I walked over to her. "That was pretty impressive," I said as she methodically cracked one knuckle after the other. "How'd you do it?"

She shrugged. "I signed up for a self-defense course at the university during my freshman year, and I keep taking refresher courses. Best thing I ever did. Not bad for an amateur, huh?"

Not bad for a professional, either.

"You!" the female official blasted, leveling her pen at the flattened carca.s.s of Carl Leatherman. "Any more manhandling of the pa.s.sengers, and you're outta here. You!" she called to Sh.e.l.ly. "The World Wrestling Alliance moves belong in the gym. Understand? Okay, Valentine and Andrew in the front seat. Leatherman in the back. No eating or smoking allowed. Enjoy your flight."

Subdued and gra.s.s-stained, Carl struggled onto his fat little feet, looking decidedly pouty. Ignoring us, he squeezed though the door of the copter and wedged himself into the back pa.s.senger compartment. Sh.e.l.ly and I strapped ourselves into the front seats. Our pilot climbed aboard next, a confident looking forty-year-old who, after introducing himself as Bogart, went to work with mute efficiency. He handed us protective headphones, checked his instruments, flipped some switches, powered up the rotor blades, and then, after a slow vertical liftoff, swooped into the air like a giant dragonfly off a lily pad.

We banked high to the left, my body vibrating from teeth to toenails, the whir of the rotor blades louder than New York jackhammers. My feet tingled with the sudden height, but I had to admit, the scenery unfolding before us was even more awesome than the sight of "60% OFF OFF" stickers during Emer-hoff's semiannual shoe sale.

I dug my Canon Elph out of my shoulder bag and began snapping pictures. A deserted crescent of white sand beach, washed by blue-green water and nestled within a leafy swath of emerald green jungle. A lighthouse perched on the lip of a rugged headland. A narrow-mouthed bay with a long finger of rocks forming a breakwater around a local marina. Sailboats. Powerboats. And there was our cruise ship! I wondered if I could pick out my cabin from here. I gave Sh.e.l.ly a little poke to point it out, but she still looked pretty miffed about the Carl incident and in no mood to take pictures.

As we flew over what looked like a huge resort hotel, I heard static over my headphones, followed by a few strains of some cla.s.sical overture, and the voice of James Earl Jones on a prerecorded tape. "Directly below you lies the Menehune Fishpond, a nine-hundred-foot mullet-raising pond reputed to have been built in one night by a race of small, hairy people who inhabited the island prior to the Polynesians."

I shot a picture of the pond, then glanced over my shoulder to see if Carl wanted me to move my head so he could get a picture, too. But Carl wasn't looking at the Menehune Fishpond. Carl looked too frightened for sightseeing. He was clinging white-knuckled to a safety strap, his eyes pinched so tightly, he'd need a crowbar to pry them open again. Even his lips were quivering -- or maybe he was mouthing a silent prayer. Huh. It seemed that after a lifetime of facing down needles, snakes, and dentists, he'd finally found something that scared the c.r.a.p out of him.

More music played as we soared over razor-backed mountains with scrubby flanks and geometrically challenged fields in a patchwork quilt of pea green, celery green, moss green, and pistachio.

"The mile-long lane of trees you see in the distance is a stand of rough-bark swamp mahogany imported from Australia and planted by a local cattle rancher over one hundred and fifty years ago. It's known as the Tree Tunnel and it shades the country road leading into Poipu."

We swayed right and left and swooped off again toward the west, approaching terrain that was as fierce as it was uninhabitable. Towers of stone rose like the spires of a gothic cathedral, lacy with erosion, craggy with age. Water gushed through rock and cascaded over steep precipices, spilling into pools that looked peac.o.c.k blue in the sun.

"To your right is the waterfall Steven Spielberg used in the opening shot of the movie Jura.s.sic Park," Jura.s.sic Park," announced James Earl in his melodic baritone. announced James Earl in his melodic baritone.

Angry gray ridges. Huge, inaccessible caves. Gra.s.sy plateaus. I snapped a picture of the waterfall for Jonathan and smiled to myself. My good deed for the day.

