He gave her a wide smile, looking over the balcony at the huge pool below them as they went down the hallway to their rooms. “Sure.”
“We’ll have to be quiet. They probably don’t allow swimming this late. All the pool lights are off.”
“Meet you there. Ten minutes,” Mike said, and hurried off to his room to change.
Heather hadn’t packed a bathing suit, but thought her black bra and underpants would be okay. They were sheer, but they weren’t see-through. Mike would see her scar from the lightning strike, though. She smiled, he’d see it sooner or later, anyway. Of that there was no doubt.
She went to the end of the hallway and down the stairs, barefoot. Mike was already sitting on the lip of the pool, his feet dangling inside. He’d changed into jean cut-offs.
He winked at her and slid into the water, soundlessly. Heather went down the stairs into the pool. It was cool and refreshing, the night sky twinkling with stars above them. They both started a slow breast stroke toward the other end, trying not to splash or make any noise.
After a few laps, Heather glanced up at the top floor of the hotel. She noted that the light was still on in Rod’s suite; Michelle’s room was dark. She was glad they were together.
Then the pool was suddenly empty. Where had Mike gone? It was too dark to see clearly, lights just bounced off the dark surface of the water, and she circled around in place, her heart beating fast, suddenly panicked, wondering if Omar had found them.
Then she felt a gentle jerk, and knew enough to take a deep breath as she was pulled under water. Mike’s arms were around her. His skin was very warm. Kissing underwater was a fun, breathless—and brief experience. They both popped up out of the water and tried not to gasp or breath too hard, knowing noises from a pool seemed to reverberate, bouncing off the water’s surface, and seemed louder than they really were.
They both laughed soundlessly and swam to the shallow end. Mike helped Heather out of the pool and they went to the stairs, climbing to the top floor on wet bare feet.
Heather’s room was the first one they came to, so they hurried inside. There wasn’t much clothing to remove. They were alive and celebrating urgently after a long and fearful day. For this time there was nothing else but heat and closeness. Mike was fierce, gentle, and warm.
Together, Heather and Mike slipped into the best kind of exhausted sleep together.
Chapter 33
Three Months Later:
Michelle made another necklace with the diamond. This one wasn’t as ornate as that first one she’d fashioned, but she didn’t need it to be. It wasn’t for show. The diamond was on a long chain she tucked hidden inside whatever she was wearing, each day. At night it was carefully laid on the table beside her bed, where she could grab it fast. If Abigail was inside still, Michelle believed she would receive a warning, and possibly a way to counter another attack from Omar.
So far, she had drifted seamlessly back into work at Heroshi Hawaii Corporation, managing the high-rise buildings they owned. But she couldn’t help getting an electrical frizzy-hitch type shock any time a light went out, whether at home or at work.
Now she sat on her balcony after work, watching the sunset. Lucifer was hunkered in her lap and she stroked him absently until she felt his soft, warm muscles become hard as stone.
He gave a little squall, then did his alert, the tiny ears pricked back, body becoming still as a statue. Michelle waited for the knock on the door.
The usual tattoo. Heather. Michelle ran to the door to let her in.
Coffee was made, as usual, and they sat together. Michelle smiled as Heather talked non-stop about her plans with Mike. They had decided to live together. Michelle was thrilled with her friend’s happiness.
After the trip to Mexico, Lucifer seemed to decide Heather was another surrogate mom. Right now he was sitting in her lap, patting her cheek with one tiny paw.
Never far from their minds, though, was a mystery they might never solve.
Omar seemed to have vanished. The police were searching for him using the evidence Mike provided of his pictures of Omar’s double, who had also mysteriously disappeared, and the cell phone shots that were taken of Omar while he was in Mexico. So now the police had new charges against Omar. Fleeing bale was the least of them. Michelle didn’t know if marrying someone by force really had a legal charge attached to it, but the police were taking it seriously.
Kidnapping and illegal imprisonment with the use of drugs were very severe allegations though, with a penalty of lifetime imprisonment with conviction. So it wasn’t too surprising that Omar fled.
Omar was so distinctive in appearance, Michelle hoped he wouldn’t risk coming back to Hawaii, or anywhere else in the United States. The Mexican authorities had been alerted, but they didn’t have any success in finding the fugitive either.
The Honolulu police had a hard time believing an odd story the police investigators sent to them from Guadalajara. Before he vanished, Omar had been strangely wrapped in silver duct tape at a hospital laboratory. There was documented evidence that he did have a room at the hospital, but he had not been located anywhere on the premises once he was freed from the strange silvery cocoon.
Omar’s luxury condominium on the top floor of Michelle’s and Heather’s building remained empty, but there were rumors circulating that it was haunted. Stories were told about lights appearing and floating in the floor to ceiling wall of windows, which surrounded the whole condo, with spectral shadows moving behind those lights; scary, ethereal forms, that wavered slowly past and then were gone.
Omar had become something of a legend in Hawaii, so it was understandable there would be some creepy stories whispered about him.
Another mystery
