by Toby Neal
“Hope the rock doesn’t block us from digging there.” Lei put a hand on Dexter’s thin shoulder. The SWAT and narco team were still busy gathering evidence, and Shepherd had gone to join his partner. “I’m going to take the cuffs off so you can help us dig. Don’t make me sorry that I’m trusting you.”
Dexter nodded, his eyes on his filthy feet in worn rubber slippers they’d found by the door of the shack. He seemed unable to speak.
The kid needed psychological treatment. Lei mentally scrolled through whom she could call to help him. The list began with Elizabeth Black, her favorite social worker with Child Welfare Services. Elizabeth was going to shit a brick when she heard what had happened to these boys while in the system—and heads were going to roll. That was a good thing.
It took Lei and the three boys to carry the dog’s waterlogged body out of the stream and over to where they’d decided to dig the hole. Lei was thankful that the blood had washed down the stream, and lying on his side, the damaged part of his skull out of view, the pit bull appeared to be peacefully sleeping. Lei felt rage rise up, lifting the tiny hairs all over her body. Boss Man was a thug who used kids and animals to do his dirty work—was there anyone lower on the planet? She didn’t think so.
Lei jumped onto the T-shaped blade of the shovel to get it into the soil. The exertion of digging was therapeutic for all of them, but slow going. “So how did you get those pot plants so big?” Lei asked, swiping an arm across her sweaty face. “This soil seems pretty hard. Not so good for agriculture.”
“We did a lot of compost and Miracle-Gro,” Kekoa said. He’d shed his shirt, and his ribs showed. Boss Man clearly hadn’t been overly generous with food. “We watered every other day if it didn’t rain.” He explained the finer points of marijuana cultivation as they worked up a sweat.
Manolo appeared at Lei’s elbow. “Need some help?”
“Yeah,” Lei panted. She handed him her shovel, and just as the boys were tiring, the rest of the SWAT team showed up.
“I can tell we don’t get to leave until this is done,” the SWAT leader said, a smile lurking by his mouth.
“That’s right, sir.” Lei gazed at the man unblinking, willing him to understand her words and actions were for the boys’ benefit. “We care enough to clean up after ourselves and show respect to those who deserve it.”
“You get no argument from me.” The team leader took the shovel from Dexter. “Take a load off, kid.”
With the men working, it didn’t take long to make the hole big enough for the dog, and Lei and Manolo carefully set the body into it. The boys took the shovels again and filled it in, and as the spades whacked down on the earth, packing it firmly, Lei could see that the gamble she’d taken with the kids had paid off.
This was good for them to see and do. They were moving and sweating easily now, Kekoa and Danny even flicking clods of dirt at each other. Kids were resilient. They’d be all right.
Dexter was the only one she was really worried about. He was still silent and robotic, but at least he was moving and helping.
Lei fetched a large round stone from the stream. “Boys, you each bring one, and we’ll put them on his grave.” When they’d each set a stone on the pile of earth, Lei set hers on top of the pile.
“Here lies Killah, a brave, strong dog who obeyed his master. He won’t be forgotten, and neither will the man who caused his death.” Lei looked up. “Anything you boys want to say? You never have to come back here, to this place, again.”
“I’m glad to be leaving,” Kekoa said. And he threw a handful of dirt on the dog’s grave.
“You did what you had to do,” Danny said, gazing at Lei as dirt sifted from his hand onto the pile. “And I’m glad you came.”
“I wish you didn’t do that shit to us,” muttered Dexter, staring at the pile of stones. “I wish I never came here.” Lei knew he was addressing the man whose name they knew only as Uncle.
“Let’s go.” The SWAT captain gestured. The team headed back up the trail, but the boys didn’t move until Lei did. Her heart squeezed as she glanced back at them, their dark heads bent as they followed her up the path like ducklings.
Maybe she could be the boys’ temporary foster placement. It was crazy, but why not? Other than that she was barely home with her own child, of course—but she could take it easy, stay home more, once she found out where the skull had come from.
Lei was eager to get the satellite phone out of her shot-up truck. That reminded her of Tony and where she’d left him in the forest. She caught up with the SWAT leader, the boys jogging to keep up with her.
