Banana Split (43 page)

Charlie nodded, a huge grin on his face. “It was right here.” He pointed toward a box of what looked like odds and ends on one of the seats. “I bet Nat gave her a ride or something.”

Chapter 45

Let’s go ask him about it,” Sadie said, waving toward the door, her heart in her throat. “If we hurry maybe—”

The boat rocked slightly, and a moment later Sadie heard a voice. “—yeah. Midnight pick up. Quadrant six,” the voice said. Nat’s voice. Was someone with him?

Charlie looked even more hopeful and took a step toward the cabin door. Sadie grabbed him, put a hand over his mouth, and pulled him to the side of the door where she peered out between the hinges. Nat’s back was toward the cabin. He was alone but still talking. He must have had a Bluetooth earpiece or something because both of his hands were free as he stowed a bag under one of the seats near the back. Charlie started wiggling.

“Charlie,” she whispered right in his ear, causing him to go still in order to hear what she had to say. “You have got to trust me right now and stay still. Please. I’ve helped you every way I can, and I promise you that I’m helping you now. Please stop fighting me.”

He stayed still, but she knew he wasn’t convinced.

“Yeah, just grabbing a few things now,” Nat said, turning toward the front of the boat.

She hoped his comment meant he wasn’t staying on the boat. If that were the case, she and Charlie could just wait until he left and then get off the boat. Confronting Nat, especially with Noelani’s phone in Charlie’s hand, wasn’t safe.

“No crazy wahines this trip,” Nat said. “You can bet if one shows up I’ll take her farther out to sea so she doesn’t come in with the tide this time. . . . Who’d have thought they’d ever find her, yeah? I’ve got to get this run over with quick, the 5-O are looking for Charlie. . . . Right. . . . I know it’s important or I wouldn’t be doing it. . . . Yeah, it’s my last run. . . . Just time to move on is all. . . . Six bags? You’ll be at Malai’i to pick up? . . . Good. . . . Yeah. Nobody’s camping out there right now . . . the road is really bad. . . . Just get there early enough to take it slow.”

She felt Charlie stiffen. How much did he understand? She removed her hand, looking at his scared face in the fading light that was coming through the windows at the top of the cabin. She feared he understood more than she would have liked. She put her finger to her lips and he nodded slightly, then she turned back to the door, and, while Nat’s back was to them, she slowly closed the door until it rested against the doorframe. She didn’t dare risk it clicking into place.

“I’m on it, brah,” Nat said, his voice muted through the door.

With the door mostly shut, Sadie hurried the two steps across the cabin toward Charlie, taking him by his shoulders. Words were at a premium. “We’re going to wait for Nat to leave,” she whispered. “And then we’ll get off the boat so we can talk about this, okay?” She prayed that Nat was getting off the boat. His phone call didn’t give her much hope, but she couldn’t conceive of what she’d do if he went out to sea.

They moved to an empty section of the seats, and Sadie held him close to her, the fear stretching between them as they waited for the vibrations of Nat’s footsteps to disappear, proof that he’d left the boat.

As quiet and careful as she could, Sadie took Gayle’s phone out of her bag and sent the picture of the boat to her phone. The phone made a beep when the message was sent, and Sadie spent another precious minute figuring out how to turn off the sound. In case the police had taken her phone from Gayle, she also texted Pete, explaining it was Sadie, not Gayle, and that she was in a boat docked in Slip 23 at Nawiliwili Harbor and asking him to tell the Lihue police . . . quick.

A moment later, Sadie’s worst fear was realized. The engine growled to life, and the boat began moving forward slowly. Time to come up with a new plan. Charlie started to shake and tremble against her. Sadie dropped the phone back in her bag, smoothed his hair, and shushed him. They nearly lost their balance when the boat turned. Charlie held on to her, and she moved with him, willing him to calm down. It seemed like a very long time before he finally did. By then the boat had picked up speed, and Sadie felt sure they were heading toward open water.

Charlie pulled back and looked toward the door. “I want to go home,” he whispered. “I want CeeCee.”

“For now we need to stay here, okay, and be quiet.”

“We can jump off,” he said quietly. “I’m a good swimmer.”

Nausea enveloped Sadie, and she shook her head quickly. “We’ll just wait,” she whispered, hoping that the messy cabin meant that Nat didn’t come down here very often.

“Will Nat . . . hurt us?”

Nat had said he and Charlie were brothers. Charlie must be so confused. “If we don’t bother him, he’ll never know we’re here,” Sadie said.

But what if he came down? Sadie moved Charlie off the bench they were sitting on and pulled up one of the cushions. It lifted in her hand like a lid, and she peered in to see that the compartment was full of more boat gear—life jackets, a tarp, and some lightweight fishing net made from string. She started pulling the items out one by one and putting them on the floor. It was getting dark, and she’d soon be out of light. She reached a child-sized life jacket and waved Charlie to come over from where he stood a few feet away, watching her.

“Let’s put this on you,” she whispered.

