"Well, it's no wonder. You've made no attempt to keep up with her life."
I took a deep calming breath and reminded myself that my mother didn't know what Georgie had done or why Jared and I had broken off our engagement the day before the wedding. She knew the reason was good, because I never did anything without a good, solid, practical reason, but she didn't know anything beyond that.
"I have to go. We're really busy around here. Talk to you soon."
There wasn't much she could say to that. She said good-bye. We made mutual kissing noises, as was our habit, and I hung up, desperately glad to be done getting grilled. Taking a deep breath to fortify myself, I rejoined Alex in the lobby.
"Discover anything?"
He glanced up from his phone. "I'm still trying to find the character. I'm installing an app that will let me take a picture of the character, and it should let me know." He held up his phone triumphantly. "There it is. Okay, let's do this thing."
He took a photograph of the photograph, while I held the magnifier over the tattoo. The program worked, and I didn't want to get close enough to him to be able to watch the process with him. I could tell when it finished though, because he seemed confused by the results.
"What is it?"
He shook his head and then held the phone out to me. There on the screen was an identical black inked symbol, and the translation underneath read opium.
While I digested what that might mean, Alex's eyes moved to the flower, and he stared at it for a long time, angling the photograph in several directions. "Do you know what this is? I can't even see it as a super-stylized hibiscus."
I shook my head. "It does seem a little familiar."
"To me too. I've seen it somewhere lately. Somewhere I was." He was silent for a long second, staring intently at the photograph. Finally, he dropped it triumphantly. "I know where I've seen it. It was growing all over the place after I dragged myself out of the whirlpool in Strangler's Cove."
I took in the pale purplish, loose-looking petals. The middle was also carefully inked in, a weird pod-ish sort of thing, pale green and protruding from the petals, which looked like it was wearing a hat made of microscopic green bananas. Around the middle pod, dozens of smaller little pod-ish things jetted out.
"That is a really weird flower. Are you sure you saw it here on the island? I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. Although my mother had poppies that looked a bit like that growing in her garden."
Alex stilled. "Poppies? A man who has the word opium tattooed on his back also has a flower tattooed on his back, and it didn't immediately occur to us that it might be an opium poppy? If we ever had an edge, we're losing it."
He picked up his phone, typed in opium poppy, and we watched together as pictures of endless poppy fields generated on his screen. Grim faced, he turned my way. "That's definitely the same flower I saw. Whoever Mallory was dating, it's possible he knows something about opium growing right outside of Aloha Lagoon."
CHAPTER NINE
It was a long day trying to get to the afternoon so we could go check out Strangler's Cove. We agreed that this was no place to make assumptions. If we were going to take this information to Detective Ray, we needed to be very sure. Alex was open about the fact the waters had been rough, and he'd been a little disoriented and panicked after being caught in a whirlpool. Maybe the flowers he'd seen were not the same as the tattoo after all. There was a very marked difference between garden-variety poppies and opium poppies. If they were the same, we'd know.
Getting to Strangler's Cove was not something that Alex knew exactly how to do. He'd gotten there accidentally, by literally having one. The only thing he really knew was what he'd already told me. That it was near to the beach where we'd met Mo, the man whose name no one really seemed to know, and Big Steve, and that there was a massive whirlpool nearby. Approaching it by boat wouldn't be possible for that reason. If we tried it, we'd be down before we even got close enough to see the shore.
After the daily rush and plans for Christmas Eve were over, we grabbed up Georgie, who was working in the lobby bar for the day, and headed out to the beach Alex did know, in Alex's car. We parked on the road and didn't go toward the beach, instead following a path into the mountainous terrain near the beach. The theory was that maybe we could climb to the place Alex had landed by crossing over the terrain, rather than approaching by water.
It was an insanely unpleasant hike even though I'd made a nod to the exercise by wearing suit pants instead of a skirt, and flats instead of heels. Though the view was extraordinary, this wasn't really the kind of place that someone would go for a leisure hike. The path was slight, the terrain rocky, and the vegetation thick and unforgiving. I could see prints in the soil, so there were people making this trek, but it had to be very purposeful. No tourists were wondering up a trail to take some pictures.
When we reached the top, we could see the barren beach where we'd met Mo and Big Steve. There was only a single man standing in the sand, and it was clear he was on his way out. There was no apparent reason the beach was empty, except it was a small beach with hard waves nearby, and it wasn't the kind of place surfers preferred. Directly in front of the peak, I could see only the edges of the cove and the brutality of the whirlpool that Alex had talked about. My stomach twisted, envisioning Alex trapped in that maelstrom. As we watched, the water suddenly relaxed, the massive whirlpool becoming a relaxed circle of softly rotating water, instead of the violent churning of moments before.
"What happened?" Georgie voiced my very question.
Alex shook his head. "I'm not sure. It seems to be on some kind of nature-driven schedule. I caught the end of it that day, which is why I'm standing here right now. I promise you that much. That's some powerful water. I was still trying to get out of the cove when it started again. It's a pretty short break. Maybe ten minutes tops. I clung to the side of the mountain down there and tiptoed around to the beach. It took me like an hour to get on solid ground again. Obviously, we need to find a better way to get in and out, which is why I brought these."
