There had to be a common factor. There had to be something that had happened at the house to make her bolt that was happening now. Fuck! I wasn’t a detective. Kayl looked busy, dealing with what was going on, but I needed to clue him in on this. Maybe it had some…thing… to do… with the blackmailer…
My thoughts slowed, and for a moment it was like the world was standing frozen in time as I stared at Kayl across the lot.
Aloiki, Kayl, and I had known each other since we were in second grade. We’d had our occasional disagreements, but that friendship had stood the test of time that so many others failed. Even after Kayl had joined the force while Aloiki and I chose arguably less honorable professions, our friendship remained strong. The real difference had been in the past year, since Kayl had gotten his promotion as Sergeant with the Honolulu Narcotics Unit. His hours were different, and he’d moved downtown to lessen his commute. But the island was only so big, and we still stayed in touch. The rift between Aloiki and I since the plane ride coming back from Yonkers felt bigger than the distance between Kayl and us since his move.
But though he wore a badge, Kayl was not someone who “bled blue”, as the saying goes. We weren’t the only ones paying him to keep our noses clean in the eyes of the law, but years of friendship did not pay the bills. We all understood that.
I didn’t know what it was about that moment that made me pause, made me doubt and contemplate. But in that second of frozen time, I knew it fit. Better than any other possible option.
Kayl knew Kalea. She would not have been suspicious if he knocked on our back door. Kayl knew things, not just about Kalea, but about Aloiki and me. Things we paid him to keep quiet. He knew things that even Kalea didn’t. I hadn’t told hereverything about my business. Hell, she didn’t even know that Aloiki and I had killed her first boyfriend.
But Kayl did. He’d been pissed we hadn’t waited for him to get off shift before ending the bastard’s life.
I didn’t know why, but there was no doubt in my mind thatKayl, one of my best friends since I was eight years old, had blackmailed, raped, and impregnated mywahine. To make matters worse, I currently had him investigatinghimself! Of course Pualani’s DNA hadn’t come back with a match. Had he even run it or just tossed her sippy cup in the trash with a laugh?
Time sped back up, noise came rushing back to my ears, and I ducked behind the building. There was only one thing stopping me from charging straight into that parking lot and pummeling him into a bloody pulp, and that was the fact that it would be too quick a death.
Before anyone saw me, I headed into the parking lot and onto my bike. The ambulance narrowly missed me on their own speeding voyage out of the parking lot. I needed to hear her say it. I needed to know I was right…and then… Then I was going hunting.
Her cage wasin the driveway, but the house was dark when I entered. She still kept that hide-a-key in the fake rock under the bush. I left it on the kitchen counter rather than returning it, because I really was not happy about her leaving it there. Even though I’d used it twice now to gain entry to her house.
She was up in Pualani’s room when I entered. I expected to find her packing in a rush or hiding in a dark corner as she waitedfor the monster to appear. Instead, I found her leaning over Pualani’s crib, watching as her daughter played with a toy.
My anger dissipated as I stepped into the room, replaced with sympathy and pity as the depth of Kayl’s betrayal hit me. He hadn’t just been mine and Aloiki’s friend, but Kalea’s too. He’d known her just as long as I had, and she had trusted him just as she would me.
I stepped up beside her, looking down at the little girl with new eyes, trying to find one of my closest friends in her features.
“How could you not tell me?” I was surprised my voice was so steady, but accusation rang clear.
The entire ride over here, I couldn’t figure it out. Had she hit someone with her cage and called Kayl to clean it up? What could be so bad that she couldn’t tell Aloiki and me?
She ducked her head, curling her face into her shoulder. “You know.”
Neither of us said his name out loud, but there was no doubt in my mind that I was right on this. “I know, but I still don’t understand. What does he have on you?”
But she shook her head, her voice muffled by her shoulder. “Not me…”
Not her? But she was the one being blackmailed, extorted, raped… Who else could he have something— My mind froze, and I was done with these evasive games. I grabbed Kalea by her shoulders and spun in her around to face me. “Me?” I demanded harshly. “He was blackmailing you with something onme?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks like a mountain runoff, but she wouldn’t look at me. “And Aloiki.”
Pualani’s calming influence vanished in a flash, and suddenly it all fell into place. Kalea hadn’t done anything wrong, but she was paying—both monetary and with her body—for Aloiki’s and my sins. Sins we also paid Kayl to help cover up. Sins we’d kept fromKalea because we didn’t want the darkness we lived in to touch her world.
It was why I never brought my work home with me. She knew I sold antique weapons, not ran arms for organized crime, private corporations, collectors, and anyone willing to pay my fees. She didn’t know about Aloiki’s involvement with Kahoku or the fact that we both had blood on our hands.
At least, we didn’t think she’d known. We’d wanted to protect her, keep her away from the violence and the dirt that touched us.
“What did he tell you?” I asked, my voice hard and unyielding. “No more lies, Kalea. I’ll get the truth out of you or out of him.”
Her face paled. “You can’t! You can’t! He has… He has records. Pictures, recordings. If anything happens to him, it gets sent to his bosses!” Her hands came up to grip my wrists. “Please, Tangaloa. That’s why I didn’t tell you! If half of what he says is true about the things you and Aloiki have done, I don’t doubt what you’re capable of. But I can’t have you hurt because of me! I’m not worth it!”
Her words were like a slap across my face and a kick to my balls at the same time. The fuck did she just say to me? “Not worth it? Notworth it? Fucking hell, Kalea! You were worth everything to me! I would have died for you! I would have burned the world down for you!”
She shook her head. “Don’t… Don’t say things like that. You’ll get hurt! End up in jail or worse! I couldn’t let you live a life behind bars, Tangaloa.”
“So instead you let yourself be repeatedly raped while I continued to trust a man, abrother, who was actually stabbing me in the back?!” Pualani let out a sound, bringing my attention back to her presence. Fuck, I didn’t want to scare her. Pulling Kalea out of the room, I closed Pua’s door before heading across the hall to Kalea’s bedroom. I closed that door too. “Forget your inane insistence that you’re not ‘worth it’, because that’s an entirely differenttherapy bill, but did it even occur to you to tell me that one of my best friends was betraying me? My business? My livelihood? Not to mention Aloiki’s?”
“That’s why I didn’t! I couldn’t have my brother being hurt either. He had a file! He showed me pictures, said there was more! And that if I told either of you, if he eventhoughtone of you suspected, then he would give the information to his bosses.”