I rolled my eyes. His technological skills were beginning to irritate the crap out of me, not because he was that good, but because he was right and I, someone who had always prided himself on his skills, was looking like a technophobe. To prove I wasn’t a complete moron, I pulled my phone and looked at the screen to check the time. “We’re at least an hour behind Andi. She’ll be getting to South Point before long.”
“The meeting’s not until dawn,” Tiny said.
“I’ll bet Swenson is there already. We’ve got to get moving.” I surveyed the room, looking for Shaw. Why hadn’t he tried to rip anyone’s head off in the last few minutes? “Where’s Shaw?”
Tiny made the “got me” face, so did Alexander. A voice in the crowd said, “He left.”
Alexander and I stared at each other for a second. Not again, I thought. “So much for needing our help. But, we’ve got a bigger problem. If Deke didn’t tell Swenson about Andi, and if Burroughs didn’t tell him, who the hell got her involved in this in the first place?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Alexander and I excused ourselves and hurried to the car. If we got going right away, we might catch up to Shaw long before the drive was over. At least, that was the plan until we saw the car. We stood, gawking in disbelief. Had Shaw done this or had our luck run out?
“Well, shit,” I said, “we’re boxed in.” With not even six inches of space on the front end and even less on the back, we were going nowhere until someone moved. “Wait a minute, that’s Shaw’s truck in front. He still has to be here.”
“He ain’t gettin’ very far without a vehicle.” Alexander stomped toward the bar’s entrance without saying a word.
The surrounding grounds were dotted with mangoes and palms. Ground cover and the possibility of spooking a wild boar had me unwilling to go traipsing through the neighborhood looking for our missing cowboy. “Ask Tiny if he knows who that car belongs to!”
Alexander raised his hand over his head and waved as he entered. He returned a minute later with Tiny waddling behind. Tiny clucked his tongue while he shook his head. “You boys just got all kinds of trouble following you around.” He tapped his phone’s display.
What was this? Another speed dial button? I held up a hand. “Wait! Why don’t we just ask the driver of that car to move?” I pointed at the vehicle behind us.
Tiny pursed his lips. “Because he’s gone. That’s Haiku’s car. Actually, Cousin Jun’s. But, Haiku drove it.”
“That can’t be,” I said. “He was on stage.”
“He told my Cousin Jun he needed to borrow the car because he was out of gas. Haiku’s been doing that a lot since the gauge broke. Anyway, he said they were going to go get a gallon and he’d be right back.” Tiny tapped his forehead. “My guess is that he and Shaw are halfway to Kona by now.”
I stared at Tiny. “Shaw went with him? They’re on their way to South Point?”
“Cousin Jun didn’t know. Like I said, Haiku’s been running out of gas a lot lately, so Jun didn’t think anything of it. Even Cousin Tai, cheap as he is, would have done it.” The tinny voice coming from Tiny’s phone was loud enough to hear even though the phone wasn’t on speaker. “I need a tow. This one’s on Cousin Jun.” He paused for a moment and listened. “Wikiwiki, brah, these boys don’t have a lot of time.” He winked at us, said a quick goodbye, then slipped the phone into his back pocket. “He’s not happy, but it won’t be long. You’re lucky he lives here.”
“Are you related to half the island?” I shot a glance at Alexander. “He’s your Big Island equivalent.”
Alexander’s jaw puckered and he raised his eyebrows . “You wanna make a change?”
I grumbled. “He’s not technologically averse.” On the other hand, this was our second tow truck in twenty-four hours. “I’m happy with you,” I said. I had no desire to meet more of Tiny’s relatives no matter how helpful they were.
Tiny left Alexander and me alone as we waited. Even though the evening temperature still hovered in the mid 70s, moisture in the air combined with the steady breeze to create a distinct coolness. Overhead, the stars were clear and bright. In Honolulu, the ambient light is just like that of any other large city in the world. As a result, we see only a small percentage of the stars in the sky. Here, however, miles from any large town, the sky was black with millions of twinkling lights. The scent of plumeria cloaked the air in sweetness.
