Cal Olani’s eyes drifted from one boy to another. “How about you guys? You okay?”
“Since when do you care how we feel?” Josh Malani demanded.
Before Cal Olani could respond, Rick Pieper cut in. “Is that what happened to Kioki? He was sick?”
Olani hesitated, knowing any answer he gave would race through the school — and from there through the whole island — faster than an epidemic of flu. And Laura Hatcher hadn’t actually said what had killed Kioki; she’d only been willing to rule certain things out. “Don’t know yet. But he didn’t seem to have any injuries.” His eyes fixed on Josh again. “Look, Malani, I don’t have any axes to grind. I’m just trying to find out what happened to your friend so it doesn’t happen to anyone else. So just take it easy, okay?”
Josh shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his pants.
“I’m cool,” he said. “We just don’t know anything.”
Once more Cal Olani’s eyes scanned the faces of the four boys. There was something, he was sure, that they weren’t telling him. On the other hand, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to any kid on the island when he hadn’t felt the same thing, to one degree or another. And until he knew exactly what had killed Kioki Santoya, there wasn’t any use in trying to lean on them. Another day, maybe, but not now. “All right,” he said. “Stay out of trouble, okay? I don’t come back on shift until tomorrow.”
“What do you think?” Jeff Kina asked as Olani drove out of the parking lot. “Does he know we borrowed Ken’s stuff?”
“ ’Course he doesn’t,” Josh insisted. “If he did, he wouldn’t have left.” He turned to Michael. “Want a ride home?”
Michael hesitated, still not sure they shouldn’t have told the officer exactly what had happened last night. And when the guy had asked them if they were feeling okay, he’d instantly remembered gym class, when—
But he’d gotten over that!
Except he hadn’t. At least not quite. Even now he could still feel something in his chest — nothing bad, really, but just not quite right. And if the other guys felt okay, he wasn’t going to be the whiner. “Sure,” he said, finally answering Josh’s question. “Let’s go.”
But five minutes later, as they were coming into Makawao, he knew Josh had felt his hesitation. “You pissed at me?”
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. I just—”
“You never had the cops hassle you, did you?” Josh asked. Michael looked over at his friend, but Josh was staring straight ahead. “You never had them want to know what you were doin’ on the beach in the middle of the night, and not want to tell them ’cause you didn’t want to admit your dad was drunk and you just didn’t want to go home.”
Michael bit his lip.
“You never had to sit in the police station all night because your folks wouldn’t come and get you, did you?”
Michael shook his head, but still said nothing.
“Okay, so maybe we should have told him,” Josh finally admitted. “But I just get tired of being hassled, you know? So don’t be pissed off at me, okay?” He paused, then: “Come on, Mike, let’s just go do something!”
“Like what?” Michael asked warily.
Josh hesitated. When he spoke, his voice sounded almost shy and he continued to stare straight ahead out the windshield. “ ‘Spose your mom would mind if you showed me what she’s digging up?”
Michael turned to stare at his friend. “You’re kidding. You want to see an archaeological site?”
Josh Malani reddened. “Why wouldn’t I?” he demanded. “I’m not stupid, you know.”
Michael started laughing. “Well, sometimes you sure act stupid,” he said. Then he spotted a pay phone outside one of the buildings in Makawao. “Pull over there.”
Josh pulled over. “So are we still friends, or what?”
“Of course we’re still friends,” Michael assured him. “I’ve just got to call my mom so she can meet us at the gate.”
“The gate?” Josh echoed. “What gate?”
“Ever hear of some guy named Takeo Yoshihara?”
Josh’s eyes widened. “Is that who your mom works for?”
Michael cocked his head. “Is that some kind of big deal?” he countered.
Josh nodded. “Around here it doesn’t get any bigger. Nobody ever sees him, and nobody really knows what he does. And hardly anybody’s ever seen where he lives.”
“Well, get ready,” Michael said. “ ’Cause we’re about to see it all.”
Not likely, Josh Malani thought as Michael swung out of the truck to call his mother. Not likely at all.
“Holy shit,” Josh whispered as his truck, following Rob Silver’s Explorer, emerged from the rain forest into the vast garden that was Takeo Yoshihara’s estate. “Will you look at this? What do you think it cost?”
Even though his mother had described the estate to him, Michael was no more prepared for the reality of it than Josh. As his eyes darted from a pond to a waterfall to a Zen garden, he found himself unable to really look at anything. “Ten million?” he guessed.
“A lot more’n that,” Josh said. “Look at those buildings. That’s all koa wood, man. Stuff costs a fortune.” He slowed the truck to a crawl, staring first in one direction, then in another. Suddenly an albino peacock appeared from a grove of trees, stopped short, and spread its enormous tail into a huge white fan. “I don’t believe this, man,” Josh breathed. “How many people do you suppose it takes to take care of it?”
Michael grinned. “Maybe we can get summer jobs as gardeners.”
“Right,” Josh groaned. “Except I hear you practically have to be a landscape architect just to mow the lawns in here.”
A minute later they were through the estate and onto the bumpy track that led out to the site two miles farther on.
Stephen Jameson stared, unseeing, out the window of his office in the long, low-slung building that stood on the far side of the gardens from his employer’s private residence. Though his eyes had unconsciously followed the progress of the Explorer and the ancient pickup that followed it as they wound through the gardens, a minute after they passed he wouldn’t have even been able to say for certain what color either vehicle had been, so focused was his mind on the problem at hand.
On his desk lay the copy of the autopsy report. Next to it stood the jar containing the specimen of Kioki Santoya’s lung that the orderly had carved out of the corpse. For a moment Jameson considered arranging to have the corpse transferred from the hospital morgue to the estate, but then realized that would only serve to draw more attention to the body than was already being paid. Besides, what would be the point? Jameson was already certain he knew the exact cause of the boy’s death. He had already had a cursory look at the tissue sample through the microscope in his office. The full lab analysis that would be performed on the sample would, he was sure, only confirm his preliminary findings.
The question was, how had Kioki become exposed? And, just as important, had the three boys mentioned in the memo accompanying the autopsy report also been exposed?
Stephen Jameson picked up the phone on his desk, dialed a four-digit number, and began speaking the moment the phone at the other end was answered.
“Dr. Jameson here. I have three names: Jeff Kina, Josh Malani, and Rick Pieper. All three of them sixteen or seventeen years old. All three are to be kept under surveillance. If anything should happen to any of them — if they should get sick — bring them here. Is that clear?”
The man at the other end read back the three names. Stephen Jameson was about to hang up when another thought occurred to him. “There’s one more name,” he added. “Elvis Dinkins. He just left the estate a few minutes ago. It would be best if he didn’t make it back to Wailuku.”