Freefall (9 page)

“What would your companion say?”

“He’d—” She expelled a breath. Her mind had responded automatically with the male pronoun. She was starting to flesh him out. “He’d want me to take the surest way. I’ve got to reach him.” She couldn’t come up with a name or even a face, but she’d caught an emotion. It was someone she cared about, someone she loved. She sloshed past, but Cameron caught her arm.

“You won’t do him any good breaking your neck.”

“We have to hurry.” She tugged, but his grip tightened.

He made her face him. “You also have to consider we might not find him … alive.”

EIGHT

Cameron had expected an outburst.
Guilt or denial. Anger. Maybe he wanted her to snap—and snap out of it. But he got, instead, a deepest jungle stare. Her lips parted and drew his gaze against his will.

She said, “In the universe of possibilities, that is only one. And I refuse to breathe life into a worst-case scenario.”

“In my world, it’s better to be prepared.”

“Doesn’t leave much room for hope, does it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Hope rarely keeps its promise.”

“Then you don’t know God.”

“I do. I just don’t expect him to fix everything that’s gone wrong in the world since he gave it a spin.”

“Well, I’m not asking for world peace. Just trying to find someone. And if you don’t want to help me, no one’s forcing you.”

“I never said that.”

“It’s bad enough having to drag your suspicions. I can’t carry your doubts as well.”

He hung his hands on his hips as her point sank in. On the off chance she was telling the truth in all this, his assumptions hadn’t helped. Experience told him she was not being completely honest, but there was no need to push it now. If he waited and watched, she’d catch herself up. They almost always did. He motioned upstream. “Choose your path.”

“We’ll stay with the water.”

They pushed on and up, fighting the mountain for every step. When neither the current nor the shore yielded, he took the lead, cutting with his hand machete only enough to make passage possible. Some survival instinct must have carried her down. What drove her now?

The most obvious explanation would be a true fear for the person she believed she’d left behind. But who was this mystery person? Jade wore no wedding band. A boyfriend or fiancé? Had they squabbled? She’d been obstinate enough to take off on her own this morning. She could have gone off, hit her head, forgotten the situation, and blown the whole thing out of proportion. Maybe the guy was camping somewhere, safe and free of a doomed relationship.

Probably this trek was a mistake. They should have waited to hear what TJ came back with. The big Hawaiian had given him the stink eye when he told him what she meant to do. Cameron glanced back and saw her struggling. He called a rest, but as they stood there, softly panting, she looked more vulnerable than he’d seen her yet.

Could the person she’d been with have attacked her, inflicted the head injury and left her for dead as TJ suspected?

“Jade.”

She raised her eyes, and a protective urge caught him in the gut. “What?” She brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear and braced herself for the next thing he might have to say.

He didn’t want to bludgeon her with possibilities she couldn’t or wouldn’t face, but he needed to know what they were going into. Or if they should be going at all. One of his questions just might turn the key. “Is there a chance you’ll be in danger if we find your companion?”

She stared at him long and hard. “Are you asking whether the person I came hiking with hurt me?”

“Might explain why he didn’t report your accident.”

She swallowed. “And now he’s waiting out here to finish the job?” Hurt crept into her eyes.

“Or he’s left the island.”

She closed her eyes, tipped her face up to the soft rain shower that moved over them. Drops caught in her lashes like tears, but she didn’t cry.

He shifted to ease a spasming hamstring. “Fear can block memory.”

She lowered her chin, mouth set, brow creased. “I’m not afraid.”

The tension in her body showed otherwise. Her strongest clues seemed to be sensations, and he guessed she felt something now. Why evade? “I’m not saying we should stop. Just trying to cover the possibilities.”

Her shoulders dropped. She spread her hands. “Until now I wouldn’t have thought I could lose my entire past. I guess anything’s possible.”

“You felt something.”

She nodded. “But I can’t identify it. And I can’t let it stop me.”

