Free Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) by Toby Neal

to Jacobsen. “Now that we have something with trace on it, let’s go right there and maybe we can pick up his trail.”
    Jacobsen nodded, brown eyes gleaming, and set off, his compass out in front.
    “ Dogs would really speed this up,” Pono said.
    “ No dogs allowed in the preserve,” Takama said from behind.
    “ This is a murder suspect,” Pono hissed.
    “ Never mind. Let’s just go. If we don’t find anything more today, we can try to borrow the K-9 unit,” Lei whispered.
    They filed after Jacobsen , hiking for a good length of time through increasingly dense underbrush. A light, misting rain began cooling Lei’s hot cheeks, and she could feel her hair corkscrewing even tighter in the moisture. They reached an open spot in the brush, and this time Lei could see a crushed pattern where the camper had slept and a scorch mark where he’d had some sort of camp stove in use.
    Jacobsen left them checking for trace and began casting about, carefully bending and searching, and he gestured. They followed him as silently as they could.
    An eruption of movement ahead of them was so startling Lei found herself whipping out her weapon and dropping into a shooting stance—only to see an axis buck leaping through the ferns. Originally from Indonesia and smaller than Mainland deer, the buck was the red of Hawaii earth and dappled with white. Lei jumped as Pono, just ahead of her, took a shot with his pistol. The buck leaped in response and disappeared into the brush.
    “ Not what we were after, but some venison stew can’t be a bad thing,” Pono said, his eyes alight. They ran through the ferns, but the deer was gone.
    “You not only alerted the camper to our presence; now you have to file a report because you discharged your weapon,” Lei said. “Oh my God, my partner fires his weapon on the job and takes down a deer.” They all laughed except Takama, a discharge of nervous energy, and continued tracking the animal through the ferns.
    Jacobsen bent a fern to show Pono a smear of blood. “You got him.” A few yards farther, Jacobsen bent over. “There’s a faint trail here.”
    A camouflage-clothed man burst out of the brush in front of them—and Lei was so startled she had to restrain herself from pulling her weapon to fire at him.
    “ Halt! Police!” Pono bellowed, leaping after the fleeing man. Between the surprise of flushing the camper and the deer they were tracking and prepared to shoot, both she and Pono were a little trigger-happy. Pono was mowing down ferns and underbrush like a linebacker, Lei in his wake. Their progress was slowed by the dense growth, but Lei was smaller and faster. She managed to edge past Pono to charge after the camper as he bolted along some memorized pathway she couldn’t see.
    “ Stop! Police!” she yelled. The suspect poured on more speed, if anything, running like his life depended on it and pulling ahead. Lei could hear Pono swearing as he fell behind, tangled in a clump of low-growing maile vine.
    Lei tried to register as many details as possible even as she ran—approximately six feet tall, male, camo gear clothing, a satchel, a compound bow and arrows slung across his back, a field hat in camouflage. He disappeared suddenly, and Lei, running full tilt, realized why as the ground, concealed by ferns, dropped out from beneath her.
    Lei cried out as she fell through space and hit the ground, rolling down the steep side of a canyon to fetch up with a bone-jarring crunch against a boulder. She lifted her head to see the camper, leaping gracefully and rock hopping down the stream, then disappearing from view through overhanging trees and underbrush.
    “ Dammit,” Lei said when she had enough oxygen back in her lungs to verbalize. The suspect was probably young and certainly physically fit, and appeared to know the forest like the back of his hand. Pono peered down at her from about fifteen feet above, his brows drawn down in a thunderous scowl.
    “ You okay?”
    “ I