Deadly Reunion

by Lakes, Lynde

  Killing the loser was his only choice, he rationalized. The world was trying to shut Al Lee down on all levels, constantly attacking his mind, body and soul. He had a right to payback. Had a right to do whatever it took.

  He closed down the security cameras, locked the controls and pocketed the two components and connectors needed to reboot everything. If he was lucky, no one would check in here until the shift change at 10:00 A.M. By then, he’d have everything else handled, and it wouldn’t matter. Leaving the secure area quickly, Al passed a couple of late night partygoers staggering down the hallway. They didn’t even look in his direction. Guests were used to ignoring staff, and in his stolen gray maintenance coveralls he was invisible to them. Using the back stairwell, he headed for the basement. Once inside, he disabled the sprinkler system. He set a timer to trip the main switch of the central electricity system at his estimated zero-hour.

  As Al left the building, the relief of being out in the moonlit darkness calmed his racing heart. He grabbed up the shovel and bag of tools he’d stashed in the bushes and darted from shadow to shadow. Earlier he had located the main water line, and now he sabotaged it by breaking the seal. The slow leak would go unnoticed, but when usage increased – like if they tried to use pressurized water to fight a fire – the line would erupt and fail. And with no water to fight the fire, the blaze would spread fast. But he wasn’t ready to set the fire yet. Timing was everything. He had to set the stage and think everything through before he entered this phase of the righter of wrongs twilight zone.

  He heard laughing and looked up at the shadowy terraces. Most of his classmates had taken discount rooms on or above the sixth floor. Fools. Local fire equipment and ladders couldn’t reach past the fifth floor. Revenge would be fast, deadly. He smiled, imagining the shrieks of pain as flames blackened flesh.

  ****

  Back in bed after her rounds, Malia pounded her pillow. At least, she didn’t have to worry about Damon. With Wilcox guarding him, he was probably sleeping like a baby. She wished she could sleep, but thoughts of Damon kept rolling over her like a tidal wave. He made love with a blend of tenderness, confidence and just enough physical power to excite her beyond her wildest dreams. Her skin flushed with desire just thinking about their unrestrained passion.

  But she could never let it happen again.

  Her cold words to him played over and over in her head: The woman you made love to is gone…forever. Reed-the-cop is in charge now. Get used to it. Even to her own ears she sounded like a bitch. She wished she’d dared to explain. But if he knew she really wanted to thrust herself into his arms and spend an eternity making love to him, he would be here with her now, holding her, comforting her … making it impossible for her to walk away. And she had to walk away.

  Malia didn’t realize she’d finally fallen asleep until she awakened to sunlight pouring through the drapes. She was surprised and relived that the killer hadn’t tried something. But now she had another challenge to face – Morales’s funeral.

  ****

  Highly polished motorcycles and police cars lined the curved road of Millilani Memorial Park. The crowd of mourners included members of every department within the HPD and the community as well. Morales had been well loved and would be sorely missed by everyone who knew him. Tears filled Malia’s eyes as she watched the honorary doves flutter from their cages and soar into the blue cloudless sky. Her dear fallen colleague had died in her place.

  She stifled a sob and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. Then she lifted her gaze to see if any of her men were watching her momentary weakness. Malia’s heart did a funny little skip at the sight of Damon. He stood across the green manicured lawn with Kiki’s parents. She noted with relief that Wilcox was close by.

  Malia fought to hold her feelings in check. Of course she was bound to run into Damon. But why did it have to be here today when her emotions were raw and she was so vulnerable? She understood the reason Kiki’s parents were here. Although they didn’t know Morales, they were here to honor a man who died while working on their daughter’s case. She guessed Damon had showed up for the same reason. Her own parents, who could have honored her fellow downed officer, had chosen not to attend. They said it would be too painful, knowing next time it could be her funeral they attended.

  She had an urge to slip away unseen, but when all three waved and came toward her, she was trapped. Damon approached her first and gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek. She tried to feign serene indifference. By his unruffled expression, she figured she hadn’t pulled it off. Until that moment she hadn’t totally grasped how big the problem between them had grown. She longed to thrust herself into his arms and let him share her sorrow.

  “Sleep well?” she asked, feeling the question was a safe topic.

  He stroked his jaw. “Not much. Camping outside your hotel and watching for trouble didn’t leave much time for sleeping.”

  “Why would you do something so dangerous? You’re making Wilcox’s bodyguard job harder. What did you do, slip away from him?”

  “No, he was right there, watching me keeping tabs on you. The guy grumbles a lot. But he better get used to me shadowing you. I plan to play lookout wherever you are until the killer’s caught.”

  Malia shook her head. “I don’t need you to protect me. I’m a trained cop and can take care of myself.”

  “Just like Morales, right?”

  ****

  Damon instantly regretted saying that at Morales’ funeral, but before he could apologize, Malia spun and walked away, erect and strong, even in sorrow. Birds skittered out of her way and took flight. She looked mad enough to chew lava rock. Trying to make her see his side of things wasn’t going to happen today. But tomorrow he had to make her understand her vulnerability. Lots of luck, he told himself. Single-mindedness and dynamic drive were bred into her very bones. He wouldn’t let that stop him. Persistence and protectiveness were bred into his. He’d lost one person he’d cared about to this killer. He wasn’t about to lose another, especially after last night.