He held up his backpack, then set to unpacking climbing ropes, carabineers, and a number of other items whose use was a mystery to me. Climbing was not something I did. Nor was it something I wanted to start doing now. But this could be the difference between understanding what had happened to Mallory and leaving the solving of her murder to fickle chance. It was worth the climb. Plus, Alex clearly knew what he was about.
He set to drilling the climbing anchor into the rocks. "We can climb down. It isn't completely impossible. This isn't really a dangerous mountain on the way down. I might even free climb it. But I don't want you guys to take any chances. The way up is a little bit tougher. But there are still ledges. I couldn't do it when I was here because I had an injury from the whirlpool. That obviously won't be the case here."
He took one look at my face and flashed me a reassuring smile. "It isn't bad, Charlie. I just want to make sure you guys are safe since you don't do a lot of climbing, so I brought everyone a harness and ropes. We'll be top roping with a belayer. It's usually safer to rappel alone, but since we aren't actually rappelling, just hiking down while playing it safe, I think top roping will be fine."
He might as well have been speaking another language, for all it meant to me. I nodded stupidly, and he flashed me another smile. He was trying really hard to be comforting, anyway. He was right. I could see a very thin path winding down the not-quite-entirely-sheer rock face. There was technically a way to hike down this cliff. But I wasn't going to be sad to have a safety system set up. I was surprised that he hadn't tried to talk us into having him go alone. Then I remembered his comments about how capable I was. Maybe he really did believe I could do hard things, even with little practice.
He helped us both into harnesses, and I ignored that the process basically involved him feeling me up. I just concentrated on the shoreline below and the whirlpool that was picking up speed, starting on its violent cycle agai
n. It still wasn't distracting enough, but he made no commentary on my erratic breathing before moving on to Georgie. Once we were all prepped, suited up, and roped together and connected to the climbing anchor, we climbed over the side and started down the mountain.
The path existed for sure, but it was so thin someone's foot seemed to slip off every minute or two. Rarely was it Georgie, who clearly knew more about climbing than I would have assumed. Mostly it was me. Alex might as well have been born a mountain goat. I made myself feel better by remembering that he did this kind of crap for fun. He had an advantage. And some really weird ideas of what was fun.
It took probably nearly forty-five minutes to reach the bottom, even with the aid of the ropes to keep us from plummeting to our deaths. Alex immediately stripped out of the harness as soon as we hit dirt, and we followed more slowly, mostly because I couldn't figure out how to free myself, and Georgie ended up having to help me.
The cove was gorgeous, overgrown with greenery, embraced by walls of volcanic rock. It was big, much larger than I'd pictured in my head. Maybe half the size of a football field. Some of the plants looked local, and I'd seen them before on the island. However, Alex was right. The entire cove was covered in opium poppies, cheerfully skipping in the light breeze coming off the ocean. They looked a lot like their more innocuous sister plants, save for the weird pod inside. I knew from last-night's research that the pod was where the opium came from, and also an instantly recognizable way to identify these plants.
It was so bizarre to know this was here, and had been here for some indeterminable amount of time, and no one knew. Except for the people who had planted and were cultivating it, of course. What a lucky day they must have thought it was when they'd discovered the makeup of Stranger's Cove. It was the perfect place for an operation like this because no one could get to it by accident, unless it was truly one heck of a crazy accident like the one Alex had suffered.
Alex moved through the crop, taking dozens of pictures with his cell phone. Opium poppies became heroine, and heroine hit the street. I had no idea how many poppies it took to make a dose of heroine, but there was a good chance the street value of this field was no joke. I took several minutes to make a long scan of the entire cove from my space just under the cliff side. I was interrupted suddenly when my heart jumped to my throat after the ropes behind me slammed to the ground at my heels. I stared up but could see nothing. What I could see, without any trouble at all, were all three of the harnesses crumpling to the soft dirt beneath my feet. Either Alex hadn't done that great a job of connecting our rope, which I did not believe since I'd seen him screwing those anchors into the hard rock, or someone had purposely found a way to disconnect our rope.
Considering we were standing here in the middle of someone's illegal gold mine, my money was on the latter. And we were sitting ducks. From their vantage point above us, whoever was there would have no trouble picking us off one by one, as long as he had a long-range rifle or something else that could make the distance. I searched the cove for Alex and my sister, but visibility wasn't great through the lush jungle-like growth. I could make out a bit of Alex's head but little else. They needed a warning, and we needed to get out of here with whatever evidence we already had. It would have to be enough.
I picked my way through the loam that sunk under my feet, desperately trying to get to the others. The urgency was burning under my skin, and no matter how fast I moved, it didn't feel like it would be fast enough. I didn't want to yell too loud and get anyone else's attention. By the time I could see them both, I could see the shore too. It was only a few feet in front of me. They were having some in-depth conversation, staring at Alex's phone. I opened my mouth to call out a warning, but all it turned out to be was a scream as brutal hands pushed me hard from behind.
