Chapter 5

Hugh Dragoon tookanother step forward, waving the huge blade like a battle flag. "If you don't git in the next two seconds, I'm not gonna be ‘sponsible for what happens to you."

The man meant business, and while I felt confident that I could take him, I remembered my promises to Lei with a sinking sensation.

I shouldn't escalate things with this guy with a vulnerable child somewhere on the premises.

I whirled around. "I'm sorry to have bothered you. I'll just retrace my steps and get out of your hair." In my haste to leave I dropped the business card, but I didn't take time to bend down and retrieve it.

When I got back to Sharkey, dread twisted my guts again: I'd have to drive forward, right up to the hermit's shack, to get enough room to turn around. "Dang it," I muttered.

Mr. Congeniality would see my ride and be able to identify it. He could run me off the road at his first available opportunity. There was no choice though—I couldn't back up all the way down the impossibly narrow track.

I gunned the engine and made it to the turnaround area in seconds flat. I was so focused on executing a nearly three-sixty turn without slamming into the hermit's rusty Jeep I didn't notice if he'd come around from back to watch me leave.

Sharkey bucked through the ruts as I mentally rehearsed: I'd give my report to Lei. Once alerted to the situation, the next people heading out this way to visit the "pig whisperer" would be armed and badged. I'd done what I'd agreed to do, and now it was up to the proper authorities to ride in on their white horses to investigate those little pink slippers and save the day.

I finally reached the white rock and exhaled a big whoosh of breath, sighing in relief that my back window hadn't been shattered by a shotgun blast.

That's when I remembered I hadn't had time to take a photo of the slippers. All I had to prove what I'd seen was my word, and it might not be enough to get those white horses moving.

My abs tightened with worry.

I'd lived in the area long enough to know there was no cell service in the area except in parts of New Ohia and out by the beach, but that didn't keep me from trying. With one hand on the wheel and the SUV bucking in and out of potholes like an irritated bull, it was dicey trying to phone Lei to report what I'd found. And though I'd expected to fail connecting, it was still disheartening when my frantic call didn't go through.

I finally got back to the K K Investigations office, which was housed in the shack behind the post office. I unlocked the door and dashed inside to use the landline. I threw myself into one of the two chairs at the old Formica table and punched Lei's digits into the cordless phone.

"Hi Kat," Lei said. "How'd it go? I'm in a cruiser and you're on speaker."

"You need to get out to Halepua‘a Road ASAP. The guy's armed and hostile, and he?—"

She cut me off. "Hold on, I need to pull over."

I waited while she negotiated whatever situation she was in.

"Sorry about that," she said coming back on the line. "I want to take notes and I'm alone in the car."

"Notes aren't going to be necessary," I said. "There's nothing to say except you absolutely need to get out there and rescue that girl."

"What's this about the target being ‘hostile?' I thought I made it clear I didn't want you to engage."

"Circumstances dictated the need for a more direct approach."

Lei's tone was chilly. "I'm listening."

"The man who lives there was outside, behind his dwelling. At first, I did what you said and just peeked in the windows and checked around. But I heard him chopping back there, and when I peeked around the corner there was blood everywhere. My adrenaline kicked in and, well, I had to get to the bottom of what was going on."

Another pause. "Go on."

"Turns out, Hugh Dragoon was butchering a wild boar. That's where the blood came from. He told me to leave, then got aggressive when I asked if he lived alone. And there's definitely a child on the premises."

"You saw a child? What'd she look like? How old? What condition did she appear to be in?" Lei's questions peppered me like buckshot.

"Yeah, well. Unfortunately I didn't see her."

I heard a sigh, followed by, "Are you going to make me say it? Go on."

"I suspect a child is there because there were rubber slippers by the back door."

Another pause.

"Yes, pink rubber slippers," I said. "They didn't seem like they belonged to the hermit. They were child-size and pink. Like a little girl would wear."

"At any time did you have eyes on the girl?" Lei rapped out in her ‘cop' voice.

"Um." Now it was my turn to pause. "No. But I saw her shoes. And remember, the UPS driver saw a little girl in the window this morning. I called him before I went out and confirmed it."

"So. What we have here is a delivery driver who thinks he may have seen a child through a window, and a pair of pink rubber slippers seen on the premises."

"Correct. But don't you think it should be investigated? The guy threatened me with a machete. And so far, everyone I've talked to is certain the guy is a hermit who lives alone."

"Is the property marked ?No Trespassing?'"

I admitted it was.

"Then work with me here. I can't investigate an individual who acts hostile toward trespassers on his own property. The UPS driver's account is hearsay. And as far as the pink rubber slippers, what am I supposed to do with that?"

"Are you telling me you're not going to do anything?" My voice rose an octave or two; I was ready to howl like an opera singer.

"No. I'm saying I'll put in a call to Child Welfare Services and let them take it from there. Police get involved when there is a clear need for safety, and we don't have enough for that." She sighed. "You know how it works, Kat. I need probable cause to go out and hassle a guy who hasn't broken any laws and is likely to escalate the minute he feels threatened."

She was right. But it certainly didn't feel right. "Please, Lei. There must be something more you can do."

Silence stretched between us. "I have a contact in the Hana PD. I'll see if he can cook up some reason to go out there. And I'll make that call to Child Welfare."

"I wish I'd been able to get a photo of the slippers; a picture tells a thousand words, and the sight of them is something . . ." I choked up, then coughed. "Geez. This is bothering me more than it should."

"Not if there really is a child in danger," Lei said softly. "Thanks for caring, Kat. Never lose that." She ended the call.

I leaned forward and rested my head on my folded arms.

That poor little girl.

I pictured a ghostly pale face in the window, palms pressed against the filthy glass, brown hair bedraggled. I pictured her tiptoeing through those bare rooms, maybe locked up in the area I couldn't see into.

A tiny chirp sounded from above me, and I glanced up to see what it was. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the two brown spotted house geckos who lived above the stove, pumped their bodies up and down in greeting. One of them chirped again.

"Well, hey guys. Get any good bugs lately?" My voice sounded hoarse, rusty.

Further back in the corner, her eight long hairy legs spread for balance, squatted Miss Prissy the cane spider. She was at least half an inch bigger than when I'd seen her last. Though I'd been told these big brown arachnids were harmless, I tolerated rather than liked her—after all, her favorite place was way up high in the shower. Relaxing under the water while she watched . . . well, that was just creepy.

"Speaking of creepy." I stood up and addressed my menagerie. "That should be Hugh Dragoon's middle name. If you critters don't mind, I think I'll go for a swim and wash the smell of that place off me."