The Dream Jumper's Promise Read online

  Kicking along the wall, she explored nooks and cracks in search of a moray eel or an octopus. Fish parted as she swam through their groupings. A large shadow tucked into the curved wall ahead and Tina stopped. This shallow, it would be a barracuda or a reef shark, nothing more. Dangerous sharks were in deep water and, even then, wouldn’t approach a diver unless there was blood involved. Lots of blood. She continued along the wall. At the corner, she saw the creature.

  A shark.

  Not the docile kind.

  This was a ten-foot tiger shark, one of the most aggressive deep-water sharks in Hawaii. And it was looking straight at her. She backed into the wall.

  Tiger sharks wouldn’t attack unprovoked, but poor eyesight might encourage it to advance out of curiosity. The shark’s size was not extraordinary for its kind, but still the length of a car. She concentrated on willing it gone and waited. It didn’t move.

  Why did she not have control over her own fantasy? Tina tried to open her eyes, end the relaxation exercise. She couldn’t. She felt the water; tasted the salt on her lips. Pinching her arm did nothing to release her from the dream.

  The shark veered from the wall, as though returning to the depths, then swerved and headed straight for her. She tried yelling to jar herself awake, but no sound emerged.

  It was only forty feet away, then thirty. It would be sizing her up as an adversary.

  Heading into the open, she extended her arms to appear larger than her petite stature. The shark continued.

  Twenty feet away. If it got close enough, she’d have to stick her fingers in its eyes or punch it in the gills. Hitting the nose in defense was only a myth.

  Her heart beat wildly. This was the closest she’d ever been to a tiger shark. As she locked eyes with the beast, it passed inches from her left shoulder. She’d forgotten to hook the eyes. Next, it would bump her before taking a bite to draw blood. Typical behavior. Tina hoped to poke its eyes before that happened.

  With arms stretched in a ready position, she prepared. Adrenaline pumped through her like a high-speed train. The tiger shark circled again and came straight for her. This time she focused on its eyes, ready to jab straight in. But five feet before making contact, it turned abruptly, its tail whacking her chest hard enough to leave her momentarily stunned. This was the bump and bite. She knew what came next. Struggling to regain her wits, she watched the shark head out and turn around.

  Then, the beast stopped, as though agitated by its tail. Making tight circles, it spun around quickly. She could try to make an escape to the surface while it was distracted but, knowing sharks were attracted to surface thrashing, she stayed put.

  Its circling became tornadic until the shark was only a mesmerizing blur. She backed against the wall, unable to look away. When the movement finally slowed, in the shark’s place stood a man. He turned and faced her.

  Hank’s black hair swirled around his shoulders in the afternoon sunshine. He wore the swim shorts and wetsuit jacket from the day he’d disappeared. Something caught in her throat and she stifled a cry.

  As she closed the space between them, he turned and swam away, eventually curving in towards the wall.

  Wait!

  She was determined not to lose him again, but he stayed beyond her reach. They continued this way until the rock wall angled in to shallow water and the surface got closer. The churning of the surf overhead was a frothy mix of ocean and air, the turbulence expressing its force on the rocks above. She could feel the push and pull of the ocean’s swell. Tina stopped. It was risky to continue to shallow water. Hank would know this. They could get caught in the powerful churn and be thrown onto the jagged lava rocks.

  Hank stopped and turned to her. His expression of concern was a heartbreaking reminder of the man who always put her first. Tina motioned that they should turn around, but Hank pointed to something ahead.

  The intensifying pull on her body out to open ocean indicated that a big swell was coming. She barely had enough time to find something to grab on to. With this much force, she’d soon be plastered against the wall with an equal reaction. She held a handful of coral affixed to rock with both hands and hoped that Hank was safe.

  There was a moment’s reprieve after the sucking, and then the water gradually changed direction to push her against the wall. The force built and pinned her body against the points of igneous rock. Tina twisted her head to glance at the expanse of sand behind her. Then ahead. Hank was gone. She would let go after this and get pulled out to where she’d sink to the sand. She’d dig in with her hands, try to stay put before the assault returned.

