My hand curled around the tumbler of whiskey and I finished it in one long swallow, setting the empty glass on the table with absolute precision.
Annie’s gaze trailed my actions, her shoulders loose, hands super-spy quiet.
“I’m not going to explode.” It was a lie. My insides had detonated with that last gulp of whiskey.
I made my way across the kitchen, leaned over the counter, and pressed my forehead tight against a cupboard door, my fingers splayed on either side of my head. Nice girls didn’t smash their best friend’s kitchen to smithereens. I pressed my palms tight against the warm wood, but the pressure didn’t stop my shakes.
Maybe I wasn’t a nice girl anymore. I slammed the side of my fist against the counter, the jolt throbbing through my bones. Yeah. That was good. I did it again. And again.
TEN
I’d written two pages of notes from Annie’s file on Mitch before her kitchen door swung open and Pierce filled the doorway. “You have questions?”
My gut burned where the Irish whiskey had been eating at my stomach. Guess the fries from Mickey D’s hadn’t been enough protection against a solid blast of mid-morning alcohol. I pressed my fist into the ache, and faced Pierce’s blank stare.
“Yeah. Apparently you decided it was okay to leave the relative safety of your car. That Annie had enough time to break the news and pick up the messy pieces without your assistance. Why didn’t you tell me, Pierce? You had plenty of chances—when we found the body, and on the plane. It wasn’t right to keep this from me.”
He sighed, heavy with silence, and something else I didn’t have the heart to probe.
“I thought we were friends, Pierce.”
He dug his hands into the back pockets of his cargo pants, and wouldn’t meet my gaze. “We are. I…figured it’d be easier for you to hear it from A.J. She had the proof. Knew it would be tougher for you to accept without solid backup.”
I leaned back in my chair, and glared at him. “Easier? Nothing could make tromping all over my marriage—my existence—easier. Somebody set him up. Had to. This information has to be false.” I waved my hand toward Annie’s laptop. “And I’m going to trash whoever is trying to make my husband look guilty.”
Pierce cocked his head to the side, his gaze traveling between the two crystal glasses on the kitchen table. “Neither A.J. nor I would’ve tossed this shit at you if we hadn’t checked the source.”
His words were layered—control on the top, a flash of raw anger underneath. Made me want to poke the tiger, but I held back. I needed his skills to find the jackass who was behind this, and to find who killed my parents. “The man I know wouldn’t have done this.”
Pierce sauntered into the kitchen, yanked out a chair, and straddled it. “That’s the point, Everly. He’s not the man you know.”
My fist twitched with the urge to hit him. Deep breaths, Everly. You can do this. “I need more proof. But better than that, Mitch has to deny this in person.”
“And what are you going to do if he confirms it?” Annie’s voice drifted ghost-like into the kitchen from behind me.
I twisted to face her, my heart beating double time. “I don’t know.” And it was the honest, barefaced truth.
Maddie struggled from Annie’s hold, reaching her pudgy arms toward me, and gurgling a paragraph of sounds that only made sense in her very astute baby mind. “She wants you to let her play with the computer.” Apparently her mother had taken a crash course in gurgles.
Way to break up the tension in the room. Not that it did anything for the riot of pain, stupefying disbelief, and anger raging inside me. I sucked in a breath, and stomped on my emotions. Now wasn’t the time to give in to them. Not in front of this child that I loved, and who wouldn’t reach her first birthday for two more weeks. And not in front of my two best friends who had—albeit with good intentions—betrayed me.
I kept my tone even. “You let Madigan play with your computer?” That could explain how they came up with these lies about Mitch. Or not. I was grasping for a reason, any reason that would make their so-called proof disappear.
“No, she has her own, and fortunately can’t tell the difference between the real thing and a toy. Yet. Here.” Annie handed Madigan to me. “Cuddle her while I get it.”
I inhaled the scent of baby powder and sweet, soft skin as Maddie wrapped her arms around my neck with a grip that would have done Pierce in combat mode proud.
