I always put work first, especially in an emergency, and I'd had it leveled my way as a personality flaw before. However, it had never felt like one until now. I had worked too long and neglected to see that the information of Mallory's passing was given by a friendly voice and not a detective.
My mother's voice carried from the other end of the line. "Oh, Charlotte, there you are. Thank goodness."
"I didn't want you to hear it from the police," I said, guilt rearing its ugly head.
Mom gasped. "The police? Did she get arrested? She said she was just going to sit there!"
A moment of clarity told me we were clearly not talking about the same thing. "Who said they were just going to sit where?"
"Georgie. She said she would stay at the Coco Moo."
It took me a long moment to decipher the comment. Georgiana was my twin sister, identical, and the last place I wanted her to be, especially on Christmas, was anywhere near me. And I had no clue what the last part meant.
"Georgie is here? On Kauai?" Just asking the question filled me with dread.
"She's there in Aloha Lagoon! She said she was just looking around and that she couldn't get through to you at the resort. I gave her your cell, but she said she'd just wait."
That was wise, as I'd have hung up on her immediately. Georgie here? Good Lord. Why?
"Where is she?"
"I don't know where she is now. Downtown Aloha Lagoon, I think she said. She was at some karaoke bar called…Coco Moo?"
I palmed my forehead. There was only one possible place that could be. One of the resort eateries was a café called the Loco Moco Café, where they sometimes had karaoke. Coco moo, well, that was what Georgie used to call chocolate milk.
"Why is she here? You know what—never mind. It doesn't matter. Can you text her and ask her the exact location she's at and text it to me?" I'd figure out what to do with my unwelcome guest when the more pressing business was taken care of. "There's something you need to know. Earlier today…Mallory passed away."
Mom's gasp fully reflected the way I felt about it. "How? I don't understand."
I didn't understand either, and I'd been there. "I'm not entirely sure, Mom. That wasn't clear, but I'm sure the coroner will let me know more when she does her examination. I just…I asked the police to let me call her parents. Or you can if you think it would be better, instead of letting them hear it from the police. Though the police did say they would be calling them eventually."
Mom's voice was remote, stunned. "I will call. This is horrible. She was so young."
When I heard her start to cry, it was very difficult for me to keep hold of myself, but there were employees around me, cleaning up the grand ballroom, which had been effectively thrashed by having every activity there. Nani Johnson, a local ukulele player, was packing it up to go home, and the band, Pacific Rim, was cleaning up their instruments on the stage. Someone would need to cut both of them a check. I made myself a mental note, and concentrating on work instead of my sobbing mother was a relief.
I also couldn't bear to really think about Mallory or the implications of her death right now. There would be time enough for that after the practical was dealt with and when I was completely alone. Mom and I ironed out a few of the details she needed to pass on to Mallory's family, and I hung up after promising I would go and rescue Georgie, who could have managed to get to the resort, had she wanted. It wasn't far, just a couple of blocks. She wanted to make me come for her.
I had no clue why, but it was always some kind of game with Georgie. If Georgie was doing something, the end purpose would be manipulation. Her showing up at Christmastime was nothing more than a dig. But it did bring up one thing that I wasn't sure whether to pass on to police. There'd been another person who knew Mallory in town tonight.
My sister.
* * *
Technically, I wasn't supposed to pick up guests in my private vehicle, whether they were my sister or not, and the available resort vehicle that was dedicated to the upper-management staff was Alex's at the moment, since I couldn't abide by someone conducting resort business on a motorcycle. Unfortunately, I didn't have the keys. I'd given them to Alex. Which meant searching him out and getting them.
Sighing, I headed back into the working throng, searching for Alex. It didn't take long to find him helping Ikaika and some of the younger men on the staff break down the makeshift winter wonderland that we'd been forced to construct. He was sweaty, his shirt hanging open in a way that was very unbecoming of a manager, even if there was no way I could deny it was becoming in general.
I held out my hand. "I need the keys to the Prius."
He cocked his head, putting his hands to his hips. "Why?"
