She nodded. Into the heart of the island, not out from its sheltering shores. He’d be okay. And he’d take care of Jade.
SEVEN
Just crossing the fertile valley had her breathing harder than she’d expected. Cameron had offered to drive as far inland as possible, but since she was working on intuition alone, she needed to walk it back, retracing the same line from Nica’s.
As they tramped along, she studied the patchwork of flooded paddies they passed through. Since he’d crashed her party and she might as well make use of that, she asked Cameron what they were growing.
“Taro. A Hawaiian staple. The leaves are rich in vitamins, and from the tuber we get, oh joy, poi.”
She laughed, then touched her temple, willing away the ache that was beginning there. Though he might not think so, she knew the danger of this undertaking. And dreaded it.
He didn’t miss much, though. “Hurt?”
“I’m all right.” Given the magnitude of their undertaking, a headache was the least of her concerns.
She jumped over a swampy area and glanced back to make sure she was still on track from Nica’s, then startled as a feral rooster crowed. Draped in brilliant green, red, and gold plumage with an arched, iridescent black tail, he strutted out from the webbed roots of a tree. “Isn’t it late in the day for crowing?”
“They crow day and night. No barnyard manners.” Cameron lunged onto the higher ridge of ground where she stood. “Speaking of crowing, TJ is sending your story to the mainland. The chief ordered a full broadcast.”
She stopped and stared. “How do you know?”
“I dropped into the station to tell him how to reach us if he learns something.”
“You told him what I’m doing?”
“He said not to leave the island.”
“Don’t leave town.” Recollection flickered, then passed. She raised her chin. “No wonder he wouldn’t help. If everyone wasn’t so busy suspecting me, we might get somewhere.” She’d hoped when she told the police what she knew, allowed herself to be photographed, her story to be broadcast, that help would be certain. Obviously it was still up to her. And Cameron couldn’t be trusted. She moved on.
“It makes sense to include the mainland, where friends and family can identify you.”
“Unless I live here.”
“Then you’d know mauka and makai—toward the mountains, toward the coast. They’re the primary directions on any of the islands.”
“I might have forgotten.”
“It’s not something you forget. It’s a circular sort of navigation absorbed by people who grow up on an island. It has little to do with north or south or even right or left, only toward the mountains or toward the shore.”
She supposed that might be one of the intangibles that remained in lieu of memory, things more innate than filed occurrences, like the knowledge she’d retained without any recollection of learning the things she knew. Information must be stored separately from experience. “You grew up on this island? You and Nica?”
“Downline descendents of missionaries who came to do good and also did well, as the saying goes. Where we’re different from others is that my grandparents, on passing, deeded the bulk of their land back to the Hawaiians who’d farmed it.”
“Except for Nica’s house?”
“Basically.”
She stopped and studied the abruptly rising terrain. A stream tumbled down that looked and sounded like the waterway she’d followed into the valley. She turned and looked back, comparing the direction they’d come to the direction she’d gone the first time. A fairly direct line from Nica’s, since she hadn’t had the strength to wander. “This is it.”
“You sure?”
“As sure as I can be.”
He looked forward, then back, marking their position, perhaps, in his mind. “Anything coming back to you?”
“I remember coming out, just not what I was doing in there.”
“Or what happened.”
“Or what happened,” she agreed. “Except …”
“What?” His gaze bored into her.
Shook her head. “Maybe I’m dizzy. For a moment I felt like I was falling.”
“Try to feel it again.”
She searched his face, then closed her eyes. The warm breeze encircled her as she tried, but the feeling was gone. “It must have been a spell.” She’d had plenty of woozy moments, and the exertion didn’t help.
“I wouldn’t discount it.”
“You think I’m remembering?”
“Could be.” He hung his hands on his hips.
“Then it’s at least possible I’m telling the truth.”
“If there was no chance, I wouldn’t be here.”
“I can’t tell you how glad I am.” She brushed past. The terrain seemed familiar even though she’d been dazed the last time she passed that way. Her senses had been heightened then in a way that kicked in now—along with her aches and bruises.
The doctor had said rest. To let her energies realign. Right. She puffed up the first steep rise. As the incline increased, it put Cameron Pierce into position to break her fall. Might just be worth it.
Without a path, she worked her way up through red dirt, rocks, and ferns cloaking the stream’s banks. A purple, jellyfish-shaped flower and other verdant plants perfumed the air. A dove cooed somewhere out of sight, but a brown-and-black myna shouted it down. The yellow triangular patch behind its eye matched its beak and bold yellow stockings. Under other conditions, she would have enjoyed exploring this island.
And then it hit her that she had. In that moment she sensed someone else’s excitement too; the person who’d been with her. She focused on the feeling, trying to grasp the flesh-and-blood person she’d glimpsed. But as with the dream, when she tried it slipped away.
She squeezed between the slender trees along the shore to a place where the stream tumbled down a series of giant steps that looked familiar. As she mounted the boulders and pulled herself up, the aches and kinks faded. She inhaled through her nose, cleansed through her mouth, finding her rhythm.
