Murder in Honolulu: A Skye Delaney Mystery (34 page)

Before I could react, the door burst open,
knocking me to the floor and the gun out of my hand. I watched
Ollie go on the attack, but he proved no match for the brute that
lifted him in the air and flung him against the wall, knocking
Ollie out cold.

I went for the gun. Trevor Baldwin was
quicker, kicking it outside my reach with his sneaker. Suddenly, I
was cornered by a cold-blooded killer who I assumed planned to make
this my last day on earth.

"Did you think that cop or your stupid mutt
could keep me from getting to you?" Baldwin scowled at me, making
him that much more intimidating.

Bald and at least six-foot-four, the man was
all muscle. Inside his jeans was a pistol, which he now took out
and pointed in my direction. It was a .357 Magnum, no doubt loaded
and ready to kill.

I was worried about the condition of my dog
and the officer assigned to protect us both.

"What did you do to Officer Yayoshi?" I
asked, glaring at the culprit.

"I made him wish he'd been on vacation when
he was told to watch your back," Baldwin bragged. "He's not dead,
if that's what you're asking, but he's going to have one helluva
headache when he wakes up. I don't have any quarrel with the man,
other than him getting in my way. I took care of that."

I carefully got to my feet, aware he was
watching my every move intently. "You got your revenge against
Carter, Edwin Axelrod, and killed Antonio Ramirez," I told him,
figuring there was no reason to sugar coat it. "What do you want
with me?"

He grinned. "I want you dead," he snapped.
"If it hadn't been for Delaney making me chase after you like your
damned dog, I probably wouldn't be in this mess..."

"Who are you kidding?" I taunted him.
"Whatever dirty work you did for Carter, I'm sure he paid you
handsomely for it. It was your own greed that got you fired.
Probably the same reason Axelrod gave you the boot. I don't know
what you had against Kalolo Nawahi or Antonio Ramirez, though I
suspect Ramirez was merely a convenient patsy. Killing me is not
going to right all the wrong moves you've made, Trevor."

I figured my best plan of action at this
point was to stall for time by getting him riled up.

"Maybe not,
bitch
," he spat, "but at
least it'll make me feel better by ending your misery. You just
kept digging and digging till you got what you wanted. Happy?"

"You got what you wanted, too!" I told him,
glancing at Ollie, who was still out cold. I hoped he didn't have
internal injuries from the assault. "Everyone who betrayed you is
dead now, Trevor. My investigation was never about you. It was
about me and Carter, and why he refused to leave the past where it
belonged. I needed to find out for my own peace of mind. If you
walk out that door right now, you can go anywhere you want and I
won't try to stop you. Otherwise you're just digging a deeper
trench for yourself with no escape—"

He chuckled and said: "The trench is already
dug and I'm halfway in it. But before I go, I want to finish what I
started..."

I flashed him an exaggerated stare, my heart
pumping madly. I knew this was the moment of truth. Attacking the
brute with a .357 pointed at my face was suicidal. If I was going
to die, I wanted to at least be able to have a proper funeral with
an open casket.

"So why not finish it like a man, Trevor?" I
dared him. "Do you really need to shoot me? Why not strangle me
like you did Carter and Ramirez? Or are you afraid you can't take
me?"

He threw his head back and laughed
boisterously. "Who said anything about shooting you? This was just
to get your attention." He moved the gun up and down for effect,
and then tossed it to the floor. "You and me, we're going to have a
little fun, before I wring your pretty neck—"

Trevor Baldwin approached me full of
confidence—the type of poise one gains when strangling two people
with his bare hands, among other violent crimes. I noted that Ollie
was beginning to stir, but knew I couldn't count on him, Ridge, or
anyone else to bail me out of this one.

When Baldwin got close enough, I threw both
fists at his face, hitting him solidly with a left and right hook.
He shook them off as though merely tickled, grinning broadly.

