by Toby Neal
Lei reported to the captain, who agreed to fax over a request for sweeps looking for weapons, drugs, money, and human cargo on all ships docking anywhere on Maui—and a general alert to all Hawaii ports.
Omura ran an eyeball over Lei. “You can’t be seen in public, and I don’t just mean that outfit.”
“I don’t have any clothes.” Lei suddenly remembered the ring, left in the kitchen drawer. That, and everything else she owned, burned to ash. Her eyes filled and she sat abruptly. “I don’t have anything to wear.”
Omura blanched, either at the prospect of losing all her clothes or of Lei crying.
“I think we better get you back to the safe house. Someone can pick some things up for you. You’ve put in enough of a day.”
“Guess it’s catching up with me.” Lei blinked hard, still surprised by Omura’s kindness. The tears receded. “My headache’s back. Stevens and Pono able to shake anything loose?”
“Yes. Sounds like they’ve got some confirmation on Silva’s story about the House. No apparent connection between House and the Kennedy woman, though. That must be through the smuggling and human trafficking.”
“That’s good.” Lei yawned, her jaw cracking. It really was all catching up with her. Omura stood up. “I’ll have Larson drive you to the safe house and keep an eye out. He’s not directly involved with the investigation, but he’s offered to help.”
“Okay.” Lei trailed Omura out and met Detective Jed Larson in the bull pen area. Larson, beefy with a receding hairline, had a forgettable but kind face that helped in law enforcement.
“Sorry to hear about your bad luck,” he said as he led her to the unmarked Bronco he drove.
“Nothing lucky about it.” Lei’s eyes darted around the parking lot, looking for threats, but she felt suitably invisible in her disguise. “I hope we get some breaks on this case soon.”
“Yeah, I heard. I offered to help if your lieutenant or the captain wants any more manpower. We gotta look after our own.”
He turned the key of the Bronco, and the roar of the engine drowned out his voice as she glanced at him.
“Seems like someone’s got a hit out on us. We have an idea who, but nothing to pull it all together,” Lei said, leaning back in the bucket seat and indulging in another jaw-cracking yawn.
“Who are you thinking?”
“Organized crime on Oahu, guy they call the House.”
He whistled. “He’s deep. Good luck getting anything on him.”
“I’d be happy with just getting a good night’s sleep, at this point.”
Lei shut her eyes and leaned back in the seat. In no time they were pulling up to the steep driveway bisected by the six-foot chain-link fence that surrounded the modest ranch “safe” house. Keiki ran back and forth in front of the gate, making sure they knew she was on the job.
Lei got out. “I can take it from here.”
“I’ve got to keep an eye on you until the uniform gets here. Let’s go through the house, do a quick security check.”
Lei opened her mouth to object, to say that Keiki would have kept out any intruders, but someone setting the fire at their house had been able to get past the guard dog, so she shut it again and punched in the code for the gate.
Larson followed her up onto the porch as she unlocked the front door. She took her Glock out of the canvas shopping bag from Tiare, and they did a quick room-by-room check of the house.
“All clear,” Larson said, holstering his weapon.
“Thanks.” Lei put the Glock back into the canvas bag and set it on the gimp-legged Formica kitchen table—the house was furnished with police department castoffs. “This has to pass for both my purse and shoulder rig right now. Pretty sad.”
“Fires are tough.” There was an odd note in Larson’s voice. “I’ll be outside until the patrol unit gets here.”
“Okay. Appreciate it.”
“Least I can do.”
She locked the front door behind him and leaned against it with a sigh. Keiki bumped her thigh with her head.
“Yeah, girl. We need a snack and a nap, don’t we?” She went to the fridge. It was kept stocked with a variety of soft drinks, water, and the basics.
“How about some eggs?”
She scrambled some up, fed herself and the dog, and then went to the back bedroom and fell onto the cheerless gray spread on the bed. She was asleep in minutes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lei woke to the feel of something wet on her ear.
