a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure)

by Charles, L. j.

  What they’re saying…

  "A TOUCH OF ICE is a suspense-filled romance that will keep you up late turning the pages. Everly and Violet make perfect partners in their sleuthing, complementing one another perfectly. The romance between Mitch and Everly is sweet and blossoms into something spicy and wonderful. The mystery twists and turns, keeping this reader thoroughly entertained, trying to figure out the clues. Romantic suspense readers won't want to miss this one!"

  ~ Romance Junkies

  "A fun adventure with characters who sizzle."

  ~ Adrienne Giordano, author of the Private Protector series

  A TOUCH OF TNT…

  "The story exploded through the pages, keeping me enthralled with suspense, romance and humor until the very end when I breathed a deep, satisfied sigh...and went to find the other Everly Gray books."

  ~ Sally Berneathy, mystery writer

  A TOUCH OF THE PAST

  An Everly Gray Adventure

  Book 3

  L. j. Charles

  a TOUCH OF THE PAST

  Everly Gray’s past would have been laid to rest with her parents…if only she hadn’t opened an old letter and unleashed long-hidden secrets.

  Now everything she believes in, everything she trusts, is gone. Except her genetic link to the secrets of an ancient toxin—lethal, unless she finds the antidote.

  When those close to her are poisoned, and traditional medicine has run out of options, Everly’s one hope is to learn the magic of Hawaiian shamanism, and to accept her gifts as a Kahuna healer.

  Free fall. No parachute. Until she learns to trust in the strength of who she is, and in the universal power of love.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  A Touch of the Past

  ISBN: 9781467542678

  Copyright © 2012 by L. j. Charles

  Cover Design by Lucie Charles

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  For more information: lucie.charles@ymail.com

  For my critique partners, Adrienne and Rashda,

  with my gratitude

  Previously—

  "Hey, Belisama. About those numbers." Pierce’s rich brogue came over the phone line and sent a shiver up my spine.

  He knew something. And it wasn’t good. "What? Just tell me."

  "Chaos ensued. Don’t have the deets yet."

  "Huh? That letter was sitting around for ten years. How could the numbers possibly be of enough concern to you secret agent types to be chaotic?" Dread clenched in my belly.

  "There’s something else." Pierce’s words came out way too slow. I braced my hand on the kitchen table and sat.

  "What?"

  "You have a security clearance."

  "Not possible." Had his twisty mind flipped to all-out crazy?

  "Listen up. You don’t need to apply for anything."

  "What? Of course I do. They’ll want background checks. Probably psychological testing…" My voice faded into the fear of exposing my sense of touch to the government.

  "It's high level. Current." Impatience threaded through his words.

  "From the government?"

  "Yes."

  "The United States Government?"

  "Yes."

  "Not possible."

  "Saw it. You’ve had it for twenty-six years."

  "So all this time it would have been okay for me to know—"

  "Just about anything you wanted to know." He was grinning. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was grinning.

  "Something isn’t right. Can you send me a copy?" Maybe if I hold it in my hands, I’ll believe it.

  "No can do. And we didn’t have this conversation."

  The line went dead

  One

  I’d tumbled from the edge of my reality into the vast unknown of truth. Or maybe it was lies. All lies.

  I twisted in my seat and leaned close to the airplane window. Wind whipped over the silver wings, leaving a streaming trail of vapor that blended into the foggy gray of predawn. I squeezed my hands into fists, nails biting the soft flesh of my palms.

  It didn’t help. My fingers clung to old beliefs, and clawed for purchase in this new world of truth. But it was like I’d slipped off the edge of the Boeing seven-sixty-seven wingtip as surely as the letter in my pocket had ripped a hole in my childish beliefs.

  The envelope resting innocently under my fingertips was postmarked Waimea, Hawaii. The name on my ticket read Everly Gray, seat 3A, and the plane occupied airspace somewhere over the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

  I’d followed my curiosity. Again.

  Free fall. No parachute.

  Facts, testaments to the lie I’d been living tore at my sanity, and my mind spun, diving through the stratosphere with no direction. Truth held me suspended, a reluctant captive between the past and the present.

  Or maybe it was the lies that had caught me in their web.

  The envelope had turned soft with age, was beginning to yellow around the edges, and the postmark had faded to a long-ago memory. My ESP fingertips skimmed the surface of the paper, showing me what was inside almost as clearly as if my eyes were reading it. The exact words were fuzzy, but the loneliness in my grandmother’s soul when she wrote them matched the emptiness in my heart.

  The flap on the envelope had loosened, and with the slightest pressure from my finger the seal would break. I closed my eyes, and folded my hands in my lap. Not yet. Not quite yet.

  There’d been other correspondence. Information I’d successfully ignored in the ten years since my parents’ fatal accident. But nothing had interrupted my regularly scheduled life like this letter.

  Bottles clicked against metal, and the sound of the squeaky wheel on the beverage cart sliced through the hum of background noise. "Something to drink, Ms. Gray?"

  I opened my eyes and gazed straight into a pair of enhanced blue irises that were surrounded by heavy false lashes. There's nothing like colored contacts and purchased fringe to liven up a girl's bored stare.

