Chapter 5
The high school was packed with people from a five-mile radius. Residents had handed their lives over to the fact Kilauea would someday come and take back her land. Families huddled in corners, along the walls, or at the top of the bleachers surrounded by whatever belongings they could pull together without warning.
Storm took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Too many people with hollowed faces and vacant eyes searched for answers. Their voices carried into the rafter of the gymnasium and bounced off the wooden beams in the ceiling only to plummet back to the wood floor, unanswered and unheard. Her killer could be here. She never doubted that she could run, but she might not have been able to hide.
Tables were also set up along the walls with food and blankets. An elderly woman holding her tabby cat sat on the bottom bleacher alone. Her face was drawn and her eyes impassive. Storm wanted to go to her and offer a hand, something that might help this woman who seemed confused and possibly frightened, but she stayed put. Another time, when her own plight was over. She believed in helping those less fortunate. In fact, it was her duty. That was why she worked so hard to acquire funding for things like scholarships.
She would send money back to this town at the very least. The room smelled of a life boxed up in an attic that hadn’t been aired out in decades. She pulled the collar of her shirt up over her nose.
Storm searched the space for a recognizable face and was grateful for all the strangers in the room and fearful at the same time. Two sides of the same unwanted coin. She might be able to blend in, pretend that she was with a group, but she would have to keep watch, stay up all night.
Harlan had escorted her inside and was now getting ready to dump her and run. He thought she wasn’t aware of what he was up to, but she was.
She wasn’t the president of a college for nothing. She was the best at dealing with the donors. No other president to date had secured as much financing from alumni. She understood human behavior well. The trick would be to keep him with her or she’d have to make a run for it once he was gone. She wasn’t staying here alone. Too many people to keep her eye on and not enough places to hide. That two-sided coin just became one-sided. She wasn’t safe here. She wasn’t safe anywhere.
He spoke with two women in red polos from the Red Cross who took names and jotted them down on a clipboard along with any distinguishing marks or personal belongings in case those who had been displaced needed to be identified later. He had told Storm to sit tight, which was a little hard to do since her insides burned and the stench of this room made her eyes water.
She pulled out her phone and stared at the screen. She needed to text Robin, but even turning it on could be a detriment. Her fingers stumbled over the power button. She waited for the familiar screen saver of the garden on campus, then hurried through a text.
I had to evacuate. I’m at a high school in a nearby town. I’ll let you know where I’ll be tomorrow. Storm turned off the phone before Robin could respond. She couldn’t take the chance of giving her location away. She would have to check for a reply from Robin later. Maybe Harlan would allow her to give Robin his number. Or she’d have to purchase a burner phone. That was what the characters did in movies when they wanted to hide out.
Harlan sauntered across the room, dodging two kids playing catch with a rubber ball. His face was stern, his lips pressed into a thin line. He was incredibly good-looking with that beard that barely dusted his jaw as if it never grew too long, but she knew that required some effort on his part. He took pride in his appearance from his groomed face to his neat, tailored clothes. She liked that feature in a man.
She stood and grabbed her suitcase. “Where are we going next?”
His eyebrows shot up. “We’re not going anywhere. You’ll be safe here for the night. I have to help one of my teammates. I’ll be back in the morning to check on you.”
“I hired you to protect me.”
“I didn’t sign a contract and no money changed hands. Whatever you’re worried about, you’re safe here. I spoke with the people from the Red Cross. They’ll make sure you’re okay. You don’t have to worry.” He placed a hand on her shoulder.
His heat went through her shirt and seared her skin. She looked into his eyes and couldn’t look away—didn’t even want to. This man shook her at her core. She wanted to run from it and run toward it at the same time. A man never affected her quite this way before.
She backed up to give herself space from what had to be a physical reaction to this handsome creature. Attraction had no place in her immediate future or thereafter. Certainly, not some military guy who wouldn’t understand her world of books and fundraisers and donors. He probably ate with his hands. And yet she found herself drawn toward him like a light in the darkness. What did that say about her, attracted to a stranger while she was running for her life?
“I don’t want anyone else making sure I’m okay, as you put it.” She yanked her wallet from her purse and handed over all her cash. She hadn’t bothered to count it, but she must have at least a hundred. She would need this money later, but she needed to feel safe more. “Here. Here is a down payment for your services. I go where you go.”
He gripped her elbow and directed her to a spot in the back corner of the gym by two metal doors that probably housed the physical education equipment the students used. The gym at her college had a similar closet.
“Tell me again what brought you to Hawaii.” He shoved her money in her purse. “I don’t want that.”
“But I’m hiring you.” She retrieved the money and handed it back.
He pushed her hand away. “We can work out the payment later. Why did you really come to Hawaii?”
