Hostile Desires

by Melissa Schroeder

  “And Charity said to text her when I finally hunted you down. Of course, Drew looked like he might drive out to your house to rescue you.”

  She smiled again. “He is such a nice man. I hope Cat doesn’t trample all over him.”

  “Why do you think Cat will trample on him?”

  She shrugged. “He’s very much in love with her. You know that. Hell, the entire office seems to know but Cat.”

  “I have a feeling that opposites do attract. Look at us.”

  Again she snorted. “You definitely have a point. I don’t think anyone would have put us together.”

  “Now, that’s just rude. And untrue. The entire office has a wager going.”

  “They had a wager on whether or not Drew slept with the bodies. They bet on anything.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, they do.”

  They sat in companionable silence for a few moments, as the water lapped against the rocks below. He had always thought it calming, but he didn’t realize how much it helped him through some of his worst moments.

  Dumfries returned and wiggled his big arse so he could sit down between the two of them. She slid her hand through his hair, as she continued to look out over the water.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked.

  She continued to pet Dumfries. “About what happened now or back then?”

  He shrugged, although he knew she wasn’t looking at him. “Any of it.”

  She thought about it, then said, “Not really.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She glanced at him, surprise lighting her eyes. “You’re not angry?”

  He shook his head. “Just know that if you ever want to, I’m here to listen.”

  Her shoulders relaxed, and her expression cleared a little more. “He never asked.”

  “Gerald?”

  She nodded, then looked out at the water again. Something caught Dumfries’ attention and he ran off. Graeme took advantage of the situation and scooted closer to Elle.

  “I’m not him. And you will learn that the team isn’t the group of wankers you worked with in London.”

  She glanced at him, then back out at the water.

  “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “I know you. They are worried about you, so maybe in a while, you can call them, and let them know everything is okay.”

  “I worry what they will think of me.” Her voice had shrunk again, and he hated it. Hated that she even had to worry about things like that.

  “They’ll love you as much as they did yesterday. These are good people.”

  She released a breath and nodded. “What made you so wise at such a young age?”

  He shrugged. “Easy. I love you even more today than I did yesterday, so I assume that they will too.”

  Everything seemed to still around her, as she turned her head toward him. The stunned look on her face made him smile. Good, because he was still stunned by the turn of events, and he wasn’t sure when he would recover.

  “You love me?”

  He nodded. “Especially when you sound like a very prissy school teacher like you do now. Kind of turns me on.”

  Her mouth opened twice before she snapped it shut and swallowed. “You do not.”

  “Get turned on by your prissy voice?” He nodded. “Yeah, I do. It’s an illness.”

  “Not that, even though you might need to talk to a therapist about that. You don’t love me.”

  “I do.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not a good bet, Graeme.”

  “Let me worry about the odds.”

  “What are you going to do if I can’t love you back? What if I crack?”

  “Crack? You?” He shook his head. “Woman, you are stronger than just about any woman I know, and I am including my mother. That is high praise.”

  “Coming from a mama’s boy like you, it is.”

  He chuckled. “I like a woman with a little bite. You’re just going to have to accept that I love you, Eleanora.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  Instead of arguing any more with her, he changed the subject.

  “Do you want to go to dinner somewhere?”

  She nodded. “But let’s sit here for awhile. It feels good.”

  He nodded and leaned closer to brush his mouth over hers.

  “Sounds good, Mo chridhe.”

  He laid back on the grass and enjoyed the cool trade winds, the salty scent of the ocean, and the woman beside him.

  * * *

  The next morning, Elle found Adam waiting for her outside TFH Headquarters. It was still early, and there were very few people around. She should have known he would be there. Adam wasn’t a man who shied away from adversity. It just wasn’t in his nature to avoid her, and that was what made him so good at his job.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, before she could say anything. He held out a coffee cup to her. “Peace offering.”

  She took it and sipped. Of course, he had the right amount of sugar and cream in it. The man knew everything about the TFH staff.

  Elle knew she could hold a grudge, but she couldn’t completely fault Adam. “It’s okay. Any other day, I would have handled it better.”

  “Still, it was insensitive. I should have chosen my words better.”

  “True.”

  He chuckled. “I do want to talk to you. I want to make sure I am doing enough to help Jin.”

  She sighed. “Let’s sit down.”

  They walked over to a bench and sat down. She liked the mornings in Hawaii. The air was so sweet, heavy with moisture, and it was quiet—even in Honolulu.

  “So, tell me what you have been doing?”

  He shrugged. “Just checking up on her. I try and stop by once a week, and I’ve gotten her to agree to text me.”

  All the anger from the day before had dissipated, but if it hadn’t, the anguish she heard in his voice would have dissolved all of it. She knew now, without the haze of pain and embarrassment from yesterday, that he truly wanted to help.

  “That’s good. And I know she’s been making it to group sessions. I don’t lead them right now. I took a couple months off since I knew I would be filling in for Dennis, as he and his wife were due now. I still keep up with her, call her every few days to check on her.”

