Kimo nodded. “Stay here.” He turned to the two men, pointed to one. “You and I have got to get the light back on. You—” he pointed to the guy who’d once threatened her with a bat. “Stay with her.”
Kimo and the other man raced to the lighthouse, disappeared inside.
The barrier spell had been broken with Townsend’s death, Riga realized, her heart leaping. She could get in too.
She struggled to her feet. “Come on!”
The man gripped her shoulder and gently shoved her back. “Kimo said to stay here.”
“Technically, he said to stay with me. And we need to help them get that light on.” She darted from his grasp.
A hand seized the collar of her jacket. Riga wriggled free of it.
An arm went around her waist, lifting her.
“Let go!”
“Kimo said to stay.”
She shouted with rage. Were the lights of the ship closer? It was impossible to tell for sure. Whatever sacrifice Townsend had made, or spell he’d cast, the elemental wind was an entity in its own right. Townsend’s death hadn’t ended its rampage, and the tanker was drifting towards shore. Getting the lighthouse working might not be enough.
But Donovan was inside, in danger.
She rocked her head back, hoping to connect with his face, hit his chest instead. Christ, he was big. She reverse-kicked, angling for his crotch, connected. There was a popping sound. He didn’t budge.
“You’re wearing a cup?” she asked, incredulous.
“There’s always something new to learn.” The kupua’s voice came from behind them.
She twisted, startled. “Help me,” she shouted.
“He wants you to stay,” the kupua said. “And you can do more good here.”
The man holding her didn’t react. Was the voice inside her head or out of it? The menehune kupua was here, somewhere. He wanted her to do something. Something new, something she’d learned…
Reading her future in the waves? Visioning? Grokking… Grokking water, helping it change its course, encouraging it to flow in a direction it might naturally flow. And wind was not so different…
She relaxed in her captor’s arms and closed her eyes, connected to the energies from the in-between. Imagined her spirit body, a duplicate Riga, stepping outside her physical body. Imagined that body whipping away in the wind, dissolving, becoming one with the element. Imagined the wind dying down, relaxing.
The hurricane battered her.
It wasn’t working.
She concentrated. Wind. I am the wind. She flew through the air, battering against the island. There was an easier way, a happier way. All she had to do as wind was flow gently around this land.
Something struck her face. Her eyes opened, and she snarled in frustration. Dammit! She was a necromancer, not a kupua.
A necromancer…
She closed her eyes and focused on her own center. But all she could think about was Donovan. Donovan in danger, hurt. She’d waited so long to find him, and the thought of losing him, his cocky smile, the way he treated life as a game to be won rather than a problem to be solved...
And suddenly she was there, at that still point, and Donovan was with her. The tears that pricked at her eyes changed, were no longer tears of fear and potential loss. Her heart swelled.
Riga found that still point inside her, and he was there.
The world dropped away. She was everywhere and nowhere, in-between. Energy flowed through her, cool and dark, hot and light, there and not there. She let it fill her, and sent it into her energy body, into the wind. Dreamed.
Gentle winds caressing the tree tops. A green island, silver in the moonlight. And Donovan. The world fell away.
She felt other energies join her, other minds. Mark. The menehune. Sal, the faery shaman. And other kupuas she’d never met, on other islands. Her power surged – not the sickening, drunken headiness of blood magic – the purity of the in-between.
She opened her eyes. The wind was dying. Trees rustled gently in the breeze. Above, the clouds parted, revealing a fat moon.
The lighthouse remained dark.
“Weird weather,” the man holding her said.
A blaze of light. An explosion boomed, and then the shockwave hit them, sending the man staggering back.
He dropped her, and she ran, her head craning upward, searching for the signs of destruction – crumbled brick, falling glass. But the lighthouse stood.
A beam switched on from the top of the tower, flashed across the clouds.
She burst through the door, raced up the steps, her feet ringing hollowly on the metal.
A figure loomed before her, and she crashed into him.
“Riga!” Donovan pulled her close. “Kimo told me what happened. Are you okay?”
She nodded and pressed her face against his damp shirt, listened to the sound of his heartbeat, felt his chest rise and fall. He was alive.
“I heard an explosion.” Relief flooded her, and she tightened her arms around him, legs trembling.
“Someone rigged an explosive in here. Kimo was on the phone to the bomb squad, but Brigitte got impatient.”
“Brigitte! Was she hurt?”
