by Toby Neal
“You’re over-fond of clichés, Mattie ol’ pal.” Marcella leaned into her partner for just a second. It was good to be surrounded by friends, and Sophie had chosen a lonely path. “I hope you’re right about that.”
The phone on her belt buzzed, and Marcella checked it. She turned to Rogers with wide eyes. “I have to take this. It’s District Attorney Chang.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Alika cursed and his heart rate spiked as Sophie ran toward him from the mouth of the cave, her eyes wild. She flung her arms around him in a hug. Her skin was clammy with sweat and the chill cool spray from the waterfall as he held her close. “Are you okay? What the hell’s going on?”
“I have to go.” Sophie tore herself loose and turned to run down the path.
Alika followed at a jog. “And I repeat, what the hell’s going on?”
“There was a body in the cave. The Shepherd had his head bashed in.”
“Tell me you’re kidding.” Alika speeded up, his heart thudding. He ducked around a clump of ferns, dodging a big black rock. “Where were the boys?”
“Nowhere to be found.”
“Why are you running?”
“Because the detectives are going to take me in for questioning. My fake identity will be blown. I don’t have another one.”
“Crap, Sophie!” Alika shoved a guava branch out of the way irritably as he ran. The trail was overgrown, narrow, and hazardous. He had to keep his eyes on his feet way more than he wanted to, but he managed to catch up and grab her shoulder. “Stop a minute. Tell me what I’m getting into by following you right now.”
“Oh.” Sophie turned toward him. Damn but she was gorgeous, color in her cheeks, pulse beating in her neck, mouth parted as she breathed hard. “You have to tell them you tried to grab me but I got away.”
“The hell I will. If I grab you, you won’t get away.” Alika grasped her biceps, pulled her close. “See?”
“I’ve taken you down before,” Sophie said. “And I can do it again.” But she had gone still in his arms. An electric charge arced between their bodies.
“And what if I want you to take me down?” Alika bent his head to hers.
The kiss ignited that spark between them. He couldn’t get enough of her lithe, strong body in his arms, her sweet taste and hungry mouth, the tiny sounds she made as they twined around each other. He wanted her now, right now, cops on their trail or no. How had he ever thought he was over her?
Sophie wrenched back, and, with a quick upward twist of her arms, was free. “I have to go. I’m sorry for dragging you into this. I’ll get Ginger out of the chopper and be gone by the time they’re even out of the cave.”
“How is this a good idea? They’re bound to catch you, and you’ll just look guilty of something for running. We both know you’re not guilty of anything but being a softie where kids are concerned.”
“I’m guilty of not being who I said I was, and that’s enough to make me a person of interest. If they can’t find me, this will all blow over eventually and I’ll surface when the coast is clear.” Sophie touched his cheek. The ball of her thumb brushed his lips and made his blood surge. “It’s hard to say goodbye.”
“It always has been.” Alika’s voice came out harsher than he meant it to. He handed her the key to the chopper. “I tried to stop you, but you took the key from me. Go. This time you’re the one running. That’s some consolation.”
Her eyes were stark. “I deserve that.”
Sophie spun and ran. He watched her leap down the trail.
Alika’s hands balled into fists at his sides. Being with Sophie was never going to be easy, but the truth was, he didn’t really have a choice. It was her, or no one.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Alika waited by the tree, and soon Nae’ole emerged from the trail at a run. “Where’s Sandy?”
“She blew past me in a rush. Said there was a body in the cave, that she needed to go to the chopper to call for help. I gave her the key.” Alika had spent time thinking of what to say about Sophie’s departure even though the feel and taste of Sophie still lingered on him.
“Shit. Yeah, there was a body. The guy they called the Shepherd had his head smashed in with a rock, and that woman knows way too much about it. We need to go back to our chopper to call. I can’t get a signal here. Jenkins is staying with the body,” Nae’ole said.
The two jogged back down the trail to the parked choppers. Nae’ole waved at their pilot. “Jimmy, get me the KPD chief on the radio.”
