“Well, you won’t have to worry about that,” Ethan said, looking to Matthias. “Right? I mean, I’m proposing that you don’t go anywhere alone again.”
“What?” Kalani turned to him with surprise on her face, an almost-hurt type of surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I think the DARC guys would agree with me that you need . . . that both of you need an escort from here on out.”
“I agree,” Matthias said. “I’m sure Jackson does, too.”
“Great,” Lea said. “Now we’re prisoners inside the place and out.” She finally made a move to her dinner, reaching for a drink of wine.
“It’s just temporary,” Mathias said.
“Yeah, right. For as long as this damn investigation goes. We could both be dead of natural causes by then.”
“It’s a necessary precaution that we’ll have to take, at least until we figure out what happened to Tucker. And until we know you’re safe here.”
“Why don’t you just move us?” Kalani said. “I know you’re joking about the training ground, but surely there’s somewhere else we could go.”
“I don’t see the point in that,” Lea said coldly. “It’ll just follow us wherever we go, just like it always has.”
“That’s sounding a little defeatist,” Kalani said.
“Oh? Well, this shit followed us across the Pacific Ocean, I don’t think it’ll have trouble finding us in the next county.”
The table stayed quiet until a minute later, when Lea opened her mouth again with, “More wine, anyone?”
12
Kalani
“Can you just try being a little less abrasive?”
“I’m trying,” Lea told her sister.
Kalani wrung the old soapy water from the dishtowel. It splattered against the bare bottom of the antique ceramic sink. She felt a modicum of satisfaction that at least one small task had been dealt with. That one issue had been cleaned away. What remained of the quagmire included one of many conversations with her sister. She still had hope that her questions—and her fears—could be cleared away through the bond of family. Through the thickness of blood rather than water. Kalani watched the rest of the water spiral down the drain before giving her sister another look. The look she received back was one of mild alarm. The need for escape.
“Should we go outside for a smoke?” she suggested.
“You?” Lea almost scowled at the idea of Kalani picking up the habit.
“You can smoke while I just stand there getting bit by the bugs.”
“The no-see-ums,” Lea said.
“Well, it’s dark out, so, they’re all no-see-ums.”
They left through the side door, their flip-flops slapping against the wood of the back deck. Lea looked sickly pale in the porch light. It was an unflattering tone of light, but she’d also looked similarly all night in the full brightness of an antique chandelier over dinner. Now the lighting was fitting.
“Turn that off,” Lea told her.
Kalani opened the door and reached back inside, flipping the switch. The screen door whacked shut behind her and everything went black as the night. “The bugs?” Kalani asked.
“At least the ones attracted to light.”
“What about the ones attracted to us?”
“Those don’t bother me so much. Those are natural. It’s the ones that see a light on and want to come check out the scene. They’re nosy, you know. Intrusive.”
“Like our guests tonight?”
“Good, you got it. That’s the point I was trying to make.”
“Well, you don’t have to make it to them,” Kalani said, untying the plaid shirt around her waist and then pulling it around her shoulders, stuffing her arms through the sleeves.
After a while, Lea said, “Was I really being that obvious?”
“You’re obviously tired.”
“Tired, but also tired of this. I just want everyone to go away and mind their own business.”
“That’s not an option right now,” Kalani said. “And even if they did mind their own business, what makes you think your friends at Blackwoods would do the same?”
“What do you mean?”
“Tucker. All this stalking and everything.”
Lea stilled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know why Tucker’s gone. And I don’t know why you feel you’re being stalked. I’m guessing they both have to do with each other, but it doesn’t have to be like that.”
“It doesn’t?” Kalani said.
“Like in the garage today, it’s just in your head.”
Kalani thought about those two words: garage, and head. And then a third word: hammer. And then a fourth word . . .
Lea reached out and held Kalani by her elbow. She shook her gently. “Hey.”
She was back in the darkness with Lea. And with the bugs.
“What if we just went somewhere?” Lea said.
“What?”
“What if we just left? Hop in your car and go.”
“No. Lea, we can’t.”
“Not while the Scooby Gang is here, we can’t. But after. They’ll leave eventually, and then we’ll be free again. Free from this awful place. And then we’ll be really free. Go wherever we want. Right? Where do you want to go, Lani?”
Since Ethan’s surprise visit, she didn’t want to go anywhere. The house wasn’t so bad. Neither was West Virginia. It was the situation that was awful. But the people around it—at least her people, the DARC Ops people, how they surrounded and insulated her from danger—those people had renewed a bit of the hope she’d since lost after Hawaii. Those were the people, her and Ethan’s people, that she’d stick with. There was no other option.
There was, of course, Lea.
She was a wild card. She wanted to disrupt and she wanted out, like usual. Of the two non-conformists, she was always the more extreme. But it went beyond that. Lea had a taste for recklessness. For self-sabotage and destruction. A long time ago, Kalani had made a conscious decision to insulate herself from it. From her own blood. It had been her salvation, even though it meant a lonely and lowly life as a security guard. It was made even lonelier since she was a rarity, a woman in a man’s industry. A man’s world and a man’s career path. Her insulation from that was to bristle against suspicions, against other men—especially those she worked for and protected. But she’d never been protected, until now. She’d never met someone like Ethan.
