by Cathryn Cade
Hilo looked up at Moke. "Matter of fact, boy, I am both."
The sheer power in his ebony gaze made Moke want to nod his head like a dashboard hula doll. He resisted, barely. Damn, these Ho'omalus were some kind of spooky. Maybe this uncle really was a healer. He’d better be a good one.
"Need the first aid kit from the kitchen," Hilo ordered. "And a bowl of water. Make it hot."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, some more towels."
Moke's jaw clenched, but he went. He didn't want to leave the squatter's side. He'd found her, he'd carried her up here, now it felt like she was his responsibility.
Hilo Ho'omalu's deep, quiet voice drifted after him. "Now why do I feel you are important?" he asked the unconscious brunette. "To that young kanaka there, and maybe even to this island?"
A chill snaking down his spine, Moke stopped in the shadows of the hallway, and turned enough to look over his shoulder. Of course, she didn't answer.
Hilo nodded as if listening to a voice only he could hear. Then he flexed his big, calloused hands. "Sorry, wahine," he murmured. "This gonna hurt. But this is a bad cut someone laid on you. Gotta get the sickness out, so you can heal."
Holding one hand as close as possible over her skin without touching her, Hilo closed his eyes.
"I know you're listening, boy," he said without raising his voice. "Bring me that first aid kit." Without looking up at Moke, he began to chant quietly in Hawaiian.
A sudden, warm breeze swirled through the house, in through the sitting room windows, and along the hall where Moke stood, rooted to the floor. The sitting room curtains belled inward, palm leaves clattered outside. And in the breeze, Moke nearly swore he could hear ghostly voices chanting along with Hilo, as if a parade of ancients drifted on the breeze.
The hair standing up on the back of his neck, Moke stared at the place where Hilo held his hand over the wahine, almost expecting to see...something. Something to explain the strange prickle racing over his skin, and the images filling his mind.
When he heard nothing but the wind in the palms, he shook his head at his own superstition. He was a fool. You could take the boy outta the islands, but not vice versa it seemed.
Moke found the big first aid kit, clearly labeled, just inside the door of one of the big pantries. He strode back into the sitting room, a cup of microwaved hot water in one hand, roll of paper towels in the other.
Hilo sat on the edge of the big sofa, talking quietly. For a split second, Moke thought the brunette had awakened.
When Moke stopped by the sofa, Hilo looked up at him. "She'll be okay, once we get this cleaned up."
Moke looked with deep misgiving at the cut, swollen and angry red, with pus oozing from the fissures. "You sure, kane'? That looks pretty bad to me."
"Eh, looks worse than it is. She's been swimming. Sea water has a lotta microbes in it. But Leilani has some herbal cream in here that will fix that right up."
Moke watched as Hilo cleaned up her wound, gently dabbed ointment from an unmarked tub in the first-aid kit. The stuff smelled a little like flowers and some familiar foliage. No surprise, as it likely contained both. Moke had been dosed with local plant extracts many a time himself, growing up here.
And he had to admit, the woman already looked better. Her natural color was coming back under that smooth, pale gold skin of hers. She was also breathing more naturally. And when he reached to touch her cheek, to his shock her skin was merely warm under his fingers, instead of burning hot and damp.
"Au’e." He looked to Hilo, shocked. "Her fever's down. She was burning up."
Hilo nodded calmly. "How about that, eh? She'll need to stay out of the sea until this heals up, though. Don't want it getting infected all over again. Next time, she might not be so lucky."
Moke shook his head, taking a mental step back. "Not my problem. I don't even know her. Soon as she's on her feet, I'll drop her off in Kona town."
Hilo gave Moke a long look that made Moke want to shuffle his feet and duck his head like a guilty kid, even though he was here on an important errand that did not include babysitting strangers.
"I know you'll do what's best," the older man said. "Now I gotta get on up the road, check on some friends. Mama Pele's volcano is causing commotion over the other side."
"Lotta houses burned up," Moke agreed, his gaze on the girl. He wasn't sure why she was so fascinating. But like the surf, he just wanted to keep watching her.