  “Oh. Good,” he nodded and took a sip of his own coffee. He had his mirrored sunglasses on, so she couldn’t see his eyes.

  “Adam, there’s something else bothering you.”

  “I...never mind.”

  Then it hit her. “You feel guilty.”

  He glanced at her, then away. He nodded, once, almost imperceptibly. In fact, if she had not been staring right at him, she would have missed it.

  “It’s understandable. I assume you had a relationship with her before this?”

  “Way before. We went out a few times.”

  He didn’t continue.

  “More than casual?”

  “For me, I guess. Then, I found out she was using me for information, and I know how Del is about that. So, I broke it off before it really got started.”

  She heard something in his voice that made her study him even closer. Oh, he was in love with her. Damn, she hadn’t expected that. She knew about the friendship, but Elle hadn’t realized just how much he cared about her. It made her adore him even more.

  “First, it isn’t your fault.”

  “Bullshit. I knew she was going too far with her investigations. She was putting herself in danger.”

  “And she was a grown woman who was very independent. She had a job to do, and she was very ambitious.”

  “It was not her fault,” he almost growled from behind clenched teeth.

  What a wonderful man. She was so happy Jin had someone like this on her side. Elle had often worried about the woman who had no family and no visible emotional support. But with Adam, she had someone who cared so deeply he hurt.

  “If she had been walking down Ala Moana naked, it still wouldn’t be her
fault.”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry. I know you understand. I just hate hearing that shit.”

  “And, because of that, I’m going to give you a bit of advice, two bits, in fact.”

  He looked at her and waited. His hopeful expression made her smile.

  “First, let her be Jin, or at least the Jin she is meant to be. She is completely different, and she needs to find her way back to a place she can be comfortable with herself. There is no time limit.”

  “And the second bit?”

  “Keep checking on her. Normalcy is very important. She might not say it, but she mentioned your visits to me. She cares, but right now, she can’t deal with it. You’re going to have to accept she is not the woman you knew.”

  “I just want her happy again.”

  “That’s up to her. No one can make her happy until she deals with what she went through. But knowing she has you to call, that will mean more than you can even imagine.”

  He nodded.

  “And I guess things are good for you now?”

  She leaned back and sipped on her coffee before answering. “Yeah. They weren’t for a very long time. Add in that it was sensationalized in the press and it was horrific. My marriage fell apart and I lost my job. Thanks to my family, though, I had time to recover physically and emotionally. Now, everything is smashing—most of the time. It took me a long time to actually go on a date, and I have my moments…like yesterday.”

  “Tell McGregor I didn’t make you cry.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Yesterday, he told me I wasn’t allowed to make you cry. Actually, he shouted it.”

  “And the whole office heard it?”

  He nodded, a smile curving his lips. “Eleanora.”

  She closed her eyes, as her face warmed. “That goat. Then, what do you expect from a McGregor? Goats, every one of them.”

  “He’s hooked.”

  She opened her eyes and watched the man in question park his truck. He slipped out of it, then strode over in their direction.

  “Really, tell him I didn’t make you cry.”

  She glanced at him. “I will, because it was more about me working through something than anything else. Make sure you think before you say things from now on.”

  “I will,” he promised. “You’re going to save a dance for me at the wedding, right?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Everything okay?” Graeme asked.

  “Yes. I was just chatting with Adam. I have work to do, boys.”

  With that, she stood, kissed Graeme on the cheek. “Have fun hunting for your confidential informant.”

  Then, she walked into the building, feeling even lighter than she had the night before, and more centered. Today was going to be a good day.

  * * *

  Graeme watched Elle as she walked into the building, feeling completely enchanted. The fact that she had barely brushed her mouth on his cheek wasn’t important. It was that she did it without prompting.

  “And another one bites the dust,” Adam said, shaking his head.

  He glanced over at Adam with a smile. “Happily.”

  “What do you think she’s going to say about that?”

  Graeme knew that Adam was talking about Elle.

  “Told her, she said she wasn’t a good bet.” He shrugged. “She’ll come around.”

  “For your sake, I hope so. She is definitely a catch. What do you have on your agenda today?”

  “I have a list of people to question about the missing CI.”

  Adam nodded. “Want company?”

  “It might help. Elle said when I get irritated, most people can’t understand me.”

  “I understood you just fine yesterday.”

  Graeme chuckled. “See. Woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Let me check in and then I’ll be ready to go.”

  * * *

  Three hours later, Graeme was ready to shoot the next person who said they couldn’t remember the eighties. Sadly, he was pretty sure they couldn’t. The eighties had been bad for all of them, and none of them seemed to have done better in the interim. Most of them had long rap sheets littered with drug busts. When they said they didn’t remember the time period, it was because they had been too stoned.

  He pulled to a stop in a nice neighborhood in Aiea. He glanced around and realized that it was a middle class area, with neat yards and houses. That was a big improvement over the others they had already visited. Most of them had lived in apartments...some on the street. None of them had probably had a shower in weeks.

