Dead On Arrival (A Malia Fern Mystery)

by Kym Roberts

  Pearl’s face scrunched up in outrage at my threat, Makaio held her arms and John once again stepped in. This time, he sighed before giving his I’m-in-charge speech. (Not the first time he acted that way around me.)

  “Ladies, the officers will fill out a report and give you both an accident form with all the information you need to give to your insurance companies. Pearl, they’ll need to know where you want your truck towed. Malia, is there anything you want to get out of your car?”

  Craning my neck to look past all the people blocking my view of my crumpled car, tears began to well. Just like that, the pent up emotions of the past couple days, spilled over and I could no longer speak.

  Pai came to my rescue this time. “I’m going to take Malia home. Makaio, go through her car and get any personal effects for her. You can drop them off tomorrow.”

  Makaio nodded in agreement and turned Pearl away before the woman could open her mouth. I swore if she said one word, I was going to kill her. The hell with the witnesses. Temporary insanity was just one word away from taking over my body.

  “Mr. Lincoln, I need to speak with you.” John wasn’t about to let Pai take control.

  The tears were rolling freely down my face now as Pai picked me up and carried me around to the passenger side of the Jeep.

  “Can it wait until morning? I‘d like to take Malia home.”

  My brother took one look at my face and ran his fingers through his hair. “Fine. But first thing in the morning, I want you downtown.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  I looked at the sun starting to rise to the east. There was no way Pai would make it to John’s office, and my brother wasn’t fooled. The day a man like Pai looked to John for instructions was the day the gods wiped Hawai’i off the map.

  Chapter Twenty

  I let the scents of the island do their magic. The cool morning breeze blew my matted hair out of my face, replacing the odors of car fluids and burnt rubber with salt air, hibiscus flowers and fresh rain. Pai was helping me escape my car’s tragic death scene. It was probably melodramatic of me to think of it that way, but she was my baby.

  The new song by Bag of Toys playing on the radio should have energized me for a journey to the beach. Instead, I found myself sinking further into the leather seats, ready to sleep for the next twenty-four hours just as soon as we reached my apartment. The jeep turned to the right and the tires hit the uneven surface of a gravel drive. Expecting to see the parking lot of my apartment, I opened my eyes to see lush trees pass by on each side of the vehicle. It wasn’t my parking lot. It was the road to Lani’s condo.

  Hua.

  All the relaxing sensations I’d just experienced were gone. Pai hadn’t taken me home. He’d taken me to his place.

  “I thought a nice Jacuzzi would relax you before you went to bed…” He was smiling at me now, with that sultry, sexy smile of his which was just too damn alluring for me to handle. Especially now.

  “…I’ll be on my couch. Relax, Malia. After we get you cleaned up and relaxed, I need to go to the hospital to see my guard. I need to hear his side.”

  “But I don’t have a bathing suit.”

  Pai groaned. A sexy, animalistic noise that made my toes tingle. I’m sure he was picturing us in the Jacuzzi with no clothes on.

  I know I was.

  “Baby Doll, you are a tease without even trying to be.”

  He should talk. He and his cousin were driving me insane. It just wasn’t fair that I’d met two incredible men within twenty-four hours of each other, both of whom made me think about sex day and night.

  “Yeah, it seems you aren’t the only woman to feel that way.”

  Hua. He did it again. “How do you know what I’m thinking?” There was no logical explanation for it.

  “I told you. You wear your feelings on your sleeve.” Pai wasn’t looking at me. I got the impression he was hiding some deep dark secret.

  “If that’s true, why can’t anyone else read my thoughts? Makaio doesn’t have a clue.”

  “That’s because my cousin only hears what his body tells him. Not what other people’s bodies have to say.”

  “Why don’t you get along?” In so many ways, the two men were alike. I could see them playing football together, going to college together, going to the bars and picking up women together. Women. It was over a woman.

  “See, even you can read what others are thinking when you try.” Pai’s smile appeared strained.

  “Who was she?”

