by Toby Neal
“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 26
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 27
Lei and Keiki watched Stevens 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.”
“Oh, this feels good. I’m not Jane Doe anymore.” Lei took the items and stowed them in a new leather backpack purse. “Seriously, thanks so much. This is amazing.”
“I know. Got any more coffee? My caffeine level is subpar after all this shopping.”
Lei filled her friend a mug of inky brew. “’Nuff of this girly stuff. What’s the word on the investigation?”
“Boot up that new laptop I brought you. It’s got a wireless satellite uplink. You won’t ever be out of wireless range again.”
Lei turned on the device and Marcella went on. “Coast guard’s begun their searches. They’re going top to bottom with schematics and looking for compartments. They are also checking tickets and IDs in case the sex workers are disguised as regular employees or passengers.”
“Be pretty easy for them to make fake IDs,” Lei said. “Especially with all the foreign countries they could be from. Aren’t the cruise ships having a fit? They weren’t happy with the search for a missing person we had to do.”
“Most of them are offloading the guests at port and putting them in a hotel for complimentary poolside play and just screening as they get on and off the ship. Then, while the guests are off the boat, the teams search. And no, they aren’t happy.”
“Anything happening in Maui?”
“Not today, but tomorrow the Rainbow Duchess is due in port. The coast guard is standing by.”
Lei’s pulse sped up. Searching ships, banging down some doors would be so exciting. It was killing her to sit here idle. But—maybe this was the perfect time for that other errand. The idea took hold and galvanized her.
She hugged Marcella. “You’re such a good friend. I can never thank you enough.”
“Yes, you can. Let me take you away from all of this. Come to the Bureau with me.”
“I’m thinking about it.” Special Agent Lei Texeira. The world to police, all the assets and resources she would have access to—not to mention a whole different kind of crime to bust. “I don’t know what to do about Stevens.”
“He’ll wait for you. Couple of years and you’ll be back in Hawaii, if all goes like I hope it will.”
“Let’s talk after this case wraps up.”
“I’m taking your word for it. Forward me your CV.”
“My curriculum vitae’s not much. Oh, and it was on my old laptop, and that’s burned.”
“It’ll be a good project for you to re-create it. Okay, hon. Grow some hair and get it done.”
“Will do.” She hugged her friend goodbye.
Marcella always seemed to bring both sunshine and storm into a room—one of the things Lei liked about her. Once the agent had pulled out, she got online and looked up Hawaiian Airlines.
“No time like the present,” Lei murmured aloud as she charged a round-trip ticket to the new charge card in the replacement wallet. Now she just had to ditch the officer on the corner.
She looked up the map and located an address a block away, far enough to be out of sight and close enough to seem within response distance, looked up the occupant and called the house.
An elderly voice answered.
“Hi, I’m calling because I think I see someone in your yard. They might be trying to break into your house. You should call the police!”
Querulous thanks, and only a few minutes later the Crown Victoria outside the house fired up and pulled away down the street.
Lei strapped on her Glock and filled her backpack with a few essentials, put on her new running shoes (size eight and her favorite brand) and put on the blond wig Marcella had included as a joke. Her tilted brown eyes looked big and mysterious under the platinum bangs—even more so when she put on wraparound silver sunglasses. She shrugged into a hot-pink jean jacket—an item of clothing she shook her head over.
She looked like an anime cartoon come to life.
Guilt was a familiar twist in Lei’s gut. But she’d be back before anyone knew she was gone, with any luck, and this was something she had to do. Something she’d promised herself she’d do for years. Something she needed to do to be free, and healthy, and whole.
At the last minute, she stashed a pair of rubber gloves from under the sink in her backpack. She would need them where she was going.
Chapter 28
Lei got out of the taxi in front of a condo building in downtown Honolulu, just up from the Ala Wai Canal with its brackish scent of paradise gone wrong. Wash lines flapped across the balconies of the dingy Pepto-Bismol-pink complex, and tired bougainvillea in cement pots failed to brighten the entrance. She took a couple relaxation breaths on the sidewalk, gathering her resolve as she looked around.
No one was in sight on this dilapidated side street with its smell of dead end. She glanced at the sky, the same brilliant blue as Maui—but she could have been a world away with the skyscrapers of downtown crowding it out, squeezing her chest with claustrophobia. Still, she wanted to do this. Needed to do this.
