Fourteen
Granddaughter.
A ball of emotion swelled in my throat, hot and tight. My Grandfather. I memorized his face—skin that had been sun-kissed for many years, eyes and mouth framed with laugh lines, dark brown eyes warm with wisdom and love. I thumbed through my mental storage bin of images and found the one with him hugging my grandmother. The picture my fingers had picked up from Kulele. It was in vibrant color, almost like they were standing in front of me. They’d been younger in Kulele’s memory, their hair still dark and vibrant with life, but now I knew that it was definitely my grandfather who had his arm around Makani.
"There is not much time, Granddaughter—"
"There’s time. There has to be. We’ve just found each other, and…oh, I’m so sorry. Did you know that my mother and father were…that they were killed over ten years ago?" It hurt, having to tell him.
His fingers tightened around my hand. "Yes. I am Kahuna, as was your grandmother. We felt the loss of our daughter and our by-marriage son."
"It was hard when I lost them. And now Grandma. Today they—"
"Hush, keiki, my child. I know what they did today. Your grandmother is at peace. We both knew this day was approaching and had prepared for it. Now, close your eyes and sink deeply into the quiet, for I have things to show you."
Silence stretched between us as we sat with our hands joined. The images moving across my mind slowed and mellowed into a sepia slideshow. It didn’t take long for me to understand that Kahuna Aukele was showing me pictures of his life, his work, and his relationship with Makani Maliu.
"Your souls are bonded," I whispered. "Yours with my grandmother."
"Yes. That is true." He didn’t pull his hands back, but sat and let me absorb the images until my attention shifted to the present moment, to his warm skin, dry with age, and lined with time.
I don’t know how long we sat together, but when I finally looked up, Annie and Pierce stood on the stoop, noses almost touching the screen door.
"It would be best if your friends know of me only as your teacher in the practice of Huna."
His sentence was punctuated with a sharp rap on the door. Annie—her impatience defeating her super spy unflappability.
My grandfather crossed the distance to the door with deliberate steps, led them into his living space, and gestured toward me and the plush pillows scattered over the floor. "You are welcome here."
They sat. The energy in the room bristled, and a shiver rippled along my spine. "Kahuna Aukele, these are friends of mine, Annie Stone and Tynan Pierce. They’re helping me…"
He bowed toward each of them, Annie first. "You cannot find Makani Maliu’s secrets. They will only be revealed when the time and place are of her choosing."
"But she’s—"
He cut Annie off with a simple flick of his wrist, then turned away, ending any further discussion. "I will bring you lemonade."
Pierce was too still.
Annie reached for my hand. "Have you learned anything?"
"Only that I will be spending time with Kahuna Aukele." It wasn’t a lie, but the omission of truth tasted sour on my tongue.
My grandfather returned with two glasses of fresh lemonade, and handed them to Annie and Pierce. "It is not that you lack skill in tracking the knowledge you seek. It is that Makani is one with the islands."
I straightened my shoulders. "My coming here—"
Aukele cupped my cheek in his hand, and a peaceful warmth spread through me. "Has been long awaited," he said, finishing my sentence.
Pierce and Annie shared one of those I-know-exactly-what-you’re-thinking looks. And me? I had questions. "Was my grandmother murdered?"
"No. Her time was complete here. You will learn more as we study the Huna, but you must take great care. You know that danger surrounds you and is clouding the edges of your aura, but do you understand that whomever you trust is a choice that must come from your infinite connection to the earth, and not from your intellect?"
Tiny, itchy prickles of doubt crept over my skin. Was he warning me to beware of Pierce and Annie? Because they worked for the government? Friendship, secrets, family, and possible betrayal were not a comfortable combination.
My grandfather didn’t believe in making plans—mostly because he trusted completely that our meetings would happen when they should. I wasn’t that much of a believer and wanted to bring him with us to keep him safe.
Since I couldn’t drag him from his home, I bowed, and did my best to make one-sided plans. "I’ll be here tomorrow morning." I didn’t want to leave, so touched his arm—a barely-there tap of my fingers to prolong our time together. An image flashed on my internal monitor. A beach. Terror. Running, stumbling through the sand. I shuddered from the impact of the danger, but had no clue who was being threatened.