“Excuse me, Captain? I need to go check on something.”
Chapter Seventeen
I could feel the warm trickle of blood down my side as I allowed Falconer to pull off my shirt. He’d quickly stripped off some banana leaves, and after an initial look, he pressed them down over the wound.
“No big deal. Couple of inches long, half an inch deep or so. Probably hurts like hell, but far from fatal. Keep pressure on and the bleeding will stop soon. I’ll try to rig some sort of bandage. The biggest danger is going to be infection.”
He didn’t need to tell me that. I hissed out a breath between my teeth as he levered me up into a sitting position. “Your shirt is totally ruined with pig blood—and some of yours, too. Once I get a bandage on, you can wear MacDonald’s undershirt.” Falconer rummaged among the banana leaves, calling for the knife.
MacDonald brought it over. “Kerry has the pig prepped already. Once we get our shoes back on, we can get going.”
“I hope you buried the guts,” Falconer said. “Except the heart and liver. We can eat those raw.” Even in my state of shock from injury, my stomach rumbled happily at the thought. Raw liver? Bring it on. “In fact, give it to Stevens. He needs some replacement calories after all this.”
“You earned it, LT.” Kerry brought me the still-warm liver, and God help me, I ate the palm-sized organ in just a few nausea-inducing bites while Falconer used flexible strips of the spines of banana leaves to tie a crude pad of leaves over my wound.
My stomach lurched, but the liver made it down. I breathed through it, refusing to gag, knowing my body needed the nourishment no matter how disgusting. Falconer tied off the strips, and once they were holding the pad of leaves in place, he and MacDonald helped maneuver the undershirt on over it. He helped me up.
“You can use my uniform shirt to carry the pig,” I suggested. MacDonald nodded, taking the ruined garment and buttoning the pig’s carcass into it. Using one of the shelter poles, he and Kerry slung the meat over their shoulders while I focused on getting my socks and shoes on my ruined feet.
Ten minutes later we were moving. I brought up the rear, watching out back as I’d done before, the M16 cradled loosely in one arm as I kept the other down and clamped at my side. The makeshift bandage rubbed the wound painfully and the makeshift ties of banana fiber soon frayed apart, but I didn’t want to slow us down.
“Far from life endangering, except for infection,” as Falconer had so dismissively said. But it hurt like a sonofabitch, and I mentally willed the blood trickling down my side to wash the bacteria from the pig’s tusks out of the cut.
We were heading east now, and the going was slow, as we’d reached an area of heavier undergrowth. Tall mahogany, kapok, and Brazil nut trees still towered overhead, but now we pushed our way through stands of palm-like plants, bromeliads, and wild ginger. Vines and ferns tangled up the trunks of the trees and tripped us. Falconer continued to lead the way, checking the compass on the knife and using it to hack the vines out of the way as he needed to.
The pig weighed about fifty pounds, a significant amount in our weakened state, and the men paused in an open area to move the pole to their other shoulders just as Falconer seized something that wasn’t a vine.
He’d grabbed some sort of slender green snake. He gave a grunt of surprise and heaved it instinctively away—straight onto Kerry. The snake, about two feet lo
ng, landed on Kerry’s chest. The young man yelped and grabbed at it, dropping the pole. The pig slid out of the sling into the leaves, and Kerry stumbled to one knee. The snake coiled backward and sank its teeth into his wrist.
Lei got a ride out to her shot-up truck with the narco team—Shepherd wanted to check the area where she’d left Tony bound in the jungle personally. They rounded the curve of the bluff where Lei had reached the road and flagged down the Mustang. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“I didn’t send Hana PD out here right away because I knew Boss Man was right behind me. I just assumed he’d free the boy and take him with him, but once I saw what he’d done out at that shack…” She shook her head. “He clearly doesn’t care who he hurts. Straight into the trees from here.” Lei pointed as they pulled over and parked. “I’m not surprised Hana PD wanted to wait for me to come out to check on the kid’s location—it was hard to describe. I was so amped up when I got out of there I hardly registered details of the car I commandeered, let alone how to describe what the exact area looked like.”
