Murder in Honolulu: A Skye Delaney Mystery (24 page)

Ridge had spoken and I had to respect his
position. He was really trying hard, even though he didn't know
half the story about Carter and the bizarre behavior that may have
contributed to his death. Darlene would never win the award for the
most admired woman in the world, particularly by those who saw her
as the big winner in Carter's death, including myself. But
sometimes winning came with a price. She had lost a husband,
respect, and a part of herself. In my mind, that was enough for one
lifetime and not worth any amount of money.

Besides, from what I understood, most of
what Darlene stood to gain came in the form of insurance payouts,
pending completion of the criminal investigation. It appeared as
though Carter had squandered away most of his fortune through
gambling and bad decision-making. The fact that Darlene might still
come out of it smelling like a rich rose was not something that
concerned me. I had already given up any claim to Carter and
whatever he was worth, and felt I was better for it.

Ridge gave me a serious but seemingly
relieved look, and said nicely: "If there's anything else you'd
like to get off your chest, I'm listening—"

I wiped my hands with a napkin, thought
about it, and responded with a smile: "Yes, there is one other
thing. What's for dessert?"

He raised one of his brows. "That's up to
you. What would you like?"

I could think of a few things, but none more
inviting than the man my eyes gazed upon. He looked quite
scrumptious at the moment with that crooked smile, shiny bald head,
and firm body staring back at me. I leaned over and kissed him. The
warmth of his mouth on mine seemed to release me from the demons
that had played with my mind since Carter's death. My libido
suddenly came alive and I wanted Ridge more than ever right
now.

We got to know each other again in bed,
rediscovering what worked and what did not, making love with
passion and energy that left us both thoroughly content. We cuddled
together afterward as if neither of us wanted to be anywhere else.
The thought of Carter somehow spying on us from another dimension
gave way to the reality of here and now with the person who
currently meant more to me than anyone. I wasn't about to allow
Carter to deprive me of that one bit of satisfaction.

CHAPTER
FORTY

Ollie and I went for our morning jog on the
beach. We huffed and puffed for a good hour and a half before
making it back home in a sweat. Ollie had more or less returned to
his normal feisty self. That told me he had apparently gotten over
the trauma of witnessing Carter's death and the confrontation with
an as yet unknown assailant.

I only wished the same could be said for
me.

I was having lunch today with a good friend
whom I had managed to neglect recently, all in the name of the
hectic life of a private investigator and security consultant. Not
to mention the time spent with a certain police detective. Whitney
Quinn was a psychologist who got half her business courtesy of the
Honolulu Police Department. A psychological evaluation was both
routine and mandatory for cops who had stepped over the line, been
suspected of such, or experienced extreme psychological stress on
the job.

It was the latter circumstance that first
brought me before Whitney. I had only been on the force for two
weeks when I shot and killed a burglary suspect, who would have
shot and killed me had I not been a hair quicker to the trigger. I
had been warned that the first fatality was usually the hardest.
That did not prepare me for just how hard it really was to deal
with killing another human being.

I was fully cleared of any wrongdoing, but
the psychological burden was a whole different matter. That was
where Whitney came in. Not only did she do wonders in helping me
overcome the guilt and self-blame, but I also ended up with a
lifelong friend.

It was as a friend that I hoped to get some
informal counseling in an attempt to help me understand the inner
workings of the man I was once married to. A man who left behind a
legacy that was as baffling as it was tragic.

We met at Harry Woo's, a restaurant on
Kapahulu Avenue in Chinatown. Spending too much time trying to
decide what to wear, I was a little late getting there for the one
o'clock date, whereas Whitney was her usual punctual self.

"Sorry," I said lamely. "The time got away
from me."

"Don't worry about it," Whitney said,
smiling brightly as she looked me over. I was wearing a lavender
scoop neck top, gray pencil skirt, and black open toe pumps. "It's
good to see you."

"You, too," I said, and gave her a hug.

When we pulled apart, I quickly surveyed the
thirty-nine-year-old psychologist who looked much younger. She was
just under my height with blue eyes and blonde hair in a short
pixie style. She had on a white pantsuit, yellow cami, and brown
sandals.

"Has it really been what, six months?" I
asked in disbelief while hiding my regret.

"More like seven or eight," she said, "but
who's counting?"

I certainly wasn't, but wondered how we'd
managed to miss each other during that stretch.

We sat down, and Whitney said: "I have to
admit, I was a little surprised to hear from you—"

She wasn't making this any easier, but I
tried to keep it lighthearted for starters. "Well, you just never
know when an old friend will call and invite you to lunch," I
said.

"I suppose..." She lifted her cup of coffee.
"In my line of work the unexpected means never quite knowing what's
coming next. Sometimes that can be dangerous."

"Don't I know it," I said, thinking that my
own profession as a private eye had more than its fair share of
unexpected dangers.

She regarded me curiously. "How are things
going with you, Skye?"

I picked up my glass of water and took a sip
before looking at her and admitting: "Not as well as they could
be—"

The menus came, allowing me time to collect
my thoughts and gather my words. Even in an informal setting, it
was hard to share my anxieties and anger concerning Carter. But for
the sake of my own mental health and well-being, I owed it to
myself to get this off my chest.

I told Whitney about the journal, which I'd
read more of, much to my mortification. This was followed by my
thoughts about the bizarre circumstances surrounding Carter's death
and how they'd left me drained, confused, and unsure of what the
hell it all meant.

Whitney seemed to listen with compassion and
understanding even as I tried to read her mind. "I know this was a
few years ago," she said, "but how did Carter take it when you told
him the marriage was over?"

"Like any man who wanted the best of all
worlds," I said, remembering it as though only yesterday. "He tried
hard to convince me he'd made a mistake and wanted a second chance
to make it right."

