Moon over Maalaea Bay Read Free Page B

Lee would find out what it was…somehow. The little things that seemed to be missing bothered him. Was there more to Jennifer’s abduction than he suspected? His gut said yes. His gut also said he should vomit. He tried to ignore his gut…on both counts.
    Lee sighed. “Core dump. You must be into computers.”
    Yagi nodded, then shrugged. “But that was before I got hooked on law enforcement.”
    Kaai turned into a parking area adjacent to a building that appeared to be a beehive of activity.
    “Here we are,” Yagi announced. “Brace yourself, Brandt.”
     
    ****
     
    An hour later, Lee sat alone in the room where he had faced a fever-pitched interrogation for forty-five minutes. Detective Ramirez of the Maui Police Department, MPD, was good and thorough. He’d asked Lee a lot of questions, but only allowed him a few in return. He understood. Ramirez was probably under intense pressure from the politicians. Tourism could be severely—
    His cell rang. The number was blocked. Lee answered.
    “Is that you, Brandt?”
    Peterson. He prayed for good news. “Yeah. Lee here. Have you—”
    “Just listen for a second, because that’s all I have. Some people in very high places are concerned about Jennifer falling into the wrong hands, and they’re—”
    “Peterson! She’s in the wrong hands now!”
    If the tall FBI agent were here, Lee would be in his face. He needed to be in somebody’s face.
    Peterson sighed. “I know. But hear me out. They’re pulling out all of the stops. That’s a good thing. In fact, I’ll see you in about four and a half hours, so—”
    “Four and a half hours? That’s not possible. What—”
    “Lee, I told you they’re pulling out all the stops. Don’t ask anymore because I can’t tell you.” Peterson paused. Someone in the background spoke. “Make that four hours. Sit tight and try not to worry. We’ll find Jennifer.” He ended the call.
    The words “We’ll find Jennifer” replayed in his mind. But the thought of how they might find her brought more nausea.
    Was Peterson coming on something supersonic? A military plane? He said Uncle Sam was pulling out all the stops. But going to such lengths to get him on the ground in Maui meant that the FBI agent knew a lot more about this incident than he was telling.
    The attention Jennifer was getting was comforting, the reasons behind it, disconcerting.
    Lee’s stomach roiled and he leaped from his seat, ran out the door, and headed towards a sign in the hallway that pointed to restrooms.
    After five minutes of violent retching, his stomach settled. He washed his face, and then his mind cleared. Now a new thought dominated all others. With all of the pressure being brought to bear on them, her abductors couldn’t move Jennifer. As the search continued, at some point they would probably kill her rather than risk being caught red-handed.
    He tried to come up with a plan— his plan for finding Jennifer. He would rather die trying to save her than sit idly by and let some goons kill her. The police wouldn’t take kindly to his meddling, so he wouldn’t tell them what he was doing. But he hadn’t a clue yet what he was going to do.
    Before he formulated his plan, Lee needed to make a phone call. It was a call to the man who had given Jennifer away to him earlier that day, a call to the man who trusted Lee to protect her, a call that filled him with dread.
     
     
     
     

4
     
    Lee stood in the hallway outside the men’s room in the Wailuku police station and pressed Granddad’s number on his speed dial. He sought words to break the news. The right words wouldn’t come, only feelings of horror and loss. That wasn’t the message he wanted to communicate. He needed to give them some hope, but right now, hope was in short supply.
    You can’t give what you don’t have.
    “Hello.”
    Granddad’s voice. He sounded cheerful. Probably having the time of his life with Katie, playing chess, throwing baseballs, and teaching her