by Toby Neal
Lei stared at Fraser, unblinking. Her eyes felt hot as lasers, like she could burn holes in the other woman’s uniform. “Maybe not. But he didn’t tell me about you. And you knew his deployment date, and I didn’t. Both those things are a problem, but nothing to do with you.”
“Okay. I can see how that’s upsetting. But I swear, he never did anything…” A deep flush rose up the woman’s fair chest and neck like the red in a thermometer, and Lei, no stranger herself to unwelcome blushes, knew that there had been something between them. At least, on Fraser’s part.
“You need to get out. Now.” Lei spoke through gritted teeth. “Before I do something I’ll regret.”
“I understand. But I’m covering his duties, and I heard that something happened to him. That he was captured. I’m really worried. I wonder if there’s anything you could tell me?” The blush happened again. Fraser looked way prettier blushing than Lei did.
Lei could stab the ballpoint Bic she was holding into Kathy Fraser’s neck. Oh, it would feel so good. Blood would spurt in an arc as she ripped it back out. On the second stab, she’d go for the woman’s eye and pierce her brain. “He has been captured, but I don’t know anything more than that. Please leave.”
Fraser stood. “I wish you would believe me. And be mature about this.” She sounded sad, and a little huffy. She spun on a heel, opened the privacy door, and left.
Lei waited until the tap-tap of Fraser’s heels had disappeared before she surged to her feet.
“Mature!” she snarled. Too furious to do anything but swear, and not wanting to draw unwelcome attention, she headed for the MPD gym, where she could hop on the treadmill and run it off. She paused in the locker room to throw on her gym clothes and shoes.
She was running all out on the treadmill when Pono eventually found her. “Thought you went to see Dr. Gregory.”
“I wanted to work out first.” She didn’t slow down. The thunder of her heart and the pounding of her feet on the treadmill’s track were finally dissipating her rage. “You knew about her and you never told me.” Her voice was accusing.
Pono glanced around, but they were alone in the soundproofed, air-conditioned gym. “Slow down a minute while I’m talking to you,” he growled.
Lei punched the button that lowered the speed of the treadmill to a fast walk and shot Pono a glare.
“I never told you because there was nothing to tell. I heard Fraser’d been assigned about a year ago to work on the third floor in recruiting and training new hires. I met her at something.” He flapped a hand. “There’s no conspiracy here. Far as I know, she just shared Stevens’s office. She’s covering his duties. There’s nothing there, Lei. You’re being paranoid.”
“No, I’m not.” She brought the treadmill to a full stop. “But I won’t get any answers until Stevens is back, safe and sound. Then I can take a strip off him for not telling me his departure date. But he told that woman months before.”
“Ah. Well. If the guy weren’t already in the doghouse, he definitely deserves to be for that.” Pono trailed Lei as she got off the treadmill and headed for the locker room. “But if you think he had something going with Fraser—my vote is no.”
“I didn’t ask you.” Lei flicked him with her gym towel. “But tell me any rumors you hear about this woman. Anything at all. I want dirt.”
“Be careful what you wish for.” Pono smacked her on the shoulder, making her stagger. “Now get back to work. And take that skull with you. I don’t want it in our office.”
Chapter Three
Something was badly wrong. Anchara would never have called me if it weren’t serious. I reached the ugly Kahului hotel with its terrible whale murals, parked the Bronco, and ran up the metal stairs on the side of the building two at a time to her room.
“Anchara!” I cried, and pounded on the cheap, hollow door. Even as I turned the knob, I knew what I would see, because this was memory as well as nightmare. I didn’t want to see, and yet I had to. I opened the door.
She was on the bed, naked.
The blood was everywhere around her, soaking the bedding, splashed on the lamp, dripping onto the cheap carpet. The mountain of my son, the son I didn’t know yet and hadn’t known about, distended her slender, naked body.
Everywhere, blood. Her reaching hands, her begging eyes, and her voice, a thread: “Take the baby, Michael. Save the baby.”
