Freefall (8 page)

“It’s remarkable you made it out the first time. You’re not in any shape to do it again.”

“It’s all I can think of.”

She was turning his theories upside down, and he didn’t like that. He threaded his fingers together atop his head, eyed her musculature. She wasn’t soft like Nica. Maybe, as she’d claimed, she had come to Kauai to experience the raw beauty, the treacherous terrain and unspoiled wilderness. Maybe she did prefer it to the skin scene on Waikiki. But even so … “Can’t you wait until your story hits—see what TJ comes up with?”

Wincing, she pulled the pack onto her shoulders. “It’s been four days. I can’t wait.” She brushed past him.

“Hold on.”

She turned and scowled. “I know all the arguments. You’ve made your opinion clear.”

His lack of trust must have stung more than she’d shown. In spite of his doubt, he said, “I’ll go with you.”

“No, thanks. I seem to be losing companions.”

“You won’t make it up alone. It’ll be dicey with two, but we might have half a chance.”

She waited a full beat. “This isn’t your problem. I won’t bother Nica further.”

“You’re no bother, Jade. But I agree with Kai. You can’t go alone.”

Jade looked from Nica to him. “Kai? I thought your name was Cameron.”

“Kai’s my Hawaiian name.” Though purely
haole
, Okelani had dubbed them both when they came under her care.

“It means ocean,” Nica said. “Okelani named him that because he’s as unpredictable as the sea.”

He flicked her a glance. That was more information than Jade needed. On the mainland he was Cameron Pierce, but his island persona was different. Normally. Even there he wouldn’t let a braindamaged amnesiac trek
mauka
into native forest unassisted. “I’ve got a pack and boots in my room here, but we’ll need supplies. Give me half an hour.”

She still seemed reluctant. “If you’re only coming to prove your point, I’d rather you didn’t.”

He appreciated her not pulling her punches. He wouldn’t pull his either.

But Nica, the peacemaker, touched Jade’s hand. “I’ll come, too. The three of us—”

“No.” No way was he putting his sister in danger. “I can’t be responsible for both of you.”

Jade raised her chin. “Responsible?”

Before she could get her back up, he said, “Technically speaking.” She might be strong, but he was stronger. That made him the dominant partner in any physical situation, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

She assessed him coolly. “I only hope you won’t slow me down.”

Fighting words. They triggered an annoyed amusement, but he chose not to alienate her further. “Only where caution requires.”

She leaned against the back of the couch and said, “Half an hour.”

Nica fretted. Kai was right that Jade wasn’t up to climbing back into the mountains. If she was recovered enough for that, she would have remembered more than one tiny fragment. After seeing the doctor yesterday Jade had slept most of the day. She should listen to her body, let herself heal. Another fall and she might never know who she was.

But that wasn’t what scared her the most.
Malice
. She felt its presence. God had sent the warning through Okelani, and the essence of danger clung to Jade. Now Kai was caught up in it without protection, having all but dared God to interfere in his life again. Even a strong man was no match for malice. Not alone.

When he came back from collecting his supplies, she met him at the truck.

“Don’t ask again, Nica. It’ll be hard enough with Jade.”

“I’m not asking to come. I want to bless you.”

He straightened. “You don’t need to worry.”

“Kai.”

He blew out a slow breath. “Can we do it without the whole armor and breastplate and legions of angels thing?”

She socked his arm. “Stand there and take it like a man.”

He tucked his head back with a long-suffering expression.

She took his hands, closed her eyes, and brought him to Jesus who understood her concerns. “Please guide and protect Kai and Jade. Let all wickedness flee. Set angels beside them, before and behind them, above and below them.” Her throat constricted with memories of her mother praying that over her head as she snuggled down to sleep. Why hadn’t she remembered to pray it for her mother that stormy day so long ago? She squeezed Kai’s hands. “Bring them back safely.”

Kai didn’t interrupt, but when she finished, he said, “Feel better?”

Her throat was tight.

He pulled her into a hug. “It’s okay, Nica. We’re just trekking
mauka
.”

She nodded. Into the heart of the island, not out from its sheltering shores. He’d be okay. And he’d take care of Jade.