“Uumph. Little on the tight side there, baby girl.” I loosened her arms, and buried my nose against her neck. This was peace. Innocence. And oddly enough it calmed me. Maybe that’s what Annie had in mind when she handed her daughter to me, maybe not, but my heart dipped into a normal beat for the first time since I’d starting searching through the evidence against my husband.
Maddie twisted her fingers in my hair, undoing the knot at my nape. Apparently a baby’s touch is a powerful thing, because when my hair fell free, the tension flowed from my muscles. Could be Mitch had a point about babies. Our baby. I shook my head. Nope. No way was I going there, no matter how cute Madigan’s dimpled chin looked when she pouted. She poked at my earlobe, uttering nonsensical syllables that had to mean she liked my diamond studs. Mitch had given them to me on our first-married-month anniversary.
Before my tears could ball into an uncontrollable mass, Annie removed Maddie from my lap, adjusted her in an antique highchair, and set a toy computer on the tray. An odd, but appropriate mix of old and new. Kind of like my life before and after the Annie-slash-Pierce invasion.
“That’ll keep her busy for a while,” Annie said, pouring some strange red liquid into a sippy cup, and then handing it to Madigan.
My vision telescoped to pinpoint for a second, then broadened to take in the entire kitchen. Sunlight streamed through the window, a slight breeze ruffled the sheer curtains over the sink, and filled the air with a hint of tropical flowers. No individual fragrance, but a soft mix that I’d only found on the islands.
Madigan chortled at the clicking sound from her keyboard, Pierce straddled a beech chair on one side of Maddie, and Annie perched on her other side, both keeping tabs on the baby. There was something about the arrangement that spoke of experience.
Normalcy.
A contrast to the reality of the pixels staring at me from Annie’s computer screen.
No wonder people went insane. A brief rap on the kitchen door snapped me out of my melancholy. Adam wandered in, Merlin tucked under his arm.
Pierce dropped his forehead to the kitchen table, covering his head with one arm, and reaching for Maddie’s computer with the other.
Madigan lunged for her uncle, knocking her computer off the tray. Pierce grabbed it with a single motion as Annie snapped Madigan up nanoseconds before the high chair tumbled over.
My jaw flapped open. It was like watching a mini Cirque du Soleil. If they knew this was going to happen, why the hell didn’t they prevent it?
Adam set Merlin on the floor, lifted Madigan from Annie’s arms, and tickled her.
The four of them clearly had some sort of baby radar communication going on that was beyond me, which was just fine, because I was focused on the tiny bundle of fur racing toward me.
I hadn’t seen Merlin for more than a year because of the Hawaiian quarantine laws, and he hadn’t yet been released the last time I visited Annie. The Havarnese-Maltese mix bee-lined straight for me, brown eyes shining, curly fur flopping, doggie grin in place. I leaned down to grab him, grunting under the eight-pound impact, and then I clutched him to my chest, sanity-preserver that he was.
Merlin and I went way back to one of the early cases I’d worked on with Adam. He was the sweetest dog ever, and he’d led me straight to some crime-breaking clues that incriminated his owner. Adam adopted him, a true happy-ever-after.
A series of welcome barks ensued, and then Merlin pressed his wet nose into my neck. The whole fricking world was falling apart, and I was being bombarded with babies and puppies. The irony might
kill me if I didn’t clear up the mess with Mitch sometime yesterday. Puppy licks tickled my ear, intruding on my mental meandering. Damp grit had left splotches on my legs, and I lifted Merlin’s squirming body into the air. “Oooh, dude, you need a bath.”
Adam nudged my shoulder, rearranged Maddie in his arms then planted a kiss on top of my head. “No hello for me?”
“Depends.” I glanced at Annie. She nodded. “Your sister says you know about the alleged accusations against Mitch, so no. No greeting.”
Sadness washed over his features. I’d been Adam’s adopted sister since the first case we’d teamed up on for Chief Hayes, and, yeah, I was being harsh, hard-assed even. But my whole surrogate family had turned strange, hidden the truth, or created falsehoods—who knew? And until I did know—well, they’d painted me into an uncomfortable corner, and I couldn’t see my way clear to forgive them. Yet.