"A’e. Pele continues to build her island, but takes away what we've built. It's a hard thing when nature triumphs over our creations. Makes us feel small." Hilo gave Moke a sly look. "I hear you're a big kanaka back on the mainland, you and your brahs."
"We stick together. Watch out for each other."
"That's good. You have time while you're here, come out and see me at Honokohau, yeah? We'll go fishing."
"Sounds good," Moke agreed. Then he frowned as he looked down at the sleeping woman. "Soon as she's on her feet, that is."
Hilo smiled, and clapped Moke on the shoulder. "That's right. Pele gave her to you to watch over, yeah?" He winked. "Well, you can always fish off the outrigger while you're here at Nawea."
"Ah, I don't think—"
Hilo snorted. "As if Timo Ahuelo's son don't know how to take care of any watercraft? Gotta be betta at it than the tourists Frank gets on dive tours. I'll call, let him know you'll be using some of the gear. You enjoy yourself, you hear?"
From the twinkle in his eyes, Moke was pretty sure Hilo wasn't only talking about fishing.
Moke sat and watched over the sleeping wahine. Even after Hilo drove away, leaving the little bay quiet with only the sound of the gentle surf coming through the windows, he stayed at her side.
Truth be told, he couldn't seem to make himself move away.
She was attractive, even unconscious and dirty., Okay, she was more than attractive. She had a pretty face, and a smoking body, long legs and curves for miles, which he shouldn’t be perving over when she was lying there unconscious and injured. 'Cause that was just wrong, even for a biker.
But it wasn't just her body... there was something else, something that pulled him to her. Felt like a kind of compulsion, like a living magnet keeping him there.
Weird.
Made him twitchy. And it was all wrong, because she was a squatter, yet another one of the aimless, often destructive visitors that he despised. Nevertheless, he got up and moved closer, made sure the towel was tucked over her bare shoulders, 'cause even in the warmth and humidity, she was almost naked, and she might get chilled.
Also, the nature of those cuts really bothered him. It dug at the edge of his mind relentlessly.
It reminded him of something... a fight he saw once at a big rally, when two bikers got drunk and belligerent around the campfire. One had pulled a big, sharp knife from his boot, and gone after the other man with it. The blade left bloody slices across the other man's chest, and arms.
Only how would a cut like that happen on a woman's chest? She wasn't some tough biker bitch who'd get in a no-holds-barred fight. Or if she was that kind, she sure as hell didn't have many miles on her. She looked...fresh. Only in her early twenties.
No, there was something bad, even evil about these cuts. And he'd bet it was tied directly with the way she'd looked at him before she passed out on the beach. Terror, that's what had been in her eyes.
Sheer, blind terror.
But who was she afraid of...and what would he have to do to protect her from them?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mike 'Sound' Whitaker, president of the Devil's Flyers, Greater Seattle Chapter, was used to talking to the cops.
When crime happened in the Sea-Tac area, all known gangs and clubs came under scrutiny. Since Sound kept his club well clear of the worst shit such as large-scale theft, drugs, prostitution and human trafficking, he was nearly always able to greet local law enforcement without fuss and send them on their way the same.
He also made a point
of keeping friends on the force. One of them had contacted him today, asking for a meet.
Sound rolled his Harley to a stop in the quiet back parking lot of the Neptune Bar and Grill, a small, neighborhood place that happened to be owned by his old lady, Felicia.
Sound booted the Harley's kickstand free and rolled off of his bike, stripping off his riding gloves and pushing his shades up onto his head.
The late August evening was warm, the little lot redolent of the full dumpsters behind the bar. Still, it was empty of other people. Also, in case anyone in a nearby vehicle, say FBI, tried to eavesdrop on convos out here, Sound happened to know there were signal jammers on the back edge of the roof—he'd installed them himself.
Patrons of the Neptune bitched that their cell phones didn't work back by the pool tables. Felicia or one of her staff just shrugged and told them to take their call out on the front stoop and save everyone in the place from having to listen to their women bitch at them to get home. This usually got a laugh and had the added benefit of being the truth.
