by Neal, Toby
Stevens looked terrible. His clothes hung on his tall, rangy frame. He’d made some effort to clean up, she could see, because his cheeks were chapped by a recent shave. His hair was tousled and overlong.
Lei noticed, as she’d noticed before, that he looked good haggard—somehow it made him even more attractive. His sky eyes, flecked with white like ice in a Nordic lake, were even bluer with shadows beneath. She longed to comfort him, run her hands through that rumpled hair, massage the tension out of his corded shoulders. She wondered what was wrong and figured he’d get around to telling her—he always had.
“Corona?” She took a beer out of the fridge, popped the top, and handed one to him without waiting for a reply. It dangled from his fingers as he turned, taking in the bright, tidy kitchen with an orchid plant over the sink. The room was painted a cheerful yellow, and they sat at a small round table with a couple of chairs.
“Nice place.”
She shrugged. “It came furnished. I learned my lesson after my last place. What a hole. Glad you never saw that one, or you might have thought I was depressed.” She laughed a little too loud and drowned the discordant sound with a sip of her beer. “So how’s Maui?”
“Same old, same old.” Stevens’s eyes had wandered to the bedroom. She’d finally replaced her prized king-sized bed lost in the fire on Maui, and the new one was dressed in plump pillows and a comforter. Lei wished she could get up and close the door. She felt as exposed as if he’d glimpsed her panties—thank God he’d never seen that other bed, the sad little inflatable mattress and nest of blankets she’d lived in too long.
“What’s happening with the case? We haven’t had much news about it over on Maui.” He turned away from the bed in his line of sight. They’d always been able to talk about work, so Lei was relieved to move on to this neutral topic.
“Well, Homeland has failed to find any physical evidence to tie Tyson Rezents to the Smiley murders, so that’s sticking to Blackman until something else pops. They’ve charged Rezents with conspiracy to commit terrorism, and he didn’t get the good lawyer Consuelo did—but Watanabe’s defense fund did get a competent guy at least, whose first move was a change of venue. His trial’s been moved to Arizona, where they’re hoping no one’s too familiar with the case. But with the Internet celebrity of those kids, I’m not holding my breath. It’s too bad Blackman went down in the raid. I would have loved to hear what he had to say about Smiley Mafia, which Consuelo started as a kind of idealistic Fight Club–inspired Robin Hood gig.”
“That’s sure not what it’s become.” Stevens leaned back in the kitchen chair to roll the beer bottle back and forth across his lean stomach. “We’re cleaning up Smiley Mafia graffiti and vandalism every damn day.”
“Yeah, same here. But there’s no centralized intelligence to it anymore. It’s just kids finding an excuse to trash stuff, like angry kids have been doing forever.” Lei took a sip from her bottle as the dog door, intentionally large enough for the big Rottweiler, burst open, admitting Keiki and her tiny shadow, Angel.
Lei got up, called the dogs over to a pair of dishes next to the counter—one large, one small. The dogs put their noses down and ate side by side—and they looked as funny together as she’d thought they would.
Stevens grinned, and she smiled back at him.
“So, you can come visit Keiki anytime.” Lei felt like one half of a divorced couple, offering visiting rights.
“I don’t know. It’s hard.” Stevens took his first swig of beer, reached in his pocket and pulled out a ragged piece of paper. Turned to the table, opened its frayed folds. Smoothed it flat. “I have something to read to you. She said I could.”
Lei’s heart jumped to trip-hammer speed. “She” had to be Anchara. Stevens cleared his throat as if he were going to read the letter aloud, but then didn’t, just staring down at the paper in his hands.
“May I?” Lei whispered.
He handed it to her, and she opened it, reading silently. Anchara’s handwriting had a curly, unusual quality to it, attesting to her foreign schooling—but it was beautifully, cruelly, unforgettably legible.
Dear Michael,
(You may share this with Lei if you like, so there are no secrets between us. I always liked her, even when I wished I didn’t.)
I appreciate all you tried to do for me. No one could have had a truer, better friend and gentler lover. You said you’d do your best to be a good husband to me, and you did try.
I know how hard you tried, always so thoughtful, and careful, and kind. But ever since you heard from her, I’ve seen the torment you try to hide from me. I know again how much you loved her—I saw it from the first—and how you were trying to get over her by being with me.
Well, it’s not enough. We both deserve better.
I deserve to be loved for me. I’m strong enough to know that now, and I would rather be alone than settle for crumbs from the table of your love for her.
I’ve settled for others choosing my fate for me my whole life. It ends now.
When we fulfill two years, I’ll divorce you. But I need to stay in this country. I need this green card, and we need to be married for those two years for me to keep that. For all I’ve done, all that’s been done to me, I’ve earned that at least.
I don’t love you. I haven’t let myself. But I could have.
Anchara
Lei folded the letter, slid it back to him. Picked up her beer, walked to the sink, staring out the little window. Drank it down past the hard lump in her throat that held tears for the pain they’d all been through.
Pain they’d each caused each other. Pain she’d felt every lonely night without him and now an inner conflict and sorrow that his marriage wasn’t working. Regret really did come in all sorts of shades and intensities. She could’ve done without the discovery of that. She turned back to him when she was pretty sure she’d blinked her eyes clear.
