Read Stolen in Paradise (A Lei Crime Companion Novel) Online
Authors: Toby Neal
Tags: #mystery, #Crime fiction, #Hawaii
Stolen in Paradise (A Lei Crime Companion Novel) (26 page)
Marcella’s hand shook as she sipped her coffee. “Jarod Fernandez was innocent and I shot him.”
“But he shot you first. You didn’t have a choice.” He wouldn’t let her look away. It was time to find out a little more.
“Listen, I’ve been meaning to ask you—do you still belong to the Club?” She took a sip of her coffee to disguise her nervousness.
“No. I quit after you dumped me.”
“I quit then too.” Their eyes met. The wind ruffled her clean, shiny, soft, well-brushed hair.
“So why’d you belong?”
“You first,” he said, eyes on his mug.
“Okay. I had a bad relationship in college. He kind of—burned me for other men. Then I was busy with the Bureau, and sometimes I just wanted to get laid, without all the hassles and games, you know?”
“I do.” He nodded. “And that’s exactly why I went. Between my mama and my sisters, it’s been nothing but setups and ‘oh you’d like my friend Kelly’s cousin’ for years now. I wasn’t ready to settle down, and I was sick of fending off all the family matchmaking. I just wanted to go somewhere and not be me. Just be some guy, any guy, and get laid. My family is such a big deal. You haven’t met them yet—but it’s going to be interesting.” His voice went heavy with dread.
“You’ve met my parents. How much worse could it be?” Marcella turned to smile over her shoulder at him. “I’m Italian. I’m from Jersey. I can handle a few Hawaiians.”
“There are more than a few,” Marcus said darkly. He set his mug down, got up to stand in front of her. “Let’s go inside.”
He was wearing her other robe, a plain white terry cloth that barely covered his knees, and the belt looked like it was going to come undone any minute, an intriguing prospect.
“Why? I like it out here,” she whispered, and reached out to give the belt a tweak. Sure enough, it came undone. She gave another tug, and he took another step forward to stand between her knees.
His hands in her hair weren’t as gentle this time as she took him in her mouth, or when he knelt between her thighs and grasped her knees, or when they finally rolled onto the carpet in the living room and he looked into her eyes from above.
No masks or games or scars separated them, and Marcella was surprised at how good it all was.
Marcella looked around the gaily decorated, newly repainted interior of Café Italiano. Through the half window she could see her mother, a tiny figure dwarfed by a chef’s hat, manning the great gleaming steel stove, surrounded by several minions. Her father, dapper in a tuxedo shirt, bow tie in Hawaiian print, and black trousers, gestured Marcella and Kamuela in.
“Welcome to the grand opening celebration of Café Italiano.” He escorted them through the tables to one directly in front of the kitchen window. “Your mama, she want to see you while she cooking.”
“Of course, Papa. I feel bad we’re taking up space on this special day.”
“You the guests of honor!” Anna Scatalina darted through the swinging doors, and she hugged Marcella, careful to avoid her bad shoulder, though a week after the hospital, Marcella was no longer wearing the sling. “Welcome, ’Cella! Welcome, Marcus!”
“Aloha, Mrs. Scatalina.” Kamuela reached down to give her mother a hug, lifting her off the ground and knocking her chef’s hat back. “So glad to be here on this special day.”
“So, Papa. I see we’re at a six-top. Don’t you need this table for more people?” Marcella settled herself in one of the newly repainted curve-back chairs. She’d benefited from lots of bed rest, “physical therapy” and a lemon-honey throat concoction Dr. Wilson had dropped by.
“They coming now, I see,” Papa said, and cut a swath through the restaurant to lead Waxman, Gundersohn, Rogers, and Ang back to their table. “On the house today,” he said magnanimously, handing around menus.
“Hey.” Marcella grinned. “Welcome to Café Italiano.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it, Little Shit,” Rogers said with a wink. She narrowed her eyes at him as Waxman took his seat two over from her, smoothing his tie with his usual dignity.
“The mystery of Marcella’s last name is cleared up,” he said, opening his menu. “I for one support her decision to shorten that colorful moniker.”
“Thank you, sir,” Marcella said. “I thought Scott was just easier.”
“On that we agree.” They ordered, and Waxman was the first to raise his water glass. “To Agent Scott. Good health and good hunting.”
“Hear, hear!” the rest chimed in, and they all sipped their beverages.
Papa Gio, newly wreathed in a ginger lei, escorted another party, five large Hawaiians, to the six-top next to them.
Kamuela stood up in shock. “Mama! What you doing here?”
“Your friend, she invited us.” Marcus’s mother, majestic in a purple muumuu trimmed in velvet, took Marcella’s hand in hers. “My son speaks highly of you.” Mrs. Kamuela’s smile was wide and white, just as Marcella had imagined.
“As he does of you,” Marcella said. “Thanks so much for joining us on our opening day. It’s a big deal to come over from Maui.”
Marcus’s mouth still hung ajar in surprise to see his relatives as Marcella greeted, hugged, and “talked story” with his sisters and their husbands. The Kamuelas eventually got settled next to the FBI table.
“How’d you do this?” Marcus hissed, when his relatives were occupied with their menus.
“I looked through your cell for the most-called number. Next down from mine, it was hers.” Marcella gestured toward his mother. “She’s lovely.”
“She’s just all impressed with your parents owning a restaurant,” he muttered, but the red on his neck and the dimple in the wall of his cheek told her how tickled he was that she’d invited them.
