by Toby Neal
Lei straightened up and put both hands on the wheel, punching down the gas pedal as her adrenaline surged. Apparently, the hit on her was still out, even with the last assassin in the hospital.
The truck leapt forward, and Lei concentrated on the narrow, winding road, thinking ahead to the turnoff into the subdivision where the safe house was located—but she couldn’t lead the hit man there. She had to get far enough ahead to be able to pull over and get her weapon out. Even as she glanced in the rearview mirror, the SUV hit her again.
“Shit!”
This time her truck’s fender scraped the girder as she yanked it back into the proper lane, still trying to accelerate. The SUV had to have a pretty potent engine to outrun her truck, and as she spared a glance in the rearview, she saw the distinctive grille of an Escalade. Damn.
Still, she knew the road and, hopefully, the assassin didn’t. She pulled ahead, thanking God that the road continued to be empty of other cars. She was able to gain a little ground by angling straight across curves she knew were ahead, but the Escalade began gaining again as they wound down into a gulch. A turnoff was on the upside of that. Lei kept the gas pedal down, but as the truck juddered, she finally had to brake, and that’s when the Escalade hit her for the third time.
She felt the precise moment she lost control of the vehicle in the sudden looseness of the wheel. Time stretched out, each separate nanosecond recorded without meaning.
A kaleidoscope of colors. The scream of dying metal blocking thought. An impact crushing her forward, whipping her back, smothering her in white oblivion. A sense of flying. Then tumbling whiteness, followed by dark.
Chapter 36
I barely see the silver Tacoma hit the guardrail because the momentum of its impact transfers and hauls the Escalade in its wake. I fight the wheel in the other direction. All I hear is the shriek of rending metal and the wail of the Escalade’s fender scraping along the girder. I wrestle it away with all my strength—too much. The big SUV rocks onto two wheels and spins back, jerking to a brain-jarring stop facing back down the road. The Cadillac’s engine stalls and dies with a shudder and a burp.
I squint through webbed fragments of broken light. The windshield’s broken but holding. I focus on the ragged gap in the railing straight ahead where the Tacoma went over.
That’ll fix her wagon.
A hysterical laugh bubble chokes me at the memory of a stupid saying my late unlamented mother used to use. The engine ticks, cooling, and there’s silence. My heart’s still roaring in my ears, and the fierce exaltation of taking a life surges through me.
God, I love that feeling.
I turn the key and the Escalade starts after a grind or two. Thing’s built tough; no wonder the gangsters like them. Magda’s going to miss this vehicle and report it, and I need to ditch it as soon as possible—but I want to make sure Texeira’s really gone. I pull the SUV up onto a shoulder area and step out, pulling my Sig Sauer with the silencer already screwed on out from under the seat.
I roll my shoulders. That impact’s going to hurt tomorrow. I’d felt it shudder through my body and snap my head back, enough to need a massage, at least. My legs are a bit unsteady as I walk back along the road to the gouged, torn hole in the steel girder.
I look over. The Tacoma is upside down about fifty yards down the precipice, one side of the cab wedged against a huge orange-blossomed African tulip tree. The truck’s passage has gauged and hacked a meteor-like path through the underbrush, and the vehicle is crumpled and twisted.
I feel a rumbling in the road before I see the car coming toward me, too fast, and I hug the remains of the guardrail. A shiny red Acura brakes and the window rolls down. An Asian businessman in a suit addresses me.
“You okay? What happened?”
“Looks like an accident. There’s a car down there!” My voice comes out breathless and terrified.
“Did you call nine-one-one?”
“No. I was just looking over to see what happened.”
“I’m calling it in.” Too late, I see the Bluetooth in his ear. “I’m reporting an accident. Someone’s gone off the cliff on Haulani Road.”
My exit line. I make my rubbery legs walk back to the Escalade, gun flattened against my leg where he can’t see it as he gets out of his car, running over to the cliff and exclaiming into the Bluetooth.
