Riptide

CHAPTER 31

They could see their breath in the morning air. They could also feel the mist, cold droplets from the clouds. The outside of the double sleeping bag was soaked.

Lila was up, puttering around the campsite, while Jake lay there in the warmth she had created. “Jake, look at this!” Her voice rose with excitement, and at first he thought she might have found an old landmark, a key to the treasure he had all but forgotten. But Lila stood motionless in front of a four-foot tall plant, sleek gray leaves at its base, a burst of purple flowers pointing upward, leaves shimmering, nearly white.

“Silversword,” Lila said. “In full bloom. Take a good look. They only bloom on Haleakala, nowhere else on Maui, nowhere else in the world.”

He pulled himself out of the sleeping bag, and hopped into his undershorts. “It’s breathtaking.”

“But sad, too.”

“Why? It’s glorious. A plant flaming out of the rocks and sand, it’s almost unearthly.”

“Sad because it won’t last,” Lila Summers said. “The silversword grows for twenty years without blooming, just a bush in the desert. Then it blooms, but only once, a brief flash of colors, then dries up like an old kitchen mop and dies.”

They stood there, absorbing the beauty of the plant, struck by its splendor against the stark landscape. Tears came to Lila’s eyes. What was she thinking, Lassiter wondered in the silence, looking at the plant, so beautiful, so near death.

Such a strange reaction. When she butchered her former lover, not a trace of emotion. Now, on the lunar landscape, tears for a flowering bush. What did it mean to her, he wondered. Was the realization sinking in? That she had to leave the island, now and forever, this was her last time in the crater, the last glimpse of a silversword in bloom?

Still looking at the shimmering plant, she said, “Will you always remember last night?”

“For the rest of my life.”

“Remember the silversword, Jake. Remember it and think of me.”

“I’ll think of you all the time, especially if we’re sharing the same sleeping bag.”

But she just shook her head sadly and began gathering up their belongings.

By the time they ate their papayas and gathered their gear, the sun was sizzling over the rim of the crater. Lila paced around the base of the huge cone, but even in the morning light, she had no idea where to look, no way to guess where Keaka had buried the treasure. She scuffed at a few rocks, then gave up. You could dig more holes than Con Ed and have nothing to show for it but a ton of sand and rocks.

It was time to get off the mountain, to get away before Mikala set out to avenge his cousin’s death. Which is what Lila predicted he would do. He’s a killer, she said, not up close with his own hands like Keaka, but more of an assassin, a methodical professional. Lassiter remembered the talk in the police station, the pride Mikala took in the slaughter in Vietnam.

After the long climb up the trail to the observation building, they loaded their gear in Lila’s old pickup and started slowly down Crater Road. Six miles below the summit, behind a sharp bend in the road at the eight-thousand-foot level, a few cars were pulling into the entrance to the Halemau’u Trail, which led to the rim of the crater. As they passed the parking lot, it pulled out behind them, a 1979 Chevy Blazer with a reinforced steel bumper, a row of spotlights, and a rumbling engine. Two tons of terror, a nightmare on wheels.