This evening, besides Felicia's bright orange Dodge Charger, an unmarked car waited. Detective Marco Diaz leaned on the fender, arms crossed.
"Diaz," Sound greeted him.
"Walker," the short, stocky Hispanic replied. "How's tricks?"
Sound smiled, a crooked effort that stretched the skin on the left side of his face, marred by a jagged scar. "Fair. How 'bout you?"
Diaz shook his head once. "Got a bad case that's come up. With your cooperation, might get to the bottom a lot faster."
"Fill me in," Sound offered.
Diaz told him the story of an ordinary truck stop cafe waitress who found a woman's designer wallet at her place of work. How she returned it to the owner, one Delicia Garza, at her boyfriend's residence. That boyfriend being one Darius Albany, Seattle area businessman on the surface, and dealer in human flesh, stolen goods and hard drugs on the side.
How the waitress claimed, while waiting at the gate of Albany's compound, to have seen Seattle area deputy prosecutor Craig McFarland being driven inside, in the company of bikers.
“Holy fuckin’ hell,” Sound said. He and the cop shared a dark look.
Diaz went on, telling how the bikers had broken into her apartment, attempted to kidnap her, but succeeded only in wounding her superficially with a knife before being taken out by her pepper spray. One escaped, the other was arrested, arraigned, and then bonded out by one Darius Albany. He was now, as might be expected, in the wind, along with the other.
How the waitress, evidently in fear for her life, fled protective custody, and was now also in the wind.
Sound shook his head, his raw-boned face tight. "You haven’t found McFarland." He'd read about the guy's disappearance on the news and wondered who was responsible.
Diaz shook his head. "Not yet. And no one's come forward asking for money, so..."
So either a deputy DA had, for reasons of his own, gone on the run, or someone wanted him gone. Likely someone on the wrong side of the law. Darius Albany? Sound totally believed the man would grab McFarland.
But bikers involved? Not on his watch.
"They weren't Flyers," he stated. Or if they were, they were dead men walking. His brothers did not get involved in that kind of shit—at least not if they wanted to stay alive. "What club affiliation?"
And if Diaz said Devil's Flyers, heads would roll and blood would flow.
"Not yours," Diaz said. He spat on the pavement at his feet. "Prairie Rattlers." Diaz was from the Tri-Cities in central Washington, so his hatred made sense. He'd grown up watching the Rattlers spread their poison throughout his home community.
"Fuck. Me," Sound muttered. "Prairie Rattlers? Thought they were finished."
That club had been comprised of low-lifes, vicious, amoral one percenters who thought they were modern outlaws. But they'd been run out of the Tri-Cities by a coalition of other clubs. Sound would know because he'd been there.
"All their officers were killed in a righteous shoot-out. I ain't sayin' who did that, o' course."
"Right," Diaz said dryly. "But a few of them obviously survived."
"Or these shitheads think they can resurrect the gang, build it again. But if they think they're gonna come over here and start up again—in my territory?" Sound went on. "Working for a bottom feeder like Albany? I don't think so."
"Albany seems to. He bonded them out of jail."
"Fuck. And likely made McFarland disappear. Where's your witness—the waitress?"
Diaz sighed. "According to TSA, she’s now in Hawaii. She slid away from her police escort, headed straight for Sea-Tac. Which says to me, either Albany paid her to disappear, which doesn't make sense, because he has no problem making a public figure like McFarland disappear, he's not gonna hesitate to take down a waitress. Or, she's flat out terrified his goons will find her and next time, she’ll disappear."
"You said the Rattlers are in the wind?" Sound demanded. "Your guys lost 'em?"
"D'you know how many square miles of rainforest are just outside this metro area?" Diaz asked, waving an arm to the north and east. "Yeah, they're in the wind. That's why I'm here. I figure you got a vested interest in making sure no other club muscles in on your territory. Appreciate if you'd keep eyes out, let me know if your boys see anything."
"You got anything more'n that to go on?"