“Let’s get away from them,” Lea said. “All these men. Who the hell are they? Do you really know who they are?”
She knew. She knew especially after working and risking and surviving alongside them. After days of training at Matthias’ SWAT proving ground. And despite their limited contact, she knew Ethan most of all. Thinking about him and his men and listening to the venom her sister had used for even the word “men” left a subtle itching sensation in her ear. Deep to the brain. Something was wrong.
How could Lea not hear it in her own voice?
How could she not know it?
“It’s dark, but I can tell what you’re doing,” Lea said, shaking her arm one more time before letting go. “I can hear it. I can hear you going off the deep end just because I suggested something.”
“I’m just thinking about where I’d like to go,” Kalani said, trying to stay calm. Trying to buy some time. It would be difficult to say the things she’d have to say to buy time with Lea. Bullshitting. It was difficult detaching, but necessary.
“How about back west?” Lea said.
So far, she’d been on the fence, not ready to commit to anything but Ethan. That was her only sure bet, and he’d already proven it to be a good one. But now she’d have to deal with her sister . . . she’d have to pick a side. And in the meantime, she’d have to pick an act.
Lea sighed and said, “The west . . . That’s more our speed.”
“How far west? Hawaii?”
“No, that’s too far. And too impossible.”
“And dange
rous,” Kalani said. “I bet we wouldn’t last a week there.”
“Lani, the longer we keep this up . . .”
“What?”
Lea sighed again, louder and longer and perhaps more deliberately. “I’m not used to having enemies.”
“Neither am I.”
“It just feels like the longer we keep doing this, with DARC and everything, the further we go, the more enemies we’re making. And the more upset they’re getting with us.”
“And the closer they are to prison.”
“Exactly,” Lea said. “Can’t you feel at least a little bit bad about that?” She huffed and dropped her cigarette into a bucket near the door. “Why am I even trying to get you to be compassionate? Why? You don’t even know any of them.”
“Who? The DARC guys? Or—”
“My friends,” Lea interrupted her.
The word “friends,” and especially how her sister had said it, sent a chill down Kalani’s spine.
“My friends back in Hawaii,” Lea said.
“Or wherever they slithered off to. The ones not in jail.”
“Some of them are bad people, Lani, I understand that. But not my friends.”
“How about the captain? Was he your friend?” Lea didn’t say anything. Without her standing still like that, it was hard to see her in the dark. Was she there at all? “Should we go inside?”
No answer.
No movement.
Kalani turned to reach for the doorknob, but then someone’s hand gripped her arm. It felt stronger. And colder.
“I loved the captain,” Lea said.
The grip on Kalani’s arm weakened. She brought her hand to it, folding onto one of her sister’s. She could feel movement through the tops of knuckles. Skin that was smooth and thin-feeling, frail, like an elderly person’s hand. Lea wasn’t used to anything like that. She’d never fired a weapon. She’d probably never used any type of tool but a pen and a smart phone and a makeup brush. And whatever the captain had made her handle. Kalani used to feel disgust about that. Now it was just sad.
“You need to toughen up, girl,” she said.
“I know.”
Kalani was giving advice to toughen up, despite the debacle at the mechanic’s shop, the mini-meltdown that might or might not have been justified. But her sister needed something. A kick in the ass. She hoped that was all it took. If not, DARC would have to step in. Or the Feds.
“And you need to stop thinking about your friends,” Kalani said.
“I miss them so much.” Lea sounded small and weepy.
“They weren’t even your friends to begin with. They were people you did drugs with.” Kalani paused, expecting to receive some sort of verbal barrage, but her sister kept quiet. She wouldn’t go much further, though. She wouldn’t include the captain and conflate him with “friends.” Why press the issue? One step at a time, small fish to big. One detachment after another.
But it was sad, she supposed. Lea and the captain might have really had something.
13
Ethan
“I’ve been authorized,” Matthias said, hunched over a work table in the barn. The lighting was low and almost orange, and Ethan could see him squinting down at his work. “So don’t worry.”
“Why would I be worried?”
Matthias was shaking his head. “Sam thought it might be some kind of bomb.”
“It doesn’t look like any bomb I’ve ever known.”
“Exactly,” Sam said. “I thought it was a . . . for a lack of a better word, a ‘booby trap’.”
“Jesus,” Matthias said, chuckling but still looking down and working on one of the electronic devices they’d found in the cellar. “Jesus, a booby trap?”
“For lack of a better word.”
“And you’re supposed to be some sort of professor?” Matthias said.
“You know I quit that a while ago.”
“And you’re supposed to be some sort of DARC Ops agent? Talking like that?” Ethan said, chuckling. Ever self-deprecating—probably to throw people off the thought of him as a threat—Sam was easy to joke with. Ethan was standing over Matthias’ shoulder, watching his work. He turned to see Sam’s reaction, how he looked sitting in his favorite lawn chair. Sam could be sensitive. He had to be somewhat sensitive for his work, for analysis of the sensitivities in others. And for being open enough to pick up on them. It wasn’t a weakness, or so Jackson would say. But it was definitely worth a laugh.