Grandfather nodded as though listening to an inner voice. "Care for yourself, kieki."
Was he warning me? No. He would have given me detailed information if he knew about a specific danger. The thing about getting a glimpse of an impending catastrophe without any facts—no who, what, when, or where—is that it's totally disconcerting.
"I’ll be here tomorrow morning, Kahuna Aukele, to see if it’s a good time, the right time, for us to begin my training." Why didn’t he have a phone? I wasn’t up to the Huna equivalent of smoke signals.
He shook his head, eyes sparkling with amusement at my attempt to make plans. I wanted to hug him, but it wasn’t something I could comfortably do in front of Annie and Pierce.
I still had so many questions, like why was my grandmother buried at the other house when he was living in this one? Did they live there when she was alive? Curiosity rules, so I would definitely be on his doorstep first thing in the morning.
On our way to the Jeep, I stopped at the foot of the road to my grandmother’s house. "Is it even legal to bury a body in the backyard?" The question popped out of my mouth, stopping Annie with one foot in the Jeep.
"Difficult to enforce here because there’s no one overseeing the situation. Also, native Hawaiians are granted special rights." Annie squeezed into the back seat, then leaned forward to brush her fingers over my hand. "We’ll see to it that Makani Maliu is returned to her resting place with as much respect as possible. You know that, don’t you?"
I shrugged. "Yeah, except that you can’t fix this. It’s kind of a done deal once you’ve disturbed the burial site. Why am I in the front seat this time?"
Annie lifted her shoulder in a half-shrug. "Feels right."
Exhausted from the myriad of emotions that had blasted through me in so few hours, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Sleep would be good, but there were too many unfinished thoughts swirling through my head, and I couldn’t afford to ignore whatever Annie and Pierce discussed.
"Okay, it’s decided." Annie’s voice startled me awake. Damn. I knew better than to lose consciousness around the two of them.
"What’s decided?" I stretched my neck, trying to get the kinks out from napping with my head in a crunched position.
"Pierce is dropping us at Ala Moana—"
"You want me to set the two of you loose in a shopping center?" Pierce’s words rang in my left ear, and his fingers gripped the steering wheel like he planned to kill it.
Annie tilted her head toward him, tucked her hair behind her left ear. "Probably the safest place we can take Everly. The dude with the designer bullets won’t want the side effects of a public kill. Besides, no one followed us from the North Shore. They’re looking for El to lead them to whatever clues or knowledge Makani left behind, and probably won't be canvasing shopping centers for the intel."
"Mall full of people. Abduction heaven." Pierce growled the words.
My stomach clenched. "I think Pierce is right. Not about the mall, but that they’re trying to abduct me, not kill me. I'm pretty sure they want…me. Probably to question me, ‘cause, you know, they could have easily killed me by now."
Pierce grunted. "Point."<
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"I think we all agree on that, and—" Annie—determination vibrating under her words.
I interrupted her. "It would be better if they killed me. People like this do really bad things to make their abductees talk. Right?" It was a rhetorical question. Seriously. I did not want verbal confirmation of my fears.
Pierce arched an eyebrow at me. "It’d be easier to protect you if you cooperated."
Annie leaned over the seat and flicked his arm with her fingers. "Surely you can handle a simple bodyguard assignment."
He didn’t say a word, just reached under the seat, slipped out her Kimber, and handed it to her. "One hour. I’ll handle the perimeter."
"We’re going shopping?" I couldn’t wrap my mind around the ordinariness of it. Annie’s wedding. Bride stuff. Dress. Shoes. I needed to cue in my supportive friend persona, and let my family situation brew behind the scenes. The queasiness in my gut, however, was there to stay.
Pierce growled. "Her head’s turned ass-backward with family shit. What the hell is wrong with you, A.J.?"
I was sort of with him on that. But normalcy had definite appeal, since it gave me the opportunity to hide from my private hell, and hopefully avoid spilling any family secrets.
