No Place Too Far

by Kay Bratt

“Did you like jumping in the pool with all your clothes on, Charlie?” She looked in the mirror and watched him perk up at his name.

  “I thought it would be fun, but my clothes made me heavy,” he said. “I couldn’t float as good.”

  Maggie laughed. His shoes alone probably weighed a few pounds. He had big feet, just like his dad, and they were growing every day. Soon she’d have to buy him new shoes.

  “Can we try not to do that again, Charlie? You need to ask Rosa’s permission before jumping in the pool. Even if you are wearing your swim clothes. Okay?”

  He nodded, but she wondered how much he heard with the wind blowing in his ears. Her tone was evident, though, and he was smart enough to agree.

  They pulled up to the apartment, and Maggie shut off the car. She was eager to get out of the hotbox. She also wanted to stop by and see Juniper as soon as she got Charlie settled. Maggie had a bone to pick with her. And it was called Dr. Starr. She would at least make Juniper run out and get the Freon to make it up to her.

  She helped Charlie out and slammed the door. “Hurry up, I’m sure Woodrow is dying to go outside. He needs a walk.”

  They climbed the stairs to their level, Maggie holding Charlie’s hand to make sure he didn’t stumble. For the hundredth time, she wished they could find something on ground level. It would make her life so much easier.

  “Can I have some cereal, Mama?”

  “I think we need to eat something more than cereal for dinner, Charlie. Some real food.” However, if cereal was what it took to get him to bed early, Maggie wasn’t above handing it over. She’d at least make a valiant attempt to give him something a bit more substantial.

  “Cereal is real food, though. Cap’n Crunch has berries. That’s fruit.”

  She barely heard what he said because of what lay before her. Five feet from their door, Maggie stopped in her tracks.

  “What’s wrong?” Charlie asked, coming to a halt beside her.

  The flowers that she and Charlie had planted together and placed beside their door to make their shabby apartment look more inviting had been sabotaged. Every flower head appeared to have been snipped off at the same height and lay neatly, like a carpet of color, around the boxes.

  “Nothing. Let’s get inside to Woodrow.” She looked around, scanning the landing and the parking lot below. She saw no one, but she nearly dropped her keys in her rush to get to the door and lock her and Charlie behind it. With her heart in her throat, she tugged him faster than he could walk and ended up dragging him the last foot or so.

  “Mama, stop,” he chided her, getting his feet under him again.

  “I’m sorry, Charlie. Stand here.” She put him in front of her legs, between her and the safety of the door. First she tried the knob, making sure it was still locked. It was, and she fumbled through the keys until she found the one for the dead bolt.

  “I hear Woodrow whining,” Charlie said.

  “I know. We’re coming, Woodrow!”

  She hoped Charlie wouldn’t notice the flowers from his limited view. How would she explain it? How could she tell him the chilling thought that filled her up inside? This had been done to her before. And it indicated something real and concrete. And terrifying.

  The Ghost was on Maui. And he knew where she lived.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Quinn led her grandmother down the hall, feeling upset that once again, she and Maggie couldn’t find the time to discuss everything going on. She felt pulled in every direction, physically and emotionally. How her life had gotten to that place again so fast she wasn’t quite sure.

  However, she no longer had someone to fix everything for her. She had to put on her big-girl panties and figure it out herself.

  She opened the door to her suite, and her grandmother just about ran her over going in. With all the traffic her room had gotten lately, it was starting to feel less like her sanctuary. The only positive was that it wouldn’t be so hard to leave.

  Helen looked around. Quinn watched her take everything in, her eyes settling on the soft, cozy blanket thrown over the couch, then the tattered secondhand ottoman that Quinn had found in the Rainbow Attic in Kihei. Quinn had added several gently loved—used—items to soften the hard lines of all the new things in the room. It made it feel more like a home, though she doubted her grandmother felt the same. She was so rich that she even smelled like money, and Quinn couldn’t imagine her sifting through a bin of used blankets to bring home.

