by Toby Neal
“Oh, Marcella! Gorgeous!” Lei admired the channel-set diamond. “So glad you decided to go for it. Doesn’t get any more perfect than you and Marcus.”
“Yeah, it does. You and Stevens.” Marcella looked at Lei. “You guys are so beautiful together. Building a family despite everything.”
Lei brought her hand up to cover her mouth, her eyes filling as she looked at her friend. “You have no idea how hard it’s been lately. It’s like we made it through the wedding, and then a shitstorm broke. It’s been non-stop ever since. I don’t know if we’re going to make it.”
“You’ll get through it. You’ve been through so much already. I don’t know if I’d have the courage to take a chance on Marcus if I didn’t see it working with you guys. Some risks are worth taking.”
Some risks are worth taking.
“Maybe you’re right. Since you’re diving in, why don’t I show you how to change a diaper?” As Marcella laughed, Lei suddenly knew Marcella was right—and so was Pono. Some risks were worth taking, and she was going to be okay.
Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or in a month, but she was going to be okay.
Chapter 25
“Some cops want to talk to you,” the correctional officer said, interrupting the Fireman’s hand of cards with Pork Chop, a tatted-up meth dealer who wouldn’t take no for an answer on playing. The Fireman folded his hand and stood up, relieved. He already owed Pork Chop more than he ever expected to be able to pay back.
“See you when you get back,” Pork Chop said, with that look he had, as if you’d taste good and he might take a bite.
The Fireman hunched his shoulders, wishing he’d died when he tried to kill himself in the hospital. Instead, he’d woken up to a white light—not the white light of heaven, but the brilliant lamps of a surgery unit.
He’d lived, recovered, and gone to jail to await his trial, unable to make the high bail that had been set due to indications of flight risk. The month he’d been in Maui County Correctional Center felt like an eternity.
He followed the officer down the hall and out through a couple of sally ports to the open visiting area. MCCC wasn’t high security, so he wasn’t handcuffed as he followed the guard to sit at a small, round table. Other inmates were visiting families in the group setting, but so far, these two cops were his only visitors since he’d been in.
It reminded him again how alone he was.
He sat down and raised his eyes to the woman cop—and stood back up again, terrified.
It was the woman from the house he’d burned. She was even prettier in person than on the video, with curly hair, a slender build, and big, sad brown eyes.
“Please sit down and talk with us,” she said.
“We just want some information.” The tall man had crystal-blue eyes that contrasted with dark brown hair and a ruggedly handsome face. The grainy black and white surveillance video hadn’t done either of them justice. “We know you’ve already been interviewed several times. We just have a few more questions for you.”
The Fireman sat down cautiously. “They’ve charged me with attempted murder of a police officer, among other things. I swear, I didn’t know you were cops.”
“Let’s back up a minute and introduce ourselves. I’m Lieutenant Michael Stevens. This is Sergeant Leilani Texeira. We’re not talking to you as part of the investigation, and we don’t mean you any harm.”
“You should mean me harm,” the Fireman said. “I burned your house.”
“Did a good job of it, too,” Stevens said. “Our dog and I barely got out alive.”
“I didn’t mean for it to be such a close shave. I left the kitchen door open so you could get out. I’m an arsonist—I admit it—but I’m no murderer.”
“Got a John Doe body in the morgue that disagrees with that,” Stevens said. His steady, piercing gaze felt like a laser to the Fireman.
“That was an accident.”
“Things happen that you don’t mean when playing with something as dangerous as fire,” Texeira said. “So you’re not a murderer, but you set a really deadly fire in our house, and from what we can tell of your MO, it was the first time you ever burned a house.”
“Yeah. I was being blackmailed.” The Fireman struggled for a moment with his conscience, then said, “I was paid, too. Paid and blackmailed.”
“So someone found out you were doing the cane fires and paid you to burn the house?”
“Yes. And made it clear that if I didn’t, they were going to turn me in. They offered me a five-thousand-dollar bonus for any fatalities. I told this to the other cops who interviewed me. I decided to try to get the money but not kill anyone. Keep the blackmailer off my back. But…after the fire, he contacted me again. Wanted me to find a way to burn you in the cottage.” The Fireman looked down at his hands. “I’d found out you were cops on the news. Knew I was in deep and it was only going to get deeper. So I tried to run.”
“And then I came to the door, and you had a heart attack,” Stevens said.
“Yeah.”
A pause.
“Can you tell us anything about the blackmailer?”
“He had a lot of surveillance video on you and your family.”
The cops looked at each other. The Fireman could tell they hadn’t known this. “What else?” Stevens asked.
“He had plenty of money. Contacted me on a phone with texts, delivered stuff he wanted me to use, like the tranq gun, via UPS. He was watching me. I thought it was through the window at first, but now I think he had my apartment wired, too. So he knows technology.”
“That’s how they’re going to prove the case against you in court,” Stevens said. “Your online footprint on the forums. On your computer.”
The Fireman shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’m in here, where I deserve to be.”
“I want to thank you for not trapping my husband and family in the house,” Texeira said. “You could have. So easily.”