I woke screaming, thrashing, and shivering, as I so often did since this nightmare began. Five years ago, it had begun in that hotel room. With finding her like that. It had fucked me up, big-time. All the rest that followed, all the other that was before…it was like I was a jar full of rocks, and then that final rock landed right on top of me and the jar broke.
I’d been picking up my own pieces ever since.
My throat was raw when I stopped screaming.
I wasn’t in the pit anymore. I was in a dark place that smelled of wet and mold. I could hear the rain, the ever-present rain, drumming on the roof. Relief to be out of the pit warred with guilt that the other men were still in it.
I was lying on something. Feeling along, I could detect the harsh weave of a blanket. I sat up slowly and felt the tug of some sort of restraint on one of my wrists.
I was so weak. Periodically, shivers swept over me like wind over a grassy field. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark.
Across the room, which had a very low ceiling, I could see the faintest lighter area around what must be the door. On either side of me were dark shapes. Feeling with my hands, I discovered bags of something on one side and boxes on the other. There were no windows.
I was in some sort of storage shed, wedged between stacks of supplies. Tied up like a dog in a kennel. My brain was spongy and glitching, like it had a computer virus. Random memories booted up and cut off.
Throwing a ball for Conan at home, barely registering the beautiful Rottweiler leaping after the ball, the happy prance as he trotted back—I’d been biding my time until I could go to my workshop, where I kept a bottle. Keiki, our old girl, was already sitting by the workshop door. Her brown eyes on me were accusing. But that was probably just my guilty conscience…She was a dog, for God’s sake, though no one had the heart to tell her that.
Snuggling Kiet against me on the couch that last morning. “Son, I gotta tell you something.”
“What, Dad?” Eyes still on cartoons.
“I’m going away for a while. Six months. But I’ll be back before you know it.”
Silence. I looked down at the crown of his shiny black hair. My arm was around him, and under it, his body felt fragile but strong and warm. He was still watching the cartoons, his mouth open a little, a sign he was absorbed in something.
“You understand, little man?”
He nodded. “You’re going on a trip.”
“Yeah. It’s a long one. But I’m going to be helping people who need it.”
“Okay.”
But when I drove him into the turnaround at school, the crying started. No words, just tears and clinging. I had to get help from one of the crossing guards to even get him out of the Bronco’s cab. It felt like getting stabbed in the heart, a breathless pain, as he was carried off, sobbing.
Another memory floated up. Watching Lei from the bed as she came into our bedroom one morning, from that back room where she’d slept since I told her I was leaving. Early-morning sun on the tangle of her hair as she bent to get some clothes out of the dresser. The shape of her, familiar and sweet. She could wear a flour sack and I’d know it was her under there. I still wanted her so much, but I hadn’t known how to break down all that was between us.
I kept my eyes almost shut, pretending to be asleep, when she looked over at me. But I hadn’t slept all night, trying to avoid the dreams.
Another memory.
My partner in the training program at MPD. Kathy’s face coming toward me, those dark blue eyes so intent on mine, pretty mouth so soft. She wanted me to kiss her.
I opened
my eyes and blinked. Kept blinking. There were shapes in the corners of the shed, dark snakes wriggling along the walls. Probably not real, but who knew in this place?
I coughed. My throat made a sound like ripping wet cloth.
That wasn’t good. I felt around a little more. The floor was dirt, and my hand encountered some sort of jar or bottle. I rolled over onto my side, my head swimming at even that small exertion, and explored the jar. It seemed to be of glass, and it had a screw top.
Probably water. The dryness in my mouth told me I was well past the point of thirst.
Slowly I hoisted myself upright onto an elbow. Clumsy with the restraint on my wrist, I got the lid off. I drank, spilling some, and when my stomach protested, I put the lid back on and lay back down. Was it worth it to try to get out? I plucked at the rope on my wrist, but even with the water, still felt too sick to investigate further.
I drifted.
The plane had landed without incident, unlike at least one of my dreams.