  Finally Helen turned to her.

  “It’s nice.” She looked surprised.

  “I’m overwhelmed with your abundance of compliments,” Quinn said, not cracking a smile.

  Helen did, though. Just a tiny lift at the corner of her mouth that let Quinn know she liked it that her granddaughter had a little sass. And if Quinn was honest with herself, she also liked that Helen was a firecracker. The fact that she’d arranged for Quinn to be kidnapped as a child and taken to the mainland, well, that was another matter altogether. But one she’d already forgiven her grandmother for.

  “Have a seat,” Quinn said. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  Fixing her grandmother’s favorite steaming pineapple tea would give her a chance to figure out how she was going to say what needed to be said. She wasn’t exactly afraid of Helen, but she’d admit her grandmother was intimidating, to say the least. She set the kettle on to boil and took a peek at her phone, then turned it on silent. Her grandmother wouldn’t appreciate any interruptions. She expected full attention when she was around.

  Quinn restrained herself from peeking to see what Helen was doing, knowing without confirmation that she was probably looking at the same book titles that her father had. Her grandmother would have no qualms about judging Quinn’s literary choices, and she doubted that the entire collection of Denise Grover Swank’s Rose Gardner series lined up would make the cut, even if they were situated on a shelf just above at least a dozen Maui history books. Those books had kept her from being too lonely on many long nights.

  She didn’t have to sleep alone. Liam would probably come over and stay anytime she’d let him, but Quinn was still wary about letting another man have too much of her life. After years with her ex-fiancé and the way he’d molded her into being who he wanted her to be, Quinn was determined that it would never happen again.

  “It’s ready.” She put the hot cup on a saucer and brought it to her sitting area, then set it on the side table next to her grandmother.

  “Your parents were here earlier,” Helen said. She didn’t touch the cup, only watched the steam rise and twirl from it.

  “Yes, they were.”

  “They came to talk about the article.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  Quinn crossed her legs and then recrossed them. She wasn’t going to make this easy. If Helen wanted all the details, she was going to have to work for them. Jules claimed to have forgiven Helen for everything that had happened when Quinn was a child, but Quinn wasn’t so sure. You could feel something between the two of them when they were in the same room, and it didn’t feel like forgiveness.

  Reluctant truce, maybe. But there were definitely no olive branches slapping them in the face. Their lack of communication was a testament to that.

  “I talked to Jules for a few minutes. She filled me in,” Helen said. “But just the highlights.”

  That took Quinn by surprise. From the beginning when they’d all been reunited, Quinn had laid down the rules that either all was forgiven so the family could pursue healing, or she wouldn’t stick around. She knew that Jules would bite back anything too harsh she really wanted to say to her mother, but it was hard to imagine them having tea and discussing Quinn’s current issues.

  It was a work in progress.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Quinn hesitated—because really, Helen wasn’t going to like her plan at all—but then there was a knock on the door.

  Thank God.

  She rose and crossed the room, opened the
door, and found Jonah there. And he wasn’t alone. He gestured toward his guest.

  “Quinn, this is Kim. She’s the field crew leader on the Maui Invasive Species Committee. I asked her to come for a consult about the frogs.”

  Quinn looked from her brother to the pretty young woman. She wore camouflage pants tucked into black work boots, a long-sleeve red T-shirt, and a headlamp. Her long dark hair cascaded down her back. But back to her head—yes, Quinn was shocked to see she wore a headlamp.

  Was Jonah serious, or was he really stupid enough to be trying to prank her during this stressful time? But her brother wasn’t the joking type. And this was definitely a reprieve from the current uncomfortable conversation.

  “Come in.” She stood aside.

  Kim sat down beside Helen on the other edge of the small couch. Jonah stood next to her, crossing his arms across his chest in his usual protective stance.

  “You needed a committee for the frogs?” Yes, the guests had been complaining about the loud sound of the critters at night, but a committee?

