Hunting Houston

by Sandy Steen

  But something inside Abby rejected even that much incrimination. She couldn’t get the image out of her mind of Houston coaxing the frightened boy, and himself, to face their fear. While her experience had taught her to never dismiss a suspect without positive proof, it had also taught her to be a good judge of character. Plus, he seemed so much more relaxed since he had told her about not being able to go back in the water. Undoubtedly, her vibes about him hiding something had been right. The something was his fear.

  Maybe her feelings were clouding her judgment, but she honestly didn’t think so.

  After a rigorous ten-minute climb, Abby received a bit of reassurance that Houston was as good as his word. But once again, he was guilty of understatement.

  The “spot” was a plateau, lush green and dotted with blooming trees, fitted into the side of the mountain. A delicious breeze stirred the trees, and behind them a high narrow waterfall cascaded into a small pool.

  “It looks like a picture postcard,” Abby said when she got her first glimpse of the beautiful serene glade.

  “If it isn’t on one, it should be.”

  “How in the world did you find it?”

  “Purely by accident.” He took her hand and started leading her across a line of rocks that formed a stepping-stone path across the pool. “And I’m not the least bit ashamed to say that I’ve kept it all to myself.”

  “You mean you don’t bring all your dates up here?”

  “You’re the first.”

  Abby stopped, almost losing her balance. “Seriously?” she asked, teetering atop a huge rock.

  “Seriously.”

  Still holding her hand, Houston tugged gently. “I’m starving. How about you?”

  Only for the way he was looking at her, Abby thought. Only for the way she felt when she was with him, which was wonderful.

  When they made it to the other side of the pool, he spread the blanket in the shade of a kukui tree, and opened the picnic basket. It was loaded with fresh fruit, French bread, cold baked herbed chicken and a thermos; plus paper plates, plastic utensils and napkins. Everything the well-dressed picnic required.

  While they ate, Houston pointed out and named several varieties of birds and foliage. The glade was so calm and lovely, it reminded her of his little piece of paradise at his home.

  Abby licked the last traces of the tasty meal from her fingers. “You modeled the landscaping in your backyard after this place, didn’t you.”

  “Bright girl,” he replied, then stretched out on the blanket, his hands behind his head, eyes closed. “I could drift off so easily right now.”

  “A full stomach has that effect.” She polished off the last few grapes.

  “That, and very little sleep.”

  “Did you have a bad night?”

  “I’ve had worse.”

  She put the untouched food back into the hamper. “What’s the matter? Too many lumps in your pillow?”

  “It wasn’t the pillow. It was you.”

  She halted in the middle of brushing bread crumbs off the blanket. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you. That is to say, thinking about you. Wanting you.”

  “You’re doing it again.”

  He opened one eye. “Doing what?”

  “That direct thing. Are you still trying to warn me off?”

  Houston sat up, took her by the shoulders and kissed her full on the mouth. His tongue did wild, wicked things that set her mind spinning and her heart racing.

  The kiss was powerful, possessive, making erotic promises she longed for him to keep.

  “Does that feel like a warning?” he asked, when they came up for air a moment later.

  Abby’s breath came out as a ragged sigh. “Only if you’re warning me to expect more of the same.”

  Grinning, he lay back and closed his eyes again. “See how that direct thing works.”

  Oh, she saw how it worked, all right. It worked to his advantage because it kept her off guard. Because it made her think about what it would be like to have more of those kisses, more of him. God, but he was charming, she thought, stretching out beside him.

  “So, how long do we have in this idyllic little spot?” she asked.

  “How does the rest of the year sound? Maybe even the decade.”

  “You mean you took the whole day off?”

  “It’s cool. Gil is handling today’s whale watch, along with Lonnie. And as for the store, Stuart has everything under control.”

  Stuart.

  Abby’s spirit nosedived. She didn’t want to think about Stuart Baker. Not here in this exquisite setting. She didn’t want to ruin an otherwise stunning day with thoughts of him behind bars. Which was most certainly where he would end up if he was responsible for blowing up the Two of a Kind. But most of all she didn’t want such thoughts to intrude on her time with Houston.

  The admission was shocking, and extremely revealing at the same time.

  Since the moment she had begun to think of Houston as innocent, her feelings for him had changed. Or rather, intensified. She knew it. She even had an inkling of what lay in store when—not if, but when—the attraction took its natural course.

  She just didn’t know what she was going to do about it.

  “You’re mighty quiet.”

  Abby opened her eyes to find him propped on one elbow, gazing down at her. “Restful.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I thought you were zonked out.”

  He shook his head. “Thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “About the fact that you and I have shared two meals, several toe-curling kisses, and even…” His voice softened when he added, “an intimate, soul-to-soul moment or two. But other than the fact that you live in L.A., I don’t know anything about you.”

  “There’s not much to know,” she answered, hating the fact that she was undoubtedly about to dump another lie on him.

  Idly, Houston played with a strand of her hair. “What do you do for a living?”

  “I work for a fact-finding agency,” she stated the half-truth.

  “You mean like research?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What kind of research?”

