by Toby Neal
Wrong Turn
Paradise Crime Mysteries Prequel Novella 14
Toby Neal
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Sneak Peek
Author Note
Free Books
Toby’s Bookshelf
About the Author
Copyright Notice
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
© Toby Neal 2020
http://tobyneal.net
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.
Cover Design: Ebook Launch
Formatting: Jamie Davis
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
― Rumi
Chapter One
Aunty Rosario narrowed her eyes at her niece and adopted daughter, twenty-one-year-old Lei Texeira. “You’ll be careful? Mexico can be dangerous.”
“Too careful, like I always am,” Lei snorted, rolling a T-shirt neatly and tucking it into her duffle bag. “Glad I have Kelly to loosen me up.”
Rosario fussed with a row of bird nests atop the bureau. Lei had been collecting them on their nature walks since her aunt had brought her, at age nine after her mother died, to the little bungalow on D Street in San Rafael, California. “I wish you girls had a boyfriend with you.”
Lei turned to face her aunt, opening her mouth to challenge her guardian’s sexist comment—but Rosario’s cheeks were pale, and her brown eyes shadowed with worry. “Oh, Aunty.” Lei dropped the shirt into the bag. “We’ll be fine.” She walked over to give the short, plump woman a hug, resting her cheek on her aunt’s silver-streaked, curly hair. “Don’t worry. I’ll call you as soon as we reach the resort at Cabo San Lucas.”
Rosario wrapped her arms around Lei’s slender body, and squeezed. “It’s the first time you’ve left me since you came.”
Lei pulled back from her aunt. “Really?”
Rosario dropped her arms. “Really.”
“Then it’s past time I got on the road. I’m probably the only person my age who’s never been anywhere without her guardian.”
“Just—be careful.”
“Don’t forget—I’ve applied to the Hawaii police academy, Aunty. I’m going to be a cop. I can take care of myself, and Kelly too.” Lei resumed packing, reaching for her sensible one-piece swimsuit. “I’m more worried about leaving you here. This neighborhood has been going downhill.” A series of break-ins nearby had put them on high alert. “Those robbers don’t seem to care that people are home when they break in.”
“I can’t imagine anyone would break into this house.” Rosario flapped a hand dismissively. “I know everyone on my street, and everyone knows me because of the restaurant. Momi and Deke will be checking in on me, too.” Aunty Rosario ran a popular Hawaiian food restaurant nearby. Rosario’s business partner, Momi, and her husband were like extended family. Rosario looked at Lei. “But I do have an idea I think you’ll like, for when you get back.”
“Oh yeah?” Lei shoved a pair of jeans into the duffle and zipped it up. “If it’s something to keep me from moving to the Big Island, Aunty, I’m sorry but I’ve made up my mind. I need to return to—where it all began.”
“I know, Lei-girl.” Rosario straightened the bird nests one more time, and sighed. “I understand why. With your father in jail and your mother dead of the drugs—I know why you need to go back to Hawaii and be a part of making things better there. It’s good for you to go on a little vacation, have fun like girls your age do; I worry, that’s all.” She looked up and caught Lei’s eye. “But I thought of something that could help us when you get back.”
A car horn tooted from outside the house. “That’s Kelly!” Lei exclaimed. “I have to go, Aunty.” She grabbed the duffle and headed for the door.
Rosario stopped Lei, resting her hands on the young woman’s shoulders. “Don’t you want to hear my idea?”
“Of course, Aunty.” Lei made herself hold still, stifling her impatience. “Tell me.”
“I think we should get a dog. A police dog. People can adopt animals that didn’t make it through the K-9 training program.”
Lei frowned. “I don’t know. Sounds like a lot of responsibility. Let’s talk about it in ten days.” She kissed her aunt’s forehead. “Love you, Aunty! I’ll be back before you know it.”
Lei hurried out of the bedroom, down the hall and out the front door, waving to her pretty blonde friend waiting in the red Mustang convertible parked in front of the house. “All right, Kelly. Let’s get this party started!”
Chapter Two
Three days later, Lei pressed down on the accelerator, and the bright red convertible surged forward. Hot wind tossed her curly hair. Desert streamed by, populated by saguaro cactuses and tumbleweeds. Beside her, Kelly shrieked with glee at the speed, leaping up in her seat to throw her arms in the air. “Yeehaw!”
Lei flicked a glance at her friend, smiling. “You gotta lose that Texas speak.”
“Heck no! And y’all better know it!” Kelly sat back down. “How far to the resort?”
“Another hour or so.”
“This has been the perfect road trip.”
The girls had left the Bay Area three days before, tooling down Highway One along the Big Sur coast, spending a night in Pismo Beach and another in Los Angeles. They’d crossed the border into Mexico some hours ago.
