moved to Hawaii a couple years ago himself, was attracted to the restaurant. A local hangout popular with military types from the nearby Marine base, it offered a comfortable blend of Hawaiian traditional and down-home American ambience. A Polynesian-styled wooden deck, complete with as-yet unlit tiki torches, led into a cozy dining room and bar that could have been plucked from anywhere in generica, except that the giant picture windows on one side offered a pleasantly tropical view of ducks floating on a meandering canal. Matt and I settled into a table by the window where, much to his delight, I joined him in ordering the kalua pig. After discovering that a good friend of his was working in the kitchen, he excused himself to go say hello—and to see if he could wheedle us some extra pig meat.
Matt hadn’t been gone three seconds when Zane, whom I hadn’t seen since we parked the car, appeared in his empty chair. The secret service outfit had been abandoned in favor of a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, but the funky sunglasses remained perched on top of his head, nearly buried by blond curls.
"He likes you, you know," he announced matter-of-factly.
I shrugged. "As a friend, maybe."
Zane's eyebrows lifted. "Not if he can help it."
I shifted my eyes away from him. There was a compliment in there somewhere, but the whole topic made me faintly uncomfortable. As did talking to thin air in a crowded restaurant.
No one seemed to be paying any attention, but just in case, I pulled out my cell and held it close to my ear. "What did you remember about your mother?" I asked, changing the subject.
He stared at me a moment, clearly aware of my tactics. "I don’t want to get into it now. But it wasn’t about my mother, it was about my father."
"What about him?" I asked eagerly. "Is he… still alive?"
"No," Zane answered. "He’s not. So, how do you feel about this Matt character? What do you really know about him?"
I exhaled. Zane’s tone was breezy enough, but I had the feeling that he was covering—that he was, in fact, quite upset about something. Something other than Matt. "What does it matter to your problem?" I challenged. "We were talking about your parents."
He thought a moment. "They’re kind of related," he said vaguely. "Let me ask the question another way. How much does Matt know about you? Does he know how many fouettés you can turn?"
I blinked at him, lost. "And that matters… why?"
The green eyes that looked back at me were suddenly awash in sadness—at least for the few seconds I could see them before he replaced the mirrored sunglasses.
"My father was murdered, actually," he said flatly. "Shot at point-blank range by an ex-girlfriend as he walked out of a bar with his current one."
I swallowed. "I’m sorry," I responded weakly, at a loss. "How… how old were you?"
"I was ten when it happened. But I didn’t know the truth till a couple years later, when I searched his name online. My mother had told me he died in a bank robbery—that he was a hero."
A long silence followed. I had no idea what to say. The sounds of the background seemed suddenly magnified: clinking glasses, rattling plates, toddlers babbling, people laughing, the drone of the TV monitors in the bar. There were several shadows ar
ound, both inside the restaurant and beside the canal… I hadn’t realized they were there before.
Zane sat up suddenly, removed his glasses, and leaned toward me. "Look, Kali, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything while you’re in the middle of a date. I wasn’t planning to, it just sort of—" he broke off. "Let’s forget it for now, okay?"
"I’m the one who’s sorry," I said, finding my voice at last. "It must be awful to remember something like that. Does it… I mean, does remembering your childhood seem to have helped… anything?"
He stood up—a feat he could accomplish without bothering to push back his chair. "Not that I can tell," he answered, his tone lighter. "But seriously—don’t worry about it. Superjock won’t be happy if he comes back to find I’ve ruined your mood. It will screw up his next move."
"He’s not—"
"Yeah, he is," Zane interrupted, managing a grin. "See you."
He dissolved into a blur, leaving me staring into an empty chair. I looked around, but knew I wouldn’t find him. When Zane didn’t want to be seen, he wasn’t. I pulled my phone away from my ear with a sigh, absently checking the screen.
I had four waiting texts. I scrolled down to open Kylee’s first.
So… which 1s hotter? surfer or officers son?
Followed ten minutes later by:
Answer MEEEEE!!!!! L
Tara was not a whole lot subtler.
How is the tour? Are you getting to see the whole island, or just Honolulu?
Followed a whole half hour later with:
You do realize that I have no life, that half of Cheyenne is out of town, and that living vicariously through you is my only source of entertainment? No pressure or anything. TEXT ME!!!
Before I could answer either, Matt returned to the table and slid into his chair. "Justin’s taking care of us," he announced with a smile. Then, with a glance at my phone, "Oh, yeah. This thing’s been buzzing all afternoon." He pulled his own phone out of a back pocket and glanced at the screen. "Ten texts! Sheesh." To my surprise, he quickly repocketed it. "They can wait."