I’d jumped up and hurried down the slanted ramp first, eager to get my boots on the ground. I hadn’t known where we were going and now I didn’t know where we were. That felt shitty, no matter what I was getting paid.
The muggy air of a jungle setting hit me like a wall when I got off the plane. The smell of mud and damp things held a note of rotting fruit. I ran into a cloud of gnats as, carrying my kit, I walked up to two men. They were dressed in jungle camo, and the sergeant held a clipboard. Major’s bars on the other man’s uniform identified his rank.
“Michael Stevens, reporting for duty, sir.” I saluted. I still had the salute from long-ago Marine days. The sergeant ticked a box on the clipboard.
“Welcome to Camp Erehwon. I’m Major Forsythe,” the other man said. “Let’s greet the rest of our happy group.”
I had at least six inches and fifty pounds on Forsythe, and I could tell by his stance that he didn’t like it. I moved to the side, flanking him and pitching my voice low and respectful. “Camp Erehwon, sir?” I asked.
“An old joke. ‘Nowhere’ backward. Our fond nickname for Operation Trifecta, the jungle shit storm. How much were you briefed?”
“Not at all, sir. I don’t even know what country we’re in.”
“Well, I only like to do this once, so let’s wait for the others to get here.” We watched the civilian contractors, supplies transport, and military police staff coming our way. “Did you have a civilian rank?” Forsythe asked.
“Yes, sir. I’m ranked lieutenant in Hawaii’s police department. Did a stint as a Marine a long time ago.” I kept my eyes front.
“Well, then. We’ll use your title with the men.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The other men had gathered in front of us, and the sergeant addressed the enlisted, marked by their uniforms. “Attention!”
They formed up an uneven line, dropped their kits, and saluted. The sergeant began calling out names off a list on a clipboard. The other civilian contractors were easy to spot, walking slowly, staring around in bewilderment. One guy was even looking pissy about the mud getting on his expensive shoes.
I took a chance to look around myself. The airstrip was a packed-dirt track laid down in the jungle. Tall, unfamiliar trees bordered it on all sides. Strange birdsong filled with screeches and trills sounded in the air. The air was thick, and the sun felt like a superheated helmet on my uncovered head. Mosquitoes buzzed, even in the broad daylight. I resisted the urge to smack at them, though the yuppie-looking guy in the expensive shoes had no such restraint, muttering and scratching like a monkey with fleas.
Carrigan. He’d been with me in the pit.
Somehow I’d been moved from the pit to here. And I was alone. Had they just parked me in here to die? It seemed like a good possibility.
I’d have to prove them wrong. I sat up slowly and drank more water.
Lei drove the short distance to Maui Memorial Hospital and took the elevator down to the basement where the county morgue was located. As she always did, Lei paused for a second outside the swinging doors to steel herself against the smells.
And the memories.
Then she pushed through doors made for gurneys and walked through the entry where bodies were identified. She buzzed the locked interior door into the main work area, peeking through a wire-threaded interior window.
Dr. Gregory was wearing a bright yellow rubber apron covered with smiley faces, and he was elbow-deep in a chest cavity. His assistant, Dr. Tanaka, was manning the recording equipment on the other side of the body. He looked up, blinking through magnifying glasses. Recognizing her, he gave a head nod and pointed his chin toward Tanaka. Tanaka shut the recorder off and came over, opening the door for Lei. “Sergeant Texeira.”
“Dr. Tanaka. Nice to see you.”
Tanaka was an attractive young Japanese woman with one of those asymmetrical haircuts that looked like the points of a handkerchief draped all over her head. Lei had heard a rumor that she and Dr. Gregory were living together, but Tanaka, whose first name Lei couldn’t remember, wasn’t very chatty. Perhaps that was a good balance for the man Lei fondly called “Dr. G,” who loved to talk.
“We’re in the middle of a post. Can you wait over at my desk?” Dr. Gregory lifted a pair of lungs out of the body and plopped them, with a slurpy sort of noise, onto a big steel scale. They looked like red-streaked, slippery, pale pink water balloons.