That wasn't a question I'd expected or made a contingency plan to deal with. I didn't want him to know about Georgie, though I had no idea how I would keep her secret until she blew away with the next errant breeze, like she'd been doing all her life. "I need it." I said it like it was a given, and in a manner of speaking, it was. I clearly wouldn't have asked for the keys if I didn't need them.
"Why?" he repeated. Good grief. What was his problem? Why did he care anyway? The good graces he'd managed to get himself in earlier when he'd helped me out were definitely gone. That was a relief anyway. One thing I definitely did not need was Alex trying to sneak out of the box. I didn't have time for that kind of nonsense.
"I have to pick up a stranded guest."
He nodded, pulling the keys from his pocket. "That makes sense. Let's go." He started walking for the door. I had to scramble to catch up.
"What? No. I don't want you to go. I just need the keys."
He kept walking. "My car now, Charlie. Remember, you insisted."
He dangled the keys, and I snatched at them, but I was just too short, and I refused to get any closer to warm, sweaty Alex.
"So if you want to use it, I'm driving. Unless you just want me to pick up this guest."
"Lord no." The words were out before I could prevent them. I flinched. "No, thank you." When we reached the resort vehicle parking area, I spent a moment debating how much it was worth to fight about this. I didn't want him there, but I also didn't want to make this any more of a deal than I had to. My feelings for Georgie weren't something I wanted to share with the rest of the world, and my feelings on anything at all weren't something I wanted to share with Alex.
I gestured to the car. "Let's go."
I decidedly didn't want a fuss at the moment. I just wanted to get Georgie, shove her into an empty room, and pretend she wasn't there until she left. Then I needed to deal with Mallory's death and what exactly that meant, but I couldn't even touch on that now. That was for later.
I strapped myself in because I'd seen Alex drive, and I didn't want to venture that without safety first. The entire cab smelled like him—fresh ocean air, tangy seawater, warm male skin, and the underlying hint of his shampoo or body wash. Something exotic and smoky, slightly Asian. I took a deep breath, then wished I hadn't when the scent wrapped around me, teasing at my nose, trying to tickle my other senses where it was most certainly not allowed. If only tonight hadn't happened. If only we hadn't been forced under the mistletoe. If only he hadn't comforted me. It made everything else so hard.
Alex started the car. "Where to, Boss?"
"Downtown." I glanced at my phone for reference. "Corner of Blossom and Main."
He glanced at me curiously. "That isn't far. Why is a guest stuck out there?"
I shrugged, unwilling to get into the whole thing. Georgie had reasons for making me come and get her, and I didn't even want to guess at her game. She couldn't win if I wouldn't play.
Alex shrugged too and pulled out onto the scenic road that trailed through the acres of resort. To the right was the ocean. To the left, had it been not dark, we would have seen cliffs. Since the sun set around five during December, and it was almost nine at the moment, the road was empty. Everything closed up on the resort fairly early, and it wasn't earl
y.
I felt like I should tell Alex that the person we were picking up was my sister because that was going to be a glaring omission when the time came. He was going to wonder why I didn't tell him, and then what would I say? Oh, my twin sister slept with my fiancé two days before Christmas, which was also the day before our wedding, and then she gave me a video just to make sure I really understood what she'd done. That really wasn't the sort of thing you shared with a coworker. Or a friend. Or anyone except a highly paid therapist.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Alex moved first. "How long were you friends with Mallory?"
The question was like a punch in the gut. In reality, I'd never actually been friends with Mallory. She was more than a decade younger than me and my employee to boot. But I had known her the majority of her life, if only on the periphery. She was so much younger than me that we'd never really spent any time together until I'd hired her a year ago. Then after that, the only time we'd spent was business related.
"I've known her a long time. Pretty much her entire life. But not really well. She was younger than me."
He didn't respond, and I wasn't sure if I appreciated that or not. I wasn't happy he'd brought it up at all, and hours later I was still suffering a mixture of embarrassment and gratitude about his behavior after the waterfall incident. I tried looking out the window, but it was dark, and there really wasn't much to see. The reflection of the moon and an ocean of stars off the water and the limited view in the headlights.
