Shaved

by Gina LaManna

  “I think bullet holes look a little terrifying,” I told Meg. “Probably better if we keep the car out of the line of sight.”

  “Good idea,” Meg said. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

  We climbed from the car and headed to the café. I tried to pat my hair down as I pressed the door open. Meg followed behind me, grinning from ear to ear. She really did have a glow about her. Maybe adventure was more therapeutic for Meg than the spa after all.

  “Oh, not so fast,” I said, holding up a hand. “I’m looking for you.”

  Kai froze, halfway turned away from the counter. If I’d suspected there was something funny happening at Java Hut, it was pretty much confirmed. Kai looked like he was watching a ghost as Meg and I approached the counter.

  “She might be looking for you,” Meg said, “but I’m looking for an iced caramel Frappuccino with extra-extra whip cream.”

  “All Frappuccinos are iced,” Kai said. “That’s an oxymoron.”

  “You mean a double-entendre,” Meg said.

  “I think you both mean redundant,” I said cheerfully. “Just like this request to talk to you, Kai. Is there a place we can sit? Preferably out of the line of sight from the windows?”

  Kai frowned. “What’s wrong with sitting out front?”

  “Oh, you know, stray bullets,” I said. “Except they aren’t actually stray if they’re aimed at my head.”

  Kai paled. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We just want to chat.”

  “And get a Frappuccino,” Meg said. “I mean, some bad guys with guns chased us down, and we’re still alive. I deserve a snack.”

  Kai looked somewhat alarmed, but I leaned forward and gave his shoulder a pat. “Back office?”

  “This way,” he said, and led us around the side of the counter to a small hallway.

  We passed the restroom and waited as Kai opened the door to a tiny room that smelled like coffee beans. It wasn’t unpleasant.

  “Do you have an update on May’s case?” Kai asked, though his voice sounded thick. “I’m arranging everything on my end of the bargain. All is going according to plan.”

  “That would be great to hear,” I said. “Except the plan doesn’t seem to be very clear to me. See, I thought you wanted me to investigate May’s murder.”

  “I didn’t say murder, but her death,” he said. “It just didn’t seem accidental.”

  “Yeah, it sure doesn’t seem like it.” I leaned forward, crossed my arms over his desk. “But what I can’t figure out is why you care.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that you didn’t know May.” I narrowed my eyes at him, watching for a reaction. “At least not as well as you’ve let on. Not well enough to pull out all the stops on an investigation in her behalf.”

  “I told you, she—”

  I shook my head. “I talked to May’s sister, and she confirms May hated coffee.”

  “We serve tea,” Kai said weakly. “And cookies.”

  “Yum,” Meg said. “What kind of cookies? Have you considered offering samples?”

  “We also checked into her financials, and she’s never spent a dime in your shop,” I said. “I’m sure we could ask around more and find out the same information, so skip the crap and don’t lie to us. What’s going on here, Kai? Why are you having me investigate this death?”

  “Look, you weren’t supposed to be this good,” Kai said, folding his huge, sausage fingers over one another as he situated himself deeper into the chair. “Aren’t you here for your friend’s wedding? You should be focused on that. How did you even get into May’s bank account, anyway?”

  “Because she’s good,” Meg said. “I thought we’d been over this.”

  “I have a good team,” I said. “And I thought you did your research. I thought you hired us to do a job, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. Should we have been half-assing it?”

  “Sort of,” Kai said.

  “Well, Lacey does a full-ass job each time,” Meg said. “So, you’ve hired the wrong girl. Now, if you want a halfway decent job done, you should consider hiring me. Plus, I’m easy. I work for cookies.”

  Kai gave a shake of his head. “Look, Miss Latzi—”

  “Luzzi,” I said. “You have no clue who I am, do you?”

  “Aside from you coming into this shop, no, not particularly,” Kai said. “I’m sorry. You’re not famous around here, and I didn’t bother to look you up. Someone paid me to hire you.”

  “Why would someone do that?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t they just come to me themselves?”

