Dark Lava: Lei Crime Book 7 (Lei Crime Series) (28 page)

Stevens glanced up. He saw worry in the captain
’s eyes.

“
You’re right. I wouldn’t have forgiven you. But if you’re worried I can’t focus on bringing down Awapuhi, you’re wrong there. Just give me five minutes to call Lei.”

“
Five minutes. Meet you at Interview Room Two.” Omura got up, picked up her file and pen, and glided smoothly out of the room.

St
evens speed-dialed Lei’s number.

“
Michael.” Her voice was hoarse, and he heard the clog of tears in it.

“
Omura told me. I’m so sorry,” he said, and pressed his fingers into his eyes, trying to hold back his own tears at the memory of Lei on their last visit, snuggled in bed with her beloved aunty. “Did she suffer?”

“
No.” Lei blew her nose. “In fact, the ME thinks she died of natural causes.” Lei told him how the nurse had come and she’d thought the woman injected her with something. “He won’t know until the autopsy. And then, there was the bomb.”

“
The what?” Stevens’s blood pressure soared as Lei filled him in on the block of C-4 set on Aunty Rosario’s body, and Lei’s deactivation of it.

“
And there’s still one shroud unaccounted for. Who is doing this to us?” He heard his voice rising and struggled to control it. “We have to get some traction on this.”

“
I know.” A small silence. Their breathing fell into sync.

“
I love you,” he said. “I’m glad you knew how to deal with that bomb.”

“
Good.”

He wanted to chuckle
but couldn’t. “I have some more news. We’re closing in on the end of the
heiau
case.” He told her about picking up Awapuhi and recovering the artifacts. “Your friend Esther was the big break.”

“
Glad she called you right away. I want to come home. Work my case. But I have to stay here until Aunty’s funeral.”

“
Well, when my case wraps up, I’ll join you. I wouldn’t miss it.”

“
Call me when things settle down.”

“
I am still waiting for that. Gotta go. Interviewing Awapuhi.”

“
I need you.”

“
You got me. Talk soon.” Stevens cut the connection and stood. His ankle reminded him of its injury. With a grimace of pain, he hobbled as quickly as he could down the hall toward Interview Room Two.

Lei set her phone down. It was dark in California, three hours later than in Hawaii, and in the kitchen she could hear her father splashing around. He seemed to calm himself by cleaning, and he hadn’t stopped since that afternoon when he arrived back at the house with Momi.

Lei settled back on the double bed in the room she
’d painted the blue of Hawaii skies the year she’d moved in with Aunty. Her aunt had taken down her teenaged posters of action heroes and rock stars, but otherwise the simple space was unchanged.

What would happen to the house now? She pillowed her hands beneath her head, thinking through the situation. It would take at least a week for Aunty
’s body to be autopsied and released for burial. Aunty had told Wayne and Momi she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered on San Francisco Bay, and some of them taken back to her beloved Hawaii.

Rosario had come to be embedded in her adopted home of San Rafael. Lei knew her memorial was going to be huge, and a big deal to plan, but
Lei just wanted get on a plane and go home.

Home to Stevens
’s arms, to her familiar bed, to Keiki. To work, where she had a job to do and could keep her mind off her grief. Home, to try to find a murderer who seemed to be pulling puppet strings all around them.

“
It has to be Terence Chang,” Lei murmured, staring at the ceiling. That reminded Lei she hadn’t checked in with Marcella about her friend’s reopening of Chang’s case, and now there was a lot to update her on.

She phoned Marcella, and when her frie
nd didn’t pick up, left a message that it was urgent they speak regarding new developments.

She got up and went into the kitchen. Wayne looked up from scrubbing the sink. His face seemed to have aged in the hours since Lei had called him about Rosario
’s death; his cheeks were sunken and eyes hooded. His dark visage reminded her of her first glimpse of him in prison orange, and how things had changed so much since then. She walked to her father and opened her arms. He dropped the scrubber into the sink and embraced her.

“
I keep thinking of doing something for Rosario,” Wayne said into Lei’s hair. “Bringing her something to eat. Checking her blood pressure. I’ve walked to her door a dozen times, and I don’t remember she’s gone until I get there.”

Lei couldn
’t speak, just tightened her arms, and then finally let go.

“
I’ve been thinking while I’ve been cleaning.” Her dad turned to the fridge, took out a couple of Heinekens, popped the tops, and handed her one. “Sit down. I have an idea I want to run by you.”

“
I’m listening.” She took a sip of the beer.

“
Rosario left her half of the restaurant to me and the house to you. I’d been planning to ask you if I could stay on here and do some volunteer ministry while working at the Hawaiian Food Place—but now I’m thinking of something different.”

“
She left me the house?” Lei frowned. The beer tasted yeasty and strong, and she remembered she was pregnant and pushed it aside. “She never said anything to me.”

“
Yes. We talked it all over because we had time to. She wanted to give you and Stevens something to get started in life, and prices are almost as high in Marin County as Hawaii. You should be able to sell this house for enough to buy something similar on Maui if you want. The house is paid off.”

“
That’s incredible. I can’t believe she was so generous. I thought she’d leave it to you—it makes sense for you to keep living here.”

“
She left me income, in the form of my half of the restaurant. So I was thinking. Now that you are bringing home this baby, and having another one, you’re going to need help. Child care. And I’m going to need something to do with myself besides bus tables and wipe counters at a restaurant.” Wayne pushed a hand through his long, silver-streaked curls. His eyes, when they met hers, were vulnerable, dark circles beneath them. “I always wanted to make up for those years we lost, but we still haven’t had the chance. What do you think about selling this house and buying something big enough on Maui that I could live with you and Stevens? As your nanny. Or, as I’ve heard them called, ‘manny.’”