Baby and puppy images notwithstanding, I’d kept my fingers to myself, but the temptation to touch Adam was strong—except that I didn’t want any images about what he’d been up to lately polluting my already boggled mind. Not that I wasn’t going to run my fingertips over him some time in the near future, especially since Merlin carried some interesting images of a dark-haired guy with gentle hands, and I wanted Adam to find someone special. But it would have to wait until I started functioning normally again.
Adam had the grace to back away from me, opening some breathing space. I exhaled a sigh. Brothers could be good that way, even surrogate ones. I flashed him the best smile I could summon, and stood. “I am, however, going to give your dog a bath.” I looked down. “And clean myself up while I’m at it.”
I balanced Merlin in one arm while I shoved my iPad into the handbag I’d slung over the back of the chair, and then I closed Annie’s computer. No way was I going through the rest of their supposed intel with an audience.
Silence followed me as I disappeared into the mudroom and locked the door behind me. It was petty, but I needed time, and the mundane chore of giving a dog a bath would give me space to think without the distraction of prying eyes.
I settled Merlin in the huge sink, found a bottle of doggie shampoo in the cupboard, and went to work. “Guess this happens to you a lot, huh? Otherwise Annie wouldn’t have your shampoo in her mud room.”
Pouring my heart out to Merlin worked well. He didn’t argue with me, just listened attentively, offered a comment here and there in the form of a lick or nuzzle, and never once looked at me with anything but an adoring expression.
Best of all, it gave me a chance to practice one of my favorite coaching techniques: mindfulness. I cleared my mind, focusing on the warm water, soft, soapy fur, the bubbles tickling my skin, and the scents of wet dog and flower shampoo assaulting my nose.
By the time I’d rinsed Merlin, sponged the dirt off my legs, and toweled both of us dry, I had a mental list ready to type into the note app on my iPhone.
1. Talk to Mitch.
2. Work on clearing his name.
3. Straighten Annie, Pierce, and Adam out.
3. Find my grandfather.
4. Find/protect Millie and Harlan.
5. Question Millie and Harlan.
6. Learn the truth about who killed my parents.
7. Insure the rat bastards are brought to justice.
8. Borrow a weapon, because this situation had the feel of a freaking disaster.
Thirty minutes after locking myself in Annie’s mudroom, I strolled out, cradling one slightly damp dog against my chest. “I have things to do, and I’m taking the Jeep,” I announced to the circle of expectant faces.
I deposited Merlin in Adam’s lap, snagged my handbag off the back of the kitchen chair I’d previously occupied, marched into the great room, palmed the Jeep keys from the hall console, and dashed out the kitchen door.
ELEVEN
No one followed me. I kept my eye on Annie’s front door until I rounded the corner of the house, then broke into a run until I hit the far end of the circular driveway. I chanced one last glance behind me as I slipped into the Jeep, and then focused on starting the engine and peeling out of the driveway. Safe. And free in a round-about sort of way.
If Pierce and Adam hadn’t stopped me from leaving, it meant they either had a tracking device attached to the Jeep, or there was one stashed in my handbag, or both. Pierce had plenty of time to put one on the Jeep while Annie and I talked. Even if he didn’t have any spy equipment with him, he could have phoned Adam and asked him to take care of it. And both of them, or Annie, could have secreted a device in my handbag while I gave Merlin a bath.
The scent of wet dog permeated my busy mind. Damn, I should have allowed time for a shower when I planned my exit strategy. But every member of the team was both smart and annoying, so it would have been dumb to give them too much time to implement more surveillance stuff than a simple tracking device.
Past experience had taught me how these guys worked. Not that it mattered all that much, since I was headed to my grandfather’s house, and a trip there would be both predictable and expected. And if I were being totally honest, since I didn’t have a weapon, it was best to have someone watching my back. No matter how annoying it was.
What they didn’t know: I planned to park at his house, look around, and then take a casual stroll to my grandmother’s former homestead. The house had been demolished months ago, but her grave remained, tucked in a quiet corner of the property. My grandfather, the Kahuna, would have left any subliminal messages for me there. Or so I hoped.