  He sighed heavily. His chest expanding nearly distracted me, but I refused to look.

  “My girlfriend. She decided to try some handcuffs in the bedroom, but she gave Makaio the honor of locking her up.”

  My heart sank into a bottomless pit. I felt betrayed. Used. Stupid. Yet Pai was the one who’d been hurt. His cousin had dealt him a serious blow that I still couldn’t fathom him doing. “Makaio slept with your girlfriend?”

  Pai shrugged, acting like it was no big deal, but obviously, it was.

  “I was consumed with expanding the Lincoln Security Firm. I think she sought out Makaio as revenge for my neglect.”

  “Ahhh.” What could I say to that? Pai was a nice guy. The woman he loved had betrayed him, but what made it worse was the disloyalty of his cousin. A man I’d been intimate with. (Sorta.) If I was going to let Pai kiss me, I should probably tell him I’d done more than just kiss Makaio.

  “I know what you did with Makaio.”

  My embarrassment and shame clenched my gut. Hands clamped in my lap, I didn’t know what to say…or do. Had Makaio gotten on the phone as soon as I’d left my apartment and rubbed it in Pai’s face? I couldn’t look at Pai as he punched in the code to the gate and headed down the drive.

  He parked the car and we sat there, staring at the front of the darkened bungalow with silence filling the space between us. His hand caressed my cheek, then he turned my face, forcing me to look him in the eye. “You’re different, Baby Doll. I don’t know why, but you’re worth fighting for.”

  His eyes traveled to my lips as his head slowly descended. Strong masculine lips paused a fraction from my own. His scent was glorious. Where Makaio was a wild ocean current, Pai was all cool sea breezes, slowly seducing me with his exotic comfort. Two completely different men pulled me just as strongly. My desperado was gone; my knight had taken his place.

  Pai’s lips captured mine in a slow exploratory waltz filled with heat. His hand traveled from my cheek to my neck where it caressed my increasing pulse before descending to my collarbone. As it slipped to the front of my neck, our kiss intensified, his tongue dancing with my own and then he was gone.

  He pulled away. (Before I did.) A fact I found extremely disturbing since I’d just been in a very passionate embrace with Makaio not even an hour earlier. Shouldn’t I be the one stopping all these kisses? His fingers played with the ticklish spot in the hollow of my neck.

  “Baby Doll, I’m a patient man. I’ll wait for you to decide.”

  He smiled, pecked my lips (still burning from his kiss) and got out of the Jeep. I watched him walk around the vehicle, and visualized him carrying me through the front door.

  I quickly unbuckled my seatbelt and jumped from the vehicle. Pai smiled down at me as I landed on my feet. I refused to be steered toward Pai’s bed. The pain in my cankle, however, had returned full force causing me to hobble forward. Unaffected by my behavior, Pai casually put his arm around my waist, and took some of the pressure off my foot as we walked up the sidewalk together.

  I looked toward the conspicuously dark main house. “Where’s Lani?”

  “She had an early flight to Oahu. She took her son over to her brother’s house.”

  “Oh.” We were alone. That did not bode well for my resolve.

  “I’m not going to get into the Jacuzzi with you. We’ll save that for when you’re ready.”

  I’m pretty sure my body was ready. Luckily, my brain was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.
/>   “I won’t look if you want to get undressed and get into the Jacuzzi.”

  Of course, I wanted to. Every inch of me hurt in more ways than one. I nodded as we reached the door and Pai released me to unlock the door. We replayed the brushing of our bodies as I entered his temporary home. He smiled. I groaned, pretending it was from pain, not the desire coursing through my body.

  “Can you really read all of my thoughts?” A woman needs secrets.

  “Unfortunately for some women, not a thought goes by that I don’t hear.” Pai winked and I’m pretty sure my face turned the shade of a Flamingo Lily, the bright red variety.

  “Every thought?” I looked up through my lashes.

  “I would say the color of your cheeks resembles the pink variety of the Flamingo Lily.”

