Page 84 of Forgotten Promise

So now what?

Kailani rubbed her temples, the beginning of a headache forming, fueled no doubt by the lack of sleep and fresh air, paired with an abundance of stress and regret.

This was her fault. All of it. She’d made a terrible mistake, and she knew it, just as she knew she needed to fix it. But she wasn’t sure how.

Probably because she was drifting on fumes.

Kailani blinked a few times, her eyes scratchy and dry from exhaustion. Once again, she was fighting not to cry, and she hated it. Hated feeling so tired, so weak, so confused.

She swayed slightly where she stood. Part of her wondered if she closed her eyes, if she could actually sleep right here, just like this, standing up.

She was that fucking tired.

No. She shook her head, wishing she’d thought to grab a cup of coffee from the restaurant before the meeting…or even before coming back here, though given Preston’s delicate handling of everything he touched, she doubted he would have let her walk in here with a to-go cup of coffee.

“This is incredible,” Preston said, not for the first time. He had one of the drawers in the cabinet file pulled out and was leafing through the papers inside.

While she was distracted and stressed out, he resembled a kid in a candy store as he uncovered more and more of the secret society’s “hidden treasure.”

She hadn’t even been able to muster up excitement when he opened one of the silver briefcases and revealed that it was stuffed with cash. Not just cash but Hawaiian overprint notes from WWII, which were worth considerably more than their face value.

Kailani simply wrote down everything he said.

“Damn.” Preston’s tone turned sober, almost grim, with the next item.

“What?” she asked, his tone waking her up enough that some of the exhaustion fog lifted.

“Do you know what the term ‘broken arrow’ means?” He tilted the page he held so she could see it. It looked to have been written on a typewriter, the letters a little uneven. The heading was “Broken Arrow.”

“No, what is it?’

“Broken Arrow is the military’s term for things like missing nuclear bombs.”

“Missing?” Kailani looked at him, hoping he was joking.

“Yes, I think there’s something like six, or maybe eight acknowledged missing warheads.”

“What the fuck?” Kailani breathed, horror acting like a shot of espresso.

“Except according to this…three of them aren’t actually missing. Saying they’re missing was actually the cover-up because the Trinity Masters put them in storage.”

“We have nuclear bombs? Please tell me they’re not on any of my islands.”

“Nope.” He pointed to an address on the paper.

“Wow,” Kailani breathed.

Shoulder to shoulder, they looked at the cabinet file.

“How many drawers have you gone through?” Kailani asked.

“Three.”

“Three drawers. Out of…fifty-one. Plus, everything else in here.” Kailani looked over her shoulder, then back at the cabinet file. “They’ll probably all contain something horrible,” she said.

“No, not horrible. Secrets, yes, but not all horrible. Not exactly.” He closed the current box, then pulled out the one above it. “Let me get your opinion on this.” He handed her an old paper photo envelope, the kind where the developed pictures went in the back, while there was a small place in the front for the negatives.

He’d mentioned this already. Kailani had put “picture negatives” on her list and was too tired to ask for more specifics. Though now that she thought about it, it was odd that he just said there were negatives, without any hint about the subject of the photos.

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