Again he got the unsought urge to keep her safe. Again he balked. He was here at Nica’s request.
Aloha
required it. Jade was a guest on the island and he an ambassador. Though that sentiment was less prevalent now, it had been drilled into him from his earliest days.
“Aloha” means kindness, helpfulness, graciousness, and generosity. Whatever you have, you give. Whatever you can, you do
. No room for selfishness, for acting shamefully, greedily, or stingily. There was a saying for someone who did:
‘A ‘ohe paha he ‘uhane
—perhaps he has no soul.

So he would help her, as far as he was able. But unlike Nica, he’d keep his eyes and mind open. “Let’s go.”

They moved on through the valley, finding the path of least resistance. He kept expecting her to say, “This is it,” but she just kept plodding as shadows lengthened and the sun touched, then sank behind the mountaintops to their right.

At last Jade stopped in a semicircular patch of ground between the stream and a grove of kukui trees. She turned to him. “I spent the night here.”

“What?”

“On this rock.” She walked over to a boulder beside the stream.

“You were out here two days?”

“I don’t know how long before this point, just that I woke up here and went on to Nica’s.”

He looked up at the steep, lacy falls behind her. “You came down that?”

Reading his doubt, she said, “I’m an experienced hiker.”

Another definitive statement. “How do you know?”

“Because I—” Her face flushed. “I remember Chasm Lake. I can see it. The cirque with the lake reflecting the diamond face of Longs Peak.”

Her excitement seemed genuine.

“Who were you with?”

Her lips parted, then closed. “I hiked it alone. I do that sometimes. It helps me clear my head.”

He frowned. “Then how do you know you weren’t alone this time?”

“Because I remember. There was someone.” She shook her head. “I just can’t see who.”

“Jade, if you were with someone, why would you leave?”

She swayed. “Water.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I can feel it pulling.”

“Think you got separated?”

“Maybe.”

Then why wouldn’t he have come after her? He’d had four days. Unless he couldn’t. Cameron rubbed his beard. The evening was typically mild, cooler at this elevation than where they’d started in the valley, but well within the temperate range. As they said on the island, regarding the weather, “Sometimes same, sometimes little bit different.”

That was a good thing since he hadn’t realized how far Jade had come. He’d planned for an emergency overnight, just in case, but he hadn’t known she’d been out there two days herself. She hadn’t said, and he hadn’t asked. She’d been all set to go alone, and he’d scrambled.

He assessed the setting sun, the climb up the falls, and his energy level. Streams were unpredictable. A hard rain would swell a cataract in minutes, turn even this stream into a force. Maybe she’d been caught in a flash flood, she and her companion.

This area was broad enough to handle a swell in the stream without washing them away, flat enough for the two mats he had coiled in the side buckles, and he could stretch a nylon tarp to keep the rain off. “We’ll stop here.” He unfastened his pack.

She pressed her hands to her waist, staring up at the falls. “I can keep going.”

“We’ve lost the light.” He pointed to the falls. “That’s a major climb. And you don’t know how much farther past that.”

“Really, I—”

“Fatigue is when accidents happen.” It was already too dark to attempt the climb safely. No point pushing past their strength.

She sat down on the boulder. “I didn’t think it was this far.”

Not what he wanted to hear. “Are you sure we’ve come the right way?”

“I’m sure I was here.” She looked up at the shallow falls. “The rest is fuzzy.”

“Another night’s sleep might help.”

“Another night.” Her stare lingered. “And it’s been four already.”

At least. If she’d spent one night out, there could have been others. “We’re doing all we can.”

She nodded, then sighed. “I guess the story’s run.”

“Is that so bad?”

“I really don’t know.” She unfastened her pack and pulled it from her back.

“If TJ’s learned something, there might be help coming.”

“That’s all I want.” She rested her face in her hands.

He took out his cell phone, though as he’d guessed, there was no signal. “We’ll have to wait and see.” He removed his pack and set it on the ground.

Jade turned. “What do you want me to do?”

“Collect some driftwood and I’ll make a fire.”

She moved away from the stream for dry wood while he fitted together the collapsible poles and attached the tarp, then unrolled the two mats that would keep the worst of the rocks from digging in. Unless something unseasonable happened, there’d be no need for blankets or—

Jade shrieked.

