aren’t you?”
Katharine took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “I was so frightened at the way you were breathing, and when you didn’t come back …” She shook her head. “You’re really sure you’re all right now?”
“I’m fine,” Michael insisted.
“If you’re ‘fine,’ then why were you having such a hard time breathing?” Katharine demanded, her fear giving way to anger as she remembered the torment she’d gone through. “And do you have any idea how many times I picked up the phone to call the police?”
Michael stifled a groan.
“But I didn’t,” Katharine went on. “I kept reminding myself that you’re not a little boy, and that I have to stop thinking of you as if you were still sick all the time.” Her eyes fixed on his. “So I didn’t call them. Instead I sat here and worried myself half to death.”
“I’m really sorry, Mom,” Michael began again. “I don’t know what I can tell you. I—”
“Don’t tell me anything,” Katharine interrupted. “Just don’t argue about going to see a doctor in the morning, all right?”
A glare of headlights appeared through the window. “I thought you said you didn’t call anyone.” Michael, already on his feet, was starting toward his room, suddenly embarrassed about being clad in his underwear.
“I didn’t call the police,” Katharine told him. “But I had to call someone.”
A car door slammed, and a moment later Rob Silver appeared at the front door. “I’ve changed my mind,” he began. “I really think we ought to call the police. If he’s out—”
“He’s back,” Katharine told him. “He came in about five minutes ago. And he seems to be okay. But I’m taking him to see a doctor in the morning.”
Rob nodded. “I’ll call Stephen Jameson first thing,” he said. “He’s the best doctor on the island, and he works for Takeo Yoshihara.”
CHAPTER 17
“All he’s going to do is tell you I’m fine, and then you really are going to look like an overprotective mother,” Michael groused. “Why don’t you just drop me off at school?”
“In case you didn’t notice,” Katharine observed archly, “we’re going in exactly the opposite direction. And as for me being overprotective, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Given your medical history, I think your difficulty breathing last night is a perfectly legitimate cause for concern. And since Dr. Jameson agreed with me, that settles it.”
The argument had been going on ever since breakfast, when Rob Silver, who had spent the rest of the night on the Sundquists’ sofa, had called Stephen Jameson, then turned the phone over to Katharine. Michael had listened in silence as she set up the appointment, and wondered if someone at Takeo Yoshihara’s estate might have seen him last night and would recognize him this morning. After all, something had told them he was there last night, and brought the guards looking for him.
What if they actually had pictures of him?
There were cameras that could do that — cameras that could photograph things in a lot less light than there’d been last night.
But wouldn’t they have called the police if they had pictures?
Though he’d done his best to talk her out of it, and knew he was now skating on pretty thin ice, Michael figured he might as well take one last shot at it. “There’s a school bus stop right up there,” he said, pointing to a yellow sign a hundred yards farther along the road. “If you just drop me off—”
“I’m not going to drop you off, and I’m getting tired of arguing about it,” Katharine cut in.
Michael, watching the bus stop slide by, and hearing the finality in his mother’s voice, gave up the argument and reached out to turn on the car radio. An announcer was just finishing a report on the mayor’s assessments of the island’s economic condition, and Michael was about to change the station when the newscaster’s voice took on a somber note. “Two local men died in the scheduled burning of a Maui sugarcane field last night. Their bodies were recovered this morning from a field off the Haleakala Highway. Their names are being withheld pending notification of their families. In an unrelated incident, a Makawao boy has been reported missing by his mother. Jeff Kina left his home around nine o’clock last night, and police confirm that he was one of three boys questioned in relation to the death of Kioki Santoya, whose body was found early yesterday. Though there is currently no evidence connecting the Kina boy’s disappearance to the death of young Kioki Santoya, police are not yet ruling out the possibility that these two incidents are related. Anyone who might have seen Jeff Kina, who is described as being six feet two inches tall and weighing 225 pounds, should contact the Maui Sheriff’s Department immediately.
“In other news …”
But Michael was no longer listening.
What was going on? Jeff was missing? He glanced over at his mother. Should he tell her he knew both Jeff and Kioki? That they’d both been with him the night before last?
But then he’d have to tell her everything. And when she found out he’d not only gone out diving at night, but broken into a dive shop—
No! Josh had known where the key was, and they hadn’t broken in!
But they might as well have.
He was still struggling with what, if anything, he should tell his mother about Kioki and Jeff when he saw the gate to Takeo Yoshihara’s estate swing open. But his mother hadn’t pressed any buttons on the sun visor, or anywhere else that he could see. “Where’s the remote control?” he asked, a knot of apprehension forming in his stomach.
“There isn’t one,” Katharine told him. “The car has some gadget on it that the gate can sense.”
“You’re kidding,” Michael breathed. His eyes were already searching for signs of the cameras that he now was certain must be keeping watch over the grounds. “Does it know who you are, too?” He tried to keep his voice casual. “Or do they have cameras?”
Katharine glanced quizzically at Michael out of the corner of her eye. “I hardly think they need cameras,” she said. Yet as they went into the lobby of the building she’d been in yesterday with Rob Silver, her eyes — almost of their own volition — scanned the corners where security cameras would most likely be.
They were there.
But why wouldn’t they be, she wondered, given the collection of art housed in the lobby? There were at least half a dozen sculptures scattered through the vast space, cabinets filled with priceless artifacts stood against the walls, and the painting that hung behind the desk where a private security officer sat looked like it might be a Vlaminck. The security guard himself — the same one who’d been on duty yesterday when she and Rob had gone to Rob’s office to use the computer — looked up, then smiled as he recognized her.
“Morning, Dr. Sundquist. Dr. Jameson’s already in his office.” He gestured in the opposite direction from the wing in which Rob Silver’s office was located. “Third door on the right.”
A beautiful Eurasian woman of perhaps thirty sat at a desk behind the door the guard had indicated. “I’m Jade Quinn,” she said, standing up and offering her hand to Katharine as they came into the spacious office. “Steve Jameson’s nurse, secretary, and all-around gofer.” She smiled at Michael. “You must be Michael, but you certainly don’t look very sick.”
“See?” Michael said to Katharine. “I told you. Can we go now? If we hurry, I won’t miss second period.”
“Not quite that easily,” Katharine observed. “Is Dr. Jameson here yet?”
“In the building, but not quite in the office yet,” the nurse replied, smiling apologetically. She rose and led them to a door leading to an inner office. “If you’ll just make yourselves comfortable, I’m sure Dr. Jameson will be here in a minute or two.”
Katharine and Michael stepped into a room that looked nothing like an ordinary doctor’s office. Decorated like a comfortable den, its three interior walls were paneled in koa, and the outside wall was made up of French