After a rousing interlude by Rachmaninoff, James Earl continued his travelogue. "Directly ahead of you is Waimea Canyon. Mark Twain once dubbed it the 'Grand Canyon of the Pacific.' Ten miles long, one and a half miles wide, thirty-six hundred feet deep, it borders the Alakai Swamp and is chiseled from red bedrock that eons of rain and sun have bleached to the color of an old clay pot."

Even in direct sunlight, the colors of the canyon were muted into soft earth tones. Pale peach. Light pink. Soft coral. Warm beige. Deep valleys. Rocky pinnacles. Impossible waterfalls. Rivers meandering toward the sea. With Rachmaninoff blasting in our ears, we hovered over one waterfall, dipped into a valley, banked high over a sharp crest, and charged like a Valkyrie toward the open sea. I checked behind me to see how Carl was faring.

On the upside, he didn't look so scared anymore. On the downside, he had the same "car sick" look my brother Steve used to get before he'd upchuck his lunch in the front seat of Dad's pickup. Gray skin. Moist brow. White lips. Uh-oh.

"Are you all right?" I yelled at him.

He clung silently to the safety strap, sweating, eyes still clamped shut. I was obviously failing in my attempt to penetrate the racket created by rotor blades, James Earl Jones, and Rachmaninoff.

"ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?" I persisted. When he still gave no indication of hearing me, I turned back toward the front console. Ignoring the lure of the scenery for a moment, I glanced left and right for -- Aha! I grabbed a motion sickness bag from a pocket beneath the instrument panel and pivoted around to drop it onto Carl's lap. There might be a supply in the backseat, but if he kept his eyes shut, they'd be as useful to him as the Weight Watcher's point system. In fact -- I grabbed the rest of the bags and pitched them behind me, figuring he'd thank me when we landed. That Tommy Bahama shirt was probably dry-clean only.

"On the horizon is the famed Na Pali coast," James Earl announced in my ear. "An impenetrable expanse of valleys and four-thousand-foot cliffs, sitting cheek to jowl with the pounding surf." We swept out over the whitecapped ocean and looked northeast toward the successive waves of knife-edged rock that scalloped the towering cliffs. A petticoat of sea foam skirted the base of the cliffs, all swirly and frothy white. "The 1976 remake of King Kong King Kong was partially filmed in one of these valleys along the coastline," James continued. "Valleys with names like Koahole, Awaawapuhi, and Honopu." was partially filmed in one of these valleys along the coastline," James continued. "Valleys with names like Koahole, Awaawapuhi, and Honopu."

We swooped toward the mainland like a pesky gnat, buzzing into the mouth of a primeval valley that looked like the land time forgot. Giant monoliths of stone, shaped like arrowheads and slick with centuries of moss, rose like skysc.r.a.pers before us. Lush greenery carpeted the valley floor. Boulder-strewn streams sliced mean paths through the terrain, seaming the land like permanent scars.

I took a panoramic shot of the arrowheads as we circled around the valley, but as we headed back out to sea, I heard a thump, felt a lurch, then tumbled against Sh.e.l.ly as the chopper pitched wildly to port.

"Mayday," Bogart fired into the mouthpiece on his headset. Sh.e.l.ly screamed as she slammed into the door. I struggled to push off her, but we were too far off-balance. I felt like a bug pinned to a display card; I couldn't pull myself upright.

"Mayday, mayday," Bogart repeated. Fighting the g force, I muscled myself high enough to peer into the backseat. My heart fluttered at the sight.

Carl lay in a huge, lifeless heap, all three hundred and sixteen pounds of him slumped against the window on the left side of the chopper, like a shifted load on a logging truck. He'd finally opened his eyes, but they were obviously blind to the sudden blur of scenery that whizzed past our windshield as we started plunging toward earth.

No! This was a mistake! Carl was the time bomb. His time was up, not mine! I exercised. I went to church. I ate my vegetables. THIS COULDN'T BE HAPPENING TO ME!