I get in and fire up the Escalade and pull away, leaving the businessman staring after me. He’s sure to report me now; it must seem odd that I’m leaving the scene with the drama just beginning to unfold—not to mention the crumpled front bumper, scrape marks, and broken windshield.
I hope I’ve succeeded in getting rid of Texeira—I know it’s just spite, but spite is underrated. It’s kept me going many a time. I hate losing so much that I always find a way to win in the end. This crash wasn’t as sure a thing as Vixen had been—pushing that car off the cliff in such a remote location with the ocean to finish her off was sure thing, and I like sure things.
This whole disaster began with Vixen. Stupid little whore. I’d kill her again if I could.
I need to ditch the Escalade as soon as possible.
Chapter 37
Lei felt consciousness gathering, pulling her back from somewhere far away and much less painful. Her eyes popped open and all she saw was white. She screamed, or thought she did—something was off with her hearing too. Another few seconds later, her brain interpreted the white as a smothering cloud of airbags deployed all around her.
Lei was upside down. She fumbled for the seat belt cutting into her shoulder. Her hand and arm responded clumsily, getting hold of the buckle and pushing it down. She dropped onto the ceiling of the cab, semi-folded around the steering wheel. Thank God for those airbags. Her brain supplied her with images of the red-haired girl who’d started it all, crushed in the sedan off Pauwela Lighthouse, and her heart still squeezed at the memory.
Miraculously, that hadn’t happened to her. But whoever had run her off the road might still be coming.
The airbags deflated as she pushed at them. She eased her body over to the side and got onto her hands and knees, hunching in the confined space. None of her bones seemed to be broken, another miracle. She pawed through the side-door airbag to the handle, but couldn’t budge it. The window was still up and intact, blocked by some dark surface. She pushed aside the front airbag. The windshield had buckled, bent, and cracked outward, though safety glass held the gemmed, starry fragments in place.
Lei reversed herself and kicked. And kicked again. With a protesting tinkle and screech, the windshield popped out of the frame. Two more motivated kicks, and it lifted away enough for her to wriggle out, scraping her hands on glass that had fallen to the ground. She squeezed out from under the upended hood, sitting up.
Lei looked up the impossibly high incline above, the path of the truck’s trajectory marked by gashes of red soil in green growth blanketing the slope. Sirens were blaring. She hadn’t noticed them before. Clustered heads looked down at her from the blown-out gap in the guardrail.
“I’m okay,” Lei yelled, and was surprised to find she actually was.
Lei sat semi-upright on a pile of firm pillows on the threadbare couch of the safe house in the dimming light. Anchara held out a mug of tea to her.
“Thanks.” Lei sipped it, and found the dark brew surprisingly tasty—strong, milky, and sweetened heavily.
“They didn’t have any Thai kinds of tea, but I tried to make it like we do in our country.” Anchara sat at the far end of the couch, curling slim legs beneath her. “I feel bad. This my fault.”
The woman’s soft voice hitched, and she ducked her head so a curtain of long, shiny hair slid forward.
“Not your fault,” Lei said. “Someone’s been trying to off me since the investigation started. This was just their latest attempt.”
She was a bit fuzzy from painkillers and exhaustion; she’d spent some hours at the hospital for observation and repairs and a debrief with the police team
. She had nothing more from this latest adventure than cuts, bruises, and whiplash, and they’d put her in a highly annoying foam collar. She reached up to scratch underneath it.
Her phone kept ringing with calls as the “coconut wireless” word-of-mouth relayed this latest attempt on her life through the cop world.
She glanced at the number on the buzzing device and picked up. “J-Boy!”
“Sweets!” Jack Jenkins, her former partner on Kaua`i. “I hear someone’s been trying to kill you. They should know better—you’re tougher than a boot and luckier than a cat with nine lives—though you must be down a few by now.” Under the jocular note, she heard concern. “You okay?”
“Well, this has been my worst case in a while—we think there’s a contract out on me. Been hit by a car, had my house burned down, and now run off the road.” Listing the events made her stomach feel hollow, and she realized she now no longer even had her truck, totaled at the scene. As if to remind her, Keiki sat up and licked her hand. She played with the dog’s ears.
