by Toby Neal
“Hi. I’m Sergeant Texeira.” Lei held up her badge. “I came to see the boys who arrived last night?”
“Aunty!” Danny’s smiling face nudged under the woman’s elbow, bringing an answering grin to Lei’s face. “You came!”
“Welcome to our home,” the woman said, opening the screen door to Lei. “Philomena Butaga. Elizabeth speaks highly of you. I see you were expected. Danny, go tell the other boys they have a visitor.”
The boy trotted off. Butaga extended a dimpled hand to Lei, and she shook the woman’s hand. “Thanks. I think highly of Elizabeth, too. Are the boys doing all right?”
“As well as can be expected. My husband and I keep our home available for those first tough days after kids are removed. We have low expectations. I just try to get them cooking, eating, and sleeping. Our goal is to stabilize them, let them know there are kind people and plenty in the world.”
Danny and Kekoa returned. Lei could tell they wanted to hug her, but they hung back. She opened her arms. “I sure missed you guys.” They came then and pressed against her, their arms crossing over one another’s. “Where’s Dexter?” Lei asked over their heads.
“He’s in bed. He’s not talking.” Kekoa’s voice came out muffled as his lean brown face pressed against her sternum. Lei remembered how good it had felt to finally hug someone, her Aunty Rosario, after she’d been rescued by Child Protective Services from the house where her mother had died. That the boys had attached to her so intensely was a weighty gift.
“Let’s go see him.”
“Yeah, and when you boys get back, I could sure use some help with this adobo.” Butaga stirred a pot on the stove.
Danny towed Lei down a dimly lit, linoleum-tiled hall. The boys were between ten and thirteen years old, but their behavior was that of younger children—a product of their enslavement and trauma.
Dexter was lying on the bottom mattress of a pair of bunk beds, his back turned to the room. A TV, DVD player, and game system dominated one side of the small room, and nests of blankets on the floor showed what the boys had been doing before Lei’s arrival.
“Didn’t I tell you straight?” Lei pointed at the game system. “Soft beds, lots of food, and all the video games you could want.”
Dexter heard her voice and rolled over. His dark eyes, meeting hers, were expressionless. She dropped to her knees beside his bunk and stroked his rough black hair off his forehead. “Hey, buddy. You okay?”
He shook his head.
“It’s normal not to feel okay after what happened. After what Uncle did to you.” It was important to acknowledge what the boys had been through without dramatizing it. “I smell Aunty Philomena cooking adobo.” Lei sniffed theatrically. “I know the smell of good adobo anywhere. She told me she needs help. Can you boys go help her? I want to talk to Dexter for a minute.”
“Okay. But when we get back, you have to play video games with us,” Danny said.
“Deal.”
The other two boys left, and Lei sat beside Dexter’s bunk. “My friend Elizabeth said she was sending someone to talk to you. I know you may not want to, but you should tell them what happened. It helps.”
Dexter’s brown eyes were blank as old pennies. Lei drew a breath, let it out. “I know a little what you are going through. I was rescued and went to a crisis home, like this one, when I was younger than you.”
His gaze flicked over her, lingering on the badge clipped on her belt and her sidearm in its shoulder holster. She read disbelief in that look.
“It’s true. My mom was on drugs, and she had a bad boyfriend. He—did things to me.” Dexter blinked once, long and slow. “Yeah. It was bad. And then he left my mom, and she was so upset that she blamed me. Beat me up with a hanger and put me in the garage with no food. Then she went in the living room, shot herself up with heroin, and died.”
Dexter slowly sat up.
“How did you get out?” His voice was scratchy from disuse.
“I was in there two days. I called for help and banged on the door, but no one came. I ate cat food. Went in the litter box.”
Dexter wrinkled his nose. “Gross. We had an outhouse at least.”
Lei nodded. “Finally I got so hungry that I broke a window over the sink and crawled out. When I went inside the house, I found my mom’s body.” Lei’s words stuck in her throat, and she cleared it. Tell your tale, Dr. Wilson had said. Tell it enough times, and it stops hurting. Tell it when it will help you or someone else.
“Was it scary?” Dexter frowned. “I’ve never seen a body.”
