Couldn’t look at her mom.
Couldn’t remove her hands from her face.
Shame swamped her. Shame, andterror.
“You know what? I don’t want to know. If I did, I’d have to do something about it, and that would be bad at your school and for the case, because your credibility as a witness would be ruined.” Harry drew a long, shaky breath and blew it out. “Here’s the thing. You may well have saved your friend’s life. You’re going to be called a hero. You now have a responsibility to act like one. I don’t want to hear one more bad thing about that Wallflower site, now, or ever. If I do, we will have that conversation, and to hell with the consequences.”
“Okay,” Malia said. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
Harry turned on the CRV, pulled back onto the road, and they drove home in silence.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Later that afternoon,Lei and Pono, driving Lei’s truck, pulled up and parked near the long, curved turnaround drive that led to importer Harold Chang’s house in Wailuku. Torufu and Bunuelos got out behind them. All four were dressed for the raid in protective gear. They stayed silent, trotting up the drive with its silky tufts of golf course grass growing up between the bricks, past the man-sized bronze dragons guarding the entry, and all the way up to the fancy front door.
As Lei reached the portal with its long silken tassel of a bellpull, she remembered the first time she had come to question Chang about his involvement in their pirate case.
They hadn’t been able to get him then; his lawyers had blocked any involvement.
This time, they had more evidence tying Chang to the girls: Keith Evenson, who technically owned the warehouse where they’d found evidence of the girls’ captivity, had finally admitted that Harold Chang was its real owner, and that he suspected “everything Chang imported and exported wasn’t legal.”
Still thin, but enough for an arrest warrant.
Pono and Bunuelos split apart and ran around the sides of the house to block any other escape routes. Lei pounded on the glossy front door. Torufu bellowed, “Open up! Maui Police Department!”
The same maid Lei had encountered before appeared, her eyes wide in astonishment.
Lei and Torufu brushed past her, their weapons drawn.
They found Chang seated on a gold-plated toilet, wearing a magnificent satin robe and fuzzy bedroom slippers. The man slowly raised his hands as Lei and Torufu approached. “Don’t shoot! I surrender.”
Dad had pulledhis rental onto the lawn so Harry could hit the garage door opener and drive straight inside, past the cluster of news vans lining the road outside their driveway. Malia gasped at the sight.
“I told you everyone wants to talk to you about what happened. When you’re ready to talk to the media, I’ll schedule a press conference. That way we can make sure you say what you want to, it’s controlled, and it’s over with quickly.” Harry closed the garage door behind them.
“I can’t even—I feel sick.” Malia ran into the house, past her dad, his mouth open and spatula in hand, past Kylie setting the table, and up the stairs to the bathroom. She paused long enough to slam the door before she fell to her knees, dry heaving into the toilet.
Nothing came up because she hadn’t eaten in so long—she never had eaten the granola bar Harry had dropped on the steel table of the interview room.
If only she could disappear down the pipe somehow. She didn’t want to be in the spotlight—everyone seeing her, asking her questions, maybe even uncovering the Wallflower.
Malia battled the temptation to scratch her arms in reaction to the stress. Instead, she flushed, shut the toilet’s lid, and laid her head down on it, wrapping her arms around the cold porcelain, her teeth chattering.
Her mom entered and knelt beside Malia, rubbing her back. “You’re in shock. You had a traumatic experience. These are all normal reactions to an event like this. You’re going to be okay.”
Harry’s calm voice of authority was just what Malia needed. She turned to hug her mom and sobbed in her arms. When she wound down, Harry turned on the bath.
“Soak in here as long as you need, and when you come down, dinner will be waiting for you.”
Malia ended up eating off a plate in bed, with Mom on one side, Dad on the other, and Kylie wedged in at their feet with her bag of popcorn. They watched Kylie’s favorite movie for the umpteenth time. Malia didn’t remember when she fell asleep.
Malia wokeup to the sense that she was being smothered. Buried alive in a hot, dark metal box, with her hands bound—like Camille. She flailed her arms, trying to get out, and heard “Ow!” from beside her.
She sat up, blinking and pushing hair out of her face. Kylie was holding Doodlebug up to fend her off. “You hit me, Malia!”
“Bad dream. Sorry.”
Dad had gone during the night, but Harry, tousled with sleep, glanced at the clock from her side of the bed. “Time to get up, anyway.”