Charlie shook his head, looking at the darkening windows. “I can swim.”

“You should always wear a life jacket on a boat,” Sadie whispered, already sliding it over his arms. “Just in case.”

“But I don’t—”

She gave him a “don’t argue with me” look, and to her relief, he stopped. She helped him buckle the jacket, then instructed him to climb into the compartment she’d emptied.

“Will Nat hurt me?” he whispered again as she helped him step inside.

“People do strange things when they’re surprised.” She thought of Noelani confronting Nat in the parking lot of Ho’oka Beach, a surprise that had led to Noelani’s death. When Charlie was situated inside the storage area, Sadie stuffed a few of the life jackets around him, asking if he were comfortable. He shook his head, and she realized that was a silly question to ask.

“Don’t close me in,” he whispered loudly, sounding frightened at the prospect.

He’d be safer if she could cover him, but she couldn’t imagine shutting herself into a box like that so she grabbed a towel from the cushions. She was about to drape it over him when she noticed a dark stain on one end of it. She pulled it closer to her face and felt a new wave of nausea as she threw it to the side. She couldn’t say it was blood, but what if it were? She picked up a different towel and inspected it before draping it over Charlie, making him look like a pile of clothing. She kept the towel off his face but instructed him to pull it over himself if he needed to hide. He nodded.

“Where are you going to hide?” Charlie asked.

Sadie looked around the small space and forced a smile. “I’m too big,” she whispered. “But I know karate so I’m okay.”

“You do?” he breathed with a touch of awe.

Sadie nodded and pantomimed some standard moves. He had managed a smile by the time she finished. She winked at him in the increasing darkness. “I’m going to look around,” she said, nodding toward the small windows that let in the last of the light of what had likely been a spectacular sunset—every sunset was spectacular here.

Charlie nodded, and she carefully made her way around the horseshoe of padded seats, moving things out of the way in order to open the bins and inspecting all the items she came across. In the box where Charlie had said he’d found Noelani’s phone, Sadie found a stack of papers. She had to hold them close to the window to see what they were, but she was able to identify a map of the ocean, with little squares drawn and labeled with letters and numbers Sadie assumed were longitude and latitude lines. A few of the squares were highlighted.

Sadie wished she knew how to make sense of it all, but she guessed the map might mean more to someone with more knowledge than she had. What she
could
determine was that Nat used his boat for something Sadie feared was illegal. In case the papers might make sense to someone else, she folded them up and slipped them into her bra, making sure Charlie didn’t see her.

The motor on the boat stopped, creating near silence save for the waves lapping at the sides of the boat. She’d been able to ignore the fact that she was separated from the depths of the ocean by thin sheets of metal and fiberglass, but hearing the water so close made her stomach tighten. She initiated her breathing exercises as she tried to push away the thoughts of Noelani’s hair flowing with the current. She stopped when she felt the vibration of footsteps on the deck.

“Why did we stop?” Charlie whispered from his hiding place.

“Shh,” Sadie said, watching the door as the steps continued. With the boat at a standstill, Nat didn’t need to stay in the driver’s seat. Sadie moved carefully toward the area behind the small door. In case he opened it, she’d be hidden and perhaps he wouldn’t realize she was there. Maybe he wouldn’t come down, though. Maybe she had nothing to worry about.

The first footfall on the steps leading to the cabin seemed to stop her heart, then it raced ahead to make up for the lost beat.

Nat fairly skipped down the other two steps, throwing open the door. He turned on a small light and began shuffling through a box. Sadie knew she wasn’t fully hidden by the door, and the bright pink and blue of her muumuu would easily attract his attention if he looked her way. Charlie worried her more, though, and she hoped he’d stay quiet and still.

Nat cursed. Was he looking for the papers Sadie had taken? His movements became more frantic. He cursed again, and Sadie’s anxiety kept increasing, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. She closed her eyes in hopes of getting herself back in control; she had to be able to think clearly right now.

Suddenly, everything went still. She held her breath, imagining Nat turning off the light and heading back up to the deck. The silence continued, and then Sadie felt the protective shield of the door move away from her.

She opened her eyes and met Nat’s gaze.

“What are you doing on my boat?” he demanded.

Chapter 46

Nat folded his arms across his chest and stared at her. Though small for a grown man, he was still bigger than she was.

“I didn’t know it was your boat,” Sadie said truthfully and forced a smile that she worried looked as fake as it felt. She wanted to look toward Charlie, to assure herself he was safe, but stared straight at Nat instead.

“Why are you on it?”

“I like boats?” She hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question but it did.

“Don’t mess with me,” he said, the edge in his voice rising though fear was there too, robbing him of some of his intimidation. “What are you doing here?”

“Could we go up on deck?” she said, fanning at herself. “It’s kind of stuffy down here.”

Nat hesitated, but then stepped to the side so she could get around him. He didn’t close the cabin door when he followed her out. She went up the stairs and toward the back of the boat, trying to ignore the way her chest tightened when she looked at the blue-black water surrounding them.