Black Sands (31 page)

The phone on the other end clattered in her ear. She returned the handset to its cradle. If only Mano were here now to talk this out. Could Jason be the one behind it all? She remembered him saying he’d seen men outside their house; she’d wondered then if he was stalking Leilani. She should take a hard look at him.

She looked at her computer. No time like the present. She launched her Mozilla browser and typed in BANOS LLC CASINO. Hundreds of hits popped up. She began to go through them one by one, marveling at the width and breadth of the company. They had projects in dozens of countries and many of the states. She ran across a blog of someone who railed about the company’s scare tactics to get him to sell his property. Annie pinched the bridge of her nose. That hadn’t been the Tagamas’ experience with Banos.

People began to file into work. She closed her browser and pulled up her data. Working would help the time pass until she could talk this over with Mano.

T
he aroma of the fish tacos made Mano’s stomach rumble. At least that’s what he told himself. It was better than admitting his heart echoed with loneliness. Woo her, his mother said. How should he go about wooing someone who was as likely to take flight as a Hawaiian honeycreeper?

He parked beside Annie’s Nissan and ran through the rain. Muddy water splashed on his legs and over his feet clad only in rubber slippers. Just inside the door, he shook the rain from his hair and went to Annie’s office. Annie sat at her computer wearing an intent expression. Unobserved, he let his gaze roam over her face.

Small, even teeth caught her lower lip in an expression of intense interest. Her busy fingers twiddled a paper clip. She was so tiny, so perfect for him. He just had to convince her of that. She looked up, and color ran up her neck to her cheeks.

She dropped the paper clip and stood. “You startled me.” She swept her hand toward the window. “So much for our picnic, huh?”

“I was sure it wouldn’t dare rain on our day.” He stepped into her office.

Her gaze turned uneasy, and she nodded toward the door. “Shut the door, would you?”

“Sure.” Something was up. He saw it in the stiffness of her shoulders. He hoped she wasn’t going to tell him she didn’t want to see him anymore. “What’s wrong?”

“Jason Sarris. I found out today that he works for the casino developer.”

“Gina’s son? How’d you find out?” Mano opened the sack of food and handed her a fish taco and chips.

She took it. “A guy called this morning from Banos LLC looking for Jason. He said he was Jason’s employer.”

“It’s unlikely they’d hire workers when they’re still six months away from ground break.”

“And the night we stayed with Gina, I talked with Jason the next morning. It sounded like he might have been a little obsessed with Leilani. Like maybe he’d been stalking her. We’ve never really checked him out.”

“No, you’re right,” he agreed. “I’ll go have a talk with him, and we can talk about it tonight over dinner.” He said the last with a hopeful tilt to his eyes.

She laughed, a soft sound that gave him hope. “Okay. But I’m cooking.”

“I can fix a mean salad.”

“In that case, you’re on.” The color came to her cheeks again.

When he left her half an hour later, he was whistling. The sun had finally come out, and its rays sparkled on the wet vegetation. He drove out to the Sarris house, but no one answered his knock. He got back in the car and thought. What about Aki? If Jason really was involved with the casino plan, maybe he and Aki were connected. It was worth a try.

He drove to Aloha Shores and stopped in front of Aki’s house. A yellow Volkswagen was parked in the driveway. Aki’s or Jason’s? Mano got out and went to the front door. No one answered his knock. He decided to go around to the backyard. The sloping yard contained only pots of herbs and a few lawn chairs. Where could they be?

He went back around front. Maybe they were just ignoring him. Subtlety would get him nowhere. He went boldly to the front door again and pounded with his fist. “Open up, Aki. I know you’re in there. I’m not going anywhere until I talk to you. I can come back with Sam if you’d rather.”

He pounded so hard, the glass in the front windows rattled. Finally, he heard footsteps, and the door swung open.

Kim Aki’s face was red, and the birthmark stood out in livid relief. “Knock it off, Oana. You’ll have the neighbors out with their guns.”

Mano tried to see past his bulk but spied only a living room that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. “This will only take a minute. I’m looking for Jason Sarris.”

“Don’t know him.”

Aki tried to close the door, but Mano stuck his foot out and shoved the door with his shoulder. He caught the big man off balance, and Aki stumbled back. Mano pressed his advantage and stepped into the living room. “Sarris, I know you’re in here.” He strode down the hallway carpeted in black, though it was so littered with crumbs the color was nearly hidden.