  His big disadvantage was he wasn’t a cop, wasn’t privy to inside investigation facts. But on the plus side, he wasn’t limited by HPD rules. That fact might’ve put him on equal ground with the killer except the killer knew him – and he had only a few vague clues to the killer’s identity. Damon wiped a hand across his mouth, remembering that he and Malia had spent the last week dodging every particle of cosmic debris the killer hurled into their orbit.

  How could he level the field? He needed a starting place. If there was something in Kiki’s personal effects pointing to her last tryst it would give him direction.

  Kiki’s parents had come in their own car and wanted to stay a while longer, so he excused himself and headed for his truck. With excitement building, Damon left the cemetery and skidded to a stop at the first phone booth he saw. When he called Kiki’s work, one of the female agents in the office, told him that since he and Kiki were estranged, the broker delivered Kiki’s personal effects from her desk to her parents’ house.

  “I’m surprised the police released her things so quickly.” He didn’t feel slighted – just a little disconnected.

  “All I know,” the agent said in a conspiring tone, “is the cops went through everything with a fine tooth comb, and then told our broker he could release the box of stuff to her parents.”

  After Damon hung up, he stared unseeing at the smooth flowing traffic on Kamehameha Highway. If the police released Kiki’s things, they’d probably confiscated anything that might help the case. But what if they missed something, something only he could decipher? He had to check her belongings personally, even if that meant opening himself up to more pain.

  ****

  Malia headed for Kiki’s parents’ house to look at the things from Kiki’s office that Ku had released to her family. Ku was a thorough investigator, but what if there was a clue only she would recognize? With such minimal evidence, all she had was gut feelings to go on.

  Ev
en if she found nothing, it wouldn’t be a wasted trip. She wanted to thank Auntie Kopa’a and Toby again for coming to Morales’s funeral.

  It had been unnerving to run into Damon at the cemetery. And although she thought it was insensitive of him to connect her vulnerability to Morales’s murder at his funeral, the point Damon had made was valid, and his concern came from the heart. But the very fact that his heart was involved only proved she’d done the right thing by assigning his safety to Officer Wilcox.

  Malia rubbed her aching head. Just seeing Damon for a few minutes had messed up her mind. She’d yearned to brush that dark, wayward lock of hair from his forehead, wanted to send Wilcox away and guard Damon herself. But because of her reckless, un-cop-like behavior last night, she reined in the impulse. It was clear by her reaction that if she were guarding him, it would be difficult to focus her full attention on her job.

  She squared her shoulders. In the bright light of day, she could do what needed to be done. She’d learned that each day was a new start and life obliged her to become stronger, more focused, and she wouldn’t let anything get in the way of her goal, not even fear … or love.

  Besides, Wilcox was a top bodyguard; he’d been on the security force assigned to the president when he was in town. But could Wilcox deal with Damon, an equally experienced man who had strong personal motives to catch the killer himself? Although Damon had shown instances of amazing control and restraint, he did have a reckless side.

  She wished he had a cell phone. Maybe she should buy him one. She rubbed her forehead. Was she even thinking straight? Damon might get the wrong idea and think, even though she told him otherwise, that she wanted their new relationship to go on after the case was over. Dammit. She couldn’t worry about what he thought. Keeping him alive was part of her job. He was a witness, after all. A stronger reason was an inner foreboding that told her with the killer out there, a cell phone might be Damon’s only lifeline.

  Her thoughts kept scattering like loose change, and she struggled to gather them into some semblance of cohesive thinking. The choices she made today could affect a lot of lives, even the lives of people she loved, even the man she loved.

  Doubt gnawed at her. Was she up to the challenge? She’d already made mistakes in this case. She’d let Morales down … she’d let Kiki down. Maybe she wasn’t the champion of victims as she believed. After last night, she knew only too well that she wasn’t the ice-maiden-super-cop that some of the guys called her. She was merely a woman with human imperfections. Recognizing that, she had two choices, quit or fight. She snorted at the idea of quitting. With all of my shortcomings, being a quitter isn’t one of them.

  Chapter Thirty

  Malia sat alone in Kopa’a’s garden scanning Kiki’s appointment book, barely aware of the breeze, fragrant with gardenia that rustled through the palm fronds. She took a sip of tea and turned the page, working her way backward from the date of her friend’s murder. About half of Kiki’s appointments were with men, and Rosado’s name appeared repeatedly. Many of the appointments were to check the developer’s progress at the Martin mansion or to show it to prospective clients. Malia shook her head. She’d bet that chunk of Black Point real estate saw more action than any other listing in town – lustful action that wouldn’t necessarily sell the property.

  She flipped back to the date of Kiki’s murder. At noon she’d had lunch with Rosado. Then, she wrote: check out mansion with developer, but get rid of him early. A hot prospect will join me there at 2:00 P.M. Appointment might take all afternoon.