This visit was benign, so I’d be safe enough, but I had to see about borrowing a gun from Annie—not that she’d hand over a weapon until I’d proved my mental stability. Why did Hawaiian law have to require completion of a safety class and a two-week waiting period prior to purchase?
The ten-mile drive from Annie’s house to my grandfather’s neighborhood passed quickly, so I didn’t have much time to think or brood. Probably a good thing. I was better at action than rumination anyway.
The road was two-lane without much traffic, and offered the occasional glimpse of waves breaking against the shore. Nice. I parked the Jeep just down and across the street from Kahuna Aukele’s, and dug out my cell to check for messages from Mitch. I should have done it sooner, but wanted privacy in case he said something unexpected.
I clicked the phone on, and a text from Mitch popped up. I squeezed my eyelids closed, wanting a minute to fill myself with memories of happy scenes we’d shared. His smile, the wire-rims sliding partway down his nose, walking his land while he captured photographs of nature, and how the lines around his eyes softened when we made love.
My mind insisted the intel on him couldn’t possibly be right, but a niggling sensation that hovered between my shoulder blades told me different. Fear raced along my nerves as I opened my eyes to read the message.
Stay safe. On way to HI. Never forget how much I love you.
Guilt. Oh, God, the man was so guilty of something it knotted my stomach. But it could be as simple as not sharing his thoughts with me, or why he made whatever decisions that had led Pierce and Annie to suspect him of spying on me. And maybe he did love me. Probably he loved me. And I loved him. But now I had doubts.
I shuddered. That I even questioned our relationship indicated a serious problem. My fingers grazed the keypad. What could I possibly say to him to make this any better? One of my favorite bits of wisdom rang loudly in the back of my mind—don’t say anything unless it improves the silence. How could I improve the silence? And not lie.
Safe with Annie. See you soon. Love you, too.
I pushed Send with shaking fingers. I did love him. But doubt had created boundaries that boxed in the freedom for me to love unconditionally. He was going to have to tell me everything, no matter if it broke the super-spy code of ethics or not.
And it had to be in person, when I could look into his eyes, and yes, touch him. Damn. And I’d worked so hard to build shields to protect him from my fingertip inv
asions. A moot point. Now I needed truth—unvarnished, bold, and raw—or our marriage wouldn’t heal. But to touch him with the intention of gathering images that might condemn him? That was a huge breach of trust, and I’d have to be absolutely sure I wanted to cross the boundary.
Did he know we were in trouble?
I turned onto the side street that fronted my grandfather’s house. Playful shrieks cut into my morose thoughts, and I glanced up to see a group of ragtag urchins chasing an oversized ball down the deserted street. The red, white, and yellow stripes bounced erratically as the kids kicked it, its once-vibrant colors dulled and battered from hard play and exposure to the tropical sun. It kept tumbling out of reach because their laughter and undeveloped gross motor skills made them adorably clumsy.
A pang of longing gripped my chest. Not from wanting children. Definitely not. But because I craved the release of laughter and moments of carefree fun. It had been too long since I’d played.
I slipped my phone into a zippered pocket of my shorts, tucked my handbag under the seat, and faced my grandfather’s house. Time for me to put my ESP skills to work and find out what Kahuna Aukele had done with Millie and Harlan. Not that I expected to find much here, but I had to check.
Noon sun beat down on me as I trudged along the road beside my grandfather’s house. The usual island breeze had faded to nothing and a sleek layer of sweat coated my skin. I should have grabbed one of Annie’s floppy-brimmed hats and some sunscreen, but I’d been focused on escape from the Terrible Trio, not on protecting myself from the elements.
I avoided the front stoop, and looped around the side of Aukele’s house, where a massive wall of lush green plants stopped me cold. The mini jungle appeared to be about ten feet tall, so dense I couldn’t see through it, and it was covered with a plethora of colorful blooms. The heavy scent tasted deliciously sweet in my dry mouth. Why had I neglected to stop somewhere for a bottle of water? I swallowed, facing the task in front of me with equal parts determination and trepidation.
Touch of Betrayal, A Page 8