Mystery of the Lei Palaoa Read online

  “Where’s Alexander? You set him up this job, yah?”

  “I’m getting worried, myself.”

  “You get him in trouble, McKenna, I gonna come after you.”

  And I knew she would. “I thought they’d be back hours ago—”

  “Don’t make excuses, you. This not just another case of you wandering fingers.”

  Kira called me a letch once just because I got my hand too close to her ass. I tried to explain that I was old and deserved a little leeway, but that response earned me a bruise on my arm that hung around for weeks. “Uh, about that, I really do apologize—again.” For about the tenth time. “I’ll send him home as soon as he shows up.”

  “You keep him. That teach him a good lesson.”

  Kira hung up and left me listening to a dial tone. My heart pounded in my chest; my palms felt sweaty. Confrontations just weren’t my thing. It was definitely time for another round.

  7:42. Not good. I slumped back into my chair.

  Gentle trade winds brushed across my face, whispering their island secrets. The sky grew darker, dimming to pinkish grays and purples. White lights from a yacht streamed across the ocean on the distant horizon. The crazy surfers were long gone, having done their thing from sunup to sundown. I call them crazy because, in addition to the obvious issues about fair-skinned people getting fried in the sun, the idea of flopping around in the water close to a wave the size of a bus scares the crap out of me. I’ll stick to my little lanai and sunset view, thank you very much. Now, it was just the ocean—the colors, the sounds, the smells. The here, the now. Locals say that people come to the islands to run away. Maybe they’re right.

  My eyelids grew heavy as the trades worked their magic. I downed a mouthful of my vino du jour, a tasty, cheap-but-effective Pinot Noir I’d found on sale at the market, then crossed my arms over my chest and settled down into the chair. I hadn’t always been grumpy. Chasing skips had been a rush. I’d found a lot of people who didn’t want to be found. My relationship with Jenny and her son had been—who was I kidding, that’s when my life imploded. As I nodded off, a familiar image flashed in my mind—me, alone in the middle of Waikiki Beach, a “Do Not Disturb” sign hung around my neck.

  A knock on the front door startled me so much I damn near fell out of my chair. It took me a minute to get on my feet. I felt like a human pretzel until about halfway to the door. That’s when I realized I’d taken the long route. My little end unit has a lanai that’s just ten feet from the walkway to the central courtyard, which would have been a much easier route. I checked the wall clock in the dining room on my way to the door. It was after 9:00 PM. Who the hell would be coming by now? I could only think of two possibilities. It could either be Alexander and Legs, or the cops coming to confirm my fears.

  “Not the cops. Please.” I blinked in a weak attempt to clear my head. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Alexander. Open up, McKenna.”

  Oh, good. They were back and had stopped by to tell me about the day. “Hang on, I’ll be right there.”

  “Hurry up, I had to park on the back end of the lot and my knee’s killing me. I can’t hold her up much longer.”

  Uh-oh. Hold her up? I swung the door open, then stared at what looked like a couple of massacre-movie stunt doubles. “What the hell happened to you two?”

  Alexander had bruises everywhere I could see. A cut near his right eye had bled and caked the side of his face like war paint. And Harris, well, looking at Harris broke my heart. I stepped aside to let Alexander assist her into the room.

  As the two hobbled past me, Harris smiled and gave me a weak half-drunk wave. “Hi, hon.”

  Alexander shook his head. “She been calling me that all day, brah. Don’t get your hopes up. And don’t say nothin’ about a hospital.”

  The evening trades hadn’t yet cooled the room, and the air felt heavy. “She’ll do better outside. Why no hospital?”

  “We were outside all day.” He shrugged. “We both got our reasons.”

  “Whatever. Put her on the chaise out there where she can rest.”

  Alexander made his way past my glass-topped, wicker dining table and TV to the lanai, lowered Harris onto the chaise lounge and occupied the chair I’d vacated. I tried to nonchalantly move my wine glass, but he just rolled his eyes.

  “Crap, I’ve got to pee.” I hobbled off to meet my favorite friend in life these days, the toilet.

  “You don’t care what happened to us?” Alexander shouted after me.

  I was about to make the right turn towards my bathroom when I yelled over my shoulder, “You live to be my age and your bladder will explain it all to you.” I closed the door and said hi to Bosco. You probably think I’m nuts, but when you spend as much time as I do visiting this guy, you might as well give him a name. The way I looked at it, he was better than a tech-support hotline—available 24/7 and no long wait times.

  Back on the lanai, Alexander gently wiped Harris’s face with paper towels. I’d barely made it through the lanai door when he said, “I never saw anything like it, brah, somebody threw a body off a plane.”

  Continue reading Photo Finish

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  BOOKS BY TERRY AMBROSE

  McKenna Mysteries:

  Photo Finish

  Kaua‘i Temptations

  Big Island Blues

  Mystery of the Lei Palaoa

  License to Lie Series:

  License to Lie

  Con Game

  COMING IN 2016:

  Paradise, Passion, Murder

  10 Tales of Mystery from Hawai‘i

  (an anthology by 10 Hawai‘i mystery authors)

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