Freefall (5 page)

She could get through it without him. He’d made sure of that before moving to the mainland. This was a tiny prick compared to some of the wounds she’d borne. Nica had absorbed more grief than anyone he knew, and she kept opening herself for more.

But he was there now, and his mode was to fix. “You want me to bury it?”

She shook her head.

“Sure?”

She looked up, her face illuminated by the flames. “I didn’t ask you here to interrogate her.”

“I know that.”

“Does she?”

He glanced at the closed bamboo screen. “Hard to say what she knows, isn’t it.”

“Kai.” She said his name like a sigh.

She must have known he wouldn’t buy right in. Whether she’d thought it through or not, she’d called him for counterbalance. Why had she thought she needed help this time and not the others? “I don’t like it.”

Nica drew a hand spade from the box at the end of the bench and stood. “What don’t you like?”

“Amnesia.” He spread his hands. “It’s too convenient. Too easy an alibi.”

She stared. “Alibi?”

He hadn’t sounded harsh, but there was no tone gentle enough if Nica didn’t want to hear something. Jade had made an impression on her, and nothing short of showing her the smoking gun would shake her faith in another complete stranger who’d “happened” to find her door. He shook his head. “You don’t need this.”

“It’s not about what I need.” Her eyes were large and tender. “It never is.”

“You have choices, Nica. Things don’t have to just happen.”

“But they do.” She carried the chick to the base of an oleander, dropped to her knees and hollowed the earth.

He jammed his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts. There was no point arguing. Where Nica was concerned, something constantly conspired. She was a vortex for heartbreak, and try as he might he could not find a way to stop it. Not that she ever asked him to. She poured herself out for the countless unfortunates who came to her. He suspected an organized pipeline: Broke, desperate, dying? See Monica Pierce. She never thought to guard her heart, or maybe she didn’t know how. They took what she had to give and left her shattered.

She laid the chick in the ground. “I hoped you could help her.”

Again he considered how unusual it was for her to include him when she knew how he felt about her openness to strangers. “How?”

She spread the red earth over the fallen fledgling. “Investigate. Find out what happened.”

He hung his thumbs on the waist of his shorts. “She’s not inclined to cooperate.”

“You probably scared her half to death.”

He scoffed. “If she’s scared, it’s because she’s hiding something.” Nica’s gaze soaked him like a secret tide pool. Okay, so he tended toward skepticism.

“I can’t imagine what she’s going through. To lose her past, her
self
.”

Plenty of times he’d consider that an improvement, but no point getting Nica on that track. He sighed. “I’ll look into it tomorrow. Unless she has a miraculous recovery tonight.”

Nica frowned at the sarcasm. “Her memory could return at any time. You remember Clay. He walked around like a broken record for days; then suddenly he was fine.”

“He knew who he was.”

“So maybe she injured a different part of the brain.”

“An MRI would determine that.”

Nica sighed. “I offered to take her in for tests. She doesn’t want it.”

“Now, why might that be?” He planted his hands on his hips.

“Kai.” She shook her head. “She trusts me, and I’m not going to betray that.”

“Then why call me?”

“Because Okelani said—”

He expelled an exasperated breath. “Don’t tell me this is some
kapukapu
nonsense.” A gecko mocked him with a sharp
kekekekek
from the screen over the window.

“You wouldn’t call it sacred nonsense if she were here.”

As he took the time to form an inoffensive response, the trade winds blew clouds off the moon, but it quickly covered its face again. “I love Okelani. But that doesn’t mean I buy in to everything she says.”

Nica laid a hand on his arm. Her fingers were cool. “Jade’s in trouble.”

“No doubt.” And she’d brought her trouble to the one person whose quota had been filled a long time ago.

“Okelani sensed malice but said it did not originate with her.”

“Doesn’t mean she isn’t party to it. Malice has tentacles.” Cameron crossed his arms.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

He unfolded his arms, accommodating her sensitivity to body language. “I wish you hadn’t gotten involved.”

She said nothing. They both knew she could no more ignore a person in need than such people could avoid seeking her out. From the time she was small, wounded creatures and other children had found in Nica a listening ear and healing kindness. She believed they were sent by God, but in recent years sojourners had come to Nica to die. If God thought she was prepared to handle that, he wasn’t watching too closely.

Maybe this time Nica knew she’d reached her limit. It was why she’d called, and why he’d come immediately. But she wasn’t ready to admit it, so until then he’d do the best he could. He stroked the line of beard that framed his mouth. “We’ll see what the morning brings.”

Her gratitude was deep and immediate.
“Mahalo.”

“ ‘A‘ole pilikia.”
No trouble.

The sun’s rays never penetrated the incessant flow, but when morning came, the churning water curtain lit up like a gauzy, white wall and brought some comfort to the hollow that had in the dark grown tomblike. When he opened his eyes this morning, the mist held a tiny rainbow. He cried.

Three nights he had spent on the ledge, as immobile as he could keep himself. If Gentry had retraced their path and found no one—likely since it was a local’s trail not included in any guidebook he’d seen—she’d have had to walk. She didn’t have the Jeep keys. They’d been in his pocket but were there no longer. The barely discernable track was six miles to the more passable, yet still obscure, four-wheeldrive road another eleven miles from the shore. How long would it take on foot?

