CHAPTER 61

The headlamps of my Jeep burn a trail through the night as I head west on H-1 toward Waikele. The black sky remains open, thick droplets of rain carrying out their kamikaze missions, targeting my windshield and roof. My right foot presses against the accelerator as I fish around in my pants pocket for my cell phone, but nothing. I left the fucking thing on my desk.

I’m on my own.

The Ho’Omalu Village, a middle-income apartment complex off Lumiauau Street in Waikele, is where I picked up Josh for our last playdate. When I fly past the abutting park I realize I’ve gone too far. I throw the Jeep in reverse and tear backward down the dark, empty street.

Killing the lights, I pull into the complex and park the Wrangler in the first spot I find. I then step out into the downpour and sprint in the direction of Building H.

When I spot it, I bolt around back. It’s pitch-black in the back lot, not a single light brightening the lined blacktop. Mercifully, Chelsea’s apartment is on the first floor. I pinpoint her lanai in the darkness by recognizing the cheap plastic outdoor furniture dripping with rainwater. The vertical blinds remain closed. No lights are visible inside.

Slowly, I approach the lanai, then quietly push a plastic chair aside to get by. Holding my breath, I try the sliding glass door and to my incredulity, it slides.

I push aside the blinds and step inside.

My entire body tingles with a feeling I barely recognize. It isn’t fear. Not the fear that ran through me last year in Kailua when I was being chased by Alika Kapua and a loaded Smith & Wesson. This is something more like anger, like hatred, like rage.

And it’s about damn time, I tell myself.

My suit is soaked to the skin, my hair plastered to my skull. I push away the rain from my eyes and hurry forward quietly through the living room, the carpeted floor squeaking ever so slightly under my feet.

Then someone rounds the corner.

In the bleak moonlight entering through a curtained kitchen window, I can barely make him out. Just a thin man with a ball cap and gloves, but it’s enough. Before a second thought flashes through my mind I’m darting at him, leading with my clenched right fist.

I hear the crack as my knuckles connect with his temple, knocking the cap off his head. His body slumps to the shag carpet and then I’m on top of him, nailing him again and again in the face.

He’s screaming something but I can’t make it out, so I stop punching and grab him by the throat instead.

I stare into his bloodied face.

“Where’s the boy, Dominic?” I say through clenched teeth.

All he does is choke.

“Where’s the fucking boy?” I say again.

Something like “gone” emanates from his broken throat.

I loosen my grip, smack him hard on the side of the head, and spit in his face.

That’s when I feel the pinch in my stomach.

As I lift my torso, Dominic pushes the blade in farther, twists it, turns it, searches for a vital organ in the right upper abdomen. With my left, I strike him in the face again and try to stand up, simultaneously pulling the stiletto from my gut with my right.

Hurts a hell of a lot more coming out than it did going in.

I back away, my vision blurry. I’m already dizzy, cold, feeling faint. Stumbling, I drop to one knee just as Dominic begins to get to his feet.

Summoning every scrap of strength, every shred of rage, I launch myself off my bad right knee and charge forward, swinging at the prick with my right. The awkward, off-balance hook I deliver connects squarely with the left side of his throat.

Time seems to freeze.

In the dimness an inky liquid flows like a faucet from between Dominic’s lips.

That’s when I realize I still have the knife in my fist.

Gazing into his mismatched eyes I’m frozen like a block of ice. But I need to find the kid.

I release the knife, manage a few slow, painful steps forward as Dominic’s body brushes against the wall, then slumps to the floor.

As I pass him, my eyes lock on the stiletto still lodged in his throat.

The sensation that washes over me isn’t at all what I expected. In fact, although I know I never have, it distinctly feels as though I’ve done this before.