  Hua.

  Pai coughed, a strangled sound escaping his mouth. “You’re thinking about my balls?”

  “No!” At least I hadn’t been. Maybe.

  He cleared his throat. “Then why did you say testicles?”

  “I didn’t.” I denied.

  “Hua translates to testicles.” He insisted.

  Damn. He really could hear everything inside my head. “I know what it means, but my brother taught it to me when I was a kid. He caught me cussing at the beach with my friends. He said if I was going to cuss, I needed to say it in our native tongue so not everyone understood what I was saying. By the time I slipped in front of my mom, I’d been saying it for years. Old habits die hard.”

  Pai’s eyes crinkled. “How many guys heard you say ‘hua’ before you knew what it meant?”

  “Too many,” I confessed.

  He grinned.

  I grinned. Then his balls really did slip into my mind. I ran/limped for the bathroom and slammed the door.

  I looked in the mirror and cussed again. Hua. No wonder Pai could resist me. I was surprised anyone was able to tolerate me.

  I don’t even want to tell you how filthy I was, or what my hair looked like. My makeup was far from supermodel material, and the goose egg in the middle of my forehead looked like a third eye. I stripped down, brushed out my hair, cleaned off all the dirt and dried mud from my body. Wrapped in nothing but a towel, I went out on the patio where Pai sat in a deck chair near the bubbling Jacuzzi with his laptop open.

  He looked up and his eyes darkened with pent up desire. Damn my libido with its off the charts activity. His eyes traveled down my body and back up to my chest. Then he looked back down at his computer.

  “You better get in the water before I forget how patient I am.”

  I scampered across the patio and tripped into the Jacuzzi with a splash, the towel going with me. I caught a glimpse of his smile as I settled down in the warm pulsing jets. Just what my sore tattered body needed.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls this evening. I met with Misty Johnson, Peter’s widow, while you were watching the construction site. She was pretty upset at the time and I didn’t want to leave her.

  “Misty said her husband had been clean for almost eight months. Last week, she called Daven when she hadn’t been able to reach him. Daven told her he was worried that he may have hooked up with the wrong people, but he would be home the next day and let her know what was going on. That’s why he reported Peter was missing when he got home. Apparently, Peter had been drinking heavily every night and one night, he caught him doing meth with some women outside the hotel bar. Daven didn’t want to tell her, so he ignored Peter’s behavior and went to Oahu to another construction site. When Daven returned to Kaua’i, he found Misty’s messages on the phone in the condo he was sharing with Peter. Peter was gone and Daven knew he had to come clean about Peter’s behavior. He also told the police that Peter had been squandering their investment money with his drug habit.”

  “Wow, that poor woman.” While I was relieved Pai hadn’t abandoned me for no good reason, I felt guilty for accusing him of doing just that. Misty Johnson had lost everything. Her husband and the dream of a happily ever after. It was depressing. And Pai had made sure she wasn’t alone.

  My body reluctantly began to succumb to the water’s massaging sensations, the bubbles working their magic on my sore, exhausted muscles. I leaned back, rested my head on the padded pillow, and watched Pai through half-closed eyes.

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t believe it. She said her husband got addicted to the OxyContin when he had back surgery. He never spent a lot of money on his drug addiction. He just used too much medication and convinced different doctors to prescribe him more. He recognized the problem himself before it got too far out of control. She said he never ‘hit rock bottom’ like you’d expect from most addicts before they acknowledge their problem. He was ashamed of his addiction and put himself into rehab.”

  “Maybe he was stealing from the company instead of using personal funds so she wouldn’t know about it. He wouldn’t be the first spouse to hide his problem.” I was done looking for something that wasn’t there. I had barked up the wrong tree with this investigation just as I had with Windy and the guard. No more wild ghost chases for me.

  Help me.

  My body spasmed and splashed with an electrical charge strong enough to shove me under water. I came up sputtering water from my nose and mouth.

  Pai was on his feet charging across the patio. “What the hell was that?”