  But the pushing did not let up. It continued to hold her to the wall. No wave or ocean swell could do that. Looking up, she saw that the surface had disappeared. She was in very deep water. The sunlight was far away, the water dark. Her first thought was that a tsunami or rogue wave had come in. She hadn’t needed to equalize the pressure in her ears; the dive was not real, even with the taste of salt on her tongue.

  Still, her legs and arms screamed with the pain of being pressed against the jagged coral. A rumbling noise like a subway’s approach gained volume, her vision went black, and she was freed from the swell’s force as she was sucked backwards through blackness at an unreal speed.

  Gradually, her vision cleared and the ceiling of her bedroom stared down at her, the room dimly lit by dawn’s light. Gasps filled the room. They were hers, like she’d been holding her breath.

  Hank had not been real. It was a dream. Her gasp turned to a sob. Obi looked up from his place at the bottom of the bed, familiar with the sound of misery. Realizing that her fingers were clenched around something hard and cold, Tina lifted her right hand from under the sheet and squinted to see what it was.

  A chunk of wet, jagged coral.

  Chapter 2

  Tina flung the coral across the room and sprang from the bed, leaving a drenched spot in the center of the sheets. Drops slid down her legs and arms to pool on the hardwood floor. She turned to the open closet door and stared into the mirror to see her flimsy nightgown flattened against her body. Lifting the gown revealed a mess of scrapes and coral cuts. She licked her hand. Salty. Her fingernails dug into her arms as she backed up against the wall, expecting to hear maniacal laughter at her expense.

  She reached for her robe and wrapped it around her wet shoulders, trying to squelch the shivers that had very little to do with being cold. What the hell just happened? There was no sign of water anywhere beyond her recent steps, no puddles by the door. She put her hand on Obi’s back. Dry.

  The screen door to the deck was still locked. The palm of her hand stung. Absently, she blotted the blood on her robe. She’d worry about the stain when there was a logical explanation for what just transpired.

  A wind whispered through her room, snaking around her wet legs and rustling the diaphanous curtains. Tina glanced back at Obi, her consistent barometer of change. Her dog was going back to sleep. Stepping closer to the cluster of coral, she bent to examine what she’d recently held in her bloodied palm. It was similar to the souvenirs sold in Lahaina shops, except for one difference. It wasn’t bleached or painted but alive, the microscopic animals still fighting for life in the atmosphere. This cluster hadn’t been out of the ocean for more than a few minutes.

  Beyond the window, everything looked normal. Her driveway was lined with coconut palm trees, two trucks were parked in their usual spots and a light glimmered at the neighbors’ house.

  Wriggling out of the wet gown, Tina let it drop to the floor in a pile of cerulean silk. She’d bought it for her honeymoon to Lanai, less than two years before. Wait. She hadn’t worn that gown to bed.

  Hours earlier, Tina had put on one of Hank’s T-shirts that read ‘Pink Floyd’ across the front. The shirt was now folded and sitting on the dresser, beside his wallet.

  The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she jumped away from the gown, knocking into the bedside table and tipping over the clock. As she righted it, she saw t
hat it was after six. Either the alarm hadn’t rung at its usual time or she’d forgotten to set it. The alarm’s malfunction was only one small bloom in a whole bouquet of uncertainty.

  As much as she wanted to put a name to what had happened, there was business she had to take care of first. Having overslept, she was now late in calling off the morning dive charter. Customers needed to be contacted. Making a wide circle around the nightgown, she left the bedroom.

  The wind gained momentum and forced its way through the screened windows like an unwanted, angry visitor. A Chinese screen in the dining room crashed to the hardwood floor. Rain drops pelted the roof, at first sporadically and then more insistently. As she scrambled to slam the kitchen windows, the sound of the rain became deafening, sending Obi running to the bedroom’s safety.

  The Kona storm had arrived.