Annie’s cheeks were flushed and her skin had an unnatural glow to it. "You’ve never heard of Bridezilla?"
Pierce shut up, parked close to the Nordstrom entrance, and then cornered us next to a huge pillar that marked the front door. His body vibrated with tension. "One hour, A.J. That’s it."
"Wait. I’m still a mess. I mean, the clean t-shirt helped, but this is a shopping trip for wedding stuff, right? Trying on designer clothes..."
"Yes," Annie said, the single word leaving no room for argument.
"One hour. I’ll meet you here." Pierce jabbed the keys toward the front door of the store.
"I already agreed to that." Annie poked him with her index finger. "Now, give me a minute here because something is way overdue."
She turned, grabbed my hand, and then Pierce’s. "You’ll stand up for me? Both of you?"
I bit down a grin. "Are you asking me to be your maid of honor, or were you thinking I should tuck a weapon in my garter?"
Pierce ran his free hand along the back of his neck and eyed my thighs.
Annie grinned at me. "Both, of course."
Pierce swallowed, audibly.
"Yeah, sure," he said, his voice gruff, choked. "Got your back. Not gonna stop after all these years."
He hadn’t moved his gaze away from my thighs, so I gave him my best keep-your-eyes-to-yourself glare, and then directed my complete attention to Annie. "I’ll always be there for you. You know that."
"We need to shop," Annie and I said in unison.
Pierce took each of us firmly by an arm and led through the door. "Stay out of trouble. I’ll be watching."
"I don’t know what he was thinking," I said, shivering in the delicious coolness of the mall air conditioning. "There’s no way we’ll get this done in an hour."
"Yeah, we will. Pierce is right. We shouldn’t stay in one place for any length of time, not until we find out who’s after that formula."
"Okay, then. Where to?" I asked.
"Under garments. I need sexy stuff." She hustled me into a boutique that specialized in French lingerie, then snatched a handful of lacy thong panties with matching bras, two sheer, silk teddies, and a diaphanous negligee. The woman knew how to shop.
"Okay, next we need to—" Annie handed me her shopping bags— "do wedding dresses."
I tucked the bags over my shoulder, grateful she had her hands free to do whatever kept me from being abducted, shot, or stabbed.
She grinned. "I have a feeling Pierce won’t take it well if we ask for a repeat Ala Moana experience."
"Probably not," I agreed. "Any idea what you want for a wedding dress?"
"Um-hm. Simple, spaghetti straps, slight flare from bodice to hem."
We fast-walked through several boutiques, and at Max Azria found perfect dresses for both of us. Annie chose a tea length gown in silk voile that clung to her curves. The pale, shimmery fabric looked like candlelight and was fantastic with her blond hair and mossy eyes.
My dress, a two-piece, pale cream, linen and silk blend with black appliqué down the front, was so soft to the touch I wanted to curl up in it. I’d always loved Max Azria clothes, but never had an occasion to purchase one of the dresses.
"We’re pretty amazing," Annie said, checking her watch. "We still have fifteen minutes in our allotted hour."
She pointed at a Tiffany sign across the arcade.
"You need to get a ring for Sean?" I asked, juggling the shopping bags full of our goodies.
"Nope. A gift for my maid of honor."
I shook my head at her. "Not necessary. And what about Pierce?"
"Pierce’s gift is being handmade…elsewhere. And I know exactly what I want for you. It’ll look perfect with your dress, so no arguing with the bride."
Annie cornered an Asian woman with delicate features and a genuine smile. "I’d like to see the Elsa Peretti round collection, please, Miki," Annie said, reading the clerk’s nametag and flashing her a smile.
Miki nodded with a slight bow and led us to a showcase on the other side of the store, then pointed out several disc-shaped pendants. They were awesome.
"That silver one with the black silk cord, the matching earrings and—" she looked at me. "What’s your ring size?"
"Seven," I muttered as I ran my finger along the cool edge of the silver disc resting on the felt pad in front of me.
