Chapter 1

The first reportof the girl in the window came in around noon on Tuesday. It should have been straightforward: notify local authorities, police show up and rescue the kidnapped child, bad guy goes off to jail. But it didn't go that way. Not by a long shot.

I would've remembered that Tuesday even without the girl in the window, because that was the day we got a new neighbor. Leaving for my job as postmaster that morning, I spied a moving van parked in the driveway of a cul-de-sac near the entrance to what is now known as New Ohia State Park.

Aunt Fae and I lived in a former model home in the planned subdivision that's now a state park. Terrazzo floors, ten-foot ceilings, stainless steel everything in the kitchen—you get the idea. For a while we were the only residents of the community and paid our rent by caretaking the park on weekends and holidays. The other model homes sat empty and sad, pretty seashells with no hermit crab to live in them.

I really wanted to check out who was moving in, but I didn't want to be late for work. In a government customer service job we got major grief for the little things: being tardy, not smiling, or that all-encompassing beef, "going postal." Now that people could rate us online, it was tough to keep the one-star ratings to a minimum.

I walked briskly out of the park and over to the postal building. Still fumbling with my keys to the back door, I called Aunt Fae on my cell. "Did you know someone was moving in down on Pikake Court?"

"No."

"There's a moving truck there."

"I'm on it," Aunt Fae said immediately. "Needed to take my morning pep step anyway."

Normally I'm the private eye in the family. As a former Secret Service agent, my daytime job is working as Ohia postmaster, and in my other time I keep busy with a part-time investigation gig for Security Solutions, a firm based in Honolulu. I also partner in K K Investigations, my own little company. One "K" is for me, Kat Smith, and the other "K" is for my boyfriend, Pacific Wings pilot Keone Kaihale.

"Boyfriend" really isn't the right designation for Mr. K, as I affectionately call him. He's no "boy" and we're certainly more than friends, but I'm not sure what to call our relationship dance—two steps forward, one banana peel slip back? I'm new to the whole romance thing and am trying to take things slow due to a touchphobia I developed as a child. Mr. K makes that tough, though, because he's so darn lovable and looks like someone in the "Men of Hawaii" calendar the ABC Stores publish every year.

I ended the call to Aunt Fae and began my usual routine once inside the postal building. Ohia is the epitome of rural Maui. We're located at the far east side of the island, with more mongooses than people per square mile, and no house-to-house mail delivery. Everyone must come to the post office to either pick up their mail from their box or get it through General Delivery if they don't have a mailbox. My job mostly consists of sorting the mail, filling boxes, selling postage, weighing packages, and generally wrangling the "talk story" crowd that gums up the line at four o'clock, the end of our postal day.

Today Chad, our mail driver from the main office in Kahului, showed up early in his delivery truck.

"Wow," I said. "You're early. You got a hot date later today?"

"No. I heard something weird from my friend the UPS guy." Chad wasn't chatty. Blemished complexion aside, his flushed cheeks and widened eyes signaled that whatever he'd heard from the driver in the brown truck was significant.

"You want to tell me about it?" We walked around to the back of the truck as I waited for Chad to lay this gem on me when he was ready. Chad unlocked the hasp, opening the back to reveal that the truck was piled high with boxes and bags of mail, per usual. Online ordering had hit us hard in remote areas like Ohia.

"He told me he saw a little girl in the window of the house where that hermit guy lives out at the end of Halepua‘a Road. He was pretty shook up about it."

"So?" I was relatively new in town and didn't know "that hermit guy" nor the place in question.

Chad squinted. "You know. That nasty hermit guy out at the back end of nowhere?"

I shrugged in answer, raising my hands. "Not ringing a bell."

"He's kinda legendary. Dude comes to town like twice a year. His place is way back in the jungle. I mean, it's not that far from here, but getting there consists of twenty minutes of tire-sucking mud and foot-deep potholes."

"So, what was UPS doing out that way?"

"My friend got lost. Once you get back in there the road's too narrow to get out of, so he had to keep going and hoped to turn around at the end. He said when he got there, it was this old shack kind of place. As he turned his truck, he saw a girl in the window with her hands on the glass, like this." He put up flat palms like a mime doing the "in a box" routine.

"What's so strange about that?" A couple of customers had come to the locked front door and from the frowns on their faces, they didn't appreciate me gossiping when they wanted to check their boxes.

"Something about her expression worried him. A lot. It seemed like she wanted help, as if maybe she was trapped out there. He asked if I knew what the deal was with the hermit guy suddenly having a little girl."

"You're pretty sure the Halepua‘a guy lives alone?"