"I'm sorry," he said at last, surprising me out of my reverie.
I had no response. I couldn't say it was okay, because it most certainly wasn't. It took a moment for the proper response to work its way into my brain. "Thanks."
"Are you okay?" He shot me a quick look before returning his eyes to the road.
Most certainly not didn't seem like an acceptable response. It took a long time to find one. "I will be."
He nodded, seemingly finding the answer good enough to stop worrying about me, which I didn't entirely understand anyway. Why harass me for six months and then suddenly start acting like my best friend? It was true that I was normally aggressive toward Alex, because he set me off balance, something I disliked. Control was my best friend. It kept me happy and calm. My aggression, however, wasn't the whole cause of his attitude. He just enjoyed giving me crap, and murder shouldn't change that. His behavior had altered, and that made me suspicious.
It was time to change the subject, and we were getting close to downtown anyway. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing I actually had a happy place to seek out. "The person we're going to pick up is my sister."
His eyebrow cocked, but he didn't ask why I hadn't said anything earlier, which was oddly circumspect for Alex Cho. He was just full of surprises today. I wasn't a fan of surprises. Never had been. Eying him suspiciously, I didn't notice him pulling into the parking lot of the local community center until he pulled to a stop.
Now that we were actually here, it hit me again how much I didn't want to reconnect with Georgie. Honestly, three years was not enough. I could have used another couple of years before burying the hatchet, though I wasn't surprised she was pushing the issue. However, to show up on Christmas, that took some balls. She certainly had those in excess. She was about three seconds from a WWF wrestler in terms of cajones. As far as I was aware, there wasn't anything that take-no-prisoners Georgie wouldn't try at least once.
He eyed the crowd wandering up and down the main drag of Aloha Lagoon. "Want me to run over and get her? What does she look like?"
"Well, she looks a lot like me. Pretty much exactly like me. But I'll do it. No worries."
The look he shot me left no question that he was confused by my words. He wouldn't be when he saw her. Actually, the last time I had seen her, her hair, naturally blonde like mine, had been sheared boy short and dyed black. What she looked like now was a mystery. So maybe it really was better that I planned to go after her myself. If by better I meant soul crushing.
I opened the door and stepped into another beautiful night. Resisting the urge to inhale the inherent perfume of Hawaii, I headed for the entrance. There was something about a sultry Hawaiian night that made me want to linger, which was exactly why I never would.
Gritting my teeth, I braced myself for the hit of seeing my sister for the first time since she'd blithely handed me a tape of herself screwing my fiancé and skipped out of town.
Georgie was sitting on a park bench near the front of an ice cream place, legs crossed, microscopic denim skirt riding up to the point it was barely clothing, as was her way. She'd finally allowed her hair to go blonde again, but it was still super short, and now spiky. She didn't spot me immediately, which wasn't surprising considering the chaos of a festive holiday night on the town. Alex, to my right, noticed her right away though. I could tell by his whistle of wolfish appreciation, because…Alex.
"You didn't say you were twins."
"No, I didn't." There was no point in trying to come up with a good excuse for my lack of information, so I didn't.
Georgie noticed me and perked up immediately, sliding off the bench and pushing her impossibly short skirt even higher. She seemed impervious to all the stares of lust and jealousy following her all along the sidewalk. I'd never been jealous of Georgie. Even when she'd slept with Jared. I'd just been disappointed. In both of them, but most of all in Georgie, who was supposed to have been there for me through thick and thin, because that was what sisters did. Georgie and I might as well have been from different planets, as foreign as our personalities were to each other. And it was impossible to be jealous of an alien.
