“Right. Can hardly wait to hear this story.” Josh crossed his arms over his chest.
“I knew she was with Dietz.” With that admission, Josh and Derek both stared at Kane as if he’d finally lost it. Maybe he had, but he believed the meeting between Dietz and Annie to be innocent. “Annie and I were just talking about what happened with Dietz.”
“Are you kidding?” The shock on Josh’s face matched the shock in his voice.
Kane gestured to Annie. “Go ahead.”
“As I said, Dietz approached me. He told me about his sister and Kane’s wife—”
“What did he say exactly?” This qualified as Kane’s least favorite subject on the planet. But, now that the information was out there, he needed to make sure Dietz had at least attempted to be honest.
“That your wife was young and had a problem with alcohol.”
“There’s an understatement,” Josh mumbled.
Annie’s cheeks flushed, but she kept going. “You worked a lot and missed the signs. Dietz said you knew but didn’t want to deal with it. He talked about the accident. Blamed you.”
“Like Josh said, nothing new there.” Derek sprawled out on the coffee table like only a young man comfortable with his surroundings could do.
“What did you say back to Dietz?” Josh asked.
Somehow Annie managed not to wither under Josh’s harsh glare. “I said Kane wasn’t to blame for his wife’s drinking or the accident. The accident was just that, an accident.”
Josh visibly relaxed. Some of the tension left his face. “Anything else?”
Kane wanted to ask the question, but Josh beat him to it. From what Kane saw, the conversation on the beach went on for a while. He knew there was more to it than the car accident.
She nodded. “He told me Kane pushed him out of the police job.”
“And?” This time Kane asked the question.
She sat down on the armrest of the couch. “He asked me to provide him with information on Kane in exchange for whatever I wanted. A quid pro quo.”
“Fuck! I knew it. Let me kill him.” Josh fell back into the chair. “One bullet. Ten minutes.”
Annie looked horrified, which made Derek’s smile even bigger.
Kane couldn’t help but smile, too. Josh’s boast didn’t have anything behind it but a guy’s big talk. He’d never shoot anyone in cold blood. No matter how much he wanted to.
“He’s kidding,” Kane assured her.
“No, I’m not,” Josh said.
“What type of information?” Kane asked.
“Where you go and with whom. He wanted to know if you talked about Watson and what you said. Typical Hawaii guy spy stuff as far as I could see.”
“And you told him no.” Kane felt that certainty down to his feet.
“No.” She smiled as she said the word.
But the answer pulled Derek away from whatever buttons he was fiddling with on the MP3 player on his lap. “Did you just say no?”
Her grin gave Kane a silent warning not to panic. He didn’t. He might not know much about Annie, but he knew he could count on her to be able to identify an enemy when one landed right in front of her. Unfortunately, she’d had a lot of practice. Too much.
“I told Dietz to kiss my ass.” She looked toward the ceiling as if she were contemplating the most important question in the universe. “I may have told him to grow up and stop wallowing in the past. Probably something in there about hell and damn, too. I included most of the oldie-but-goodie swear words in my response.”
The remaining tension in the room fizzled out as all three men laughed. With all that behind them, Kane was ready to move on. Dietz’s position wasn’t going to change. No use in wasting time trying.
“Look, we have something more important than Dietz to take care of at the moment.”
“I can’t imagine what that would be.” Derek adjusted the headphones around his neck.
Kane came out with it. “Howard’s resurfaced.”
“What?” Josh jumped to his feet.
So did Annie. “You’ve been holding back that information. What exactly were you waiting for, an invitation?”
Josh nodded his head and grinned in what could only be described as admiration. Lucky for him Annie couldn’t see it. She probably would have flattened him. She could do it, too. Had the stiff stance and clenched fists for battle.
“Roy called a few minutes ago. I’m going to the station to pick him up and then—”
“Count me in.” Josh’s hand went back to his gun.
