Unsound (A Lei Crime Companion Novel) (10 page)

I looked into that ruthless camera eye. “I’m doing it. I’m suffering right now so you, me in the future, can have a better life. Don’t fuck it up.”

I reached over and hit Off.

This was just what I needed. Making this video was the perfect project for the day.

I shot footage of the cabin, the bottles of water, my precious Advil bottle. I took off my clothes in front of the warm woodstove and shot video of my ravaged body. Then I put the clothes and boots back on, drank my second cup of coffee (much weaker as I reused the grounds), and with some prunes, jerky, and a granola bar, I set off down a side trail to see what I could explore.

Kapala`oa Cabin is not the farthest cabin out, but it’s far enough to make things interesting in terms of nearby trails, which meandered in various directions from the main trail turnoff. I walked down the path I knew I’d need to take the day after tomorrow to Holua Cabin, the one I’d be staying in for three more days.

So far, I hadn’t met any other people hiking even though the ranger had said there was a fair amount of foot traffic through the crater.

I soon left the scrubby grass behind and entered a sweep of astral pebbles, littered with boulders that looked like they’d fallen from space. Cinder cones jutted around me like terrestrial boils, their steep contoured sides streaked with a range of colors from umber to purple. I paused to shoot little video panoramas, even picking up a handful of bright orange pumice, edges of stone light and sharp as my grandmother’s handmade lace. I videoed the pumice in my hand.

One of my grandmothers had been Swedish, and that crocheted lace she did was amazing. I’d always wanted to learn how.

No
,
you didn’t
, Constance said.
You always were more interested in people.

Constance
was still piping up, with her unique and powerful voice. I’d kept her silent for so long—but in my physical and emotional extremity, I found her strength, her definite opinions comforting.

“You always knew what to do,
Constance,” I murmured aloud. “Even when it was a bad idea.”

A vivid memory came to me—the time when we were six and
Constance decided we should do a “twin” song-and-dance performance for the school talent show. I’d coped by pretending I was Constance, and still I’d flubbed the words and tripped over my feet. That was the beginning of my rebellion against Constance’s stream of ideas for the two of us.

I hadn’t been sure who I was, but I’d been sure I wasn’t her.

I stopped and turned the video on. The sun was filling the crater with powdered light, and the crawlies seemed to have been dispelled by gentle exercise. A nearby cinder cone cast a sharp, deep shadow, and I stepped into it. Immediately the air was at least ten degrees cooler.

“Shadow,” in Jungian psychology, is where all the dark, scary, forbidden things about oneself are hidden—and in a healthy psyche, those things are known and accepted. In an unhealthy one, they are denied. I’d been unhealthily denying all the parts of me that were
Constance.

About time you realized that,
Constance said
. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to leave you.

Tears prickled my eyes. I stood with my body in the shadow and shone the video eye on my sunlit face. “I never grieved properly for my twin, my beloved sister, Constance. I never acknowledged how the loss of her shaped everything about my life and my career. I never acknowledged the guilt that I lived and she died—when she was so much more than me. And because of that, the tiny bit of relief I felt that she was gone. Oh God.”

I felt more tears rising up, and I turned off the phone camera and let them come. I folded up into the shadow of the vast cone and wept for her, feeling her nearby, touching my hair, a welcome tactile hallucination.

Finally, feeling emptied out and shaky, I pushed myself up and headed back toward the cabin. Walking along the fairly even trail, unburdened by the backpack, I was able to let my mind wander over the path of my life—a choice to become someone who was more of an observer than a participant.

Not that I hadn’t done good work, hadn’t made a difference. I knew I had. But I also knew I’d always played it safe, taken the path of least resistance, and turned away from anything that reminded me of Constance. I was tired and emotionally drained, my legs and lungs still overworked, as I headed back to the cabin. I anticipated drinking a quart of water and taking a nap.

What I didn’t anticipate was a visitor.