“It was scary. And very sad.” Lei couldn’t suppress the flash of memory: her mother, Maylene Matsumoto Texeira, slumped against the coffee table, lips blue and foamy, legs sprawled, already beginning to smell. She felt her lips tremble.
He nodded. “My mom does drugs, too. That’s why I got taken away to foster.”
“Drugs hurt a lot of people. I’m sorry your mom is in that scene.” Lei swallowed, pushed on. “So after I found Mom, I called my aunty in California for help. She was too far away to come because I was on Oahu, so I had to go with the cops when they came to the house. They brought me to a place like this. I stayed with a nice haole family until my aunty came and got me and she became my foster mom. The family were good people. They cleaned me up, bought me new clothes, fed me lots of food. But I kept waiting for something bad to happen.”
Dexter nodded. “Uncle could come find me. He’ll know I didn’t throw the grenade like I was supposed to.”
“We’re going to catch Uncle Noah, Dexter. And when we do…” Lei drew a quick, hard breath. “I wouldn’t want to be him. You know that man who hurt me when I was a kid?”
Dexter nodded, eyes wide.
“He went to jail, for a very long time. And when he got out, someone shot him.”
“Whoa,” he whispered.
“Yeah. So don’t worry about Uncle anymore. We’re going to get him and put him away where he can’t hurt anybody.” She stood. “I think Aunty Philomena might need more help with that adobo. What do you think?”
Dexter got out of bed. His ribs were visible through the thin tank shirt as he stood up. “I’m still hungry. I hope she doesn’t get mad that I’m eating so much.”
“I think you’ve come to the right place for eating plenny kine. And it’s a long way from cat food.”
Dexter smiled. It was quick and almost gone before she saw it, but it was real. The boy followed her down the hall, back to the kitchen, where the other boys were chopping vegetables.
“Got another helper here,” Lei said.
The boys helped with the huge pan of chicken, vegetable, and pineapple adobo Philomena was making. Lei looked on, sipping a Coke the bustling woman handed her. Finally, when the rice was cooking in the meal’s final phase, Lei went back to the bedroom with the boys for a few rounds of Halo.
Her phone rang in the pocket of her pants. She paused her character, which was immediately and gleefully annihilated by the boys. “Texeira here.”
“We have intel from Selina Tahua. Got a location of a hideout in Kaupo.” Shepherd’s voice was tense with excitement as he named a remote, tiny settlement south of Hana. “You and Pono come on the raid. We need two more.”
“On it.” Lei jumped to her feet. She handed Dexter, who’d been passively watching, her controller. “Keep my character in the game, will you? I have to go catch some real-life bad guys.”
“Uncle Noah?” Dexter asked, voice wobbling.
“I hope so.” She waved goodbye to the boys and hurried through the house.
Butaga waylaid her in the kitchen. “You’re a magician. Dexter’s eating and talking!”
“He was worried to eat too much.”
“Oh, so sad he would think so. I told him he could eat all he wanted. Speaking of, I made you some adobo fo’ take home. Here, take this.” Butaga thrust a Tupperware container into Lei’s hands.
“Mahalo!” Lei gave the woman a quick hug. “The boys are in good ha
nds here. I hope my visit helped.” And she flew down the steps toward her truck, adobo dish in one hand and phone in the other as she called Pono with the change of plans.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I woke to the throbbing of my ribs in the silver light of dawn. The river gleamed nearby, ripples revealing its ever-shifting power beneath the glossy surface, like the muscles of a snake beneath its skin.
I was shaky, my eyes dry and hot as expended brass. Anxiety clenched my gut. The wound was definitely infected. We had to get help today. I sat up carefully, but couldn’t stifle a moan. The whites of Falconer’s eyes gleamed in the dim morning as he turned his gaze to me.
“You didn’t wake me up for a watch,” I accused.
“You needed the rest more than I did.”
I had no response to this. He handed me a shucked ear of corn.
“Keep your strength up.”
I was only able to eat a couple of bites. “You take the rest.” He ate it without speaking. I scanned the river, hoping for some sign of other humans. A whimper from MacDonald indicated that the man was waking up, but when I looked at his face, he didn’t appear to recognize me.
