Hunting Houston

by Sandy Steen

  “Explosion?”

  “The accident that killed my wife. She and Houston were on board the company boat, headed for the big island. He survived. She…d-didn’t,” he said, his voice almost breaking.

  Either this man was a consummate liar, or he was hurting for real. At the moment, Abby would have been hard-pressed to decide which. “I… I’m really sorry.”

  “Thanks. Houston took it almost as hard as I did. We just kinda help each other, and every day it gets a little easier.”

  “That kind of friendship is hard to find.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “At least you have that. And,” she said, glancing around the shop, “you seem to have a thriving business.”

  “Yeah. We’re doing okay in that department. Struggling, but okay. A new coat of paint on the outside wouldn’t hurt, and maybe one of those new computerized cash registers, but like I said, we’re doing okay.”

  “It’s nice that there’re two of you, so neither has to be tied to the shop full-time.”

  “We’ve always divided things up just about fiftyfifty. Or at least we did before the accident.”

  “But not now?” Abby knew she was pushing her luck, but she wanted more information. Anything that would give her another clue, point her in the right direction.

  “Since the accident, Stuart and I do all the dives and whale watches. Houston takes care of the shop.”

  “He doesn’t dive at all?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even for pleasure?”

  Gil shook his head. And when Abby started to ask why, she knew she had pushed her luck as far as she could.

  “Like I told you, it’s not my story to tell. More coffee? Or am I keeping you from buying out all the stores on Front Street?” he asked, obviously changing the subject.

  “Thanks. One cup’s my limit.”

  “Smart lady. Sure I can’t change your mind?”

  “About what?”

  “Getting seriously interested in my partner.”

  Abby smiled. “I’m a mainlander, remember? I’ll be going home in a week or so.”

  “A lot can happen in a week.”

  A lot had better happen in a week, Abby thought as she left the dive shop a few minutes later. Her investigation was definitely sagging.

  She was still thinking about the investigation when she pulled up to the red light at Papalaua, preparing to turn left onto Highway 30, heading to her condo. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of a blue Thunderbird convertible with a man driving as it zoomed through the green light.

  On an impulse, and thankfully with an empty lane beside her, Abby whipped her rented sedan over into the far right lane, and turned to follow the T-Bird.

  She stayed just close enough to keep the car in sight, and far enough back not to lose him.

  It was Houston at the wheel. No mistake.

  She followed him south into one of the residential districts, maintaining a cautious distance. But as it turned out, she was too cautious. He turned a corner, and when she caught up, his car was nowhere to be seen. She drove on for a couple of blocks, checking side streets, but came up empty-handed. Finally she went back to the corner where he had disappeared, in hopes that she could figure out what had happened.

  Had he gone into one of the surrounding private residences? If so, where was his car? Inside the garage? It was possible, of course, that one of these houses could be his home.

  She checked the address she had for Houston against the detailed map of Maui, and discarded that theory. So where was he?

  Maybe it was a girlfriend’s house.

  Abby told herself the idea that Houston might have a lady friend didn’t bother her. After all, he was a healthy, red-blooded male. She couldn’t very well expect the man to live like a monk, could she?

  Of course not. It was just that, well…

  Well, dammit, Abby fumed. It was just that the idea of him romancing someone else at the same time he was cozying up to her was enough to make any woman mad. After the way he had kissed her, held her, charmed her…

  Abby sighed, propping her elbows on the steering wheel. That damned word again. For a heartbeat she had acted as if he had gotten to her. Which, of course, was miles from the truth.

  He hadn’t gotten to her, because she wouldn’t allow it. She certainly had no intention of making the same mistake twice. It didn’t matter if he was charming. Or handsome. Or tender. It didn’t matter that he made her feel…special. That he simply made her feel. It didn’t matter.

  But it was beginning to matter. A lot.

  Everything about him was beginning to matter. That was why the thought of him seeing another woman had upset her. Even now, she was having trouble detaching her thoughts, concentrating on the case.

  Okay, she thought, pulling herself back to the problem at hand. If Houston had a…a friend in this neighborhood, tracking the lady down might take time, but it could be done.

  She glanced around. The only other possibility in sight was a large two-story building adjacent to two soccer fields and a swimming pool. Abby drove by the front of the building and discovered it was a local recreation center.

  Could this be the site of the mysterious disappearances Gil had mentioned? What on earth could Houston be doing in a rec center?

  She waited and watched for another fifteen minutes without any results. Finally, she decided she had seen enough…of nothing.

  Time to get specific with this investigation, Abby decided, an hour later back in her condo. That meant fine-tooth combing the file again. And maybe again. She was convinced there was something that she, Brax and the first investigator had missed. Something that would give her a leg up on proving whether or not the explosion was accidental or deliberate. Something that would reveal not only the cause, but possibly the culprit, as well.

  Hours later, after having gone over the file again, literally from front to back, back to front, she resorted to her own unique detection process—one that had never failed to produce results.

