Razor Rocks Read online

  “No sign of any of them, eh?” Pono rubbed his bristly mustache in a habitual way that told Lei he was troubled. He hated cases involving children.

  “Nope.” Thomas slid the book back into the plastic sleeve designed to keep the damp out. “We’ll take this with us, but as you can see, everyone had a photo of their ID attached, per protocol. I’ve already run the parents’ names. They are from Seattle, and there are no missing persons alerts out on any of them, nor do they have any outstanding warrants. That doesn’t go for the crew, however.” Thomas’s jaw bunched as he addressed Pono. “Did you know your cousin has liens on his house and car? That he’s got a bench warrant out on him for back child support?”

  Pono scowled. “He’s been going through a nasty divorce, I knew that much. The wife, she was cleaning him out. But I nevah know how bad it was.”

  “Honopua also has a record,” Thomas said. “Petty theft, a gas station robbery. No weapons or violence. And Gutierrez is an illegal alien. I ran her ID and it came back invalid.”

  Lei took the logbook from Thomas. “I’m going to need this.” She stowed it in her backpack. “Now we know why you suspected Pono’s cousin, but we shouldn’t be trying to solve the case and discuss suspects right now. We’re here to search this ship and find any clues or evidence we can, while we can. I for one am worried this thing is going to come loose from the rocks.”

  As if on cue, the yacht gave a loud groan. The deck shuddered beneath their feet. Thomas frowned, hooking his radio off of his belt and hollering into it. “Sanchez! Are you getting Miller? Drop him off at the main craft and get back here to pick us up, ASAP. This vessel is unstable!”

  Lei was already moving, her gaze roaming the cockpit for any further signs of anything out of place beside the blood smear. “Pono, can you take a picture of that blood trace? I’ll collect a sample.”

  Her partner nodded, taking the MPD’s Canon camera from her hand to shoot several photos of the area, while Lei opened a swab packet. She quickly labeled it and scraped a bit of the blood off with the swab, bagging it. The trio headed down the sharply slanted ladder to the main deck.

  The three of them stayed together, roaming through the deck area. The living quarters and galley showed signs of disruption, with overturned furniture, broken light fixtures, and open cupboard doors. Pono began photographing the mess, but Thomas shook his head. “This all could’ve happened after the boat ran aground. Hard to tell what might have been related to the actual incident. Let’s go check the living quarters more closely. Our team just made sure they were empty last time I was on board; we didn’t take time to look around.”

  Lei was in the lead as they entered one of the cabins. “This must’ve been where the girls were staying.” Feminine clothing spilled out of a built-in wall unit. Three of the four bunk beds were mussed, with covers tossed back and pillows on the floor.

  Lei mentally batted away an image of the girls’ bodies, floating drowned in the sea. Hopefully they were ashore, at worst being held hostage or kidnapped for ransom. She would have to check into the Petersons’ financial situation and connections, see if there was anyone who stood to gain from the family’s disappearance.

  “Guys, especially keep an eye out for any phones, laptops or tablets. Kids this age live online.” Lei pulled open the drawer of the desk and grabbed up a pink satin diary, decorated with a little clasp and padlock. “I’ll take this. See if one of the girls was keeping a log of their journey.”

  Pono rattled through the clothing in the wall unit, his mouth pinched. His own children, Maile and Ikaika, were approaching the same age as these girls.

  Thomas appeared in the doorway. His golden-tan face had gone pale. “I think you both need to see something in the main cabin.”

  Chapter Three

  Lei and Pono walked into the main cabin behind Thomas. Lei covered her mouth with a hand, muffling a gasp.

  The bed’s white comforter was rumpled; blood spatter spread over one side, and ran down from the edge in a macabre waterfall that ended in a large pool that had soaked into the nap of the royal blue carpet covering the floor.

  Lei moved forward and squatted to examine the area. As she leaned in close, that too-familiar burnt iron smell flared her nostrils. The blood had set, but not yet dried. A skin on the surface was undisrupted even by the movement of the yacht as it trembled under the waves’ battering.

  “That’s a life-threatening amount of blood right there,” Pono spoke from behind his busily clicking camera. “This is a murder scene.”

