The Presence by John Saul Page B

breath was coming in short gasps.
    Home!
    He had to get home!
    He lurched on, straining to make the muscles in his legs work, but lost his balance and pitched forward, sprawling facedown into the road. He threw his hands out to break his fall. A rock scraped the skin on his left hand, and a piece of broken glass slashed deep into his right palm.
    Kioki grunted at the stab of pain, pulled himself into a sitting position, and tried to get a look at his bleeding hand.
    The cut extended from the base of his thumb across to his little finger, and was already starting to throb.
    Clutching his right hand with his left, Kioki struggled back to his feet, staggering with the effort. Now his heart was starting to pound, and every breath he took was agonizing.
    He tried to force his body into a run, but he felt the dizziness descend again. After only a single step his legs buckled beneath him and he collapsed onto the ground. Falling too close to the edge of the irrigation ditch that ran along the edge of the road, he slid down its steep bank and sank into the stinking water and the thick layer of mud that lay three feet beneath its surface.
    The shock of the water closing over him galvanized Kioki for a moment, and he hurled himself back onto the bank, clawing at the dirt with both hands, ignoring the pain that was throbbing up his arm and the blood gushing from his right palm.
    His legs seemed mired in the mud, and he could barely breathe, but at last he heaved himself free from the muck, scrambled up the bank, and sprawled out by the side of the road.
    Kioki lay still, exhausted, his whole body hurting now.
    He stared up into the sky, waiting for whatever had struck him to pass, his breath coming in ragged patches.
    Now his vision blurred, and as he felt his stomach cramp with nausea, he rolled over to keep from puking all over himself.
    As the retching began, the uncontrollable spasms sent him sliding back into the irrigation ditch.
    This time he couldn’t find the strength to pull himself out, and clawed ineffectually at the bank as the pain in his chest and stomach spread through him, his dizziness grew worse, and vomit began to boil up out of his throat.
    A few minutes later, alone in the blackness in the middle of the cane field, Kioki Santoya sank into the arms of death.
    Ten more minutes.
    Katharine decided to wait ten more minutes—until the clock on the mantel showed exactly midnight—before she started making her calls.
    She’d already written down the phone number of Maui Memorial Hospital, as well as the number for the main police station in Wailuku and the substation in Kihei. So far, she’d been unable to get a listing for Josh Malani’s parents.
    A movie. That’s where Michael had said he was going.
    A perfectly reasonable and harmless thing to do.
    But she knew why she was worried: Josh Malani. Although she hardly knew him—and kept trying to convince herself that she shouldn’t judge a sixteen-year-old boy on first impressions—all her instincts warned her that the handsome teenager whose life Michael had saved was a dangerous companion for her son. He’d struck her as cocky, and the fact that he’d gone diving by himself told her he was supremely lacking in common sense. And who else was Michael with? Some kids from the track team.
    Kids whose names he hadn’t even bothered to mention.
    “Would it make any difference if he
had
left their names?” Rob had asked with a logic that had done nothingto allay her fears. “You wouldn’t know any more about them.”
    “It would have given me more people to call if he’s late!”
    Rob had eyed her from across the table in the restaurant where they’d had dinner. “That would make him real happy,” he observed archly. “Teenage boys love to have their moms call their friends, looking for them. Besides, this is Maui, not New York. He’ll be fine.”
    Through the rest of their dinner and during the drive home she’d managed to hold her worries in check,