When the incline steepened in the narrowing channel, she grabbed onto ropey roots and pulled herself up. A shower rolled down the mountains over them, swelling the stream and slickening the rocks, but on either side the jungle crowded in like linemen to contain her within the narrow passage. She gripped and pulled, digging in with her hikers, clawing for holds with her hands. Her muscles bunched and tensed.
Someone needed her. The need pumped in her temples, burned in her chest. Straining, she grabbed the wet, igneous rock, scrambled to catch her foot, slipped, then kicked again and pulled herself up against a stone face. The water beside her roared.
From below, Cameron gripped her shin, then pulled himself up behind her. “Take a rest,” he breathed. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
She had almost shut him out, but now his presence encompassed and invaded her. She closed her eyes and breathed, only then realizing how fatigued she’d become.
“You sure you came this way before?”
She nodded. “I remember.”
He pulled a thin nylon rope from his pack. “After I get past, attach this end. We’ll leave it for the trek down.”
Her stomach sank. She hadn’t thought that far—not to going down again, only getting to the place where she could remember, finding the person she’d forgotten. But Cameron was right. They’d all have to get out again.
Her hands were caked with reddish mud, arms and legs smeared. Tendrils of hair clung to her cheeks and neck. Her left bicep twitched. None of it mattered—only getting there. As her heart rate slowed, she pondered her predicament.
She was in the Hanalei Mountains searching for someone she couldn’t recall with someone she hardly knew. Two nights ago she wouldn’t get into his truck. Now she was caught between him and … well, a rock. If she tried hard enough, she might explain that somehow.
“Stay put,” he spoke into her ear.
As though she could move if she wanted to. He dug his boot in and pushed up past her, trailing the rope. Where the channel narrowed again, he straddled the water and spider-walked the walls. She knotted the rope around a sturdy root, eye level above the mud and stone, and waited until Cameron pulled it taut and tied his end.
Stopping had given her legs a tremor, but she ignored it. She had made it down, and down was worse. At least pulling against gravity gave the illusion of control. She took hold of the rope and worked her way up until she reached the top, where he waited shin deep in the water.
His wet T-shirt clung to him. “Might have been an easier way.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t want to lose sight of the water.” She dipped her hands and arms into the flow and rubbed off the grime.
He surveyed the next stretch with a frown. The tree canopy had thinned and the undergrowth thickened. He motioned toward a break in the foliage. “Looks like a game trail.”
“What game?”
“Wild pigs probably. Stop here to water.”
She glanced around. “Are there predators?”
“Just us.”
“I’m a threat to a wild pig?”
“Femme fatale,” he deadpanned. “We might consider taking it.”
She studied the animal path. “What if we can’t get back to the water? Or if the creek branches out and we think we’re back but we’re not?”
He nodded. “Valid concerns.”
Hands on her hips, she looked up at the next incline the water rushed down. Was it the same water that had carried her before? In the shallows where she stood, she closed her eyes and remembered it deeper, faster, more treacherous. It must have forked or the water would not be less here than higher up.
She opened her eyes. Even though the pressed-dirt path through ferns and palms as tall as she might prove easier, she couldn’t chance losing her only point of reference. “I think we’d better stay with the water.”
“What would your companion say?”
“He’d—” She expelled a breath. Her mind had responded automatically with the male pronoun. She was starting to flesh him out. “He’d want me to take the surest way. I’ve got to reach him.” She couldn’t come up with a name or even a face, but she’d caught an emotion. It was someone she cared about, someone she loved. She sloshed past, but Cameron caught her arm.
“You won’t do him any good breaking your neck.”
“We have to hurry.” She tugged, but his grip tightened.
He made her face him. “You also have to consider we might not find him … alive.”
EIGHT
Cameron had expected an outburst. Guilt or denial. Anger. Maybe he wanted her to snap—and snap out of it. But he got, instead, a deepest jungle stare. Her lips parted and drew his gaze against his will.
She said, “In the universe of possibilities, that is only one. And I refuse to breathe life into a worst-case scenario.”
“In my world, it’s better to be prepared.”
“Doesn’t leave much room for hope, does it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Hope rarely keeps its promise.”
“Then you don’t know God.”
“I do. I just don’t expect him to fix everything that’s gone wrong in the world since he gave it a spin.”
“Well, I’m not asking for world peace. Just trying to find someone. And if you don’t want to help me, no one’s forcing you.”
“I never said that.”
“It’s bad enough having to drag your suspicions. I can’t carry your doubts as well.”
He hung his hands on his hips as her point sank in. On the off chance she was telling the truth in all this, his assumptions hadn’t helped. Experience told him she was not being completely honest, but there was no need to push it now. If he waited and watched, she’d catch herself up. They almost always did. He motioned upstream. “Choose your path.”
“We’ll stay with the water.”
They pushed on and up, fighting the mountain for every step. When neither the current nor the shore yielded, he took the lead, cutting with his hand machete only enough to make passage possible. Some survival instinct must have carried her down. What drove her now?