"Yes. No doubt." Chad cracked his knuckles. "Do you think I should report it or something?"

"You just did. Mahalo, Chad. Give me your friend's phone number, and I'll take it from here."

I wear more hats than an ohia tree has lehua blossoms. In addition to my jobs as postmaster and part-time investigator, I'm also the unofficial eyes and ears of the Maui Police Department in our town.

Once Chad and I unloaded the truck and I took care of the impatient customers, I hurried to my office. The tidy space with its glass window was a haven filled with the puffing steam of an aromatherapy dispenser provided by my co-worker, Pua Chang. I flopped into my chair and called my contact, Lei Texeira, a sergeant in the Maui Police Department, as I changed the "Energizing Eucalyptus" scent cartridge to "Peaceful Peach." Hopefully that would set a tone for the day.

"Texeira," Lei answered. No embellishments. She must be in a meeting or at a crime scene. We were in each other's contacts, so she had to know it was me calling.

"Lei. Got a minute for something . . . weird?"

"I'm just wrapping up a meeting here at headquarters," she said. Her tone implied: Can't talk right now. My boss is up in my grill.

"Got it. Call me when you're free."

Pua rolled in from the back, her kitten heels clicking. My co-worker was petite, perfect, and dressed in something classy and expensive, as usual. We were friends after a bumpy start, but I often felt as if I were a sheepdog looming over a whippet. She stuck her shiny coiffed head into my office and sniffed. "Peach. Nice." Her sharp brown eyes assessed me. "You seem frazzled, Kat. Anything I can do to help?"

"You're here, and that's already a help." I smiled at her. "So glad you're back to work. Running this place alone was no picnic. I'm waiting on an important call, so any chance you could open the front desk for us?"

"No problem." Pua withdrew and closed my door. She had boundaries, another quality I liked about her. I booted up the company computer and checked my work email.

Lei called fifteen minutes later. "Hey, Kat. You said you had something weird for me?"

"I don't know what it is, exactly, but just in case, I wanted to check in and let you know there's static on the coconut wireless about a hermit guy who lives out at the end of Halepua‘a Road."

"No crime to be a hermit. Especially out your way," Lei said. Hana and its environs were known to attract the "off-the-grid" crowd with all that implied.

"Well, since he IS a hermit . . ." I was having trouble putting into words the worried feeling that had begun to form a lead ball in my stomach. "Our mail truck driver reported that his friend the UPS guy who went out that way spotted a female child in the window of the house. She may have been signaling for help, and Chad swears the guy lives alone."

"I see where you might be going with this. What's the hermit's name? Address?"

"Don't have that. Sorry. But I know it's the last place on Halepua‘a Road."

"I can work with that."

"Do you want K K to take a drive out there? Keone's last flight comes in at two, and I'm off at four. We can go check on the situation."

Keys rattled. Lei was on her computer checking something. A few beats went by before she responded. "I don't like the sound of this. I researched that address, and the occupant is a single male named Hugh Dragoon, according to the records. That must be your hermit. But there's no Amber Alert or ?child missing' Be On the Look Out at the moment." She blew out a breath; in my mind's eye, a brown curl lifted off her forehead, as I'd often seen happen in real life. "Pono's got court this afternoon and I'm scheduled to be on the West Side of Maui, in Kapalua, in less than an hour. That's literally as far away from Ohia as it's possible to be. It could take up to four hours to get out to you." It was like listening in on her internal dialogue. "I don't have time."

"So, is that a ‘yes' on us checking into it?"

"It's a qualified ‘yes.'"

"What do you want us to do?"

Lei chuckled. "Knowing you, it's better I clarify what I don't want you to do," she said.

I deserved that; I'd been known to break down the door and then check to see if it was unlocked. "Okay, shoot."

"Yeah, that's the first thing. No firearms. Under no circumstances do I want shots fired if there's a possible child on scene. Leave your weapon at home."

"Got it."

"Go by the address. If there's anything indicating a child's presence, I'll come out as soon as I can, or I'll send someone."

"Okay."

"But don't approach this Hugh Dragoon. That's for us to do if it's warranted."

"But how will I know if it's warranted if I don't talk to the guy?"

"You'll know. You've got good instincts. If possible, get some photos. Call me as soon as you've left the area after your visit."

"Will do."

"And Kat?"

"Yeah?"

"If this turns out to be something ugly, promise me you'll back off quickly. Hostage situations are the worst."

Like that wasn't chiseled into every Secret Service agent's brain. "You got it. I'll let you know how it goes, ASAP."

I glanced at the clock; four p.m. couldn't get here fast enough.