Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  “I remember,” she said quietly.

  “Well,” he continued, “I own a company called CircleLine Holdings Ltd. So you see what an impact you had on me that day.” He snuffled into her neck and hoped she would just accept it, knowing inwardly that she was bound to need more.

  Hana thought for a change before she spoke, knowing everything in her husband’s being screamed at her to leave things alone. “So the letters that kept coming to the house, were for you?”

  Logan nodded into Hana’s hair and his smart answer escaped quickly with the hint of a bite to it. “I never said they weren’t. I said I would take care of it. And I did.”

  “What does the company do?” came Hana’s inevitable question.

  Logan gritted his teeth and tried not to lose patience with his wife. He rationalised with himself that if he died suddenly, it would all be hers to sort out. God forbid. He signed the paperwork the week before. Angus witnessed it for him as a justice of the peace, merely raising a cocked eyebrow but tactfully asking no delving questions other than, “Planning on going somewhere, Mr Du Rose?”

  Logan hadn’t answered, sensing Angus knew anyway.

  Hana heard her husband sigh and the sound he made as he bit the inside of his mouth nervously. “It was an investment company.”

  “Was?” Hana asked, hating how nosey she sounded.

  Logan’s hair swished against the pillow as he nodded. “I’m winding it up. It was for investing in business ventures. It’s equity rich but cash poor most of the time.”

  “Why are you winding it up?” Hana persevered and felt her husband’s reluctance.

  “I don’t want it anymore,” he said. “It’s caused more problems than it’s worth lately. Some of it’s...well, dodgy to be honest. But the last significant loan I made out of it was to Tama’s grandfather, well...you know...the guy who brought him up. I lent him money to start something and he never made any repayments. Then he ripped my Dad off with some land on the boundary. I’m pissed off about it. He’s developing the land, but it wasn’t Dad’s to sell, so legally it’s still mine.”

  Hana shook her head. She didn’t get it. Logan tried to make it simple. His tone was short and impatient. “I gave him money, interest free. He hasn’t paid it back. Then he created an elaborate fraud around my wedding with Caroline to...anyway he asked my father for money to pay a wedding debt that didn’t exist. Dad didn’t have it, so let him take the land on the boundary in payment. I think he put Dad under a lot of pressure. But he’s not getting the land. My grandmother left it to me and it’s staying that way. I’m dissolving CircleLine and he’s paying me back every last cent.”

  Hana’s brain began to unlock something slowly, cautiously. It was as though her subconscious had always known it would upset her and hidden it away. Like puzzle pieces slotting horridly into place, she plugged in the final jagged shape. It brought no pleasure but instead, a dreadful sickness pervaded her senses. “What would Tama’s grandfather have to do with Caroline Marsh...unless she’s your uncle’s foster daughter? You grew up with her?”

  Logan’s brow knitted in a look of disbelief. “I thought you knew,” was all he said.

  It suddenly seemed astounding even to Hana that she hadn’t registered the fact. It wasn’t that Logan had hidden it from her because she could see he hadn’t. It all made sense. The whole whanau’s intimate knowledge of Logan’s former fiancé wasn’t because of the near marriage, but because she was family. Hana felt embarrassed about how thick she must look. She kept her discomfort to herself whilst digesting the realisation that the monster had again invaded her marriage. It put his angst over the money into a different light. It meant her husband intended to engage in a damaging fight over money, which linked back to Caroline and could take years. Hana felt sick and the beautifully tender roast beef rode up into her gullet. They would never be free of her influence.

  “Are you ok?” Logan asked, reading into her silence.

  Hana chose not to answer, unable to hide the truth. “What will you do?” she asked in a small voice.

  Logan paused and Hana decided if he didn’t answer, she would shut up about it. The sickness in her gut already condemned her. Logan sighed. “I’m not sure right now. It’s a good question. I need to talk to Liza about taking the legal route. I suddenly feel tired of being the family bank manager with a smile and a hand-out. Sometimes I get paid back and paid back well with shares and dividends, but with this particular uncle, it was never gonna end well. I should have had more sense. But it was just before the wedding and Caroline persuaded me to help her adopted whanau.”