  “What’s this one’s name?” he asked Adam.

  “George Thompson.” Adam looked at the house. “Looks like George did better for himself.”

  They got out of the truck and walked up to the door. There was a ramp for a wheelchair.

  “Maybe he doesn’t live here anymore?” Graeme said.

  Adam shrugged and knocked on the door.

  “Just a sec,” a man called out. When the door opened, a Hawaiian man of about sixty sat in a wheelchair. He was a little pudgy, and he’d lost all but two strands of his hair on top of his head. But his eyes were clear, and his smile genuine.

  “Can I help you?”

  Adam glanced at Graeme. “I’m Officer McGregor from Task Force Hawaii. We’d like to ask you a few questions about your work as a CI in the eighties.”

  George’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, not sure if I can help you, but I’ll try. Come in.”

  He backed up and allowed them to enter. They stepped over the threshold, and Adam closed the door behind them.

  “That was a bad time in my life. I was strung out. I would do anything for a fix.”

  They followed him into the living room. The inside of the house matched the outside. Neat, except for a few magazine and books lying around, and definitely not the house of an addict.

  “What changed you?”

  “Love of a good woman,” he said, motioning to the picture of a woman. “My wife. She’s at work right now. Please have a seat. Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, thanks,” Adam said, as they both sat down.

  “What we want to ask you about is the Jenny Kalani killing,” Graeme said.

  “Yes. I saw that on the TV a couple days ago. I vaguely remember it.”

  “Do you remember anyone getting a gun around then? Anyone who said anything that might lead you to believe they had something to do with it?”

  He sighed. “Let me think. There was Frankie, but I think he ended up overdosing in the early nineties, or maybe he died of AIDS. A lot of my old friends did.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “There was another fellow. He was really tight with one of the cops in homicide, which was odd.”

  “Why?”

  “Yeah, the homicide cops used us, but most of us were tight with Vice cops, you know.

  “God, what was that idiot’s name? He was always bragging that he had some kind of cop in his pocket. Chester, that was it, but I don’t know if that was a first or last name.”

  “Are you sure?” Graeme asked.

  “Yes. He was a weasely little fellow. Such a bragger too. Thought he was smart, strutting around bragging about his link to a cop.”

  Adam had been busily reading over the names. “Chester Fung?” he asked.

  “If that was his name, then it was probably him. I just knew him by Chester. Had a big grin and an even bigger mouth. Heard he died in prison a few years later.”

  “But not before having a son, apparently,” McGregor mumbled. He shared a look with Adam. They both knew they needed more to go on, but Graeme had a feeling they had found the man they had been searching for.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Adam and Graeme had grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to the office to eat it. They both had a lot of work to clear up before the weekend. All of them knew they would be busy with the wedding, so both he and Adam had agreed it would better to eat at work. Graeme really wan
ted to talk over some of the stuff with Elle, but he knew she was busy today. She had a meeting with the DA that morning about the upcoming testimony she had to give. Just as he stepped into the conference area, his mobile rang her melody.

  “Hey, there,” he said.

  “Hey there, yourself. How’d it go this morning? Any joy?”

  “Looks like we have a lead.”

  “Brilliant. I’m going to be back in about an hour. I have another meeting here with the ADA about another upcoming case. His first murder trial, so I’m going to miss the afternoon meeting.”

  “Bollocks, I forgot about that.”

  She chuckled. “Don’t tell me you hate meetings?”

  “Any sane person hates them.”

  “True. I was calling to see if you wanted to share my room with me at the hotel.”

  “Your room?”

  Adam’s eyebrows rose up, but he didn’t say anything. Everything had gotten quiet in the conference room. Graeme turned around and realized everyone had gathered for the meeting, including Carino.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered, as he walked into his office and closed the door.

  “What’s wrong? You don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to.”

  “No, I wasn’t talking about that. Just office rubbish.”

  “Ah, okay.”

  “So, this room?” he said, setting his food container on his desk. Then, he closed the blinds to his office.

  “Yes,” she said. “I rented a suite at the hotel for Del’s wedding, and I thought you would like to stay with me. They don’t take dogs though.”

  “No worries,” he said with a smile. “I had arranged for Dumfries to stay at Mrs. Williams’ that night. I knew I would be gone too long for him to be alone.”

  “Oh, well, then, I guess that works. So, do you want to?”

  She sounded so unsure of herself. It hurt to hear the self-doubt. “Yes, Eleanora, I would love to stay with you.”

  “Great,” she said, relief easy to hear in her voice. “Oh, there’s the ADA. I’ll call you later. Cheers.”

  He clicked off his mobile, as Elle had already hung up. Graeme thought it was a good sign that Elle had invited him to stay with her. He was pretty sure he could have talked himself into her room, but it meant more that she had invited him to share her room. He grabbed his food and stepped into the conference area.