The Fireman gazed into her sad eyes and felt his own fill.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “And I’m sorry about that man that died in the cane field. Sorry for all of it.”
Stevens and the woman stood up. “Thanks. That helps,” Stevens said. Texeira nodded, and they both shook his hand before they left.
Stevens slung an arm around Lei as they exited Maui County Correctional and walked to his Bronco. “Interesting. We were seriously surveilled by someone familiar with technology. That still points back to Terence Chang.”
“I don’t think it’s him. Really. I think it was Anela and Ray.” Lei paused at the vehicle as he beeped it open.
“Well, I’m glad we went and talked to him. The team that replaced me on the case hasn’t kept me up to speed at all.” Stevens got in on his side and Lei on hers. He slammed the door and fired up the truck. “It’s going to be interesting to go to Ray’s trial.”
“You know the shroud killer thing isn’t coming up at all during that,” Lei said. “Other than the one shroud in the back of his truck, there’s nothing tying him to us at all. He said Anela was the one.”
Stevens was glad they were finally having a chance to talk the situation over. In the month following Lei’s miscarriage, the days had been filled with cleaning the property, haggling with the insurance company, and periodic interviews with IA and the investigators on the various cases. Stevens had returned to his station, as had Lei after two weeks of medical leave.
“Why do you think Anela was taking us into the Ni`ihau hills?” Stevens asked her. They’d been asked this by Furukawa and others but hadn’t compared answers.
“I think she was just as involved with the shroud thing as Ray. His testimony at first was just trying to deflect, to get attention off her. He was hoping she’d escape.
“So then she found out from someon
e what flight we were on and took the initiative to have us land on Ni`ihau, where she had connections. Those men owed the Changs gambling debts, according to their statements.”
“If you hadn’t knocked her out with that oxygen tank, I’m pretty sure she’d have rendezvoused with her honchos and disappeared from us permanently. Probably would have taken the plane alone somewhere and disappeared from there.”
“Exactly what I thought. Good thing we had so many witnesses on how it all went down.” Stevens rubbed the tiny heart tattoo of lei on his inner arm. “The defense is going to try to paint us as the aggressors.”
Lei slanted a glance at him, a sparkle in her eyes he hadn’t seen in a month. “I think you were pretty aggressive with that canister. Makes me a little weak in the knees thinking about it.”
“Oh yeah?” The blood seemed to rush from his head down to a neglected part of him that missed his wife very much. He’d left her alone after the miscarriage, just holding her at night through one or the other of their nightmares. Dr. Wilson had come and done trauma debriefing with them, but there was no quick fix for their losses and grief.
He’d resolved to be patient and wait until she was ready to be with him again. However long it takes. She’d never know how hard it was to keep his hands off her night after night.
“Yeah. You were my hero that day.” She smiled, slow and sweet.
“You know what, Lei? I’ve thought long and hard about what you did on the Big Island and how you did it. And while I’ll always wish you’d told me and we’d tackled it together, you were right to take initiative. The Changs were just going to keep coming after us until we were dead. Thinking of Anchara, how vulnerable she was pregnant—I couldn’t have handled it if it had been you and our child.” Stevens cleared his throat. It had been hard to find the right time to say these words, but he’d needed to for a while.
She twined her fingers with his. “I’ve been hoping you’d forgive me for the Chang thing. But I can’t forgive myself for losing Baby.”
“It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Like the doctor said, sometimes these things just happen. Now, we have a house to build. And I for one am glad we’re going with cement block this time around.”
The next day Lei put the finishing touches on the tent she’d set up a good long way across their yard from the cottage, tucking it behind one of the mango trees out of view. She’d bought the tent on the sly, blown up an air mattress, and purchased beautiful new linens she’d washed ahead of time. She’d put a silky carpet down and hung tiny, golden, battery-operated Christmas lights inside, creating a cozy, romantic getaway—which was what she felt like they needed to be intimate again, with the close quarters they kept with Wayne and Kiet.
A dozen times in the last week she’d almost reached for Stevens, feeling a growing hunger for him—but she’d held back, feeling constraint. Kiet woke easily, and Wayne being right on the other side of their thin wall didn’t help an increasing worry that they’d lost their connection, their passion. That inhibition kept her on her side of the bed.
Stevens, other than tenderly holding her when she cried, or letting her hug him during a nightmare, kept his back turned and gave no sign he wanted anything more.
She looked out the entrance of the tent toward the new foundation and the beehive of workmen putting up the cement-block construction in record time. Half the men out there were off-duty friends, refusing to accept payment for their work. They couldn’t have rebuilt the house otherwise, as the insurance money had barely covered contractor and material costs.
Lei savored the feeling of gratitude she’d been able to feel again, as the intense grief of losing Baby receded and her body recovered. They had much to be grateful for, even if uncertainties like the IA investigation remained.
Wayne and Kiet had gone to spend the evening at a friend’s, so she took a shower and dressed in a silky black robe with nothing on underneath. She was preparing a simple dinner when Stevens drove up. He walked up the steps, running a hand through his hair, and those blue eyes widened at the sight of her. He gazed at her short, silky robe, and her cheeks heated.
“Where’s Wayne?”