  “Sorry,” Hana whispered. She wanted him to shut up now, to make love to her again and forget the whole conversation. But Logan wasn’t done and Hana felt the tension leave him as he shared his dilemma with her. It was as though he found the experience cathartic.

  “After she stood me up at the altar and I shifted south, I forgot about everything to do with the wedding or the loan. I wasn’t interested anymore. Then when I brought you home and saw the development beginning, I argued with Dad over it. Idiot just handed the whole damn thing over on a handshake.”

  “Why would Alfred do that?” Hana asked, “Without telling you.”

  “He thought he was helping. He hates his brother and Reuben came asking for money. He told Dad he’d settled a big debt for the wedding and needed refunding. Dad argued for a while and then settled because he didn’t want to come to me with it all.”

  “But you didn’t owe it?” Hana turned more on her side and straightened her legs out.

  “No,” Logan shook his head. “There was no debt. Reuben lied to get the land.”

  “Do you think he was just being opportunistic?” Hana asked and Logan exhaled slowly.

  “I have started to wonder if it’s too far-fetched to believe the whole thing was an elaborate plan to cheat me out of the land in the first place. But are they truly that clever? That whole chunk of land was worth more than thirty grand and yet that was what Dad said the debt was - a debt which never existed!”

  Hana rubbed her husband’s strong pectoral muscle with soft fingers. Logan grunted as it tickled. “If the whole wedding was a scam, what kind of sucker does that make me?” Hana saw the bones of his jaw outlined in his cheek as Logan ground his teeth.

  “My sucker,” Hana smiled at her husband and puckered up her lips. Despite himself, he laughed.

  “That’s dead true,” he grinned. “I like that.” Logan’s lips found Hana’s and he ran his thumb up the side of her face. “You have no idea how lucky I feel,” he whispered. He inhaled deeply as Hana put her fingers to good use, his hunger for her seeming endless. “I love you,” he told her, his breath coming in short pants.

  “Yeah and don’t you forget it!” Hana threatened, banishing the spectre of Caroline from her marriage bed.

  Hana took a leisurely shower and dressed in her one-sleeved monkey pyjamas and dressing gown.

  “Oh, what?” Logan complained. “I thought those damn things were dead. I cut the bloody arm off and they’re still hanging around.”

  Hana laughed and stuck her tongue out at him, covering up with a bathrobe. They went downstairs to the family room via the private staircase and spent a pleasant evening together. Miriam and Alfred came to watch television, sitting companionably next to each other on the sofa. Miriam looked across at Hana often, bestowing on her those piercing grey eyes and the softest of smiles. Hana felt content cuddled up against Logan, like nothing could touch her. The programmes were inane and mind-numbingly boring, but the roaring fire and stillness of the night were lulling and pleasant. Miriam clacked a pair of battered wooden needles, making different coloured squares for a blanket which sat folded on the coffee table. Alfred held the ball of wool, absentmindedly unwinding the long strand for her, seeming to manage to keep in perfect time despite being totally absorbed by the TV.

  Around ten o’clock, as Hana lost the battle again with trying not to dose off and jerked painfully awake
, Logan’s mobile phone chirped in his pocket. He untangled himself from Hana and looked at the screen. “Sorry, he said to her, I need to take this.”

  He went out into the hallway, letting in a cold blast of air like icy fingers as he closed the door behind him. Hana heard his low voice outside the room, steady and even. Nothing to worry about.

  “What do you want now, baby bro? Got yourself arrested again?”

  “Hi Liza,” replied Logan with a smile in his voice. “I’m at home actually. Thanks for ringing back.”

  “Congratulations,” came her curt reply, “make this quick, I’ve had a hard day in court and I need to go to bed.”

  “It’s the weekend.”

  “Well, some of us still have to work most days. Get on with it.”

  “It’s about the boundary land.”

  “Ohkaay.” Liza’s answer came back slow and drawn out, as though she knew what was coming.

  “I have to sort this out.” Logan replied, keeping his voice low. “He’s got the land and took cash upfront from the developers without legal title. Yet he says he can’t settle the loan of $100k that I gave him before Christmas. He sent Nev round to see me earlier. I actually felt sorry for the guy. He knew nothing about it. He thought his father had legitimately bought the land, not defrauded me out of it.”

