And what had he done? Blown his stack and taken off.
Terrific!
So now what?
Home was out — no way was he going to go there until at least five, when his mom would be home from work and he wouldn’t have to be alone with his dad.
Maybe he’d just go to the beach for a couple of hours. He always felt a lot better after going for a swim, and then he’d come back just before school let out and find Mike.
He’d apologize, and then they’d figure out what to do about Jeff Kina. Maybe Mike was right — maybe they really should go tell the police where they’d been the night Kioki died.
By the time Josh came to the floor of the valley between Haleakala and the West Maui mountains, the strange discomfort in his chest had started up again, and as he headed out toward a park on the windward side where few people ever went during the week, another fit of coughing gripped him. Then, with the same frightening breathlessness that had come over him at the school once again descending on him, he pressed hard on the accelerator, determined to get to the beach, where he could take in the trade winds blowing in from the ocean. So focused was he on his struggle to overcome the choking airlessness, that Josh never noticed that the car behind him sped up, too, keeping perfect pace with his truck.
The ammonia, he thought. Michael was right. His chest was aching painfully now, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to get enough air into his lungs. As he pulled the truck to a stop in the empty parking lot behind the beach, he was gripping the wheel hard with both hands, partly against the terrible fiery pain spreading through him, but even more to keep himself steady.
His knuckles, already white with tension, were starting to turn blue, and now, when he looked out to sea, he could barely even see the horizon.
Everything seemed to be getting blurry, and the brightness of the afternoon was fading, even though a moment ago there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky.
Out.
He had to get out of the truck and down onto the beach. If he could just get that far, he’d be able to breathe again, and lie down and rest for a while, and then this strange attack would pass. He’d be okay again. He fumbled for the door handle, found it, and slid out of the driver’s seat. But instead of landing on his feet, his knees buckled beneath him and he crumbled to the ground, sprawling out in the dust.
He was panting, gasping for breath, but with every movement of his diaphragm, it felt as if his lungs were being seared from inside with a blowtorch.
Dying!
He knew it now, knew it with a terrible certainty.
The darkness was closing around him, and the pain was growing worse, and he couldn’t breathe at all.
He reached out, flailing, searching for something — anything — to hang on to, to cling to, as if the act of clutching something in his hands could stave off the horrible suffocation that was claiming him.
He tried to cry out, tried to scream for help, but all that emerged from his throat was a whispered moan.
Then, as the darkness closed around him and the last of his strength deserted him, he felt a new sensation.
It was as if he was being lifted.
Lifted up, and carried away.
His beleaguered lungs still struggling for breath, Josh Malani surrendered to the blackness.
“My Jeff is a good boy,” Uilani Kina insisted. “My Jeff wouldn’t just take off. Something’s happened to him.”
Cal Olani nodded sympathetically, but the gesture was nearly automatic. After fifteen years as a cop, he’d long since learned that there wasn’t a mother alive whose son wasn’t “a good boy.” It made no difference what the charge might be, or how damning the evidence.
“My son is a good boy,” Mrs. Kina said again.
Still, as he looked around the tidy house that Uilani Kina kept, he didn’t see any of the typical signs that a teenager was likely to be a troublemaker. On a side street above Makawao, the frame house sat in the midst of a well-kept garden. The patch of lawn in front was mowed, and though a few chickens pecked at the ground in a coop next to the house, they weren’t running wild. Uilani’s husband operated a small garden supply shop down the road in Makawao, where Jeff worked after school except during track season. Aside from a couple of incidents when he’d threatened a few haoles — but hadn’t actually done much to make good on his threats — Jeff had never been in any serious trouble. Still, he was at the age when boys start wanting to show their independence, and had it not been for the discovery of Kioki Santoya’s body yesterday morning, Cal would probably have tried a little harder to reassure Uilani Kina that her son would turn up by the end of the day. As it was, though, he had to take the boy’s absence more seriously. “I’ll put out an official missing persons report this afternoon,” he promised, though he knew the news was out about Jeff all over the island. He closed his notebook and, putting it back in the inside pocket of his uniform jacket, he said as gently as he could, “Just try not to get too upset, Mrs. Kina.”
“If it wasn’t for Kioki—” Uilani Kina began, but couldn’t bring herself even to finish the thought. A slim wraith of a woman with soft features framed by flowing black hair, she shook her head sadly. “I don’t know what Alice is going to do. He was all she had, and now …” She struggled to compose herself. “What were those boys doing that night?” she asked, her eyes searching Cal Olani’s face for an answer. “Did something happen? Did they get in a fight or something? Was someone mad at them?” She shook her head, clucking her tongue softly. “Who could get mad at them? Such good boys.” Her voice changed, and Cal Olani had the feeling she was talking more to herself than to him. “Even Josh Malani. What can you expect with parents like that? I feel so sorry for him.…” Her voice trailed off again, but her liquid brown eyes remained fixed on the policeman. “Find Jeff for me,” she pleaded. “Please find him for me.”
Back in his car a few minutes later, with the memory of the distraught woman’s plea still fresh in his mind, Olani kept hearing echoes of her question: Did something happen?
And he also remembered the faces of the four boys he’d talked to at the high school yesterday afternoon. The way their eyes had darted toward Josh Malani before they answered his questions, as if seeking his advice or his permission before they spoke.
And the new boy — the one Cal couldn’t remember having seen at all before yesterday — hadn’t actually answered his questions with anything more than a noncommittal shrug. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was just about time for school to be letting out. Maybe he’d swing back there and have another talk with those three. But just as he made the decision, the radio in the car came alive and he heard the dispatcher calling him.
“Car five here,” he said into the microphone.
“I have a report of an abandoned car, Cal,” the dispatcher told him. “Down in the park near Spreckelsville. You anywhere close?”
“Above Makawao,” Olani replied, then told the dispatcher what he was planning to do next.
“I think you might want to take this abandoned car report,” the dispatcher told him. “We’ve run the plates. It’s an eighty-two Chevy pickup, registered to Joshua Malani.”
Olani felt an uneasy chill ripple over him. “How long’s it been there?” he asked.
“Not very long,” the dispatcher replied. “The woman who reported it says it wasn’t there this morning.”
“Then why is it being reported as abandoned?” Olani asked. Who would report a truck the first time he saw it? After a day or two, maybe, but … The dispatcher’s voice cut into his thought.
“The keys are in the ignition, and his wallet was left on the front seat.”
The uneasy chill that had come over Cal Olani congealed into a feeling of dark foreboding. “Ten-four,” he said. “I’m on my way.”