Page 5 of Deadly Sacrifice

“Thanks, friend.” Katie bent her head; a tear fell on the photo of her dad, handsome and smiling in his turnouts, that had come up on her phone as a screensaver for this day. “Miss you always, Dad. You’re my hero.”

* * *

Later,after Diana had left for her own place, Katie dug her childhood photo album out of a box on her top closet shelf. A tumbler of good, aged whiskey—Dad’s drink—at her elbow, Katie leafed through the album’s pages.

Her parents had once been a happy couple. Her mother, Yumi, had never remarried, though she had a boyfriend now, and was a manager at the hotel outside Lahaina where she coordinated the hospitality department.

Katie was the oldest of their children. As she paused at a family portrait, taken at Christmas before her father’s death that year, she could finally acknowledge she’d been Dad’s favorite. That special place she’d had at his side was evident in the photo: Mom bracketed Dad on one side, Katie the other. Both had their arms around his waist, and his encircled them. Her brothers sat cross-legged on the carpet with the family dog between them. A massive Christmas tree, studded with bright glass balls, shimmered in the background.

They’d lived on a five-acre farm back then. Mom had a job working as the part-time administrator of a small business in town, but Dad’s firefighter career provided the backbone of a good living for the family.

That Christmas, she, Dad, and her brothers had cut down their own enormous tree. The excitement of the tree falling and the hard work of getting it back to the house had brought them together. Even then the project wasn’t done; they’d had to put it in a pail of water and set it up in the high-ceilinged living room, stabilizing it with cord attached to the walls and ceiling.

“Total fire hazard,” Dad had said, standing back with his hands on his hips to view the final result. “I’d have to cite you if I found this on the job.”

“Cite me. Then I’ll bite you,” Mom replied. Their kiss was passionate enough to make the kids groan and pelt them with popcorn.

Everything had changed when he died.

His death benefit had kept them going for a year, but Mom hadn’t been able to replace his income with her job, and the memories had been too crippling at the house. In the end she’d sold the farm and taken a big chance on a fresh start, moving the kids to Maui when she got a full-time hospitality position.

Katie still remembered the shock of going to public school in Lahaina, where she hadn’t fit in at all with her unique style. Fortunately, she’d qualified for an academic and financial need scholarship at a private school, Seabury Hall. Her social and emotional life had stabilized—only to spin out again, after her college dream of getting a job at the observatory on Haleakala hadn’t worked out.

“I’ve been finding myself ever since, Dad,” she whispered aloud. “But I think I might be on the right track at last. I can make a difference and catch criminals. I know you’d understand. You thrived on helping people.” Katie traced the plastic film covering Dad’s smiling face with a fingertip. Thankfully, Mom had printed out all these pictures and assembled them before he died; she hadn’t done anything since, and everything was online now, as if Katie’s childhood and family history ended with the album—but at least she still had it.

Next year she’d spend the anniversary of Dad’s death with her brothers. She’d share the photo album with them. As far as she knew, JD and Mel didn’t have any reminders of their early life together. Nothing but memories were left.

“But I’ve got this,” Katie said. She took the photo out carefully and set it aside. “I’ll make copies and have it framed. We should each have it on the wall.”

Mind made up, Katie was ready for bed—and instead of drinking it down, Katie lifted the glass in toast, sipped, and got up to pour the whiskey down the drain. “Tomorrow’s another day at the Maui Police Department, and I need to have my wits about me. I know you’d want that, Dad.”

4

JEFF

Jeff Brian drovehis secondhand former rental Jeep through the pre-dawn darkness of the ‘Ahihi-Kina‘u Natural Area Reserve south of Wailea on Maui. Despite the early hour, he was wide awake; it was three hours later in Silicon Valley, from whence he’d returned after wrapping up a programming project.

Jeff kept both hands on the wheel to steady the jumpy rear-wheel drive Jeep; the road was narrow and rough, barely maintained where it cut through the black crumble of an ancient lava flow. Heading for La Perouse Bay at the end of the route, Jeff’s range of vision was limited to what the headlights illuminated. Even using high beams, the most he could make out were the rugged shapes of hardened lava along the road’s edge.

His new photography mentor Randy had suggested Jeff would find lots of interesting things to capture past the road’s end and had told him where to go—and not to go. “The state wants those Natural Area Reserves to truly be reserves. Limited access, no camping, no commercial activities. Protecting ‘Ahihi-Kina‘u has been a challenge because it’s the easiest reserve area to get to on the island. Out on the edge of the lava flow where it meets the ocean, there’s great diving and a couple of the best snorkeling spots I’ve ever been to. But too many people were damaging the coral in the coves, getting lost in the lava fields, or getting hurt and needing rescue, so they shut off access. Except for a couple of places near the entrance, you can’t even park along the road or walk on the lava.

“To get there, drive through all the way to the parking lot at the bay just beyond the NAR boundary. Hike east, keeping the ocean to your right. You’ll find some neat scenery and the remains of an old Hawaiian village. You may see a pod of spinner dolphins out in the bay, too. You’re in for a treat.”

As a new resident, Jeff was eager to explore such a unique area with his camera. He’d been working remotely for a couple of years as a freelance programmer, and since his last project was completed, he’d planned to take a few weeks off to explore his new home. This tip from Randy at Maui’s Camera Club meeting promised to be something special.

The rough road petered out at a gravel parking lot. Jeff parked near the shoreline, facing the water. To his right was a private home, and then a barbed wire fence that signified the boundary of the Reserve.

Getting out to stretch, he gazed at the heavens above. Still an hour before dawn, indigo skies to the east featured a faint brightening along the outline of the volcano, but it was still too dark to shoot. The bay in front of him was a dark well probably a mile wide and half a mile from the shore to the open sea. Having checked the location on Google Maps before leaving his hotel, Jeff had an idea of what he was looking at.

After strapping his tripod to his camera backpack, Jeff shrugged the rig onto his shoulders. He carried water, energy bars, and a brimmed hat for later. His heavy-duty shoes were ideal for navigating the trail through the jagged lava. Turning on a headlamp, he found a faint trail over the black stone and started hiking east.

The trail meandered through rough, crumbling black lava—but was easy to follow with his headlamp. He passed some symmetrical piles of rock, wondering what they were, and a few low rock walls. The path followed the shoreline closely, going under the tough, drought tolerantkiawetrees in places.

Jeff’s goal was a massive lava cape that jutted out into the ocean nearly a mile away. The trail led there, but he wanted to arrive before daybreak. Once he reached his destination, he planned to take his time shooting the sunrise as it hit the water before slowly working his way back to the parking lot. On the return hike, the sun would be behind him, lighting the rugged scenery. He hoped he’d get lucky and see dolphins, as his buddy Randy had said.

When Jeff finally reached the vantage point he’d targeted, he took a moment to watch as the deep indigo sky slowly paled into a lighter blue—and then suddenly, dramatic rays burst forth on the opposite side of the massive bulk of Haleakala, forming a corona behind the volcano’s magnitude. He then turned and photographed the clouds on the western horizon, painted by the emerging, rising sun: first a light pink, then orange, yellow, and finally cream.

The waters in the bay, which had been nearly black, began to change: deeper blues appearing far from shore, aqua tones in the near shore waters, white foam where the waves rolled over the lava shoreline. He shot backlit photos of the breakers coming in, their foam tinged with sunrise.

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