Aki roared and barreled after him. Mano turned aside, and Aki fell against the door at the end of the hall. The door sprang open and revealed Jason standing in the middle of the room with a gun in his hand. His face was white, but the hand he used to bring the gun up to point it at Mano’s chest was steady.

Mano stopped and held up his hands. “I just want to talk.”

“I should call the police and have you arrested for trespassing,” Aki said, getting to his feet.

“Go ahead.” Mano’s attention focused on the gun. “I’m sure they’d like to take a look at the gun. It looks like the same caliber that killed Noah Sommers. Why’d you shoot him, Jason?”

“It wasn’t me,” Jason said.

“Shut up!” Aki glared at the younger man. Jason blanched even more.

Mano couldn’t believe he’d actually found Noah’s murderer. “What about Leilani? Where is she?”

“I haven’t seen Leilani,” Jason said.

“I said shut up!” The cold stare Aki used on Jason made him take a step back. Aki turned back to Mano. “I think we’d better go for a little ride.”

“Not in this lifetime.” Mano bent over at the waist and rushed the larger man. His shoulder hit Aki’s stomach, and the two men tumbled to the ground. He was vaguely aware of Jason tossing the gun aside and running from the room. The men thrashed on the floor until Aki finally heaved Mano off. He gained his feet and looked around. He swore, then jumped for the door.

Mano staggered to his feet and tried to go after him but tripped over a boot left in the middle of the floor. By the time he got to the front door, the yellow car was gone and neither Aki nor Jason was anywhere in sight.

He fished out his cell phone and called Sam. “I’ve found Noah’s murderer,” he told him. “Come to Kim Aki’s house. I’ll wait for you here.” He shut off the phone and turned to explore the house before the police arrived. But try as he might, there was nothing to indicate Leilani had ever been here.

Twenty-five

L
eilani dreamed of walking with Annie along a black-sand beach. Annie’s hand was leading her like when they were children. When she awoke, a hollow sense of bereavement assaulted her. Would she ever see Annie again, ever be able to thank her for all the things she’d done?

Being trapped in this dimly lit place was like being lost between life and death. She’d spent most of her time thinking about how selfish she’d been. Had she apologized even once for all the shirts she’d ruined that belonged to her patient sister? Or had she ever even told Annie she loved her? Leilani couldn’t remember a time when she’d acknowledged the quiet sacrifices she’d seen Annie make over the years. Things like giving her and Tomi the largest cuts of steak, like asking their mother to buy Leilani a new outfit even if it meant Annie dressed in styles that were outdated long ago. Instead, she’d whispered with her friends about Annie’s lack of good taste.

She heard something at the front of the cave and glanced up. They were coming back. She gasped when Tab dragged her to her feet. He untied her, then marched her out of the lava tube. She blinked in the bright light, though it was later in the day than she’d thought. His tight fingers hurt her forearm as he marched her down the hillside to a pool of water.

“Wash,” he said.

Why had she ever been attracted to him? She waded into the water and began to splash it onto her body. The refreshing moisture brought her senses alive in time to realize this was the sacred pool of Ku. She moaned and tried to run from the water, but he grabbed her and threw her back in.

M
ano had called to tell Annie that her hunches had been correct. Not only was Jason involved with the casino, but he and Aki were implicated in Noah’s murder. The police were looking for both men and had taken the gun to check ballistics. He was going to have to skip dinner, but he’d be over later in the evening.

Fawn offered to assuage her disappointment by coming over to keep her company. Annie hoped Mano’s delay would mean that Leilani would soon be found. Surely Jason and Aki wouldn’t do anything to her sister now that the police were on to them.

Fawn stretched. “I’m bored. Let’s do something.”

“Scrabble?” Annie suggested. “I already thumped the guys in three games.”

Fawn groaned. “Not Scrabble. I’m in the mood to organize or something.”

Annie brightened. She was always in the mood for cleaning. “I’ve got all those boxes of Tomi’s possessions that Mano brought me. We could unpack them and put them away for him.”

“Perfect. Lead the way.” Fawn got off the bed and followed Annie down the hall.