As Bogart fought to stabilize us, I clutched Sh.e.l.ly's arm and closed my eyes, suddenly realizing why this was happening.

My hair. It had to be my hair. My shorter, sa.s.sier, ridiculously expensive, frizz-free locks. No wonder this was happening -- G.o.d didn't recognize me!

"I was sure it was motion sickness," I confessed as I lobbed a stone over the edge of the bluff. It hit the rock-encrusted beach fifty feet below us and ricocheted toward the pounding surf.

Employing some pretty masterful maneuvers, Bogart had managed to set us down on the gra.s.sy headland at the valley's entrance, a fairly level plateau overlooking a cliff face of sheer rock. The helicopter had sustained only minor damage, but it wasn't going anywhere with Carl still in it. And neither were we.

"Cardiac arrest," Sh.e.l.ly countered as she lobbed her own stone over the side. "Or a brain aneurysm. I knew that guy spelled trouble from the get-go. The mouthy ones are always trouble." She spun around, shielding her eyes as she checked the sky. "That rescue copter sure is taking its time. I have a manicure scheduled for three o'clock. Look at this." She wiggled her fingers in the air. "I broke two nails on that wild-goose chase yesterday. I was terrified I was going to break another one today."

Sh.e.l.ly was happy she hadn't broken a nail. I was happy I hadn't broken my neck. This ill.u.s.trated one of the great strengths of today's college coed. She could quickly suppress the trauma of a near-death experience to face the challenge of an even greater crisis: the unrepaired hangnail. Yes, today's collegians really had everything in perspective.

I tossed a look back toward the helicopter to find Bogart leaning against the body of the craft, carrying on an animated conversation by cell phone. I shook my head. "Bailey warned me about helicopters. Wait 'til she hears about this. She'll be sooo sooo happy she opted for watercraft rather than aircraft today." happy she opted for watercraft rather than aircraft today."

Sh.e.l.ly lifted her brows. "Are you friends with Bailey?"

"Pa.s.sing acquaintances."

"You seem to know a lot about her, for being a pa.s.sing acquaintance."

"I know enough to realize that, contrary to what Jennifer implied, Bailey is definitely warm-blooded. Or should I say, viviparous."

Sh.e.l.ly grinned. "Jen likes to throw out those ten-cent words when she's around civilians. Makes her feel intellectually superior." She dug the toe of her sandal into the turf. "I suppose you've guessed by now that Jen isn't a Bailey Howard devotee."

"Because of the honors board thing. Yeah, Bailey brought me up to speed about that."

"Well, Jen might not be one of my favorite people, but I can't blame her for feeling the way she does."

It was my turn to be surprised. "You don't think she should have been called on the carpet for cheating?"

"I'm not talking about the cheating allegations. If she did cheat, she deserved the punishment she got. I'm talking about the other issue."

Right. The other issue. "What other issue?"

She spent all of a nanosecond wrestling with the principles of ethics and confidentiality before filling me in. "This is Jen's take on the matter, not mine, okay? But according to Jen, Dori had something that Bailey wanted. Unfortunately, Bailey didn't have the patience to wait to come by it honestly, so she facilitated a way to acquire it more quickly. In the end, Bailey wins the ultimate prize, and Dori -- Poor Dori gets a one-way ticket to the great beyond."

I gave myself a mental V-8 Juice smack on the forehead. Oh, my G.o.d! Was she talking about the journal? Had Bailey wanted Griffin Ring's journal? "But...but...Bailey needed Professor Smoker to sign off on her dissertation. Why would she jeopardize all those years of study by killing him before she had her degree in hand? I mean, for all she knew, the journal could have been worthless. And then what's she left with? Absolutely nothing!"

Sh.e.l.ly frowned. "Journal? I'm not talking about a journal."

"Then what are are you talking about?" you talking about?"