“Do you think we’ll get there in time?”
“I hope so. We cuttin’ it close.”
My phone bleeped with a text message notification. While I’d never tried photos with my phone before, I could handle the basics, so I retrieved and read the message. “I don’t believe this. It’s from Blueslover. He said Warren just left with Andi. They’re on their way to Ka Lae.”
Alexander frowned at me. “Why would she go see him?”
“Remember the amulet? I think Warren’s got one just like it. Maybe they think together they’re invincible. I thought your niece was smarter than that.”
“She is.” Alexander’s tone was unusually curt, but felt like a purely defensive reaction to me.
“I hear a diesel engine. Let’s hope it’s our tow truck.”
“How come he got in touch with you?”
“Who?” I asked.“Donny? I don’t know. It makes no sense. How do we reach Warren? Maybe Belly Ring knows a way to reach him.”
“You mean Warren’s girlfriend?”
“Yeah, the one who lied to us and then threw us off the porch.”
“She was only protecting her kid,” Alexander said. “Besides, we don’t got a phone for her.”
I shook my head. Alexander was way too trusting. “She was lying about Warren, I tell you. But, you’re right, we don’t have her number. What about Benni?”
“I don’t think that gonna work either, McKenna. Benni said Warren’s paranoid. He won’t be carrying any cellphone. Besides, what are you gonna say to him? Be a good guy and bring Andi back? This is the dad who gave her an amulet when she was six and told her it would protect her from evil spirits. You really think someone like that gonna be reasonable?”
An Aloha Towing truck rumbled into the driveway. The diesel engine shattered the night’s quiet, filling it instead with a loud clacking and exhaust fumes that smothered the fragrance of plumeria and jasmine. “Okay, let’s say you’re right. How do we get to them before they get to South Point?”
Alexander let out a deep sigh. “We can’t. But, we gotta try.”
It seemed the process to get the car behind us hooked up properly was taking forever. The driver was quick and cordial, but he checked and double-checked every detail to avoid damaging the vehicle. With the preparations out of the way, he completed the actual moving in a matter of minutes.
On the way to South Point, I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell we were doing here on this island. The whole trip was pissing me off. We’d done nothing more than chase Andi’s shadow from one whim to another. And now she and her two dads were all headed for the southernmost point in the US to deal with some kind of madman.
I sat, sullen, in the passenger’s seat as Alexander drove. Neither of us said a word and by the time we were halfway to Kona, I was ready to give up and head home. Despite the string of failures over the last few days, leaving wasn’t an option. I closed my eyes, listening to the steady drone of tires on asphalt.
The dream began with the constant hum sounding more and more like the intermittent rhythm of the surf breaking near shore. The early-morning sun illuminated the water around me into a brilliant turquoise. I sat on a surfboard looking out to sea. To my right, a small wave, no more than a couple of feet high, meandered past as though it was in slow motion. I yelled, “Kimu! Where the hell are you?”
A blonde wearing a white sundress smiled at me as she rode the wave toward shore. What the hell? What was Roxy Tanner doing in my dream? She cut along the wave’s crest like a pro. Here, in the realm between fantasy and reality, Alexander’s Great
Grampa Kimu held office hours. Once again, I wondered why he couldn’t just send me a memo.
“What she doin’ in here?” It was the dead surfing grandfather himself.
“Why are you asking me? I thought this was your idea.” Roxy, or Harris, or whoever she might really be dropped off her board into the water. When she came up, she looked straight at me and raised her right hand to her ear with her thumb and pinky extended. Even though we were in a lull between waves and the water was flat, I couldn’t hear her words over the sounds of the surf. It didn’t matter. The signal, “call me,” was clear.
Kimu sat on the same ten-foot wooden board he’d used in previous dreams. He looked completely relaxed with his feet dangling in the water. Unlike me, he probably was. “Hey, McKenna, thought you might want these.” He tossed gold coins into the air.
A thousand golden flecks of light sparkled around me, twinkling like stars in the sky. When I reached out, one appeared in my palm, two others landed on my board. The rest turned black and fell into the sea.
