The Homecoming

Then again, he thought as he climbed back down off the boulder and began to lope along the tide line, she didn’t even know her own name right now.

Two

J ohnny was coming down the steps as Danny ran back toward the house. The two men retraced Danny’s steps to where the young woman waited, then carried her up to the house in a sling made of the blanket.

Danny put her in a first-floor sitting room, then called over to Kauai. First he spoke to a doctor, who agreed to come over and examine the woman. The man was a relative of Johnny’s—no surprise there—and Danny had met him before.

Then he called the Kauai Police Department in Lihu’e and asked for the chief. Another relative of Johnny’s, the chief had welcomed him when he’d first come to the island, though Danny had had no reason to call the department before.

After a cordial greeting, Danny said, “Are you missing any female tourists?”

There was a slight pause and Danny could almost feel the man putting on his official hat. “Why do you ask?”

“I found a woman this morning—”

“Alive?”

“Yes. She’s in good shape, just a little banged up. I have a doctor coming over to look at her. Your cousin Eddie, as a matter of fact.”

The chief chuckled. “Dat Eddie, he take care your little wahine.”

Danny was familiar with the interesting brand of pidgin spoken in the islands. He knew the chief would never dream of using it with a tourist or a stranger and he felt oddly flattered. “I hope so,” he said. “She’s having a little trouble remembering how she got here.” And by the way, she doesn’t know her name, either.

As if he were reading Danny’s mind, the chief said, “Sydney Aston. She was staying at the Marriott on Kalapaki Beach. Yesterday she went over to Waimea and rented a boat out of Kikialoa Harbor.”

“Alone?” He couldn’t believe anyone would let a young, single female tourist take a boat out alone.

“Alone.” The chief’s voice held a grim note now. “Ronny Kamehana said he’d take her out. She wanted to go cruisin’ past your island. But Ronny drink too much and when she pay up front and say she know boats, he let her go.”

“I might make a point of coming over there and kicking Ronny Kamehana’s butt one of these days,” Danny said in an equally grim tone. “That woman could have died.”

“Don’worry. Ronny goin’ be sorry,” the chief said. “Besides, his boat gone now, yeah?”

“Yeah. Make sure he doesn’t get another one.”

“So what you goin’ to do with your guest? You want Eddie bring her back?”

“No,” said Danny, “unless she needs urgent medical attention, she can stay here for a day or two until she feels a little better. She’s going to be pretty sore for a while, I imagine.” He didn’t really know why he didn’t just ship her off with Eddie. But he was the one who had found her, and ever since she’d looked at him with those wide blue eyes, he’d wanted to talk to her more.

“Okay,” said the chief. “I’ll let the hotel know where she is. The manager was pretty worried when she was gone all night.”

“Mahalo,” said Danny formally. Thank you.

“You’re welcome,” said the chief in return. “And thank you for your help. Keep me posted.”

Danny hung up the phone and headed for his room to shower and shave. Leilani had taken charge of the guest when he and Johnny had brought her in, and he knew she was in good hands.

Sydney, he thought. Sydney was in good hands.

An hour later Johnny’s cousin Eddie came up the path from the dock on one of the ATVs kept for that purpose. Dr. Eddie Atada was a native Hawaiian success story. He’d gotten a scholarship to Stanford and then gone to medical school before coming back to Hawaii and establishing a practice on his home island of Kauai.

“Howzit?” he inquired when Danny met him at the door, shaking Danny’s hand with such vigor that Danny wondered if he’d need a cast when Eddie was done. Eddie was nearly as tall as Johnny and only slightly less stocky in build. He could easily have been a lineman for any pro football team due to his size alone.

“It’s going well,” Danny said, “except for finding strange women washed up on the beach.”

Eddie laughed, a booming sound that echoed through the wide hallway. “Not such a bad thing, yeah?”

Danny grinned, but made no answer. “She’s back here,” he said, leading the way to the room to which Sydney Aston had been taken.

When he knocked on the door, Leilani’s voice said, “Come in.”

“The doctor’s here,” Danny said, stepping aside so Eddie could enter the room.

Leilani apparently had helped their guest shower, because she looked clean and fresh and her shoulder-length brown hair was shiny and nearly dry. She wore a flowered housecoat-type garment that must have belonged to one of Leilani’s grandchildren, because it was only slightly too large through the shoulders.

“Hello,” she said.

“I’ll wait out here while you examine her,” Danny said to Eddie, suiting action to his words.

He waited in the hallway, hearing the rise and fall of lighter female tones interspersed with Eddie’s rumbling chuckles. Finally, the door opened and Eddie came back into the hallway.

“How is she?” Danny asked.

“Let’s sit down.” Eddie walked back along the hallway until he came to the living room, where he proceeded to park his bulk in one of the comfortable overstuffed chairs.

“Are you going to give me bad news?” Danny tried for flippancy but it didn’t quite come off. Bad news was his middle name.

Eddie regarded him soberly, no teasing glint in his eye now. “You didn’t tell me she can’t remember her name,” he said.

“I thought maybe it would come to her once she was calm and settled.” Danny regarded the doctor anxiously. “You don’t think it’s permanent, do you?”

“I doubt it. Long-term amnesia is very rare. But often after head injuries patients lose chunks of time surrounding the accident that they never recall. She may never be able to tell you how she got on your beach.”

“She’s already remembered bits and pieces of that.”

“That’s a good sign,” Eddie said. “All she really needs is peace and quiet. She’d be better off here than at a hotel. And I really wouldn’t recommend she fly home right away. The whole traveling thing is stressful enough when you’re well, much less when you’ve just landed headfirst on a piece of prime Hawaiian real estate.”

Danny smiled because the other man seemed to require it.

“Don’t worry,” Eddie said. “I’ll bet that after a few restful days here her memory will return and your mystery guest will be able to tell you everything.”

Everett Baker entered the law offices of Gantler & Abernathie hesitantly. The waiting area was expensively appointed, with leather chairs, some kind of pretty tables with inlaid marquetry on the tops, and rugs thicker than his mattress. He could never afford a lawyer like this. But Terrence Logan could, and he’d insisted on getting Everett the best criminal defense lawyer in Portland. The sharp edge of guilt’s knife twisted in his stomach as he thought of his biological father’s generosity.

There were two other people in the reception area and as he gave his name to the woman at the large desk he wondered if either one of them was an arrested criminal out on bail.

Bail. When he’d stood in that Portland courtroom and heard the hefty sum that guaranteed he wouldn’t take off for Timbuktu at the first chance, he’d felt another load of despair land squarely on his shoulders. He’d never be able to raise that kind of money.

But then Terrence Logan—his father—had whispered in the bailiff’s ear, the bailiff had approached the judge, and the next thing Everett knew he was walking out into the warm Oregon air, a temporarily free man. He’d looked at the man who had signed his bail bond and said, “Why?” although it barely squeaked out past the lump in his throat.