Then I booked a double room at the airport courtyard hotel in Kahului.

Within ten minutes, my children were officially on their way to safety.

I leaned my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes.

The air conditioning in my SUV hummed quietly.

I felt a cool draft on my ankles.

I opened my eyes and looked at the empty lot again.

The modular house was gone, but the site was still a scar on the land.

The massive concrete slab remained, along with the torn-up turf and the deep ruts from the flatbed trucks.

My father’s land deserved better than a cracked foundation.

I picked up my phone again and dialed Nathan Cole.

He answered on the second ring.

“Alexandra,” he said. “Are you alright?”

“I am,” I said. “The house is on its way to the storage yard.”

“Good,” he said. “The crew did a clean job. But we aren’t finished.”

“No,” I agreed. “We aren’t.”

“The slab is the big issue,” Nathan said. “It’s three hundred square feet of poured concrete. It’s going to take heavy machinery to break it up and haul it away.”