“I’m fine,” Michael insisted for at least the fourth time since they’d left the estate. Grabbing his book bag from the backseat, he swung out of the car and slammed the door. Then he opened it again and stuck his head back in. “Look, I’m really sorry about what happened last night, Mom. I didn’t mean to scare you, and I won’t do it again. But you’ve got to stop worrying about me every minute of the day. I’m really okay now.”
Katharine sighed and stretched in the driver’s seat. Her whole body felt as tired and sore as if she’d already been crouching over the skeleton up in the ravine all day, instead of still having that job to look forward to. “I’ll try,” she agreed. Before she could say anything more, Michael glanced at his watch, waved to her, then turned and started toward the building. She watched him until he’d disappeared inside, still unable to shake the feeling that, despite his assurances, there was something he wasn’t telling her, something he was keeping to himself. But as she started out of the parking lot a moment later, she told herself that maybe the problem wasn’t Michael at all.
Maybe it was her.
She hadn’t gotten more than an hour’s sleep last night — maybe two — and she felt bone weary already. And she still had an entire day of work ahead, moving the skeleton from the site in the ravine into the safety of Rob’s office. But the very thought of spending the rest of the day stooped over the bones, carefully freeing them from their shallow grave, only made her feel even more exhausted. Finally she pulled her cell phone out of her bag and called Rob. “I’ve got a deal for you,” she said. “If you can get the skeleton collected without me, I’ll fix you dinner tonight. I think I’m getting too old to stay up all night and then work in the field all day.”
“Not a problem,” he replied. “Go home. By this afternoon I’ll have it all moved indoors. See you later.”
Dropping the phone back in her bag, Katharine pulled out of the parking lot, remembering as she was starting up the road toward her house that the only things in the refrigerator were a half gallon of milk, a few eggs, and a six-pack of Cokes. Taking a deep breath, she made a right half a mile farther on and headed for the market in Kula, wondering whether Rob would prefer steak or chicken.
Hearing her name half an hour later as she was pushing the cart through the last aisle of the grocery store, Katharine looked up in surprise. The man who was smiling at her looked familiar, but for a moment she couldn’t quite place him.
“Phil Howell,” he said, reading her confusion. “Astronomer? Friend of Rob Silver’s?”
“Of course,” Katharine assured him, her memory finally putting it together. “Sorry — I’m afraid I was up all night. In fact, I’m on my way home to sleep the entire day.”
“Lucky you,” Howell sighed. “I’ve been on top of the mountain all night, and now I’ve got about five hours of work on the supercomputer down in Kihei.”
Katharine cocked her head. “Kihei? Isn’t that down by the water on the other side of the island? I thought the computer was up on the mountain.”
“I wish,” Howell sighed. “But our guys only use a little tiny part of it. Most of it’s being used by everyone else. Schoolkids, business types — you name it. It’s an amazing machine — you can do anything with it if you know how.”
Katharine went silent, the image she’d seen on the monitor in Rob’s office popping into the forefront of her mind: the skull, and the strange video file that had been linked to it, both of which had mysteriously vanished from the screen, defying even Rob’s ability to reconstruct the file. Now an idea was forming in her mind. “How good are you with that computer?” she asked.
“A lot better than I wish, actually,” Phil Howell said wryly. “I spend far more time on the computer than I do with my telescopes these days. What do you need?”
Katharine told him about the file that had disappeared yesterday. “Do you think there’s any way of finding out where it came from?” she asked.
Howell thought for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he mused. “But practically everything that goes through the Net gets cached one place or another. If we can find the right cache record—”
Suddenly, the exhaustion Katharine had felt only a moment ago evaporated. If Phil Howell could find that file for her again — or even just the location of it — she’d at least have a chance of figuring out what the strange skull she’d uncovered in the ravine might be. “Could we do it this morning?”
“If we don’t do it this morning, I suspect there’s practically no chance we’ll find it,” Howell told her. “The caches are all timed to dump after a set period of time, which I suspect isn’t any more than twenty-four hours. But it could be a lot less.”
“Then let’s go,” Katharine said. Abandoning the rest of her shopping, she headed for the checkout stand.
If dinner wasn’t very interesting, Rob and Michael would just have to deal with it.
Josh Malani’s whole body hurt.
Instinctively trying to escape the pain, he drew his knees up to his chest, but that only hurt more. Then, as he came fully awake and felt the heat of the sun on his face, he knew why he hurt.
He wasn’t in bed. He wasn’t even home.
He was in the back of his truck, which was parked in the lot at Makena Beach.
Slowly, as if he were thumbing through a stack of snapshots, the memories of last night came back to him.
Feeling kind of funny when he’d left Mike Sundquist’s place.
Picking up Jeff, and taking off into the night.
The burning cane field that had been vomiting fire and smoke into the air.
The images flashed faster: glimpses of Jeff, getting out of the truck.
Another truck coming toward them.
Losing his nerve, and driving away. But if the police had caught him—
But they hadn’t caught him. He hadn’t dared to go home last night, afraid that someone in the car with the flashing lights that raced past him on the highway might have written down his license number. If the cops came looking for him at home, and his dad was drunk, the mess would only get worse. So instead he’d come out here to Makena, parked the pickup under the trees, and finally fallen asleep on the hard metal surface of the truck’s bed.
He sat up. The sun was already above the mountain, so he was way late for school. Maybe he should just cut the rest of the day and hang out here at the beach.
But what about Jeff? He remembered the crazy way Jeff had been acting — getting out of the truck as if he were going to run right into the flaming field.
What if he was dead? What if he’d choked to death, or tried to get away from the fire crew in the truck and run into the cane field?
Josh shuddered as he imagined Jeff charging through the burning cane. If he tripped … Josh shut his eyes against the image that came into his head. Why the hell had he left? If anything happened to Jeff …
But nothing had happened to Jeff, he told himself. Jeff was okay. Jeff had to be okay.
He was kidding himself, he knew. How the hell would he know if Jeff was all right? He sure hadn’t stayed around to find out. What would have happened if Mike Sundquist had just swum off the day he’d gotten caught under the reef, instead of trying to help him?
He would be dead now.
A hot ember of shame starting to burn deep inside him, Josh Malani moved from the bed of the truck to the cab, started the engine, and set off toward his house. Maybe, if no one was home, he’d grab a quick shower and change his clothes. Then, even if he didn’t get there till noon, he’d go to school, find Jeff, and apologize to him.
If Jeff was still speaking to him.
An hour later he slowed down as he neared the rundown house he and his parents had moved into six months ago, after his father had lost his last job. Seeing his dad’s rust-eaten Dodge sitting in the driveway — and his father himself slouched on the sofa in the living room, staring at the TV — he sped up and drove on by. He’d take a shower at school, and put on the same clothes he’d been wearing since yesterday. Better that than having his dad yelling at him; if the old man had been drinking, he might even take a swing at him.