  “This happened less than a day ago,” Lei said. “The victim bled out here.” She stepped carefully around the pool, scanning the bed with her flashlight. “Let’s go over the whole bed. I’ll search for hairs, fingerprints, anything we can lift from here.” Lei was already combing over the bed, leaning down just inches from the silky white comforter with her flashlight and a pair of tweezers. “Agree that this looks like a kill scene. But it’s always hard to solve a murder without a body. Aina, can you do a more thorough sweep through the cabins? Check all storage units, the refrigerator, anywhere big enough to hold a body. Hopefully they didn’t just chuck the vic overboard.”

  “I bet they did.” Pono shook his head. Tiny pearls of sweat gleamed in his black buzz cut even though the room was humid and cool. “The ocean is a handy dumping ground.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t see a blood trail going out onto the deck,” Lei argued. “Unless they wrapped the body in something, it would have been messy getting it out of here.”

  Thomas poked his head out of the bathroom. “Shower curtain’s missing.” He jangled the empty rings. “The curtain was likely plastic. They probably rolled the body up in that and dumped it. But I’ll keep searching.”

  Suddenly the yacht gave another moaning shudder, and the room abruptly tilted. Lei gave a cry as she crashed into Pono, grateful that he caught her with one arm as he grabbed a wall with the other. Thomas, hung up in the doorway of the bathroom, yelled into his radio. “Sanchez! Where are you? We need pickup!”

  “On my way, sir!” Sanchez’s voice fizzed with static.

  “We’ll be topside, waiting.” Thomas hung the radio back on his belt and addressed Lei and Pono. “We need to get out, now. I’ll work on getting the boat sealed up enough to be towed back to the harbor, where we can investigate it more safely.”

  “Just a few more minutes.” Lei pulled herself up and hurried to scramble around the room, checking for any other signs of disturbance. Kneeling to look under the bed, she spotted a plastic handle fillet knife. “This is likely the murder weapon.” She bagged the knife and slipped it into her backpack along with the bloody evidence swabs.

  The shriek of rending metal and plastic tore the air around them, and the floor shifted dramatically, canting to the right. Lei tumbled onto Pono a second time as her partner landed against what had been a wall, and was now the floor. Thomas rolled down to crash into both of them as any furniture that wasn’t bolted down smashed around them.

  “Abandon ship!” Thomas yelled. Lei would have smiled at the corny line if the situation hadn’t been so dire. “Anyone hurt?” The Guardsman hauled himself upright on hands and knees, giving Lei a hand.

  “We’re fine! But we’re not going to be in a minute!” The craft was definitely moving, loosed from the rocks somehow. Perhaps their weight, moving around, along with the tide, had lifted the yacht off the rocks . . . and now, the thing was sinking, and quickly. Water poured in through the doorway, a terrifying waterfall. “We need to get out of here!”

  Pono was the first to reach the doorway, now almost horizontal above them. He reached back and hauled Lei up beside him. The two of them were able to pull Thomas up through the opening. Water gushed in, seemingly from all directions, making climbing through the wreckage and fun-house tilted rooms a challenge.

  Don’t panic, just focus on getting out. Place each hand and foot carefully . . . you can’t afford to slip. Lei used the metal doorways to draw herself out and
up, heading after Thomas toward the exit through which they’d come.

  She’d made sure her backpack straps were tight, and she was grateful for the flotation device she still wore under it . . . but none of that would do much good if they sank while trapped inside.

  They finally reached the entry door and burst out into fresh air. Lei glanced around, registering the nearby Coast Guard craft, the bobbing tender, and the startling fact that the yacht was now barely clearing the surface of the water.

  “Sanchez!” Thomas gestured frantically to the man in the tender. “Toss over the grappling hook!”

  Sanchez drew abreast of them, one hand on the tiller and the other on the grappling hook with its attached rope. The inflatable was only four or five feet below, almost close enough to risk jumping for. She inched toward the hull’s edge and a clear spot where she could jump away from the yacht.