Lei
’s mouth quirked. “You, a ‘manny?’” Her eyes trailed over his muscled, tattooed arms, picturing him changing a baby. She could see it. His intimidating appearance was all a front. She’d never seen him be anything but gentle—but he’d guard their house as fiercely as Keiki would.

“
I was very good with you when you were little. But of course you don’t remember that,” Wayne said. “And you know I can cook and clean.”

Lei
’s chest ached with the feeling of her heart melting. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more. Keiki will be beside herself.”

Wayne had stayed at Lei
’s little cottage on Kaua`i during one of her postings for a while, and the big Rottweiler had become almost as attached to Wayne as she was to Lei.

Her fa
ther turned away, and Lei could tell by the way his shoulders were hunched that he was trying to hide his emotion. “Well, there are a lot of things to settle, but I hope you will ask your husband. Talk it over.”

“
He’s going to love the idea as much as I do.” Lei got up and embraced her father from behind, resting her cheek against his shoulder. “Losing Aunty has taught me something. We can’t take anything for granted. We have to be with our
ohana
while we can. Knowing you’ll be home to take care of the house and baby Kiet is a huge relief to me. And you couldn’t possibly be any worse at child care than me and Stevens. We don’t have a clue. We’ll be Googling everything.”

Just then Lei
’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She took it out, saw Marcella’s number. “Dad, I have to take this.”

“
I’ll make us something to eat.” Their talk seemed to have energized him, and he turned toward the refrigerator.

Lei went back to her bedroom.

“Lei. What’s going on?”

Lei shut her door and th
rew herself on her bed. “So much.” She told Marcella about Aunty’s death, enduring her friend’s exclamations of shock and grief. Marcella had become attached to Aunty as well. Knowing Rosario had been terminally ill didn’t mitigate the shock of her sudden, suspicious death. “So now, more than ever, I need someone tracking everything Terence Chang is doing.”

“
I have Hilo PD on him like white on rice, and I’ve got Sophie monitoring his online activity. So far, we haven’t found anything, but this guy has major computer skills. He could be orchestrating all this from his back bedroom just like he did on that other case.”

“
I know. And here I am in California, having to sit on my hands while that nurse who killed Aunty is roaming around with her briefcase, free as a bird. I just want to go home and work, where I can do something. Speaking of, there have been developments on that. I’m sure Marcus knows already.” Lei filled her friend in on the breaks happening in the
heiau
case. “But we still need to find the killer of the Norwegian art thief. It may or may not be Awapuhi. The two thugs that held the Norwegian are still in the wind. I wish I could go home and work, be with Stevens. I have nothing to do here but be reminded Aunty’s gone.”

“
You should go. I’m sure Omura needs your help with all that going on.”

“
I need to stay. Help my dad with my aunt’s funeral. Oh, and I’m pregnant.”

“
What!”

“
Yeah. Like you said, what’s one more? Anyway, I hope you’re right about that—and about giving us a date night sometime.”

They ta
lked more and Marcella said, “Keep me posted. Believe me, if we had any probable cause on Chang, we’d be bringing him in.”

“
Okay. I guess I have to let that be enough.”

“
Oh, and on a personal note—Marcus asked me to marry him.” Marcella’s voice quavered.

“
I was waiting for that,” Lei said. “Congratulations! Because you said yes, right?”

“
I told him I needed to think about it.”

“
Holy crap, don’t do what I did!” Lei exclaimed. “He adores you, and you guys couldn’t be better together! For God’s sake, if you learned nothing from what I did and what happened with Anchara—please, marry the man!”

A long pause. “
You might be right,” Marcella said. “I just have to be sure. I mean, the rest of my life is a long time, and I worry I’ll let him down.”

“
Seriously, you have it so much more together with him than I ever did with Stevens, and I love being married more than I ever imagined. I don’t know what I was so scared of.”

“
Even though Stevens is messed up by Anchara’s death? Like you told me about?”

“
More so, because of it. We’re there for each other in ways you can’t imagine until you make that commitment.” Lei pressed her fingers against her lips and shut her eyes, remembering their passionate lovemaking.

“
Well, grist for the mill. Gotta run!” Marcella said, and cut the connection.

Lei went back into the kitchen. Her father had reheated more of the beef stew.

“I think you should go home,” he said without preamble, setting the bowls on the table as she came in. “It’s going to take a while for them to release your aunty’s body and to plan the memorial. You should go back to work. I know it helps you deal with things.”

Lei sat down. The stew smelled delicious, and her dicey stomach turned on and said yes. She picked up her spoon. “
I want to stay and help you pack up her things. Plan the memorial. It’s the right thing to do.”

“
Sweets.” He put a hand on hers, made eye contact. “I can take care of all of that. What I can’t handle is you pacing around like a caged lion, frustrated because you can’t work this case, needing your husband and your dog.”

Lei laughed, a sudden upwelling of mirth, and he laughed, too. “
Now you see the real me. Still want to come live with us?”

“
More than ever. The hope of doing that has given me a real second wind. But, of course, I respect what you and Stevens decide.”

“
Well, I’ll just have to hop on a plane and get home to talk with him about it,” Lei said. “Thanks, Dad. I think you might be right about how I cope. But we’ll come back for her memorial, for sure.”