Page 26 of Riptide

“No,” Garrett grumbled.

“So okay. You don’t need to trust Kaimana…yet. But trust me. Trust me when I tell you she’s not lying.” Seth blew out a breath and looked to Kaimana who appeared on the verge of tears. She blinked them away and shook her head. “She needs help. And I’m going to give it to her with or without you, man. Her story is hers to tell when she’s ready.”

“The yacht will check out.” Kaimana’s voice wavered. She locked eyes with Garrett as she continued. “No, I’ll tell him now. Over a year ago I was out surfing alone on the north shore. I offered to help someone who took advantage of me. Who kidnapped me. I was taken somewhere on the island and then to another location where there was an auction. A human auction. While I was there, I managed to escape. Evan helped me.”

“Kaimana—” Seth placed his hand over hers.

“No, it’s okay. Evan helped me get out of there that night. And then helped me to recover from the trauma. He kept me safe. Hidden on his yacht. I learned all about the boat. Got my captain’s license. We both wanted to go back and stop Giordano, Marretta. Evan had already begun to dig up dirt on them. And I’m going to find him. I will do whatever it takes to get him back.”

“But why do you think he’s alive?” Garrett asked.

“A few weeks after the skydiving accident, I went to LA. I’d gone there because I knew he’d planned on attending a party up there. It was one of the last places I knew he’d gone, the last time I’d heard from him. I staked out the house where he’d been, where he said Marretta lived. Finally one Saturday night, there was another party. I was watching, waiting. And there was one person I recognized. Joli.”

“Joli?” Seth asked.

“Yeah. She’s a girl I’d met from the auction. She helped me the night I escaped. But instead of being shackled in a shed, she was all dressed up. I couldn’t believe it. Anyway, I waited outside the house and then I followed her back to her hotel.”

“Are you crazy? You could have been killed,” Seth told her.

“Yeah, I know. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but I was desperate. Part of me thought she wouldn’t ever hurt me. I can’t forget what I saw. I mean, do you know what these women go through?” she asked them, her voice trembling. “They’re drugged. Usually raped, then drugged again. They’re forced into submission. Lied to. Threatened. Some die. Tortured for years.” She shook her head. “But yeah, it was stupid to follow her. I didn’t go into the hotel though. I confronted her in a parking lot. She told me she was the main girl for some dude who decided to break away on his own. Working LA maybe? I don’t know. She claimed she was his girlfriend. Here he is making her sleep with strangers and give him the money and she thinks he loves her?” Kaimana sighed.

“I told her that I’d gotten away. That I was looking for someone. I showed her the picture of Evan. Then she told me she knew him…she’d seen him. A meeting they’d had with Marretta the previous weekend. She told me they’d captured him but that she wasn’t supposed to see him. I couldn’t process all of what she was saying. I needed more time to ask her questions about where he was, but I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t risk being seen with her.” Kaimana wiped tears that had begun flowing freely down her cheeks. “I begged her to come with me, to tell me where he was at. To give me more information. But she was nervous. She said no. Then she dug something out of her purse and hugged me. She squeezed something into my hand. It was a matchbox cover.”

* * *

Seth leaned back onto the sofa and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe he’s alive.”

“I don’t know if he is, but I had the same feeling about you. I couldn’t understand how you’d go over the cliff and we couldn’t find you. But still, the police declared you dead.”

“I’m like a cat. Nine lives, baby.” Seth laughed. He looked to the hallway. Kaimana had gone to the bedroom to get the matchbox cover.

“More like one hundred lives. You’re crazier than Evan ever was.” Garrett laughed. “You won’t see me out there on an 80-foot wave, I’ll tell you that.”

“Come on. You could try Mavericks. You got this. You climb El Capitan all the time. It’s kind of like that.” Seth smirked.

Garrett rolled his eyes. “Not exactly. I’m good with surfing Wind-n-Sea. Don’t get me wrong. I know that feeling. Wanting that rush. Conquering that next thing to give me that shot of adrenaline. But the kind of crazy you are? Nope, I’m good.”

“It’s sweet.” Seth sighed, his mind drifting back to the reality of the moment. “Do you really think there’s still someone from the club or Emerson who’s in on this shit?”

“It’s possible,” Garrett replied without pause. “We never would have suspected Beckett. I’ve been considering running lie detectors on everyone in the company, but they can be beat. Especially by the likes of this crowd. I’m redoing everyone’s clearances. So far, nothing has turned up.”

“Maybe it’s time to pare back the numbers at Club Altura,” Seth suggested.

“I’ve been thinking about that too. There’s only about forty of us now. I’m thinking maybe some of the originals could stay. I don’t know. We’ll have to talk about it later.”

“Maybe Kaimana can help,” Seth suggested. “Evan told her there were moles in Altura. Most of those people work for you.”

“Let’s say one of them is a mole…she doesn’t even know anyone at the club.”

“But she did know Evan. And she was kidnapped by these people. It’s possible that if there’s a mole at Altura, they could have been at the auction or helped transport her.”

Garrett shrugged. “If there is another mole, and that’s a big if, Kaimana might shake them up. They don’t really know how much information she has on them. Even if they weren’t there at the auction when he saved her, they might know of her.” Garrett leaned back in thought, his hands behind his head. “Or maybe we put it right out there just in case they don’t know. Introduce her as a friend of Evan’s. See if she recognizes anyone. Rattle the cages and see if anything slinks out.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. We’d basically be using her as bait. They already want to kill her. And me for that matter.”

“We’re having a party in a couple of days.”

“Where are you having it? The fire—"