She peered at me. "But you would hear none
of it?"

"Would you, if you were in my shoes?" I
challenged her.

Whitney hit me with a remember who's the
psychologist look and said: "This isn't about me or what I would
do, Skye."

I got the picture. Still, a sneer appeared
out of nowhere. "All right, so I didn't need a man I couldn't
trust, much less one who wanted more than I apparently was capable
of giving him, either sexually or emotionally."

The waitress brought our lunch.

Whitney tasted her kung pao chicken, then
gave me a stern look and asked the obvious question: "Why in the
hell did you let this man you wanted nothing more to do with back
into your life, even if it was only for professional reasons?"

I had probably asked myself that a thousand
times since Carter's death. Was it to prove my growth and
objectivity? Was it to reassure Ridge that he had nothing to worry
about? Or was—as I imagined Whitney must have thought—I still in
love with Carter?

It took me only a moment to come to the
conclusion I had reached from the time I'd agreed to work for him.
"It had
nothing
to do with my personal feelings for Carter,"
I said firmly. "It wasn't about hoping for a second time around
love connection—which wasn't there, for my part. Or," I added, "a
desire to reopen the lines of communication between us." I drank
some tea, watched Whitney watch me, and told her in the most
succinct terms what I truly believed. "I was providing a
professional service for Carter with the clear understanding that
this was a onetime deal with no emotional or any other strings
attached—"

Whitney's razor thin brows twitched. "I
almost hate to say this, Skye, but you
did
want my
professional opinion..."

I bit into a spring roll and felt my heart
skip a beat while waiting to hear what came next.

"It seems pretty clear to me that, at least
from Carter's perspective, the emotional ties had never really gone
away," she said levelly. "The journal was his way of holding on to
you, if only in his own mind. Keeping tabs on your every move
allowed him to fantasize that he was still an integral, intimate
part of your life, while maintaining control over you from a safe
distance by knowing every which way you turned and anything else
that he deemed important—"

If that was true, I thought, and I had no
reason to doubt it, I could only feel sorry for Carter. Aside from
a cheating, drug-abusing wife, and his own gambling addiction, he
seemingly had everything going for him. He certainly didn't need me
to make his life whole. So maybe that life was less than perfect.
It didn't give him the right to retreat back to something that was
no longer his for the taking. If only I'd had a clue at some point
of Carter's unbalanced behavior, I might have been able to do
something before things got out of hand.

"My guess is Carter hired you as an
extension of this dangerous game of obsession he was playing,"
Whitney said, now clearly on a roll, "even if his reason for coming
to you was perfectly legitimate." Her eyes widened at me. "The
truth is I could hardly blame his second wife for looking elsewhere
for attention. From what you've told me, I doubt she ever had a
fighting chance with Carter. Not when he seemed to have channeled
all of his feelings of love and devotion in your direction."

Her interpretation of Carter's mindset left
me even more confused and angry. I wasn't sure I bought it, but
unless a better explanation came along, I had to go along with
Whitney's psychological autopsy of Carter.

The conversation shifted to small talk—a
welcome change.

It wasn't until we were finished eating that
I asked Whitney what had most been on my mind regarding Carter's
peculiar disposition and his demise. "Do you think Carter's death
could somehow be tied to his, for lack of a better description,
obsessive behavior toward me?"

Whitney contemplated the question for a
moment. "Yes and no," she responded. "His obsessive behavior could
have impacted his ability to reason as both a businessman and a
husband, which may have led to his death." Whitney gave me that
look you give someone when you're about to say something you want
the listener to embrace, and said: "If you're asking me if
you're
somehow to blame for Carter's unnatural feelings
toward you, the answer is absolutely not, Skye! No one can control
what goes on inside another person's head. In my opinion, Carter
was a walking time bomb, waiting to explode. Whether that was
directly related to his death or not is something for the police to
figure out—"

I felt a certain amount of relief with
Whitney's professional opinion and her friendly support. But I
continued to have a problem with where the bomb went off, so to
speak. And why?

As for the journal, I decided to keep it in
cold storage for now. At least until I was satisfied that it was
not somehow instrumental in Carter's death, rather than merely the
bizarre reflections of a sick man who was once my husband.

CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE

I returned home to find that tropical fire
ants had invaded my house! Or should I say that Ollie had
discovered the little creatures milling aimlessly about the floor
and on the walls. He seemed to be as spooked as I was by the
unwelcome company.

I didn't even want to hazard a guess as to
where they had come in, knowing it could have been anywhere. My
only concern was getting rid of them so I could reclaim the house
and some peace of mind.

I phoned Natsuko and asked her to come over
to help me deal with the fire ants, a pest common in Hawaii but
actually helpful to sugar cane farmers with their crops. Ollie did
his best to avoid the menacing little insects that weren't afraid
to bite him, or me for that matter, if we tried to get in their
way. As if there weren't already enough of them, even more suddenly
seemed to come out of hiding, as if welcoming the challenge they
presented.

Natsuko arrived shortly thereafter and made
light of a bad situation. "They're really friendly once you get to
know them," she said jokingly.

I sneered, hardly in a joking mood. "I can
do without their friendship, thank you."

I think she got the message. She had brought
some organic fire ant control products that she wanted to try
before calling the pest control company.

With the jury still out as to whether we had
gotten to the root of the ant problem, Natsuko was gracious enough
to take Ollie home for the rest of the day and night. I packed an
overnight bag to stay at Ridge's, sure he would welcome the
company.

I went to the office first to pay a few
bills and catch up on some work that I'd left undone or half done.
It had been this way ever since putting my energy into solving
Carter's murder. I had just gotten started when my cell phone
rang.