SEVEN

Just crossing the fertile valley had her
breathing harder than she’d expected. Cameron had offered to drive as far inland as possible, but since she was working on intuition alone, she needed to walk it back, retracing the same line from Nica’s.

As they tramped along, she studied the patchwork of flooded paddies they passed through. Since he’d crashed her party and she might as well make use of that, she asked Cameron what they were growing.

“Taro. A Hawaiian staple. The leaves are rich in vitamins, and from the tuber we get, oh joy, poi.”

She laughed, then touched her temple, willing away the ache that was beginning there. Though he might not think so, she knew the danger of this undertaking. And dreaded it.

He didn’t miss much, though. “Hurt?”

“I’m all right.” Given the magnitude of their undertaking, a headache was the least of her concerns.

She jumped over a swampy area and glanced back to make sure she was still on track from Nica’s, then startled as a feral rooster crowed. Draped in brilliant green, red, and gold plumage with an arched, iridescent black tail, he strutted out from the webbed roots of a tree. “Isn’t it late in the day for crowing?”

“They crow day and night. No barnyard manners.” Cameron lunged onto the higher ridge of ground where she stood. “Speaking of crowing, TJ is sending your story to the mainland. The chief ordered a full broadcast.”

She stopped and stared. “How do you know?”

“I dropped into the station to tell him how to reach us if he learns something.”

“You told him what I’m doing?”

“He said not to leave the island.”

“Don’t leave town.”
Recollection flickered, then passed. She raised her chin. “No wonder he wouldn’t help. If everyone wasn’t so busy suspecting me, we might get somewhere.” She’d hoped when she told the police what she knew, allowed herself to be photographed, her story to be broadcast, that help would be certain. Obviously it was still up to her. And Cameron couldn’t be trusted. She moved on.

“It makes sense to include the mainland, where friends and family can identify you.”

“Unless I live here.”

“Then you’d know
mauka
and
makai
—toward the mountains, toward the coast. They’re the primary directions on any of the islands.”

“I might have forgotten.”

“It’s not something you forget. It’s a circular sort of navigation absorbed by people who grow up on an island. It has little to do with north or south or even right or left, only toward the mountains or toward the shore.”

She supposed that might be one of the intangibles that remained in lieu of memory, things more innate than filed occurrences, like the knowledge she’d retained without any recollection of learning the things she knew. Information must be stored separately from experience. “You grew up on this island? You and Nica?”

“Downline descendents of missionaries who came to do good and also did well, as the saying goes. Where we’re different from others is that my grandparents, on passing, deeded the bulk of their land back to the Hawaiians who’d farmed it.”

“Except for Nica’s house?”

“Basically.”

She stopped and studied the abruptly rising terrain. A stream tumbled down that looked and sounded like the waterway she’d followed into the valley. She turned and looked back, comparing the direction they’d come to the direction she’d gone the first time. A fairly direct line from Nica’s, since she hadn’t had the strength to wander. “This is it.”

“You sure?”

“As sure as I can be.”

He looked forward, then back, marking their position, perhaps, in his mind. “Anything coming back to you?”

“I remember coming out, just not what I was doing in there.”

“Or what happened.”

“Or what happened,” she agreed. “Except …”

“What?” His gaze bored into her.

Shook her head. “Maybe I’m dizzy. For a moment I felt like I was falling.”

“Try to feel it again.”

She searched his face, then closed her eyes. The warm breeze encircled her as she tried, but the feeling was gone. “It must have been a spell.” She’d had plenty of woozy moments, and the exertion didn’t help.

“I wouldn’t discount it.”

“You think I’m remembering?”

“Could be.” He hung his hands on his hips.

“Then it’s at least possible I’m telling the truth.”

“If there was no chance, I wouldn’t be here.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am.” She brushed past. The terrain seemed familiar even though she’d been dazed the last time she passed that way. Her senses had been heightened then in a way that kicked in now—along with her aches and bruises.

The doctor had said rest. To let her energies realign. Right. She puffed up the first steep rise. As the incline increased, it put Cameron Pierce into position to break her fall. Might just be worth it.

