For the second time in as many days, my head pounded.
I fluttered my eyelids, attempting to open them as my body rattled from side to side. The noise was deafening, and the smell of petrol fumes mixed with blood filled my nostrils, making me feel sick.
I managed to get my lids all the way open, cringing as my body was propelled to one side, the shuddering beneath my back causing a pain to shoot through my hip. Darkness surrounded me.
Fog filled my brain as I tried to put the pieces together. Where am I? How did I get here? And what is that awful noise?
I strained my hearing as I put my hands out in front of me, memories flooding back.
Hayley's red-soled Louboutin, the earring. She worked for Nash Brothers. She knew Nathan. Had she seen me take the elephant?
The vision of her bringing that paddle down across my head was the last thing I remembered. But where was I now?
My hands stopped about a foot in front of me, and the cool surface of metal contacted my skin. I kicked my foot out, attempting to stretch, but it hit another metal wall. Claustrophobia spiked my anxiety as stars danced in the darkness. Centrifugal force propelled me to one side, and red lights flashed alongside me. I was in the trunk of a car.
The thundering sound of the road beneath the tires competed with the roar of the engine, but the sound causing me the most grief was the loud screeching that sang along to the tune of Pharrell Williams' "Happy."
Tears stung as adrenaline spiked, and panic grabbed me by the throat.
I needed to calm down and think clearly if I wanted to get out of this alive. But that was easier said than done.
The tears escaped in big fat splashes, hitting my shoulder as the car took a corner and I was rolled to one side, my pounding head hitting the wheel arch. I wanted to run, to get as far away from here as I could, but as I struck out against the trunk, I knew that my wishes were futile.
My hand fell to my side as I concentrated on Pharrell's muffled voice drifting through the back seats towards me, but not even Mr. Williams could change my state of mind.
I gave in to the sobbing as my tears mingled with the blood oozing from the gash on my head.
Without a doubt I knew that Hayley was the murderer, and if she had murdered Nathan, then there was no reason to believe that she wouldn't kill me.
But I had too much to live for to die like this. I had Mum and Luke and Alani. And I had Casey. Most of all I had Casey.
His gorgeous blue eyes swam in my thoughts as his laugh danced in my memory. As he filled my mind, blocking out all that was bad in the world, I could almost feel his hand as it took mine, giving me strength even when I thought I had none. I could smell the scent of his skin after a shower as he nuzzled my neck. And I could see his smile. The smile that told me I was home.
I wasn't ready to leave him. I wasn't ready for our journey to be over. No. I had to stop crying and find a way out of this. And I had to clear Alani's name.
Rubbing my eyes with my fists, I took a few deep breaths, struggling to not cough against the fumes. I didn't want Hayley to know that I was conscious. That way when she opened the trunk, I had the upper hand.
My eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and when she braked, the taillights gave the extra illumination that I needed. I fumbled around, my movements limited, but I knew the things that were kept in a trunk. Tire irons, jacks, and everything else needed to change a tire.
However it seemed Hayley had none of those, preferring to travel with shoes instead. The heel of a stiletto dug into my hip as she rounded another corner.
But something else dug into my hip also. The flat hard surface of my phone reminded me that there was a reason I rarely carried a handbag.
I rolled my body onto my back and pushed my hand into my pocket, hoping that 1) my phone hadn't broken when I fell and 2) I had a signal.
The screen was blank, but I held down the button I knew would restart it, praying that it would work. It felt like forever, but I almost sang with happiness as I squinted against the glare as the screen came to life.
My hands shook as I swiped the phone unlocked and hit dial on Casey's number.
"Good morning, gorgeous," he greeted me.
"Casey," I whispered, swallowing the tears of emotion that his voice evoked.
"Why are you whispering?" he asked. He'd had the early shift at The Lava Pot, so he was bright and cheery even though the sun had only been up an hour.
"Because I'm in the trunk of Hayley's car." I heard his gasp of disbelief as I hurriedly told him what had happened and where I was.
"Which is where exactly?" Fear trembled in his voice.
"I don't know. But I've been awake for about five minutes. I don't know how long we were travelling before that. Oh my God! She's stopping! I have to go." I gulped as fear took hold of my stomach and it growled its unhappiness.
"Sam! Don't hang up! I'm going to get hold of Detective Ray and see if they can trace your call. That way we can find you." I applauded his ability to think under pressure.
"Okay. I'll put it in my pocket. Casey…"
His breath told me he was waiting for my response.
"In case you don't find me in time…"
"Don't say that! We will find you. Just hang in there."
The car door slammed as my heart hammered in my chest.
"But just in case, I need you to know. If you'd asked, I would have married you in a heartbeat," I whispered. Not waiting for his reply, I pushed my phone into my pocket and grabbed the stiletto that was within my reach.
As the trunk opened and sunlight scorched my retinas, Hayley's maniacal laughter permeated into my reality.
* * *
I had no idea where we were, but the vastness of the fields surrounding us, the volcanos in the distance, and the sound of the wind whistling through the long grass told me we were no longer in town.
"Get out," Hayley demanded, her nervous demeanor now gone as she confidently waved a gun in my face.
