“I’m better than you,” Tate shouted. “I’m fuckin’… I’m better. I was there, man. I was fucking there.”
Hiapo didn’t move. He kept his eyes on Tate, his brow furrowed. The big man glanced at the girl, who was trembling. A stream of urine ran down her leg. Hiapo had a weapon, too. He casually reached his hand back and felt the grip of the pistol. That would be a last resort.
He didn’t understand why white folks messed with something that could screw up their entire mind. His people, from his ancestors down to his father, preferred the more subtle drugs. Awa, a type of kava root, and marijuana were the favored ones. Those drugs gave the user an appreciation of things around them, connected them to nature, and made them happy to live in the most beautiful place on the planet. Why anyone would want to take a drug that made them cut themselves and jump off buildings, he couldn’t understand.
“Fucking fuck!” Tate screamed. He was hunched over, his hands on his head.
“Tate,” Hiapo said calmly, “you need to go to a hospital.”
He instantly straightened, holding the weapon tightly in his shaky hands. He raised it and pointed it at Hiapo’s face.
“That’s what you think, huh? You think I’m stupid. You want me to go there ’cause that’s where they gonna be waitin’ for me.”
“I want you there ’cause I’m your friend, bra.”
“My friend? You ain’t my friend. I know who you work for. I know what you want!”
Hiapo looked down to the girl. “Run,” he told her.
She didn’t wait for him to say it again. She looked from him to Tate then turned and sprinted for the surrounding jungle. Tate’s weapon moved toward her.
“You ain’t gonna be shootin’ her,” Hiapo said, pulling out his pistol.
Tate jerked. The two men had their pistols trained on each other. Hiapo was calm, his hand steady. Sweat was pouring into Tate’s eyes, and he was moving around. Over the past hour, his tremors had gotten worse. Hiapo didn’t think he could have hit a car that was right in front of him in his condition.
“Put the piece down, bra.”
“Fuck you!” he shouted. “You want me to go in. You want me to live in a cage again.”
“Ain’t no one gonna turn you in. But I’m leaving, bra. You can stay here in the jungle.”
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Hiapo lowered the pistol slightly, aiming for Tate’s heart. He’d never been a good shot, and he needed a bigger target.
“We brothers, T. We did time together, man.”
“And you’re throwin’ it out like it didn’t mean nothin’.”
“Nobody’s called the cops, man. It’s that shit you been smokin’. It’s messing with your head. Your mind, man, it’s playin’ tricks on you, T.”
“It was—it was you. You put that shit in me—in my drink. In my drinks I was drinking this morning, and you put that shit in ’em.”
There was no talking to him. He was gone. Hiapo decided the only thing he could do was leave. He started backing up toward the RV then thought better of it. The cops were probably looking for it already. Lee’s neighbors had definitely called them after hearing the gunshots. Better to walk.
Hiapo, his weapon still held on Tate, began to circle him, heading for the dirt road back to the freeway. He could hitch a ride there, call a cab, or something.
“You ain’t leavin’,” Tate said.
“Don’t do it, bra.”
“You ain’t leavin’ this place alive.”
Hiapo’s chest felt tight. He was tough—he had faced countless fistfights, and he’d even been shot before. But a sick feeling in his gut told him he might not make it out of there. He stopped walking and wrapped both hands around the pistol. Better to take him out right away.
Tate sprang forward. Hiapo only got off one shot before Tate closed the distance between them. The shot missed, leaving Tate only a few feet away. He fired back. All three rounds connected. Tate had held the pistol low, so two rounds went into Hiapo’s hip, and one went into his thigh. Hiapo’s gun dropped out of his hand as he collapsed into the dirt with a groan.
“Told you you ain’t leavin’ alive.”
Tate lifted the weapon then stopped. He looked back to where the girl had run into the jungle then walked that way. Without looking at Hiapo, he fired another two rounds. One slammed into Hiapo’s chest. He heard a sucking sound and saw the blood pouring out of him as Tate ran into the jungle after the girl.