Diaz opened his jacket to reveal a cell phone, which he palmed. "Yep. This burner, which does not exist, and I did not pass it on to you, has video footage from the front gate of Albany's property. The biker escorting the pickup truck carrying McFarland is one Grinder Shlautz. We think he’s the ringleader, the other guy is a follower. They’ve been seen with a third, older man. We get any more, I'll share—if you'll do the same."
Sound held up his hand and Diaz tossed the phone to him. Sound tucked it away inside his cut. "All right, I'm in. But you'd best hope you find them shitheads first. 'Cause I get hands on 'em..."
The cop winced. "I didn't hear that, either. You find 'em first, just call me, I'll take them off your hands. Now, goodnight."
"'Night." Sound watched the detective drive away.
Fucking Rattlers, believing they could slither into Flyer territory and ally with a local drug dealer. He'd call a meet tomorrow of his lieutenants, alert them.
Next he'd clue in the presidents of the chapters who'd ridden against the Rattlers in the Tri-Cities. They all had a vested interest in cutting the head off this particular snake...and making sure that this time, it stayed dead.
He walked in the back door of the Neptune, pausing in the doorway of the small office, where an attractive, 40-something redhead was frowning at a computer, a cigarette in one hand, shot of whiskey in a glass close by.
"Hey, gorgeous," he drawled. "How's business tonight?"
She smiled, and leaned back in her chair, her green eyes warm with the special look she saved for him. "Business is fine, handsome. And my night? It just got a whole lot better."
Sound Walker, feared and respected by all who knew him and many who did not, reached out and trailed one calloused finger down her cheek, his gaze soft in a way no one else ever saw. "Mine too."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Shelle woke in a strange, but lovely bedroom.
She stared in wonder. Where on earth was she? The walls were a mellow cream, and a painting of a tropical mountain graced the wall opposite the bed. The painting was beautiful, like something you'd see in a fancy gallery or art museum, but not in a private home—at least, not the kind she ever got invited to.
When she turned her head, a sea turtle watched her from the bedside table. Carved of wood, the turtle gazed back at her with gentle eyes. A smile started deep inside and worked its way outward to her lips. Shelle smiled back at the sea turtle, carved with flippers gracefully spread. Shelle could almost see the clear, blue-green water around the creature.
For the first time in what felt like weeks, calm filled her. She lay there, drifting as if she
and the turtle rode the same gentle swells.
This idyll ended the instant the big, scary Hawaiian dude with long hair and shoulders the size of a delivery truck appeared in the bedroom doorway.
Actually, he filled the doorway. No, he obliterated it. He was fah-reaking huge! And she couldn't tell by the look on his square, handsome face if he wanted to grab her and wreak bodily harm, or just yell at her again.
Wait, yell again? A memory flashed through her mind, of him glowering down at her on a little beach, tall and dark and menacing, as if Grinder the biker had materialized out of her nightmares. Which could not happen, as she was clear across the ocean from Washington state, and no one knew where she was.
She'd had a flashback...and she was having another right now. In the tiny part of her mind that was still functioning normally, she knew this. But after her ordeal at Grinder and his minions' hands, this guy was more than enough to have her cowering like a kicked puppy. She trembled all over, her heart racing, fear sweat prickling her underarms and groin.
"Wh-who the hell are you?" she croaked, sounding more like a frog than a tough woman. "And where am I?"
This place might be peaceful and beautiful and warm, the bed might be soft, comfy and clean, but being alone in a strange place with a strange, menacing man? Way too much of a repeat, even if it was a repeat Hawaiian princess-style.
She hid her shaking hands by fisting them in the sheet over her. Except it was a...tablecloth? She recognized the weave and the fancy edging from linens that Vicky had. These details flicked through her mind with strange clarity, even as her breathing shuddered in her tight throat.
"I'm Moke." His gaze dropped to her hands and his frown deepened. "You're at Nawea. Nawea Bay."
"What's that? I mean, what kind of place is this?" Were there other people here? As in, people she could ask for help?