  “Stop!”

  He froze in his tracks.

  “I’m not dressed.” I pulled my chest against the side and motioned him to sit back down. I didn’t need him scrutinizing me. I looked like hell before I got in the Jacuzzi, and now I was freaked out of my frickin’ mind.

  Scared he was only reacting to me going under water and that I really was losing it, I whispered, “Did you hear him?” It may have been the first and only time I prayed someone could read my mind.

  “The man in your head saying, ‘Help me’? How could I miss it? Whose voice was that?” Pai slowly backed away, watching me for any more sudden attacks on my brain.

  I slumped forward and rested my head on my arms over the edge. “Thank God. I thought I was going crazy.” I lifted my head and rested my chin on my arms to confess. “The first time I heard it…was when I rolled over Peter Johnson’s body. I heard him again last night at the convenience store with Joe. He told me to run from that nutjob you stopped from attacking me, but for the most part, I’ve kind of been ignoring him.”

  Pai returned to his chair and remained silent, as if he was debating how he should respond. I visualized myself in a strait jacket and began to regret my confession. Dead people can’t communicate with the living.

  “Who says they can’t?” he asked.

  “So you believe dead people can talk?” Waiting for him to make fun of me, sarcasm dripped off my words.

  “Do you believe I can hear your thoughts?” He had me on that one. He could hear my thoughts and he heard Peter’s voice in my head. Weird shit was happening that I didn’t particularly care for.

  “That’s why I want you to work for me full-time.”

  Even though I was listening, my eyes had closed and I wasn’t sure if I had heard him correctly. “What?” I asked, distracted by my freaky life.

  “I want to hire you full-time.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I think you can help me get to the truth. I think Peter may be guiding you and if I get you in front of the right people, Peter just may reveal the key to his murder.” Pai’s fingers tapped away on his laptop.

  Curiosity got the better of me. I opened my eyes and sat up to get a better view of the man who thought a surf instructor who dropped out of college her senior year could help him at anything. “Why would you think that?”

  “Let’s just say it was a feeling I got from Daven Raines. Peter told me Daven was a very calm and controlled guy. Misty said the same thing. Daven came to her aid when her husband had the car accident. He stood by his partner’s side when money was tight from medical expenses, and when he went into rehab. By ever
yone’s account, Daven has been the model business partner.”

  “So what’s the problem?” This case was sounding more and more like I’d be barking up another tree without a leg to stand on.

  “Everything seems to occur when Daven’s not around.”

  “That tends to point toward his innocence, not guilt.” The more I heard, the less I wanted to get involved. How many times could I look like an idiot in a week?

  “That’s my point. Innocent people get drawn into the middle of crap. Daven Raines makes sure he’s never in the middle, but always there in the end to pick up the pieces.”

  “Pai…”

  “Baby Doll, I hired you because my pride won’t stop me from getting to the truth. Don’t let yours stop you from taking on this case.”

  Ouch.

  I leaned back and let his admonishment sink in. Pai waited in silence, until I finally asked, “This doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that my dad recommended you to Peter Johnson, does it?”

  “No.”

  “Or that my dad is trying to get me a full-time job other than teaching tourists how to surf?”

  Pai smiled. “I won’t deny that it came up…”

  “Ha!”

  Pai raised his hand to shut me up. “But that’s not the reason why I want you working for me, and I think you know it.”

  I capitulated. “Okay, fine, but, I still don’t completely understand. The only job I’ve done for you, I totally screwed up and I have zero experience in any kind of security work.”“That’s a matter of opinion. Did you rescue Joe and find out why James was missing on the job?”

  “I don’t think ‘rescue’ is the right word to define what I did, and I don’t know what really happened to either one of them. I thought James had been decapitated.”

  “The man fell for the oldest trick in the book. A female decoy showing a little cleavage. Well, more than a little, but he left his post to get some action. Chances are he did it more than once. You said Windy was walking as if she knew where she was going and who she was meeting. Right?”