Red Rain

by Toby Neal

  Aquinas looked at me. I saw the battle in his eyes. On the one hand, I might act up and she’d inject me and end his problem for him. On the other hand, she might listen to my paranoid ravings and have the syringe tested.

  “I’d like it back if you don’t use it.” He slapped the syringe into her palm. “I’ll be in touch about the lieutenant’s progress.” He strode out.

  Dr. Wilson turned to the orderlies. “He’s safe with me.”

  “But, Doctor…”

  “But nothing. He’s meek as a lamb. Aren’t you, Michael?” She patted my bound arms.

  “Yes, Dr. Wilson,” I said robotically, a whacked-out expression in place. It must have been pretty good, because the orderlies let go of me, moving reluctantly toward the door.

  Dr. Wilson flicked her eyes again at the corners of the room, and I gave a slight nod. We still had surveillance.

  “I think my chest might have opened up again.” I lifted one of my strapped-down arms as high as it would go to show the spreading bloodstain I’d felt dampening the material. “Perhaps I could get some medical attention?”

  “Back on the bed!” Dr. Wilson commanded, clapping her hands. “Move this man to surgical! Stat!” She was using the need for medical attention to get me moved. Damn, this woman was good.

  The orderlies hopped to, opening the door and getting behind the mobile bed to push as I climbed back into it. Dr. Wilson walked briskly along beside me and undid the straps on my arms as she pretended to be checking the extent of the bleeding.

  “I have to call for more help,” she whispered. “And get this syringe tested. Pretend to be out of it.”

  I gave her that glassy stare I was getting good at. “Yes, Doctor.” If the situation weren’t so serious, I knew she would have laughed. Now she just touched my shoulder.

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  We got on the elevator with the orderlies and got off at the surgery floor, where Dr. Wilson raised some hell. As soon as she had an emergency surgery team working on me, she caught my eye and used her chin to point to a phone.

  I gave a tiny nod, and she disappeared.

  I was still vigilant as the medical team got the straitjacket and gown off me and unpacked the wound, which had opened up during the activity. I got it repacked and restrapped. Dr. Wilson appeared again, holding a clipboard.

  “This man has a new room assignment,” she said. “And a police guard.”

  Two strapping police officers had followed her in. Dr. Wilson dismissed the hospital staff and directed the officers to wheel me away. Once out of the surgery unit, Dr. Wilson took us up to the maternity ward. The officers wheeled me past rooms where babies cried and laboring women moaned, to a small room way on the end.

  “No one comes in or out without my say-so.” Dr. Wilson handed a paper to the officer. “He’s off the hospital roster. These are the people who can see him. Check with me about anyone else. And there’s a woman on her way—Sergeant Texeira. Curly brown hair, athletic build. His wife. She can come right in.”

  The officers nodded and took up stations outside the door.

  Lei was coming. My heart pounded with anticipation, and I felt a grin pulling up my mouth. “Dr. Wilson. I owe you my life.”

  “We aren’t out of the woods yet,” Caprice Wilson said, but she smiled back. “Now, tell me what happened that caused those men to almost kill you back there.”

  “You were right about what happened to me. I was unconscious and head-tripping, but I didn’t know that. I woke from the coma on the last day of captivity, but couldn’t physically respond. I was stuck in my body just hearing stuff. Those two were talking, and they took a proof-of-life photo.” I described what I’d heard and seen. “I can testify to recognizing both of them as being involved with the kidnapping. But I worry I’ve been discredited already.”

  “I think that syringe I got from Aquinas might help with that.” Dr. Wilson’s smile was tight. “I had a feeling you were being set up in some way. But I didn’t realize how far they’d go to shut you up. I’m calling my friend Ben Waxman at the FBI. He’s the Special Agent in Charge of the Honolulu branch.”

  She got out her phone and began pacing back and forth as she talked to the FBI. I settled back and rested, waiting for my wife. Anticipation made my stomach jumpy and my hands twitch.

  Dr. Wilson looked up at me with a broad grin, the phone still to her ear. “Turns out Ben knows all about the kidnapping. Sophie Ang was already working on it, off the books, and has a file going on Forsythe and Aquinas. We’re going to get them.”