"She wanted his job!" Sh.e.l.ly looked shocked that I hadn't figured it out for myself. "She wanted to be at his his desk, in desk, in his his office, at office, at that that university. It was her main goal in life, or weren't you around her long enough to pick up on it?" university. It was her main goal in life, or weren't you around her long enough to pick up on it?"

Why was this growing more confusing? I shook my head. "How can an unofficial Ph.D. who's completely green behind the ears expect to end up in the chair vacated by the world's leading expert on Captain James Cook? Come on. Talk about unrealistic expectations. That doesn't happen."

"Oh, doesn't it?" She flashed a smug smile. "Budget cuts. The administration would have to hire an a.s.sistant professor to replace Dori, because with all the belt-tightening that's going on, they wouldn't have the funds to hire a full professor. And Bailey has made quite the name for herself on the Captain Cook front, so she'd probably be a shoo-in, especially with her degree so near completion. The campus paper called her the 'best and the brightest' graduate student in the history department. The adjective they failed to include was 'most ambitious.'"

As the faint whir of rotor blades echoed in the distance, Sh.e.l.ly looked up and gestured toward a dark speck in the sky. "Our rescue copter. 'Bout time."

As the chopper approached and circled overhead, I had a numbing thought.

If what Sh.e.l.ly implied was true, I might have sent my little group off today in the company of a cold-blooded killer.

Chapter 10.

"Say 'ah,' " the emergency room doctor instructed, tongue depressor in hand. He looked pure Hawaiian and could have been the poster child for Coppertone tans, BioSilk hair care products, and Rembrandt tooth-whitening systems. Back home the doctors were walking advertis.e.m.e.nts for Rogaine, Dentu-Grip, and Dr. Scholl's Gel Insoles. They weren't so easy on the eyes, but their lack of movie star looks was a whole lot less intimidating.

"There's nothing wrong with my throat," I objected impatiently, my legs dangling over the edge of the examining table. "Look, my cruise ship leaves port in less than an hour, and if I'm not on it, I'll have to find my own way to Maui. They make that very clear in our travel doc.u.ments. It's our responsibility to return to the ship on time, and if we're not aboard when the gangplank goes up, it's adios muchachos." adios muchachos."

"Aloha malihini," Dr. Akita corrected. "When in Rome." He waggled his tongue depressor again, unmoved by my appeal. I finally gave in and opened wide. Dr. Akita corrected. "When in Rome." He waggled his tongue depressor again, unmoved by my appeal. I finally gave in and opened wide.

"Ahhhh."

He clicked on his Penlite. "You're right. There's nothing wrong with your throat." He pitched the wooden depressor and returned his Penlite to the pocket of his lab coat.

"My being here is a waste of your valuable time," I pressed on.

"Your helicopter crashed. It's protocol."

"It didn't crash, it was more like a hard landing. My traveling companion didn't even break a nail."

"Have you seen the edema over your eye?"

"Old injury. I did that yesterday."

He went through the mandatory routine of checking my heart and lungs and testing my reflexes, and when he was done, he scribbled something onto a clipboarded form, then turned back to me. "I'll sign your release and you'll be free to leave. I'll also have the front desk call you a cab. Lihue's impossible to get through at this time of day, so your taxi driver may have to gun it to get you back before your boat leaves."

He shook my hand and smiled. "By the way, I hope you're not p.r.o.ne to seasickness. The weather advisories are warning of a fairly significant squall forming southwest of here. If your next port of call is Maui, I'm afraid you may be heading right into it."

"A storm?" I sagged with relief. "Thank G.o.d! That'll give me more time to get back to Nawiliwili. The ship won't leave port if there's a storm brewing, will it?"

"Port is the worst place a ship can be during a storm. A vessel the size of your cruise ship is always much safer riding out a storm at sea."

"You're kidding, right?" The tidal wave scene from the Poseidon Adventure Poseidon Adventure flashed before my eyes. The flashed before my eyes. The Poseidon Poseidon hadn't been safe at sea; the hadn't been safe at sea; the Poseidon Poseidon had gone belly-up five seconds into the movie and all the important cast members drowned! had gone belly-up five seconds into the movie and all the important cast members drowned!

