by Kim Hornsby
Tina and Annie set the patio table for four just in case the men arrived soon. She hoped that Jamey had Wyatt with him and they were on their way up Mombacho. He’d probably call the moment Wyatt was safe. Right after the call to Carrie.
The lights of Granada twinkled below the house, beyond the jungle top as Tina settled Kai in the car seat again to eat her dinner. Annie had prepared coq au vin, with wild rice and mangoes, and it smelled delicious, the aroma of the seasoned chicken and bacon wafting through the house for the last hour. Her fork was only half way to her mouth when Kai started fussing and pulling at his ear. Tina jammed a forkful of food into her mouth and moved to her son while she chewed. Kai was now crying, his face red and angry. “Excuse me, Annie, I’ll take him in the other room. Maybe he’ll go to sleep.”
“Looks like his left ear is bothering him. Maybe he has some congestion and the altitude is making it worse.”
Tina pulled Kai out of the seat and snuggled him in to her shoulder. “Are we up high enough for that?”
“If he’s congested.” Annie nodded. “The guest room’s yours if he falls back asleep and you want to lay him on the bed.”
“I might do that.” Tina disappeared to the back of the house. Twenty minutes later, Kai was half asleep and she heard her cell phone ring in the living room.
“Hello?”
Tina heard a voice in the other room, presumably answering her phone.
“Just a minute, she’s right here.” Annie pushed the door open, handed Tina the phone and left the room.
“Hi,” she whispered, hoping it was Jamey and not the dive shop on Maui.
“No luck,” Jamey’s voice was full of surrender and exhaustion. “Diego got a call that they vacated the island house because it was too small, but nobody knows where they went.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Kai just fell asleep.” she explained her whispering.
“We’re on our way. See you in twenty minutes, Diego says.”
“We have time until the hipica, Jamey. We’ll find him.”
“I know, but I wanted to get him today, long before the parade. Just to know he’s safe.” He sighed. “Where the hell are they?” He didn’t expect an answer.
“Nothing else we can do tonight. Let’s see if we dream.”
Tina didn’t know much about baby ear infections but maybe the wind at the lake today did something. When she was young her nanny often put cotton in her ears when she had an ear ache. Kai was soon asleep and she set him on the bed, creating a bumper with pillows in case he rolled. “No luck, they’ll be here in twenty,” Tina said returning to the table.
“I’m sorry.”
Tina finished her food, while Annie polished off the bottle of wine. “There is something about home cooking and of course, chicken in wine sauce,” she smiled. “You are a great cook, like Diego said.
Annie smiled at her dinner companion. “I imagine you’re hungry with a baby.
Tina nodded. “I normally eat a lot.” She chuckled and held a forkful of creamy chicken and rice to her mouth. “I don’t cook, but I’m always saying I’m going to learn. Jamey has two daughters who are twelve and when they come to visit, I try to make kid food.” She chewed and thought about the twins. “Last summer, I was pregnant and everything repulsed me so I wasn’t much help in the kitchen, but now I make baby food. I’ve extended my culinary repertoire to pureed peaches and bananas.”
Annie laughed. “Kai isn’t suffering. He’s big for his age. Soon those arms of yours will be wishing he was crawling.”
“Already. I wonder when babies crawl,” she said as much to herself as anyone.
“Oh, eight to ten months,” Annie said.
“Soon then. Do you and Diego have children?”
Annie shook her head. “Nope, but lots of friends had children and I remember a few things.” She set her half-full glass on the table. “Your husband has children from a previous marriage?”
“Yes. Twin girls who I genuinely love. I know good manners shouldn’t be a gage for likeability, but they have them and are such sweet children.”
“They live on Maui?”
“No. They live in Jamey’s hometown with his ex-wife, a small town near Seattle. Carnation is a pretty little place on a river. A lovely spot to bring up children. Jamey’s family is a big, wonderful group of kids and adults who all get along and work stuff out if they don’t.”
Just then Annie caught her wine glass before it fell off the table and smashed, but not before wine spilled on her lap. “Oh gosh, what did I do?” She jumped up; her pants and top wet. “Excuse me a minute.”