  I smiled back in relief. “Thank God.”

  The door slid open with a tiny snick. A curly brown head appeared, followed by Lei’s slender form. She was wearing her usual work outfit, a black tank top and jeans, and athletic shoes that squeaked a little on the polished floor as she advanced into the room.

  Lei’s eyes flew open when she saw me on the bed, so wide and dark I couldn’t see the pupils. Her lips, usually pink and lush, leached of color. The freckles stood out on her skin like cinnamon on milk.

  “Lei!” I cried in alarm. Dr. Wilson saw Lei’s knees crumpling and caught her before she hit the ground.

  “For gosh sakes, who’s my patient now?” Dr. Wilson exclaimed with mock impatience, her voice wobbly. She supported Lei over to me by main force, Lei’s arm over her shoulder. I reached for my wife, groaning at the pain from my ribs, and hauled Lei up, lifting her onto the bed with me.

  Finally she was where she belonged. In my arms, her head on my chest, her hair in my face. I pushed those springing curls out of the way as I had done a hundred times before, petting them so they lay down a little. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be fainting. Are you okay?”

  Lei made a little snuffling noise, and I felt her nod. She squeezed me, and damn, she was strong. “Let go a little,” I wheezed. “My ribs.”

  She loosened her hold, but not that much. I didn’t mind. God, she smelled good, the coconut oil Tiare had given her scenting her skin and Kiet’s baby shampoo in her hair. She felt good, too, light and strong, but heavy in all the right places. My hands wandered a little, getting a feel of those places. She felt even better than she smelled.

  “I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted. I have more calls to make.” Dr. Wilson sounded satisfied. She damn well should be. That woman had saved the day.

  “Thanks, Doc,” I called as she shut the door behind her.

  I pushed Lei’s hair back again, sweeping it aside with my hand and loving the texture, soft and bouncy. I tipped her face up. She was still pale, but her lips were pink again, thankfully. “Will you still love me when I’m a crazy alcoholic with a fractured skull, cognitive impairment, and a gunshot wound?”

  She just kissed me. I was always the one who’d tried to tell her how beautiful she was, how she made me feel. But she just kissed me. Her mouth was like a strawberry sundae, sweet, slippery, and delicious. Those little noises she made as she turned so that she fit in her special spot alongside me—shoot me now and I’d die a happy man.

  “Are you okay?” She whispered.

  “Now that you’re here, I will be.”

  “I have so much to tell you. Our ohana is getting bigger.”

  “Oh, yeah?” My hands were wandering again.

  “I rescued some boys on my last case. I’m an aunty now, and that makes you an uncle. We have a funeral and a birthday party coming up.”

  “Uncle. I can do that,” I mumbled, distracted, feeling myself come alive under her touch. “I have to tell you something, too. I’m different, after this. I can feel it. Something’s gone that was messing with my head. I’m off the booze, permanently.”

  “I’m so glad.” Lei pulled back a little. She undid the bone hook she’d given me when I left from her own neck. “I had a new thong put on this.” She fastened the pendant on me, warm from her skin, and gave the hook a pat as it lay against my throat. “Back where it belongs.”

  We lay there for a long moment. I shu
t my eyes, feeling our hearts and breathing fall into sync as she snuggled close. Lei took my hand in hers and slid it under her shirt, placing it on the smooth, taut skin of her belly. “You better get well fast. We’re having a baby,” she whispered.

  I thought I wasn’t hearing her right. She was finally pregnant again? I felt a wave of dizziness and shut my eyes. It was too much joy after so little. My hand, fingers spread, stroked that smooth, sacred place near her waist where our child grew. “Really?” My voice was hoarse.

  “Really.” She took my face in her hands, looked into my eyes. “Are you happy?”

  “I don’t deserve this much happiness. I left you. I’ll never do it again.” I could hardly force the words out past the emotion clogging my throat.

  “You better not.” She kissed me. “Because I won’t let you go.”

  Acknowledgments

  Aloha dear readers!

