Black Sands (28 page)

Annie fell into step beside him. “The mountain has been shaking lately. I really need to put out some GPS receivers. I promise to pick them up in a few days. I won’t leave them here indefinitely.”

Orson stopped, and his dark eyes glared out of his face and into her eyes. “I have told you no before.”

“I know, and I’m sorry to keep bugging you, but this is really important to my career.” She told him about the dramatic increase in recent activity, then fell silent. She hated to beg. He was quiet, and she thought he was going to refuse her again.

Then he nodded slowly. “Show me where you want to put them.”

“I’ll get them from the Nissan.” She hurried back to her SUV and grabbed the receivers. Her foot ached from all the walking, and she was limping heavily by the time she got back to Orson.

“You are limping,” he observed.

She nodded but didn’t explain.

“Your sister said you now fear the rivers of fire.”

“Leilani mentioned my accident?”

He thrust his staff into the hard, rocky soil and followed her up the mountain. “The old gods were trying to get your attention.”

Annie gave an involuntary shiver. All this talk of gods— demons, to her mind—made her want to run back to her vehicle.

He noticed her shudder. “You are a fearful girl, Annie Tagama. You must conquer your fears.”

At least he was right about that. Annie wished she could be brave and strong like Fawn. Maybe someday. They reached the first spot she needed to get coordinates on. She showed Orson what she planned, and he consented to letting her plant the receiver. They walked the hillside together, and she marked the spots. She’d never been this high on this side of the mountain. There was so much to discover up here. Unexplored lava tubes, hot springs and pools, old fissures . . . it was a volcanologist’s dream. Now that the ice was broken between her and old Kauhi, maybe he’d let her look around once in a while.

She and Orson walked back down toward his cabin. Annie saw movement at the front door. “Looks like you have company.”

Orson scowled. “Not for long. I’ve told them three times I will not sell my land.”

“Who wants to buy it?” She suspected she knew.

“They want to put a casino here. It’s sacrilegious!”

Annie glanced toward the road and recognized the big car that was parked behind her Pathfinder. Evan Chun must be here. She was tempted to hang around and see if he’d talk with her, but after glancing at her watch, she realized she needed to get back to the office and work on Jillian’s computer model. And she had to get home on time. Her father would be flustered if she was late tonight. He was planning on taking Gina to a slack-key guitar concert at seven, and he wouldn’t be able to find the right shirt without her.

As she drove past her home, she wondered again what she was going to do if her father remarried. The thought of not being needed anymore terrified her, though she knew it was time she learned to live her own life.

When she reached the observatory, she stopped by Gina’s office and got the file she needed. She took it to Jillian’s office and seated herself in front of the computer. Annie began to go line by line and check the formulas in the model.

After an hour her eyes ached and her head throbbed. It had to be here somewhere. Some equation had to be wrong. Something was throwing the entire computer model off-kilter. She’d backtracked through all the formulas and had only five more to review. Maybe she should start at the beginning and go through it all again.

She glanced at the root formula and then blinked. It had been right here in front of her the whole time. The spreadsheet drew its results from the basic temperature and gas-mixture formula. That formula was transposed. No wonder the model wasn’t working. With the foundational equation wrong, nothing could come out right.

She corrected the formula, then launched the model. It began to spew out data that, for the first time, made sense. Annie smiled. Fawn had been saying something similar about Annie’s life. When something else is in God’s place, nothing comes out right. Annie’s life was meant to be lived with God at the center of everything, the driving force of everything. Instead, she tried to hold onto some control. God wanted to be her all, the reason she lived and breathed. She bowed her head and surrendered.

M
ahalo
for the ride, buddy.” Tomi stood lightly on his toes with his hand on the car door as if poised for flight. He glanced around, then got in with Mano.

“I wanted to talk to you anyway.” Mano pointed his car toward the Tagama house. “You vanished after Noah died. That’s looking real bad. Where are your dog tags?”

“My tags?” Tomi’s eyes widened. He felt his pocket. “I must have dropped them someplace.”

“Like at the murder scene.”

Tomi went white. “They were found by Noah’s body?”

“Yep. And Sam is looking to talk to you.”

“I had nothing to do with it! I don’t even know Noah, not really.” His face fell. “I’ve been set up!”