“Not here. I can’t talk about it here.” She had already told him the truth, but he didn’t believe her. The questions were in his eyes. If she could at least get him to take her away from here, she wouldn’t be forced to stay in this awful place with these people.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to stay in this smelly high school. There must be a twenty-four-hour place we could grab a bite to eat at. My treat.” The hour was late. Anyone who wasn’t stashed in a shelter would be home now. If there were patrons at an all-night place, there couldn’t be many unless it was a tourist trap.
“I have no idea what’s open all night. I’m here on vacation too. We can sit in my car.” He turned on his heel, and she followed him before he could change his mind.
Earlier this evening, when they had finally made their way through the traffic by the rental house, Officer Kalani had stopped back at the police station. Harlan retrieved his rental and had brought her here. She pushed her luck by backing him into a corner and forcing him to take her along now. He could be like any animal when cornered and attack, but she had to take her chances.
The night air was warm and thick like soup. The smog from the volcano blurred the glow from the parking lot lights as if someone had come along and smudged all their edges. She could breathe better out here, but it wouldn’t be for long.
Harlan placed her bags in the trunk then unlocked the car. She slid into the passenger seat while he slid in next to her and closed his door. She was thankful he reengaged the locks. From their spot, the entire lot and school were visible. If anyone came out, they would notice.
“Okay, you have privacy. Tell me your whole story. Don’t leave anything out. I’ll know.” He shifted in his seat to look at her, but he couldn’t move much with those muscles. Her fingers wanted to run across them to see what they felt like. She was curious about what a man built like him would feel like under her fingers.
She had never been with a man who was so athletic. Most of the men in her life, including her ex-husband, had been the stereotypical academic types. She wasn’t attracted to Harlan in a sexual way. That would be preposterous since they had only met hours ago, and he didn’t seem to like her very much. He was doing his job. That much was obvious.
“Two days ago, while having dinner in my office at work, something tasted wrong. I couldn’t explain it. It was the most horrid taste I’ve ever encountered. As soon as I swallowed, I ran into the bathroom and vomited.” Even sitting in Harlan’s rental, she could summon the acidic, bitter taste that burned all the way down her throat. She shivered.
“How do you know you didn’t just eat bad meat or something? Why do you think it was poison?”
The only light inside the car was from the parking lot, but that offered enough. His gaze was warm and inquisitive. He didn’t seem to be judging her the way her local police had when she told them this story.
“The food was extremely bitter. I was having chicken and some vegetables. Nothing out of the ordinary. When I work late, I ask the dining hall to bring up whatever they served the resident students that night. A tray of food waited for me in the outer office. At first, I wasn’t sure if I smelled something off. I thought I imagined the strange smell, but when I tasted it, I knew something was wrong. I didn’t wait around to find out details and possibly suffer. I stuck my fingers down my throat.”
She had run into the bathroom adjacent to her office. Making herself vomit was foreign to her. She knew girls growing up who did, knew students who did, and always wondered how they had managed. In that moment, nothing mattered except to rid herself of the poison in her system. She had no plans of dying that night.
The acid in her stomach had incinerated her throat, or maybe it had been the poison on its return journey, but it only took two tries for the food to come back up. On shaking legs, she had rinsed out her mouth, grabbed her purse, and ran to the police.
“Who brought up the dinner? Did you see them?” Harlan’s voice returned her to the safety of the car.
“I didn’t see who it was. It’s not always the same person. I was alone in the office—no, wait. One of my vice presidents had stopped by. He had come into the bathroom to see if I was okay. I’d forgotten. He followed me to the police station as well, but he hadn’t seen a thing.” Which was partly why the police hadn’t believed her. She couldn’t produce a single witness.
“Why would someone want to poison you?”
“So, you believe me?” She hung on to the hope that someone else understood what she tried to say. Harlan didn’t look at her as if she were out of her mind. Her assistant believed her too. That was why Robin was on her way to Hawaii, but adding Harlan to the list eased a little more of that tension off her shoulders.
“I don’t know what to believe. You are committed to this story. You believe what you’re telling me.”
“Because it’s true. I have no reason to lie to you. I could’ve told you anything like my ex-husband was chasing me. Then you would not have questioned me.”
“Probably not, and that thought had crossed my mind. Look, I don’t think it’s a great idea to continue sitting here. My teammates could use my help and it’s late. If you’re not going back inside the school, then buckle up.” He waited a beat for her to decide.
She wanted to stay with him. For tonight, she had no other options and no one else she could trust. Her body ached with fatigue. She relished the idea of lying on a comfortable bed between clean sheets and closing her eyes without the worry that anyone would come for her during the night. Something or someone had sent Harlan to help her. She wasn’t letting him go until Robin met up with her tomorrow. Then, with some reluctance, she would part ways with this man she knew nothing about, had certainly made assumptions of, but who had intrigued her.
Storm buckled her seat belt. Harlan flashed his smile, turned over the engine, and worked the car through the parking lot toward the road—and the unknown.