“Sure. No problem.” Lei went to Dr. Gregory’s desk, an island of refuge, tidy and hidden from the rest of the chamber of horrors by a beautifully painted shoji screen. Dr. Tanaka’s desk was directly opposite Dr. Gregory’s, and her screen was even prettier. Lei kept her mind off the post going on and the doctors’ murmuring voices by looking around.
One wall was taken up with a bank of refrigerated steel storage units. There were three bodies on tables in the main room, each equipped with its workstation of flexible steel hose, drill, saw, and other implements on a tray. Right now the only uncovered body was the one Tanaka and Gregory were working on.
Lei set the skull down on Dr. Gregory’s desk and leaned back in her chair. This was the first unoccupied moment she’d had in days.
Stevens. Where was he? Was he okay? She pictured his face: those crystal-blue eyes under dark brows, the chiseled cheekbones and angled jaw, his mouth that could be so hard—or so tender. God, she missed him. Her body and bones ached with it, in spite of Kathy Fraser’s visit—or maybe because of it.
She felt a buzzing sensation in her pocket and jerked to her feet. The call was on the phone Stevens’s company, Security Solutions, had issued her.
“Got a call. I’ll be right back,” Lei told the medical examiner, and hurried out into the hall.
Chapter Four
I woke abruptly as the metal door of the shed gave a screech. The light hit my eyeballs like a blow. I wanted to see what was coming, but I shut my eyes involuntarily, my arm coming up to block the searing sunshine. Someone grabbed me by the arm.
“Outside for bathroom,” he said in Spanish, pulling me up.
I nodded to show I understood. I still had a little Spanish from growing up in California.
I did need the bathroom, but my legs didn’t want to cooperate with this plan. They felt like rubber, and I ended up on my knees as the man, smelling strongly of sweat and tobacco, untied the rope around my wrist. By the time he’d untied me and hauled me up from under the armpit again, I was able to stand.
The man was shorter than me, as many of the native people here seemed to be. I wished I was feeling better, not such a burden, because he staggered with my arm over him, as he led me through squelching mud to a ramshackle outhouse.
Inside, I collapsed on a wooden support made of branches over an open hole and tried to get my bearings. I had some griping pains in my abdomen. A bit of diarrhea. Still, it was good to be outside the storage shed for any reason.
I wished I could remember more about what happened.
We were in a hidden camp
in the jungle. I could tell that much from my brief trip from the storage shed to the latrine. Camouflage netting hung from the dripping trees overhead, and tents in mottled greens and browns hunched beneath the trees. Still on the latrine, I applied my eye to a knothole in the crude wall. I spotted a few guards wearing plastic ponchos leaning against trees.
They had machine guns—M16s. American.
No one looked American, but I could swear the tents, camo netting, even the ponchos were American. What was going on here?
“Hurry up!” My guard pounded on the door.
There was nothing to wipe with but damp leaves in an old paint bucket, so I used some of those.
I realized I was feeling slightly better, but still not moving fast enough for my damp and irritated guard as he threw open the outhouse door and hauled me out. I tried to fasten my pants, stumbling and slipping in the mud. He kept me from falling on my face, but that was the extent of his help as he shoved me back into the shed. I collapsed on my pallet and he tied the rope back onto my wrist.
A tied knot could be untied.
He threw something at me, and it landed on my chest. A ball of rice, wrapped in plastic. He stomped out. The door screeched shut, and it was dark again.
Lei tried to keep her voice even as she picked up the call on the sat phone in the hallway outside the morgue.
“This is Sergeant Texeira.”
“This is Lieutenant Colonel Westbrook. We spoke on Oahu when I notified you of your husband’s capture?”
“Of course. Do you have news?”
“Yes. We’ve received the ransom demand we were expecting.”
A long pause.
“And?” Lei reached up to grasp the bone hook and white metal pendant that hung at her throat. “What’s happening?”
“We’re sending a crack team over. And we’re authorizing the release of funds.”