“You can see why I need The Preserve,” he said. “It’s my noggin. They told me they can fix what’s wrong in my head.”

“They did? They said that?”

“Sure. They’re working on a new therapy. They want to try it on me.”

“Oh.” She walked a few more paces, nodding along to them as if searching for the right response. “Well, The Preserve, it’s also a training camp. But you probably know that.”

“Sure,” Lett said. He didn’t know that, or anything really. He only knew they could help him. He felt a twitch of unease in his gut but told himself not to worry about it.

“I got lucky. It’s not easy for a local to get a post like that,” she said. “No more tough streets of Honolulu for me. Maybe they’ll send me to Tokyo, on assignment.”

“You mean, like an agent of some sort?” Lett’s twitch had turned into a rumble, like a sour stomach.

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

“This have anything to do with that gold lighter—with that person who gave it to you?”

She turned and stared, her teeth shining in the light. But she wasn’t grinning this time.

***

Full darkness came fast. Alii Drive straightened out and stayed inland, the roadsides overgrown. Any lights were dim and sparse.

Kanani slowed her pace. “Follow close,” she whispered and led Lett and her bicycle to a clearing on the inland side. A faded sign read KAPU. She flashed her lighter around. The clearing held a clapboard bungalow, a chicken coop, two old cars sinking into the ground, a stone barbecue, and various chairs and tables that had been tossed about during the storms. Palm trees and tall bushes leaned into the clearing, swaying and shimmying, the branches and leaves drooping and dripping and feeding, below them, the many giant ferns and shrubs of budding red flowers. It was just the sort of dead-end yard Lett would never have entered alone on patrol. Too much had to be checked out.

Kanani took the bicycle from him and walked it into the middle of the clearing. He halted close to a tree, his fingers clamping the wet bark. “Is someone home?” he whispered.

“Just us,” she whispered back.

“What does kapu mean?”

“Taboo. No trespass. But we’re okay.”

Lett detached himself from the tree and tiptoed toward her. She leaned the bicycle up against the few front steps of the bungalow and climbed them on tiptoes. He stood down below, staring up at her.

“Why we still whispering?” she said, adding a giggle.

“Hell if I know.”

She let her hands slap at her sides. She stepped back down and stood on the bottom step, eye-to-eye with him. “You’re really aching, aren’t you?”

He nodded. She reached out and touched his chin. He let her, watched her, his mouth open. He smiled. What a dummy. Say something. She opened her mouth and her teeth glistened again in the dark. It made him look down, at her brown legs, just a glance. She noticed, of course. And she said, from deep within her compact little chest, “Okay den. Are you coming, army guy, or you going?”