Lei glanced at her reflection in the window to make sure the blonde wig was straight. She wore her sunglasses, and her mouth was painted bright red. No one would recognize Lei Texeira, tomboyish cop from Maui. She climbed the aluminum stairs on the outside of the building to the fourth floor, paused in the hallway, and glanced both ways. No one around. Sleepy afternoon sunlight slanted through bars across the concrete aisleway that fronted the building.
She put on the rubber gloves, tucking them into the sleeves of the pink jacket, pulled the Glock, and walked quick and light on the balls of her feet down to 4C. The door was peeling plywood with a peephole and a grilled iron screen, an extra layer of security she hadn’t considered. The worn rubber mat spelled WELCOME.
She pushed the bell.
Approaching footsteps—someone was inside. A pause. Must be checking the peephole. The wig and sunglasses would be intriguing. Sure enough, the door opened and he stood in the doorframe, the grille casting a barred shadow over him.
“Yes?” He was smaller than she remembered, blurred around the edges, black hair gone mostly gray. An ordinary man who had done terrible things.
“Charlie Kwon?”
“Who’s asking?”
“I have business to discuss. Can I come in?”
“I don’t think so. What’s this about?”
She brought the Glock up, aimed it at his head. “I can’t miss at this range, even with the security door. Open up.”
A long moment while he weighed his options; then he slowly pushed the door open. She grabbed it and whipped inside as he backed up, hands in the air. She kicked the main door shut with her heel.
“On your knees.”
“I thought you had business to discuss.” Kwon tried to keep his voice steady, but it wobbled into soprano.
Lei kept waiting for the heady power of having him at her mercy. It didn’t come.
“On your knees!”
He obeyed, put his hands on his head. “What’s this about?”
“The past catching up with you.”
His angular face went even paler.
She still didn’t feel what she wanted to feel. Instead she felt a creeping shame—using her weapon issued in good faith this way, using her training meant to serve and protect to subjugate.
“I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. I’m sorry for whatever I did.”
“Not good enough. You raped me when I was nine. You used me.” The gun wobbled in her hand as she spoke. “You made me damaged goods.”
“Who are you?”
“You don’t know?” A hot wave of rage blew over her. “You had so many victims, you don’t remember me?”
“I’m sorry! I’m sick and wrong, and I deserve to die!” His voice was anguished.
“Are you fucking kidding me? The Charlie Kwon I knew never gave a shit who he hurt. He just took what he wanted.”
“I’ve gone to treatment, and I’ve changed, but
I deserve to die for what I’ve done. So just do what you need to do.”
“You pervert. Messing with little girls. Prison isn’t good enough for you.” It suddenly occurred to Lei that she might actually kill him. That made the gun wobble more. She’d never been less in control of it. “I came to see you and tell you…you’ll never be able to touch another little girl again.”
“Just do it! Do what you came to do!” Kwon swayed, his eyes ringed in white, staring into the bore of the pistol.
“I don’t know what I came to do,” Lei whispered. This was all so hollow. He closed his eyes, bowed his head.
On his knees before her knelt a gray-haired Chinese Filipino man in need of a shave. Smaller than average, wearing a blue T-shirt emblazoned with HALEIWA SHAVE ICE and a pair of baggy cargo shorts. His legs were startlingly white, feet bare.
He still didn’t know who she was. But maybe it was the disguise.
“My name is Leilani Rosario Texeira, you sick son of a bitch.”
He looked up at her blankly.
His lack of recognition was an icy blade. Her arms shook; her finger tightened—and she stepped forward and pistol-whipped him so hard he flew over sideways, sprawling in the graceless pose of the deeply unconscious. She looked down at him for a long time.
Nothing here could fix the past.
Chapter 29
Lei was in a taxi back to the safe house when her cell rang. She glanced at it—Marcella. She let it ring. Blue shadows of evening wove patterns on the road. She got out a block away from the house, paid off the cab, and boldly walked down the sidewalk, the sunglasses, wig, gloves, and pink jacket in her backpack. The uniform, back in his car on the corner, did a double take as she tapped on his window.
“I had to get some air.”
“How’d you get past me?”
“You’d gone out on a call.” She strode on and let herself through the locked gate.
Keiki greeted her rapturously, whiffles of joy mixed with much bouncing and wagging of her cropped tail. Lei knelt and hugged her. She sat on the steps, letting the dog’s rough tongue sponge off tears she hadn’t known were on her face. Finally, she patted Keiki and led her up into the house.