Annie hadn’t been in Tomi’s room since she cleaned last week. His futon was unmade, and two drawers hung half-open out of the black-lacquer chest. A T-shirt dangled from the Kyoto lantern. “It didn’t take him long to mess it up.” The boxes were piled in the closet. She hauled them out into the middle of the floor. “I’m not sure what all is in these.”

Fawn opened a box and began to root through it. “Looks like books and toiletries in this one.”

Annie opened another box. “This one has pictures and scrapbooks. Tomi is a terrible pack rat.” Wilson snatched a small album from her hand and dragged it under the bed. “Wilson, come back here with that.” She flopped on her stomach and scooted under the bed to retrieve the album before the mongoose could chew it up. He growled but gave it up and scampered out the other side of the bed.

Annie scooted back out from under the bed and sat up. The book was open. “Oh, this is one of his scrapbooks of the year he had the diving business.” The year before he joined the navy, Tomi had bought a boat and taken divers out to the volcano to dive. She propped her back against the bed and began to flip through the pictures. Her heart hurt at the sight of her smiling brother, carefree and happy and unsuspecting of the trouble that would soon plague him.

The girl and man standing with Tomi in the next picture looked vaguely familiar. She glanced at the newspaper article on the facing page. It documented a dark day in her family’s history. Tomi had dropped the divers at the volcano, then left as was the standard practice. A dive boat couldn’t anchor in the waters at the volcano because the ash would foul the engines, and the high water temperatures would cause them to overheat. When Tomi came back for them, he couldn’t find the buoy that marked their position. He’d scoured the region for over two hours before it got dark. Then he called in the Coast Guard. The two had drowned.

She glanced back at the picture and stared into the girl’s dark eyes, then gasped. “Fawn, look.”

“What’s wrong?” Fawn sat on the floor beside her.

Annie shoved the album onto Fawn’s lap.

Fawn studied it. “I’ve seen them before.”

“Me too. It’s Gina’s husband and daughter.”

“You’re kidding.” Fawn glanced at the newspaper article too. “The family brought a wrongful death suit against Tomi, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, but it was thrown out because the buoy was defective. Tomi wasn’t at fault.”

“How odd that Gina has never mentioned it.”

They both absorbed the implications in silence. Annie didn’t want to think of what this discovery might mean. “Could Gina have taken Leilani?” she asked slowly. “For revenge?”

“I can’t imagine her doing something like that,” Fawn said. “But I don’t understand why she’s never told you who she is.”

“This doesn’t feel right.” Annie got up. “Let’s go talk to Gina.”

“Not without backup. Call Mano. He’ll be glad to go with us. In fact, I’d better stay here. If you’re not back in an hour, I’ll call Sam.”

“Maybe we should call Sam first.”

“And tell him what? It’s possible that their deaths are just too painful for Gina to talk about. We might be barking up the wrong tree.”

“Maybe.” But Annie didn’t think so. Something was very wrong with this picture. Gina had been too close to them to have kept it secret this past year. She grabbed the phone and dialed Mano.

“Mano, can you get away? Something has come up.”

“What is it?”

“It’s better to show you.”

He was silent a moment. “The investigation here is almost wrapped up. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Annie clicked off the phone. “He’s on his way,” she told Fawn.

“I have another idea.” Annie went to the computer in the corner and called up Google. She put in BANOS ALEX SARRIS. She followed several links and found one that made her eyes go wide. Before his death, Alex Sarris had been CEO of the company. “Look,” she told Fawn.

Fawn bent over behind her to read it. “Oh, Annie, I think this proves it. She hasn’t said anything about her connection to the casino either. Let’s see if your dad knows anything,” Fawn suggested.

Annie frowned. “I hate to upset him.”

Fawn put her hands on her hips. “You listen to me, Annie Tagama! It’s time you let your father be an adult and take the responsibility for his own life like a man. This is not your burden. Your job is not to keep anything unpleasant from touching him. You either go out there and talk to him, or I will.”

Annie knew she’d do it too. She held out her hands. “I know you’re right, but my mother wanted me to keep things running smoothly. I want to honor her.” Annie wasn’t sure why she so feared her father’s displeasure. She supposed it was in her mental makeup to hate upsetting the peace. “Let’s go talk to him,” she said. She led the way down the hall and found her father watching TV in the living room. “Where’s Tomi?” she asked him.