Wrong Turn (Paradise Crime Mysteries Book 14)
Page 10
Lei approached the woman. “Are you looking for me? I’m Lei Texeira.”
The woman’s square tan face, framed by curly black hair scraped into a bun, broke into a smile. Lei felt a sense of familiarity.
“Lei!” The woman reached up to where a fresh plumeria garland encircled her neck. She lifted the lei off her head to drop it over Lei’s curly hair. “Your aunty let me know you were arriving today, and I wanted to greet you properly. I’m your cousin Karen Texeira.” She enfolded Lei in a hug that crushed both sets of flowers around Lei’s neck, surrounding them in tropical fragrance. “Rosario thought it would be fun to surprise you.”
“I’m so glad!” Lei smiled as she stepped back. “Great to meet you, Cuz! You must be related to Aunty Rosario and my dad.”
“Yes. Your grandma was my aunty. I’m a bit older than you, but your cousin nonetheless.” Karen gestured, and led Lei towards a battered green Ford truck parked at the curb. “The family’d be honored if you’d come and have dinner with us, spend the night if you like. You’ll get to meet some of your relatives.”
“I’m happy to. I was going to have to take a taxi to a hotel for the night. This is so much better!” Lei got into the vehicle’s cab after loading her bags into the truck’s bed. “Maybe you can help me find a place to rent for me and my dog. Keiki’s coming over in a few months, but I’m starting my police officer training on Monday, and I need to get a place ASAP.”
“Not a problem,” Karen said, as she started up the truck. “Your aunty told me your situation. The family knows plenty of people in Hilo and we’ve got some leads already. Consider this your hometown.”
Lei smiled at her newfound cousin gratefully. “I already do.”
Turn the page for a sneak peek of Shark Cove, Paradise Crime Mysteries Book 15.
Sneak Peek
Shark Cove, Paradise Crime Mysteries Book 15
Lei
Someone was stealing teen girls off the streets of Maui; Lei and her team had to stop them.
Sergeant Leilani Texeira pushed through glass doors into the large, familiar Kahului police department station building. Usually, she headed straight for the elevator to the third floor, where she and her partner Pono Kaihale were lucky enough to have an office on the same quiet floor as her husband, Lt. Michael Stevens. But today, she had to stop by a cubicle to drop off the file she’d just reviewed, sharing an urgent case of teen disappearance with Gerry Bunuelos and his partner, Abe Torufu.
Lei headed onto the large, open ‘bullpen’ floor where Maui’s detectives worked on everything from vice to homicide in a maze of modular cubicles. Bunuelos was in his office with Torufu, and Lei paused in the doorway; she always enjoyed the sight of the mismatched pair together. Gerry was a little over five foot and a hundred and fifty pounds of wiry Filipino; he couldn’t have been more different than massive Tongan Abe Torufu, who topped six and a half feet of solid muscle.
Her two friends were engaged in conversation with a tall, slender, dark-haired woman who leaned against their desk with casual grace.
A visceral sense of recognition hit Lei in the gut as she looked at the unknown detective, but when the woman turned to face her, Lei couldn’t place her. “Sorry for interrupting,” Lei said. “I can come back later, if this is a bad time.”
Bunuelos stood up quickly. “No, we were just finishing up. Don’t believe you’ve met our newest detective, Harry Clark.”
“Sergeant Lei Texeira, Homicide.” Lei shook the woman’s hand. Clark’s grip was cool and strong. Her honey-brown eyes and angular face still seemed familiar. “Have we worked on a case together?”
Clark winked an eye. “As a matter of fact, we have, Lei. About sixteen years ago.”
Lei stepped back, her brows snapping together. “Harriet Vierra? That Harry?”
“The very same.”
Lei swallowed as her throat went dry. She had a history with this woman—a history that came back in traumatic memories now and again, the stuff of nightmares and bogeymen under the bed.
Her mind buzzed with questions, none of which she could ask in front of their eager audience.
Torufu was the first to break the awkward silence. “Sixteen years ago . . . that would put you both at about legal drinking age. I wouldn’t have minded seeing you two hotties back then,” he said with a chuckle.
“I’d love to hear that story!” Bunuelos chimed in.
Harry grinned. “A girl’s got to keep some secrets, right, Lei?”
“Right.” Lei felt wobbly, ambushed, a little bit terrified. “We’ll have to catch up some time,” she said woodenly.
“Yep, but now is not the time, nor this the place. See you around the office!” Harry sashayed off.
Lei turned to stare after her, watching the brunette enter one of the cubicles on the other side of the room. “She’s working in vice?” Lei’s voice cracked; damn, she wasn’t smooth, and that wasn’t improving with time.