  “He absolutely did the right thing,” Helen spoke up. “If you’ve got a few of those little monsters now, soon they’ll be everywhere, and your guests will never get any rest. You’ll find yourself handing out refunds or at least comping additional stays.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  She took a seat and looked at the young woman. She was pretty, and that made Quinn wonder if Jonah had known that before he’d reached out to her. Thus far in the time that Quinn had been on Maui, she hadn’t seen her brother date anyone. It was one of those things she was dying to ask him but didn’t think they were close enough to do it. He was a very handsome man, and he was a good person. It seemed such a waste for him to live his life alone.

  Quinn would entertain the frog-buster, if only for Jonah’s sake.

  “Is this really that serious?” she asked.

  Kim nodded. “It will be if you don’t nip it in the bud. The Big Island didn’t take it seriously, and now they have a major problem. In the tourism industry, the last thing your guests want to hear as they settle in for the night is a coqui frog shrieking at eighty to ninety decibels all the way until morning.”

  “They can sound as loud as a blender or garbage disposal in your ear if they get close enough to the building,” Helen said. “When I was young, my daddy used to send us out onto the ranch and whomever brought one back would get five dollars to spend in town. Obviously, he had his own committee of six kids and a few hound dogs.”

  “I lead a five-person task team,” Kim said. “We hunt the frogs; then when we find where they’re bedding, we bring in high-pressure hoses and douse the area.”

  “With what?” Quinn asked.

  “Citric acid,” Jonah said. “And before you go getting all upset about the poor little frogs, you know how you love the birds and want them here for the guests. You spent quite a chunk of change to save the native trees, plants, and flowers, too, when you were renovating. Well, these frogs are threatening Maui’s fragile ecosystem. They’re already trying to take over Maliko Gulch. There’s an ongoing fight against them there.”

  “They gorge on insects that are food for the birds,” Kim said. “If the insects are gone, the birds will disappear too.”

  “And so will the guests,” Helen said. “I loved hearing the frogs when I was a kid, but guests want to sleep. And they aren’t going to be doing it if you don’t take action. I approve the eradication.”

  “Hold up,” Quinn said, being gentle. “Remember, I have a stake in this place too. I need to know more. I’ll do some of my own research before we send a team traipsing through our property and killing off anything green that jumps.”

  Kim laughed. “It doesn’t quite work like that.”

  Jonah didn’t laugh. “Her team is careful where they go. Remember, the ecosystem is important to them, too, or you wouldn’t see Kim here crawling around the jungle in the dead of night with a machete in hand and a headlamp on, hunting a frog the size of a quarter.”

  Well, thought Quinn. My brother is defending the pretty woman. That is interesting. “I see what you’re all saying, but just give me until tomorrow. I have a lot going on, and I just need to wrap my head around a few things before I make any decisions. On anything.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, if we only find a few, we can come in with backpack sprayers and do a more targeted eradication. Sometimes what sounds like dozens is in reality only a couple. But that can change fast, so we recommend acting on it as quickly as possible. There are no natural predators on the island that keep them under control, so it comes down to us,” Kim said.

  “I agree,” Helen said.

  “Same,” Jonah added.

  “Fine. I’ll let you know,” Quinn replied, already planning on calling Liam to get his perspective on the subject.

  “Mahalo, Kim. I can show you out,” Jonah said.

  She stood. “No need. I know the way. Remember, we really need to act on this. Not just for your business but for the good of the island. Give me a call.”

  “Will do.” Jonah opened the door for her, then closed it softly and turned to them.

  “So what’s this cozy little meeting all about?”

  “Helen wants to know what we plan to do about the reporter.”

  Jonah looked from her to her grandmother. “It doesn’t appear that we can do anything. If it all comes out, it comes out.”

  Quinn noticed he said we. It touched her that he considered it his problem too. Every day she felt a little closer to this brother she’d only known for a year.