“No, she took the bomb and dropped it in the ocean, well away from the lighthouse and the cliff. Don’t worry. Kimo and his buddy didn’t see her.”
A masculine shriek echoed down the stairwell. “Menehune!”
Riga scrunched up her face. Brigitte. “You were saying?”
Chapter 27
Whistling, Donovan tossed a shirt into his suitcase, splayed out upon the hotel bed.
Riga carried her toiletry kit into the bedroom, and shoved it in her bag. “Happy to escape?”
“Just looking forward to being in our own home, getting back to the casino. There’s another big poker tournament coming up. I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and get back to routine.”
She laughed. “Since when did you like routine? Has our honeymoon killed your sense of adventure?”
He grasped her wrist and pulled her to him, nuzzling her ear. “Never. And for the record? Best. Vacation. Ever.”
“I suppose any day that doesn’t end with one of us in jail is a success.”
He released her and returned to his packing. “If Kimo and his friends hadn’t followed us to the lighthouse and seen Townsend attack you, we might not have been so lucky. Kimo told me that Mana and Townsend had been drinking and killed a seal three years ago.”
“I wondered if they knew each other. Kimo told us that Townsend used to spend time at his restaurant. It made sense that he would know Mana as well.”
“They’d both felt so guilty that Townsend got involved with the Protection Society, and Mana confessed his sins to Kimo. When the seal killings started up again, Mana must have been suspicious.”
“But on Townsend’s side, I doubt guilt or alcohol played any role in his actions. He was a killer. He took over the Aquatic Protection Society for his own reasons. That was how he knew where the seals would be – convenient calls from helpful citizens. He and Jay were the only ones who knew about the most recent seal by the Spouting Hole – until he killed it, that is.”
Brigitte zoomed through the open window and landed on the footboard. “So! Are we done here?”
“Just about,” Donovan said. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to find your own ride back to the mainland.”
“Hmph! And this is ze thanks I get for my bravery. If I had not arrived in time, ze lighthouse would have been destroyed by ze bomb.”
“Thank you, Brigitte,” Riga said.
“Well.” The gargoyle inclined her head. “You are welcome, I suppose. But I wonder what ze necromancer’s final spell was to be? It would have been something powerful after ze deaths from ze ocean, natural disasters, rioting…”
“I don’t want to know,” Riga said firmly. She still didn’t trust necromancy – didn’t trust herself. And her niece had been right. In some things, ignorance truly was bliss. “What did
you decide on the hotel?” she asked Donovan.
“After my accountants got through with the real set of books, I decided not to make an offer.”
“Probably for the best,” Riga said. “I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable coming back here.”
“Why? We caught the necromancer.”
“It’s not the necromancer. It’s the menehunes.” They’d helped her, leaving hints, teaching, protecting Donovan, but she’d never really trust the fae.
“I wonder if we’ll ever know the real story behind Dennis’s murder?” Donovan said. “Was he just in the wrong place, wrong time? Or was he a target?”
“I got a call this morning from Carol, the Society’s new president,” Riga said. “She said there are some questions about the funds – whether Townsend misused them. Maybe Dennis found out. Or maybe he was just unlucky.”
“The really unlucky one was Sarah,” Donovan said.
“Yes.” Riga looked at her sandaled feet. She’d failed that young woman. But there was another she might still be able to save. “And I have a ghost to release. Would you like to come?”
Brigitte shook her head.
Donovan looked at the open closet, and the rows of shirts and shoes still on hangers inside. “You go. You know her better.”
Riga nodded and walked out the back door onto the poolside patio, down the steps past the banyan tree, to the rocky outcropping on the beach.
She called the in-between, summoned the ghost of Townsend’s wife.
The temperature dropped, and Riga shivered.
Hannah stood before her. She wore her bathing suit, but she was dry, and a sarong was tied around her hips. A hibiscus blossom decorated her hair.
“Your husband is dead,” Riga said. “He fell from the cliffs by the lighthouse last night. We know the truth.”
The ghost sighed. “I know. I felt his hold on me release.” She looked toward the bay. “He forced me to spy on you.”
Riga nodded. The chills they’d all felt in the bungalow. The ghost had done a good job hiding from them – likely helped by Townsend’s magic. “And you told him about our meeting with Mana, and about the leiomano.”
“I’m sorry,” Hannah whispered. “I caused so much pain.”
“You didn’t. Townsend was responsible. He was a powerful necromancer. You couldn’t have helped yourself.”