“Me, too.” Annie walked over to her sneakers.
As if Kane would let her step into danger. Never going to happen. She stayed here, safe and locked in. Until he knew all of her plans for Howard, she’d be staying here. He didn’t need a civilian and potential target in the way. Especially one with a secret agenda.
“Josh.” Kane pointed to his friend and usual backup. “You’re coming along. Annie, you’re grounded.”
Bent over with one shoe on and the other one off, she stopped. “Like hell.”
“No arguments. This could be a trap or a dead end. Any number of things. You stay with Derek.”
“What did I ever do to you?” Derek meant it as a joke.
Annie wasn’t laughing. “I don’t like it either. I should go along, Kane.”
“No.” Holding his ground was the only option. If she came along, he’d spend the entire time trying to protect her, and protecting women never worked for him. More importantly, it never worked for them.
She limped over to Kane on her one shoe and grabbed on to his shirt. “You know why I should be there.”
“I don’t. Tell me,” Josh said.
Annie ignored Josh and Derek. “Please, Kane.”
“Watch out, Kane. She’s pulled out the big guns. Begging.” Josh checked his phone, then shoved it back in his pocket. “Hate when women do that.”
“We’ll be back. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.” Kane tried to walk around her, but she didn’t let go of his shirt. “Annie, stop. I need to get going.”
“You need to take me with you.”
“Can’t. You stay with Derek.” When he loosened her hold on his shirt, he was surprised not to see two holes where she had held the cotton material in a death grip.
“Maybe I should give Derek a gun. You know, to protect himself from her.” Josh rubbed his beard.
“She’d probably use it on me,” Derek said.
“The sooner I go, the sooner you’ll have whatever information I have.” Leaning down, Kane whispered in her ear. “Don’t make me use the handcuffs.”
She pulled back, refusing to relax. “This isn’t funny.”
“No, I can see that it isn’t.” He kissed her then. Not long. Not hard. Just a quick peck on the lips. Enough to throw her off balance. Long enough for him to leave.
Kane slid into the passenger side of Josh’s car and waited for the warnings. Annie stood on the porch arguing with Derek about something. Derek solved the problem by kicking back in a chair with his headphones on.
The car door opened. Josh slumped into his seat but didn’t say anything. Just turned on the engine and started backing out of the driveway.
“Damn, just say it.” Kane lowered the window. The rain had stopped, taking the humidity along with it.
Josh shot him a quick look, then concentrated on the curving road again. “What?”
“The I told you so.”
“Ahhh.” Josh smiled behind his sunglasses. “You mean Annie.”
“Of course.”
“The lady does have you chasing your tail.”
“She’d kick your ass if she heard you say that.”
“I’m not dumb enough to say it to her face.”
“I believe her about Dietz.” Kane reached into his back pocket and took out his cell phone. Roy was supposed to call if he found out any other information.
Josh’s smile disappeared. “So do I.”
Kane stopped dialing. “Though
t you hated her.”
“I want to.”
“But?”
“Can’t.”
Kane sympathized. Blocking out Annie was an almost impossible task. “Any reason?”
“I figure she’s going to be around for a while, so I should get used to her.”
This time Kane was the one who lost his smile. “She’s going home eventually.”
“Come on, Kane. This is me. Josh. Annie means something to you. For the first time in a long time, you’ve let a woman stay at your house. Meet Derek. She isn’t a fling.”
Wrong road. Kane knew where Josh planned to take this conversation, and they were headed in the wrong direction.
Kane had tried that life once and it didn’t work. “She’s leaving. Her life is somewhere else, which is better for her. Kauai is a dead end for her.”
“Not that I-kill-every-woman-I-know bullshit.”
Josh didn’t live it. Kane did.
“My life is fine the way it is,” Kane insisted.
“You’re hooked on her.”
Kane tried again. “She’s going back to Seattle.”