  "Diet Coke with lemon, please."

  As the flight attendant handed me a cupful of ice and a can, a ray of sunlight escaped from the fuchsia and orange sunrise outside the airplane window and splashed over the surface of the tray table. I poured the soda, watching the fizz dance in the beam of light—bright motes of hopeful happiness.

  Maybe I was about to meet my only living relative.

  My attention wandered back to the envelope. I turned it over and slid my index finger under the flap, pulled my hand away, and took a swallow of soda. It slipped down my throat, leaving a cool trail all the way to my belly.

  The plane bounced, and my stomach didn't catch up until about a million feet later. I grabbed the envelope, crushing it slightly, holding on too tight. It was my lifeline and only connection to the truth. I slid my finger under the flap, nudging the edge until it separated from the envelope, then pushed it back so I could see the paper inside—thin and too fragile to be only ten years old.

  I jerked my hand back. Was I ready to accept the proof that my parents had kept her from me, had pretended she didn't exist?

  What had possessed me to head for the airport and take the first standby seat headed for Hawaii without telling anyone? Not Annie (my best friend and next door neighbor), not Detective Adam Stone (Annie’s brother and my sometimes boss-slash-mentor), and especially not Mitchell Hunt.<
br />
  I smiled. Mitch brought out the happy in me almost all the time, but for a while his work as a freelance photographer, mostly for the government, had interfered with our relationship. No. Truth: my fingertips had caused the problem. His work was confidential, and my ESP fingers didn't come with a censoring system.

  But we’d moved past that since we found out I had a security clearance. Well, mostly past it. Sometimes it still bothered him that I got pictures of where he'd been and what he'd been doing. Not that I could stop the images, but I'd learned to deliberately fade most of the input from my fingers so as not to trespass beyond anyone's personal boundaries, Mitch included. Unfortunately, I wasn't always successful.

  I couldn’t put if off any longer. I shot a glance at my seatmate—out cold, her sleep mask in place, so I tentatively brushed my fingers over the envelope. Images of an older woman flew across my mind like wisps of dry wind.

  My grandmother. But I’d known the letter was from her since I first touched the envelope and my fingertips had picked up an image that matched an early childhood memory.

  Her photograph had once sat on my mother’s dresser, but that had been almost thirty years ago. I must have been three or four years old at the time, because I couldn’t reach the picture. Not even on tiptoes. I couldn't remember when all the photographs disappeared, but last month, when I finally got around to sorting my parents’ things, there wasn't a single one left in the house. Not of my parents. Not of me. It gave me shivers.

  My seatmate snorted, bringing me back to the thin sheet of paper under my fingertips. A single fold still kept the writing from my view. Opening the letter, I flattened it against the tray table. Blurry writing, faded and brown filled the page.

  Aloha Kaikamahine,

  To have missed the birth of my mo’opuna wahine is of the deepest pain.

  I write this to fulfill my role as tutu. In our family, it is always the responsibility of the hulu kupuna to bestow the traditional name. It came as inoa po, a dream in the night.

  She will be known as ‘Eleu Niele. She is a child full of life and curiosity.

  I smile as I bestow the name Niele, for her nosiness will create a great deal of work for you, my kaikamahine.

  Pomaika’i to you, Leialoha, kaikamahine and to our new mo’opuna wahine.

  Aloha Ke Akua

  Makani, makuahine

  I read the letter again. And again. Not Everly. Eleu. I figured out that kaikamahine meant daughter, and mo’opuna wahine, translated to granddaughter. Even so, I would need to get a dictionary first thing when the plane landed. Learning my ancestral language held the number one spot on my to-do list, right next to getting a map.

  Makani. My grandmother.

  The vivid colors outside the airplane window had been replaced by too-bright sunlight and vast blue sky. I didn't want to shut out the light, so slipped on my sunglasses, and retreated back into my thoughts.

  I was Hawaiian. My grandmother was, no wait, is Hawaiian. I wouldn’t think of her as dead. Not when I’d just learned about her location. But the questions remained. Why wasn’t she around when I was born? Why hadn't my parents taken me to visit her? Why hadn't my mother ever talked about her? And they’d named me nosey. It was embarrassing that I’ve lived up to my name. Guess Grandma knew what she was doing.

  I carefully folded the letter and slid it back into my handbag along with my sunglasses. Closing my eyes, I drifted, setting my imagination free to visualize what it would be like to finally meet her.

  Next thing I knew, a static-y voice filled the plane. "We’ll be landing in approximately twenty minutes…" The announcement went on, but I tuned it out. Honolulu. My grandmother.

  Curiosity and excitement took over as I gathered my things. I’d never been to Hawaii, and looked forward to whatever paradise had to offer. But mostly meeting my grandmother. All I had to do was find appropriate accommodations, and then start searching.

  As soon as we reached the main terminal, I sidled into the closest airport shop, hoping the clerk could recommend a hotel. The scent of fresh flowers tickled my nose, distracting me. I spun around taking in the multitude of metal containers that were filled with incredible colors and exotic fragrances.

