The Green Room (9 page)

Gabe was within ten feet of Sunny, and Storm was still twenty feet away, with a good view of both of them. Sunny sat on her surfboard, arms crossed over her chest, and glared at Gabe. “Keep away from me, asshole. Always.”

Storm wouldn't ever want Sunny mad at her, but she wondered why Gabe stopped without saying a word. He appeared to crouch into the water. Storm could see Sunny shift her weight, almost poise herself.

“Gutless bastard,” she hissed at him.

And from under Gabe shot a sharply pointed, fiberglass missile. It was his surfboard, which he'd held underwater so that it would fly out of the water with the force of its own buoyancy. He'd aimed it right for Sunny's face.

“No!” Storm yelled.

Sunny had known what was coming, though, and she turtled. Gabe's board clattered on top of her upside down one, which made Storm wince. Sunny was safe underwater, but the clatter verified the violence of the act; both boards were going to need Mo‛o's ministrations after this.

Sunny popped to the surface, her eyes wide with fury and loathing. “You really are a pathetic wimp.”

By this time, Storm was beside her, and she grabbed Gabe's board to keep it from doing any more damage in the surging water. Sunny's eyes flicked to Storm's and Storm saw relief soften the blonde's face before she turned back to her attacker.

“You'll pay for this, you gutless suckerfish.”

Both women stared at Gabe, who glared with unabashed hatred at the two of them. He now treaded deep, blue water, a quarter-mile from shore. No way would they return his board, which he'd just used as a weapon. Storm nudged Sunny's arm, and without saying a word, Sunny crawled atop her board and both women headed for shore, towing the extra board.

After a few minutes of paddling, Sunny steadied her breathing and looked over at Storm. “Thanks. He could have killed me.”

“Yeah, that was scary. You're right—he's a coward.” Storm shook her head. “But you've got balls for telling him out there.”

“He needs to be told.”

“You told Gabe, but you didn't want to tell Goober when he was being a jerk.”

“Goober's different.”

“Oh.” Storm was about to ask why, but her thoughts returned to the maliciousness of Gabe's act. If his well-aimed board had hit Sunny as he'd intended, she would have been knocked cold, and probably drowned. Storm remembered Nahoa's warning about keeping an eye on Gabe. Could Ken Matsumoto or—God forbid—Nahoa have had an altercation with him?

She and Sunny had been making their way toward shore and were now close enough to see a group of eight or ten gathered where jagged black lava rocks formed a small cove. It was an odd place for people to assemble, and some of them were scrabbling for footholds as they grappled with something in the water.

The women paddled toward the group, but Storm had a bad feeling about this particular assembly. She glanced at Sunny from the corner of her eye and saw Sunny did, too. The woman's normally golden skin was ashen. Both women slowed their approach, glanced briefly at each other, and then away. Neither wanted to confront the dread in the other's expression.

Chapter Fifteen

Storm turned to look in the direction they'd come, but Gabe was nowhere to be seen. He'd headed away from this landing point. Meanwhile, waves carried the women closer to shore.

A jet ski roared up, with the driver waving frantically. “Stop. You don't want to come in here. You'll have to swim around these rocks to the next beach.”

Sunny didn't even acknowledge that she'd seen him. Though she and Storm were still too far away to make out details, her eyes hadn't left the group on the beach. The man, who wore lifeguard shorts, tried to block the women's view with the machine and his body, but he had cut the engine and the heaving water buffeted him in its surges. One wave pushed him a few feet alee of Storm and Sunny. They caught sight of six men, struggling to haul a sagging body in colorful board shorts from the sea foam.

The breath caught in Storm's throat. Oh, God, she'd seen those shorts before. Sunny recognized them, too, for she made a noise between a moan and a whimper and slid from her board.

Storm reached out to her. “Hold on. You've got to hold on.”

The lifeguard had maneuvered his way to them and reached out to Sunny. “Let's get her on the jet ski.”

“She's afraid it's…it's someone she knows.” Storm's voice caught, and she swallowed the bitter knot in her throat.

The man nodded wordlessly. Storm gripped Sunny's hand. She had to keep the young woman away from the shoreline activity. What was left of a human being after three days in the ocean would give the people that loved him nightmares. Storm choked back a sob.