  Rain drove through the open windows with the bravado of a toreador. Sliding the last one shut, she noticed a wet patch too late and slipped. Her hand reached to grab the dining room table and a vase of flowers crashed to the floor as she went down. The vase shattered across the hardwood, spraying glass, water and flowers across the floor. Her knee throbbed. Come on, Tina. Fall seven, up eight.

  Pulling herself to stand, she limped to her desk and surveyed the front yard through the window. Palm fronds crackled and twisted with the sudden wind. Rain drove sideways, and, several miles across the ocean, the looming island of Molokai was barely visible in dawn’s light. Crazy gusts of wind painted the ocean’s surface white with froth and foam. Tina had to believe that all Hawaiian boat charters would be canceled.

  Then the lights went out. Power outage. She stood at her desk, her knee throbbing. There’d be no house phone. The CB radio at her desk ran on a battery. Before looking for her cell phone in the dark bedroom, she’d try the CB radio.

  Her dive instructor, Dave Shade, answered. “Howdy, Tina.” His voice was always husky, any time of day. “It’s gnarly out there. I canceled. I just tried to call your cell phone but you didn’t answer.”

  “I’m coming in.” Canceling, especially with humpback whale watching season over and two slow months ahead, was worrisome but he was right.

  Next she called her shrink. Frequent flyers had special privileges, like a doctor’s cell phone number. “I need to see you. Something is going on with my dreams.”

  “Medication very often brings on extremely vivid dreams.” “I doubt it’s the Lexapro or the Xanax.” Tina told her about the coral. She worried the doctor might think her problem was pathological lying, at the very least. “I swear to God that I woke up drenched in salt water. My hair is still wet.” The inside of Tina’s cheek was raw from chewing on it. “I’m concerned that you’re sleepwalking,” Doctor Chan said. “Let’s start by taking you off the Xanax, maybe find something else for anxiety, and if the hallucinations persist, we’ll switch antidepressants.”

  Changing medications this late in the process would be tricky, as well as scary for Tina. It had taken months to find the right combination of drugs to battle her problems.

  “Come in this morning and I’ll take a look at your medications,” the doctor advised.

  Tina pulled on a pair of long white cargo pants. Being overdressed and sweaty was better than explaining how she’d banged up her legs and arms. If she could hide behind denial for just another few hours, maybe she and Doc Chan would uncover an explanation.

  ***

  At nine-thirty that night, Tina locked up the dive shop and put Obi in the truck cab. Noble’s nightly performance in “Drums of the Pacific” was finished at the Hyatt Hotel, and soon his old red truck would motor down the driveway. For the last ten months, he’d been the one she ran to when circumstances pulled her below the level of tolerability.

  Tonight, she wouldn’t worry him with the strange dream, especially because she still hadn’t figured out how she’d woken up wet and with coral in her hand. Doc Chan had chalked it up to medication but something didn’t fit. Noble had enough on his plate without guilt taking up more than its share. She wouldn’t tell him.

  Tina turned in to the grocery store exit to get a six-pack of beer. If she was going to cut back on the Xanax, she sure as hell was going to have a beer if she wanted one.

  In the Honokawai Superette parking lot, she saw James Dunn cross the pavement, heading for a group of cars in the far corner. His gait suggested he didn’t have a care in the world.

  In ten years, he hadn’t changed much, just a few gray hairs creeping into his hair along the temples and the hint of smile lines. He’d be forty now. Still easy on the eyes, with that clean-cut cop look. He opened the door to a bright yellow jeep and disappeared inside. Spying on Jamey seemed beneath her, especially with everything she had on her mind. But as she crossed the lot, the jeep swung up beside her. The driver’s window rolled down and Tina noticed a woman leaning forward from the passenger seat.

  “Tina.” Jamey said her name like he was practicing. A six-pack of Corona sat between him and the girlfriend, a stunning beauty who looked more like a martini drinker.