I stared at the gleaming gold in my hand, then peered at Kimu. “Where did you get Spanish doubloons?”
“I know a guy.” When he shrugged, another wave rolled through, this one stronger and faster than the last. The rocking motion nearly knocked me into the ocean. I panicked, dropped the coin, and grabbed the board. The doubloon plunked into foamy white surf along with the two others that had lain before me. “Can’t we do this on land or—what the hell is that?” Another surfer glided up next to Kimu. It was the fattest pig I’d ever seen in my life.
Kimu, who wore bright red board shorts and an “NBC” baseball cap, seemed unperturbed by the creature. Two could play at that game. I waved a hand at the NBC hat. “When did you go to Hollywood?”
“I thought you might like it. You gotta be less uptight, McKenna. You been so wound up. Dis a beautiful island. We thought you might need a little help.” He was nonchalant. Did he even see the board and monstrosity next to him?
“What do you mean ‘we’?” I pointed at the swine surfer. “You can—see him?”
“Who? Big Boy? What wrong wid you? Who dat wahine anyway?”
“You don’t know?”
“Course not. I been dead ten years. How I gonna meet her?”
“Forget her. At least she’s real. What are you doing with a pig on a surfboard?”
The pig bellowed at me with a sound that was a cross between a squeal and a lion’s roar. The ferocity nearly knocked me off my board.
The disgust in Kimu’s tone couldn’t be more obvious. “Don’t you know nothing? Big Boy ain’t no pig. He’s a wild boar.” He waved a shaka sign at Big Boy and got a nod in return, then continued, “You might wanna get some lessons. He better den you.”
“Big Boy?” I gaped at the two of them. “Pig, boar, whatever. Call him a cow for all I care—he’s almost that big. Why are you two here?” Big Boy wore sunglasses and a pair of red-white-and-blue board shorts topped off by a white straw hat straight out of an old political poster.
Kimu shook his head. “I been patient wid you, but you gotta show a little respect. You upset Big Boy. He ain’t as big as no cow.” Kimu pointed at the shoreline. “That’s a cow.”
Big as life, grazing on a patch of grass in the middle of the white sandy beach, was a brown-and-white Hereford. I glanced at Big Boy, then again at the cow and mustered the snidest tone I could. “Why isn’t he out here?”
“A cow? Out here?” Kimu belly laughed. “Everybody know cows can’t surf.”
Big Boy snorted twice and stood on all fours. Apparently, he had no time for stupid haoles. A wave pushed his board forward as I tried to avoid flipping over. Big Boy left us behind, zigzagging like a pro toward the beach.
“Show off,” I muttered.
“Big Boy likes to hang eight. Pretty dangerous move for a guy his size.”
I still didn’t know why Kimu was here—or more correctly, why I was sitting on a damn surfboard in the ocean getting my ass wet while I watched a pig prove he could surf better than me. “Fine. To hell with the damn pig. Will you just cut to the chase? I don’t have all night to figure out your riddles.”
Kimu huffed as he eyed a huge wave that had appeared out of nowhere. “Got a good one comin’? You gonna ride?”
I gaped at the tsunami coming our way. A bright yellow school bus complete with flashing lights could hide inside that curl. Halfway up the mountain of water was Roxy, her white sundress whipping in the wind. I screamed, “No! I’m not riding any waves until you tell me why you’re doing this to me! Get me out of here!”
“I just wanna help you out, brah. I no understand why you chasing cow when you oughta check out de boar. Aloha!” He paddled fast and hard, then jumped up to ride away just as the trough’s suction pulled me under. My body felt as though it were being ripped in half.
“McKenna, wake up! McKenna, you okay?”
It was Alexander. We were stopped by the side of the road. His grip was so tight it hurt.
“I’m okay,” I choked. What had just happened? “I had another one of those dreams. Kimu took me surfing.” I wasn’t about to tell him about the pig.
“You was flailing around, but we was on the windy section of road so I couldn’t stop. Just now, I thought maybe you was havin’ a heart attack or somethin’.”
