Page 49 of Shark Cove

“No, miss. Stay where you are,” the operator said authoritatively. “We’ll send an officer to check it out.”

“Call Detective Harry Clark. This is related to the Camille William disappearance case, I’m sure of it.” Malia was having a tricky time getting around the boat trailer with the phone against her ear.

“What’s your name again?” The operator snapped. Malia hit the button that ended the call. She’d almost been out of minutes anyway, and she needed both hands to navigate out of the parking lot if she were going to keep the Escalade in sight.

Malia stayed a block away as the big vehicle moved down residential streets and turned onto busy Honoapi‘ilani Highway, headed toward Ka‘anapali. She reached down and fumbled around for the phone and called 911 again.

“They’re headed for Ka‘anapali!” Malia yelled the minute the operator came on. “Call Detective Clark! It’s a matter of life and death!” Whatever else was going on, Malia was sure of that much. “Please, send someone now!”

The phone went dead—out of minutes.

Malia followed the Escalade, surprised when it passed the golf course and shopping mall that marked the last resort in Ka‘anapali.

From those developments on out, the road narrowed to a two-lane track above steep cliffs that plummeted to black lava rocks crashed upon by a rough turquoise sea. The whole coastal area was a marine sanctuary bordered by former pineapple fields going to seed, dotted with scrub koa, boulders and overgrown bushes. The sky was streaked with hazy pinkish clouds as the sun went behind the long mauve slope of Molokai, a smaller island off the coast.

Whipping wind rocked Camille’s little car as Malia hung back, trying to stay at least a curve away from the Escalade, but the powerful vehicle soon outpaced her. She lost sight of it entirely and had to concentrate on the narrow curves instead. She overshot the rough junction where the Escalade had turned off the road—only a puff of red volcanic dust alerted Malia to where the SUV had disappeared.

Malia hung a U-turn in the middle of the road, something she was sure would fail her forever from passing her license test. Red dust, the soil of the former pineapple field, still hung in the air as she followed an even narrower graveled drive leading along the edge of a cliff that plummeted down to a popular surf break, Shark Cove, now churned up by whitecaps.

Past the palm frond topped observation hut near the surf break, a cement block bathroom loomed, and beyond it, Malia spotted the parked Escalade. There was nowhere to hide but beside the bathroom, so Malia reversed and backed in behind it, hopefully out of view.

They had to have seen her, but hopefully they’d written her off as just someone using the restroom—a Prius wasn’t exactly a threatening vehicle.

Malia rolled the window down and leaned forward so she could see what was happening at the Escalade.

Exactly nothing.

She glanced around the area. Because the surf was flat, the park, which was former pineapple land, was deserted.

What were they doing in that SUV?

Malia picked up the burner phone and checked it to make sure that her last minutes had been used on the second 911 call.

She had no way to get help. She had to hope the cops had taken her earlier calls seriously enough to contact her mother and send someone out here—because whatever the Williams were waiting for couldn’t be good.

Malia heard another engine and slid down in the seat, out of sight, as a big tan Suburban SUV rumbled past and stopped directly across from the Escalade.

A window rolled down on each of the vehicles.

Malia sucked in a breath—because what appeared were guns, their black barrels seeming to absorb the light reflecting off the sea.

The back door of the Escalade opened at last.

Regina William got out, her pale outfit fluttering in the breeze, her hands held up. “Please. We did everything you asked, and we have the payment, too.”

Leonard William climbed out behind her. His linen shirt billowed like a sail; his white hair gleamed. “Show us that our daughter is alive,” he demanded.

So that’s what had happened—Camille had been kidnapped!

Things would be over momentarily. The Williams would hand over those duffel bags, and Camille would be safe.

Malia turned on the Prius, thankful for the silent engine, and got ready to pull away. The last thing she wanted was to be caught in the middle of the William family reunion.

The back door of the Suburban opened. A man dressed in camouflage, wearing a black mask over his nose and mouth, got out. Shiny laced-up boots hit the soil and raised poufs of fine red dirt, quickly gone in the wind. He held a pistol in one hand. Reaching back into the SUV, he grabbed something and hauled it out.

That something was Camille, and the man held her upright, wobbly on her feet, by a fistful of long blonde hair. Her mouth was covered with silver duct tape, and her hands were bound in front. She wore the same clothes she’d worn the day she disappeared, and that, as much as anything, brought tears to Malia’s eyes: her friend hated to be dirty, and she’d been held prisoner for days without even a bath.

The man tugged Camille against him and pressed the gun barrel to her temple. “You learn who’s boss yet?” her captor demanded.

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