She still had her dog, at least. “The net’s closing, though. We have a suspect, witnesses, and the perp’s apartment’s being searched as we speak.”
Omura had triumphantly flourished the signed search warrant at Lei’s debrief before setting off for Lahaina with Torufu, Bunuelos, and Stevens.
“As long as you’re safe. Anu wants to know if you need anything.” The Kaua`i girl had made a move on Jenkins, and it appeared they were still together.
“Nope. Doing fine,” Lei said, ignoring the twinge of loss she still felt for all that had been burned in the house fire.
“Well, don’t be such a stranger. They give you some time off, come recuperate with us on Kaua`i.”
“Will do.” She said her goodbyes and turned on the TV, scrolling through until she found a news station, curious to see if her accident had made the evening broadcast.
The newscast appeared, and Lei felt a punch to the gut as she recognized the worn apartment edifice behind the reporter. Its bedraggled bougainvilleas didn’t look any better on television. She turned up the volume as the woman spoke.
“Neighbors reported a loud exchange in this apartment in downtown Honolulu and a day later called police when the apartment’s resident failed to appear.”
The camera zoomed into the familiar grilled doorway, crossed with yellow crime scene tape. Lei couldn’t see the worn rubber WELCOME mat, but her mind’s eye supplied it.
“Investigators arrived to find the body of a man identified as Charlie Kwon, age fifty-three, who had been shot. Investigators refused to comment, but this station has discovered that Kwon was a recently paroled registered sex offender.”
The camera switched to a short, round Filipino lady in a lurid purple muumuu. Her hands trembled as she touched the tight bun pulling black hair away from a square-chinned face.
“He was real quiet, real nice,” she said. “We never expected nothing like this in our building.”
“Why did you call the police?”
“I heard fighting over there, words exchanged. Then it was quiet, real quiet. Charlie, he never come out, and he always took a walk in the morning.” The chin wobbled.
The camera panned back to the reporter, brows knit in faux concern.
“Investigators refused to confirm whether this brutal murder could have been revenge for, or by, any of Kwon’s several victims.”
Cut to the lead detective, a tall, well-built Hawaiian with folded arms and the requisite mirrored Oakleys in place. “Detective Kamuela, do you have any leads?”
“No comment except this: Kwon paid his debt to society, and all the resources available to the Honolulu Police Department are being deployed to find the killer.”
A wide, meaty hand came up to block the camera’s money shot of the black-bagged body being wheeled out of the apartment on a gurney.
Lei hit the button for the TV and turned it off. Forgetting the foam collar, she dropped her head into her hands. Instantly, a lance of red-hot pain shot up her neck. She moaned, and tears welled again.
She never used to cry this much.
She’d endangered herself and her career with that stupid trip to see Kwon. But at least she wasn’t the one to have put him down. She could only hope no one had seen her, could identify her. She felt soft hands rub her shoulders, and someone handed her a dish towel.
“Thanks,” she snuffled, mopping her face with it. Anchara helping again—the Thai woman was so kind and sensitive. She cried harder.
“Can I help?”
“No. It’s nothing.” Lei put the towel over her face, pressing her eyeballs.
“Someone shot that man. Was he a friend?”
“No. Not a friend. But I did know him.”
It was all just too damn much. Anchara rubbed her shoulders.
That’s how they were when the front door locks clacked open. Keiki made sure the visitor knew Lei was well guarded until she saw Stevens, eyes ringed with fatigue. Lei gave her wet face one last wipe and put the dishcloth down as Anchara padded to the bedroom and went inside, closing the door softly.
“Hey. You okay?” Stevens came over, kissed her forehead.
“’Course. Just blowing off a little stress. Pull up a chair. What did you find?”
“We have a BOLO out on the Escalade that hit you, which turns out belongs to Magda and according to her is missing, stolen by Walker. Our girl Walker has a few aliases at least; she left behind a fake passport in the safe in the apartment. So we have a screening out for any departing air passengers with Walker’s description, but I’m not too hopeful, since she seems good at changing her appearance.”