Not three days. Something was wrong. Was she injured or lost? Maybe there was no passage back to the top of the falls. Maybe she’d tried a different way. Or been carried by the water. Where would it take her? He wished he’d studied that.

Gentry knew to head down away from the center of the island. Even so, much of the coastline was native, especially at the northwest end, the western Na Pali shore entirely so. If she hadn’t hit a road or trail, there was no telling how long until she found help. He laid his head back and swallowed the pain.

As he’d done throughout the last three days, he prayed for Gentry to find her way, prayed for her safety, then broadened those prayers to encompass all she’d been through lately, and all that still might come at her. He had hoped this getaway would take her mind away from her trouble, not bring her more. He knew too well the forces arrayed against her, the power of lies, the voices of evil, even the voices of friends infected by the poison of doubt.

He’d seen her stunned disbelief, watched it eat away her confidence, the optimism that had been her nature. He had watched her faith get rocked, the radiant faith that had seemed so solid before she’d been cast into the furnace. He’d prayed she would emerge tempered, not scarred. He prayed it now, taking his mind from himself.

But then he shifted and pain shot through him. The leg had swollen, and some of the lacerations not only bled but oozed. He’d done what he could with the small first-aid kit, but the injuries were too many. His right knee and ankle had swollen, though the pain in that leg had a different tenor and he suspected sprained ligaments. If the injuries had all been to one leg, he might have attempted escape, but having both legs unable to kick and bear weight had made the battering beneath the falls an unwarranted risk he knew better than to consider—until now.

His original focus had been to deal with his condition until help came. But it had been three days, and he had to face the fact that help might not come. His only chance—and Gentry’s—could be for him to make it out.

It wasn’t fear that hollowed his insides at the thought. It was cold reality.

Jade made her way up to the kitchen where Cameron and Nica were seated at the round rattan-and-glass table. It had taken her a good part of the night to fall asleep, and it showed. Her eyes were hollowed and her head ached. Hour after hour chasing after sleep, she had felt so close to remembering things, but then they’d drift away like the mists outside, as insubstantial and impossible to grasp. Seriously discouraging.

Cameron looked up from the morning
Islander
, his smile as sincere as a salamander. “And who are we this morning?”

She glared at his rested and robust mien. “Who we’ve always been, regardless of recall.”

Nica sliced a papaya and laid the coral-colored slivers next to the chunks of fresh golden pineapple on the plate. “Good morning, Jade. Did you sleep well?”

“Not really.” She tenaciously held Cameron’s stare. “I couldn’t stop trying to remember.”

He laid the newspaper down. “And?”

Her jaw tightened. “I’m not sure pressure helps.”

“Wouldn’t really know, though, without a professional opinion.”

“Are you offering yours?”

“I’m suggesting a doctor.”

A thin, gray-and-white cat circled the table, meowing with a raspy noise that sounded as though something had stomped its throat.

“I suppose you’re paying since I have no money, no ID, no credit card or proof of insurance.” She took a seat at the table and breathed the sweet, tangy aroma of the fruit. “I think we discussed that yesterday.”

“A stop at the Hanalei precinct would take care of it.”

“I can’t risk the pub—” The word died in her throat. Aggravation with him had spurred another glimmer. But why would she be concerned with publicity?

He cocked his chin up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

His gaze locked on like an arched and hooded king cobra’s. “Can’t risk publicity?” The mesmerizing stare laid siege to her defenses. “What don’t you want publicized?”

Her mind fought for an answer. It was almost painful.

“Please,” Nica murmured.

Cameron’s combative attitude had challenged her complacent mind and triggered thoughts or at least impressions that slipped past her block. But sensitive to Nica, he sat back, palms resting on the table. “You need a medical opinion. Your memory could be blocked by a clot or tumor. We’re only assuming a head injury, and none of us—” He glanced at Nica. “Not even Okelani is qualified to make a diagnosis.”

Clot? Tumor? Her stress level was so much better now.

“Can we vouch for her?” Nica’s soft voice broke through their standoff. “Say she’s our guest from the mainland and …”

“Make up a name, a story?” Cameron’s gaze was gentle on his sister, but it was obvious what he thought of the idea. “You want to falsify records?”

Jade tightened her jaw. “I’m not asking anyone to lie for me. And I’m not going to the hospital. There’ll be too many questions. You can’t keep something like this quiet.” Again she had the need to shield herself, even if she couldn’t tell him why.

He turned back and fixed her with a probing frown. “Should we recognize you?”

She glared back. “
America’s Most Wanted,
maybe?”

“Why the aversion to publicity?”

“I’m not av—” Or was she? She turned away and chewed her lower lip.

“What if he’s right, Jade?” Nica slid the fruit plate her way. “We should rule out something more serious.” Her voice quavered. “Something life-threatening.”

Jade sank back in her chair. “Life-threatening?”

For the first time Cameron’s tone softened toward her. “I’ll guarantee payment. You can pay me back when your insurance reimburses you.”

Jade swallowed. “You think something’s wrong. Really wrong.”

He flicked a glance at his sister. “Nica’s worried. I want to set her mind at ease.”

“It’s not about me.” Nica squeezed her hands together. It obviously was to him.

His tone was reasonable. “I think we should know what we’re dealing with.”

Jade almost snapped that he wasn’t dealing with anything, but that would be untrue. He and Nica had both been dragged into her situation. And what if it was something serious, life-threatening? “What if I don’t have insurance and can’t reimburse you?”