"You've got to do better than that," he said
crookedly. "Like this—"

A fist came at me too fast to duck, landing
flush on my jaw. I went down like an imploded house. Dazed, I felt
myself lifted back to my feet as if weightless. As another blow
approached, instincts made me turn my face away, so that the punch
was only grazing. I felt blood trickling from my nose, while
getting back my senses.

An overconfident Baldwin tried to grab my
neck, getting air instead as I managed to duck. At the same time, I
slammed the heel of my shoe into the side of his knee, instantly
dislocating it.

He wailed like a big baby, and screamed:
"You bitch!"

I made sure I earned his rage as my fists
went after his face again, throwing uppercuts, while bobbing and
weaving like a middleweight champ. It was like hitting steel, as
the blows seemed to bounce off his body and reverberate back to
me.

Putting his weight on one leg, Baldwin still
managed to wrap a large hand around my throat. I had no intention
of waiting for him to tighten the noose. I gripped his shoulders
and lifted my body up so that I could head butt him while
simultaneously slamming my knee as hard as I could between his
legs, and again.

It worked on both counts, as Baldwin grunted
and moaned, his grasp loosening enough so that I was able to go for
his windpipe, pounding my fists against his throat. He released me
while he backpedaled, gasping for air.

I was taking no chances that this asshole
was down and out. Staying on the offensive, I lunged at Baldwin and
again went to work hitting him squarely in the nose several times
until it broke. Then I smashed my fists into both cheeks with
everything I had.

Just when I thought I had gained the upper
hand, Baldwin swung wildly and caught me on the jaw. I managed to
stay on my feet, but was seeing stars as he dragged himself
forward. Before I knew it, he had both hands around my neck,
literally lifting my entire body off the floor like in a bad horror
movie.

I felt myself losing the battle and
consciousness, when Ollie came to the rescue. At full speed, he
dove into the air like a flying dog and landed squarely on the back
of Baldwin, clamping his powerful jaws into the side of his
face.

Baldwin shrieked and released me, while
trying to fight off a determined Ollie. I knew now that it was my
turn to save my dog. I went after Baldwin again, kicking and
throwing punches wherever I found an opening. There was enough
blood to go around.

We all went down to the floor, with me on
top of Baldwin, and him on top of Ollie. In my attempt to win the
battle, I never saw that Baldwin's outstretched arm had managed to
grab hold of his gun.

"You're dead, bitch," he moaned. "So is the
mutt."

Not quite.

In the process of going for the gun, Baldwin
had rolled off Ollie just enough to allow him to dart over and dig
his teeth into the man's wrist, forcing him to release the gun and
yell, as if it would make a difference to his pain.

"Good boy," I called out, and slammed a fist
flush into the slack part of Baldwin's face, putting him out for
the count.

I was still on top of my would-be killer,
trying to catch my breath, and counting my blessings that Ollie and
I would get through this ordeal in one piece, when Ridge stormed
in, gun first, with several officers accompanying him.

"What the hell took you so long?" I teased
him, knowing just how close I'd come to never having this
moment.

Ridge grimaced. "I thought Yayoshi was on
top of the situation," he said. "When the officer didn't check in
like he was supposed to, I knew something wasn't right."

"Well, I think Ollie and I managed to clean
up your mess," I said with a sigh, feeling exhausted and pretty
sore.

He smiled thinly. "Looks like it. Are you
and Ollie all right?"

"Better than him," I replied, gazing at the
man beneath me. I looked at Ollie who was still gripping Baldwin's
limp wrist between his teeth and said: "You can let him go, boy. He
won't hurt us ever again."

Ollie obeyed and we both released our hold
on Trevor Baldwin so the authorities could take him into custody. I
crawled over and hugged my dog, knowing he had been willing to make
the ultimate sacrifice for me, and vice versa. He licked the side
of my face and seemed to say, "Don't worry about me, I'll
survive."

"So will I," I told him, and looked up at
Ridge. "How's James?"

"A little shook up with a king-sized
headache," he said. "Other than that, the guy's a hard one to put
down for the count. Much like you and Ollie."

Ridge helped me to my feet and we hugged, as
if afraid to let go of one another. I knew this was but the first
step toward putting what we had back on the right track, without
past haunts to derail us.