  “Statistics, mostly. It’s not very exciting.” At least not anymore, she thought. At the moment, she wished that she could honestly tell him she worked as a receptionist at her dentist’s office. “Not nearly as exciting as living a short distance from places like this.”

  “It has its moments.” He smiled. “Like now.”

  “Far cry from Texas, huh?”

  Mentally she was dancing as fast as she could to move the conversation away from her career. Hopefully, away from her, personally, altogether. But he wasn’t cooperating.

  “Yep. So, you got family in L.A.?”

  “Just my mom.”

  “No siblings?”

  “’Fraid not. You said you had sisters, right?”

  “Right. C.C.—excuse me, Cecile—the oldest, is divorced, and teaching at Harvard.” He mimicked a Boston accent. “Janine still lives in Houston, married to a stockbroker, and raising a passel of kids.”

  “That sounds nice,” she said, wondering how different her life might have been if she’d had more family.

  “As the youngest, and the only boy, I didn’t think so when I was growing up. But they’re great ladies. Goodlooking, funny. And smart.”

  “You’re proud of them.”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “And they’re probably just as proud of their baby brother.”

  Houston almost winced, remembering the way his parents and sisters had flown in to be with him while he was hospitalized. He couldn’t bear the thought of them knowing about his cowardice.

  He frowned, and several seconds ticked by before he answered. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Why? You have a very successful business. And I know that kind of success doesn’t just happen. It takes plenty of hard work.”

  “Lately, I
haven’t felt as if I’ve been pulling my fair share of the load. But I’m trying to change that.”

  “And you will,” she assured him. What she really wanted to tell him was that she knew how hard he was trying. She wanted to tell him how proud she was, how wonderful he was for facing his fear—something she couldn’t do. She couldn’t even entertain the idea of another dive anytime soon. Maybe never.

  “You’ve got more courage than I do.”

  Houston knew she meant it as a compliment, but the word “courage” made his insides twist into a knot. He sat up.

  “You know, I promised you a tour of the island, and we’re not getting very far sitting here.”

  His abrupt change of subject surprised her. “Can it get any better than this?”

  “Sure. There are some killer falls not far from here, and a stretch of coast where the surf breaks within a few yards of the road. Spectacular.” He stood, and offered her a hand up.

  “All right.” He pulled her to her feet.

  Negative vibes, similar to the ones she had gotten before, were zinging through her. Similar to the ones that had told her he was trying to hide something. But she knew about his hydrophobia. What else could he have to hide?

  She studied him as he gathered up the blanket and picnic supplies. Unless she was reading more into the situation than existed, Houston was tense. Not the tightmuscle variety, but that underlying kind of tension that comes from a nagging worry. It was there around his eyes, his mouth.

  One thing was certain: it hadn’t been there when he kissed her; it hadn’t been there when they talked about her. It had only appeared after he became the focus of the conversation.

  After a few minutes of pondering as she followed him back to the car, Abby gave up trying to figure it out and concentrated on keeping up with his long strides. Another curiosity. He seemed to be in a hurry to leave, whereas only a short time ago, he’d been willing to spend—did he say, decades?—in the little hideaway glade.

  They resumed their trip, and to her surprise, Houston’s tension faded. In no time, he was his charming self again. But she noticed that he kept the conversation light, concentrating on the scenery.

  Because they had gotten such a late start, Abby had to be satisfied with only a tour of the northwest end of Maui. They drove through Honokohau Bay, Waihee, on to Kahului where the main airport was located, then took Highway 380 back across the north-central part of the island to connect with Highway 30.

  “I had planned on taking you to dinner tonight,” Houston said as they headed back toward Lahaina. “But I forgot about the game.”

  “Game?”

  “Yeah. A bunch of guys get together occasionally for a few hands of poker.”

  “Sounds so… masculine,” she teased.

  “Anyway, I forgot that the game is tonight.”

  Was it really? she wondered. Or was the game a handy excuse for him to gain some distance. “That’s all right.”

  “How about breakfast?”

  “Love to.”

  So much for that theory. Maybe this poker party was on the up and up. As much as a basically illegal game can be on the up and up.

  “So, I don’t suppose you guys play for matchsticks, huh?”

  “Bite your tongue, woman. You can’t say real men and matchsticks in the same sentence.”

  “Oh, is that how it is?”

  “Yeah, you know. Male bonding.”

  “I’ve heard of the phenomenon.”

  An idea popped into Abby’s mind, and she realized the opportunity was too good to let it pass. Stuart Baker might be her number-one suspect, but she wasn’t ready to completely dismiss Gil Leland. And of course, there was always the possibility that Baker and Leland were working together.

  “Is this a regular game?”

  “Sort of. It’s a floating game, but the same people don’t show up every week. Mostly guys that work at the harbor. A couple of them are tour operators. The rest are just guys we hang around with. We’re not talking Las Vegas, here. Strictly small change. I doubt there’s ever a bet made over ten dollars.”

  “Do you play often?”

  “Not really, but Gil gets a kick out it. Every once in a while he drags me along with him.”