  I spotted the clerk. "These are amazing," I said, dropping my overnight bag and reaching for a handful of deep red anthurium, some ginger, a bird of paradise, and several varieties of orchids. Then I handed her the over-sized bouquet along with my credit card.

  "Can you recommend a good hotel?" I asked, watching her wrap the flowers in bright orange tissue paper.

  Her shoulders drooped, probably from a long day of standing behind the counter, but her dark eyes held a smile as she pointed to a display of courtesy telephones directly across the hall. "My favorite is the Halekulani. It means House Befitting Heaven, yah."

  Heaven. I could use a little help from that direction. "Sounds good to me. If there aren’t any rooms available, what would your second choice be?"

  She handed me the bouquet and my credit card, then touched a finger to her lips, pausing for a minute. "I think the Ma Kai. It’s recently been purchased by an exclusive chain and is very elegant, yah."

  I smiled my thanks, and crossed the walkway to check out the hotel advertisements. The air was soft, and the wind blew several strands of hair loose from my clip. They tickled my cheek, and I twitched my nose trying to scratch the resulting itch. This wind was going to be hell on my mop of dark red curls. Scrunchies would definitely be a necessity here. Or a braid.

  I balanced the bouquet in the crook of my arm and punched in the number for the Halekulani, requesting a room when the clerk answered.

  "Ms. Gray? Ms. Everly Gray?" The masculine voice on the end of the line held a distinct edge. "No. I’m sorry it doesn’t appear that we have a reservation for you."

  What the heck? "I know I don’t have a reservation. I’m calling to make one."

  "One moment, please." Silence hummed on the line, making me antsy. When the clerk came back, his tone was even more crisp. "I’m sorry, Ms. Gray, the Halekulani won’t be able to accommodate you."

  It was a strange choice of words, but I thanked him anyway, disconnected, and punched the button for the Ma Kai hotel. Success. And they were sending a limo for me. I hurried outside, a relative term since most of the airport was open-air, and waited in the shadow of a huge royal palm. So far, so good.

  Not more than twenty minutes passed before a white car with Ma Kai Suites printed on the side pulled to a stop at the curb. The driver jumped out to load my bag while I clutched the flowers, not willing to part with them for even a second.

  The ride to the Ma kai was short, and I was welcomed by a young woman who placed a fragrant lei around my neck—orchids and tuber roses—then checked me in. It was peaceful. Why hadn’t I visited Hawaii before? The airport and plane ride hadn’t been as bad as I'd expected. There were enough people that the images coming through my fingertips were hazy and had blended into a disconnected background hum.

  A spry gray-haired gentleman appeared at my elbow, nodding toward my overnight bag. "Your only luggage, Miss?"

  "Yes, thank you," I said, burying my nose in the bouquet. "I don’t need help with the flowers."

  The desk clerk shot me a grin. "Hold on a second and I’ll get a vase for you, Ms. Gray. Looks like you’ll need a fairly large one, yah."

  "Thanks." I smiled at him, catching a glimpse of myself in the teak-framed mirror along the far wall. The bouquet covered most of my face, leaving only a smattering of red curls visible behind the colorful display. It wasn’t that we didn’t have flowers in North Carolina. We did. But these were breathtaking.

  A few minutes later the clerk returned with a huge, red ceramic vase and handed it to the bellman. Grabbing my bag in his free hand, he escorted me to the elevator.

  It was a short ride to the second floor, and before I had time to take in the restaurant advertisements adorning the elevator walls, I was standing in my new temporary home.

  B
ellman tipped, and on his way, I placed the flowers in the vase, then spent a few minutes fidgeting with them. The color of the anthurium matched the red ceramic, and the overall effect against the white and beige décor of my room was stunning.

  I swung my arms wide, twirling around the room until I caught the view from my balcony. Seconds later I headed toward the slider, opened it, and dragged in a deep breath. Sea, warm air and…was that rain on the horizon? The sun had been shining so brightly at the airport, I'd had to dig out my sunglasses. I stepped outside, turned my face to the wind, and was drenched in a sudden downpour. The freshness washed over me as I toed off my shoes, the rain tickling the tops of my feet. My toes wouldn’t stop wiggling.

  Clothing clung uncomfortably to my skin, and after making sure the balcony provided sufficient privacy, I began to peel off the wet layers. Jacket first, then I inched the heavy jeans down my legs, and kicked the soggy off my feet. I stopped with my fingers on the buttons of my blouse. Probably time to go inside. Carrying my discarded clothing into the bathroom, I dumped it in the tub, then added my blouse to the soggy mess.

  My belly jewel sparkled in the light from the wall sconce. It’d become my good luck talisman, because I figured Tynan Pierce, had bestowed an Irish blessing on it before he slipped it into place.

  Grabbing a towel from the warming rack, I buried my face in the soft fabric, breathing in the scent of tropical fruit and fabric softener. Oh, yeah. I could get into living here. I bent my head and began towel-drying my hair dry as I strolled into the bedroom.

  An arm circled my chest in a tight grip and a heavy masculine hand covered my mouth, cutting off my scream. Panic clawed up my spine, and a rush of adrenaline propelled my arms and legs as I lashed out, getting tangled in the damp towel.