“Hi, Rick,” he said into the receiver.
“What the hell happened?”
“We were ambushed. They came by night. Four guys.”
“God, so it’s true. Where’s the girl?”
“Laurie’s with me.”
“Well I’m glad. I don’t know what we’ll do about David though. Have you called his family?”
“No, I was going to do that this afternoon.” Dante closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Good. You should call Max and Cheyn’s families and tell them they’re in the hospital. What can I do for you right now?”
Call David’s family for me, Dante thought it but he didn’t say it—he knew it was his job.
“Well, I could use some more men. I can’t protect her by myself the whole time.”
“No. Of course not. I’m already working on that. I have two men flying in later this evening from Maui. They’re wrapping up another assignment, but I’ll try to get them out to you as soon as I can. The fourth I might be able to get from California. But he won’t be there until tomorrow morning at the earliest.”
“All right. We should be fine until tonight.”
“How is she doing?”
Dante stared at the bedroom door. He wanted to go back to the woman in question.
“Shaken, but she was in the safe room. She’ll be fine. She’s a tough girl.”
“Good. I expect a full report on this by mid-week.”
“Not a problem. How are Cheyn and Max? Have you called the hospital yet?”
“Yeah, yeah. Cheyn’s just fine. He’s a little out of it but you should be able to talk to him if you call. Max is still recovering from surgery, but the doctors sound hopeful.”
“Good. I’ll have to call and check on them later.”
Some of the tension eased from Dante’s shoulders. He leaned up against the wall by the bathroom. He felt suddenly weary.
“All right, kid. You two stay safe!”
“Thanks, we’ll certainly try.”
Rick hung up in Dante’s ear.
Dante was relieved to hear Cheyn was going to be fine, and Max pulled through. Dante pulled open the door to find Laurie on her side almost buried under the covers. He shut the door and made his way back to bed. He slipped in beside her. She stirred a bit but didn’t wake up. Dante, however laid awake. He watched Laurie sleep for a little while, brushing his fingers through the cool silk of her hair. Her skin was tan from years of living on the island, but he could tell it was naturally fair from the tender skin on the underside of her wrist. He slid the back of his fingers down the bare arm resting above the covers. Then her eyelids fluttered open. She smiled up at him. His heart thumped in his chest.
Laurie yawned, and stretched her arm over him gracefully.
“Morning. Who was on the phone?”
“Rick.” Dante took a deep steadying breath to keep from kissing her awake. “Wanted to know what happened last night, make sure we were okay.”
Laurie mumbled something else, laying her head on his chest.
Dante closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep again. He laid there, his thoughts roaming. He tried not to think of the beautiful woman lying beside him or the scent of her shampoo, which drove him crazy. First, he made running lists of things that needed to be done. Then he tried to think of who might be the men coming tonight. Finally, he thought about what he would write for his report. He thought about what he remembered. Then he started reliving the night. Before he knew it, Laurie shook his shoulder.
“Dante are you okay? You’re shaking!”
“Huh? What?” He snapped into consciousness with a gasp. “Oh, sorry. Must have just slipped into a nightmare.”
“What were you dreaming about?”
“Nothing—it was just a dream.” He shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about that with her this morning. “No nightmare last night?”
“No, not that I can remember. I guess I didn’t have one.” Laurie ran her hand through her tousled hair. “Should we have breakfast?”
“Sure.”
They climbed out of bed. Laurie went to the bathroom to change while Dante pulled on his usual jeans and a t-shirt. He holstered his gun as he tried to think of how he would explain to this new group of men why he slept in Laurie’s room. It wasn’t something he thought he could explain to men he didn’t know.
When Laurie came back, she threw her nightgown on top of her bag, and they went to the kitchen to make breakfast. Laurie got her first look at the squat one level she was now living in. The roof was rather short. If Dante was a bit taller he’d have to duck. Daintily flowered wallpaper covered the walls, yellowed with age.
The hallway of rooms opened up into a living room and front door on the right, the kitchen on her left. They turned into the kitchen, which was quite large. There were two ovens, an extra-large dishwasher and two mismatched microwaves. There were a dozen cabinets, and a long counter along the wall that separated it from the living room. Toward the end of the counter was a kitchen table with ten chairs. Beyond the table was a sliding glass door leading to the patio.
“Let’s see what we have here.” He pulled open a pantry door beside the double door refrigerator.
He pulled out a moldy bag of bread and tossed it in the trashcan. Then he pulled out a box of cereal and read the expiration date. That, too, went straight into the trash. So did the next box. As he pulled open the fridge door, Laurie started to hunt down everything she needed to make coffee. She found the coffee grounds. There were a couple of filters in the cabinet. Dante pulled out the milk, and after taking one whiff of it, that went into the garbage.
“Laurie, I’m not having much luck here.” He pulled open the freezer. “Well, it looks like we have frozen waffles.”
“That’s fine.”
Dante pulled out the waffles, syrup, and a tub of butter that had about a tablespoon left. He microwaved their breakfast in both microwaves.
“You must have families come here.”
“Yes.” He set their breakfast on the table. “We usually have large families come here. Ones with more than two kids.”
Laurie sat down at the table with him.
“Are more men going to come, or are we on our own?”
“We’re on our own for today. Two more men should join us tonight and another is coming over from California tomorrow morning.”
“What happened to Max and Cheyn? Did Rick say anything?”
“Rick said they’d be fine. I’ll call them later. Maybe we’ll be able to talk to them.”
“I’d like that. Can we visit them in the hospital?”
Dante looked at her and shook his head.
“I’m afraid were not going to be able to leave the house very much, Laurie. I don’t even want to go to the grocery store today, but we have to. There has never been an attack on a safe house in Hawaii’s history, and we’ve harbored plenty of witnesses. Kaimi’s obviously very afraid of what your testimony could do if they find him.”
Laurie took a bite of her breakfast, staring down at her plate. She blinked at it, a puzzled look on her face.
“I wonder how they found us.”
“I don’t really know, but I’m willing to bet they followed Evan James. There are many reasons a victim shouldn’t have contact with a witness and that’s one of them. I know he fucking knew it too.”
Laurie flinched, but said nothing. They finished their coffee in silence. Then Laurie cleared away their dishes.
“I’d like to show you the safe room before we do anything else.”
Laurie nodded and followed him back to the hallway.
He led her into her room and opened the closet door at the far end. It adjoined her room to the one beyond it. As with the linen closet at the other house, there was a trick door hidden behind the shelves. Dante lifted the shelving up and forward. The door to the safe room swung toward him. It was a small, cramped space, with all of the same emergency supplies crammed in there.
“I hope we don’t have to use it.” Dante gestured inside. “But this is the only one we have. If anything happens, you’ll be in here.”