My blood pressure pounded behind my eyes as I lifted myself out, clutching the shoe as if my life depended on it. Which it very well might.
"You know what, Sam?" she goaded. "You're far too nosy for your own good."
She wasn't the first person to have told me that.
I held the shoe behind my back as I tried to get my balance on my feet and control my stomach. Only when I thought I wasn't going to throw up did I assess my timing. I had one chance to hit her with the heel, and I had to get it right.
"You should have let your friend take the blame for Nathan's demise," she continued.
My blood pressure entered the danger zone as I took a deep breath. I wanted to hit her as hard as I could, to knock that stupid smirk off her face, but I had to get the timing right. I had to.
"Where are we?" I asked, grinding my teeth.
"What? Oh! We're halfway to Coconut Cove. I headed inland off the main road. There's a house that Nathan and I used to hang out in back in the day. I thought it was as good a place as any to get rid of you."
I gulped. "What did you have in mind?"
"Hmmm, so many choices. But after much deliberation, I came up with the amazing idea of you committing suicide."
"Ha! There's a flaw in that plan. I'm not doing it." I laughed despite the panic that was waiting to consume me.
"You're not really going to commit suicide," she sneered. "I'm going to kill you but make it look like you did."
Humph.
"You're going to write a note and everything. You see, you are far too upset about Alani, and you just couldn't live with the fact that she did indeed kill Nathan. Then you're going to shoot yourself in that barn over there."
My gaze followed her finger as she pointed a few hundred feet to the west. A large barn sat lonely among the couple of cows that had turned a disdainful eye towards us as they contentedly chewed on long blades of grass.
I had nowhere to hide the shoe, so I did my best to conceal it with my body movements as I moved it against my stomach and she pushed the gun into my back.
"Get moving!" she demanded.
My feet trudged across the field, every step matching the loud drumming of my heart. Perspiration dripped between my breasts, and the sensation of wanting to flee to freedom was propelling me forward. But even though I was a lot fitter than I had been when I'd moved to Aloha Lagoon, I knew I could never outrun a bullet.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked, attempting to distract her from my lack of speed.
She huffed. "To stop you from telling that stupid detective the truth."
"Detective Ray is a lot of things, but he's not stupid. He would have figured the truth out eventually." I hoped.
"Oh puh…lease. He doesn't have a clue that it was me who killed Nathan."
"Why did you kill him?"
She gave a gut-wrenching sigh. "Nathan and I were lovers. Well, I thought we were. But you see, he played me for a fool. He used me to get information on Nash, and then he left me high and dry, disappearing to Europe with another woman."
"What exactly did he do?"
"It's a long story."
"I've got time." And I needed a reason to keep her talking.
She laughed. "Yeah, well, I guess it won't hurt to tell you everything. And I do like retelling a good story."
I had no idea what I was going to do, but the more I could keep her talking, the better my chances were.
"Nathan worked for Nash and one day stumbled across the ivory. We export it hidden in the vegetables, but Nathan found it by accident. He took it as evidence of what Matthew was doing. He said he was going to blackmail him, but what he didn't consider is how dangerous Matthew can be. He has a lot of bad friends and a lot of money to get things done that he doesn't want to do himself. And if Matthew knew that Nathan had gotten that information from me, he would have killed me. Matthew pays me well to keep the logistics of the trading moving and to keep it all quiet."
"Quite the predicament."
"Yes. The problem was I didn't know any of this until it was too late. I thought Nathan was genuinely interested in me. I thought we had a connection. I even told my mom about him! But he was using me. He used me to get into Matthew's computer, copying files and gathering all the evidence he needed."
"But why did Nathan leave the elephant with Alani?"
"He was an idiot, that's why. If he'd had any sense, he never would have taken it, but he told me he needed somewhere to hide it. Nathan was too scared of Nash to be found with it. Of course, I didn't know at the time that he'd left it there. I had no idea about the other women he was involved with."
"Okay, that makes sense." It also made me mad, but I chose to bite down on my anger and wait for my moment to strike.
Hayley seemed lost in her memories as we trudged across the field, dodging the cows, the barn looming closer with every step.
"So what did Nathan do then?" I asked, wanting to keep her thoughts right where they were and away from killing me. "Why did he leave Aloha Lagoon when he did?"
"When I learned of his plan to blackmail Matthew and set me up as the mole, I lied and told Nathan that Matthew already knew the truth. Matthew was coming for Nathan and would kill him. Nathan ran like the coward that he was."
"Why did he come back if he knew that so many people were after him here?"
"Because I was stupid and he was greedy. He had spent the last twelve months swanning around Europe, spending all the money he'd conned from women, and needed to plump up his bank account again. What I hadn't realized that all that time, he was monitoring my emails, and he'd learned that Matthew had one final trade to do. If Nathan didn't take the chance now, then he'd never get it again."
"But he'd originally left in such a hurry, he hadn't taken the evidence with him," I finished, thinking Nathan was an idiot in more ways than one.