Mist swirled off the river’s surface, and as if conjured from wishful thinking, I heard the putt-putt of an outboard. A long wooden pirogue appeared with a man at the back, steering a small outboard. A second man near the front wielded a paddle.
Falconer stood. “We should keep the weapons out of sight for now. Don’t want them to think we’re hostile.”
“Agreed.” I laid the M16 down, tossing the shirt over it, but kept the pistol in my waistband. Falconer kept his similarly placed.
The pirogue came directly to the dock. Falconer approached the men, his hands open and raised halfway in a universal gesture of nonthreatening entreaty.
“We need help.” His Spanish was slow and careful. “We are American. We have injured men and need to get to a hospital.”
A spate of excited Spanish patois met this. The first man in the canoe jumped out onto the dock and tied the hand-hewn craft to one of the wooden pilings. The men were brown and stocky, wearing worn pants and mud-spattered shirts. I’d begun to think everything was mud-colored in this country.
Falconer tried to slow down the patter of speech, but when the men reached back into the canoe for machetes and a pile of burlap bags, Falconer shook his head and pointed to us.
More Spanish. More gesturing. Falconer wasn’t winning whatever argument was going on.
I breathed shallowly. Tremors racked me. I looked over at MacDonald. He was awake, but stared vacantly at the sky, where sun-brushed clouds heralded a day that was doubtless going to be hotter than a carpet steamer.
But at least it wasn’t currently raining.
We were a fine pair, MacDonald and I. Poor Falconer.
Falconer returned. He was carrying a sack and a machete. “They came to harvest the corn that’s ripe this morning. They can’t take the time to run us back before they pick the corn. They told me I can harvest with them to pay for the ride across the river.”
“I should help.” I moved, pulling my legs in under me to stand, but pain rendered me breathless. He shook his head impatiently.
“No. I’ll go help them. I need you to keep an eye on MacDonald—we can’t leave him. I gotta go. The sooner we harvest the corn, the sooner we’ll be out of here.”
I dropped back. The three men, Falconer towering behind the smaller, native men, disappeared into the field.
Dark memories came and went as I fell into a doze. Knowing I was delirious didn’t help.
I relived the moment when I found my mother passed out in Kahului. Her blond hair protruded from a sleeping bag next to a dumpster. I’d thought she was dead, but she was only drunk and dehydrated. That had been her rock bottom and, eventually, the beginning of a new life.
And here I was, sick with infection and out of my head, on a riverbank in Honduras, my ruined feet encased in rotting wet leather, body failing. The tiny part of my mind that was still conscious hoped like hell this was my bottom.
Another memory. My brother, Jared. Stronger than me this time, leading the way, pulling my shirt and crawling just ahead of me as I choked on smoke and dragged our beloved dog by her collar, barely escaping the burning house.
Sitting beside Lei in the hospital bed after she’d lost the baby. She turned to me, freckles like flecks of dried blood on her pale skin, her hand in mine clammy. Her eyes begged, and I shut mine because I couldn’t bear it.
“Baby?” she asked. I shook my head. She wailed as she turned away, a cry I was too numb to give.
Wasn’t there anything good I could remember?
Kiet’s eyes were the deep green of the algae-rich pond Jared, I, and our dad used to fish in the summers growing up. Kiet hugging me, his sweet breath on my cheek, his arms and legs tight around me. Kiet snuggling against me on the couch. Laughing as I threw a ball with him in the yard. Sprawled on his back, sleeping in the same pose I did—one arm up behind his pillow, the other down along his side.
Lei coming to the door of our darkened room the night before I left, wearing nothing but a towel, a hesitant but determined expression in her shadowed eyes. I went to her, hoping. The kiss said everything, and the heat between us burned up the dross, the wasted time, the misunderstandings and grief.
My family was waiting for me. I just had to make it home.
I woke when water splashed on my face. My eyes felt like marbles on an iron griddle. “Get up and onto the boat.” Falconer slapped me again with a hand trailed in river water. “We’re going to Nicaragua.”