“You keep telling yourself that buddy. Ten years from now when I’m going to your kid’s baseball game, I’ll remind you of this moment.”
For some reason, the thought of a future didn’t fill Kane with the dread it once had. Kids and Annie. Little smart-mouthed kids with deep red hair. He could almost picture them.
It had been years since he’d let his mind wander in that direction. Seeing more than a week ahead of him had been impossible. Since he’d buried a woman he cared about.
Yeah, no thanks. He’d hosted enough funeral lunches for a lifetime.
“Like hell,” Kane muttered and turned to look out the window.
“Keep denying it, Warrior Boy. It will make your fall all the more fun when it happens.”
“Just drive.”
“You won’t make me wear a tux to the wedding, will you?”
“You’re not invited.”
Chapter 25
“He cares, you know.
“Derek’s cryptic statement stopped Annie before she could walk back into the house. She assumed the “he” in the sentence was the same “he” who just drove off. Kane.
“About anything in particular?”
“Dietz and what he thinks.” Derek slipped his headphones off. “Kane acts like the crap Dietz says doesn’t matter. It does.”
“No one likes to be blamed for other people’s mistakes.” She stepped back onto the porch and leaned against the railing by Derek’s feet.
“Kane does that all on his own. It’s Dietz’s vendetta. He never lets Kane forget. You know what I mean?”
She thought she did. “About Leilani?”
“About everything bad that’s happened to Kane. He broke up a drug ring, won all this praise and got his job. Dietz spun it to try to make it look as if Kane called in favors.” Derek rocked on the back two legs of the chair. “Kane stopped kids from selling drugs to other kids. All Dietz does is preach about how Kane killed Sam Watson. I mean, hell, Kane knows the kid is dead. He also knows the kid was about to shoot Josh in the head.”
All this time she’d been looking for the missing information on Kane. She should have pressed Derek. The kid was happy to talk about Kane. They clearly loved and admired each other. That Kane couldn’t take that feeling and focus it on…Yeah, her. That was the thought that went through her mind. She wanted Kane to focus all the attention and love on her.
Love? Cripes, how the hell did that happen? Why now?
She stood on the edge of accomplishing everything she’d set out to do. To avenge her mother and put that life behind her. Then in walks Kane and ruins everything. And she was dumb enough to fall for him.
Looked like bad taste in men ran in the women in her family. Sure, Kane was solid and smart and handsome. All those things. He also lived in a different state from her, carried a badge and would likely arrest her as soon as she got rid of Howard.
“Kane did everything he could for Sam and Leilani. Both of them set their lives on these impossible paths,” Derek explained.
“Leilani did drink, then?”
“More and more. She got married young and viewed Kane as her ticket out. He had been to college in Arizona. Left Kauai. Landed an impressive job. She hoped he’d take her away from here. From being poor. When he settled down, instead, and turned into a bit of a local hero, she lost what little composure she had left.”
“I can’t see Kane marrying that type.”
Derek flashed her that soft smile Kane used on her all the time. On Derek, the look came off as sweet. On Kane, it was anything sexy and hot and everything she’d always wanted from a man.
“Can only see him with a feisty redhead from Washington state, huh?” Derek chuckled.
She had to stop that type of thinking right now. “No—”
“I’m kidding.” He waved her off. “The real answer is that people tend to marry young here. I guess Kane thought it was time. Either that or…”
“Or?”
“He wanted to save her.”
She didn’t have an answer for that. She never thought of Kane as the savior type, but the role did fit. From his career choice to the way he handled her, he showed his tendency to protect.
“Dietz can’t understand any of that. He’s too busy nursing grudges. He wants someone to blame for his life. Kane fills the role.”
“Competing for the same job probably didn’t help.”
“Honestly? Dietz was a terrible police chief. Totally unqualified. The newspaper ran editorials arguing that the Police Commission needed to clean house following the scandal of the previous guy. Dietz coming from Internal Affairs, and not having any recent street experience, didn’t fit the bill.”