“Maybe.” Mano rubbed his forehead. “I have no idea how we’re going to get you out of this one, Tomi. You’ve got the Iranians after you and now the cops.”

Tomi leaned his head against the window. “Maybe I should just go to the cops. Throw myself on their mercy. I want to talk to my dad first though.”

They’d reached the Tagama house. “Let’s go,” Mano said. He shut off the engine and got out.

“There might be yelling,” Tomi said.

“Yeah, but having someone along might help keep it to a dull roar.”

“My hero,” Tomi said, grinning as he slapped Mano on the back. The two men went to the front door. Tomi pushed open the door. “Annie? Are you here?” He stepped inside, and Mano followed.

The aroma of teri beef made Mano’s mouth water, and he realized he’d skipped lunch. He and Tomi went toward the kitchen. Wilson dashed under their feet, and Tomi nearly stumbled. He caught himself and mumbled, “Stupid mongoose.” They stepped into the kitchen.

Annie stood at the counter sliding beef onto wooden sticks for kebabs. A lock of hair had fallen forward and touched the gentle curve of her cheek. The heat of the stove brightened her face with a hint of color. She looked up and saw them, and her blush deepened.

Something in Mano’s chest expanded, filling him up from the inside. He couldn’t explain it to himself how he knew, but he realized in that moment he loved Annie, really and truly loved her in a way he never expected. She was beautiful outside but even lovelier inside. In the past, a woman would catch his eye because of her shape or her smile or her eyes. But with Annie, he’d been attracted first to her spirit. Weird, but true.

He couldn’t drag his gaze from hers. It was all he could do not to shoulder Tomi out of the way and take her in his arms. Before he could figure out what to say, Edega came in from the garage.

“It’s about time you showed your face, Tomi,” he said.

Twenty-two

W
atching her father embrace her brother, Annie wondered if she was invisible to them. The two of them needed no one else. Tomi was her father’s favorite in so many ways, in spite of Edega’s rebuke. And that was as it should be, maybe. Tomi was the only boy, and her father looked to him as holding the future of the Tagama name.

Did he even see her as his daughter—or as anything more than his secretary and maid? Annie didn’t think so, but she found that she didn’t mind. Not anymore. She wanted to please God now. Her glance moved to Mano, and she realized he’d been staring at her. The expression on his face nearly made her gasp. Could that be— yearning? She must be tired.

“I just talked to Sam,” Mano said. “Still no sign of Leilani, but he figured out that CeCe lied. He needs to talk to Tomi about those dog tags, though. Tomi says he hasn’t seen Noah.”

“I knew Tomi wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Annie rubbed her forehead. “Maybe everyone is right and Leilani is just off on a lark. You’d think we would have heard something by now.” Something crashed behind her, and she whirled.

Wilson wore as guilty an expression as was possible for a mongoose. The plate of teri shish kebabs lay on the floor. He sniffed, then crouched as though to jump down and explore the food on the floor. “Don’t you dare,” she said. She swooped him up, and he wiggled to get away, but she held tightly. “What am I going to do with you?” she scolded.

“Toss him to the dogs?” her brother suggested.

Mano stepped forward and scratched Wilson on the head. “He just wanted a bit of that tasty food. Didn’t you, Wilson?”

The mongoose squeaked and nuzzled Mano’s fingers, then crawled up his arm and down the neck of his shirt. Mano’s eyes widened, then he grinned and caught Wilson before he crept past his neck to his stomach. He fished him out and held him up to stare in his face. “I think you need to go to mongoose training.”

“I’ve had it with that animal,” her father said. He grabbed Wilson by the nape of the neck. The mongoose growled in protest as Edega stepped toward the door.

“No!” Annie jumped between her father and the door. “Give him to me.”

“You should never have been allowed to raise this thing. He’s going outside where he belongs.”

Annie faced him. “He’s mine. You have no right to get rid of him. I’m not a child.” She tried to take the mongoose, but her father held it out of her reach.

“You will obey me in my house. I should never have let you bring that animal in here.”

