“Playing a round of handball by the sounds of it,” I offered.
“Just as long as you don’t throw a ball at your next visitor, I’ll be satisfied.”
I wasn’t sure if much satisfied the detective.
“Oh, and by the way,” he added. “Carmichael’s throwing a Christmas party this evening at the Shimmering Sands for his employees. The catering company is looking for extra help.” He handed me the name and contact details for the caterers. “How good are you at holding a cocktail tray above your head?”
“I’m better at drinking them,” I admitted.
“Why does that not surprise me?” he muttered.
“I told you, I’m an open book.”
He snorted. “Something along the lines of an Agatha Christie?”
“More like a Janet Evanovich.”
“Who?”
I waved him away with a shake of my head. “You wouldn’t like it,” I said.
“You know,” he murmured so only I could hear him, “there’s a lot you don’t know about me yet.”
It was the ‘yet’ that piqued my interest. But it was his saunter across the lawn to Suzy that had me hightailing it back inside my house and closing the door. I wished Doug was there to comfort me. Heck, I would have settled for sand strewn all over my floorboards and Charlie playing his guitar on the couch. As it was, all I had was the contact details to a catering company and the onset of a headache.
I rubbed my forehead and crossed to the kitchen counter. The manila folder was still sitting there. I snatched it up and deposited it in my safe; spinning the combination lock harder than I needed to. By the time I made it out to the front of the house again, the cops were gone, Suzy along with them, and Tia stood on my front porch.
This was starting to look like a very bad day.
Something told me, it could only get worse.
Chapter 14
A Dog Barked Excitedly At A Seagull
“Where have you been?” Tia demanded in a high pitched voice. “Why haven’t you returned any of my calls?”
I felt my cheeks pink. Pink cheeks and ginger hair was not a pretty picture.
“Er, busy,” I managed.
“Oh, Summer!” she cried and then promptly threw herself into my arms like a damsel in distress. Not my Tia Maria. “I’m so worried!” she said.
I patted her back awkwardly and then got ahold of myself and wrapped my BFF up in my arms.
“Come on, chickie,” I murmured, “Time to talk.”
I took her out onto the back porch, overlooking Coopers Beach. Coopers Beach always made me feel good. No matter what. I was hoping some of that would rub off on Tia. She didn’t look like she was feeling good at all right then.
As it was still early in the day and my fridge was empty of beers, I made us some coffees. Coffees minus donuts just seemed wrong, but I was more worried about the absence of beers in my fridge. Did I have amnesia from drinking too much? Or was Charlie pilfering from me?
Both options were not well received, but Tia’s pale face and hunched frame made all other mysteries vanish. Something had clearly happened.
“Is it your grandmother?” I asked. The Rika family kaumatua was ancient. She still ruled with an iron fist; all deferred to Nana Rika. But she was more wrinkled than a tie-dyed t-shirt.
Tia shook her head and sniffed into her cappuccino. “It’s Mikey,” she said and hiccupped. “He’s missing.”
A horrible feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. Aside from Mikey being the most likeable of Tia’s brothers, and the youngest, he was also tied up in the homicide on Mangonui’s wharf. My adolescent hero worshipping aside, Mikey was a linchpin in this case, and I’d hoped I’d still be able to find him somehow and get the answers I needed.
And now he was gone.
“Are you sure?” I asked because questioning your distraught BFF when she was clearly beside herself with worry was the right thing to do. Not.
“Of course, I’m sure,” she snapped. “He hasn’t been home for two days.”
I rubbed her shoulder and carefully enquired, “What does Darren say?”
She looked up at me, tears pooling in her eyes. Sucking in a steadying breath, she whispered, “He’s worried.”
So, Derwit hadn’t sent Mikey away to keep him out of the police’s sight.
I sat back and chewed on my bottom lip.
“Two days,” I murmured. Two days would place his disappearance around the time the drug deal was meant to be happening in Mangonui. The drug deal that I suspected had ended in John Joseph Logan’s death.
Did this mean Mikey was guilty?
I waited for my neck to make a comment. It remained silent and free of sensations.
That didn’t necessarily mean that the answer was no. That Mikey wasn’t guilty. It just meant my…ability had nothing to offer.
“What are we going to do, Summer?” Tia asked.
She hadn’t touched her coffee, other than to warm her numb hands on the mug. She stared at me over the top of said cup as if I had an answer to her brother’s disappearance. I had some answers. But not the ones she’d want to hear.
I wondered if Darren knew more than I did. More than Tia did, at any rate.
But I wasn’t stupid enough to confront him.
“Have you told the police?” I said, dreading her reaction.
For all of Tia’s efforts to toe the correct and law-abiding line, she was still a Rika. And Rikas looked out for their own. She’d risen above most of the family’s stigma by starting her own business and making it profitable. The Coffee Cube was popular and successful. I didn’t ask where she got the collateral for the loan. And Tia never offered that kind of information.
Sometimes it was better not to test the boundaries of a relationship. And we all needed secrets to hold.
Tia hung her head and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Not yet,” she whispered.