  She took a pen and legal-size notepad out of her briefcase, and began her show-and-tell system: a selfdesigned, organized layout to “show” where the missing pieces of her puzzle existed, and to “tell” her what questions she needed to ask in order to find the missing pieces.

  Using her own brand of shorthand, on one side of the page she listed the events in sequence, and time frames. On the other side of the page she listed pertinent unanswered, or previously unasked, questions. When all of that was done, she wrote down the names of all of her suspects.

  And what she had left was more holes than not. More questions than answers.

  What she didn’t have was a motive.

  That is, if she discounted the niggling little question that had been at the back of her mind ever since her conversation with Gil Leland. Ever since she had. learned that Shelley Leland had once been Houston Sinclair’s girl.

  Was it possible this entire case revolved around two men wanting the same woman? Was it possible that Shelley Leland was the reason for the explosion?

  Gil had mentioned that Houston had dated Shelley, even introduced her to Gil. Did she dump him for Gil? Had Houston been forced to stand by, day after day, and watch the woman he loved, love another man? And had he then become so desperate that he killed her?

  But that didn’t make sense. Why hadn’t he killed Leland? Then Shelley would have turned to him for comfort, and he would have had what he wanted. Of course, people had been known to snap, and kill the thing they loved.

  Elbows propped on the table, Abby took a deep breath and slowly blew it out. She rested her chin in her hands. It didn’t fit. It just didn’t fit. When she was around Houston and Gil at the same time, she felt no undercurrents of hostility. She saw no indication of any hidden agenda. They didn’t look, sound or act as if they were anything but friends. Good friends. If they were pretending, it was the acting job of the century.

  She frowned, suddenly compelled to review Houston’s EUO. So
mething nagged at her memory. Maybe the answer to one of her questions. She flipped through the file until she found the section she wanted.

  According to the EUO, Houston testified that he had intended to sail the Two of a Kind alone that day. Shelley had decided to come along at the last minute.

  “Well, that’s that,” she said out loud, letting the pages fall back into place.

  There was always the possibility that Houston could have lied. But Abby didn’t think so. Of course, therein lay the problem. Her instincts were telling her that Houston was innocent. But she had no proof.

  And the last time she had relied on her instincts, she’d been dead wrong.

  Except this time felt different. Was that a rationalization, she wondered? Another way to dress up the same mistake? It didn’t feel that way, but admittedly, she wasn’t the best judge of her emotional balance. Weren’t her feelings for Houston proof of that? She was walking a fine line between professional expertise and personal involvement.

  Unable to come down on one side or the other of the Houston guilty-or-not debate, she switched gears, focusing her thoughts on Gil. But she didn’t have any more success trying to figure out his motive than she’d had with Houston..

  Why would Gil Leland want his wife dead? He hadn’t even known she was on board the catamaran. Houston was the only person who’d known.

  Eyes closed, Abby massaged her temples. It always came back to Houston. “Right back where I started.”

  Her eyes snapped open. Houston wasn’t the only person who had known Shelley was on the boat. Stuart Baker had known and probably the part-time native divers. But what reason would Baker have had to want his boss’s wife dead? Or the part-timers, for that matter?

  Maybe Shelley Leland had been having an affair with Stuart. She broke it off. He snapped and killed her.

  Get a grip, Abby, she told herself. According to the file, ole Shelley was true-blue. Practically the epitome of the loving wife.

  Lord, but she was tired. And dizzy from her mental round-robin with the information.

  Stuart Baker was a possibility, regardless of how long he had been with Lone Star Dive Shop & Tours, but again Abby’s instincts pointed toward “innocent.” To be honest, she wondered how much she was relying on instinct, and how much she was basing on the fact that he had been so kind to her yesterday. He could have ignored her and let her stew in her own fear, but he hadn’t. Instead, he had very gently, and without condescension, not only recognized, but actually validated her fear. Then he had given her time to collect her dignity before facing what he surely must have known was awaiting her—namely, a kind of celebrity, albeit unwanted.

  Does that sound like the kind of man who kills? she asked herself.

  “Enough.” She pushed the file away from her. “I need facts, not conjecture.” And she knew right where to get the help she needed. She took out a preprinted fax sheet and addressed it to Brax. Her request was simple. She wanted a complete background check on Stuart Baker, stem to stern. She also wanted specific information on Gil Leland’s career as a San Francisco police officer—the good, bad, and ugly. And just so Brax wouldn’t think she was playing favorites in any way, she requested information on Houston’s naval career, from student to jet jockey. She pulled out her portable fax machine, sent the message, and leaned back in her chair.

  That should do it.

  One way or another, she intended to get her hands on some solid evidence.

  Chapter 6

  Feeling confident that she had done all she could, at least until she heard back from Brax, Abby decided to try and untangle her mind from the case for an hour or two. Maybe it would improve her perspective. Her intention had been to catch some sun and tackle a novel she had been trying to wade through. And her intentions had been good. They just didn’t hold up. Abby soon found all her thoughts again focused on Houston.

  She had to step up her contact with him. Get closer to him. The more he trusted her, the more likely he was to talk to her about the explosion. So, she would work harder to win his trust. After all, it was her job. And she was good at it.