“She’s applying for Homicide; came to pick our brains about it. Harry transferred here from Oahu about a year ago; she’s got a good reputation.” One of Gerry’s eyebrows quirked up in question. “Spill the beans, Texeira. Did you ladies party together back in the day?”
Best to fend off more questions with a version of the truth, rather than stoke her partners’ curiosity with secretiveness.
“As a matter of fact, we did,” Lei said. “One unforgettable night down in Mexico. But I haven’t seen Harry since, and I’m surprised to see her now. Anyway, I just came to bring you the latest missing girl case.” Lei removed the folder from under her arm and handed it to Bunuelos. “I’m not liking that there’s another one missing. Her details are in the folder.”
“I hate this case. Anything that has to do with kids.” Bunuelos’s mouth tightened; he was a proud and protective father of five.
“These ‘kids’ have reached the age of being totally freakin’ annoying,” Torufu said, swiveling his chair back and forth, beefy fingertips forming a triangle that echoed the shape of the tribal tattoos running down his ripped forearms. “Every time I haul in a runaway for tagging walls, ripping off cars, or panhandling . . . I remember why we’ve decided not to have kids.” The thick wedding band on Torufu’s finger was still shiny and new; he and their station’s chief, C.J. Omura, had recently married.
Lei shook her head, smiling. She had two children at home and, like Bunuelos, loved her rich family life. “Fortunately, I haven’t had to cross the teenage bridge yet, though our son is not far from that milestone. I’m following up on this new missing girl with an interview of her parents this afternoon. I’ll be in touch after and we can set up a case review, make sure we’ve got everything divided up.”
“Got it.” Bunuelos was already studying the folder.
Lei turned and headed for the elevator. Her gaze flicked over to Clark’s office in the corner of the room.
Whatever had happened to Clark’s adopted daughter, Malia?
Maybe now was a good time to warn Clark about the disappearances; Malia would be just the age the kidnappers seemed to prefer.
Lei changed direction and headed for Harry Clark’s cubicle.
After school, Malia hung her backpack on the hook on the wall, toed out of her shoes and put them beneath it. She shrugged out of her giant hoodie, hanging it over the backpack. She still had some homework, but she’d get to it later after she checked the Wallflower texts cache and put some new things up on the gossip site.
“Kylie!” Malia hollered. She spotted her sister’s backpack, thrown behind the couch. Muttering, she picked it up and hung it on the hook, retrieved the shoes kicked across the room, and set them next to hers. If she didn’t, tomorrow morning would be awful, with Kylie running around looking for a missing shoe. It wasn’t just that Kylie was messy—she actually seemed to shed everything when she got home, like peeling a banana and leaving the skin for Malia to slip on.
She found Kylie lying in the middle of Mom’s bed, eating a bag of popcorn as the sixth
grader watched a teen reality show.
“Did you hear me call for you?”
“No.” Kylie took another handful of popcorn, chewing, cheeks bulging like a hamster’s—and still she looked cuter than Malia ever would. She had rippling brown-blonde hair, hazel eyes, and a dusting of freckles across her nose.
Harry had adopted Malia in Mexico and married Peter Clark a few years later. They’d thought their family was complete. Kylie had come along as a total surprise, and it had always given Malia a secret comfort that Kylie didn’t look at all like Harry. Their mom had Hawaiian blood that showed up in olive skin, brunette hair and bold features. Malia admired her mother’s large, light brown eyes with their black, angled brows; Malia’s own curved brows made her dark eyes look surprised all the time. Malia had increasingly begun wondering what her birth parents had looked like, whom she’d inherited a short stature and curvy build from. She at least looked enough like their mother to be related to her, which saved a lot of the “I’m adopted” questions.
“Homework before TV.” Malia turned the TV off. Kylie threw a handful of popcorn at her, scowling. “Have fun picking that up.”
Malia turned and headed back downstairs. Annoyed guilt, the feeling Kylie often brought out in her, dragged at her steps. It sucked to be saddled with babysitting a sister who’d been mopey and sassy ever since Dad left. It was no secret that Kylie was his favorite, and she’d been devastated by his departure. Malia hated having to pick up the pieces he’d left behind when her own heart wasn’t much better off.
“Damn you, Dad,” she muttered. Peter Clark used to come home from his law practice right around now, and “keep his girls company” until Mom came home, whenever that was.
Now it was just Malia, covering for both her parents and getting popcorn thrown at her for thanks.
Malia had caught her parents kissing or snuggling numerous times when she was younger—but after Harry got promoted to detective and often worked twelve or more hours a day, it seemed like they’d cooled down to roommate status. Dad got more and more into his spirituality, going on “juice cleanses” and “silent retreats” and practicing meditation on the little deck outside their former house, until finally, in the kind of well-planned lawyer move Dad made, he’d packed a few things and left. Only weeks later, a packet of divorce papers had arrived in the mail.