“Keiki!” She lashed out and Stevens yelped, rolling away. “Sorry. I thought you were the dog.”
“So much for the romantic stealth approach.” Stevens wore only a towel. “I guess it’s not any better to sneak up on cops than on ex-soldiers.”
“Come over here. Let me make it up to you.”
“I do need something to distract me from that muumuu—like getting you out of it.”
“Not a problem.” She shucked it off. She’d thrown the wig over the back of the retired office chair squatting in the corner of the room. “I have to admit, it’s comfortable.”
Stevens snorted as he dropped the towel and crawled across the bed, growling playfully. He stopped at the sight of her bruises. They hadn’t improved much in the days since the hit-and-run—just picked up a few more colors.
“Are you okay?” He traced the dinner-plate-sized purple mark on her hip. “These are scary-looking.”
“Kiss them and make them better.”
And so he did.
Later, Lei got out of the shower and reached for her old kimono robe, realizing it was gone, ash. She’d had that robe since high school. She wondered, wrapping up in a towel, when the multitude of little losses would stop hurting. She tucked in the ends of the towel and went into the kitchen, where Stevens was contemplating the bare refrigerator.
“How about eggs for dinner?”
“Already did them.”
“Toast, then. And there are some cans of chili over on the shelf.”
“Sounds like my cooking night. Speaking of, how’d it go with you and Pono today? Flush out any new leads?” Lei leaned on the counter as Stevens applied the can opener to the chili can.
“Nothing new. It was a lot of rattling the same bushes. We did locate the Simmons bridegroom, though.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. He tried to get on a plane out of Oahu, and the new facial recognition scanner at the airport picked him up, even under another name. So he’s busted…But it’s hard to make a charge stick—that property was jointly owned and they were legally married. DA’s going for fraud.”
“Poor lady. How’s she taking it?” Lei gave a little shiver, remembering the cry of mortal pain the woman had uttered when she heard the bank account was empty. Lei never wanted to feel that kind of pain. Ever.
“Not well. Son from her first marriage came to take her home. Nice outfit, by the way.” He tweaked the corner of towel sticking out under her arm.
“Why, thank you, kind sir. Terry cloth is back in among the homeless.”
“It’s missing something.” He tapped the dip at the base of her throat. “My grandmother’s ring.”
“I know. I’m just sick about it. I’d taken it off to take a shower.” It was bad enough that she’d taken it off at all—a little lie couldn’t hurt. Her stomach clenched with guilt.
“Bull. You weren’t wearing it when I saw you at the station after you went to Pauwela Lighthouse with the agents and you guys lost the girl.”
“I didn’t lose the girl. You saying we did something wrong?”
“Don’t try to distract me. You took the ring off, all right—probably when you saw Marcella, because you didn’t want to hear shit from her when she saw it. Were you ashamed of wearing it?”
“Is this an argument we’re having?”
“Where in the house did you leave my grandmother’s ring? Where should I look for it when the rubble’s fucking cooled off?” Stevens’s voice had risen, his face flushe
d.
“The rubble’s cool, drama king. Do you want to go now and look for your precious ring? It’s in the kitchen drawer—not that the kitchen exists anymore.”
“In the kitchen. That doesn’t sound like you were taking a shower.”
“I don’t see that it much matters. I took it off, and now it’s burned. Along with everything else.” Lei tightened the towel. Her palm actually itched with the loss of her little black stone—so much less valuable than a diamond ring, but much more valuable to her. All she had left of a precious friend, dead on the Big Island. The ring could be that meaningful to him. “I’m not hungry. I think I’ll go to bed now.”
“It’s six thirty p.m.”
“So what? We already did all there is to do in this fucking house.”