"Exactly. I couldn't believe it the day that I saw him in the Coconut Closet Convenience Co-op. He was smiling at me like we were best buddies! So I followed him and quickly learned where he'd left it all. The files were stored at his apartment after he collected them from his friend Ben's house, and I found the elephant the day that I killed him. Only problem was I didn't have time to take it once everything went down. Alani was opening the door as I was wiping my fingerprints off the paddle."
"What was in the files?"
"Information pertaining to the shipments. The buyer's details and the prices that were paid. Everything that could send us all to prison."
"But Nash too was looking for Nathan."
Hayley sighed. "Yes, because Nathan demanded money from Matthew before he had all his ducks in a row. Matthew wanted him removed from the scene before the final shipment was made."
"But why did you kill Nathan in Alani's shop?"
Hayley sighed. "That was unintentional. I followed him there, wondering what he was up to. He saw me, confessed everything, we argued, and I got angry. Nathan always had the ability to push my buttons the wrong way. I hit him with the first thing I could get my hands on. My plan was to get Matthew to remove the body, but I barely made it out of there without Alani seeing me."
"And you dropped your earring in the process."
"I wondered where I'd lost it. I didn't realize it was there until I saw you holding it." Her sigh was deep. Life really wasn't working out for her.
"But why did you turn up in Alani's shop yesterday?"
"I followed you there after seeing you snooping around Shed Three again." She sighed deeply. "I figured you'd taken something. I couldn't believe it when I saw you drop the elephant in the shop last night. I'd only just got the original one back, and now here you go flaunting a second one! Don't you understand that all of those damned elephants need to go in this last shipment? Then I can breathe easy that there is no more evidence pointing towards Matthew."
"But how would that elephant connect everything to you and Nash?"
"If anyone had gone to the police with it stating where they got it, they would have enough evidence for a search warrant. With that, Matthew had nowhere to hide. When Nathan ran to Europe, I thought I was safe from the blackmail threat. But now that he was back, I needed to clean up his evidence trail. I was in The Lava Pot the night Matthew came searching for Nathan. I'd been following Nathan to learn where he'd left all the evidence, because I knew if Matthew found him first, then Nathan would tell him where he'd gotten all his information from. I was a dead woman walking if that happened."
I stopped at the door to the barn and looked at her over my shoulder. "Was it you who knocked me off my bike?"
She giggled. "Yes. I 'borrowed' a car," she explained, doing air quotes with her fingers. "I needed one that couldn't be traced to me or Matthew. It would have been so much simpler if you had left things alone and let Alani take the blame. The truth doesn't need to be known. Not now, not ever."
She looked at the door and prodded the gun into my back.
"Now, what are you waiting for?" Hayley demanded. "Get inside."
"Ummm, it's locked," I said, pretending to open the door.
She huffed but stepped past me to try the door for herself.
My fingers were cramped from holding the shoe so tight, but I saw my opportunity. As she spun to me, her eyes narrowed with annoyance. I swung my arm with all my might. She didn't see it coming. Stupid woman. You'd think she would have remembered the mountain of shoes that she'd left lying in the trunk beneath me.
She raised her arm, but it was too late. She dropped the gun as the heel connected just above her eye. Blood gushed, and she screamed a gut-wrenching noise that scared the cows.
Apparently being blinded by a Louboutin wasn't going to stop her though, as her scream turned primeval and she launched at me like a woman possessed.
I ducked away from her and moved out of her reach, but as she faced me, her eyes were wide, crazed with a rage I'd never encountered.
I had no plan past this point, so I reacted on instinct, yanking the barn door open and forcing my way inside. I then pushed my back to it as Hayley slammed herself against it.
"You'll pay for this!" she screamed, her tone murderous before she moved away from the door.
My legs shook badly as adrenaline spiked. I hoped that my phone in my pocket was still connected to Casey and that the Aloha Lagoon Police Department really could do the CSI thing and trace calls. All I had to do was stay alive long enough for them to find me.
I was just trying to decide whether to move away from the door and find a hiding point when the loud bang of a gun firing a shot through the stillness echoed in the canyon. The timber alongside my ear splintered as a bullet displaced my hair, and a ringing started inside my head.
I didn't wait for the second bullet. Instead, I launched myself off the door and across the room as fast as my feet would carry me.
Hayley's cackle broke through the reverberating blast, and the door was kicked open just as I hid behind what I thought was a large concrete trough.
Sunlight flooded in the open door as her shadow shifted through its brilliance. My breathing hitched, and I flattened myself as close to the ground as I could get.
The stench of cow manure was overbearing as I struggled to keep control of my anxiety, and I wished more than anything I was sitting on a wave alongside Casey right at that moment.
Casey. He once again filled my mind. If I ever wanted to see him again, I needed to get out of here. And to do that I needed to think clearly.
"Oh, Sam, I really don't have the time for this," Hayley complained, her footsteps muffled on the dirt floor.
I knew I had a short window of opportunity over her. Spotting a large shovel leaning against the nearby wall, I quietly crawled towards it. Keeping to the shadows and away from the light streaming in through the open door, I grabbed the shovel and crept up behind her.
She stood with one hand on her hip, the other holding the gun out in front of her as I moved in behind. I swung the shovel and connected with her head as the gun fired, and a bullet pinged off the nearby water trough.