Late evening was casting long shadows under the trees as Lei led the two narcotics detectives through the trees. It was a surprisingly long way inland through thick underbrush and trees, at least half a mile, by the time they found the teen.
They could see by the track of disturbed leaves that Tony had managed to wriggle twenty or so feet from where she’d left him. He was butted up against the trunk of a kukui nut tree, apparently rubbing the belt on his feet against it in an attempt to escape. His dark eyes glared at them from over the T-shirt she’d used to gag him so many hours before. Tears, snot, and dried blood from his nose covered his face.
“Hey, Tony. I see Uncle didn’t take you with him.” Lei folded her arms as Shepherd and his partner freed the boy’s feet and took off the gag. “I’m thinking you’re actually lucky he didn’t put a bullet in your head. Guess he just left you to die of thirst instead.”
“Screw you, bitch,” Tony whispered hoarsely.
Shepherd looked at Lei. “Want I should put the gag back on him, Sergeant?”
She and the kid stared at each other for a long moment, and the boy was the first to look away. “No. He’s going to mind his manners now. Aren’t you, Tony?”
The boy refused to look at her, clearly not wanting to be gagged again. “I need to piss.”
Lei turned and headed back toward the vehicles as Shepherd assisted with that awkward necessity. She reached the road and walked down it, arriving at her truck.
The sight of her ruined vehicle, covered from top to bottom with bullet holes, brought tears of angry exhaustion to Lei’s eyes. She fumbled her key out of her pocket and unlocked the truck, then retrieved the satellite phone from her purse under the front seat. It flashed with a message.
She called the voice mail. The satellite connection worked, even out here.
“This is Lieutenant Colonel Westbrook. We have a situation to discuss. Please call me as soon as possible.” Her finger hovered over Call Back, but just then Shepherd’s black SUV rolled up. She wanted privacy for that call.
She tucked the phone into her filthy pants and picked up her purse, sunglasses, and Kiet’s booster seat. “Can you give me a ride back to Kahului?” she asked Shepherd, carefully not looking at Tony. The kid was sitting way in the back of the vehicle, still in cuffs.
“Man, Sergeant. They did a number on your vehicle. Automatic rounds?” Shepherd said.
“Yeah.” Lei relocked her vehicle, and it gave a strangled bleep at the electronic signal.
“I’ll get Impound to tow it to Kahului for you.” He reached for his radio and called it in.
“It’s evidence now,” Lei said grimly. “At least that way I don’t have to pay for my own damn tow.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tony duck his head. She hoped it was a little shame that made him do so, but that was probably too much to hope for. He was pretty far beneath Boss Man’s thumb.
She got into the front seat beside Shepherd since his partner was already sitting in the back. “So, Tony.” She turned to the boy as they reversed and got on the road. “I have to stop at Hana Police Station to make sure your friends have a foster care situation to go to. Remember them? Kekoa, Danny, and Dexter?”
Tony kept his head down but his shoulders hunched. Definitely a reaction there. Might as well get to work popping his illusions about Uncle Boss Man. “He left those boys bound and gagged in their shack, and he booby-trapped it to blow. Real nice man, your uncle.”
The boy’s head came up. His eyes blazed, dark and feral. “You lie!”
“Me, lie?” Lei turned to the other cops. “Detectives, did you get some photos of the scene when we first approached the shack?”
“I did, Sergeant,” the partner said. “Got some right here, on my phone.”
“Would you show Tony a picture of the bombs set to blow on the shack? And of the boys inside. Please.” She kept her voice flat, overly polite, and he returned in kind.
“Happy to, Sergeant.” He scrolled to the photos on his phone. Lei watched Tony’s face as the teen was forced to see what he didn’t want to know.
“Now you understand why I was happy to see that Uncle had left you alive even though you failed him,” Lei said softly. “When I left you there, I assumed he would free you when he found you, that he would take you with him. But once I saw how he treated the other boys, I realized you’d be lucky to be alive. He doesn’t deserve your help.”