  “I know that,” Helen said sharply. “And I also know that this is all my fault. We aren’t going to be able to stop this horse, because it’s already left the stable. But what I can do is save you from the brunt of it, Quinn. I at least owe you that. Thank goodness there was a need for six bulletproof vests in the department. My donation bought you two more weeks before you have to show up and talk to the detective.”

  Quinn couldn’t imagine how she’d already managed that, considering the deadline was all set just hours before. It wasn’t too surprising, though, because Helen worked quickly and efficiently when she wanted something. Her own disappearance was a prime example of that.

  “But I can’t head them off forever. That’s why I’ve got a plan.”

  Jonah sighed hard. “That sounds noble, Grandmother, but remember that you taking it upon yourself to do what’s best for Quinn is what got her into this mess. Maybe before you start handing out bribes, you need to step back and talk to the rest of us about it.”

  “We’re family, Jonah. And as long as I’m alive, I will do what I can to protect Quinn from further damage. I know I’m responsible for the past. You don’t have to remind me.”

  Quinn felt sorry for Helen. What she’d done in sending her granddaughter away to be raised by a stranger was something she’d have to live with for the rest of her life. The old woman worried about how it had impacted Quinn, but she ignored the trauma she’d caused Jonah, who was supposed to be watching Quinn on the boat when she disappeared into the deep ocean.

  “Speaking of family, did you loan Michael and Kira the money to start their own business?” Jonah asked.

  “I did not. I told your mother about it, and I am waiting for her to tell me what to do.”

  Quinn could see her brother was getting worked up. Jonah wasn’t known for having any sort of temper, but his resentment about what their grandmother had done to Quinn appeared to still fester.

  “Can we get back to the issue at hand?” Quinn said, trying to get them back to a civil tone. The room crackled with tension, and she didn’t like it.

  Helen’s chin went a tad higher before she began talking, making it the proudest chin Quinn had ever seen. Her grandmother was something else.

  “It’s not an idea. It’s a confession. Or at least it will be. It’s time I took full responsibility for my actions. I plan to organize a press conference and tell them who you a
re, Quinn, and then lay out the facts.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jonah said, sighing loudly. “It solves nothing.”

  “Grandmother, I would never let you do that,” Quinn said, tears springing to her eyes at the gesture. “You would go to prison. Accessory to kidnapping—or something like that.”

  Helen nodded solemnly. “I know. I’m prepared for that possibility.”

  “Oh really? How have you prepared? Have you isolated yourself to a room for a week? Sworn off real food? Sunshine? You have no idea what going to prison would be like,” Jonah said.

  “Jonah, please,” Quinn said.

  He shook his head with disbelief but he quieted.

  Quinn stood and went to her grandmother. She knelt beside her and took her hand. It was cold, and so very thin. “Even if you did this, it wouldn’t set things right. It would only cause more chaos and put the family business in jeopardy. And Grandmother, I pledged to the Makenas that I would protect their daughter’s name. You know she was still a wonderful mom to me, despite what she did to get me.”

  “They should’ve been protecting their daughter while she was under their roof. Then this wouldn’t have gone as far as it did,” Helen said. “She couldn’t wait to get away from their bickering, not to mention the substance abuse. From what I’ve heard, they barely knew their daughter was there, until she wasn’t.”

  “They’ve admitted they were terrible parents, and both have been clean for many years. Believe me, they are in enough pain knowing they drove their only child away.” Quinn kept her voice even, though it unnerved her for anyone to talk about Elizabeth.

  Helen looked deep into Quinn’s eyes. “Please—I need to do this.”

  “No, you don’t,” Quinn said. “You have to stop punishing yourself. I have my own plan. I came across something last night. I found a listing for a floundering guest ranch in Montana that needs an inn manager. I’ve thrived here because I’m passionate about making this inn profitable. That tells me I can do that same thing there. I was up until after midnight doing research, and the place needs a lot of work, but it’s got good bones. It comes with horses and other animals. They have a ranch manager that supervises the outdoor staff who has agreed to stay on. I’ll have full authority to hire my own indoor staff as well as a renovation team.”