41
The police cruiser raced up the dirt road, with Stanton bouncing around in the passenger seat. Laka was in the backseat, and a uniform was driving. Stanton watched the surrounding jungles. He’d never been to the jungle area before, and the lush vegetation was something else. Reds, greens, and yellows. Massive trees hung over everything like watchful guardians, their arms dangling dangerously close to the road.
The three cruisers behind them had their lights on but no sirens. Stanton caught a glimpse of the two officers in the car directly behind his. They were laughing as they flew over a bump, the car’s tires leaving the ground. They were enjoying the chase.
A long time ago, when he’d been a different person, he had enjoyed the chase, too. Every small step toward his prey sent a rush of adrenaline through him. The thrill of the hunt was so intense sometimes that it kept him up and working all night. He’d lived for the job. And what he got in return was a failed marriage, two kids whose childhoods he’d missed, and a fiancée who’d left him before the wedding. He’d given everything to the job and gotten nothing in return.
The chase meant little to him anymore. He didn’t hunt for the thrill of catching the prey. There was something more primal involved. He called it justice in his own thoughts, but he knew that wasn’t what it was. It was revenge—pure, cold revenge. Adam Cummings couldn’t avenge his death. Sharon Miller couldn’t avenge hers. They were counting on him. But vengeance brought no pleasure. It never had.
The GPS dinged, announcing that they had arrived at the location Cindy had described. About two hundred feet ahead was the cabin she had told Stanton about. In front of it was an RV.
Stanton was the first one out of the cruiser. He withdrew his Desert Eagle from its holster and kept it low as he trotted over and poked his head into the RV. Convinced no one was inside, he took the steps up just to make sure Eliza wasn’t bound and gagged in the back.
The RV stank like sweat, body odor, and burning plastic. He knew the smell. PCP. The drug had a unique scent that no other drug could match. It was an absolutely artificial stench. Nothing in nature smelled that way.
Laka came up behind him, her gun drawn. She inhaled, and her nose crinkled like a bulldog’s.
“PCP. I know that smell anywhere,” she said. “You’re right. If anything would make him snap, it’s that. I once saw a guy start biting the police cruiser after we arrested him because he was high on the stuff. Broke every tooth in his mouth, but he didn’t stop.”
Stanton didn’t respond. His eyes were scanning the trash on the floor. Burnt roaches, empty beer cans, and containers of food… No blood.
Stanton looked out the windshield and saw the officers carrying a battering ram surrounding the cabin. “Police search warrant!” one man yelled before the team smashed the ram into the door near the doorknob.
It flew open, and officers swarmed in. Stanton ran out and slowly looked over the property. Small footprints, about the size of a teenager’s, marked the dirt, leading up a path to a grove of trees. They were mixed with larger prints.
“You coming?” Laka said, heading to the cabin.
“They’re not in there.”
Stanton noticed a body lying near the RV. Hiapo, he guessed. The man’s eyes were glazed over with death, a look he knew well. Ignoring the body, Stanton dashed into the trees.
The path was relatively clear despite the dense surrounding jungles. As he ran, he came across a trail. He looked one way then the other. The trail had so many prints that he couldn’t dis
tinguish the ones he’d been following anymore.
One path, the one to the left, seemed to go deeper into the jungle. The other headed back toward the freeway. He guessed she’d gone right. He pumped his legs, holstering his weapon so he could jog at a quicker pace without worrying about the gun in his hand. The trail looped around and up a hill. He could hear a waterfall nearby. As he passed the waterfall, a much quieter sound caught his attention. With the pounding water right next to him, he couldn’t tell what the noise was. Just in case, he withdrew his weapon and darted past the waterfall.
He heard the sound again, and it made him stop. He was breathing deeply but not heavily. He calmed his breath to hear better. The sound was coming from off the trail, somewhere east of him. He headed into the vegetation.