  “Because he’s, ah, anonymous,” Kai said. “And really, you don’t want to meet this guy. He’s not nice.”

  “How do you know him?” I asked. “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know his real name,” Kai said. “Nobody knows his real identity. But he goes by Coco.”

  “Coco?” Meg asked. “Like coconuts?”

  “Exactly,” Kai said. “Coconuts, but Coco for short.”

  “Doesn’t sound all that intimidating,” I said. “How’d he manage to get that nickname?”

  “Oh, it can be intimidating,” Meg said. “Have you forgotten what we could do with papayas? And coconuts have a hard-ass shell.”

  “Coco is a psychopath,” Kai said. “He’s crazy.”

  “I get it,” Meg said. “He’s coconuts.”

  “He runs things around here. At least, in our little town.”

  “What do you mean runs things?” I asked. “Obviously not government. Are you talking gang? Mob?”

  “The latter,” Kai said. “We all have to make our donations to Coco, or else our shops tend to go kaboom.”

  “Oh, coconuts,” Meg said. “That would suck.”

  Kai nodded. “So when I got a little message from Coco asking me to hire you, and he’d waive my ‘donations’ for a year, I just agreed. I mean, I didn’t think anything of it, really. It didn’t sound dangerous.”

  “Yeah, to the guy who’s hiding behind his beans,” Meg said. “Coffee beans. We’re out there on the front line.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kai said, his face crumpling in what looked like sincere apology. “I really am sorry. I don’t want anything to do with Coco and his guys, but it’s the way things are around here. It’s just a fact of life. Death, taxes, and Coco.”

  I inched my elbows onto the old desk in the middle of the room and rested my head in my palms. “What does this all mean?” I muttered mostly to myself.

  The room fell into silence. I tried to organize my thoughts into one coherent stream, but everything remained a jumbled mess.

  “Why would this Coco want me to investigate a maid’s death?” I asked. “Unless Coco is Sam, and he loved her?”

  “Sam?” Kai asked. “No. It’s true I didn’t know May well, but I do know of her boyfriend, and he’s a low-level twerp. He might be involved with Coco’s boys, but he’s not Coco.”

  “Do you know anything about May’s sister, Lucy?” I asked. “We just visited her before we got chased.”

  Kai shrugged. “She doesn’t come in here much. I know her place—it’s hard to miss, seeing as she’s got about two hundred feet of coastline—but I don’t know her personally.”

  “Any chance she or her husband is involved with Coco?” I asked. “It’s hard for me to believe the timing on this was a coincidence.”

  “It’s possible,” Kai said, “though I’ve heard her husband is in real estate. Todd Trudy. He’s not from the island. I think most of Coco’s boys are locals.”

  “Okay, that jives with what she said,” I agreed. “Which means Coco must have been watching us and didn’t like how close we were getting to the truth. Except, that makes even less sense...why would he hire us to find out the truth, if he didn’t want us to know the truth?”

  “I really don’t know,” Kai said. “I told you, I’m just the messenger. I hate that I did this to
you, but if I didn’t...”

  I sighed. “I know. How widespread is Coco’s reach?”

  “Everything,” Coco said. “Especially the tourism industry. Hotels, bars, restaurants. Luaus, boat tours, helicopters. He’s got his fingers dipped into anything and everything. Just last year, we lost a friend of mine. A helicopter pilot. They say it was a tragic crash, but Raul had been flying helicopters since before he could walk. It was a sunny, perfect day for flight. He didn’t crash. It was Coco, reminding everyone that if we didn’t pony up, he’d make sure we couldn’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But why haven’t you guys gotten together and, I don’t know, overthrown this guy?”

  “We don’t know who he is,” Kai said, “and we don’t know his men. They infiltrate everything. One wrong word, and...”

  “Dead,” Meg said. “Man, that stinks.”

  Kai gave her a curious stare. “I suppose that’s one way to say it.”