  She registered the horrified faces of the watching Coast Guard crew even as the Sea Cloud abruptly heaved over and sank in a violent wash of swirling water and bubbles.

  Lei hardly had time to draw a deep breath, as chilly water hit like a blow and abruptly closed over her head.

  She kicked out, stroking as hard as she could towards a surface that must be above . . . but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t seem to reach it.

  Lei opened her eyes and looked up at the surface, in spite of the stinging water.

  That mercury-like silvery ceiling was farther away than ever.

  The pull of the sinking yacht was taking her down with it.

  Chapter Four

  Lieutenant Michael Stevens pushed a hand into his hair, clenching a fistful of the dark locks and giving a tug to express the frustration he was feeling. “I understand. Thanks. Let us know if anything changes.” He banged the handset of the departmental phone down. “Damn it.”

  “Still no luck?” Brandon Mahoe, his partner, glanced up from the other side of the desk they shared on the quiet third floor of Kahului Police Station. The junior detective had made steady progress as an investigator under Stevens’s leadership, and their partnership had continued for the last couple of years.

  “Nope. We can’t find anywhere for Lei’s grandpa Soga to go after his operation.”

  “Why isn’t Lei making these calls, LT? Just curious.”

  “Captain Omura told me Lei’s pulled a high-visibility joint investigation with the Coast Guard. She won’t be able to work on much of anything personal until that settles down.” He sat back and sighed. “And here’s something to remember: when you’re married, you’re a team. We share everything, no matter whose relative it is.”

  “I get it. I was just asking.”

  “Soga’s our kupuna, the kids’ great-grandpa. The fact that we can’t find an assisted living for him is a huge problem.”

  Eighty-plus-year-old Soga Matsumoto had been living independently at the home he owned on O`ahu, participating in his Buddhist temple and repairing and creating the beautiful paper lanterns used in Honolulu’s annual floating lantern festival, when he’d fallen and broken a hip. Soga had made it through the replacement surgery with Lei by his side, and she had flown home to work while he recovered at a convalescent hospital.

  Soga loved his life on O`ahu, but had agreed to move to Maui to be closer to them and his great-grandchildren following his recovery. Stevens had been as happy as Lei with the plan to bring her only surviving family member from her mother’s side closer to home—but a care home was proving hard to find.

  “What about your cottage?” Mahoe said.

  Stevens stifled a stab of annoyance—Mahoe was a good kid but way too opinionated about Stevens’s personal business. “Can’t. Our parents are in there.” Wayne, Lei’s father, and Ellen, Stevens’s mom, had fallen in love. They’d been living on the property in the little ohana cottage, an arrangement that worked great since the older couple provided much of their childcare.

  Mahoe must have read Stevens’s expression. “I was just thinking out loud. You know my mom’s a nurse. She’s often mentioned the shortage of housing and care on Maui. She’d love to start a group home or something for elders, but we don’t have the seed money needed to get it going.”

  “Too bad. I’d totally trust your mom to take care of Soga.” Stevens glanced at the clock and closed the folder where they’d been storing information as they worked their way through the available facilities on the island. “I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to bring him over to Maui if we don’t find something.” He powered down his computer. “I gotta go. I have to swing by the store on the way home.”

  “I’ll close up here,” Mahoe said. “Finish up our notes and send the report in.”

  “Thanks.” Stevens and Mahoe had just wrapped up their latest case. A brief breather before another investigation that was likely to suck them in to late evenings and early mornings was to be taken advantage of, and Stevens made the most of opportunities to spend extra time with the family.

  “See you tomorrow.” Stevens shrugged into his jacket just as the scanner on the office’s credenza belched out emergency codes for an ocean rescue of officers in trouble off the coast of Lana`i.

  That had to be Lei and Pono! Stevens’s gaze met Mahoe’s. “There aren’t any other joint cases with the Coast Guard right now!”

  The younger man stood up, grabbing his weapon harness off the nearby hall tree. “I’ll go with you to the harbor; we’ll find out what’s going on.”

  They hauled ass down the stairs and out of the building as Stevens called Dispatch on his radio for an update. “The Coast Guard hasn’t given us an update,” Iris told him. “But they’re all over it with rescue protocols. Relax, Lieutenant, I’m sure Texeira and Kaihale are fine.”