He lurched out from under the tarp and shouted, “Stop!” just as she flung off a five-inch centipede.

He thrashed over and grabbed her arm. “Are you bitten?”

She panted. “I don’t think so.”

There was no think; she’d know. But he couldn’t believe it. He searched her arm for punctures and found it unscathed—impossible with the length of contact and her frantic motion. The things wrapped around and struck with the fangs on the tips of their front legs. But though he could miss marks in the failing light, she couldn’t miss the electrical socket experience of a centipede bite. The poison swelled, sickened, and disoriented bigger, stronger adults than she, and the pain was immediate.

He ran his hand over her forearm, still not believing. But she had somehow tangled with a centipede and emerged unharmed. He looked into her face. Her hair had come loose, and he knew how it would feel. Her eyes were weary and frightened, but that only enhanced their luminous depths.

Her body was fit and supple, and if she was a psychopathic murderer it could hardly be more dangerous than the effect she was already having. He let go. “Go sit under the tarp. I’ll get the wood.” He watched her creep beneath the sagging tent, his heart racing in a way it hadn’t for a long time.
Get a grip, Kai
.

Jade shook all over. She hadn’t felt squeamish about the tropical forest until now. But the feel of the creature’s legs clinging to her wouldn’t go away. She tried not to show it when Cameron ducked back under the tarp and rummaged in his pack. He hardly looked at her anyway; just said, “I should have warned you about that, with the night coming on.”

“Are they going to be crawling all over us?” She’d keep moving in the pitch-dark if that was the case.

“We’re in their habitat.”

She eyed the flimsy cover that might keep off the rain but offered no barriers whatsoever to the creepy crawlies that until now wouldn’t have concerned her. The loathsome feel of that centipede was one memory she wanted blocked, and the thought of lying down and sleeping … “I can’t do this.”

He pulled out the lighter. “They’re out there, Jade. But you seem to be
ho‘omalu ke Akua
.”

“What does that mean?”

“Under God’s protection.”

“Ho‘omalu ke Akua,”
she whispered.

“I’ve never seen someone wrestle a centipede and walk away untouched.”

She shuddered. “I just … got it off me.”

He cocked his jaw and eyed her in the deepening twilight, then ducked out and lit the fire he’d assembled near the streambed.

She joined him there. Wasn’t fire the universal defense? The night was not cold, but she huddled as though a howling wind tore around them.

He tossed her a stick of teriyaki jerky for dinner. “Centipedes are predators. They mostly hunt at night. But they’ll probably stay in the vegetation and look for bugs and lizards.”

“
Probably
doesn’t do it for me.” She closed herself into her arms.

His mouth pulled sideways. “I don’t blame you, but trust me, it could have been worse.”

“I don’t want to know. And I’m not staying here.”

He took a flashlight from his pack and set it on the stony ground between them. “We have no choice. It’s getting dark. Besides, you stayed here before.”

“With enough brain damage to render me insouciant.”

He tipped his head. “Big words. Maybe you’re a teacher.”

“Don’t try to distract me.”

“Now see, that’s just the tone Miss Stafford used to take.”

She wrapped her knees in her arms. “And it probably did no good.”

He pressed a hand to his chest. “She struck terror in my thirdgrade heart.”

“And you in hers, no doubt.”

He grinned. “She loved Nica, though. And since we came as a pair—”

“You’re twins?”

“We’re eleven months apart, but she accelerated a grade.”

Jade reassessed him. “I thought you were a lot older.”

“She has a young quality.”

“And he was hardboiled.” Jade leaned her chin on her knees. “You’re nothing at all alike.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. We both have a weakness for squid luau.”

She half smiled. The horror of the centipede had diminished a little. But her thoughts still churned as all around them insects sang. “What else is out there?”

“You’ve encountered the worst. The centipede is the only poisonous creature on the island. He took a ride over with the Polynesians. Lots of people have lived here since, sleeping out like this, whole families on little grass mats.” He took out a bottle of repellent. “Use this for the mosquitoes.”

“Malarial?”

“Only birds get malaria in Hawaii.”

She shot him a skeptical look.