Page 9 of Shark Cove

“That’s not protocol, but your mom’s a policewoman.” Mrs. Spelling sniffed to show she was allowing Malia latitude because of her mother’s important job. Malia signed the logbook and Mrs. Spelling paper-clipped the note to the page. Malia thanked her, walked out, and checked in at homeroom, turning in her homework from the day before and grumbling to the teacher about the dentist. When the bell rang for classes, Malia looked both ways to make sure the coast was clear and then hurried down the gracious drive planted with swaying palms.

Her school, in its own little cup of valley in central Maui, was near the island’s oldest town of Wailuku. Surrounding the campus, grassy former sugar cane fields bent and danced in the ever-present trade winds. Malia exited through a magnetic one-way gate beside the main entrance gate designed for cars and walked down to the two-lane highway.

Cars and trucks swished by as Malia plowed through sweet-smelling uncut grass on the shoulder. Above her, the clear blue sky raced with puffy cotton candy clouds, as if there couldn’t be anything to worry abouthere. Malia knew better. Paradise was full of problems; the islands just had a prettier backdrop for them.

She had a long way to go to Camille’s neighborhood—too far to reach the William house in a reasonable amount of time on foot. Steeling herself against every threat and warning her parents had ever given her, Malia stuck out her thumb to hitchhike.

If only she had her own wheels.She had her learner’s permit and almost enough hours logged behind the wheel to take her license test, but that wouldn’t do her much good with no spare car to drive; Harry drove their one car, a Honda CRV with a license plate reading MAMACOP.

A battered tan pickup pulled over onto the grass ahead of Malia. She jogged up to it, glancing inside to make sure the driver didn’t look too much like a rapist or murderer. An old guy in a paint-speckled aloha shirt with antennalike whiskers protruding from his eyebrows hunched behind the wheel. “Whatcha doin’ out of school?” he asked as she opened the door.

“Mom’s car broke down and I’m hitchhiking to the dentist in Wailuku.” The lie rolled easily off Malia’s tongue; a story that was consistent and simple was the easiest to remember and maintain, her mom had told her once.

“I can get you to the dentist at least,” the old guy said. “But a young girl like you shouldn’t be hitchhiking. It’s not safe.” The man insisted on driving her all the way to her destination, which she made up as an office building in downtown Wailuku where her mom’s oral surgeon was located.

That address still wasn’t close enough to where Malia was really going, but the old guy’s lecture rattled Malia so much that she walked the rest of the way.

Forty-five minutes later, sweaty and bedraggled, Malia headed up a semi-steep incline into the development of two-acre lots where a ten-foot-high decorative wall bisected by an artificial waterfall and clump of palms marked the Valley View Estates. Malia discovered a faint trail cutting through the open meadows that marked unsold properties and hurried on.

Finally, she stood at the bottom of Camille’s driveway.

More decorative palms arched over a driveway leading to a Mediterranean style mansion complete with a red tiled roof and bougainvillea plantings. Verandas surrounded an expanse of brick courtyard bordered by potted hibiscus. Malia trotted up the driveway and peeked into the glass insert set into the garage—Regina William’s BMW SUV was gone, but Camille’s car, an older silver Toyota Prius, was still inside.

If Camille had run away, wouldn’t she have taken her car? Who would have picked her friend up and taken her somewhere? It just wasn’t Camille’s style to hitchhike or walk a long distance and get all sweaty like Malia had done.

The spare house keys were hidden under a rubber rock in a little decorative Japanese garden near the stairs; Malia found them, unlocked the front door, and deactivated the alarm with her friend’s birthdate.

“Camille?” Malia called, looking around inside. Here in Camille’s house, with her friend’s car in the garage, it seemed impossible that Camille wasn’t in her room upstairs, that this whole thing wasn’t some big mistake. Malia unslung her backpack and dropped it by the shoes she toed out of by the front door. “Camille?”

The big antique grandfather clock in the front hall ticked and tocked, the heartbeat of a couple of hundred years, a creepy backbeat as Malia padded in her socks down the tiled hall, reaching a sweeping staircase rising to the next level of the house. She glimpsed herself in the mirrored wall alongside the stairs: cheeks red with sun and exertion, hair unraveling from her braid, eyes squinty with worry.

Malia hurried up the treads, calling once more, “Camille? It’s Malia.”

Camille’s room was closed; but her friend rarely locked the door. Malia turned the handle, heart thumping.

Camille would be in her bed sleeping, and she’d sit up and blink in surprise at Malia.

But Camille’s bed was unnaturally perfect, the way it looked after the maid had cleaned, with three lacy throw pillows balanced in a pyramid against a matching peach satin headboard. Malia’s stomach plummeted in disappointment.

She put her hands on her hips and looked around, trying to remember her mom’s comments about assessing a crime scene.

“I go slow.” Harry had blown a plume of smoke at the ceiling. “I let my eyes relax and scan back and forth thoroughly, covering every section of the room in a grid pattern. I try not to focus on any one thing too soon, just let things flow by, until something ‘blips’ in my vision, something that’s out of place or might be a clue.”

Malia walked slowly forward, letting her eyes tell her about the room without focusing on any one thing. Fresh vacuum tracks on the floor would reveal her footprints, so she stayed on a runner rug, and then hopped onto the sheepskin next to the bed.

Camille loved that sheepskin; someone who enjoyed sensations on her skin, Camille liked soft fabrics, silky clothes, fuzzy things. Sinking her feet into the rug reminded Malia of how Camille always sighed happily as she put her feet on it.

Malia’s eyes prickled. “Where are you, Camille?”

She blinked to clear her vision; she was here to figure out what had happened, not get mopey.

Malia frowned as she surveyed Camille’s desk. Her friend’s closed laptop rested on it; Camille would never run off without her laptop, her link to the world.But maybe she was using her phone?And Malia’s heart sank even further: Camille’s phone was plugged into the charger where she always put it when she got home from school.

Nothing short of a natural disaster would make Camille leave her phone behind. Something was definitely wrong.

Malia hopped off the sheepskin rug and tiptoed over to her friend’s closet.

The walk-in was packed with gorgeous clothes, sorted by color, all of it the work of a consultant who had pronounced Camille a “spring” and proceeded, with Regina William’s help, to stock Camille’s closet with outfits that were coordinated and photographed on a ring of laminated reference cards hanging on the closet door.

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