“My best friend growing up. She had a nasty boyfriend in college. He stalked her after they broke up and she kept telling me about it. I thought she was exaggerating, told her she was making drama. He killed her. That’s when I changed my major to Criminal Justice and joined the force.”
“I appreciate you telling me that, but I’m not that friend. In fact, I don’t want to just be your friend,” she said. She held his gaze. Dark blue eyes, intense and wary, met hers. She leaned over to kiss him, a tentative brush of the lips.
“Damn,” he said, reaching over to pull her into his arms. “I don’t want to be your friend either.” He kissed her, pent-up hunger making their teeth click. Lei pulled away eventually, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Ouch. Smooth move.”
“You’re right about one thing.” He stood up. “This can’t go on.”
“Finally.” Lei picked up the empty water bottle and glass, took them to the sink. “Let’s wrap up this investigation and go on a date like two sane adults.”
“Are you asking me out?”
“Or we could just sleep together,” she said. He stood speechless, and then reached for her again. She dodged, laughing, leading him to the door. This flirting thing was getting easier. Maybe she’d just needed some practice. She handed him his duffel, discarded by the entrance.
“See you at the station, Detective Stevens.”
“Okay, but call me if you need anything. I mean anything.” He wiggled his brows and she laughed. “Sleep well. Keep your phone on.”
She let him out, locked the door, armed the alarm. I doubt either of us will sleep well, she thought. She leaned against the door, closing her eyes, savoring the faint bruising of her lips, the razor burn of his face still tingling her skin. She sighed and signaled Keiki for their evening lockup routine.
Across the street he lowered the miniature binoculars he’d been using to observe the house. Her light was finally out. She was in bed. He pictured her there, her lean athletic body curved in sleep, her nipples punctuating the thin fabric of the undershirt she wore to bed.
Sleeping. Waiting for him, for just the right moment. Soon.
Chapter 33
Lei walked up the old fashioned church aisle in her dress blues with her offering, an orchid plant in a turtle- shaped ceramic pot. She set it at the base of a three-foot picture of Mary’s smiling face set on an easel, with a basket of round black pebbles from Punalu`u Beach beside it. Lei picked one up and put it in her pocket.
She turned and made her way to one of the wooden pews, sliding in to sit beside Pono and his little family. Pono reached out to give her a side hug and Maile, the toddler, dimpled around the finger that plugged her mouth. Statuesque Tiare had her hands full with baby Ikaika, but reached over to pat Lei’s shoulder.
Lei took the surroundings in, tilting her head to see the arched ribs of the graceful nave, stained glass windows dropping coins of colored light across the polished floor. Massed arrangements of gardenia, Mary’s favorite flower, filled in the air with scent. The church was standing room only for the memorial, filled with police, friends and family. Mary had been well loved, and outrage over her death felt palpable in the hushed tension of voices.
Lei sat, huddled inside crisp dark uniform armor, with a sense as if the event were a movie in which she had little part. An ukulele and guitar band had already begun playing ‘Amazing Grace’ when Michael Stevens slipped into the pew beside her. He leaned over next to her ear and whispered, “You okay?”
His warm breath tickling the hair beside her ear was the first thing she’d felt in her own body all morning. She nodded, holding the song sheet, her voice reedy and choked. Jeremy Ito slipped into the pew beside Stevens. He’d brought a digital camera.
“Got to get shots of all the guests. He may be here, watching.”
Stevens nodded, and Jeremy took up an unobtrusive post behind a pillar on the side. Lei felt the eye of his lens on her and hated the necessity that put him there, watching for a killer.
She didn’t cry through the poems, and speeches, and even the releasing of a dozen white doves outside the church, a heartrending touch Mary’s boyfriend Roland performed in honor of the moment he’d planned for their wedding. She was able to stay in that bubble of disconnect all the way home, but when it was time to change out of her dress blues and go to work, she found herself getting out the emergency vodka bottle and calling in sick.
She threw back shots standing at the sink until her vision went blurry, then staggered to bed and fell into a black well.
Lei’s senses slowly booted up, one at a time. She opened her eyes. She was looking up at the familiar net canopy of her bed at home. Her head throbbed.
Thank God for medication, she thought, lifting herself up enough to throw some extra-strength Advil into her mouth from the side drawer and swish them down with bottled water she’d left out. Keiki lifted her head and watched Lei as she subsided with a groan.
The door creaked open.
“Hey, you’re up,” Pono said.
“Not sure about ‘up.’ I’m still deciding if I’m alive.”
“Here, Keiki,” Pono called, and the big dog leapt off the bed. “Lieutenant told me to come look in on you when you called in. You forgot to lock your house or turn on the alarm. You look like shit, by the way.”
“Sssshhhhhhh,” Lei whispered. “I’m waiting for the Advil to work so I can go back to sleep.”
“Oh no. It’s almost 11 a.m., and I made the call last night. She’s going to be here in only a couple hours.”
“What? Who?”
“Your Aunty Rosario.”
“Oh my God!” Lei sat up too fast and fell back, her head spinning.
“I’ll get you some coffee.”
Lei sat up slowly and carefully this time, swinging her legs off the bed. She tottered to the bathroom. One of her old notes was still dangling from the corner of the mirror. She pulled it off and dropped it into the rubbish and brushed her teeth carefully.
“Now what’s this about Aunty Rosario?” she asked, reaching for the steaming mug of coffee Pono held out to her in the kitchen.
“I found your phone last night and called her,” Pono said, sitting down. “I told her you been being stalked, your friend was murdered, and you needed some TLC.”
“I didn’t want her to know,” Lei said, frowning. “She has a lot on her plate and she’ll be upset.”
“She’s your family. She get one right to know you need her. She told me she was getting someone to cover the restaurant and catching the next plane out.”
Lei sat back, looked into the milky coffee. Weaker than I usually make it, she thought grumpily. She took another sip.
“Great,” she muttered. She felt vulnerable, thin in her own skin, brittle somehow. Keiki put her big square head on her leg and it was the only thing that felt good in the world.
Lei pulled the truck up to the sidewalk outside of the baggage claim. Her aunt waited, a sturdy brown woman in a muumuu with a thick curly braid hanging past her waist. She held a little suitcase, the kind of “overnight bag” they made out of vinyl and cardboard back in the 50s. A big white cooler on wheels also sat on the sidewalk. Aunty dropped the suitcase with a cry at the sight of Lei.
Lei hurried around the front of the big truck and threw her arms around her aunt. She buried her face in Rosario’s neck, inhaling the smell of talcum powder and pikake perfume that had always meant safety and love.
“Aunty,” she whispered.
“Why didn’t you call me?” Aunty Rosario stroked the tangled curls back as she searched Lei’s face.
“We’re making a scene, Aunty. Let’s go already.” Lei slung the little bag into the back passenger seat and hefted the cooler into the bed of the pickup. Keiki wriggled with joy at the sight of the other woman. Aunty fended
