Moon over Maalaea Bay Read Free Page A

looked at the reflection of the officer’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “If I know Peterson, he’s about to make all of us a little nervous.”
    A few glimmers of hope had been tossed to him, but the darkness of his circumstances sent Lee to a place he couldn’t bear to visit. He fought against the pictures invading his mind, but he relived those moments when he had nearly lost Jennifer six weeks ago. Though he was sure he’d lost her, God had rescued Jennifer, and He had used Lee to help in her rescue. In less than two hours, he had gone from the depths of despair to elation. Would that happen again? Could he be as fortunate a second time?
    Reality set in. These were wealthy, international criminals. Their attack had obviously been well planned. Someone had closely watched Jennifer and him. The abductors had chosen their time carefully and grabbed her at an opportune moment. These facts alone told him the odds were long that he’d ever see Jennifer alive.
    As despair set in, he held onto one hope. Jennifer was twenty-six years old, so the traffickers hadn’t planned for an Amber Alert. At least one monkey wrench had been thrown into their plan. But would it be enough to save Jennifer?
     
     
     
     

3
     
    While the patrol car rolled across the island towards Wailuku, Lee tried praying, but questions interfered—a myriad of questions. However, they all led to the same one. Why?
    The knots in his writhing stomach and his panic brought on nausea. Soon, fighting the urge to vomit also interfered with each attempt to pray. And then the questions returned.
    Why on their wedding night? Why did God allow it? Jennifer was so brilliant, so beautiful, so full of compassion for lost and oppressed people…why her?
    Dark fields gave way to dark, shadowy palm trees. Soon scattered lights appeared on the hill to the left, and the lights of the city lay only a short distance ahead. A few more minutes and he—a thought jarred him. How could he have forgotten to ask?
    You’re an idiot, Brandt! An INTJ idiot. The Meyers-Briggs personality assessment made him understand himself a lot better. It sometimes even led to an intuitive, brilliant leap of logic.
    He leaned forward. “Officer Yagi.”
    Yagi twisted in his seat. “Yeah, Brandt?”
    “An Amber Alert means there was a witness. Who saw the abduction? What did they see?”
    Yagi looked at Kaai and waited.
    After a few seconds Kaai nodded.
    Yagi turned back towards Lee. “A tourist, a middle-aged lady, saw two men overpower and abduct your wife.” Yagi sighed. “It happened at the back of the shops. They came out of the dark parking area in the rear of the shops, grabbed her, and left the same way, into the dark parking lot.”
    “Anything else? Any other witnesses?”
    Yagi shook his head. “No. Just one lady saw it.”
    Jennifer would have fought them. She was fast, smart, and she knew some karate. Why didn’t they mention that? “What about descriptions of the two perps?”
    “Perps?” Yagi glanced his way and shook his head. “You watch too much TV.”
    “I seldom watch TV, Yagi. Now tell me about the perps!” Lee’s frustrated voice surprised even him with its intensity.
    “Settle down, man. I was getting there. Two strongly built men wearing dark clothing. That’s all we have to go on.” Yagi turned back towards the windshield. He was done.
    But there had to be more. Lee wasn’t ready to quit his interrogation. “What kind of dark clothes? Shorts? T-shirts?”
    “The lady was so upset by—” Yagi cut off his sentence and paused.
    What was he about to say?
    “It upset the lady so much that’s all she could give us for a description. Now, the police station is a couple of blocks ahead. You can expect a lot of questions, Brandt. If we’re going to help you, you’re going to have to give us everything you know about Jennifer, a complete core dump.”
    Unlike the core dump you just truncated.
    Yagi had omitted something that further upset the lady.