“I still don’t understand why he drowned me on our honeymoon.”
“For your money, I think,” Riga said. She thought of the small dolphin memorial with Hannah’s name on it, and her fists clenched. Before it had seemed pathetic. Now it was an insult. “Your bequest fueled the Aquatic Protection Society, which Townsend came to manage. And your family had quite a bit of money, didn’t they? It was how they managed to keep your name from the papers after you died here.”
Hannah’s ghost nodded.
But Sarah had found Hannah’s name. That morning when they’d spoken with Townsend at the lighthouse, she had called him, asking for permission to reveal Hannah to Donovan. And then when Sarah had called Donovan immediately afterward to tell him the helicopter ride was set, Townsend had panicked and killed her that day at the hotel, the same way he’d killed his wife.
“I thought we were so happy,” Hannah said. “But he really wasn’t a very good man, was he?” The air around the ghost brightened. She turned and vanished.
Riga returned to the bungalow. The glass patio doors stood open, and the bungalow was silent, still.
“Donovan?”
She wandered through the living area, and into the bedroom. On her pillow, something gleamed in shades of violet. Slowly, she walked to it, and picked up the pearl necklace. It shimmered, catching the light, and she drew the pearls through her fingers. Even to her untutored eye, she could see that these were light years above the green-tinted pearls she’d bought by the Spouting Hole.
“I picked it up a week ago,” Donovan said.
She turned, startled.
He leaned against the doorframe. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to give it to you.”
“It’s stunning.”
He came behind her and took the pearls from her hand, latched them around her neck. “Nowhere near as stunning as you.”
“Donovan, you didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to.” He kissed the side of her neck. “Our honeymoon is just the beginning.”
A part of her thought that sounded ominous, but she leaned against him, and decided to just enjoy the pressure of his arms circling her waist, his breath against her neck.
It was a beginning.
Leave a Review
If you enjoyed this book (and even if you didn’t) please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Then contact me on my author page, let me know where the review is, and I’ll send you a free copy of The Metaphysical Detective.
OTHER BOOKS IN THE RIGA HAYWORTH SERIES
The Metaphysical Detective, Book One
The Alchemical Detective, Book Two
The Shamanic Detective, Book Three
The Infernal Detective, Book Four
Notes and Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the many people who assisted me with research and other elements of the book. First, Elizabeth Barton, who not only suggested the idea of the earth giving off pheromones but also introduced me to Julie Hawkins, a teacher of Huna. She not only allowed me to pick her brain on huna, but also recommended several excellent sources, including books on Huna by Serge Kahili King. You can read my interview with Julie here. I’d also like to thank Stephanie Taylor for advising me on how the police might react if they found the same tourist couple at the site of two suspicious deaths in a week. And as usual, Mike Agoff of Bay Area Martial Arts Academy for assisting me with the martial arts moves in the fight scenes.
Any mistakes I’ve made in the book are my own. In one case it was intentional. Kauai’s Kilauea lighthouse looks pretty much as I described, but it’s not a working lighthouse.
I’d also like to thank my editors, Diana Orgain, Kassandra Lamb, and Stacy Green, as well as my beta reader, Robin Rodricks and my “delta” reader, my sister, Alice.
About the Author
Kirsten Weiss is the author of the Riga Hayworth paranormal mystery series: The Metaphysical Detective, The Alchemical Detective, The Shamanic Detective, and The Infernal Detective.
Kirsten worked overseas for nearly fourteen years, in the fringes of the former USSR and deep in the Afghan war zone. Her experiences abroad not only gave her glimpses into the darker side of human nature, but also sparked an interest in the effects of mysticism and mythology, and how both are woven into our daily lives.
Now based in San Mateo, CA, she writes paranormal mysteries, blending her experiences and imagination to create a vivid world of magic and mayhem.
Kirsten has never met a dessert she didn’t like, and her guilty pleasures are watching Ghost Whisperer reruns and drinking good wine.
You can connect with Kirsten through the social media sites below, and if the mood strikes you, send her an e-mail at [email protected]
@RigaHayworth
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Kirsten's Website: http://kirstenweiss.com
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©2013 Kirsten Weiss. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means
without permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites and their content.
Misterio Press / eBook edition December 2013
Cover image: Becky Scheel
ISBN: 978-0-9855103-6-7
Visit the author website: www.kirstenweiss.com
Table of Contents
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
Leave a Review
Notes and Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
5 The Elemental Detective Page 24