By now, the lifeguard was unfastening the sled that had been lashed to the side of the machine. “C'mon, both of you, I'll take you to shore.”

The wind and current had been pushing all three of them around the point toward land. By now, they were within a hundred yards of a long sandy beach.

“We'll be okay,” Storm said to the lifeguard, though she meant that they'd reach the beach without help. Okay was a relative condition.

“Sunny, we're nearly there,” she said.

Sunny squeezed her hand in reply. Storm could see the young woman's jaw muscles flex with the effort to gain control.

She looked up at the lifeguard. “Thanks.”

With slow, heavy strokes, the women paddled toward the wide beach. The lifeguard followed them for a short distance, the powerful engine of the jet ski a rumbling escort. As soon as the women were within ten feet of being able to touch bottom, he turned, waved to them, and motored slowly away.

Storm and Sunny drifted as inconspicuously as they could. A small group had clustered at the end where the recovery took place, and Storm led Sunny as far away as they could safely come ashore. She didn't want to see anyone, and she figured Sunny would feel the same way. Disbelief, grief, and anger surged through her. She wanted to crawl away where no one could see her rail and weep for the handsome young man who had been so full of life, enthusiasm, and potential just a few days ago.

They were halfway into the trees that lined the beach when a long-legged brunette sprinted up to them. She gasped from the dash and emotion, then burst into tears. “Oh, God,” she cried, and threw her arms around Sunny, who sagged against her. Storm recognized Sunny's friend from the surf contest.

“It's Nahoa,” Sunny stated in a quivering voice. It wasn't a question.

The young woman nodded, and Sunny collapsed in the sand, which set the girl into a new burst of wails. Storm knelt beside Sunny, who dragged herself into a sitting position, with her head buried on folded arms.

“Dede,” she said in a muffled voice, “please, I…I need quiet.”

Dede gulped, then slowed to ragged breaths, interspersed with sobs. Storm felt her own eyes streaming. Dede's overt grief was unsettling, and Storm yearned to be alone to cope with Nahoa's death, but she knew that each of them was dealing with an awful blow in their own way.

Years ago, she'd come home from sixth grade and found her mother, composed and cold, on her bed. An empty pill bottle sat on the bedside table next to a spilled glass of whiskey. Storm had tried to wake her mother from her afternoon nap. Some of the confusion, anger, and disbelief she'd felt on that afternoon returned to her now.

But this time, Storm thought about the
lei o manō
that Nahoa had received, and the implied threat chilled her. It was one thing for depression to crush one's will to live, an entirely different matter to have your life extinguished by another person.

Dede's quavering voice brought Storm back to the present. “Sunny, I moved your van. It's right across the street.” She turned to Storm. “Come on, we'll give you a ride.”

“Okay.” Sunny still mumbled into her bent knees and crossed arms. “Give me a couple minutes.”

“Sure,” Dede said, and put her arm around her friend.

The three women sat quietly, and Storm didn't know how much time elapsed. Shock and heartache numbed her thoughts, including the sense of passing time.

Dede was the first to draw a long breath. “People are starting to notice us. A couple of surfers are heading this way. You want to talk to them?”

Sunny looked up from her arms. Her face was pasty and her eyes swollen. “Let's get out of here.”

“Jesus, there's Ben—and he looks like he's been gut-shot. And shit, there's a news van.” Dede grabbed Sunny's arm and Storm's hand. “Let's go.”

Dede's mission to get Sunny away from the media and curious onlookers had curtailed her grief. She hustled them efficiently through the trees and across the narrow highway. A white, rusting old Honda van with a neon pink bumper sticker that read
Girls Just Want to Have Funds
sat in a beach lot, surrounded by trucks and rusting sedans with surf racks.

A group of six or seven guys in board shorts scrambled from a pickup without giving the girls a glance. Their troubled faces were directed toward the activity across the street. The coconut wireless had begun to hum.

Dede retrieved the keys from a spot in the bumper, then managed to unlock the doors and bundle them inside before anyone recognized Sunny. Once she was in the driver's seat, she leaned over the driver's seat and offered her hand to Storm. “You're Nahoa's cousin, aren't you? I'm Dede Ward, and I'm so sorry for you—for your family.”