She stomped down the hall, but bare feet on the tatty carpet didn’t do much for sound effects. That called for a good door slam, which she did, and felt a bit better. And when she got into the hard bed with its cheap pilly sheets, she finally cried—cried for her lost four-hundred-thread-count sheets on the comfortable king-sized bed she’d hauled to three islands, her old kimono, her little black stone, and most of all for losing the antique ring she hadn’t really wanted to wear.
“Lei.” He got in bed with her, hauled her stiff body into his arms, smoothed her ruffled, shorn head. “I’m sorry. I was an ass. It’s not your fault.”
“It is. It is. It always is. There’s something wrong with me. You have to get out while you still can.” Damaged goods. That’s what she was. D.G. for short, and unlucky as the day was long. Kwon had made her that way, and she owed him for it. Payback was coming soon.
“No. Not that old shit. Come on. This kind of thing is part of the job. It could happen to anyone.”
“But it doesn’t. It happens to me, and to you because you’re with me.”
“Then I’ll take it. The salt with the sweet, because you’re Sweets.”
“Corny.” She sniffled and blew her nose on the towel—which had come off.
“That can be my ‘handle.’”
“You’re such a glutton for punishment. Really. Adult child of an alcoholic, doesn’t know a lost cause when he sees it.”
“I won’t dignify that with an answer, since you’ve just been telling me what a case you are, and I’m not about to argue with that.” His hands had begun to wander, and they were distracting her from her misery. His fingers trailed down her side, slid along her hip, as he pressed a necklace of kisses around the nape of her neck.
“Corny,” she said again later, breathed on a sigh.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I open my wall safe. I haven’t made any particular effort to hide it—just hung a luminous landscape by local Maui artist Michael Clements over it. If someone is going to the extreme of breaking into my penthouse, they’re pretty determined to get something, and I don’t keep much around—most of it’s safely in overseas accounts. All I have in there are some new identities and ten thousand dollars in walking-around money.
I look through the identities and pick one that appeals. A red-haired beauty named Dr. Aurora Middleton, expert in identifying art forgeries. I take the passport and dossier out to peruse later. I don’t often indulge in alcohol, but after the debacle at the police station and where it’s headed, I need a drink and something more. A lot more. I pick up the phone.
“Celeste, send someone up. I’m thinking that guy from the Czech Republic. He needs some manners lessons. Oh, and a scotch on the rocks.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I go back on the deck, lean on the scrollwork railing. Gaze out at the purple flag of Kahoolawe, a tiny island to the left, and Lanai off the coast, floating on the turquoise sea. Wind ruffles my hair, and I close my eyes.
My mole at MPD called earlier and Texeira’s alive. They know there’s a hit out on her. I find myself flushing with rage again, just in time for the knock on the door. I stride over and yank it open.
Celeste and Kimo push the new merchandise in. He’s handcuffed but awkwardly carrying a tray with my drink on it. He’s a tall young man, well muscled. Rumor has it he’s some sort of boxer. His knuckles are scarred and his eyes dark with unbroken pride. They’ve dressed him in some sort of ridiculous loincloth patterned in leopard print.
I’m not amused by the lack of taste.
I take the drink and the tray, incline my head. “Thank you.”
He nods. Maybe he understands that much English. I go to the wardrobe where I keep supplies and get him a plain white pair of boxers, gesture for him to take the loincloth off. He gives me a grateful look and retreats to the bathroom to change.
It’ll be the last time he ever looks at me that way. I smile a bit, anticipating the shock, betrayal, and humiliation that are coming next as I mix up his drink.
Celeste and Kimo escort my new favorite back downstairs. I’m tired but mellow, sore even—he really was a boxer at one time, and I’ve taken some licks, but after the masseuse spends an hour rubbing gardenia-scented oil into me, I’m ready to forgive him for the defiance.
He deserves another session or two. These silly young people, thinking they’re signing up for a glamorous job traveling the seas. They end up getting a lot more than they bargained for—but they do get to see the world.
Well, at least a small, locked part of it.
After the massage, I’m relaxed enough to call Healani Chang. I get one of my burner phones and punch in the number.
