Moon over Maalaea Bay Read Online Free PDF Page A

for her.
    Footsteps sounded outside the door.
    Jennifer needed every advantage she could get. She closed her eyes, breathed slowly, and kept her face towards the door.
    The door opened.
    Cracking her eyelids was a risk. She took it.
    A man stood studying her. He was tall. No, long. He was long and skinny. Though he stood upright, something about the man reminded her of a snake.
    No doubt a poisonous one.
    She memorized his description and named him Viper.
    Viper turned to someone behind him, someone outside the door. “She’s still out. That was a strong dose for a small woman. But she’s breathing OK. Let’s give her another hour, then we’ll try waking her.”
    His voice sounded like a snake, more air than vocal chords. She heard the other voice. “Close the door, Snake.”
    Despite her situation, she bit her tongue to stifle a laugh.
    Idiot, you don’t need to chew on your tongue. Your mouth is taped. But Snake? No. I’ll stick with Viper.
    The conversation continued. The second man had an accent. Maybe Chinese. She would call him Mao and pray he wasn’t as ruthless as his namesake.
    She needed to focus, to glean any intelligence she could, any details of her whereabouts, and of their plans.
    Mao continued talking. “We can’t move her now. The boss said to wait. Some do-gooder saw us take her and thought she was a teenager. Now we have an Amber Alert to deal with. The Feds locked down the whole island.”
    “We’ll have to keep her at the house until we can move her to the yacht. But we can’t wait forever. The FBI is more likely to show up here than on the yacht,” Viper said in a voice that was breathy, almost a hiss.
    The man’s voice drove a shiver down her spine. She needed to escape before Viper could strike.
    The conversation had ended. The footsteps moved away from the door.
    So she was in a house. Jennifer looked around.
    She was in a bedroom, a dark bedroom. They worried about the house being found. It must be in Kihei, near where they took her.
    The move to a yacht worried her. Once they moved her, she could be in international waters, and beyond help, in less than two hours. Would an Amber Alert prevent that?
    Lee. Tears filled her eyes. He would be worried sick, and he would never give up trying to find her. He could be in danger, too. She needed help and sought it from the only One Who could help her when she was so helpless.
    Please be with Lee. He needs Your help now more than ever. Keep him safe and me, too. Thanks for the Amber Alert. It buys us some time.
    Jennifer inventoried her advantages. She was intelligent, but her captors probably knew about that. There would be no chess games unless the game started with her in checkmate. However, they probably didn’t know she could defend herself. The only two traffickers who knew about that, the two she had kicked, were dead.
    What should she do now? She needed to appear physically weak, to cower at physical threats, and to wait for an opportunity to escape. Hopefully she would find a situation where she only needed to take out one person.
    To prepare for an opportune moment, she iterated through a list of the most vicious defensive maneuvers Granddad had taught her.
    Whether Jennifer was on land or water, the biggest obstacle to escaping alive was the band around her wrists.Solving the wrist-band problem was her first priority—correction, it was her second priority. She looked upward and focused on her first priority.
    When it’s the right time, please, Lord, show me the way to escape.
     
     
     
     

6
     
    Nearly three hours had passed since Jennifer was taken. Lee had learned that in the interim the Maui Police Department, including their Investigative Services Bureau, as well as the FBI and the Coast Guard, were involved in the search for Jennifer. So far, there were no breaks in the case, at least nothing he was told about.
    Detective Ramirez had dispatched Officers Yagi and Kaai to take Lee back to Kihei. The normally talkative Yagi