“Thanks.” It was all Storm could say.

Dede drove efficiently through traffic and a set of oncoming emergency vehicles. Storm gave her a few words of directions to the Laniakea cottage, but otherwise, no one spoke.

Dede pulled into the dirt drive that led to the small house. “You gonna to be okay?”

“Yes, thanks for the ride.”

“You sure you want to be alone right now?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Dede nodded sadly and put the car in reverse. “Come over if you want.”

“I'll call later.” Storm raised her hand in a weak wave, and stumbled into the house. Truthfully, she didn't want to talk to anyone. For a while, she stood at the big picture window in the living room and stared out to sea. The sun was high in the sky, white spume laced the sand, and the turquoise shelf of the reef deepened to sapphire. The world looked like such a calm, predictable place.

Nahoa's death was different from her mother's, which had changed Storm's life. But here again, she stood at the abyss of loss and inevitability that humans faced. Death was not a situation anyone could fix, change, or solve. The phone rang from time to time, but she let it be part of another space, another time.

Storm had no idea how long she'd been standing at the window when she realized someone was banging on the door. Fuzzily, she wondered if they'd been there long.

“Storm Kayama?” Two police detectives stood on the doorstep. “Detective Chang got in touch with us. We'd like to ask you about the package Nahoa Pi‛ilani received.”

“Come on in,” Storm said.

The detectives, in plain clothes, introduced themselves as Steve Yamamoto and Jean Ursley, then entered and stood politely inside the door. “Could you tell us how and when he received it?”

Storm led them into the living room, where she sank onto the sofa. “He got it last Saturday.” She described the delivery boy in detail, down to the zinc oxide on his nose.

“And you perceived it as a threat?”

“Yes. Nahoa did, too.”

“Did he tell you it was a threat?”

“No, but it's known as a challenge to battle among the old Hawaiians. He didn't have to tell me.”

“And you felt Nahoa knew the significance of the package?” Officer Yamamoto asked.

“Yes.” Storm remembered how Nahoa had paled, then shrugged off his concern. But even the little boy knew something was wrong. Goober or Ben, one of them, had made a joke about Nahoa's
‛aumakua
protecting him. In a flash, she wondered about this. Had the two young men realized the significance of the war club? Or maybe they, like the little boy, had picked up on Nahoa's and her discomfort. Leila and Robbie certainly had.

“Yes, I'm sure,” Storm repeated.

“Had you ever seen the boy before?”

“No. He told Nahoa some guy paid him to deliver it.”

“You think it's possible the boy is staying nearby?”

“I don't know. Could be—lots of these homes are rented to visitors. He also could be from town—or staying at a hotel.” Storm gave the officers the best description she could of the boy, and they left her with their cards in case she saw the kid on the beach again, or if she remembered any details that might be important.

They were halfway to their car when she ran after them. “What kind of injuries did he have?”

Yamamoto shuffled his feet and looked away.

“It's hard to tell.” Ursley spoke in a soft voice. “In fact, we have to get positive identification through dental records. He's on his way to Honolulu now, but the ME won't have any answers for a day or two.”

Storm wanted to ask if there was a chance it wasn't Nahoa, but she knew better. The police had been discreet. Kind, even. They were probably hoping the ME would have enough to work on. Jesus.

Disconnected suspicions, remorse, and misery ricocheted inside Storm's skull like hornets in a jar. She still stood in the sun, where she'd watched the police make their way back to Kamehameha Highway. Her head pounded and her salt-crusted skin prickled in the heat.

When she heard her cell phone ringing, she walked slowly inside. By the time she'd found it in the bedroom under the comforter she'd discarded sometime during the night, whoever called had hung up.

Storm didn't even check the number. Instead, she dialed Hamlin's direct line to the office and his cell phone. She got his voice mail on both phones and left a message for him to call her back. Then she dropped the phone back onto the unmade bed. She wanted to just climb in again, start the day over and pray it headed in a different direction. But she knew better. And she could do more about the day's sad events if she didn't crawl into a cocoon. First, she needed a shower, then she had some people to see.