The earrings and the ring had tiny diamonds set in the silver, and Annie was right, they’d look beautiful with my dress. We left with one of their signature aqua bags that held three Tiffany boxes neatly tied with white ribbon.
I couldn’t stop grinning—until Pierce met us with the Jeep engine running and a cold glare. We stashed our packages in the back seat, and were on our way in minutes.
Annie patted his thigh. "Everything is fine. No one approached us, there was no need to fire a weapon, and my wedding is under control." She slid the gun out of her waistband, and tucked it under his seat.
I yawned. Couldn’t stop it from escaping.
"Back to the Ma Kai for naps all around, then?" There was way too much energy in Annie’s voice.
My phone beeped with a text message. I glanced at it, thinking it was Mitch with information about his arrival date and time.
But, no.
The backlit letters glowed with menace.
Be at Sand Island. Seven tonight. Alone, or Kahuna Aukele disappears.
Fifteen
I’d have to ditch Annie and Pierce, steal the Jeep, and figure out how to get to Sand Island. No problem with any of those plans. Yeah, right. My stomach twisted with the impossibility of pulling off such a stupid series of moves. The sane thing to do: show Annie and Pierce the message and let them figure out how to deal with it.
But I hadn’t told them about my grandfather, and they worked for the government. Both factoids made me twitch. I trusted my friends. But governments were big, political, and I wasn’t going to put Aukele’s life in their clumsy, bureaucratic hands. Pierce and Annie might be the best, but they hadn’t been sharing everything they knew, and their boss scared the living hell out of me. Something was off, and slightly smelly about this whole setup.
As soon as I read the text, I’d ducked my head, knowing I couldn’t maintain any sort of inscrutable expression. I deliberately stretched my lips in a parody of a smile and stashed my cell in my pocket. If either of them was watching, I wanted it to look like the message was from Mitch. I chanced a glimpse at them from under my lashes. Their attention was on scanning the area for bad guys. Yes!
When her gaze swung back in my direction, Annie gave me a brief eyebrow arch, and Pierce blinked. Twice. Unnerving, but still, my inscrutability crisis had been averted.
I sighed. It made a nice segue into questioning them. "So, do the Powe
rs That Be have a theory about who’s trying to get this formula?" I asked. I wanted to ensure their attention remained on the situation and not the message sizzling on my cell.
Annie shrugged. "It’s a crap shoot. They emailed results from the ballistic tests while we were shopping—"
"And you didn’t tell me?" My shriek slammed into the air between us like a load of buckshot.
"Timing was off. Public place, lots of people, and now that we know this is private rather than political—"
"Not terrorists? You’re saying some lone, insane, power-crazy, tyrannical idiot is trying to get my mother’s formula?"
I turned to face Pierce, and surprise flicked up my spine. "You’re not sure, are you? You still think this could be some rabid government looking for world dominance?"
"I’m thinking it doesn’t matter who it is. Stakes are the same. Are you thinking it’s more dominance, or money riding the—" He grinned at me, then faced Annie— "insane, power-crazy, tyrannical idiot, a-k-a the Scuzzbutt?"
Annie shrugged. "The interrelationship between money and dominance is tight, but my research indicates this is personal. More like a vendetta against Loyria Gray. Everything centers on her and her discovery. Our Scuzzbutt obviously wants the formula for nefarious purposes since it can only cause harm, but surely whoever is behind this must know they’re being watched. Too closely for them to actually succeed in destroying much of anything."
I swirled Annie’s comments around in my mind. "The image I got from the bullet, have you tracked that guy down?"
"By rumor. Local dude. Hires out for wet work." Pierce sounded bored.
"You don’t think he’s a threat, then? Remember I had a distinct impression of emotionless killer from the bullet."
"He did his job. Scared you, and threw us off track." Pierce cracked his knuckles against the steering wheel.
"So you’re saying he’s a dead end." I turned to Annie. "And you’re saying the government would find an antidote and retaliate fast enough to stop them before too much hell broke loose, right?"
"Yes. People would die, but as soon as we have access to an infected human, we’d begin working on a cure."
a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure) Page 11