  “So, the bribe about helping with Meg’s wedding—”

  “Oh, I’m good for that,” Kai said. “I just threw that in because I felt bad. It’s still a go if you want it. I’ve already talked to my friends, and they’re on board.”

  “It’s up to her,” I said with a nod to Meg, and then waited as Kai explained the deal.

  “A four-tiered cake?” Meg said. “That’s worth a few bullets in our direction.”

  “Well, I guess our deal is done here,” I said. “I suppose we’ll be going.”

  “Wait!” Kai stood up so fast his chair toppled over. “Look, I shouldn’t have told you any of this, but I didn’t know what to do. I’m not a criminal mastermind; I make coffee drinks. If Coco finds out I ruined the secret, I’m toast, and so are you.”

  “You’d like us to keep up pretenses, I presume?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have to report to Coco tomorrow. In fact, if you didn’t come in here, I was going to phone over to the hotel. Do you have any updates you can pass along?”

  I exhaled. “Sure. Let Coco know that someone tried to kill us. And that we’ve spoken to Sam, Rachel, and Lucy, and we’re not planning to stop anytime soon.” I stood, my chair scraping against the ground. “We’re going to find out who killed May.”

  “And then I’m getting married,” Meg said, also standing. “Don’t forget about that, people. Married. With a four-tiered cake. And speaking of marriage, let’s try to find my husband-to-be.”

  Chapter 10

  “I think I need a nap,” Meg said after we parked at the hotel and slid out of the car. “It feels like I’ve lived ten lifetimes in one morning.”

  “You deserve a nap,” I said. “Why don’t you get some rest while I check on Anthony and Bella.”

  “Hold onto your shorts, missy. I’m not falling for that line,” Meg said. “I’m coming with you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t think I didn’t see you texting Anthony about Clay being missing,” she said, tilting her chin upward. “I creep through your phone all the time.”

  “When did you have time to peep at my messages?”

  “When I dialed Anthony,” Meg said. “I know you asked him to look into Clay, so I’m coming with you. I know the groom’s not supposed to see the bride before the big day, but this is a little ridiculous. We’ve got over seventy-two hours still on the clock.”

  I heaved a sigh and gestured for Meg to follow me. As we left Carlos’s car behind, I glanced over my shoulder at the wreckage and hoped he’d bought the insurance package. There were bullet holes and strings of drying papaya juice streaked over the car.

  It was no longer a low-profile vehicle, but since the bad guys already knew who I was, finding out where I was staying would be a cinch, so there was no need to hide the car. If anything, maybe it’d offer a bit of intimidation for anyone thinking of coming after us.

  We took the elevator up to the penthouse, and I practically ran through the doors, itching to scoop up Bella from her crib whether she was awake or not. After a life or death experience, I was anxious to hold her, to kiss her chubby little cheeks and chunky little legs.

  However, the sprint toward my baby was cut short by a firm wall of muscle. It took no more than two steps into the room before I smacked into Anthony’s chest and came to a complete stop.

  Meg, trailing halfway out the door, had plenty of time to stop, but she chose not to. She obviously preferred to barrel into me and Anthony and loop her arms around us in a group hug.

  “Isn’t this great?” she quipped. “One big happy family.”

  “Quiet,” Anthony commanded. “I’ve been rocking her almost the entire time you’ve been gone, and she just went down for a nap. You wake her up, you deal with me.”

  “Oooh.” Meg gave a shudder and fanned herself. “Dangerous.”

  Anthony shrugged her off, then gave me a tighter hug and a gruff kiss to the top of my head. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  “Me too,” I said, trying to peek around his shoulder toward the crib and failing miserably.

  “Lacey...”

  “I was just peeking!” I huffed out a breath. “Fine. At least tell us what you have on Clay.”

  Anthony’s eyes flicked toward Meg.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “She knows. She apparently reads through my messages.”

  “Please don’t do that,” Anthony said, looking mystified. “Privacy. Boundaries, Meg. We’ve talked about this.”