Tony shook his head, a slight negation.
Lei persisted. “What’s his name? That’s all we need. His name.”
Tony hung his head. “Uncle was angry I let you get away. Said I was a screw-up and always would be. Said he was leaving me there so I would learn a lesson. After a few hours I realized he was never coming back.” The boy lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at Lei. “I learned my lesson—it’s all your fault.”
Lei sighed, turned back to face out the windshield. “Guess you just need some jail time. I tried.” She lifted her feet up and rested them on the dashboard, feeling infinitely weary. “Did I or did I not try to help this boy, Detectives?”
“You did, Sergeant.”
Shepherd switched on some mellow Hawaiian slack-key guitar, and Lei leaned her head on the window.
Back at Hana PD, they booked Tony Akahi on charges of attempted murder, destruction of property, and assault with a deadly weapon. The boy was stonily silent as one of the officers put him in a cruiser for the drive to Kahului.
Lei focused on the boys who remained. The three of them stood up when she went into the interview room where they’d been stashed. A pile of food wrappers and soda cans testified to their snacking while she’d been gone.
“We found Tony. He’s still loyal to Uncle, even though Uncle cussed him out and left him tied up in the jungle. But that boy’s brainwashed.” She flapped a hand, dismissing Tony and his delusions. “It’s you guys I’m concerned about. I have a friend. Her name’s Elizabeth Black, and she’s a social worker. She’s on her way, and she has a big heart. She was so pissed when I told her about Uncle and Aunty Selina. We still need a name for Uncle. Did you ever hear him called anything?”
“No. Only ‘Boss’ or ‘Uncle,’” Danny said.
Dexter blinked slowly. He still looked dazed, but the food appeared to have restored him a little. “His first name was Noah. I never heard his last name.”
Lei touched Dexter’s shoulder lightly, appreciating what it meant for the kid to give up the man’s name. “Thanks. That helps. It really does.”
Lei went to the door and told Shepherd to include the first name Noah in the BOLO they had out on the murderous pot grower. She came back in and shut the door. “So I have to go back to Kahului. But I want you to trust Elizabeth. She’ll look out for you.”
Danny grabbed her hand. “Don’t go, Aunty.”
Aunty. The title of respect children called women they cared for in Hawaii. Lei was being called Aunty. Her eyes prickled. She would really
have to see what Elizabeth said about taking care of the boys.
Elizabeth appeared, her strong-boned face peering through the wire-laced window in the door. Lei opened it. “And here’s Ms. Black now. Let me talk with her a minute.”
Lei slipped out and tugged Elizabeth a few feet away from the door. Elizabeth’s twin iron-gray braids hung over sturdy shoulders, emphasizing the Native American shape of her eyes and jaw, the strong look of her face.
“These boys are wounded. Traumatized,” Lei said. “They were kept isolated and used as slave labor. For months. We don’t know how long, exactly.”
“I’m going to see those fake foster parents prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Elizabeth swore, dark eyes hard.
“Yeah, of course you are, and I’ll help with that. But that doesn’t help them right now. They’re terrified, and they bonded to me during the rescue. Can I take them home? Just until you find placements?”
“Lei, you need that like a hole in the head. Especially with your husband overseas. What, you’re going to fill your house with needy strays so you don’t have to remember that? You already have a kid you haven’t seen all day.” Elizabeth frowned at her. “I’d consider it, if I thought you’d actually be around to take care of them.”
Lei ducked her head, feeling smacked and knowing Elizabeth was right. “Fine. But you can’t separate them. I’m really worried about Dexter.” She filled Elizabeth in on recent events and Dexter’s behavior. “I’d keep him under suicide watch.”
“I have a therapeutic crisis home to put them in, where they can all stay together. Introduce me.”
Lei pushed the interview room door open and went in, Elizabeth following. The boys had tidied their mess into a rubbish basket and now sat around the table with their handheld games. They dropped these and looked up apprehensively.
“Boys, this is Elizabeth Black. She’s a social worker, and it’s her job to make sure you’re taken care of. Ms. Black, this is Kekoa, Danny, and Dexter.”