  “So do what you usually do!” Liza said rudely, “And don’t tell me about it!”

  “I can’t,” retorted Logan, “I’m going to fight him. Properly. Publicly.”

  “What the hell for?” came back Liza’s sharp reply. “Once the developers get wind of this, they’ll drop him like a stone and be knocking on your door seconds later. They’ve obviously invested heavily. You can cash in on this if you want to.”

  “I don’t want to cash in,” said Logan quietly. “I want the land back. It’s mine and I have a purpose for it. I’m sick of feuds and rivalry and selfish old men fighting over what’s not theirs. It’s mine. I’m taking it, but I’m doing it legally. It has to be above board, no mistakes, thoroughly clean. It’s a legacy thing.”

  Liza sighed heavily. Maybe it was the lateness of the hour, or the sheer weight of the onerous task, but she suddenly sounded old. “I get it. I’ll hand it over to someone who can nail it pretty quickly. He’ll get in touch with you next week. You know if you do it this way, you’ll effectively break a member of your own family. I mean ‘break’ Logan. He’ll go under completely and take the rest of them with him.”

  “Thanks sis,” Logan said softly, “I’ll let you go.”

  “Actually,” Liza cut in abruptly, “I needed to talk to you about something. Caroline lost that baby she was carrying. It was pretty horrendous by all accounts...I know...” she said, drowning out Logan’s objections, “I know it wasn’t yours. She thinks she got pregnant to some German guy while she was at the school you’re at. Usual Caroline though - it sounds like she had a couple of idiots on the go while trying to get to you.” Deciding to distract her brother, Liza also added, “You know she used the honeymoon you two were meant to go on, don’t you? She told me about a lovely week she had in Fiji.”

  Logan’s sharp intake of breath told her he didn’t know. Liza and Caroline had been friends for years - he had learned not to get in between - so he mouthed the swear word to himself.

  “Thing is, Logan, when I saw her, a couple of things she said about regrets and karma and you, it got me thinking about that wedding of yours...”

  “It’s ok,” cut in Logan quickly, “I’ve started to wonder the same thing.”

  “What shall I do though?” asked Liza, real conflict in her voice. “If you were set up...”

  Logan breathed in deeply and then let it out slowly while his sister waited on the phone for his answer. She wasn’t surprised when it came. “Take it. Take everything. Let’s end it.”

  Liza Du Rose sat in her apartment for a long time after the call finished. She hated family disputes, especially over money. Fortunately, it wasn’t her thing. But as with all lawyers, she knew a man who relished such cases and would rip it apart like an expensive steak. Caroline had quite frankly disgusted her the last time they met. Something about the woman was unhinged and faintly dangerous. At the end of the day, Logan was blood and Caroline was not, well, not entirely. In her mid-forties, Liza Du Rose had found that blood, however mixed, became more important the older and wiser she got. Logan had stood by her once before when she really needed it. His sister knew it was time to return the favour.

  So at their next coffee date, Liza dispassionately cut Caroline out of her life the moment she picked up the expensive bill for the designer lattes they shared. The last vestiges of her odd childhood were waved away with a large tip for the handsome barrister who made her double espresso just the way she asked for it and a benign smile at the companion of her youth. Caroline smiled her lazy downturned expression. “We must do this again. Next time I’ll get the bill,” she promised.

  Liza gazed back sadly and insincerely agreed they must, turning to walk away and mentally kicking the dust from her slender four inch heels.

  ‘Ruin them,’ her brother commanded. Liza Du Rose would make sure she did.

  Du Rose Legacy

  Chapter 14

  Hana had the most incredible weekend. It was peaceful and relaxed. There was nothing to do but enjoy time with her husband. Miriam ran the hotel with army precision and wouldn’t let Hana lift a finger. The meals were all hotel standard cuisine and Hana felt spoilt. “You know what?” she told Logan, “If I lived here permanently, I’d be in serious danger of turning into more of a beach ball than I am already.”

