Page 54 of Shark Cove

Regina shut her eyes; she’d gone as pale as the sheets on the gurney. She gulped the water, her teeth chattering against the bottle’s opening.

A few minutes later, Pai Opunui jumped up into the cramped vehicle. “Sergeant Texeira. I got here as soon as I could. What’s going on?”

Lei turned her recorder back on and took the water bottle from Regina’s trembling hand. “Ms. William was just telling us that her daughter Camille was kidnapped,” Lei said. “Regina, can you repeat to the detective here what you told us? Again, we’re on the record now.”

Regina caught Opunui up to speed when Harry had left. “I hid behind the tires as best I could with my arms over my head. The shooting was so loud . . .”

“How did you know that the kidnappers were associated with your husband’s shipping business?” Lei asked.

Regina frowned, her mouth pursing. “Leonard knew from the beginning that Camille had been kidnapped. I called him right away when she disappeared, confused by Camille’s runaway note and wondering if she’d gone to his boat. But he lied to me at first.”

“How did you find out what was really going on?”

“He told me Camille had come to him on theMermaid, which was anchored in Lahaina Harbor. He said Camille was angry with me about all the treatments I was making her do and wouldn’t speak to me.” Regina licked her lips. “Can I get some more water?”

Lei handed her the bottle again, removing the lid since the woman’s arm was injured. Regina drained it, handed it back. “I didn’t believe that Camille wouldn’t speak to me. I told Leonard I was coming down there with my lawyer to bring her home. That’s when Leonard told me she’d been kidnapped. He said he’d had a ransom demand but had no idea who did it.” She shut her eyes. “I’d already alerted the cops—sorry, Sergeant Texeira—so we had to have an explanation. I came up with the fat camp idea. I even had a brochure because I’d been trying to talk Camille into going.” She sighed. “It was so stressful. You can’t imagine.”

“You must have been crazed with worry,” Lei soothed.

Opunui rolled his eyes, but fortunately Regina didn’t see that as she continued.

“Leonard and I’d had a bad divorce. We could hardly stand to speak to each other, and now here I was having to cover up our daughter’s kidnapping with him, when I suspected she’d been targeted because of him.”

“That must have been awful,” Lei said.

“When did you become aware that this was more than a simple kidnapping?” Opunui asked.

“I went out to the boat to talk to Leonard in person about the money, and the exchange meeting—all the details. I saw his armed guards on theMermaid andrealized something more was probably going on. While I was in the head, I overheard him talking to someone on the phone—Leonard was threatening the guy, and the caller was threatening him right back. When I came out, I confronted him.” Regina shook her head, a tear slipping through the dirt on her face. “Leonard said he did some shipping of illegal goods, and the mob on Oahu were forcing him to continue after he’d refused to do it anymore. They had taken Camille to show him who was boss.”

“That’s pretty cold, right there,” Opunui said.

“Isn’t it?” Regina dashed the tears away. “Poor Camille, a pawn in all of this. And then, the cops sniffing around, tearing my house apart . . .”

“You should have told us what was really going on,” Lei said. “We could have helped you from the beginning.”

“Leonard said they’d kill us all if I did.”

The EMTs reappeared. “We’ve helped Dr. Gregory all he will let us,” one of them said. “Are you done? We’d like to transport our patient now.”

Lei looked at Opunui, and he nodded. “We’ll follow up with you soon,” he told Regina.

The two of them got down out of the ambulance. Shortly afterward, it pulled away. Opunui went over to join the ME, inspecting one of the bodies. The full crime scene team was now on-site, everyone busily working around the bloody scene.

But Lei only had one thing she wanted to do: identify where the kidnappers had hidden the remaining missing girls.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Camille continuedto pick at the duct tape on her hands, not making much progress. “Got anything sharp in here?” she asked Malia in a voice that was muffled by chewing on the tape.

“I don’t know. This isyourcar!” Malia blew out a breath as the Prius was hit by a gust of wind off the ocean far below.

Camille’s eyes widened. “Oh yeah. I guess I knew that—I’m not thinking straight.” She used her bound hands to fumble open the glove box. The Mardi Gras beads tumbled out onto the floor as she scrabbled through, eventually holding up a pair of nail scissors. She waggled them in her fingers. “Any chance we can pull over and hide somewhere and you can get this off me?”

“Not a bad idea. Then you can drive. I’m sure you’re a better driver,” Malia said, slowing around yet another blind corner.

“I don’t know about that. You’re doing great.” Just as Camille said that, Malia swung a little too wide around another curve. A passing car blared its horn at them, swinging dangerously close to the edge. “Okay, that’s it. Find somewhere to pull over while we change places.”

“It might be a good idea to stay there and hide a while, when we do find a spot.” Malia’s heart hadn’t stopped its rabbit-like thumping since she charged out from behind the bathroom to save Camille. “Both of those big SUVs can go faster than this car. I barely kept up with the one your parents were in on the way to the rendezvous.”

---