“Shit.”
“I said worse at the scene when I saw some of what she left behind. From what we can tell, she left with plenty of cash, a false identity, and a good number of contacts who owe her favors. Omura thinks Magda Kennedy’s in on it, but we have to find a solid connection to her, which we still haven’t.”
“Be nice for Kennedy to have Walker take the fall.”
“Well, we can make the case if our witnesses identify Magda as the Magda they worked with. I wasn’t able to make it to see the purser before I got the call about your accident.” He stroked her arm. She turned up her hand and squeezed his as he went on. “Walker had what they call ‘unnatural tastes.’ There was a whole S&M room decked out in DNA evidence and drug trace in her safe. That could tie her to the drug money the coast guard intercepted on the Duchess.”
“Wow,” Lei said. She felt a reluctant tug of admiration for someone so devious, clever, and deadly. Wished again they’d met face-to-face. Maybe they had; maybe it had been her behind the wheel of the Escalade. She’d never seen anything but a shadow behind the tinted glass.
“Did you show Anchara Walker’s photo?” Stevens asked.
“No, it was still in the truck when I got out of the wreck.”
He pulled out his folded copy of Walker’s photo from an inside pocket, set it on the coffee table, and made as if to get up.
“Wait. I have to tell you something private.” Lei set her jaw. “Kwon. He’s dead—shot. I saw it on the news.”
“Shit!” He stood up, a surge of graceful motion. Even distracted by distress, she was drawn to Stevens’s power of movement, the directness of his piercing blue gaze. “Did you do it?”
“No.” She plucked at the dishcloth in her lap. “Of course not. Just like I said, I gave him a knock upside the head—but he was alive when I left him.”
“Anything tying you to the scene?”
“I don’t think so. But with nosy neighbors like I saw on the news, it’s good I got rid of what I was wearing.”
“Tell me.”
“Never mind. It’s gone now. I told you I wouldn’t ever make you choose.” Lei knew he loved the law—and he loved her. Participating in a cover-up, no matter how justified it might seem, would eat away at that love. “I’ll cooperate if anything gets back to me. That’s all you need to know.”
“
We’re so screwed.” He shook his head, moving down the hall. She heard the shower start. She slung her feet over to the side of the couch. She really did need to get rid of the disguise she’d worn.
Lei checked that Anchara was still in her room and took the clothing items out of the backpack she’d set by the door. She put them in a ziplock bag. Stepped out into the warm darkness, Keiki by her side. Went to the toolshed on the side of the house and stashed the bag in a hollow metal ceiling beam.
She’d get rid of it properly later.
Lei went back in the house, rubbing sweating palms on her new jeans. A shower was what she needed, too. But she wasn’t about to join Stevens in his present mood—or hers, for that matter. Charlie Kwon was a blight, a disease—and, dead, he might be able to fuck up her life even more.
Eventually, she had her shower and, feeling marginally better, limped back out to the couch wearing the yellow terry-cloth robe, rubbing her short hair gingerly with a hand towel. Anchara and Stevens generated tasty, exotic smells and cooking noises in the kitchen as Lei punched in the last phone call she needed to make.
“Hey, Sweets!” Her father had latched on to Jenkins’s version of a nickname. He couldn’t know about the accident, she remembered. “How you stay?”
“Not so good, Dad. I was in an accident today.”
“What! You okay, girl?”
“Some bumps and bruises, whiplash, but I’ll be okay.”
“Oh, honey. I’ll tell your auntie.”
“That’s fine, but that’s not why I called. Do you still watch the Hawaii news?” He’d kept up with it in the past, even in California, living with her aunt.
“Not today. What’s up?”
“Charlie Kwon was shot.”
She stared blindly out the window at the high chain-link woven with plastic privacy fencing. Her vision dimmed with familiar dissociation, and she put the side of her finger in her mouth, bit down on it. Pain anchored her in her body. The black ebbed, leaving the cheerless view.
Silence from her father. A long pause filled with an ocean of unspoken.