“And we’re just getting to the real fun—the margaritas and cabana boys.” Lei throttled back, pulling in behind a jacked-up pickup filled with rooster cages. A couple of pit bulls lolled their tongues out the back, panting in the heat. Lei smiled at the sight. This Mexican scene could be straight out of her old neighborhood on the Big Island of Hawaii, where she’d grown up.
Kelly pulled slim tanned legs up onto the seat, propping open the glossy Cabo San Lucas brochure on her knees. “Five days and four nights of epic partying. I’m ready for the dancing and dating.”
“Me too,” Lei said, suppressing a quiver of doubt. Kelly had begged for them to go for a real vacation during spring break, after a heavy semester at their college. Lei was working on a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice and Kelly was completing a nursing degree. An unlikely pairing, the girls had hit it off in one of their first general ed classes. Kelly, from a wealthy Texas clan that had moved to California in her senior year of high school, had latched onto prickly, loner Lei—and somehow the friendship worked.
“I wish you didn’t have such an eyesore of a car, though,” Lei complained. “We could take out a billboard advertising what tourists we are. Seriously, we could always tell in Hawaii, whenever we saw one o
f these, that someone was ‘off the boat.’”
Lei was proud to be a local Hawaii girl: half Japanese, one-quarter Hawaiian, and one-quarter Portuguese. The mix of races had given her unique looks: curly brown hair, big, tilted eyes, freckled olive skin, and a lean runner’s build.
“Hey. I’m not ashamed of who I am,” Kelly said. “Got big hair and big boobs, too.” She bounced, illustrating her words. “I’ve never understood your need to blend in.”
“No act,” Lei said. “A saying we have in Hawaii. Means don’t get above yourself. Standing out isn’t a good thing. It can be dangerous, too, in a place like this.” Lei gestured to the barren landscape. Lei already knew too much about the many ways people could prey on each other. “Fortunately, we’re on a pretty major road.”
“But how are we going to get any action except by getting attention?” Kelly set the resort brochure back in the side pocket of the car’s door. “I’m looking for some fun. That’s why we’ve got separate rooms—I plan on some chandelier swinging and wall banging, and not by myself, either.”
Lei chuckled. “Thank God we have separate rooms, then.” She smiled at her friend, but that quiver tightened her belly again. She, too, hoped to meet someone nice and have fun—but she was way too messed up to just bring someone back to the room for sex. On the other hand, she didn’t want to be tied up in knots about it anymore, either. She was determined to get past the hang-ups that Charlie Kwon, her mother’s drug-dealing boyfriend, had given her through his abuse. “You fall down, girl, you get back up,” Aunty Rosario always said.
They reached a crossroads. Lei slowed to a stop under a blinking red light that dangled between a couple of poles. “Can you check the GPS? I think we keep going straight here, but we should see the ocean by now.”
“Sure.” Kelly set down the bottle of tanning lotion she’d been applying to her shoulders and picked up her phone. “Shoot. We lost signal when we crossed the border, but I brought a map. Pull over so I can look at it.”
Lei eased the Mustang onto the soft, sandy shoulder as Kelly unfolded the map. She stayed alert, watching the other cars and trucks approach and move on. Most of the traffic treated the red light as a mere suggestion. A pickup full of young men wolf-whistled and called out compliments in Spanish, along with crude hand gestures.
“Hurry up, Kelly!” Lei slid down out of sight in her seat, getting more nervous by the minute at their vulnerable position.
“It’s another thirty miles, and we need to make a right here.” Kelly folded the map at last. “Good thing we stopped.”
Lei pressed the gas pedal and hit the signal for a left turn back onto the asphalt—but when she accelerated, the rear-wheel drive of the sports car lost traction in the sand. She increased the gas, but the tires just spun, spraying sand behind the vehicle. Lei turned the wheel back and forth, seeking purchase with the front tires, but instead they seemed to be working themselves deeper.
“Shinola!” Kelly exclaimed, not one for swearing. A large, battered Ford truck pulled up in front of them with a winch on the rear bumper. “Hey. Maybe they’re stopping to help us.”
Chapter Three
Two Hispanic men with lots of tattoos got out of the Ford. Lei stopped the useless spinning of the tires and sat, hands clenched on the wheel, teeth gritted, as Kelly smiled and waved. They ignored scowling Lei and smiled at Kelly.
“Hola!” Kelly chirped. “Habla inglés?”
“Un poco.” The first man reached them. “We help you.” Long hair touched his shoulders, and a silver chain the width of a finger dangled across a chest he was clearly proud of as he flexed for them in a thin white undershirt. He leaned an arm on the frame of the windshield and gazed down at Kelly admiringly. “What’s your name, chica?”
The other man approached Lei’s side. Short, with a shaved, shiny head, thick neck, and the broad shoulders of a wrestler, he reminded Lei of a Hispanic Vin Diesel. Probably someone’s nice dad or uncle, here to give aid, she hoped—but the expression in the man’s dark eyes was speculative rather than friendly as they ran over her, the car, and Kelly.