A man was sitting on the top step of the cabin. He was dark, with the overgrown hair of the young and hirsute, and even seated I could see he was enormously tall. The overlong bones of a giant protruded from the sleeves of his anorak, ending in hands the size of baseball mitts. He wore thick glasses, and he pushed them up his nose before he addressed me.

“I believe there’s been some mistake. I have a reservation for this cabin.”

“Hello,” I said, my voice rusty. I wasn’t even sure he was real at this point. “Who are you?”

“Russell Pruitt.” He stood. I backed up, almost stumbling. He was at least seven feet tall, and he’d unfolded in sections like one of those foldable yardsticks. “I’m hiking Haleakala. I got here, plugged in my code to the door, and I see you’re already settled in.”

“Oh.” My brain refused to compute. What a bizarre coincidence—or was it a coincidence? “Russell Pruitt.” I felt overcome by thirst and dizziness. “I need some water. I think I’m a little dehydrated.”

I brushed past him to the interior. One glance told me Russell Pruitt had moved my backpack; it was turned toward the door, my cabin permit clearly clipped to it. He followed me in, and his head bent a little to accommodate the nearby ceiling.

“I was looking for who you were, Dr. Wilson, and if you were supposed to be here,” he said, his tone apologetic. “I can see you are supposed to be here, but so am I.”

“Oh,” I said again, heading for the sink and the water. I took one of my bottles, unscrewed the top, guzzled. My sluggish brain ticked over this new, very unwelcome information.

Choices: I could share the space with my new roommate. I could pack everything up and go to the next cabin—but it wasn’t “mine” for another two days. I could hike out of the crater, if I had the strength, and abort Mission Detox.

None of the above appealed.

“I’m okay with just staying together,” Russell Pruitt said. His voice was unusually deep and had a vibration like a cello. “I’m a journalist. I’m doing a story on the crater. I’m not going to be around the cabin much, anyway.”

“I don’t know,” I said, turning back to him. His dark eyes were glittery and bright behind those Coke-bottle glasses, and his height was unnerving. I noticed he had dark olive skin and wondered what ethnicity of giant he was. “I’m kind of on a retreat. I hadn’t planned on being around other people. No offense.” I mentally composed my scathing complaint to the Park Service.

“Well, I’m taking this bunk.” He gestured with one ham hand to a bunk across the room. His backpack already leaned against it, a down sleeping bag rolled out on the bed.

“Okay. I guess that’s how it’s going to be, then. I’ve been ill and had a bad night; I’m going to take a nap now.” I spoke in the firm, forthright voice I used with clients and headed for my bunk.

“Okay. I’m sorry about this.” Russell Pruitt sounded downcast, like a Great Dane smacked with a newspaper. It occurred to me he was very young, probably around my son’s age, but the height thing threw off any normal assessment of him.

“Me too,” I said. I took off my boots and climbed into my sleeping bag, clamping my eyes shut. He was silent a long moment. I imagined he must be looking at me, wondering at my awful color, my socially bizarre behavior—but quite frankly, I didn’t have the energy to do anything but lie down at the moment.

I heard the creak of the boards of the floor as his massive bulk moved to the door, the squeak of the hinges as he opened it, the
thunk
as it closed, the
snick
of the latch tongue finding the notch in the doorframe.

I was rattled. I brought my phone up out of my pocket and shone its blinking camera eye down on my face as I lay on my pillowless bunk. “In a strange twist of events in this documentary, I am now sharing the cabin with Russell Pruitt, a young journalist giant,” I whispered. “I’m not looking forward to making social niceties with him feeling the way I do.”

I turned the phone off, ever mindful of my battery, and settled my arms beside myself, breathing deeply and practicing some progressive relaxation to help me nap.

I must have fallen asleep, but the waking was sudden and abrupt. A thought had occurred to me and was so urgent I woke up with it burning in my mind: I hadn’t actually seen his permit, nor introduced myself as Dr. Wilson.