Dr. Akita regarded me indulgently. "The most dangerous thing a ship can run into during a storm isn't wind, waves, or rain. It's land."

Land? "But what about that old saying? 'Any port in a storm.'" "But what about that old saying? 'Any port in a storm.'"

Dr. Akita grinned wryly. "I believe that applies mostly to birds."

Ten minutes later, I sat on a bench outside the emergency entrance, waiting for my taxi to arrive and trying not to freak out about having only forty minutes left before the Aloha Princess Aloha Princess sailed into the sunset without me. With most people, disasters happened in threes. With me, they seemed to happen in twelves. Was it simply old-fashioned bad luck or one of those annoying quirks of the new math? sailed into the sunset without me. With most people, disasters happened in threes. With me, they seemed to happen in twelves. Was it simply old-fashioned bad luck or one of those annoying quirks of the new math?

I lent a pa.s.sing glance toward the sky, wondering if Carl had been transported back to Lihue yet. Our rescue chopper had dropped off the medical examiner and some other officials at the crash site, then flown Sh.e.l.ly and me back to the airport, where we were transferred to Wilc.o.x Memorial Hospital. Sh.e.l.ly ended up getting released from the ER so fast that she popped into my cubicle to tell me she could probably still get her nails repaired, so she'd see me around.

I'd learned a few surprising facts about Sh.e.l.ly today. She could deck a horse in three seconds flat. She could shake off adversity like a dog shakes off water. She could ditch a friend in favor of a cheap manicure. I'd known other people like Sh.e.l.ly Valentine, and they all ended up the same way.

They really went places.

Come on, come on, I willed the taxi. I slid to the opposite end of my bench to see around the ambulance that was partially blocking my view, then anxiously watched cars entering the long drive that fronted the hospital. I peeked at my watch, tingly warmth creeping up my throat as each second ticked by. Where was the freaking taxi? I willed the taxi. I slid to the opposite end of my bench to see around the ambulance that was partially blocking my view, then anxiously watched cars entering the long drive that fronted the hospital. I peeked at my watch, tingly warmth creeping up my throat as each second ticked by. Where was the freaking taxi?

The emergency room door slid open and two paramedics sauntered out, one lighting up a cigarette, the other waving a styrofoam cup in his hand. "It's a state park," the guy with the cigarette said. "The trails need to be marked better, and if they're not, we're going to be out there hauling more dead bodies to the morgue."

"They don't want to disturb the island's natural beauty by posting signs."

"Hey, I'm grateful for the work, but my overtime will kill them."

I spied a car with a roof light turning into the drive and popped up to get a better look.

"Kevin!" A woman in blue scrubs hurried out of the building to join the two paramedics. "What's this I hear about you taking a hike today? I've been telling you to do that for years."

The guy with the cigarette gave the woman a quick hug before tossing his stub to the ground and crushing it under his foot. "Must be a full moon. There are way too many weird things happening today. Did you hear about the copter crash on Na Pali? One fatality there. We're heading out to the airport right now for pickup and transport."

My ears perked up. They were talking about Carl. Oh, G.o.d.

"What about the one you just brought in?"

The car with the roof light drew close enough for me to read the writing on the plastic. KAUAI CAB KAUAI CAB. Yes! My taxi!

"DB on the trail in the state park."

"Accident?" asked the nurse.

I frantically flagged the cab down. I checked my watch. Thirty-five minutes and counting.

"Not likely," Kevin responded. "Head bashed in. No ID. What does that sound like to you?"

"The Tourism Board will be doing some fast talking about this one," the paramedic with the styrofoam cup chimed in. "Nothing stems the flow of tourist dollars like a violent death on a hiking trail."

I shivered at their conversation, suddenly glad to be leaving the "garden island."

"You my fare to Nawiliwili?" the cabbie asked, through his open window.

I nodded. "I have less than thirty minutes to catch the boat. Can you get me there in time?"

He grinned with the cool confidence of a man who lives for speed. "Piece of cake."