What was different was that her mother never came to let her out.
Two days passed in which nine-year-old Lei ate cat food, drank from the utility sink, and defecated in the kitty litter, staying warm by burrowing into the laundry pile. Eventually she got up the courage to break the little window over the sink and wriggle her way out.
She’d found her mother Maylene Murakami Texeira slumped over the coffee table, the syringe beside her and tubing still around her arm. Her legs were askew from convulsions, her face blue, foam dried on her lips. Rigor had already gone, and when Lei shook her, she seemed to slither over onto her side.
Lei still ached from the beating, she was faint with hunger, but worse than that, terror filled her at the thought of going to a foster home. She had already spent plenty of time in them. She ran to the kitchen and called the emergency number Aunty Rosario in California had given her.
“Call 911, and tell them I am on my way.” Her aunt had taken the next flight out of San Francisco to get her.
The best thing that ever happened to me was when Aunty took me to San Rafael to live, Lei thought. She pinched her arm to stop the memory and refocused herself on her current surroundings: another technique the therapist in California had taught her.
She pulled into Punalu`u Beach Park and parked next to Mary’s red Mustang. It was good to be meeting a friend, clearing her head, going to the beach-another experience the girls would never have again. Guilt was becoming a familiar gnaw, and she found herself pinching her arm again-too hard this time.
It didn’t help.
Lei ran across the burning black sand and dove into the ocean. The cool water shocked the breath out of her, and she surged to the surface with a gasp. She dove again, opening her eyes. The lava pebbles covering the ocean floor made it look depthless as a black-bottomed pool and she kicked down and scooped up a handful, bobbing back up with a shake of her curls.
Keiki swam toward her, big square head held high, paws churning. Lei tossed one of the pebbles.
“Get it, girl!”
The dog spun and splashed after the rock, ducking her head into the water and coming up snorting. Lei tossed another one further away. Keiki floundered after it.
“That’s so mean!” Mary called from the beach. She sat forward in her beach chair, rubbing coconut oil onto her long brown legs. “It’s sick the way you torture that poor dog.”
“Kinda like how you torture Roland?” Lei strode up out of the surf, adjusting her tank suit top, wishing she had a little more to fill it out. She tossed one last pebble and Keiki switched directions and splashed after it.
“Roland loves it,” Mary said. “I never make him do anything he doesn’t want to do.” She rubbed the scented oil into her waist.
“Same thing with Keiki,” Lei said. “She loves that stupid rock-chasing game.”
“My only problem with Roland-he stay jealous. Always wanting to see what I’m doing.” Her cell phone chirped from the straw bag beside her. “See? He texting me, asking when I stay coming home.” She frowned, working the phone with her thumbs.
Hawaiian guitar music tinkled from the little CD player parked on their blanket. Lei stretched out on the warm cloth with a sigh. She’d been single so long she wasn’t sure she’d want to give up her independence-it didn’t seem like a relationship was worth dealing with the demands.
Both women jumped and squealed as Keiki shook water all over them. The big dog flopped onto the blanket next to Lei, panting, and Lei shoved her off. Maybe she was in a relationship after all.
“You stink,” she said. “Go take a shower.”
In response Keiki rolled in the black sand, grunting with pleasure as she worked the large grains into her coat.
Mary and Lei hadn’t been out to scenic Punalu`u Beach for a long time. Lei decided to come more often, taking in the sun-jeweled ocean and rugged palm-dotted coastline. Only yards away, several huge green sea turtles slept in the sand, their flippers spread and necks outstretched to soak up warmth from the sun.
Keiki finished with her roll and sprawled next to them. After a cursory sniff, she’d showed no interest in the turtles. Lei draped her arm across her eyes and dozed.
“So anything new on that stalker note you got?” Mary’s voice woke her, and she sat up. She’d told Mary about the notes a few days ago at class.
“Pass me the oil.”
Mary handed it over and Lei squirted a dollop into her palm, slicked it onto her lean body and toned legs. She was too late to head off the freckles that dotted her like a sprinkle of nutmeg.
“He came by last night, dropped another note under my door. I chased him but no joy.” She told her friend about the debacle in the neighborhood with Keiki.
“Try solve your own problems and jus’ get in trouble,” Mary said. “I’m sorry. Like you don’t get enough stress a’ready without that stalker shit.”
“It’s okay.” Lei tried to smile.
“Pono won’t let you go down if he can help it. Me neither. Lot of folks will stick up for you at the station.”
“I meet with the Lieutenant tomorrow morning. I’m pretty damn nervous. It’s like I’m cursed or something.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shit happens to me. All my life. Something’s wrong with me that makes things happen.” The murmur of the surf and mellow slack key music failed to calm Lei’s racing heart. She felt something important almost breaking through the memory fog that plagued her. She rubbed her temples where a headache threatened.
“What a load of crap. Shit happens to all of us. Listen, we better get going-Roland says we have plans tonight.” They packed up and walked out to the parking lot.
“Oh my God, gorgeous!” Mary said, running her hand along the contoured wheel well of the new truck. The silver paint glowed opal. “Wish I could get one.”
“You already have a nice ride,” Lei said, gesturing to Mary’s red Mustang, a former rental car bought for a song.
“Yeah, but this sweetheart has muscle. I like a nice truck.” She put her hands on her hips. “Want to race ’em?”
“You brat,” Lei said. “As if you didn’t know I was already in trouble.”
Mary laughed. “Bet I beat you,” she said, jumping into the Mustang.
At home, Lei bounced up the steps of her little house, sorting her mail. Keiki barked from the back yard, eager to come in for dinner. She unlocked the door, deactivated the alarm, and noticed the envelope on the floor. Her pulse jumped. The stalker had pushed it under the door this time.
She went into the kitchen and got a fresh pair of gloves from under the sink, snapping them on as she returned. She picked the envelope up by the corner and took it to the cutting board, slitting the top with a knife to preserve any evidence trapped under the flap. She eased the trebly-folded note out and flipped it open.
A long hank of glossy black hair obscured the words on the page. Lei’s vision swam and she clutched the counter, taking a couple of deep breaths. She looked back down and eased the hair out of the way with the point of the knife.
I’M GOING TO ENJOY YOU A LOT MORE.
Lei felt bile rise in her throat, hot and stinging. She gulped it back, took a few relaxation breaths.
He wasn’t going to get to her in her own home. Her eyes fell on one of her orange notes tacked over the sink: Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid and act anyway- Robert Anthony.
I’ll act anyway. She went to the dog door and unlocked it. Keiki streaked in and did a circuit of the house as she fished the cell phone out of her pocket.
“Pono,” she said when he answered. “He’s escalating. He might have a victim.”
“What? Whatchu talking about?”
“There was another note,” she said. “A big piece of black hair inside. No woman I know would let someone cut off a chunk of hair like this.”
“I’m on my way.”
She shut the phone and went back to the front door, putting the chain and deadbolt back on. Pono arrived