The force was enough that I bypassed them both and ended up face first in the ocean. In theory, this wouldn't have been a problem. I wasn't Olympic material, but I was a passable swimmer. What I was not, however, was a person capable of extricating myself from a violent circle of churning water. I barely touched the surface before the tide grabbed me and yanked me hard into the maelstrom. I tried not to panic. With everything that was in me. Calm and rational was the very air I breathed, but without air to breath, that was hard to hold on to.
I didn't want to fight, because I wasn't sure what would make it worse and what wouldn't. If only my would-be killer had pushed a few minutes earlier. The water would have been calm. Of course, that was intentional. It was clear the people above us, and with us, had been here all along, waiting to make a move on us. Calm waters wouldn't kill us. So they'd merely waited until a better option that would came along.
I couldn't hold my breath anymore, and not fighting wasn't helping. I was still getting tossed like a ragdoll, my lungs screaming for the release of fresh, sweet, air. Of course, it was an illusion. If I took the breath I desperately wanted, I'd just end up at the bottom of the Pacific, never to be seen again. I pushed against the swirl, but it was impossible. I simply wasn't strong enough. Especially since I'd let it go so long trying to figure out how to best extricate myself. Maybe it would have been better to just react instead of thinking in a situation like this one.
Abruptly, I realized that the dark forms in the churning water beside me weren't wood pieces or even fish. They were other people. I knew that no person, no matter how villainous, or even likely how stupid, was going to chase me into a situation like this to try to make sure I was finished. It was probably Alex and Georgie, because whoever was running this operation needed to get rid of us before we could give away their position or offer any evidence to back it up. What better way than the killing field that nature had conveniently offered up?
They disappeared. I didn't know where to. Maybe down. This wasn't the way I wanted to die. This wasn't the way I wanted to lose the people I loved. I clawed for calm, desperate not to use up my dwindling air on panic. I had to spend it swimming, even if it was against an endless tide. Suddenly, I was jerked in the opposite direction, against the rotation, my limbs screaming out in pain, my lungs just screaming. The sudden movement was so violent and unexpected that I couldn't control my response. I gasped, pulling in a hard mouthful of salty water, leaving the door open for the entire ocean to take me.
Belatedly, I realized the counterforce was another person, likely Alex, judging how much bigger he was than me. Unless the person who'd tried to kill me was now oddly trying to save me. Unfortunately, I'd already inhaled water, and now I was choking, unable to hold my breath, and I was seconds from losing consciousness. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot I could do about that.
It was over for me, and I knew nothing else.
When I finally regained any semblance of awareness, I was lying between poppies and volcanic rocks, spewing water from my lungs into the lap of unsuspecting Alex—and a bit on Georgie. While I was still choking and Alex was pushing my stomach, brutally forcing water from my furious lungs, Georgie held my limp hand, her eyes darting all over the cove. I blinked away tears, a combination of belated terror, exhaustion, and physical abuse. My sister was here. I squeezed her hand as well as I could manage, laying limply in front of Alex, violent coughs wracking my frame every few seconds.
I blinked at Alex, trying to find the words to thank him. I didn't know if he'd been pushed too, or if he'd simply come in after me, but I was very aware that without him I would be dead. There was no question at all. I was nearly dead, even with him. When I tried to speak, my throat was ravaged, irritated beyond where I could make sound come out. Maybe he understood the emotion in my eyes. Maybe he was simply touched by the process of saving the life of another human. Whatever it was, he pulled me into his arms and held me tight, his face buried in my neck. All three of us were wet, wrung out, exhausted, and possibly we were still in very real danger. For now all I could do was cling to Alex, hold my sister's hand, and struggle hard to regain the breath I'd nearly lost forever.
There wasn't enough time
for me to recover the way I needed to. Georgie was the first to speak. "We have to get out of here. We don't know if they're still around. I wish we could have seen them well."
Them. That meant there were more than two, because the one above us couldn't have gotten down so quickly, and if Georgie had seen two, there were at least three. We were still in danger. I tried hard to sit up, but I couldn't. I had to rely on Alex to even get into an upright position. All of us were much worse for the wear, hair in faces, clothes ripped or simply missing, like the jacket I'd been wearing. We were a hot mess, and I wasn't sure I was strong enough for either of the two ways out of this cove—up or around.
I waved them away. "Go. I'll stay here. Just bring the cops back. I'll be fine."
"No."
There was no room for argument in Alex's single-word response. I wanted to argue, but I couldn't find the energy or the words. I didn't want to be left here. I also didn't think I could make it out. It took a long moment of just breathing to find the power to speak. "I can't do it. I'm sorry. It will be fine. I'll be here. They must have left by now."
Alex glanced hurriedly around the cove. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe that. I bet the only reason they didn't outright shoot us is because we surprised them unarmed. There's no way they're going to leave us here to spread the word of what we found. I won't leave you here, especially when it'll be dark any minute."
I shook my head. What could I say? Was there any chance at all I could change their minds? "We can't all stay here. They're going to come back eventually."
"No, you're right. We can't stay here. We're going to leave the way I left last time. Around the side of the cliff, over there." He pointed right, where water was slapping hard against the rocky outcropping that he apparently expected me to climb when I was still having trouble controlling my limbs.
Mele Kalikimaka Murder Page 13