Alika found his keys resting on the strut of the Dragonfly. “She’s gone with her dog,” he told Nae’ole.
The man cursed. “We’ll have to track her down later for questioning.”
Alika waited until all the response calls had been made for backup, the medical examiner, and the crime scene techs. “Anything I can do to help?”
“You know this Sandy Mason. Why didn’t you stop her?”
Alika didn’t want to compound his lies. He shrugged. “I didn’t know it was my job to stop her.”
Nae’ole rolled his eyes in disgust. “Make yourself useful and come help me tape off the cave.”
Alika followed him back and helped the detective rope off the cave’s entrance with yellow crime scene tape. His body was tight with tension and worry for Sophie and for the boys. Where had they gone? Which of them had killed their leader?
He couldn’t stop his worried thoughts, and soon the thrum of additional incoming helicopters filled the air. The choppers needed a different place to land, and eventually found a spot. Alika helped guide the incoming personnel to the cave. He stood back at last, feeling useless as the organized chaos unleashed by death unfolded around him in the peaceful setting.
Needing to relieve himself, Alika headed into a thick grove of kukui nut trees. He unzipped his fly behind a large boulder. The hairs rose on the back of his neck after a moment—he was being watched. Alika zipped up and turned slowly.
The tallest of the boys who’d attacked him stood before him. Keo’s face was pale, and Alika spotted the rest of the boys hiding behind him in the undergrowth.
“Hey,” he said conversationally. “You guys okay?”
“No.” Keo’s voice was harsh. “Someone killed the Shepherd.”
“It wasn’t one of you?”
“Hell, no.” The boy snarled. His hands curled into fists. “We’re hunting whoever did it.”
“You know who it was?”
“No. Shepherd sent us out to look for food. We were panhandling on the trail. Eric went back first because he was still feeling shitty from getting in that landslide. He found the body.”
Alika jerked his head in the direction of the cave. “The cops are here. They found the Shepherd. They will want to question you.”
“We nevah did notting,” Keo protested. “Shepherd, he was our father. We’d kill for him. We’d die for him.” He drew and brandished his buck knife. It looked huge in the boy’s slender hand.
“And if you run, they’ll think you did it. You’ll be running your whole life. Come forward. Help the cops find his killer.”
Eric sidled out of the brush. The dirt cleaned from his face and body revealed a welter of bruises. The boy looked as pitiful and thin as an abused puppy as he approached Keo. “I think we should talk to the cops. We never did nothing.”
“Yeah.” Emilio emerged from the bushes, then Payton and finally, Raymond. The boys faced Keo in a ragtag circle. “Even if they say we did it and bust us, the worst we’d get is some time in juvie at Ko’olau.” The youth correctional center on Oahu was well-known and went by the name of the valley it was nestled in. “I hear the food is okay there, and I’m sick of being hungry.”
Keo slowly slid his knife back into his belt. “Okay. But if shit starts getting ugly, run for it. You all know where to go. They’ll never find us if we don’t want them to.”
“Maybe somebody’s got food now,” Eric said plaintively. His ribs showed through his ripped shirt li
ke a xylophone.
“I’ve got food in my chopper,” Alika said. “Come with me.”
He felt like the Pied Piper leading the string of boys down the trail to the helicopter parking site. He brought them straight past the backup officers milling around Nae’ole and Jenkins’s helicopter over to the Dragonfly. He opened the back door and pulled out a box of water bottles and his own backpack of food supplies: beef jerky, dried fruit and coconut, some fresh wrapped cookies his grandma had made, and even a couple of SPAM musubi he hadn’t had time to eat.
The boys tore into the food like wolves. Alika’s chest was tight with compassion as he watched over them protectively, finally catching Jenkins’s eye as the blond cop approached.
Jenkins made a beeline for Alika. The young cop kept his body language friendly, his arms relaxed, though close to his sidearm. The boys looked up warily, their cheeks bulging and muscles tense. They clustered together. Keo’s hand dropped to the knife at his belt.
“Hey. Looks like you’ve found some of the witnesses we wanted to interview,” Jenkins said casually.