CHAPTER
FIFTY-SIX

There was an elderly woman tending to
geraniums planted around a gravestone. A young couple walked arm in
arm by me in obvious grief from the loss of a loved one.

My own emotions were mixed as I stood before
Carter's grave. I read the words on his marble headstone:

CARTER DOUGLAS DELANEY

A Man Who Believed In Family

And Stood For The Law

I wasn't sure just how true those statements
were. But I applauded Darlene for honoring the memory of her
husband as best she could for their daughter, if nothing else.

I feared that somewhere along the line,
Carter had forgotten all he once stood for and aspired to be. And
in the end, it cost him his life and much of his legacy.

It had been three months since Carter's
death. Trevor Baldwin had recovered from the mauling he took from
Ollie and me and had been formally charged with the murders of
Carter Delaney, Edwin Axelrod, and Antonio Ramirez. Baldwin's DNA
was discovered outside my house, but close enough to put him
inside, while Ramirez's DNA was found in Baldwin's cottage.
Circumstantial evidence had more than filled in the blanks to tie
Baldwin to the string of killings, along with attempting to murder
me twice, breaking and entering, and a number of other charges. The
prosecuting attorney's office had all it needed for a sure
conviction. Meanwhile, the investigation was still ongoing in tying
Baldwin to the deaths of Kalolo Nawahi and Kazuo Pelekai.

The one sure bet was that Trevor Baldwin
would never again be able to hurt a living soul in the free
world.

I held a dozen violets in my hand. Carter
had once presented me with the same when he asked me to marry him.
It was the memories of a time gone by that had brought me here on
this overcast afternoon. Only it was the more recent past that cast
a dark shadow over everything else between us.

My life was finally starting to return to
normal, thanks in part to therapy sessions with Whitney. But some
lingering thoughts continued to haunt me like a bad dream.

"Why couldn't you have let me go when you
were alive?" I asked Carter out loud. "It might have saved many
people undeserved grief and you, your life. I was never yours to
worship or hold onto," I said to his headstone. "Whatever we had,
you threw away. You should've been man enough to leave it at that
and give your second family a fighting chance."

I could only hope that, with time, healing
would come for Carter's daughter and even his widow, who deserved
better, in spite of her own weaknesses.

Suddenly it no longer seemed important what
my ex-husband's state of mind had been during his downward spiral.
I could not and would not let him bring me down with him.

"These are for old time's sake, Carter," I
said softly. I was about to put them on his grave when, at the last
moment, I decided instead that they would look nice around the
geraniums the old lady had prettied up for her dead husband.

Ollie had wandered off to a grave on the
other side of the cemetery, as if he was in tune with the soul of
the person buried there. I made eye contact and he came
running.

Ridge was waiting for us by the car. He gave
me an understanding smile. I gave him a long hug and said with
finality: "Let's get on with our lives."

"You sure?" he asked with a catch to his
voice.

I thought about it for less than a second,
smiled at him, and replied: "Positive—"

# # #

Bonus excerpts from the bestselling medical
thriller MURDER IN MAUI: A Leila Kahana Mystery by R. Barri
Flowers

MURDER IN
MAUI
: A Leila Kahana
Mystery

PROLOGUE

The handgun was loaded methodically. Time
for payback. Now they would know what it felt like to be
humiliated. And only then could some peace of mind come.

And just maybe a life again.

First things first. There was a job to do
and the doer was determined to exact some vengeance against those
deserving.

Stuffing the gun in a pocket, the
soon-to-be-killer downed the rest of a glass of liquor before
heading for the door.

It was a relatively quiet evening by Maui
standards, what with the constant throng of tourists practically
taking over the island. This was a good omen. No need to draw undue
attention or have to take out someone who didn't deserve to
die.

The doer got into a vehicle and began the
drive down Mokulele Highway toward the South Shore.

Arriving in Wailea, the car was parked not
far from the Crest Creek Condominiums.

Then came the wait, certain they would show
up. After all, their routines had been studied and memorized.