“What now, haole girl?” Not an auspicious beginning. Healani needs to work on her people skills.
“Trash is still not taken out.”
Long pause. “My man didn’t report in, but I saw in the news the job was done.”
“That’s what the police put out there, but they got out of the building somehow. And MPD knows there’s a contract out, and they’ve got her stashed somewhere. I want to call off the hit. It’s drawing too much heat.”
“This isn’t like canceling room service.”
“It is to me.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’ll talk to House, then.”
“You do that.” The phone went dead. Well, with any luck the assassin would die anyway—only I hadn’t been having any luck lately. I made another call.
“You’re a piece of work.” House’s dark, raw voice is working its magic. “Good thing I like you. I’ll talk to Healani.”
“Security’s also getting close to the gallery.”
“What grounds?”
“The business card. One of my johns passed it on. It’s thin. They’ve got nothing, but I’m getting itchy feet.” I finger the dossier on my new identity. “‘Dr. Aurora Middleton’ has a nice ring to it.”
“Hang tight. You’ve worked too hard building the business to chuck it at the first sign of trouble.”
“What is this? A pep talk from the House?”
“I don’t like the hassle of building new relationships. Our partnership is working nicely.”
“Yes, it is.” I savor the words. “Very nicely. Well. I’m going to monitor the situation, but just know I’ll pull the plug if I have to.”
“Will do. So—what are you wearing?”
The first time he’s initiated anything. I feel a hit of heady power that goes straight to my core.
“Not much. Gardenia oil. The masseuse just left.”
I hear his mind working.
“You alone?”
“Now. I broke in a new guy off the boat a little while ago, got a good workout. Czechs are sturdy stock.”
“You’re incorrigible. I like it. What did you do to him?”
I tell him in detail.
We end the call a long time later, and I know I want to hang on to what I have as long as I can. Texeira and that bitch lieutenant have nothing on the gallery—and if they do make me run, I’ll make them pay.
I put the dossier and passport back in the safe and spin the dial.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lei and Keiki watched Stev
ens pull out of the driveway in the Bronco the next morning. Lei reached up to itch under the wig, back to wearing the voluminous muumuu.
“I can’t last long like this, girl,” Lei muttered to the dog, sitting alert beside her. “Nothing to do, nothing to wear, nowhere to go.”
Keiki cocked her big square head, sympathetic, leaning heavily on her mistress. Lei looped an arm over the dog, noting the patrol car parked a block away. Surveillance detail was in place. She heard the roar of the black FBI Acura. It pulled up to the gate, and she hurried down to unlock it for Marcella.
Her friend got out of the vehicle, turning back to pull out a shopping bag.
“Where’s Rogers?”
“On the job. Came to give you a sit-rep—and these.” Marcella opened the back door of the vehicle and pulled out a welter of bright shopping bags. “Apparently, your lieutenant and I do have something in common—we’ve both been wanting to give you a makeover for ages. She helped me with the shopping.”
“No way,” Lei said, hefting another few shopping bags and following Marcella into the house.
“Yeah. All this is courtesy of a nonprofit, LawVictims. Special fund for replacing personal items of service people who lose it all in the line of duty.”
Lei held up a tiny, bejeweled pair of kitten heels from one of the bags. “Really? This counts as replacement apparel?”
“You bet. Never know when you’ll need the right pair of shoes for the job.”
“I’ve found tennis shoes cover almost every situation.”
“Shows what you know.”
Over the next hour or so, Marcella made Lei try on every outfit from lingerie to evening wear.
“At least you got me a couple pairs of jeans,” Lei said, wriggling into the aforementioned, ignoring the complaining of her bruises. Even the jeans were fashionable, dark with a flare at the ankle.
“You’ll like this.” Marcella broke out a new shoulder holster and a wallet with replacement creds, cards, and ID. “They put a rush on them down at the station.”