  “Carrie, this is Tina, the instructor who taught me how to dive. Remember I told you about her?” He’d just minimized all they’d had in one sentence. The woman nodded and flashed her perfect smile Tina’s way. “This is my wife, Carrie.” At least he didn’t make eye contact when he said that. Tina nodded, trying to smile. Ten years of wondering what she looked like, and there she was like some goddamned movie star. Carrie had been the old girlfriend when she’d first met Jamey. Then Tina was the girlfriend, then not. They’d replaced each other briefly, but any way you looked at it, Jamey ended up with Carrie.

  As if in answer to a prayer, the clouds grew heavy and a downpour forced Tina to say her goodbyes. Thank God for weather.

  With a to-go tub of chicken teriyaki in hand, she grabbed a six-pack of Corona and a lime and headed for the checkout. She remembered that Jamey liked his beer ice cold, almost frozen. She’d once trickled a few drops playfully on his flat abdomen and licked it off. He’d called her a beer temptress.

  Now he had a wife. A beautiful wife who looked to be everything Tina wasn’t. Glamorous, tall, blond—strangely similar to Hank’s fiancée when Tina first met him.

  Tina’s truck tires crunched the lava pebbles of the driveway. As she swung into her parking spot, the headlights illuminated Noble’s burly form standing in the yard. His long black hair blew in the night wind and he looked like a wild Hawaiian god. Except for the T-shirt and jeans that stretched against muscular thighs, Tina might have believed that Noble was Kane, the Hawaiian god of procreation, a part he relished playing in his nightly hula show. She grabbed the grocery bag and the six-pack of beer and hopped out with Obi.

  “I worried about you today.” Noble took the beer from her and shut the truck door.

  His possessiveness was comforting and her arm linked with his.

  “I’m sorry.” They climbed the outside stairs to the second-floor deck. She nodded to the front yard, where the palm trees were battling the wind. “I’ve been running all day trying to keep from losing money over this bad weather.” She kissed his arm, as high as she could reach.

  He slid open the patio door. “If I’d known you were on your way home, I would have saved you some dried tako.” He smirked. “You know I don’t eat octopus.” Tina cringed, remembering the creature still back at the shop. In the kitchen, she opened a beer and took a swig from the frosty bottle. “Scale of one to ten.” They’d done this on a daily basis ever since Hank’s death.

  “Maybe a two,” he offered. “What about you?”

  “Three.” Seeing Jamey’s wife had set her back one notch.

  “I’m not going to watch the news tonight.” Noble moved to the inside back stairs like he was heading to bed before ten o’clock.

  Tina stopped to stare at him. “Now I’m a two. Stay. I’ll brush your hair if you like.” She’d often brushed Hank’s long hair while they watched TV and had started brushing Noble’s recently. His had
more of a wave and was longer, stretching halfway down his back.

  “I’m tired,” he said apologetically. He disappeared down the stairs to his cottage out back.

  Tina settled on the couch with her Styrofoam container of teriyaki and an ice-cold beer. She stopped the fork in mid-air. What if Noble was sick? Her breath caught in her throat. Oh, God. What would she do if Noble died? Her heart pounded in her chest. She had to calm herself. The man who just bounded down the back stairs was not ill. He couldn’t be. Her gaze rested on the overturned Chinese screen that had crashed in the morning’s wind. It was one of Hank’s favorite pieces, and she wasn’t ready to check the damage.

  At the second commercial, Noble returned. “I see they found Hank’s wallet.” He sat down beside her. “You have to give up hoping, Tina.”

  “I’m not sure why I can’t just give up.”

  “This is going to drive you crazy.” His face looked twisted, his eyes distant. “Don’t let it take you under.”

  “I’m trying,” she whispered as he moved in to hug her. “Maybe he’s still out there somewhere.”

  Chapter 3

  Tina watched tufts of whitecaps slowly materialize in the channel between Maui and Molokai as the sky lightened. The rain had stopped. When the French roast dripped enough for a first cup of coffee, she poured in a finger of milk and emptied five packets of sugar into her oversized mug.

  Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning. Dive conditions were improving, but... She picked up the remote to switch on the news just as her cell phone rang.