The Bone Field by Debra Bokur (top e book reader txt) 📕

his daughter navigate the world in a way that she had been unable to do in his absence. She looked at the doctor and nodded in understanding. “Her health hasn’t been . . . well, good, for several years.”

“No. That’s clear. I’d like her to stay for the day and possibly tomorrow.”

“May I see her?”

“She’s a little woozy, but yes.” He regarded her with sympathy. “You can notify the father, if he’s part of this equation.”

“He’s not,” she said. She picked up the duffel bag from where she’d placed it beside her chair and followed the doctor through the big double doors and down a corridor. The room was marginally warmer and brighter. Makena took up a strikingly small amount of space in the bed. She appeared to be sleeping. Kali moved quietly to a chair for visitors that had been placed along one wall. She put the duffel on the floor, and was about to sit down when Makena spoke.

“I know you’re here.” Her voice sounded weak. “You don’t need to stay.”

“I’m here because I want to be. How do you feel?”

“I don’t feel anything.”

There was silence. Kali thought about Makena’s words and wondered if they were true. She didn’t know how to respond. She wasn’t given to reciting platitudes. The truth was far more important, even though it was almost always more difficult.

“Do you mean you don’t feel any pain, or that you don’t know what you feel about the miscarriage? That’s to be expected. It’s only just happened.”

“Oh, give me a break. I didn’t want the kid anyway.” Makena turned her head away and closed her eyes.

Kali didn’t know whether or not to believe her, but it was neither the time nor the place to go very deeply into a discussion. “My concern is for you,” she said.

“Then go away and let me sleep.”

Kali hesitated, then moved toward the door. “Okay. Rest is a good idea. I’ll check with the doctor and find out when I can pick you up.” She pointed to the visitor’s chair. “I brought some things from home. They’re in that small bag over there.”

“Home.” Makena’s voice was faint.

Kali waited, but there was nothing more. “If you think of anything else I can bring you, please just let me know.” She turned, and was standing in the doorway when she heard Makena speak, her voice barely audible.

“Tell Hilo I miss him.”

“I will. Feel better. I’ll see you soon.” Kali walked down the corridor and took the elevator to a lower level that led through the hospital’s main lobby and the exit doors. In the bright, warm morning, she walked slowly toward her parking space, feeling a sense of loss that she didn’t even understand. The image of the stillborn baby in the pineapple field suddenly invaded her thoughts, along with the doctor’s reference to the father of Makena’s baby. She felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle. She needed to speak to Stitches.

CHAPTER 26

“Kali? Tomas Alva here. Any chance you have time to come over to Lna‘i this afternoon?”

Kali stood in the hospital parking lot and gripped the phone, preparing herself for more bad news. “Don’t tell me there’s another body,” she said apprehensively.

“No,” he said. “This is good news, I hope. Out of all the so-called tips that have been coming in since Chief Pait’s press conference and Walter’s podcast appearance, I think we finally have a good one. A lady here phoned in and said she’s willing to talk about her time living at Eden’s River. She’s offered to meet us out at the site where it used to be. Seems like a good idea for you to be here.”

Kali’s mood lightened. “I’ll be there,” she said, trying not to hope too much that there was finally going to be a break. After leaving a message for Stitches and another one letting Walter know where she was heading, she called the main station and was told the launch would be waiting for her as soon as she could get to the harbor.

The drive to the dock was blissfully free of pig carcasses, and she made good time. As promised, the small police launch was waiting for her, and the boat sped smoothly across the channel waters. Tomas was waiting on the other side, parked near the dock on Lna‘i. Kali was surprised to see that instead of his police cruiser, he had come to pick her up in a four-wheel-drive truck. As they drove away from the harbor, Tomas filled her in on what he knew about the former member of Eden’s River they were on their way to meet.

“She lived there for two years, after she was initially invited by another woman who had left a brochure on her doorstep.”

“What’s this woman’s name?”

“Originally, it was Anita Chambers, but she changed it—legally—to Anita Waters once she’d bought into Abraham’s baloney. Guess she never bothered to change it back.”

Tomas explained that Anita’s first experience had been to attend a healing seminar offered at the commune. “She said she’d suffered from lower back pain for years, and that after Abraham laid his hands on her during a healing massage session, she was cured.”

“Spiritual massage. Really? Nice angle. Has the pain come back?”

“Interestingly, she claims it hasn’t. Her disillusionment with Eden’s River had more to do with the demands that Abraham was increasingly making on the women members.”

“Sex?”

“What else? Apparently he wanted them all pregnant. I guess that’s one way to increase membership.”

“Sexual demands seem to be one of the calling cards of a cult leader,” said Kali. She looked out the window, noting their location and how close they were to the pineapple fields. “Where is it that we’re meeting her?”

“Just down the road from here,” said Tomas, flipping on his blinker and easing the truck onto a rough track south of the Palawai Basin and the old pineapple plantation. He drove for about a mile along a turnoff that led to Kaunol,