“Anyway, I’m told there’s something even more exciting we’re here for,” Waxman said. Their food arrived, and in the general hubbub of tasting and commenting, Marcella almost forgot what he’d said until her father wheeled a large TV mounted on a rolling cart over to their table, getting Ang involved with checking the feeds to a VCR underneath. With a flourish, Papa Gio turned it on.
The grainy picture showed a ceremony of some kind. A draped stage, a podium, a row of brightly colored international flags in the background, red and green tones overly bright on the old TV. A man with a white beard said something. Ang turned up the volume on the dial:
“We are very excited this year to announce the nominees for the Nobel Prize for chemistry.”
Marcella frowned, turned to Waxman. “What’s this about?”
“Watch and see.”
She turned back, taking a bite of the delicious gnocchi her mother had whipped up, refocusing on the aged screen.
The narrator droned on with names and obscure titles of projects. “Nominated for the discovery of the structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels.” After each name and project title, he shook the hand of whichever scientist toddled up to the podium and handed them a scroll documenting the nomination.
Marcella took another bite and then paused, mouth ajar, as the narrator said, “And a nomination goes to Dr. Ron Truman of the University of Hawaii for work in the discovery of protein binding in photosynthesis.” Stepping up to the podium were a couple this time—Dr. Handsome Truman and beside him, slim as a whippet and just as nervous-looking, Natalie Pettigrew.
They solemnly shook hands with the announcer, and Truman leaned in to the microphone. “This nomination really belongs to Dr. Trudy Pettigrew.” He shook his scroll toward the ceiling. “You deserved this, Dr. P.”
Natalie threw her arms around him in a hug, and the room burst into a little stronger applause. Apparently the gift of BioGreen was not going unnoticed by the world.
“Just thought you’d enjoy seeing that,” Waxman said, busying himself with a salad decorated with strips of marinated flank steak. Marcella looked at her plate of pasta and blinked rapidly.
“Thanks. I did. Not much left of that lab team—but at least it looks like Truman and Natalie are having a happy ending.”
“And so are we,” Marcus Kamuela said, and in full view of her coworkers, his family, and her parents, he tipped her chin up and kissed her.
Acknowlegements
From the time she appeared in Torch Ginger, Marcella Scott demanded her own book. I wrote
Stolen in Paradise
in a four month blaze beginning in November 2011, a particularly tough time personally with my husband having a major operation. I distinctly remember the hospital staff wheeling him away to surgery, and opening my laptop. . . and disappearing into Marcella’s Honolulu for the rest of the day, moving from waiting room to waiting room, ending up beside his bed still writing. We stayed in Waikiki in a condo right above where I set the Scatalinas’ restaurant. I enjoyed the dragon boats, the fireworks at the Hilton, and walked in Ala Moana Park each morning. I fell a little in love with downtown in spite of the circumstances that brought us there.
I also wrote this book to enter my daughter’s world and understand it better. She’s a scientist at Stanford, and I found myself fascinated with the “world of the lab.” Insular, hierarchical, yet often functioning like a family of oddball brilliant people, I saw a hotbed of intrigue waiting to happen! I trailed my daughter around her lab with my camera and notebook, taking notes and learning about fascinating new things like “lab books” where everything on a project is hand-recorded. (Who knew?)
Marcella’s got some scars, but she’s not as damaged as her friend Lei and it doesn’t take her as long to recognize a good thing when it smooches her on those perfect lips. Marcella is the kind of woman you love to hate—effortlessly gorgeous, fashionable, funny, sexy and confident. I wrote her as a foil for Lei, and she continues to fulfill that function—while showing herself to be her own unique, badass heroine with a tender side. (A sort of female James Bond, to my mind.)
I want to thank my circle of amazing beta readers: Noelle Pierce, Greta Van Der Rol, Holly Robinson, Bonny Ponting, Ilima Loomis. Thanks also to my editor, Kristen Weber, and my new writer friend Shannon Wianecki, who listened to my freakout the morning the manuscript came back, finished, from the copyeditor and the GMO demonstrations were all over the news in Hawaii. I realized the timing was going to be interesting on the release of the book and I needed to do some revisions, and I was nervous as heck. (I’m not going to tell you what those revisions were!)
Thanks to my amazing family, especially my daughter Tawny Neal whose world of the lab is a fascinating subculture I was privileged to briefly share. Thanks also to retired Captain David Spicer, who read the manuscript for “cop accuracy” and saved Marcella from warrants vs. subpoenas and nonregulation gold sandals. My FBI world is fictional, including the goofy Conference Room A, so please bear with my mistakes—which would have been worse without David’s important feedback.
I hope you end up rooting for Marcella and Marcus and their ongoing role in the Lei Crime Novels. As always, your reviews on Amazon and elsewhere matter a LOT—so let me know what you think. I read them. Every one.
Much aloha!
Toby Neal, April 2013
About the Author
Toby Neal was raised on Kaua`i in Hawaii. She wrote and illustrated her first story at age five and credits her counseling background with adding depth to her characters–from the villains to Lei Texeira, the courageous multicultural heroine of the Lei Crime Series. “I’m endlessly fascinated with people’s stories.”
Find Toby online at:
Look For These Titles
Lei Crime Series:
Blood Orchids (book 1)
Torch Ginger (book 2)
Black Jasmine (book 3)
Broken Ferns (book 4)
Twisted Vines (book 5)
Companion Series:
Stolen in Paradise
: a Lei Crime Companion Novel
Unsound
: a Lei Crime Companion Novel
Middle Grade/Young Adult:
Path of Island Fire
Sign up for email updates on new releases at
TobyNeal.net
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