  Whew! What a suspenseful tale. This book was just amazing to write, the first Lei Crime novel in which I did virtually no plotting or outlining. From the moment I decided I’d be in Stevens’s head for the duration, I was hooked. He had a lot going on, and resolving it and coming up with the twists at the end were some of the most fun I’ve ever had writing. And then there was Lei—really growing as a woman and a mother, learning to stick to things and see them through, curbing her impulses but expanding in her ability to love and commit. Writing a series this long is such a wonderful journey!

  I got to The End in November, and thought I’d take a break from Lei Crime through the holidays—but woke up just a few days ago missing Lei and Stevens, wanting to know what was going on with them. How was her pregnancy going? How was Stevens really doing after all that went on in Red Rain? And then I got a great new idea for a plot involving the farm-to-table gourmet food movement that’s happening on Maui, and across the country.

  Something you may not know is that Mike and I started out working in restaurants. Mike was an upscale fine dining waiter when we first married, and for one memorable two-year stint in the late 1980s, we worked together at the totally “it” restaurant on Kaua`i, A Pacific Café, owned by a dynamic French chef at the forefront of the development of Pacific Rim cuisine, Jean-Marie Josselin. I was a hostess (and weekend lunch waitress) and Mike worked the floor as one of the senior waiters. A Pacific Cafe was that restaurant everyone wanted to dine at, with reservations held months in advance. We served celebrities regularly and they were fascinating—for instance, Demi Moore was very tiny and never went anywhere without a posse, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had legs longer than telephone poles and lovely manners.

  These personal experiences will be woven into Lei Crime Series tale #12, Bitter Feast, about a murder in a hipster restaurant on Maui called Feast. Read on for an excerpt from Chapter 1!

  Special thanks goes to Sergeant First Class M.L. Doyle, for being my military “expert” advisor for Red Rain. (Any remaining errors are mine.) As with many topics I tackle, I don’t know much about the subject, and rely on my experts to help me get my facts within the ballpark if not perfectly correct. I got to know Mary when she asked me to blurb the first in her Master Sergeant Harper mysteries, and I was really impressed with her detailed knowledge of military criminal investigation. We have gone on to become friends, and she’s even written a Lei Crime novella, Hidden Poppies, that combines her military knowledge with a ripping plot set on Oahu, starring Marcella Scott.

  More thanks go to Captain (Retired) David Spicer for his procedural read, and further to women’s fiction novelist Holly Robinson, who, in spite of her own pressing deadlines, found time to do a critical edit/read of Red Rain. And for the first time ever, Noelle Pierce, my eagle-eye dangling clue finder, couldn’t find anything to critique! Thanks to each of you for helping me make this the most intense Lei Crime story yet.

  If you liked what you read, please leave a review. They mean so much, I read them all, and they’re the best gift any author can receive.

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  Until next time, I’ll be writing.

  Much aloha,

  Toby Neal

  I hope you enjoyed Red Rain! If you think other readers will enjoy it too, please leave an honest review on your favorite retailer by clicking here. Your thoughts matter so much, and I read them all!

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  Want two FREE full length, award-winning books from Toby Neal? Click HERE!

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  Love romance thrillers?

  Check out Toby Neal & Emily Kimelman’s hot new apocalyptic Scorch Series HERE!

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  Read on for a sample of the next book in the

  Lei Crime series!

  Excerpt Bitter Feast

  Bitter Feast

  Lei Crime #12

  It always started with a body. Lieutenant Michael Stevens hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans and gazed down at his newest case. “Tell me what you see.”

  Detective Brandon Mahoe, Stevens’s young Hawaiian protégé, squatted in the narrow, chilly space of the walk-in refrigerator beside the body. Blood had spread in a pool beneath the corpse, filling the round holes of a raised rubber floor mat. The smell, more of a metallic feeling in Stevens’s nostrils, was almost lost in other, competing odors: garlic, ripe fruit, mushrooms, scallions, and other produce lining the shelves.