My heart pounded in my chest, but I had no pain. “Nothing so easy. Your Great Grampa Kimu is messing with me again. I wish he would just come out and tell me whatever it is he wants me to know instead of playing all these stupid head games. He’s making me crazy.”
“He always liked teaching lessons to the keiki. What happened?”
“Never mind. It’s too bizarre.”
Alexander sniffed, then pulled back. He leaned closer. His eyes were green in the dashboard lights as he squinted at me. “I don’t know what you been up to, but you gettin’ really weird. You smell awful.” He sniffed again. “Like bacon.”
I sniffed. Sure enough. I’d need a double shower tomorrow. Even more troubling was that I had no idea what the dream meant. As we drove, one aspect of the dream troubled me most. What did Roxy Tanner, pigs, and cows have in common?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It had taken us nearly two hours to make the South Point Road turnoff, which gave me ample time to think after Alexander woke me from the dream. With each passing mile, we drew closer to the beating heart of the island. We would turn off long before we neared the active volcano, Kilauea, but here, ancient rivers of Mauna Loa’s lava spread as though Madame Pele herself had slit open a vein, flooding the land with her own fiery blood. Vast streams of molten rock had cooled, leaving only a black, impermeable crust with a lonely and desolate aura.
The first signs of dawn were little more than an hour away and we still had a twelve-mile drive to South Point on a backcountry road. Twelve more miles during which my self-doubts could plague me. More time to wonder if we’d made the right choice in coming here. I pulled out my cell. The display showed a strong signal. “Good grief, they’re everywhere.”
“Who?”
“Cell towers. Alexander, what if we’re wrong? Everybody said they were heading to South Point, but this is a pretty damn big area. There’s miles and miles of . . . nothing. I think we should call Benni. That is, if her phone’s turned on.”
“Why would she have her cell turned off? And why call her now?”
“Oh, crap. With everything going on at Tiny’s, I forgot to tell you Benni was turning off her phone because she was going to be at the hospital with Cam. She said she’d fill us in about it later. Maybe she’s out of there by now.”
Alexander rubbed his face. I was exhausted, but he hadn’t had any sleep at all. He had to be ready to drop. He croaked, “Call her.”
I wasn’t about to wait for him to change his mind and connected the call immediately. Benni picked up on the second ring, sounding as though she hadn’t slept either. Her words nearly broke my heart. “Did you find her?”
“Not y
et, but we could be close. You’ve got your phone back on.”
There was silence on the line for a second, then Benni said, “I got Cam signed in at the hospital and came home. I’m so tired I almost fell asleep on the road.”
My heart went to my throat. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You said you’re close. Where are you?”
“South Point. The turnoff, actually. We know she’s with Warren. I hope he’ll protect her.”
“Jesus,” she said. “Warren’s not exactly trustworthy. What are you doing way down there?”
“We think they’re on their way to the parking lot at South Point. Shaw’s looking for her, too. I suspect he’s with Haiku. Have you heard anything at all?”
“No, and it’s a good half hour from where you’re at to South Point. You’re sure that’s where they’re going?”
“According to Tiny, that’s where they were meeting. I’m sorry I disturbed you.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad you did. At least I know there’s still hope.” Benni paused, then continued. “I couldn’t sleep last night and started going through Andi’s desk. I found a Valentine’s Day card from Donny.”
“So he does have a crush on her,” I said.
“No, it was a sister card. Maybe we’ve all misjudged him. It sounds like you’ve got an open channel with him, McKenna. He ignores my calls. Please, call him and tell him Andi needs his help. If he knows anything, maybe he can help bring my little girl home.”
I didn’t know what to say. The call ended quickly with me feeling like the biggest schmuck in the world. The damage was done—I’d raised Benni’s hopes. I muttered, “He sent her a Valentine’s Day card.”
“Who?” Alexander’s brow furrowed, but kept his eyes on the road.
“Donny. I thought he had a crush on Andi, but maybe he just wants a sister.”
Alexander pursed his lips and shook his head. “They ain’t blood, McKenna. He still might be obsessing about her.”
Big Island Blues Page 19