“I did. These boys want to help with the investigation,” Alika said. “This is Keo. He’s in charge.”
Jenkins stuck his hand out. “I’m Detective Jenkins with the KPD. Thanks for coming to talk to us.”
The detective’s friendly demeanor forced Keo to wipe a grimy hand on the back of his pants and shake. “We want to find who did it.”
“That’s what we’re here for. I understand from Alika that you boys were camping in the cave?” Jenkins took out a small spiral pad. “Let’s sit down, get comfortable. I want to take statements from each of you.”
“I could use a break.” Alika slammed the door of the chopper and opened a water bottle. He sat on the ground cross-legged, his back against one of the struts. “Anyone thirsty?”
Following his example, the boys were soon seated in a circle with Jenkins as Nae’ole looked on.
“We didn’t know what to do,” Emilio volunteered. “Keo said we should go look for who did it, because not too many people knew where we were in the cave. Just people from the camp.”
“The camp?” Alika could hear the attention sharpening in Jenkins’s voice, but the detective didn’t look up from his note-taking. “Tell us about that.”
“Nothing to do with us,” Keo said sharply. “They mind their business and we mind ours.”
“Let’s move this along, guys. We need to speak with each of you privately. Standard operating procedure. This is Detective Nae’ole. He’s going to interview you two, and I’ll do you three.” Jenkins stood and led Emilio off to a secluded rock outcrop, while Nae’ole took Payton over near the waterfall. Keo scowled, clearly not liking that he’d lost control of the group.
“It’s going to be okay,” Alika said.
“What you know?” Keo snapped, pidgin English coming out in his angry tone. “You get your own helicopter. Bruddah, you nevah been hungry.”
“Maybe not. But I know shame.” Alika got eye contact with the boy. “My mom had me in college, not part of anyone’s plan, and my father was a haole guy who never owned up to it.” He didn’t tell many people about the wound that had led to so much angst and striving as he tried to succeed and find a place to belong as a “hapa” Caucasian and Hawaiian bastard. He’d eventually been adopted by Sean Wolcott, his mother’s husband, but that hadn’t happened until his teens. He was still too haole to be Hawaiian and too Hawaiian to be haole. “Everything I have, I fought for and built myself. You can too. No excuses, bruddah.”
Keo folded his arms and looked at the ground.
The detectives continued to question the boys individually and eventually the medical examiner, a young woman with multi-colored hair, emerged from the cave.
The boys hurried to stand respectfully along the trail as the ME led the way for the police officers and crime scene investigators who carried the long, bulky, zippered black bag containing the Shepherd’s body over the uneven ground to the chopper. The team loaded the body bag onto a side carry basket. The teens clustered together, clearly grieving.
“You boys should come back with us to Kapa’a,” Nae’ole said. “We have a place for you to stay.”
“Foster care?” Keo growled. “No thanks.”
“We have a special group situation already set up for you,” Jenkins said carefully. “You all get to stay together.”
“So you knew about us already.” Keo’s accusing stare found Alika. “And you want to put us away.”
“We just want you to be safe and comfortable, with food to eat and beds to sleep in,” Nae’ole interjected. “Yes. Alika and his friend Sandy told us about you. That’s why we came out here, to let you know about this opportunity. And then, we found the body.”
Keo narrowed his eyes at Alika. “You said you wouldn’t tell.”
“And I didn’t.” Alika held the kid’s eyes, trying to convey that he was keeping the secret about their attack on him. “But Sandy was under no such promise.”
Jenkins’s gaze flicked back and forth between them. “Speaking of Sandy. Any of you know where she’s taken off to?”
The boys all shook their heads. “Never seen her.”
Alika turned to them. “What do you say, guys? Shall we fly you back to Kapa’a? Ready for hot food and soft beds? Maybe even some video games?” He’d get them a game system himself if that’s what it took to get them to go.
“I’ll come with you.” Emilio walked over to stand beside Alika. The rest of the boys did too, leaving Keo by himself. The teen scowled, indecisive, and then a shout from the direction of the trail stole all of their attention.