Without a path, she worked her way up through red dirt, rocks, and ferns cloaking the stream’s banks. A purple, jellyfish-shaped flower and other verdant plants perfumed the air. A dove cooed somewhere out of sight, but a brown-and-black myna shouted it down. The yellow triangular patch behind its eye matched its beak and bold yellow stockings. Under other conditions, she would have enjoyed exploring this island.

And then it hit her that she had. In that moment she sensed someone else’s excitement too; the person who’d been with her. She focused on the feeling, trying to grasp the flesh-and-blood person she’d glimpsed. But as with the dream, when she tried it slipped away.

She squeezed between the slender trees along the shore to a place where the stream tumbled down a series of giant steps that looked familiar. As she mounted the boulders and pulled herself up, the aches and kinks faded. She inhaled through her nose, cleansed through her mouth, finding her rhythm.

When the incline steepened in the narrowing channel, she grabbed onto ropey roots and pulled herself up. A shower rolled down the mountains over them, swelling the stream and slickening the rocks, but on either side the jungle crowded in like linemen to contain her within the narrow passage. She gripped and pulled, digging in with her hikers, clawing for holds with her hands. Her muscles bunched and tensed.

Someone needed her. The need pumped in her temples, burned in her chest. Straining, she grabbed the wet, igneous rock, scrambled to catch her foot, slipped, then kicked again and pulled herself up against a stone face. The water beside her roared.

From below, Cameron gripped her shin, then pulled himself up behind her. “Take a rest,” he breathed. “You don’t have to prove anything.”

She had almost shut him out, but now his presence encompassed and invaded her. She closed her eyes and breathed, only then realizing how fatigued she’d become.

“You sure you came this way before?”

She nodded. “I remember.”

He pulled a thin nylon rope from his pack. “After I get past, attach this end. We’ll leave it for the trek down.”

Her stomach sank. She hadn’t thought that far—not to going down again, only getting to the place where she could remember, finding the person she’d forgotten. But Cameron was right. They’d all have to get out again.

Her hands were caked with reddish mud, arms and legs smeared. Tendrils of hair clung to her cheeks and neck. Her left bicep twitched. None of it mattered—only getting there. As her heart rate slowed, she pondered her predicament.

She was in the Hanalei Mountains searching for someone she couldn’t recall with someone she hardly knew. Two nights ago she wouldn’t get into his truck. Now she was caught between him and … well, a rock. If she tried hard enough, she might explain that somehow.

“Stay put,” he spoke into her ear.

As though she could move if she wanted to. He dug his boot in and pushed up past her, trailing the rope. Where the channel narrowed again, he straddled the water and spider-walked the walls. She knotted the rope around a sturdy root, eye level above the mud and stone, and waited until Cameron pulled it taut and tied his end.

Stopping had given her legs a tremor, but she ignored it. She had made it down, and down was worse. At least pulling against gravity gave the illusion of control. She took hold of the rope and worked her way up until she reached the top, where he waited shin deep in the water.

His wet T-shirt clung to him. “Might have been an easier way.”

“Maybe. But I didn’t want to lose sight of the water.” She dipped her hands and arms into the flow and rubbed off the grime.

He surveyed the next stretch with a frown. The tree canopy had thinned and the undergrowth thickened. He motioned toward a break in the foliage. “Looks like a game trail.”

“What game?”

“Wild pigs probably. Stop here to water.”

She glanced around. “Are there predators?”

“Just us.”

“I’m a threat to a wild pig?”

“Femme fatale,” he deadpanned. “We might consider taking it.”

She studied the animal path. “What if we can’t get back to the water? Or if the creek branches out and we think we’re back but we’re not?”

He nodded. “Valid concerns.”

Hands on her hips, she looked up at the next incline the water rushed down. Was it the same water that had carried her before? In the shallows where she stood, she closed her eyes and remembered it deeper, faster, more treacherous. It must have forked or the water would not be less here than higher up.

She opened her eyes. Even though the pressed-dirt path through ferns and palms as tall as she might prove easier, she couldn’t chance losing her only point of reference. “I think we’d better stay with the water.”