“Out for the evening. It’s just us. Why don’t you shower? Dinner will be ready by the time you’re out.” Lei sipped from a glass of Chardonnay and eyed him flirtatiously over the rim.
“Don’t mind if I do.” He moved with alacrity into the bathroom, and she smiled, setting the table. She’d made her favorite old standby, teriyaki chicken and rice, and she was seated when he came out, wearing a soft old pair of jeans, nothing else, and toweling his hair.
Lei admired the contours of his chest. Work on the house had hardened and chiseled him further, and it showed in the spread of his shoulders, the narrow V of his abs disappearing into the jeans.
She felt a tingle, looking at him. She’d decided it was time, but she hadn’t felt a tingle like that since before.
Things were divided into ‘before’ Baby and ‘after.’ She wondered if they always would be. She poured him wine, and he sat down and raised his glass.
“I was thinking about our conversation the other day. You said I was your hero. Well, Lei, you’re my hero.” Stevens extended his glass to clink with hers. “To heroes.”
They drank.
Lei felt time slowing down. Each moment intensified, all her senses sharpening as she let herself become attuned to him again. The wine was both cool and heating in her mouth, and she felt the movement of her throat to swallow. Light shone on the sprinkling of hair on his chest, gilded the length of his fingers. She smelled the scent of him, soap and man and uniquely hers. Those blue eyes she loved intensified as he gazed at her, unblinking, from under dark brows.
Her hand trembled as she tried to cut her chicken. “I’m scared,” she whispered.
“My Lei? Scared?” He took her utensils out of her hands and set them down. Held her cold hands in his warm ones. “Of me?”
“No. Of…loving again. I feel like I’ve forgotten how.”
He took her hand, drew her up against him as he stood. “I’ve heard it’s kind of like riding a bike.”
They abandoned the dinner, and she kept hold of his hand and led him out the front door, down the steps through velvety-warm darkness, across the lawn, and around the scarred area where their new house rose, and to the mango tree.
The lights were aglow inside the tent.
“This is…perfect,” he said. The tent, lit from within like it was garlanded with fireflies, was a jewel-like setting for the inviting bed. Stevens unzipped the door and held the screen aside for her.
Lei passed close as she entered. She saw the hairs on his arm rise as she brushed him. She felt her nipples tighten in response. The electricity between them seemed to crackle in the air. Still, Lei felt shy, uncertain, fumbling with her hands, pushing them into her pockets, and clumsy in her body.
She sat down on the air mattress and turned toward him, her arms around her knees. He knelt in front of her. “Relax. There’s no hurry. There’s no one here but us. We can take all the time we want. We don’t have to do anything but kiss if you don’t want to.”
“I know. I’ve gotten so used to having Kiet close, it feels strange being without him,” Lei whispered. “I just feel shy.” She reached out and traced his face, her hand sliding down his cheek over the slight stubble there, along the hard line of his jaw. Her fingers brushed his lips, and they felt warm and supple.
He caught her hand in his and kissed her fingertips, drawing the pads of her fingers into his mouth. His tongue darted out to touch them, igniting tiny shocks of sensation that rippled through her body.
Lei felt her breath speed up, and she wanted to be closer to him. She opened her knees and slid forward so that her thighs clasped the rough fabric of his jeans as her silk-clad body pressed against his shirtless chest.
/> Their mouths touched, fused. Passion rose as they kissed. Their hands wandered and stroked. Touched. Traced and explored.
Smoothed and discovered.
Reknowing.
Rediscovering.
Rekindling.
He groaned. “I know I told you there’s no hurry…but it’s been so long. I might embarrass myself.”
“That’s okay,” she whispered. “I want you. I need you.”
Her arms circled him and drew him down and in, and it was breathless pleasure and the deepest love, the kind only those who’ve been burned can know.
Acknowledgments
Dear Readers:
I can’t thank you enough for being the encouraging cheer squad you are! Those of you who follow me on Facebook were particularly helpful as I neared the end of this latest roller-coaster ride and felt…well, kind of like how Lei and Stevens must feel—exhausted, flat, worn-out from all the battles.
I know I can’t leave Lei and Stevens there, or hang out there for long myself, so it’s on to the next one. You guys were so great helping me generate new ideas for titles! So next up is Rip Tides, Lei Crime #9, coming out in January 2015. This will be dealing with a subculture of Hawaii I’m particularly fond of: the surf scene.
I want to thank my awesome expert consultants: Captain David Spicer (Ret), who keeps Lei’s police work semi-accurate. Deputy fire chief and fire marshal, San Jose Fire Department (Ret), David Schoonover, was a huge help, sitting me down for a fascinating tutorial on arson investigation and the psychology of arson. He sent tons of articles, too, and read the manuscript for errors! Any flubs that remain are my fault entirely.
I also thank Paul Haake, captain, Fire Prevention Bureau, Department of Fire and Public Safety for Maui County, for promptly and courteously responding to my inquiries about police and arson investigation procedure in Hawaii. Arson and fire science were a completely new area for me, and while I’ve been following the arson cane fires that happen periodically here on Maui and wondering about them, his information about how investigation is done was invaluable.