  “That’s right. You told me that he’d bet on anything.”

  “Let’s just say it’s a good thing gambling’s not legal in Hawaii.”

  “That bad?”

  “Well, to be perfectly honest, sometimes he has a problem with gambling. He has to watch himself or he won’t know when to quit.”

  Her earlier idea had now taken on a life of its own, conjuring up questions, suppositions, despite the fact that in the back of her mind Abby knew she could be way off base on this. Illegal poker games were as common as stray cats. Just because Gil Leland frequented one, and had a tendency not to know when to stop, didn’t mean that he had an addiction. If—and she had to admit it was a big if—he was addicted, that didn’t mean he was so far in debt that he would be desperate to get out. Desperate enough to take drastic measures to resolve the problem.

  But it was possible, even plausible. The more she thought about it, the more the idea took root. She felt a desperate need to fit the pieces of the puzzle together; a drive to pursue Gil as a strong suspect.

  When Houston dropped her off at her condo, he gave her a lingering goodbye kiss, and promised to call later. Truthfully, Abby wasn’t totally disappointed. She had some thinking to do.

  Chapter 9

  Try as she might, Abby couldn’t shake the notion that Gil Leland’s days as a cop working vice, and his penchant for gambling were not only connected, but pointed to a motive. Her theory, such as it was, centered on the assumption that if the sum owed was large enough, it was motive enough.

  As hunches went, it was flimsy. She had no proof, and she wasn’t sure she could get any. But the more she thought about it, applying her offbeat brand of logic, the more it made sense. To her, at least.

  Beginning with the assumption that Leland’s yen for cards or dice was strong enough to leave heavy-duty IOUs with someone. But who?

  Rob Gunderson was no slouch. He would have sniffed out any sizable debt during the original investigation. Logic dictated that if the debt had existed at that point without Gunderson’s knowledge, it was incredibly well hidden.

  Who could hide that kind of debt? And why?

  At this point, logic posed another question. If Leland had a tall stack of IOUs floating around out there somewhere, where did he get the money to hire a torch?

  Of course, the torch could have done the job with a down payment and a promise of more when the insurance company paid off.

  And how much money could he lose in a local poker game, anyway? What had Houston called it? “Strictly small change.” That certainly didn’t sound like the kind of amounts someone killed for. But stranger things had happened.

  Once again, Abby reminded herself that when it came to money, people were rarely predictable. And if the amount was large enough, they were prone to do things totally out of character and diametrically opposed to their nature.

  But that was the trouble with her theory regarding Gil. She didn’t see how losing, even losing consistently at a small-change poker game, could have gotten him far enough in debt to make him desperate. Theoretically it was possible, she supposed, but even theoretical supposition brought you back to the same place. Any debt of that magnitude would have turned up originally.

  No, in order for her theory to work, Leland would have to have suffered massive losses. Big bucks. And if Gil had an addiction, he probably didn’t limit himself to a friendly poker game once a week.

  Pacing the small living room of the condo, Abby ran her hand through her hair. Okay, so there were a few holes, but her theory would hold together eventually. It had to.

  She had to find the answers to all the questions stomping around in her head. She had to pull all the facts together into some semblance of order. Abby thought about going over the fi
le again. She had never been completely free of the feeling that she had missed something; that the key to solving the puzzle, answering all the questions, was somewhere in the file. It was there. She just kept missing it.

  Yes, she’d go over the file with a fine-tooth comb again. And again if she had to.

  It didn’t matter if she had to go over the damn file fifty times. She had to tie up all the loose ends in this case so she could prove…prove…

  Suddenly she stopped pacing. Just exactly what was she trying to prove?

  Abby stood very still, listening to the sound of her own heart as it beat an accelerated rhythm. She was wound up like an eight-day clock. What the hell was wrong with her?

  In the last twenty-four hours she had gone from listing Stuart Baker as her number-one suspect, to now going after Gil Leland. And even though she knew her suspicions weren’t without validity, none were strong enough to produce this… this drive to establish one of them as the arsonist.

  Looking back, she realized there was a frantic quality to her reasoning where these two men were concerned. Almost a desperation to nail one of them. Close the case. A hell-bent, burning need to prove one of them was guilty.

  And in doing so, prove Houston innocent.

  Abby took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she opened the sliding-glass door to the lanai and stepped out into the sultry night. Leaning against the railing that overlooked the garden and courtyard, she stared out toward the sea. Even from here, she could hear the surf pounding against the beach.

  “What am I doing?” she asked the night. “Am I crazy?” Her only response was the silent twinkling of the stars.

  Crazy or not, it was clear to her now that her almostfrenzied scramble to settle this case was not to prove guilt, but to exonerate Houston. To prove that he could never have committed such a violent crime. And all because something inside her insisted he was gentle, kind, and basically honest. Because he had courage and integrity. Because…

  Because she cared about him.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered, her hands suddenly flying to her mouth as if to prevent any other such revelations from escaping her lips.

  She cared about Houston.

  It was as simple as that. And as complicated.