  “You relax, Iris. That’s my wife you’re talking about!” Stevens barked as they jumped into Stevens’s ancient brown Bronco. He turned the key and the engine, recently rebuilt, roared impressively into life. “Here. Talk to your boyfriend.” He tossed the radio to Mahoe.

  Iris, a dainty Chinese girl with nerves of steel and not much of a sense of humor, had been going out with Mahoe for over a year. “Hey baby,” Mahoe said. “We’re headed down to Ma`alaea to see if we can assist. Tell us more about what’s going on?”

  “The Guard called in that an intentionally damaged yacht had washed up on Razor Rocks off Lana`i. While the investigators were on board, the yacht came loose from the rocks and sank.”

  The truck surged forward as Stevens swore, his heart leaping into overdrive, his foot dropping hard on the accelerator.

  Iris went on, imperturbable. “I asked for more details. The communications officer said that their man, Petty Officer Aina Thomas, who’s the main Coast Guard crime investigator, along with Lei and Pono, had all reached the exterior hull when the boat abruptly went down. They’ll have swum to safety by now, most likely.”

  “Then why hasn’t the Coast Guard called with an all-clear?” Mahoe asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll try their communications officer again,” Iris said, and the radio went dead.

  This time Mahoe was the one to swear. He flicked on the portable cop light and put it on the dash, grabbing the sissy strap as Stevens wove through traffic.

  Stevens’s vision narrowed to just the road and obstacles in front of it. His heart sounded like bongos and his breathing—he wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

  Lei was everything to him. To their family. She couldn’t be gone.

  Chapter Five

  After that quick glance at the surface Lei clamped her eyes shut, drawing all her focus inward and swallowing down the quick breath of air she’d been able to grab. Swallowing made it last longer, and so did remembering her scuba lessons. The undertow of the sinking craft couldn’t hold her if she was floaty enough.

  Her bulky backpack, loaded with an SLR camera, backup weapon, the big paper manifest, handcuffs, flashlight, nightstick, pepper spray and more, was what was dragging her down. She had to get rid of it, and lose her shoes too. Bu
t the evidence she’d collected would be gone . . .

  Her mind’s eye filled with flashes of her loved ones: Michael Stevens, crystal blue eyes intent as he bent to kiss her; Kiet, laughing as he ran to her, sun on his shining black hair; Rosie, her dimpled grin finally filled in with pearly baby teeth; her father Wayne; her mother-in-law Ellen; their beloved Rottweiler, Conan.

  She couldn’t drown. She was needed. The case would get solved somehow, the backpack retrieved by divers. She had to live. Nothing was more important than that.

  Lei continued to sink as she struggled to get out of the backpack’s tight straps, tugging and pulling. The straps seemed to be caught on her inflatable vest and the cotton jacket underneath.

  She couldn’t get the pack off!

  Her arms were held down, tangled in her jacket and the straps . . . and she was still sinking.

  Lei’s diaphragm spasmed, trying to draw breath.

  She wouldn’t let it, couldn’t . . . no please oh God, not this way, I don’t want to die this way . . .

  And suddenly, hands were helping her.

  Stripping the pack off. Grabbing her, turning her, pulling her by the back of the inflatable jacket.

  Lei thrashed, releasing valuable air, kicking frantically, trying to help, but probably hindering.

  She wanted to take off her shoes, but there was no more time.

  No time, no time no time . . . Black dots were closing in around the red behind her eyes, but finally Lei was free of the pack.

  A hand caught one of her flailing ones, tugging her upward.

  Aina Thomas. Had to be.

  He’d come back for her.

  Thomas was a waterman through and through, and with his Coast Guard training, he could hold his breath much longer than she or Pono.

  Lei kicked with all her strength as Thomas towed her upward.

  They broke the surface just as Lei sucked an involuntary breath, catching water in her mouth. The seawater burned like liquid fire all the way down her throat into her lungs. She floundered, coughing and retching, fighting the weight of her clothing, shoes, and lean body mass.