  “Male, six foot, trim build at a hundred and seventy-five pounds or so. Dark hair. Maybe thirties or younger. Cause of death appears to be stabbing.” Mahoe’s tone was serious. The detective wasn’t being sarcastic about the handle of a large butcher knife protruding from the man’s back—Mahoe didn’t do sarcastic. “Probably a kitchen staff employee, to judge by the white chef’s coat he’s wearing.”

  Stevens dropped to his haunches beside Mahoe. He blew on a latex glove, inflating it to go on easy. He did the same to another, snapping it on. He pulled his notebook, equipped with a stub of pencil on a string, from his back pocket and jotted the information. “Good start.”

  “Can we shut the refrigerator door?” A male voice, harsh with impatience, came from the doorway. “All this food. It will spoil.”

  Stevens stood to his feet, a slow unfolding to his full, intimidating height. He stared down at the stocky, belligerent figure confronting him. “And you are?”

  “Chef Winston Noriega. I own this place.” The man, his chin outthrust, folded tattooed, muscular arms over a pristine white apron. “There are thousands of dollars of gourmet farm-fresh produce in this walk-in. I see no reason for it to go to waste just because Francois got himself stabbed.”

  “Back up out of here.” Stevens used his voice like a lash to cut across the arrogant chef’s posturing as he advanced to the doorway. “We’ll close the door. But only so we can have privacy. I’m sure you wouldn’t in good conscience serve food to your customers that has been part of a crime scene, even if we allowed it. Officer!” He gestured to one of the uniforms gathering the names of the kitchen staff. “Put up scene tape in this kitchen, clear this area, and put Chef Noriega in his office until I have time to interview him.”

  “Yes sir.” The officer gestured to his partner, who shooed the lookie-loos into an adjacent area and pulled out a roll of scene tape.

  “You can’t do that!” Noriega said. A muscle jerked in a jaw wide and square as a bulldog’s. Stevens glanced over at the officer who’d approached and now stood behind the chef. First responders had told Stevens that the chef had discovered the body.

  “Cuff him if he gives you a hard time. What did you say the victim’s name was?”

  “It’s Francois Metier, my sous-chef. Don’t touch me.” The chef shrugged away from the officer and stomped toward his office. Stevens stared after him thoughtfully, watching the officer accompany him to the door of the office. A woman, tall and elegant in black trousers, spoke a few words to the officer and slipped in after the chef.

  Probably the wife—he’d heard that she helped manage the famous restaurant.

  Stevens pulled the handle of the walk-in closed as Mah
oe had begun photographing the scene. Flashes from the camera threw the tight setting into high relief again and again against his eyeballs: floor-to-ceiling shelves, packed with every sort of foodstuff; the body on the floor, one hand down alongside the body, the other curled up alongside the man’s face; the blood pool.

  There was a gleam of something in the palm of the hand lying along the body.

  Stevens bent low to see the object. A familiar twinge in his side reminded him of a gunshot wound that had gone septic eight months ago. Healed now, that area still reminded him of his mortality whenever it had a chance. “Looks like there’s a ring in his hand. Photograph this.”

  Mahoe approached with the department’s Canon and photographed the item in question. Stevens lifted a diamond-encrusted band with a large center stone from the dead man’s hand. “Looks like an engagement ring.” He slipped it in an evidence bag. “Did you call Dr. Gregory?”

  “Yes, sir. The medical examiner’s on his way.”

  “Don’t need to call me sir.” Stevens had been Mahoe’s original commanding officer, but they were working as partners now, with Stevens in a mentoring capacity.

  “Yes sir.” Mahoe grinned. “Sorry. Habit.”

  A tap came at the steel door. Mahoe, closer to the entrance, pushed the handle and the unit opened with a pneumatic whoosh. Dr. Phil Gregory entered, carrying his kit and a body bag, his cheeks pink with excitement. The portly medical examiner had been on a health kick lately, and his trademark aloha shirt, decorated with hula girls today, hung loosely from his shoulders. “A murder at Feast! This is my favorite restaurant!”

  “You’re looking good, Doc, so you can’t have been eating here that often,” Stevens said. “I’ve heard they’re good, but after talking to the chef, I’m not wild about coming here as a customer.”