“I’m really sorry. It seems like you both wanted it to work.”
“Yes. Yes, we both tried.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, rolling the empty bottle between his palms, a familiar movement.
Lei glimpsed the tiny purple heart with her name on it inside the crook of his elbow. He hadn’t lasered it off. The sight of that, more than anything, made her walk over to him, lay her hand on his shoulder. Hesitant. Shy. Conflicted. But reaching out her hand, nonetheless.
“I sometimes wish I’d never left Maui. The FBI—it’s not what I thought. I—don’t know what to do anymore.”
“I don’t know either.” He put the bottle down, and his long, hard arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close against his face. Lei felt him shaking, his face pressed into her T-shirt. Her arms stroked his back, comforting, even as her heart ached—he was crying for having lost Anchara, and yet she felt nothing but love for him and sorrow for his pain.
This depth of feeling, this complexity of love, was entirely new to her. Lei felt it bloom in the exact place where his tears wet her belly, felt it tighten around her heart as his arms wrapped around her waist.
“I didn’t want to love you. I tried so hard not to,” he said, his voice rough as she stroked his hair.
“I know.” And in a moment, she was in his lap, a familiar comfort, one of her favorite places in the world. The kiss they shared was messy with tears and longing.
She wondered how she’d done without him, how she’d continue to—and yet she’d never felt stronger.
“We can wait.” Lei said it, sitting in his lap, holding his drawn face in her hands, his blue, blue eyes gazing into her brown. “We owe her that. Go home to Maui. And know I’ll be waiting for you.”
Acknowlegements
Broken Ferns was Lei’s “dark night of the soul.” This was a hard book to write.
I struggled, and sweated, and tore Ferns apart several times. I took breaks to write two other novels. I was so enamored with Consuelo and her story, I wrote entire chapters from her point of view, and then realized it gave too
much away and I had to take it all out (a little book of Consuelo outtakes would be fun to do! She’s an amazing character!)
I knew Lei needed to suffer, and grow, and learn to love unselfishly, and take chances not just with her physical self but in connecting with others. Over the course of these four books, my intention was to show one woman’s path to healing from childhood sexual abuse—a terrible crime perpetrated every day, in way too many homes.
Childhood sexual abuse is not easily overcome. It often results in low self-esteem, leading to abusive adult relationships (perpetuating the cycle) or to an inability to trust and connect/commit to others. Lei has not always been likeable, even to me—but she’s been consistent—physically brave, intuitive, driven, honest, unself-conscious. In this book, when she begins to become more self-reflective, to understand that her actions have consequences—I finally began to really like her. I hope you did too.
Lei’s becoming a true hero—someone who overcomes both within and without, and sacrifices for the good of others.
There’s more ahead. I hope you’ll hang in there for the journey.
This is the first book my detective friend Jay Allen didn’t have time to read—and I don’t have any connections in the FBI, so I relied heavily on several FBI books and numerous Internet searches to develop my FBI world, and it’s probably riddled with errors. I apologize in advance, and plead that this is a work of fiction, and a good story is the most important thing.
Thanks goes first to Holly Robinson, you were an incredible writing partner in that last leg. Your creative fire boosted my rockets to get’er done! And then, you did such an amazing analysis on the manuscript that it really deepened the characters—“we want to be in her head more!” was your challenge, and I took it. Thank you for your amazing friendship and generous sharing of your time and talent.
Thanks to my awesome beta readers Bonny Ponting and Noelle Pierce. I took virtually all of your advice and worked it in, especially to “make Lei really suffer over Stevens!”
Thanks always to my wonderful book production team: editor Kristen Weber, copyeditor Penina Lopez, book designer Linda Nagata, cover designer Julie Metz, and my talented husband Mike Neal who photographed a forest of ferns before we got our shot. Thanks also to all my wonderful Facebook friends and writing community who helped me find a name for Consuelo’s anarchy movement. Let’s keep making great books together!
Thanks to all the many wonderful fans who clamored for this book and reviewed the Lei Crime Series on Amazon, B & N and Goodreads. You told friends about the books and made them the success they are. Without you, I might never have dug deep and found the motivation to finish this difficult book.
And thanks be to God, who deserves all the glory.
Much aloha,
Toby Neal, February 2013
About the Author
Toby Neal was raised on Kaua`i in Hawaii. She wrote and illustrated her first story at age 5. After initially majoring in journalism, she settled on mental health as a career and loves her work, saying, “I’m endlessly fascinated with people’s stories.” Toby credits her counseling background in adding depth to her characters–from the villains to Lei Texeira, the courageous multicultural heroine of the Lei Crime Series.
Find Toby online at:
TobyNeal.net
twitter.com/tobywneal
Look For These Titles
In the Lei Crime Series
Blood Orchids (book 1)
Torch Ginger (book 2)
Black Jasmine (book 3)
Broken Ferns (book 4)
Twisted Vines (book 5)
Companion Series Books:
Stolen in Paradise, a Marcella Scott romantic suspense
Unsound, a Dr. Wilson psychological suspense
Young Adult:
Aumakua: Water Dragon, a survival novel
Sign up for email updates on new releases at TobyNeal.net
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
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
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Acknowlegements
About the Author
Look For These Titles In the Lei Crime Series