Page 12 of Shark Cove

They drove in tense silence to Paradise Prep and up the majestic, palm-lined drive. The car slid to a silent stop in the turnaround in front of the office. Malia yanked her backpack out and slammed the door overly hard; the sports car burned rubber leaving.

Malia hurried into the bathroom, splashing water on her face and combing her hair with her fingers, trying to calm her jitters.What a creep!She’d had her hand on the door, getting ready to jump out of the moving car if he tried anything more, but she was really glad she hadn’t had to.

If she ever told her mom, Harry would say, “report the guy so he doesn’t do it to someone else.” But if Malia did, she’d have to tell MPD how she came to be hitchhiking, and that wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have. At least she’d talked her way out of it. Harry’d told her that was the best way to handle a bully. “Don’t show fear. Act confident. Get ready to fight and scream and show the perp you aren’t going to be easy pickings. Most will back off.”

Malia washed her leg where the man had touched it. With soap. Three times.

Chapter Five

Lei carrieda load of dishes to the sink as her son Kiet helped her clear the dinner table. Stevens was seated with their three-year-old daughter Rosie on the couch, a bedtime story open on his lap. The toddler lay against his side, her thumb in her mouth, her favorite blanket clutched close as she stared at the pages. On the other side of him, their Rottweiler, Conan, lay snuggled with his big square head resting on the arm of the couch.

Lei ruffled her son’s glossy head as he passed by, carrying a square baking pan of leftover teriyaki beef strips into the kitchen. “Just set that on the counter, son. I’ll wrap that up for leftovers. In fact, put the rice and salad up there too.”

“Sure, Mom.”

Kiet continued to be a joy to parent. Now eight years old, he was close to reaching Lei’s shoulder in height. Forest green eyes and tan skin contrasting with black hair made the boy exceptionally good looking; they’d been approached about him trying modeling, but Kiet continued to be on the shy side, preferring to build Legos and do nerdy computer stuff.

Lei walked into the living room and peered over Stevens’s shoulder. “What story are you reading tonight?”

“‘Ohana Means Family,” Rosie said, her thumb making a pop as she removed it from her mouth. “By Ilima Loomis.”

“I like how your dad reads the title and tells you the author’s name, too,” she said. “Good job, dad.”

He reached up to pull her down for a quick kiss. “Anything to get a smile out of my girls.”

“No problem there,” Lei said, smiling down at the two. Rosie resembled a dark-haired angel, with her riot of curls and big brown eyes. “I have to go to the back room and make a work call,” she said. “Are you okay supervising bedtime without me tonight?”

“No problem.”

Lei headed back through the kitchen, pausing for a moment to watch as Kiet loaded the plates into their machine. “Do you like using the dishwasher?”

“I don’t know, Mom. I still have to wash the dishes before I load them, then I have to unload them again tomorrow,” Kiet said in his thoughtful way. “I’m not sure it’s actually saving us any work.”

Lei smiled. “I was just thinking the same thing. But sometimes we can fill it up, and it takes a few days before we need to run it. That seems like an energy saver.”

“We should gather data,” Kiet said. “I could measure how much time it takes and keep track on the whiteboard.” He pointed to the shiny plastic laminate board magnetized to the front of the fridge where the family left messages for each other, lists, and chore reminders. Today, Kiet’s day for setting and clearing the table and doing the dishes was clearly marked. Tomorrow it was Rosie’s turn, which meant that Lei or Stevens would be helping their daughter learn her chore.

“That’s a great idea, son.”

“I’m also wondering how much water and power the dishwasher uses over manual washing,” Kiet said. “I have to consider how we would measure that difference.” His eyes narrowed. “Dad has a device for measuring electrical output, but I don’t know how to measure the water usage.”

“This sounds like a science project waiting to happen,” Lei said. “Maybe one of your teachers would be interested in it as a comparison paper.”

Kiet attended a Waldorf school featuring child-centered learning, and he often got to come up with his own projects. The brightness in her son’s eyes showed that he was excited by challenges of turning a dishwasher versus a manual washing comparison into acombination science and composition project. “I’ll let you know what Mrs. Norman says.”

“You do that. I’m off to make a phone call.” Lei grabbed her MPD work cell phone off its charger and headed to the far back bedroom.

She and Stevens continued to make their small house work for the family; Kiet and Rosie shared a room, leaving the back bedroom set up for guests and an office. Lei sat down at the desk in the office, opening her notebook. She hit a number in her Favorites list on the phone. A moment later, her friend’s voice filled her ear. “Lei! It’s been ages!”

“I know, Marcella. We gotta do better at keeping up. Did you hear from Waxman about your new case?”

“I sure did, and it’s a good thing too or I might have thought you were calling me for social reasons,” Marcella said, a smile in her voice.

“You know me, always looking for a twofer. I’m actually hoping that you and Ken can come over to Maui and help out with boots on the ground. This case is big and scary, and we’re getting more disappearances by the day.”

“I’ll put in a request, but as you know we have a lot of disappearances here too,” Marcella said, concern in her voice. “There seems to have been an escalation.”

“Yeah. They were just nabbing runaways before, which made the kids harder to track as far as time of disappearance. But we have two recent ones who weren’t runaways.” Lei filled Marcella in on two new additions to the case, the Emmitt girl and Camille William. “I’m scheduled to interview Regina William and search their house tomorrow. I’ve already talked to the Emmitt girl’s parents and searched their house. Nothing at the Emmitt place contradicted the parents’ story that she never made it home from school,” Lei said. “I’m working with a new-old friend, Harry Clark. I met her sixteen years ago on a trip to Mexico.”

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