Outside of the cities, Oahu was nearly feral. Stanton knew that some of the jungle plants were poisonous to the touch, but he hadn’t been in Hawaii long enough to know which ones. He’d heard from others in the force that some of the plants could make people itch, and some could cause illness. But he had no choice. He heard the sound again and knew he was going in the right direction.
He came to a clearing and saw movement off to the side. A young girl was on the ground, and a white man in jeans was growling something at her.
Stanton tried to be as quiet as possible, but he had to scrape past several bushes to get out into the clearing. The man heard. He grabbed the girl by the hair and lifted her to her knees. He stood behind her and placed his gun against her head.
“Let her go, Tate.”
“Fuck you. Fuck you! I’ll fucking kill her. Don’t come closer. I’ll kill her!”
“I believe you,” Stanton said, holding up his hands, letting his weapon dangle from his thumb. “I believe you. I’ll put my gun down if you put yours down.”
“Yeah… yeah, that’s what you want. That’s what you say. That’s what you say!”
“Let her go, Tate. If you want a hostage, I’m a much better one than her. Take me and let her go.”
Tate twitched. His eyes closed, and he shook his head, tremors quivering through his body from his shoulders down to his legs. Stanton had never seen something like that before. Tate Reynolds didn’t seem to be there anymore. There would be no negotiation. He lowered his hands. He had promised Cindy that he would do everything he could to protect Tate. But Eliza had to come first. He had no choice in the matter.
“Fine, I’m leaving,” Stanton said.
“You go. You go!”
Stanton turned around. He had one shot, maybe two. His heart was pounding in his ears. He felt the weight of the gun and the sweat rolling down his forehead. He closed his eyes and said a prayer.
In an instant, Stanton spun around. Tate’s eyes went wide, and he tried to lift the gun and fire. Stanton fired first. The first round missed, but the second hit Tate’s shoulder. As if the bullet had hit a soft melon, blood spattered to the sides, and a thump echoed off the trees. Most of Tate’s left shoulder was gone, but he didn’t fall back. He actually sprinted at Stanton.
Stanton held the gun firmly, hoping he wouldn’t have to fire again, but Tate didn’t stop.
“I don’t want to kill you. Stop, please!”
Tate was screaming like a warrior running into battle. The consciousness reflected in his eyes, the part of him that told others there was a reasoning person in there, was gone. Nothing was left.
Stanton put two rounds in the man’s chest, knocking him off his feet and onto his back. Even on the ground Tate continued to writhe and spit. He still had the gun in his hand, so Stanton couldn’t approach the girl without risking getting shot himself. But he wouldn’t fire on a man who was already down.
Instead, Stanton waited a few moments. As the blood poured out of Tate Reynolds, his movements grew slow and weak. And eventually, he lay still.
Slowly, Stanton walked to him and placed his foot over Tate’s wrist. He knelt, took the gun, and tossed it aside. Tate’s eyes were wide and rimmed with a deep red. Hemorrhaging had occurred inside his eyes. Stanton bent down and placed his fingers on Tate’s neck. There was no pulse. He holstered his weapon and rose to check on the girl.
42
The cabin was swarming with forensic techs and investigators looking for evidence of other crimes, but Stanton knew they wouldn’t find anything. They thought maybe Tate had made a habit of bringing people to the cabin to kill them, but Stanton didn’t think so. This kidnapping was an isolated incident.
Stanton handed over his gun and badge to the two Internal Affairs detectives who had shown up. Any time an officer was involved in a shooting, Internal Affairs Division made an appearance. Stanton had found that no matter the police agency, it took a special type of person to investigate and arrest his or her own co-workers.
The detectives took a quick statement from him then asked that he come in for a formal interview the following day. They informed Stanton that he was officially on paid leave until he was cleared of the shooting.