That instruction would either have come down from Nana or Darren. I couldn’t even guess which one would have said to “keep it in-house,” but the choice to do so let me know that they suspected Mikey’s disappearance to be tied up in something illegal.
Tia knew it. I knew it. And the police would know it immediately if they went to them.
“This isn’t good, Tia,” I said, pushing up from my seat and starting to pace the crooked, wooden boards. “Do you know where he was last?”
“No,” she murmured.
“Does Darren?”
“Maybe.”
“Can you ask him?”
“Why?”
I turned to face her. “Because I can’t help you if I don’t know where to start.”
I thought I might already know where to start, but I wanted to confirm I was right. Mikey was meant to have been on that wharf. Darren and his goons hadn’t said as much, but my neck had led me there, and I trusted it. Either Mikey made it to the meeting, or he didn’t. And if he did, did he vanish from there or from somewhere else afterwards?
A starting point was essential. I needed to be sure.
Tia stared up at me, all semblance of angst-ridden sister gone. A Rika watched me from behind hooded pools of brown.
“What can you do, Summer?” she asked.
Tia had come to me. Not just because we’re friends. But because, deep down inside, she knew I could do something.
“What I always do, Tia,” I said.
She didn’t know about my neck. No one alive did. Not even Sadie. Gran had known. Living with her had meant it was impossible to hide the more violent sensations. But with everyone else, I’d somehow managed to convince them I was just kooky. Slightly strange. A little different. Good at finding things no one else could.
Tia had often asked me how I did it. Even though she was my best friend, I’d always hedged.
Best friend or not, she was related to Darren Rika. And if Derwit knew what I could do, he’d want to use me in some capacity. Darren was a user. Tia was a giver.
How they came from the same f
amily was beyond me. But I wouldn’t tar Tia with the same brush. I worked on keeping our friendship, but it cost me. I couldn’t confide in her. I had no one left to confide in with Gran gone. Sadie wouldn’t tell a soul. Not intentionally. But it was the unintentional where Sadie was concerned that held my tongue.
I was on my own.
“OK,” Tia finally said, nodding her head. She pulled her cell phone out and started tapping away on the screen. Obviously texting Darren was preferable to phoning him.
The text sent, she sat back in her seat and stared out over the water toward the horizon, saying nothing. The sun was high in the sky; the surf rolled in on gentle waves. I narrowed my eyes at it. Charlie’s note had said surf was up at Tokerau. As Tokerau was part of Doubtless Bay itself, I found it hard to believe surf would be up there and not here as well.
Tia’s cell phone ringing broke my train of thought.
She stared at the screen and sighed and then put the device to her ear.
“Darren,” she said quietly. Then for a long period of time, she said nothing.
Finally, she lowered the phone and swallowed.
“He said I wasn’t to text about it. He said only phone calls. He was angry.”
This was definitely drug related. Darren was covering his arse.
“Did he at least say where Mikey was last seen?” I asked.
She nodded. “Friday night. Before they left for the pub. I thought Mikey went with them, but he obviously didn’t.”
But did he make it to the wharf and the drug meet?
“OK,” I said. “This is what you’re going to do.” I sat down and gripped both her hands in mine. The coffee cup sat untouched on the side table. I couldn’t blame Tia for not being able to eat or drink. But wasted coffee always made me shudder. “You’re going to go to work and open up the Cube.”
“I can’t…”
“Tia,” I said sharply. “If this is tied up in Darren’s business, then you need to act normally.”
Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. She nodded jerkily.
“I’m going to trace Mikey’s footsteps, see if I find anything.”
“You don’t know where he went,” she argued. “He wasn’t at the TT; Darren would have said that was where he saw him last.”
I stared at her. My heart rate escalated. I wanted to put her mind at ease, but protecting myself had become second nature.
“Do you trust me, Tia?” I said.
“Yes.” No hesitation at all.
“Trust me, then, to find Mikey. You know I can.”
She wanted to argue. I could see it. She wanted to press for details. This was her brother. Her closest sibling. She wanted to, but Tia and I had established a no-questions-asked relationship. I didn’t ask questions about how she funded her start-up. She didn’t ask questions about how I did my thing.
“OK,” she said shakily.
“Can you get yourself to the Cube?”
“Yep.”
I reached forward and gave her a hug. She clung to me and whispered in my ear, “Please find him, Summer. Please find Mikey.”
And then she was up and gone, afraid, I thought, of lingering and asking questions she knew I wouldn’t answer. Questions that would change everything between us.
I let out a long breath of air.
I had an idea of where to start, but nothing concrete. Plus a catering company to wrangle a temp job out of and a dog to pick up in Kaitaia; more than an hour’s round trip away from Doubtless Bay. I could see the day getting away on me.
And then there was Mikey. Where was he? Was he still alive? Or was he lying somewhere, a rope around his neck, waiting for his body to be found?
I let out a sound of distress and then straightened my spine.
I could do this. I could find him. I just needed a touch.
Grabbing up my handbag and gun, I left the house and crossed to the garage.
He hadn’t made it to the Taipa Tavern, but Darren and his sidekicks had expected him to complete an exchange and get in touch. He clearly hadn’t, and my neck had led me to the fishing wharf in Mangonui. It tied together. It had to.