  A chill slid through Malia. That appointment could have been with the killer. Why didn’t Kiki include a name or initials, anything to help ID the guy? Malia flipped the page. Dammit. Lust was Kiki’s downfall. Malia felt a stab of guilt. Last night lust had been her downfall as well.

  Damon must never see this scarlet record of Kiki’s affairs; something like this could wield a crushing blow to a man’s ego, even a handsome, confident man like Damon.

  Once the case was over, what would become of him? With Kiki gone, would he stay on O’ahu, or hop a plane and leave the painful memories behind? She wouldn’t blame him if he left, but she never could. In spite of all the tragedy associated with this island, she was connected here in ways that she wasn’t even sure she fully understood. Why was she even thinking about the future? She’d have to confront her feelings about betraying Kiki’s memory with Damon later. Right now she had a killer to catch.

  She thought she heard a car pull into the driveway at the front of the house, then talking inside the house: “She’s out back in the garden,” she heard Auntie say.

  When the screen door squeaked, Malia looked up. Her heart raced. Damon! She moistened her dry throat. “What are you doing here?”

  Her sharp tone didn’t even make him blink. Their gazes intensified. His eyes darkened, and she fought their force – their masculine magnetism – his sexuality.

  She stood abruptly, wanting to break eye contact, but failing pitifully. She clung to the appointment book as though her life depended on it.

  Damon started to close the distance between them. When she stepped back, he stopped, and she thought she saw the slightest upturn at the corners of his mouth. Now she felt like throwing the appointment book at him. Instead, she gripped it tighter.

  His gaze shifted to the book. “Anything in there I should know about?” His voice flowed out, deep, self assured and unnerving. Clearly he was enjoying her discomfort.

  “This is police business,” she said, hoping to regain her composure. “Where’s your bodyguard?”

  He gestured with his head toward the screen door. Sure enough, Wilcox was staring out at them, his arms folded, his expression amused. Her face warmed. She nodded to him and after clearing her throat, she said, “Take a break, Wilcox. Auntie will make you a glass of iced tea or

  something.”

  Wilcox nodded and disappeared.

  Damon’s expression turned wry. “He hasn’t let me out of his sight until now.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Can’t I drop in on my in-laws without a grilling?” His sardonic tone irked her beyond belief.

  “Cut the kemu, Damon. I’m busy.” She sure as hell didn’t need his games.

  He looked down at Kiki’s appointment journal. “Find an entry in there that identifies the killer?” He took a step forward and reached for the book.

  Swinging the volume behind her, she held her ground and glared at him. “It’s none of your business. HPD’s only obligation is to protect you as a witness. Wilcox can do that better if you quit sticking your nose into our investigation. Besides, what happened last night is over.”

  He met her sharp tone with a solemn expression and the taunting arch of a dark eyebrow. “Were we talking about last night?”

  The shrill ring of her cell phone saved her the embarrassment of any response. She flipped the unit open and snapped out her last name. “Reed.”

  “Our killer’s struck again,” Ku said. “Fire. Sixth floor of the hotel.”

  “Another fire?” She thought of her own home in ashes, her narrow escape – and what the result might have been if the perp had set the fire at the hotel last night while she and the other guests were sleeping. Anger sizzled in her veins. Here she was fencing with Damon and fiddling with an appointment book when she should have been patroling the hotel. “Anyone

  hurt?”

  “Too early to tell. Meet you there.”

  She flipped her cell closed and ran around the side of the house only to find that Damon had blocked her car with his truck. She whirled and nearly slammed into him. “Give me your blasted keys,” she shouted.

  “Get in,” he said, “I’ll drive.”

  “Just move the damn truck. Now.” He should know better than to block an on-duty cop.

  He didn’t argue. She ran to her rental car, grabbed her blue flashing light from the rear floorboard and slapped it onto the top. Malia slid behind the wheel and, after Damon cl
eared the driveway, she zipped out in reverse and headed down the street.

  She glanced in the rearview mirror. Damon was following in his truck – without his bodyguard. Damn. Damn. Damn.

  Malia flipped open her cell and alerted Wilcox. “We have a problem. Damon slipped away and is on my tail. I’m heading for the hotel. If you don’t catch him first, meet us there.”

  ****

  Even from the bushes, Al Lee felt the heat. Orange flames licked hotly from the sixth floor terraces. The walls of fire seemed to be a living, breathing entity, and watching its dance-of-destruction sent burning quivers through his body. He had barely secured the last stairwell door with a wooden wedge and escaped the building when he heard little explosions on the sixth floor. Probably aerosol cans and combustible cleaning products in the housekeeping storage closets, a plus he hadn’t counted on.

  On the minus side, he definitely hadn’t counted on the almost immediate response from those who wanted him to fail. Screaming fire engines and cop cars with whining sirens skidded to a stop in front of the hotel. Firefighters carrying equipment ran into the building, rushing to flames as red as the fires of hell. Al saw them as human moths, rushing to the light; and like moths, at least one of them would die.