He just sat in his lawn chair, face stuffed into his latest book.
Matthias said, “You okay, Sam?”
“Totally okay,” he said. “I think you’re confused about my work area and what it might mean for a behavior analyst’s personal mindset. Their personality.” His nose was still in the book. “I think you’re giving me a lot more feelings than I actually have.
“Oh, you’ve got feelings,” Matthias said, singing it slightly, teasing.
“Right now I do,” Sam said. He raised his book in the air, flashing the cover. “I’m reading Clara’s poetry.” He turned it around to show the back cover, the elegant black-and-white headshot of his girl. “It’s her latest book. First half is about survivor guilt, second half is surviving that and then feeling guilty about surviving yourself. In the end, everyone’s happy.”
“Yeah,” Matthias said. “Sounds real happy.” Ethan watched him laugh quietly to himself until dropping a screwdriver made him flinch. A big flinch that even Sam noticed from behind his book.
“What’s wrong?” Sam said. “Did the bomb go off?”
Matthias was frozen for a minute, looking down at the pieces of equipment he’d been opening up. And then his shoulders shook again with a chuckle. “Everything’s fine. We survived.”
“Looks like we’ve all got survivor’s guilt now,” Ethan said automatically.
Sam looked at him cold-eyed. “That’s not funny.”
It wasn’t meant to be very funny. And then Ethan remembered what Clara had actually survived. And it wasn’t funny at all.
“Sorry.”
“So, let’s get to work, huh?” Matthias said. “How about it?”
“Who?” Sam said. “Me?” He’d dropped the book in his lap but still wasn’t looking very interested in “work.” “Give the kid something to do,” he said, nodding to Ethan.
“The kid?” Ethan said to him.
Sam didn’t look away from Matthias. “I spent the whole afternoon with her,” he said, meaning Lea: his subject. “I don’t even think I can say ‘Hi’ to her at this point. She needs a break.”
“Sounds like you’re getting to her,” Matthias said.
“But that’s not my intention. Some jobs require it, to stir up a reaction. Rustle up some data points. With her, though, she makes things pretty clear.”
“Sounds like progress, then.”
“She makes things clear,” Sam said, “by trying as hard as she can not to make them clear. The effort of the subterfuge, in this case, spells everything out.”
Matthias had finished working, setting down his last tool. “So what are you waiting for?”
Sam just stared at him.
“When were you planning on spelling it out for us?” Matthias said. “We don’t have time for a report.”
“I already told you that she’s deceptive. With any of the pressure points, she’s deceptive. I get clear indications of that. And just for your own information, both of you . . . Ethan?”
“I’m listening.”
“Just so you know,” Sam said, “Whenever she makes any kind of unnecessary movements with her lower jaw, she’s being deceptive.”
“You mean like when she’s talking?” Ethan said, trying not to laugh but picturing how often the normally talkative Lea had moved her lower jaw so far.
“I mean unnecessary,” Sam said. “I mean extra. Superfluous. When she’s not talking. Any time she’s not talking and you see that jaw move, just start thinking long and hard about what she’s not saying. What’s
she’s really not saying.
“What do you think she’s not saying?” Ethan asked.
“Well, I’m not a mind reader.”
“You’re the closest thing to it.”
“No,” Sam said. “I think Kalani is. And that’s where you come in.” He looked at Matthias and said, “Right?”
Matthias said, “He’s right, Ethan.”
“What? How?” Ethan said, his mind sputtering at the end of a long day. “I mean, how do I come in?”
“Kalani knows her sister best,” Matthias said.
“And you know Kalani best,” Sam added.
Matthias laughed. “That’s an understatement.”
“I’m trained for analysis, and to spot deception,” Sam said. “But that can only go so far. Here we’re lucky to have her sibling and we—”
“Wait, let’s be clear,” Ethan said, interrupting Sam. “Let’s be clear about one thing. We’re not going to use Kalani. I’m never going to use her for . . . So we can . . .
“What do you think this whole thing is?” Sam said.
“No,” Matthias said. “It’s not us using her. If anything, maybe the federal prosecutors are using her. I mean, technically, literally, they are. But for good reason. So they may be using her, but we’re protecting her.”
Ethan nodded. He said, quietly, “Yeah.”
It was strange to hear it, a concept that had been so natural to him. A truth that had deeply engrained itself into his interior life, his interior thoughts. After a few short months, it had already made up some of the fabric of who he was. Perhaps the most important part.
“Well, I’m definitely protecting her,” Ethan said.
Matthias smiled. “You’ve made that clear from day one, going all Rambo in Hawaii.”
“Just doing my job,” Ethan said.
“That wasn’t your job at the time,” Matthias said.
“It is now.”
Matthias grinned as he picked up the previously dropped screwdriver. “So, like I said, let’s get to work.”
Ethan jokingly saluted him, and then turned toward the wide door of the barn. On his way out, he tried as best he could to hide the bounce in his step. But he’d never been gladder to get back to work.
Dark Discovery (DARC Ops Book 8) Page 10