However, I had depended on her. With our tumultuous upbringing, we'd relied on each other, however different we might have been, to give us a safe port in the storm of chaos. Georgie was outgoing and impetuous. I was a control freak, type A, whatever you wanted to call it. I liked control. Our constantly leaving father and our constantly dramatic mother had been engaged in a soap opera–worthy relationship that consisted of marrying and divorcing with alarming regularity throughout our entire childhood. If times got rough, Dad left, Mom cried, and Georgie and I just put our heads down, relied on one another, and waited for him to return, which he always did. They'd get married again, and the cycle would start over. I'd never expected Georgie to be reliable, because she wasn't. She had too much of Dad in her. She was a runner. However, I'd also never expected her to turn on me like that.
"Charlotte, it's so good to see you." She threw her arms around me, smelling of coconut oil and rum. I stiffened for a long second, because honestly I really wasn't comfortable with her touching me. She'd never even offered an apology for breaking up a ten-year relationship at the altar. Never even once.
I patted her on the arm in some semblance of a greeting and stepped away as soon as possible. It was very clear that Alex was on to the awkwardness between us, but there was no way I was going to clue him in to the details on this one. Georgie spotted Alex, and her eyebrows cocked into her hairline. "Well, hello." She glanced at me approvingly.
I had no idea if she thought we were together—fat chance—or if she thought I'd brought her an early Christmas present. Alex grinned, those interesting creases flashing. I sighed, regretting that I ever had to do this. "Georgiana, this is the Leisure Groups coordinator at the resort, Alex Cho."
I should have said something else, but what was there to say? Georgie, meet another man I think is insanely sexy. Please have at him, as you do? I pushed the thought away immediately. Not thinking of Alex and sexy in the same sentence was how I got through every day.
"Hello there, Georgiana." Alex's lethal smile was clearly already working on my twin, not that it took much for Georgie to be swayed out of that microscopic skirt.
Ugh. If only he'd just given me the keys. But he would have eventually found her anyway. Alex had a homing beacon for anything in a bikini, but I wouldn't have had to be present.
"You can call me Georgie," she sa
id, making it clear she was really saying, You can have my panties as a trophy.
"Georgiana and Charlotte, huh? Those are big names to give baby girls," Alex pointed out.
I nipped the conversation in the bud. "My mother is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice. She had us at the same time as several other people in her P and P club, and all the Lizzys and Janes were claimed early. She didn't want us to have the same names as all our little P and P friends, so she named us after Lizzy's homely friend and Darcy's sister of questionable intelligence." I rubbed a hand across my forehead and begged the universe for patience. "Let's get out of here. Do you have any bags?"
She picked up the pink and green carpetbag at her feet. "Just this. I can't wait to get somewhere quiet and dark. All anyone can talk about in this town is murder. I need a drink."
"You just spent hours at a bar," I pointed out. Then her first comment sunk in. Had she already heard about Mallory? That wasn't the way anyone should find out.
"Murder?" I asked cautiously. "I didn't think it would get around that fast."
These people could talk. It was the perennial curse of a small town, which Aloha Lagoon was, even when it sometimes felt big because of all the tourists coming through. Georgie shrugged, the strap of her bronze tank top slipping off, revealing for anyone who cared to look, which was quite a large number, judging from the stares around us, that she'd elected to spend today without the traditional constraints of a bra of any kind.
"Well, the guy did die three days ago. I guess that's big news around here."
A guy died three days ago? That was news to me. She wasn't talking about Mallory, which was a relief, but I paid no attention to news or gossip unless it directly impacted the resort.
"Surfer, out on West Point," Alex filled me in. "Someone shot him point blank, straight in the heart. Left his body on the beach. He was an Olympic hopeful for 2020, but he wasn't a local."
That dismissive "he wasn't a local" said a lot. Most people in AL were as welcoming as they had to be to get money, but surfers from out of town weren't a favorite. Especially when they challenged local surfing gods and took up too much space in the good waves. I couldn't picture someone killing him for something like that though. AL, be it a small town or not, had an inordinate amount of murder. Not that most of it affected the tourists, but still, there was a lot. To have this man and Mallory both be murdered in a three-day period seemed a bit excessive.
Mele Kalikimaka Murder Page 4