When he was through with IAD, he watched the two bodies being hauled away. Laka told him that as soon as he ran off into the jungle, an officer had spotted the body of Tate’s accomplice, the one Stanton had already seen. The paramedics told Stanton that one of the slugs had nicked his femoral artery in his thigh—a one in a hundred shot. The man had bled out and died within five minutes of being shot.
Stanton walked over to the ambulance where Eliza Miller was sitting in the back, getting evaluated. She had no injuries, but they were worried about shock. Stanton could sense that she was much stronger than she let on. She would be fine, eventually.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
“They’re going to take you to the hospital, Eliza. I’ll come by and visit to make sure you’re okay. Do you want me to bring anything when I come by? Any special clothes from your house or something to eat?”
She shook her head. “Where’s my mom?”
Stanton had to look away at the men going in and out of the cabin. He didn’t speak for so long that she understood, and she began to sob. When he put his arm around her, she didn’t push him away. They sat that way for a long time until the paramedics finally told him they had to leave. Stanton let her go and watched as the ambulance drove away. Her father had probably fled the state. She was an orphan, for all intents and purposes. And why? Because her father didn’t have the courage to face her mother and tell her their marriage was over. Instead, he’d put evil into the world, and it had engulfed everything in his life.
“Do you wanna stay a little longer?” Laka asked as she came up next to him.
“No. I’ve had enough of this place.”
43
The office was cooler than it normally was. Stanton could hear an air conditioner running somewhere as he waited. A new painting was hanging in Dr. Vaquer’s lobby, or maybe it was an old painting that he hadn’t noticed before. Stanton knew the painting. It was a recreation of Rothko’s Pretty Color Palette. The whites and blues melded into something unique that brought emotion to the surface without words. Stanton got the sensation of staring into a tunnel or maybe falling.
Dr. Vaquer opened the doors and welcomed him back. He rose and followed her inside. The couch felt softer somehow.
“So,” she said, “how are you doing?”
“I was put back on duty two days ago and cleared for the shooting.”
“That’s good news for you, I assume.”
“Why do you assume?”
She grinned slightly. “Don’t be coy, Jon. You know how I feel about you in police work.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So how do you feel now that the case is over?”
“I don’t know. I guess like a heavy weight was taken off my chest. It felt like it was getting harder and harder to breathe as the case went on, and then suddenly, that feeling was gone, and everything went back to normal.”
“Until the next one, you mean.”
“I g
uess.”
“I read a little about the case in the Oahu Sun. They said that the husband was never caught. Is that true?”
“Yes. He cleared out their safe deposit box. We found a ticket a few days after the shooting for a cruise ship headed to Baja. We put in a BOLO request with the sheriff’s offices down there, but I doubt they care much about that. A lot of people go to Mexico to get lost.”
She nodded. “How does that make you feel? That the man who put everything in motion has gotten away with it?”
“I don’t know that he has.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s like you told me once. Whatever you put out there is what you get back. I think I believe that.”
“Evil people prosper all the time. CEOs, politicians, billionaires… there are a lot of successful people that rose to where they are because of their lack of empathy.”
“I know, but I don’t believe they’re happy. I can’t believe that. I think it’d be hard for me to do what I do if I didn’t believe in some sort of justice. That’s why Richard Miller’s escape doesn’t bother me as much as I think it should.”
“We’ve talked about this before, this belief in retribution. Do you believe that applies to you, as well?”
“Of course. I’ve done terrible things. I neglected my wife and children. I killed people. I’ve lied to get confessions… I’ve done a lot. And I don’t know what’s waiting for me, but I know it’s something. I can’t get away with all that forever.”
“Well, maybe losing your wife and kids is the punishment. Maybe the anguish and the sleepless nights and the depression are the retribution, and there’s no grim ending out there?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” He exhaled loudly. “I was hoping we could cut today’s session a little short.”
“Certainly. May I ask why?”
“I’ve got a date.”
She grinned. “Really? That’s fantastic. With whom?”
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