  Meg shrugged. “I mostly skip over the intimate ones. But not always.”

  “Don’t read any of them.”

  “We got off topic,” Meg said. “Can we talk about Clay? I’m getting really worried about him.”

  I could see the answer in Anthony’s eyes before he spoke. I squeezed his hand. “Have you found his suitcase?”

  “His suitcase seems to have vanished, and so has Clay,” Anthony said. “I haven’t managed to locate him. He was last seen in the cafeteria first thing this morning, eating alone according to the waitstaff, and then...poof. It’s as if he vanished into thin air.”

  “What if he did?” Meg said. “What if someone magically whisked him away to another realm?”

  “Barring paranormal activities,” I said. “Do you have any other ideas?”

  Anthony raised one shoulder. “Not much.”

  “He hasn’t been gone for all that long,” I said quickly. “A few hours. I mean, maybe he went on a hike, or tried to track down his suitcase alone.”

  “I’m sure that’s it,” Anthony said. “It’s nothing to worry about, Meg.”

  Meg gave a quick flash of a smile, but it was tinged by watery eyes. “Well, if I wasn’t worried, I am now.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Anthony’s being nice and pretending to be my friend,” she said with a coarse laugh. “That’s a first.”

  I glared at Anthony. “Can’t you be nicer to my best friend more often?”

  “But...” Anthony hesitated. “She reads our text messages and squeezes my—”

  “Forget it,” Meg said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to go take that nap. I just got really tired, and the cookie samples I took from Kai’s coffee shop are making me sleepy. Sugar crash and all that.”

  “Kai didn’t have cookie samples.”

  “Well, now he does,” Meg said. “The jar was just sitting on the counter with the tweezer-thingy in there, what was I supposed to do? Not take one?”

  “If you need anything, let me know,” I said squeezing Meg’s arm. “I’m here for you. This is still your week.”

  “Might be just my week,” Meg said. “Which is a bummer because it was supposed to be my week with Clay. Anyway, catch you on the flip. Hang loose. Fish fry. Whatever people say around here.”

  I’d never seen Meg’s body language look so sad. As she shuffled down the hallway to her room, I felt a wave of hurt for her. Which was almost immediately overridden by a wave of anger at Clay.

  “How could he do this to her?” I asked to no
one in particular. “When I find my cousin, I am going to...I don’t know. Do something to him. Something very painful.”

  “I think you should go after her.” Anthony stared at the door, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “She seems really down. I actually...have sympathy for her.”

  “You could probably try to be a little nicer,” I said, sounding snappish. Instinctively, I curled in against him. “Sorry. I’m just on edge.”

  “Getting shot at will do that to a person.”

  “Yeah.” I gave a low laugh. “Well, the case is a mess.”

  I quickly filled him in on the morning developments, and by the time I finished, we both heard a door open and shut out of sight. Meg.

  “Go on, Lace. I’ve got Bella,” Anthony said with a smile. “I think Meg could use her best friend.”

  “But you’ve been in charge of the baby all morning. And this was supposed to be a romantic vacation. We were going to lay in the sun, let Nora watch her great-grandchild, and spoil Meg. None of that is happening, and everything is getting ruined.”

  “I hate laying by the pool, and Nora has dressed our daughter in coconuts and a grass skirt when she has alone time with her. You’ve been plenty romantic,” he said with a slight purr in my ear, “and you can make more up to me later, if you really feel like it. What’s missing right now—well, besides Clay—is to spoil Meg.”

  “Thank you,” I said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “You’re right. I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything.”

  “Keep an eye out,” he said. “If I had to take one guess with the guys who are after you, it’s that they’re only just getting started.”

  “NOBODY’S HOME!” MEG called, as I knocked a second time on her door. “Go away!”

  “I can hear you in there,” I called. “You’re talking to me.”

  Meg pulled the door open and stared at me. “Oh.”

  “Hi to you too,” I said, then glanced around the room. “Were you talking to someone? I mean, besides me?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  I glanced around. “Who?”