Lei glanced around for anyone else noticing what was going on. Traffic continued to whiz by without slowing.
“We pull you out, no problemo,” Silver Chain told Kelly. “Me Joao. This Fernando.” He gestured to the bald man.
“Gracias, Joao! Me llamo Kelly. And this is Lei.” Kelly’s limited Spanish failed as she gestured.
“Hola.” Lei inclined her head stiffly, inhaling a strong waft of unwashed armpit from Joao’s direction.
The bald man named Fernando returned to the truck and fiddled with the winch on the back, unspooling a length of cable connected to a heavy steel hook. Lei craned her neck to see what he was doing as he flattened out in the sand and reached under the front bumper with the hook. She heard a clunking sound as he got the hook secured.
Fernando stood up and dusted sand off his hands. His eyes gleamed, and he smiled for the first time. She felt his gaze on her like a touch, and the back of her neck prickled with alarm.
“No,” Lei said loudly. “Unhook that winch right now. We don’t want your help. No ayuda!” Lei had brought the Glock she’d bought and was learning to use for when she began her job as a police officer. She had a knife too, but both were sensibly locked in a case in the glove box.
“We do want help,” Kelly argued. “It’ll take them two seconds to pull us out, Lei!”
Joao continued to grin, and Fernando winked at Lei without responding to her words. He got back into the truck and turned it on with a roar.
“Put it in neutral,” he yelled out the window to Lei. She did, surprised at his easy English.
“I ride with you chicas.” Joao jumped with unnerving speed into the back seat, not bothering with the door. “Where we go?”
“We’re going to Cabo.” Kelly scrunched her brows. “But no need for you to ride with us. Go back to your truck, please.”
Lei wanted to get her weapon; but to do that she had to turn off the car and use the key to unlock the glove box, not to mention getting the Glock out of its case, all of which would alert Joao to her intentions.
Joao just grinned and settled himself. He spread thick, ripped arms out along the convertible’s rear seat, tipping back his head in exaggerated enjoyment.
Kelly glanced at Lei with worry in her wide blue eyes.
The truck, clearly already in four-wheel drive, bit into the sand and lurched forward. The cable tightened, jerking the Mustang and throwing the girls into each other. Joao leaned forward between the seats. Beery breath fanned Lei’s cheek. “Fun, no?”
The truck accelerated against the pull of the trapped car, belching gas fumes as it got its tires onto the pavement. A moment later, it hauled the Mustang easily out of the sand. Fernando eased the truck forward slowly as Lei steered the convertible onto the road.
“Gracias,” Kelly said to Joao with a big, fake smile. “Now you go back to your truck. Thank you.” She dug in her pretty red clutch purse. “I’ll get you something for your trouble.”
Fernando wasn’t stopping now that he’d got them up onto the pavement.
Instead, the truck sped up. The Mustang surged forward, and Lei tightened her hands on the steering wheel. “Oh, shit.”
Joao leaned forward between the seats, ogling Kelly’s abundant cleavage. “You chicas like party? We go party.”
“No. We have somewhere to be, and people expecting us,” Lei said. They had to get away from these guys.
Lei engaged the Mustang’s engine, putting the vehicle in gear, and braked.
The cable connecting the vehicles hummed. The Mustang fishtailed, its bumper knocking back and forth against the truck’s much sturdier rear end. Kelly screamed, grabbing the dash.
Joao, tossed around in back, reached forward and grabbed Lei’s hair, pulling her head back as a large Buck knife appeared in his hand. She felt the chill of the blade against her neck.
“Car in neutral,” he growled. “Foo
t off the brake.” The tip of the knife broke Lei’s skin, and the heat of blood warmed her clammy neck.
“Oh my god!” Kelly screamed. “Stop it, you’re hurting her!”
Lei needed to buy time to get to her weapons; she couldn’t take a chance on getting her throat slit right now. She slid the gearshift down, moving the Mustang back into neutral, and took her foot off the brake. The convertible straightened out obediently. The desert flashed by in a blur.
“Give me your phones.”
“No!” Kelly exclaimed. Joao nicked Lei’s ear with the knife. Lei shut her eyes at the sting; more blood spattered her bare shoulder. “Okay, okay!”
“Your friend’s, too.”
Kelly handed Joao her phone, then took Lei’s off the console. Joao tossed both phones over his shoulder; they were moving too fast to hear their lifeline to help crunching into oblivion on the highway behind the speeding car.
Chapter Four
“No hands on the wheel,” Joao said. Lei let go. “Blondie. Tie her hands.” Kelly grimaced as he poked Lei’s neck again, threatening. “Tie her hands, bitch.”
“No, I won’t. I don’t have anything . . .”
Joao gestured impatiently to the leather belt studded with silver conchas threaded through Kelly’s denim shorts. Kelly pulled the belt off and wound it around Lei’s hands, buckling the leather tight in a crude restraint. “I’m sorry,” Kelly said. “You were right. We should have got out and ran.”
