One
Cassidy swiveled on her board and paddled hard for the wave, its roar blasting her ears. But before she could drop in, another surfer appeared in her peripheral vision, stroking intently.
“Go home, haole,” he growled.
Cassidy gritted her teeth and scratched forward, managing to tilt into the wave as it fell away beneath her. The murderous gaze of the rival surfer blasted her like a laser as she punched to her feet and soared down the face.
The wave drew upwards, sheeting out in a ramp of glittering, clear blue. She carved a series of turns to the wave’s end, her fingers trailing in the warm water. After, she sprinted for the channel, a smile stretching her salty cheeks.
Some people might say she was wasting precious hours of volcano research, but after five days of sweat, broken fingernails, and squeezing every last drop of labor from her crew, including working by headlamp well into the night, hadn’t she earned this?
Her smile faded when she noticed the soft paddle strokes of someone approaching. Surfing at this locals-only spot on Hawaii’s Kona side had been a risk, but she’d gone anyway.
Was she about to pay for it? Had the people she’d run from only a week ago found her?
“You’re one brave lady,” a voice said behind her.
Cassidy wheeled around, ready to fight, but the face that greeted her nearly knocked her off her board.
“Bruce?” Her mind went in a thousand directions at once. Was he angry? Had he come to arrest her? She cringed, remembering his latest voicemail—his ninth in five days. Quit avoiding me, Cassidy, you’re in some serious trouble. I can help, but only if you answer your goddamn phone.
He paddled alongside her; his brown eyes sharp. “Nice wave,” he said.
Cassidy continued paddling in silence, wondering how long he had watched her surf. They hadn’t seen each other since parting ways at the Liberia airport last winter. A strange feeling settled into her gut—a mix of worry that she’d disappointed him, fear of the trouble she was in, and something like jitters, only that made no sense.
They reached the safety of the outside and pushed upright.
“I thought you only body surfed?” she asked, nodding at his surfboard, a Channel Islands thruster with several ding repairs evident near the tip.
He squinted sideways at her. “Sometimes it’s good to shake things up a bit.”
Cassidy tried to gauge his level of fury, but his tone gave nothing away. “How did you find me?”
“This is my turf, remember?”
Her shoulders sagged. Deep down, she knew she couldn’t run from him forever. “Have you come to arrest me?”
“No,” Bruce said, sounding agitated.
A quick glance at him revealed the concern in his eyes. “I was going to call you tonight,” she lied, remembering the moment in her brother Quinn’s apartment a week ago when she realized how grave her situation had become.
Bruce splashed a scoop of water over the front of his board. “You owe the Bureau a plane ticket.”
Cassidy swirled her legs in the warm water. “Pete was murdered, Bruce.” Over the past five days, she’d built seismic stations and directed her field grunts to assemble this, transmit that, as lava flows gushed from the earth to destroy homes and streets. Somehow during that frantic rush to go, go, go, the reality of it had sunk in. Someone had run Pete off that strip of highway.
“I know.”
Cassidy took this in. Of course, he knew. Didn’t Bruce know everything?
“He must have been about to expose someone,” Cassidy said, as a tightness pulled at her insides. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She had lain awake every night since, wondering if Saxon and his men were coming for her next.
“We need you to come in and make a statement,” Bruce said.
“I can’t,” Cassidy said, hearing the nervous hitch in her voice. “This afternoon, I fly home, then I hit the ground running.” She thought of her interview at King 5 Television to discuss volcanic hazards in less than twenty-four hours. Mount Rainier had been experiencing an increase in tremors lately, and the Sunday news program wanted answers. She was pretty sure that Mark, Pete’s best friend and a programmer at the station, had been the one to recommend her for the opportunity.
“Look, Cassidy, you can come in voluntarily, or I can get a subpoena for a grand jury.”
Cassidy inhaled a gulp of ocean air.
“We need to know what you saw. It’s critical for the investigation.”
She scraped a bump of wax from her board, wincing as it crowded painfully under her fingernail. She thought about Dutch. What had happened to him? Was he okay? Her attempts to locate him had been futile. If only she knew his real name. Saxon’s aggressive face popped into her mind. This isn’t over. A shiver chilled her spine.
“It’ll be fast. A day, maybe two.”
“Where?” Cassidy asked, feeling resigned. There was no getting out of a grand jury testimony.
“San Francisco.”
Cassidy began to panic, picturing herself strapped to a chair while a room of men in suits fired off questions like darts to a target board. “Will you be there?”
Bruce nodded. “You’re sort of my job right now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I know you did what you thought was right,” Bruce said, his voice softening. “But hell, Cass, that warehouse…our informant…thankfully we got lucky and no one got killed.”
Except Lars, Cassidy wanted to say, but her mind flashed to the warehouse and the image of Izzy handcuffed to that bed while the sprinklers gushed water from the ceiling.
Her heart twisted with regret. At least I saved them from one night of hell, she thought, cringing at the realization of what these girls were being forced to do, possibly at this very minute.
“Did…they rescue anyone?” she asked, imagining firefighters pouring into the building, busting down doors to find scared young girls cowering on stained mattresses.
Bruce’s face took on a pained look. “One. She was hiding inside a closet.” He crossed his arms. “There was also…evidence.”
Cassidy remembered the instruments laid out on the table in the room where Izzy was being held, and the boisterous laughter from the men who had entered.
“I’m guessing the bullet hole in the wall was yours?” Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow.
“He wanted Izzy,” Cassidy said, her voice firm. “I couldn’t let him take her.”
“We’ll need to speak with her, too.”
Cassidy eyed him sharply. “No. Leave her alone.”
Bruce’s jaw pulsed like the gills of a shark. “Forgive me for being so blunt, Cassidy, but this isn’t your show. Your and Izzy’s testimonies could give us the information we need to finally nail these guys.”
He’s right, she thought as her stomach tightened further. “I don’t think you’ll locate her. Her dad can’t even find her.” She remembered Preston Ford’s stern voice over the phone line. For reasons she still did not understand, she had kept Cody’s identity a secret.
“You want to catch one more wave?” Bruce asked, lowering to his board to paddle. “We still have a little bit of time before our flight.”