“Then maybe it’s time I had my own house.” Wilson was her solace, her companion when loneliness stalked her. She sent Mano a silent plea, and he stepped forward and plucked Wilson from her father’s hand and deposited the mongoose in her arms. “
Mahalo
,” she whispered, then ran for her bedroom.

Ignoring her father’s angry shout, she dashed down the hall and slammed the door behind her. Wasn’t she allowed to have a life of her own, things of her own, a pet? She’d given up everything for her family. They had no right to dictate her life to this degree. Her chest heaved. She wanted to throw something, but she kept Wilson tucked under her chin and tried to control her distress.

She should pray. The thought came out of nowhere, but she obeyed it anyway. She had to let God be the boss, the center. Her life was to be about pleasing him now, not herself. The tension began to ease from her body as she turned her hurt and confusion over to her real authority.

She heard a sound when she lifted her head. Wilson moved at the soft knock on her door. “Annie?” Mano called. “You okay?”

Hearing Mano’s voice, she realized the angry shouts from the kitchen had ceased. She opened her door. “I’m fine.”

“How about you, me, and Wilson go eat by the water? I’ll get a pizza.”

He was so dear and so thoughtful. His shoulders spanned the doorway, and his expression seemed almost tender as he looked down at her. She wished she could believe it. “What are Tomi and Father doing?”

“Salvaging the shish kebabs.” He grinned, and she laughed. “I think your dad is sorry and ready to apologize.”

“He doesn’t know how to apologize.” She smiled to let Mano know it didn’t bother her. She followed Mano to the living room. As she stepped into the kitchen, she heard her brother say, “We might as well sell, Father. We won’t want to share our home with a casino.” Sadness lodged itself like a lava rock in her chest.

“The bank is foreclosing anyway,” Tomi continued.

Her father turned to look at her as she approached the table. “I see you told your brother you’ve lost the land that has been the Tagama property for generations.”

Annie decided she wasn’t taking all the blame for this. “I didn’t know what to do, how to save the house. Tomi has told you about the offer for the property.”

“I entrusted your sister with the family finances, and she has made a fiasco of them. If she’d only told me there was a problem, we might have averted this.”

Annie stifled her gasp. It was his idea to get the mortgage in the first place. She’d insisted then they couldn’t afford to repay it. She didn’t know how to answer his outrageous accusations. “I’m sorry, Father,” she said finally. “I’m not like my mother. Money management is not one of my strengths. But you knew we had this problem.” Mano put his hand in the small of her back, and the touch of support allowed her to lift her head. “Besides, I told you when Mother died that you should handle it.”

“I relied on you for that. It is your job.”

What was her job? Annie didn’t know anymore. She’d thought it was important to be needed by her family, but she was merely a doormat for them to wipe their feet on. They didn’t appreciate her work, none of them. She focused on her brother’s face. “And if we sell the house, how long would we have to move out?”

“I’ve talked to the CEO of the casino. We’d have six months. They will pay cash and expedite the sale. But they want to do it now, this week.”

“It goes against my grain to be forced,” her father said, holding up his hand. “We have no choice. Better to sell and be known as shrewd investors than to give it away to the bank and let the casino have it for a fraction of its value. Tell them we’ll do it.”

Mano’s hand dropped away from her back. “Uh, there’s something I’d better tell you now while you’re still deciding. I got your mortgage caught up. You’ve got a little breathing space to decide what to do.”

Annie should have known, should have suspected he’d do something like this. “You spent five thousand dollars of your own money to pay the mortgage?” she whispered.

He nodded; then his gaze went to her father. “So make your decision on what’s best for you. Don’t be pressured into something you don’t want.”

Indecision swept over her father’s face. He glanced at his son. “If we don’t do it today, Father, we’ll lose the deal, and they’ll buy other land.”

The older man nodded. “Very well. Call them.” He stared at Mano. “
Mahalo
for your care for my family. I’ll make sure you’re repaid.” His back was bent, and he looked like he’d aged ten years as he walked out of the kitchen.

Tomi watched him go. “It’s hard for our father to accept change. I wish we could just stay here too. But he wouldn’t be happy with all the traffic from the casino around. It’s for the best.” He slapped Mano on the back. “You’re a good friend, buddy.
Mahalo
.” He went to the phone. “I’ll call and make the arrangements. Aki gave me the number.”