Read Online Freefall by Kristen Heitzmann - Free Book Online

story to the mainland. The chief ordered a full broadcast.”
    She stopped and stared. “How do you know?”
    “I dropped into the station to tell him how to reach us if he learns something.”
    “You told him what I’m doing?”
    “He said not to leave the island.”
    “Don’t leave town.” Recollection flickered, then passed. She raised her chin. “No wonder he wouldn’t help. If everyone wasn’t so busy suspecting me, we might get somewhere.” She’d hoped when she told the police what she knew, allowed herself to be photographed, her story to be broadcast, that help would be certain. Obviously it was still up to her. And Cameron couldn’t be trusted. She moved on.
    “It makes sense to include the mainland, where friends and family can identify you.”
    “Unless I live here.”
    “Then you’d know mauka and makai —toward the mountains, toward the coast. They’re the primary directions on any of the islands.”
    “I might have forgotten.”
    “It’s not something you forget. It’s a circular sort of navigation absorbed by people who grow up on an island. It has little to do with north or south or even right or left, only toward the mountains or toward the shore.”
    She supposed that might be one of the intangibles that remained in lieu of memory, things more innate than filed occurrences, like the knowledge she’d retained without any recollection of learning the things she knew. Information must be stored separately from experience. “You grew up on this island? You and Nica?”
    “Downline descendents of missionaries who came to do good and also did well, as the saying goes. Where we’re different from others is that my grandparents, on passing, deeded the bulk of their land back to the Hawaiians who’d farmed it.”
    “Except for Nica’s house?”
    “Basically.”
    She stopped and studied the abruptly rising terrain. A stream tumbled down that looked and sounded like the waterway she’d followed into the valley. She turned and looked back, comparing the direction they’d come to the direction she’d gone the first time. A fairly direct line from Nica’s, since she hadn’t had the strength to wander. “This is it.”
    “You sure?”
    “As sure as I can be.”
    He looked forward, then back, marking their position, perhaps, in his mind. “Anything coming back to you?”
    “I remember coming out, just not what I was doing in there.”
    “Or what happened.”
    “Or what happened,” she agreed. “Except …”
    “What?” His gaze bored into her.
    Shook her head. “Maybe I’m dizzy. For a moment I felt like I was falling.”
    “Try to feel it again.”
    She searched his face, then closed her eyes. The warm breeze encircled her as she tried, but the feeling was gone. “It must have been a spell.” She’d had plenty of woozy moments, and the exertion didn’t help.
    “I wouldn’t discount it.”
    “You think I’m remembering?”
    “Could be.” He hung his hands on his hips.
    “Then it’s at least possible I’m telling the truth.”
    “If there was no chance, I wouldn’t be here.”
    “I can’t tell you how glad I am.” She brushed past. The terrain seemed familiar even though she’d been dazed the last time she passed that way. Her senses had been heightened then in a way that kicked in now—along with her aches and bruises.
    The doctor had said rest. To let her energies realign. Right. She puffed up the first steep rise. As the incline increased, it put Cameron Pierce into position to break her fall. Might just be worth it.
    Without a path, she worked her way up through red dirt, rocks, and ferns cloaking the stream’s banks. A purple, jellyfish-shaped flower and other verdant plants perfumed the air. A dove cooed somewhere out of sight, but a brown-and-black myna shouted it down. The yellow triangular patch behind its eye matched its beak and bold yellow stockings. Under other conditions, she would have enjoyed exploring this island.
    And then it hit her