Harry had been blindsided by the whole thing. She had refused to sign the papers. They’d fought bitterly on the phone. Malia still remembered overhearing her mom imploring. “I can’t raise the girls without you! Give me another chance. I’ll change my job if I have to!”
But he hadn’t believed her, and in her heart of hearts, Malia didn’t either. Harry loved her job. She ate, slept, and breathed law enforcement. Home and family were her retreat, her nest, her recharge station; she’d just taken them for granted a little too long.
Malia took out a baggie of frozen chicken thighs. Mom bought them in big bags at Costco and then separated and froze them, just enough in a Ziploc for each meal. Malia put the meat in the sink and glanced at the clock—4:00 p.m. Hopefully her best friend Camille would be able to talk soon.
Kylie came schlumping down and oozed into her chair in the boneless way she moved when she didn’t want to do something.
Malia ignored this, already deep in burner phone text messages for addition to the secret Wallflower Diaries site.
“What are you doing over there? Watching porn?” Kylie’s eyes were narrowed, her chin thrust out as she glared at Malia over her algebra book.
Malia snorted. “Very funny.” She shut the laptop and her phone and stood up. “Getting dinner going now.”
She fetched a pan and set the chicken thighs in it, adding teriyaki sauce and covering the whole thing with foil. She took out frozen broccoli and a rice cooker, glancing at the clock. Maybe Camille would be free from her mother’s planned activities by now. Malia called her friend’s cell, but it went immediately to voice mail.
An hour later Malia turned the food off, waiting for Mom to get home. She tried Camille again—no answer.
Maybe Camille’s mom had taken her phone away. That had sometimes happened, like when Camille wouldn’t submit to the chemical peel Regina had scheduled for both of them—never mind that you weren’t supposed to do things to a sixteen-year-old face that you did to a fifty-year-old one.
Malia tried Camille’s house phone, which rang with a sound like celestial chimes. That thing was like a piece of polished sculpture, a shape that didn’t even look like a phone. Malia could picture it there on the shiny dining room sideboard, the light of a crystal chandelier falling around it like frozen rain.
“Hello?” Regina William’s breathless voice.
“Hi, Mrs. William. This is Malia.” Camille’s mom didn’t like her, so Malia was surprised when Regina cried, “Oh, thank God, Malia! Do you know where she is?”
“Where who is?”
“Camille! Camille’s gone!” Regina’s breathy voice had climbed to a screech. “She wasn’t home when I got here with Pierre to do electrolysis. She’s with you, right?”
“No?” Malia’s heart thumped with alarm. Camille was well-liked, but her friend was a homebody and didn’t have a lot of people she saw outside of school. Generally, she was either at her own house or Malia’s. “I called this phone because she wasn’t answering hers.”
“Camille must be with you!” Regina was pacing; she’d seen the elegant blonde woman do it often enough before, striding back and forth on the deep carpet of the dining room, or multitasking around the big showy house with her phone to her ear. “I can’t believe this. Camille packed a bag and left a note saying she’d had it with me and the beauty treatments. She’s run away!”
“What? She would never do that.” Camille loved her mom; she might someday refuse to let Regina force her into a beauty queen mold, but run away? Never. Camille didn’t like adventures.
Where would she go, if not to Malia’s house? Malia felt a terrible feeling: a sock to the gut, actual nausea. What if Camille really had run away, and run away from her best friend, too?
Shark Cove, Paradise Crime Mysteries Book 15, releases spring 2021: tobyneal.net/SCwb
Author Note
Dear Readers!
What fun to go back in time, and meet a younger, but just as bravely impulsive Lei! I enjoyed setting up some of the events that become part of her future in this prequel, and it was a special treat telling the story of how Keiki came into Lei and Aunty Rosario’s life.
There are two ways you can go to read on from here! If you are new to the series, continue Lei’s story in the timeline begun by this prequel, with Blood Orchids. Read through the stories to be ready for Shark Cove, #15 in the Paradise Crime Mysteries!
Or, if you’re a returning fan of the series, make sure to read the excerpt of Shark Cove, coming soon!
As always, many thanks to my wonderful book creation team: Jamie Davis, “Eagle Eye” Angie Lail, for copyediting and keeping the series and characters straight, my transcriptionist Elisa, and also my fabulous Advance Review Copy (ARC) team, who help us find typos! You all rock and keep me coming back to the page.
Until next time, I’ll be writing!
Much aloha,
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Wrong Turn
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