Chapter Fifty
Sophie broke down her camp rapidly, grateful that the site had not been raided by anyone from the village. She wanted to be on the trail back to Ke’e Beach well before the first responders came to investigate the Shepherd’s body. Catching her wasn’t going to be a priority. Jenkins and Nae’ole would have to exit the cave where they had no signal and go back to their chopper and call for the crime scene techs and ME on the radio. They couldn’t leave the body unguarded.
She had time to get away. While the detectives might want to question her for her suspicious behavior, they knew for a fact she hadn’t killed the Shepherd because she’d been on Oahu and en route to Kaua’i during the murder.
As usual, the tent refused to fit into its pouch. This time Sophie didn’t have time to keep redoing it, so she rolled it as tight as she could and strapped it onto the loaded backpack with a spare bungee cord. She hoisted the backpack on, tightened the straps at her hips, fastened the one at her chest, picked up her walking stick, and got moving.
Sophie and Ginger hurried up the path. She could feel the distance from Alika stretching like a fraying elastic. She had to go faster! Just rip away and not think about it. “Like tearing off a Band-Aid,” Marcella would say.
Alika was back in her life.
In spite of everything, the knowledge was a tiny warm coal she held close. They’d rescued a boy together. They’d kissed. The feelings she’d always had for him were still there. If they hadn’t broken up, that painful chapter with Connor might never have happened.
But it didn’t matter. She was off men and on the run. She couldn’t count on Connor’s declaration that she wouldn’t have any more trouble from the DA as fact. There was no room in her life for anyone but her dog.
Ginger’s energy was restored by the rest and food of the last few days, and Sophie followed as the Lab galloped happily ahead of her up the narrow, boulder-strewn path.
There was simply no way to move any faster than a rapid walk hiking uphill on a rough red dirt trail, carrying a forty-pound pack on her back. She was grateful it had been dry the last couple of days; rain turned the clay-like, iron-rich soil to slick mud.
Ginger trotted just ahead, tongue lolling, as they made their way up and out of Kalalau Valley. Sophie’s heart rate was up and sweat had begun to gather beneath her arms by the time the
y reached the first overlook outside the valley.
The view off of the rocky corner of the first switchback was breathtaking. Crenellated, green-swathed, rain-eroded ridges of coast marched away into infinity, marked by the unique shapes of lauhala trees, ironwoods, kukui nut and ferns. The red ribbon of pathway ran through it, zigging and zagging along the edge, inviting a journey.
Sophie found a convenient boulder and rested her pack on it, leaning forward with her hands on her knees to take in the view and catch her breath. Ginger scanned the vista at the precipitous edge of the cliff, her tail waving, and looked back at Sophie as if to confirm the beauty they were seeing.
“Yes. I know, girl. It’s beautiful. But come here, away from that edge. You’re making me nervous.” The Lab trotted back to Sophie and sat beside her.
Clouds along the far cobalt horizon softened the endless blue as Sophie gazed without seeing, taking a moment to think through her strategy.
Hopefully, when the first responders got to the crime scene, the team would be so caught up in the investigation that they would write her off for the moment. But that outcome was unlikely in the long run. Jenkins and Nae’ole were going to assume Sophie had some inside knowledge that had led to her involvement with the lost boys; they would likely bring Alika in too, and old accusations from his past might come up.
Her identity as Sandy Mason was going to be endangered when they issued a Be On Look Out for her at the airport. She might be able to evade the cops indefinitely if she didn’t try to get off the island, but without Alika’s helicopter, she was stuck in Kaua’i. If she was picked up, she was going to have to reveal her identity as Sophie Ang, and if she was wanted for the murder of Assan, her next stop would be jail.
Sophie’s stomach clenched at the thought and her fists balled.
It wasn’t that she was afraid of being confined to a little barred box; it was the principle of the thing—Assan didn’t deserve to rob her of one more day of her hard-earned life. Dead or alive, he wouldn’t take anything more from her.