The most obvious explanation would be a true fear for the person she believed she’d left behind. But who was this mystery person? Jade wore no wedding band. A boyfriend or fiancé? Had they squabbled? She’d been obstinate enough to take off on her own this morning. She could have gone off, hit her head, forgotten the situation, and blown the whole thing out of proportion. Maybe the guy was camping somewhere, safe and free of a doomed relationship.
Probably this trek was a mistake. They should have waited to hear what TJ came back with. The big Hawaiian had given him the stink eye when he told him what she meant to do. Cameron glanced back and saw her struggling. He called a rest, but as they stood there, softly panting, she looked more vulnerable than he’d seen her yet.
Could the person she’d been with have attacked her, inflicted the head injury and left her for dead as TJ suspected?
“Jade.”
She raised her eyes, and a protective urge caught him in the gut. “What?” She brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear and braced herself for the next thing he might have to say.
He didn’t want to bludgeon her with possibilities she couldn’t or wouldn’t face, but he needed to know what they were going into. Or if they should be going at all. One of his questions just might turn the key. “Is there a chance you’ll be in danger if we find your companion?”
She stared at him long and hard. “Are you asking whether the person I came hiking with hurt me?”
“Might explain why he didn’t report your accident.”
She swallowed. “And now he’s waiting out here to finish the job?” Hurt crept into her eyes.
“Or he’s left the island.”
She closed her eyes, tipped her face up to the soft rain shower that moved over them. Drops caught in her lashes like tears, but she didn’t cry.
He shifted to ease a spasming hamstring. “Fear can block memory.”
She lowered her chin, mouth set, brow creased. “I’m not afraid.”
The tension in her body showed otherwise. Her strongest clues seemed to be sensations, and he guessed she felt something now. Why evade? “I’m not saying we should stop. Just trying to cover the possibilities.”
Her shoulders dropped. She spread her hands. “Until now I wouldn’t have thought I could lose my entire past. I guess anything’s possible.”
“You felt something.”
She nodded. “But I can’t identify it. And I can’t let it stop me.”
Again he got the unsought urge to keep her safe. Again he balked. He was here at Nica’s request. Aloha required it. Jade was a guest on the island and he an ambassador. Though that sentiment was less prevalent now, it had been drilled into him from his earliest days. “Aloha” means kindness, helpfulness, graciousness, and generosity. Whatever you have, you give. Whatever you can, you do. No room for selfishness, for acting shamefully, greedily, or stingily. There was a saying for someone who did: ‘A ‘ohe paha he ‘uhane—perhaps he has no soul.
So he would help her, as far as he was able. But unlike Nica, he’d keep his eyes and mind open. “Let’s go.”
They moved on through the valley, finding the path of least resistance. He kept expecting her to say, “This is it,” but she just kept plodding as shadows lengthened and the sun touched, then sank behind the mountaintops to their right.
At last Jade stopped in a semicircular patch of ground between the stream and a grove of kukui trees. She turned to him. “I spent the night here.”
“What?”
“On this rock.” She walked over to a boulder beside the stream.
“You were out here two days?”
“I don’t know how long before this point, just that I woke up here and went on to Nica’s.”
He looked up at the steep, lacy falls behind her. “You c
ame down that?”
Reading his doubt, she said, “I’m an experienced hiker.”
Another definitive statement. “How do you know?”
“Because I—” Her face flushed. “I remember Chasm Lake. I can see it. The cirque with the lake reflecting the diamond face of Longs Peak.”
Her excitement seemed genuine.
“Who were you with?”
Her lips parted, then closed. “I hiked it alone. I do that sometimes. It helps me clear my head.”
He frowned. “Then how do you know you weren’t alone this time?”
“Because I remember. There was someone.” She shook her head. “I just can’t see who.”
“Jade, if you were with someone, why would you leave?”
She swayed. “Water.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I can feel it pulling.”
“Think you got separated?”
“Maybe.”
Then why wouldn’t he have come after her? He’d had four days. Unless he couldn’t. Cameron rubbed his beard. The evening was typically mild, cooler at this elevation than where they’d started in the valley, but well within the temperate range. As they said on the island, regarding the weather, “Sometimes same, sometimes little bit different.”
That was a good thing since he hadn’t realized how far Jade had come. He’d planned for an emergency overnight, just in case, but he hadn’t known she’d been out there two days herself. She hadn’t said, and he hadn’t asked. She’d been all set to go alone, and he’d scrambled.
He assessed the setting sun, the climb up the falls, and his energy level. Streams were unpredictable. A hard rain would swell a cataract in minutes, turn even this stream into a force. Maybe she’d been caught in a flash flood, she and her companion.
This area was broad enough to handle a swell in the stream without washing them away, flat enough for the two mats he had coiled in the side buckles, and he could stretch a nylon tarp to keep the rain off. “We’ll stop here.” He unfastened his pack.
She pressed her hands to her waist, staring up at the falls. “I can keep going.”
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