I thought of what information was on the permit clipped onto my backpack—and I was virtually sure my title of “Doctor” wasn’t listed. I was simply Caprice Wilson for purposes of this trip.

How had he known I was Dr. Wilson?

I got out of the sleeping bag and tiptoed over to the permit, folded and dangling from the pack in its plastic sleeve. I slid it out, unfolded it. Ah, there it was where my name was listed: “Caprice Wilson, PhD.”

Habit. I’d filled it in with my title since I did that on all my case and other notes. But it wasn’t displayed on the part that was exposed by the fold for rangers to check, which meant he’d taken the paper out, looked at my home address. Looked at my emergency contact information. Looked at my length of stay and that I was at Holua Cabin next.

What the hell was this guy up to? Was my paranoia just returning? Still, better safe than sorry, and I couldn’t do anything to deal with the situation in my sick and weakened state—better just to get my pepper spray and go back to bed, rest, think about what to do and if I was paranoid or if Russell Pruitt was a real danger. I felt in the side pocket, removing the small first aid kit—and there was nothing else there.

My pocketknife was gone. My pepper spray was gone.

I scrabbled through the side pocket, as if looking repeatedly would make it appear. I turned the backpack upside down—there wasn’t much left inside, the dirty yoga pants, a few odds and ends. I searched through every single pocket and zip.

My two weapons were gone.

I sat on the floor and felt a wave of panic rise up through my body to choke me. My heart thundered, a bass drum. I panted like I’d run a marathon. Perspiration burst out all over me, instantly soaking my sweatshirt and hair. I gasped, vainly sucking for oxygen as I battled the urge to scream.

I must be having a panic attack. I remembered a first aid pamphlet that said to cough hard to get the heart going again, but with my mouth wide and hyperventilating, I couldn’t seem to get enough breath to cough.

I had to get outside. Outside, under the bowl of sky, nothing could be that bad. I crawled to the door, took the handle in both hands, twisted. It wouldn’t open. I pushed; I leaned; I pounded; I twisted. Something was wrong with the door.

I gasped and coughed. Kept coughing until it turned to dry heaves.

I felt like I was dying. My first panic attack was way scarier than I’d ever known. My words to clients echoed in my addled mind: “Panic attacks occur when the limbic system is activated by a real or imagined threat. Adrenaline and cortisol flood the nervous system, causing a fight-or-flight response. If fight or flight is not possible, the body seems to turn on itself, short-circuiting with the overload.”

My fight-or-flight was blocked, and I’d never make light of this experience again in my work, I told myself—if I got out of this situation alive.

Maybe the back door was open. I stood up and ran to it, twisted the handle. It turned, but nothing else happened. I pushed, twisted, yanked, and pounded.

Russell Pruitt had taken my weapons and locked me in the cabin.

“Dr. Wilson.” His deep, measured voice came from the front door. I noticed again its timbre, like it came up from some deep, booming well. I pictured his barrel chest, huge lungs, enlarged larynx. “I’m sorry. I can tell you aren’t well, and I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t badly need your services.”

I walked back into the front room, stroking my arms as one soothes a cat because the crawling sensations had returned with a vengeance. Services? Russell Pruitt had locked me into the cabin because he wanted therapy?

I was stuck in the wilderness where literally no one knew where I was, with a crazy giant. The part of me that still had a sense of humor appreciated the bizarreness of it all.

“I have to pee,” I said, because it was the truth.

A long pause as Russell Pruitt considered this. “Use a pot. We have to establish trust before I can let you out.”

I opened my mouth on a cackle of laughter, closed it again. Establish trust? That showed how delusional he was. I needed to get my psychologist hat on, and fast.

I found my pot from the night before, dropped my pants, peed into it. Squatting on that aluminum container, I looked around the kitchen. Surely there was something useful here somewhere. My eyes scanned the windows—small panes of glass framed in metal, they were riveted into their frames. Breaking one would only turn the steel frames into bars.