To Annie, the most pathetic part was that Dietz fought the battle alone. Kane didn’t participate. “I think your uncle is impervious to Dietz. Kane’s not the most emotional guy in the world.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. That’s the part you’re not getting. You didn’t see Kane. You weren’t there when my mom died and when Leilani died.” Derek cut off and swallowed a few times before starting again. “He lost it.”
Lost it, all right. Lost his ability to care and feel. Annie understood that part even if Derek did not see the connection. “He learned a hard lesson from those deaths.”
“Being?”
“To shut himself off.” She stared at the water, got lost in the sound of the waves. “Other than you, I can’t imagine what or who could bring out his emotions.”
Derek sighed from shoulder to stomach. “Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought.”
“Maybe not.”
This one would turn into a heartbreaker one day. A tall, dark and handsome sweet-talker just like his uncle.
“You’re ignoring reality.”
“Are you trying to impress me with your college psych knowledge?” she asked.
“I’m getting a Master’s in marine biology. Freshman psych was a long time ago.”
“Whatever. I’m going to make something to eat. Want a sandwich?”
“You know, with that kind of talk I could get used to a woman in the house again.”
She ruffled his hair. For some reason, the action felt right. “You only love me for my food.”
“I’ll let you know later.” He put his headphones back on. “After I’ve tasted it.”
Fifteen minutes later while mixing her tuna salad and staring at a spot in the middle of the kitchen table, she continued to analyze Derek’s perception of Kane. She’d seen flashes of Kane’s softer side. For the most part, he played the role of tough cop well. Other times, he joked and laughed.
She still couldn’t help but think that he held a part of himself back. Maybe he only hid that part from her. Maybe other people, people he loved, got to see that private, vulnerable side. Not her. She ranked as a guest. A nuisance even.
“Annie.”
She
spun around at the sound of her whispered name and nearly dropped the bowl. She caught the lip in time, slamming it against the side of the chair before the bowl could crash to the floor.
“Careful.” Dietz reached out his hand as if to perform a miracle catch, but she beat him to it.
A heartbeat lodged in her throat. “What are you doing here?”
Crouching down, Dietz hid next to the kitchen doorway, gun in his hand and a grim frown on his lips. He ducked down and peeked into the hallway outside of the kitchen.
With a finger pressed to his lips, he said, “Quiet.”
She would not. “Have you lost your mind?”
He glanced into the family room one more time, then back at her again. “He’ll hear you.”
“Who?”
“I saw him come in here after he did something to Derek.”
The surprise at seeing Dietz washed right out of her. “Derek?”
She glanced into the family room, trying to remember if she heard Derek come in the house or if he still sat out on the porch.
“No, not in there. Move over here with me.” The nonthreatening guy from the beach had vanished. This Dietz was jittery and unsure, all cockiness gone.
“No way. I’m calling Kane right now.” Unfortunately, the phone sat closer to Dietz than her. Reaching for it would put her in his direct firing line.
“Come. Here,” he ordered.
Sit. Stay. Give me the journal. She’d had just about enough of being ordered around by men on this island. Yeah, she’d dealt with enough law enforcement bossiness for a lifetime.
“Kane will arrest you if he finds you in his house.”
“You gotta stop talking.” Dietz’s voice never ventured above a whisper. Only the intensity grew.
This time, before she could back away, he reached out and snagged her. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her next to him.
“He’s here.” Dietz’s hot whisper echoed in her ear.
What she noticed was the desperation behind the sound. Maybe he’d finally lost it. “Who?”
“In the other room.”
“Yeah, but who?”
Phum.
Phum.
Plaster and wood exploded from the doorframe in front of her. Less than a second after she heard the strange, muffled noise, Dietz went facedown on her white sneakers. His gun clanked against the tile floor. One arm stretched out above his head, and he stopped moving.
Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy Page 19