  Insurance-claim investigation wasn’t for anyone who required constant support or affirmation. Usually it meant dealing with individuals who were willing to commit fraud, mayhem, even murder for money. Usually it meant delving into people’s personal and professional lives in a very thorough and—yes—intimate way. And it almost always meant dealing with those individuals, their lives and possible misdeeds, alone.

  Oh, sure, Abby knew she had the full and considerable technical support system of the home office. And of course, people like Brax. All of which was well and good. But in the final analysis it was Abby, one-on-one with suspects. Abby tracking down information. Abby piecing together clues. Abby on her own, doing what she did best.

  That was the way it was supposed to be. The way it had always been. The way it still should be.

  But it wasn’t. And hadn’t been since she had taken this case. Since she had met Houston Sinclair.

  Maybe she had lost her touch; was rusty from sitting behind a desk rather than out in the field.

  No, she cautioned herself. That kind of thinking was negative, and detrimental to her and the investigation. Every case was different. Each one had its own idiosyncrasies and patterns. And she had a real gift for picking up those patterns and peculiarities. That gift, combined with a detail-oriented mind and a relentless curiosity, made her an ace investigator.

  She was good at what she did. One of the best. Hadn’t Brax said so often enough? Hadn’t she worked hard to justify his opinion? As a matter of fact, she had worked damn hard to get where she was. For one reason only: not just to be the best, but to have done it without the help of a man—any man.

  And she had. She had done what her mother had never been able to do—stand on her own two feet, be her own person.

  Abby was proud of everything she had accomplished. She had succeeded where her mother had failed. Almost.

  Riley had been a step backward. A slipup. But one she wouldn’t make again, because she had learned from her mistake. Part of the reason Riley happened in the first place was because she had so little experience when it came to men. Could she help it if her abilities and ambition had precluded relationships? She had prioritized her life before she graduated from college, deciding that marriage and children were way down on the list.

  In hindsight, she could see that she had been ripe for the picking when Riley happened along. Underneath all her ambition, all her drive and intelligence, was a basic loneliness that had never been appeased; an emptiness deep in her soul that she had never been able to fill. And Riley had seen her loneliness, and used it. Lord, but he was so charming she hadn’t even realized what he was doing until it was almost too late.

  Now, here she was, facing another charm boy. Only this time was different. She was older, and definitely wiser. She knew how to avoid the pitfalls.

  So, why did she find herself thinking about Houston more often, not less? Why did she feel she had to include him in her request for updated information in order to exclude any notions of favoritism? Why did she find herself giving him the benefit of a doubt more so than her other suspects?

  And why, she wondered, was the idea of having dinner with him so nerve-racking that she had spent the last ten minutes trying to justify who and what she was? Trying to convince herself that she could handle anything Houston Sinclair might throw her way.

  Dressed in teal-colored linen shorts and a matching sleeveless blouse, Abby stopped when she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door. She stepped closer, peering into the reflection of her own eyes.

  Was that what all her mental hand-wringing had been about? A bad case of sagging self-confidence?

  Of course it was, she hurriedly assured herself. She just needed to get back in the saddle, so to speak, after being behind a desk for so long. Things were clicking along. By tomorrow or the next day, she would
have some, if not all, of the information she wanted. Everything would start to fall into place.

  Abby took a deep breath. Yeah, she would be fine. She could handle anything that came along. Including an intimate dinner. Another moonlight stroll. Even another—there was a knock on the door—kiss?

  She took several more deep breaths, went to the door and opened it. And was stunned all over again at how handsome he was.

  He smiled, and those gorgeous velvet brown eyes of his swept down, and back up. “You look great.”

  She was so far past great, she had stepped right over to delicious, luscious, tempting. So tempting, in fact, that he wanted to step inside, lock the door, strip her bare, and kiss every square inch of her body.

  “Thanks. You said casual.”

  His gaze again swept down to her legs. “And I see you decided against breaking my heart.” A heart, he could have added, that was beating hard. Beating, pulsing, along with some other very vital parts of his body.

  “I’m ready whenever you are,” she said, smiling at him.

  “C’mon.” He reached for her hand. “Before I take you up on that.”

  Abby had flipped the lock and closed the door behind her before she realized the implication in her words. And his. “I just meant—”

  Houston laughed, the sound a soft, deep rumble in his chest. “Don’t worry, Miss Abigail. I’m not planning on a night of debauchery.” They took several steps before he added, “Yet.”

  In the parking lot he steered her toward the Thunderbird convertible.

  “Wow,” Abby said, as if seeing it for the first time. He helped her inside, and closed the door. “What’s this, your babemobile?”

  “This beauty,” he assured her as he slid behind the wheel, “is my only vice.” He gave her a three-fingered salute. “Scout’s honor.”

  “You want me to believe you were a Boy Scout?”

  He drove out of the parking lot and onto Honoapi’ilani Highway. “Made it all the way to Eagle. And I’ve got the certificate to back me up. Wanna see it?”