Kaupo is the first sign of human habitation in miles of wide open, barren, wind-twisted coastline after the outpost of Ulupalakua Ranch. The area reminded Lei of those vast sweeps of empty country in California that she and Stevens had traveled through when they’d gone to Yosemite for their honeymoon. She’d done this drive a few times as a day trip with Stevens and Kiet, going fishing at hidden rocky beaches in places only locals knew called Black Point and Plenny Kiawe, enjoying the swoop and meander of the narrow, two-lane road.
Now, following Shepherd’s SUV in Pono’s jacked-up purple truck, sirens and lights off and radio silent in case Noah was monitoring the police band, the hour-long drive was long and stressful. Lei filled her Glock’s clip and a second one, loading them with fifteen rounds each. That done, she prepped two pump-action shotguns as Pono, jaw bunched and meaty hands tight on the wheel, navigated the road at high speed.
They hit a cattle guard and levitated. The box of shotgun shells flew off Lei’s lap, hit the dash, and tinkled all over the front of the cab.
“Shit!” Lei unbuckled her belt and bent forward to retrieve the shells just as they hit a curve. Unbuckled, Lei flew forward and smacked her head on the dash. “Pono! At least let me get to the raid before I get killed!” Lei hauled herself back into the seat and buckled up.
“Sorry.” The tiny replica war helmet dangling from Pono’s rearview mirror swayed and spun wildly. “I sure hope this is good intel. Long way out here for a dry run.”
“Shepherd seemed sure he’s at this location. Some Hana PD are meeting us out there. We have to get this guy.”
“You seem pretty invested.”
“If you’d seen those boys, you would be, too.” Lei picked up a shell, rammed it into the chamber, and stowed the box of ammo behind her seat. “This guy is the worst scum we’ve dealt with in a while.”
Pono inclined his head in silent agreement. They reached the tiny settlement of Kaupo, little more than a small general store with the look of a shoe box left too long in the elements, and a few dilapidated houses—the wild beauty of the deserted strip of coastline continued, unbroken, miles farther on. An almost invisible, overgrown track led off the main road and headed toward the foothills, and Shepherd turned there. They followed, bumping over potholes hidden by overgrown grass, broken-down fencing made from cut guava wood testifying to the area’s history in cattle ranching.
The road branched, and they took the left. Now wild ginger lined the narrow dirt track, leaning in with heavy, fragrant bouquets of silky orange flowers and long, sword-like leaves. The smell of ginger wafted headily through the truck as they pulled up in an open area where several trucks were parked. In the distance, up a slight hill, Lei could see a small house shingled in silver cedar and an unpainted barn.
One of the black SUVs contained four Hana PD officers, who leaped out at the sight of them. Lei put on her helmet and tightened down her Kevlar, handing Pono his shotgun and hefting her own. The sharp tang of gun oil and steel replaced that of wild ginger blossoms. The others were similarly armed as they gathered behind the vehicles. Lei breathed deliberately, consciously calming pre-raid jitters.
“Let’s fan out in pairs and approach the house.” Shepherd gestured right and left. The men nodded, and as they bent and moved forward through knee-deep grass, even the eight of them, armored and armed, felt inadequate against open, unprotected space and higher-ground defensible positions as they headed for the house and barn.
Lei and Pono hung back a bit. Lei scanned the area, her breath echoing inside the helmet, which as usual felt hot and restrictive but comforting, too, a layer of protection that dulled her hyper-alert senses.
The first shot from the house knocked one of the Hana PD officers down, and they all dropped to the ground. The knee-deep grass restricted vision but also provided a layer of cover. Lei belly crawled rapidly forward to a large boulder. She pulled up behind it, rested the shotgun on top, and aimed for the windows.
The report, as she fired, was always louder than she remembered. The kick of the shotgun smacked her padded shoulder, and the glass window disappeared with a distant tinkle.
“Check the officer back there. I’ll cover you,” she told Pono, who’d come up beside her. He nodded, anonymous and menacing in his helmet and body armor. He crawled to the downed officer, who’d rolled on his side, moaning.
“The vest took the shot. He’s okay,” Pono said into the general comm unit. He grabbed the back of the man’s vest and tugged him along through the grass to shelter behind the boulder.