Tina sopped up the table spill with napkins, and just as she noticed one of the dogs lapping up the liquid on the deck, lights of a car illuminated the patio. The two dogs barked and took off for the driveway.
“That’ll be Diego and your Jamey,” Annie said. “I’ll get their plates ready,” she called from the house.
Tina walked to the truck that stopped in an open-ended garage and watched the two very different looking dogs wag their tails, waiting at the driver door. The frog continued croaking from the swimming pool and Tina imagined the dogs had woken up the barking frog.
It looked like a good life here on the side of the volcano. Granted, the drive to the house from the main road was challenging and bouncy, but Annie had said they bought their lot for a mere fraction of what it would cost in America.
Jamey exited the car first, gently closing the door behind him, looking exhausted. Tina approached him with open arms. “We have food for you.” What else could she say? He was disappointed.
He kissed her forehead, lingering longer than he usually did.
Diego walked towards them flanked by his two dogs. “No luck. But we’re closing in, I just know it.”
She smiled at him. Good attitude. Hopefully he was right. “You guys must be hungry. Annie made some delicious chicken and rice.”
Jamey put his arm around her shoulders and they followed Diego. “Has our son gone to sleep then?”
“He has. I think we might need to have his ear checked tomorrow. He was fussing.”
Jamey nodded, his forehead wrinkled. “Poor ‘lil Dude.” He whistled at the view of Granada beyond the pool. “Gorgeous house, Diego.”
They stood arm in arm looking at the lights of the city while Diego checked on Annie. “I’ve had such a nice afternoon and dinner,” she said. “I feel badly that you’ve been navigating a boat around the islands in the dark. Were there many mosquitoes?” Tina kissed Jamey’s arm, as high up as she could.
“Out in full force. I might be scratching tonight.”
“We’re spoiled on Maui.” At home they hardly had any mosquitoes.
“It’s much cooler up here,” Jamey added
“And no mosquitoes. But there’s a huge family of howler monkeys sleeping above us right now.” She pointed to the trees. “We saw them at sunset. They were amazing. At first, Kai was afraid because it was so loud, but then he noticed the monkeys and stopped fussing.”
Jamey’s smile contrasted his serious expression. “He did? I wish I’d seen his face.”
“You’ll see them in the morning, if we sleep here. Annie suggested we use the guest room. Kai’s already in there, and the road is not very good in the dark.”
Jamey looked out to the jungle below the deck. “Yeah, we almost hit a pig on the way up. Probably a good idea. And, I hate to ask Diego to drive us back to town.”
“Ask Diego if we can leave first thing in the morning.”
Jamey turned to her, his eyes full of concern. “If Wyatt is down there, somewhere, I feel like we need to get back to town. Back to the accident site. But there isn’t much we can do tonight. I just hate waiting for this accident to happen.”
“Me too.” Tina understood his need to not stray far. “The likelihood of Kevin and Rose wandering around with Wyatt at this hour isn’t good.”
Diego arrived to tell them that Annie had gone to bed with a headache. “She said to give her a
pologies to everyone.” He handed Jamey a plate of food and a beer. “I heard you’re crashing in the guest room tonight. I’ll run you down to town at the crack of dawn. Or I can take you down after dinner. But first, let’s eat. I’m starving.”
Chapter 13
Jamey sat upright in bed. Something woke him. Then he heard it again. A strange noise above the house that must be the Howler Monkeys starting up. It didn’t sound like howling but he couldn’t think of a better word. He looked over to see Tina smiling, her breast exposed to his son’s hungry mouth.
“Monkeys,” she whispered.
Others had joined in. It was more like a mechanical sound, like bass feedback, at a very high decibel level. “Wow,” he mouthed. “Did you sleep?”
She nodded. “No dream jump though,” she said.
“I had a normal,” he said.
“Me too.”