Which meant so did the dead body.
That thought didn’t make me feel hopeful for Mikey. One dead body could easily become two. They’d killed once; they could easily do it again.
I still hadn’t worked out why John Joseph Logan had been murdered. It had to do with drugs. With Mikey’s exchange. But what had gone wrong? I needed to know, because whatever had gone wrong there would undoubtedly lead to Mikey.
So, towards Mangonui I drove.
The Mazda MX-5 in rouge rouge stood out against the realtor’s colours as I drove past. Suzy hadn’t even bothered to match her vehicle of choice in with her workplace’s colours. Danvers’ SUV was parked at the police station next door, as was one of the uniformed cop cars. Could have been Candy’s. Might have been No-Name’s. It didn’t matter.
Because I was sure, I was being followed.
There’s not much traffic on the road in Northland. But there’s enough. Especially in the holiday season and with Christmas a mere few weeks away, there were enough tourists on the roads to just make picking up my tail difficult.
But my neck hinted at creepy stalker-like behaviour and my skin prickled when I looked into the rearview mirror to see if I could catch a suspicious car following me.
I couldn’t. But that didn’t mean I didn’t know it was there.
It could have been Detective Douche. Abandoning his SUV, which was now well known to me, and using something else. But I couldn’t see the detective wasting his precious time on such a menial thing. He’d outsource it. Which meant it could be practically anyone.
I didn’t bother to shake them. Shaking a tail on State Highway 10 or the half-dozen off-shoots that led down into Mangonui was asking way too much. So, I kept on driving, winding my way down onto the waterfront, and parked by the boardwalk, opposite the Mangonui Hotel.
People were drinking their coffees at the Café Kitchen Café, celebrating the festive season with a midday glass of wine in the pub, buying snacks and sodas at the Four Square. Cameras were out. Selfies were being taken. A dog barked excitedly at a seagull. It all seemed so normal, so nice. And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.
And that the watcher was not nice.
Not Danvers then. But someone else. Someone with a darker purpose.
I shuddered as if that someone walked over my grave. I’m not psychic. I might get premonitions, but I’m not some freak of nature. I liken the sensations I receive to that of a feeling straight from my gut. Gut or neck, it didn’t matter. I was just more in tune with those feelings than most.
And my gut/neck was telling me that the person who watched me now meant me harm.
I considered forgoing my walk along the wharf. But Mikey had been missing for two days now, and if he was still alive, then I had to find him. The cops wouldn’t. They couldn’t. Darren or Nana Rika refused to involve the police. And despite the Rikas pull in criminal circles up here in the North, they didn’t have a hope of finding him either.
Unless the people who were behind this wanted them to.
Which begged the question, had they wanted the body on the wharf to be found? Or had I interrupted them? How close had Charlie and I come to the murderer? The sensations I’d received that night had been intense. Frantic even. As if a clock was running down, timer set to disappear at zero.
We’d interrupted them. But we hadn’t been fast enough for Mikey.
But had they just taken Mikey or had they disposed of his body?
I strode along the boardwalk, smiling at tourists and locals alike, feeling my stomach twist and turn on itself inside, making my heart rate skyrocket. My gun felt like a heavy and welcome presence at my side, my handbag gently banged against my thighs. My sandals slap-slap-slapped on the boardwalk’s planks.
I could smell coffee and sea salt, French fries and battered fish. The wind picked u
p and brushed tendrils of my hair off my face. I turned onto the wharf.
The clatter of fish bins and the sound of running water met my ears. A fishery deliveryman was hosing out the back of his refrigerated truck. A kid shouted out in excitement as the line he was holding over the side of the wharf pulled tight. His dad patted him on the shoulder and issued instructions. I walked to the end of the wharf and stared out at the moored vessels in the harbour.
To the left was where the body had been found. Behind the fishery shed, which was now open. People came and went, buying fish, haggling over prices. Someone else caught a minnow off the wharf’s side.
Nothing tugged at me. Nothing leapt out and made me gasp in surprise.
I turned away from the tranquil scene before me and walked toward where Charlie and I had found the body.
There was no evidence a murder had transpired. No yellow tape like in the TV shows. No crime scene dust. Danvers had cleared the scene, and life had returned to normal.
I crouched down beside the spot. The rope was gone. Bagged for evidence. There had been no blood that night and so no stains here that would indicate anything. Just the scents of the sea and a fishery, and the nearby fish and chip shop.
“Come on,” I muttered. “Give me something to go on.”
For a moment, I thought there was nothing there. That I was on my own on this one. Desperation had me coming out in prickles of sweat.
And then the sudden shock and freezing sensation of an ice cube sliding down the back of my neck.
I was up and reaching back to make sure someone wasn’t playing a joke on me in the next heartbeat. My neck was dry. My clothes weren’t wet. I let out a shuddering breath.
Allowing my heartbeat to settle some, I offered up a grim smile.
All roads seemed to lead to Big Wig. And tonight’s cocktail party.
But what would following this lead mean for me?
Ice cubes aside, I still felt like I was being watched. And that definitely wasn’t grin-worthy.
Chapter 15
Chasing Summer Page 12