Three
733 Words
Three“Who’d want him dead? It doesn’t make sense . . .”
Lani Manolo dragged her hands down her face and twisted her mouth in frustration. Kaleo slumped opposite her in Cyrus and Misty May’s sitting room, his long legs stretched out on a red velvet ottoman, arms behind his head.
This was their second home, and they’d been staying here ever since they’d arrived.
“Lani, you know as well as I do, Bully was no saint. He had his share of enemies, there’s no doubt about that.”
By the time Sebastian had released them from questioning and they’d got home, it was close to dawn and, exhausted as Lani was, sleep was impossible. Her nerves were on edge, her mind careening from childhood memories to wild searching for an explanation.
They’d made themselves a hot chocolate nightcap and were going round in ever-decreasing circles positing questions they had no answers for.
She could barely keep her eyes open, but hot irritation spilled through her at her brother’s languid sprawl. Didn’t he understand she’d come close to being arrested for murder tonight? That Russell brother still regarded her with suspicion, just because Bully had died in her arms.
Her head pounded like a sharkskin drum played with a heavy hand.
What was it Bully said? It was a whisper, a few words expelled on a wraith of breath before the man who’d been so unavoidable in life had expired like sea spume. One moment he was a mountain, the next he was tumbleweed on the sand hills. She wasn’t sure of those last words, which was why she’d mentioned them to no one.
“Oh for goodness’ sake, Kaleo!”
She spat out the words, but Kaleo barely registered her frustration.
He lifted one brow—his scarred right brow, the brown arch broken by a clear diagonal mark, souvenir of a flying surfboard—and continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“It could be a jealous husband. It could be a business enemy. It could be—”
Lani spoke over the top of him. “Honestly? What could he have done to get someone so furious they’d want to kill him? No one’s mentioned any public feuds.”
Kaleo shrugged.
“Let’s face it, Lani. We haven’t had anything to do with Bully for years—not since he came here when we were twelve. A lot can happen in ten years. We have no idea what he might have gotten into.”
He lurched forward, his elbows on his knees, a quizzical look on his handsome face.
“And we might be riding the wrong wave entirely. It might go right back to the old days. You know a lot of bad juju went down around the time we were born. Maybe it’s the Manolo curse.”
“Oh, be serious, Kaleo.”
His face showed no sign of humor.
“Serious? I am being serious. You don’t take the old ways seriously enough, that’s your trouble.”
An icy trickle ran down Lani’s spine.
What had got Bully so angry at dinner tonight? Maybe Kaleo has a point.
She mirrored her brother’s stance, leaning forward in her chair and gazing up at him, eyes bright with determination.
“Kaleo, it’s today we’ve got to be concerned about. Not some ancient vendetta. Who will buy our sugar? How will we take care of Ani and Malia?”
Her heart panged as she saw her haina mother in her mind’s eye, her once erect carriage stooped and wasted, her sight almost gone. Precious Ani, who’d been a protective angel when Grandmother Cornelia had died.
At the thought of her wise, deeply grooved face, the one-time sparkle in eyes now clouded with cataracts, a riptide of fear washed through her. Would they even see her alive again? First Archie, now Bully. If Ani was next, Lani didn’t know how she’d bear it.
She pushed to her feet, unable to sit any longer, determination surging in to replace the fear.
Malia, their gorgeous, irrepressible adopted sister, could be relied on keep Ani’s spirits buoyed up while they were away.
Malia was as impossible to rein in as a Waikiki curler, but she adored Ani as much as Lani and Kaleo did.
They were both relying on her and Kaleo to patch up the disaster that had broken over the family following Archie’s death. Their nearest and dearest were depending on them. One in the shadow years of life, the other blinded by childhood measles which limited her opportunities if not her joyous spirit.
“We can’t stand around talking any longer, Kaleo,” she said abruptly. “We’ve got to do something before we lose everything.”
- Writer