Kai looked over to his Daddy, reached for him and when Jamey offered him his thumb to hold, the baby went back to nursing happily. He’d had a strange dream, one he hadn’t had in a very long time. It was a recurring dream that had bothered him as a kid. When he woke at two, he barely remembered the details. The gist of it was that his sister Jenny was a baby and was in danger. He had to keep her safe. Jenny was now in her mid-thirties so laying there in the dark, remembering how the dream haunted his childhood, Jamey guessed he’d done his job. All this worry about Wyatt had dredged up repressed feelings about protecting everyone. When the twins were babies, he’d almost driven himself crazy with worry. Carrie had to put up with a lot of his paranoia, and in those early years with their daughters he’d tried to distinguish dreams from just plain worry about being a good father. With Kai, he’d learned to calm down and not take his dreams so literally. According to Tina’s parenting books it was normal to have these dreams.
He and Tina lay staring at each other in the pre-dawn light, listening to the monkeys in the trees above the house. As more woke, the noise gathered in volume. Kai ignored them as he sucked and swallowed.
“You should see the babies,” Tina smiled.
Jamey smiled back. “As cute as our baby?”
They looked at Kai now lazily sucking his morning milk. “No. But fuzzy, with long arms and darling faces.”
Jamey heard someone in the kitchen moving around, dishes clanging in the moments between howls. “When he’s done with breakfast,” he nodded to Kai, “we’ll head to Granada, have our breakfast there.”
Tina nodded then looked worried. “I wish we’d have a big ole’ dream jump with Kevin, showing where Wyatt is.”
“You and me both.” He slipped out of bed, threw on his cargo shorts and the same T-shirt he’d been wearing for days. “I’ll see if that’s Diego out there.”
The kitchen was mostly dark, but someone was making coffee wearing a headlamp. It didn’t look like Diego. “Good morning,” he said.
“Hi Jamey.” The woman didn’t turn around. “I’m just making the coffee. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you last night. I’m Annie.” She half-turned and waved, then turned back. Her dark hair covered a good deal of the back of her pale robe, making her look like some mythical creature in the semi-darkness.
“I hope your headache is better,” he said.
She set her hands on the counter as if to brace herself, and looked out the window. “I didn’t have a headache,” she said in a strange voice.
He got the impression she was about to admit to something else. Something bad. The skin on the back of Jamey’s neck prickled and he had a flash of something. The dream about his sister Jenny, Wyatt at the hipica, keeping Kai safe. Then, Tina screamed from the bedroom and he was off. In several bounds he was inside the room where Tina stood with Kai in her arms, three feet from the bed, staring at the pillows. “There’s a huge spider in the bed.” She hugged the crying baby to her. “Oh my God, Jamey, it’s enormous. Do they have tarantulas here?”
Jamey flipped on the overhead light. “I don’t know.” He took off his shoe, and holding it like a weapon he approached the bed.
Tina slipped into her sandals. “It was on your pillow going towards the wall.” Her voice was higher than usual.
“I’ll get it, Ti. You just calm Kai.” This must’ve been what he foresaw in the kitchen just before Tina screamed.
Diego rushed into the room and they pulled back the pillows to reveal a black spider as big as Kai’s hand scrambling up the bed to a space between that and the wall. “Banana Spider,” Diego said.
They pulled the bed away from the wall and Jamey smacked it several times as the hairy thing tried to shuffle away to safety. “Venomous?”
“Can be. It’s good you noticed it,” Diego said, picking up the dead insect by a leg and carrying it out the patio door. “Some fancy guest room we offered you two,” he called back.
Tina had turned on the overhead ceiling fan to calm Kai and as he lay in his mother’s arms, watching the blades go around and around, the crying stopped. “I felt it before I saw it,” she whispered to Jamey. “Thank God. Right now I’m so grateful for this intuition.”
He agreed and kissed his son on the forehead.
“I think his ear is still bothering him.”
She stood in only her underwear, more worried about Kai’s ear than Diego’s presence. That’s Tina. Luckily she had a healthy fear of spiders too. The bedside clock read 6:32. He hugged his wife from the side. “Let’s take Kai to a doctor today.” He shuddered to think what might have happened. There were some things he couldn’t control and that was not an easy feeling. He liked to be in control. Responsible for his own fate. And sometimes for his loved ones’ fate.