  Logan was attentive and kind, borrowing a quad bike from the stables to take Hana up to his paddock on top of the mountain. He took a long and circuitous route so they could stay on the bike to the very top and avoid the most rutted pathways. “Oh my goodness!” Hana exclaimed at the top when Logan produced a sumptuous picnic. “Did you do all this yourself?”

  He smiled shyly and flicked his hair out of his eyes, laying a rug carefully down on the grass. Logan substituted grape juice for wine and the couple lay in the sun and talked about nothing in particular. Hana rested on her back with her legs bent and closed her eyes. “Did you see Jack?” she asked her husband, hearing him grunt in reply. “When we got on the quad he kept pointing to my stomach and gave me a thumbs-up. He looked really happy. I thought his face was going to crack.” Hana rolled onto her side. “Aren’t you embarrassed everyone knows we’ve been having great sex?”

  Logan snorted. “I think he was happy about the baby rather than the sex, love.”

  “Yeah but I can’t get used to everyone staring at the one part of me I’ve spent the last twenty five years trying to hide,” she groaned and Logan laughed at her.

  “Idiot! You’re beautiful.”

  With the sun warming their faces and the click of the quad bike as its fine metal parts cooled, it was hard not to fall asleep. “We should call this place, Serious Hill,” Logan spoke abruptly, breaking into the peace.

  “Why?” asked Hana lazily.

  “Because I always seem to have something serious to say to you when we come here,” he replied. Hana sat up and looked across at him warily.

  “Oh no. What now? I always think of it as Horny Hill because it’s where you get really rampant.”

  Logan smirked at the alternative name. “Ok, we’ll leave it at Horny Hill then. But I do have some things to tell you. Firstly, Caroline lost her baby.”

  Hana looked horrified and her hand went instinctively to her stomach. “How awful. She must be so sad.”

  Logan kept his eyes shadowed by his cowboy hat so she couldn’t see the surprise in his face. As long as he lived, he would never understand women. “It wasn’t my baby, you know,” he said quietly.

  Hana nodded slowly. “I do know. But it was still a little life. A child can’t help who its parents are.”

  Logan nodded in agreement. Something about Hana’s words hung in the air above the couple.
They would reverberate much louder in the days to come.

  “The thing is, I told you my uncle somehow used our sham wedding to cheat me out of some land and a lot of money. Liza also suspects Caroline helped him and the whole thing was a scam.” There was pain on his face as he talked it through, disappointment, embarrassment and shame.

  “Is Caroline the girl who told your brother and cousin to stab you with the machete?” Hana asked, referring to the horrific scarring on Logan’s torso which he kept permanently hidden. He nodded cursorily, avoiding the topic further.

  “I thought Dad paid the supposed bills separately to each creditor, but he says he let the land go and my uncle sorted it out. I should have realised. I paid a lot of them myself and gave her money up front to book everything but Dad didn’t know that and thought he was helping. I was blindsided.” Logan bit his lip and struggled with the next part while Hana waited patiently. She sat up and her legs tingled as they went to sleep under her. She was afraid to move in case Logan clammed up again. His voice grew quiet. “I’ve instructed Liza to get it all back, the original cash loan and the land. Thing is, my uncle’s up to his ears in debt and they’ll probably lose everything. It’s going to be messy, I need you to know that.”

  Hana listened, trying to take it all in. Logan’s voice was grave, “It’s going to blow this family wide open. I think my Uncle Reuben was my brother, Barry’s father, so Mum’s going to be upset. She definitely had an affair with him and I think that’s why my grandmother banished them to the other side of the mountain. They are one nasty side of the family, Hana. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She thought she did, but she needed to ask, “Why do it, if it’s going to be so bad?”

  Logan lay back down on the blanket and studied the clear blue sky. He thought hard about his answer and when he gave it, Hana knew it was set in stone. “My ancestors were good people, Hana. Full of mana and honour. Dad’s generation and Mum’s, they’ve dishonoured it, they’ve dirtied the land. They’ve spit on the Du Rose name over and over again and don’t care. It’s time for the wrongs to be righted, out in the open where everyone can see.” He turned towards Hana. “I remember my grandmother. She was a good woman, well respected. When she looked at you with her grey eyes, you knew she was true to her word. She would turn in her grave if she saw what’s become of the family now.”