He just hoped he could control getting to Wyatt in time tomorrow before the horse got to him.
***
The doctor at the clinic prescribed antibiotics for Kai’s ear infection and although Tina didn’t want her child to take drugs at this age, her baby’s screaming as they drove down the mountain was enough to make her want to try anything to relieve his pain.
Once they filled the prescription, Tina and Kai were dropped off at the hotel, while he and Jamey continued on to the real estate office. The men’s plan was to see if the island house renters had been in touch about where they went. If not, Jamey said he might try one more trip out to the island. If the house still looked deserted, they’d visit other rental places in town to see if Kevin and Rose were there.
Tina laid down on the hotel bed to nurse Kai who seemed to want the boob more than ever now that he wasn’t feeling well. She’d given him the antibiotic and was waiting for it to work its magic. When her cell phone rang, she hoped Jamey had good news.
“It’s Annie. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye to you three this morning. I know it seems strange, but I had an inspiration for a painting I’m working on and went out to my studio. When I came up for air, everyone was gone.”
She sounded surprised she’d been deserted, but Diego had told them she was still sick and was lying down. “That’s fine. We really appreciated dinner last night and your guest room.”
“Spider and all?” Annie asked. “I’m horrified that thing got so close to you and your baby.”
Tina shuddered to think how close Kai had come to being bit by a venomous spider. She would’ve crushed the thing in her bare hand if she’d seen it coming for her baby. Arachnophobia be damned. “Part of living in the tropics, I suppose. We have scorpions on Maui and centipedes.”
“Yes, it’s a risk. But then life is one big risk.” She laughed nervously. “I enjoyed our visit yesterday. Diego seems very fond of your husband.” She paused long enough for Tina to speak.
“He’s quite lovable, especially when we aren’t trying to find an abducted child.” Or save that child from being trampled by a horse.
“Diego called him James, not Jamey. I can’t remember what I called him when I saw him this morning. I hope it was the right name.”
“He was born James, but goes by Jamey now.
“Did you take his l
ast name when you married? I always wonder what the young newlyweds are doing nowadays.” Annie seemed chatty. Tina didn’t mind. Kai was nursing lazily.
“I did. I was pregnant when we married and we wanted to have a common family name, so I became Tina Dunn. Not so different from Tina Greene.” She remembered back to the conversation she’d had with Jamey about his last name. He’d told her he didn’t care if she took his name or not, but when she did, he was obviously pleased.
“The reason for my call is to ask if you two would like to join us for dinner tonight. If your plan allows for a night off.”
Regardless of the search for Wyatt, Tina wasn’t sure if going up the mountain again was the best thing for Kai’s ear and said so. “I just gave him a dose of the antibiotic. I doubt it’ll work that fast. But thank you for the offer, Annie. A lot depends on if Jamey makes any headway today in locating Wyatt. And if he sees Kevin and Rose. I’d have to say no.”
They made plans to keep in touch. Kai had fallen asleep and slowly his slack mouth released her nipple so Tina positioned the pillow between him and the edge and settled beside him on the bed. But not before checking for spiders on the white linens.
The dream came right away. Like it had been waiting. Like something that blocked it was now clear. In her lucid state of mind she was excited to see the blurry edges. It was a premonition. Granada. She walked towards the hipica parade route, alone, floating almost, advancing faster than she would up top. The weekend festival was under way. Annie walked briskly up ahead, her face behind the brim of a big straw hat. The grey braid gave her away. The older woman half-ran through the crowd and Tina followed close behind. Turning the corner, she watched Annie duck in to a café that was bursting to the brim with revelers. The ceiling of the cafe was covered in piñatas, streamers, and colorful balloons. Should she go in, brave the crowd to look for Annie? Moments later, Annie exited another door on the far side of the restaurant, with Wyatt on the other end of her arm, struggling. Annie started off down the street, pulling the boy.
