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Girl, I want to correct him. Keahi had been barely legal at the time.
“But beautiful women are a dime a dozen. For a man like me.” He turns to stare at me. There’s no apology in his eyes. I gotta give the man some credit. He knows who he is. “I did love Keahi. But it wasn’t her beauty that captivated me. I saw something in her that I recognized, that I felt in myself.”
“A propensity for violence?”
“Loneliness. She was haunted by it. And I’d suffered a hard loss of my own. Her pain called to me.”
I regard him for a moment, trying to think who he could be referring to. “Your business partner, Shawn?” I guess at last. “You mourned him?”
“Shawn Eastman, and he wasn’t just my business partner; he was my best friend. We grew up together. Built a business together. Became filthy rich together. People assume wealthy assholes don’t have friends. But trust me, rich pricks like me need best buds the most. No one else in our lives is going to tell us how it is. No one else understands.”
“I heard you killed him.”
“You heard wrong.”
“His death made you richer.”
“Everything I touch makes me richer. Not my fault. And with a gift like that, I certainly don’t need to resort to murder to fatten my offshore bank accounts.”
“Wow, arrogant much?”
“All the damn time, so what’s the point of apologizing for it?”
“Did you hit her? Keahi? Did you beat her senseless? Earn the very painful death she’s planning for you?”
“I hit her.” At his sides, his fists spasm. “I regret it. Always. I’d never so much as slapped a woman before. I’ve never smacked one since. But there was something about her, once we got going… Keahi would push me. Plant her hands against my chest and shove. Again and again, with this certain look in her eyes, until I… It took me years to realize she was goading me. And every time I gave in and lashed out, she got off on it. Seriously. The sex was mind-blowing if you want to know the truth.”
“You have earned that painful death.”
“Maybe.” His easy admission surprises me. “But I’ve tried to make amends in the years since. One night, Leilani saw us fighting. Keahi had already smashed a number of vases, lamps, a TV. She was on one side of the sofa, preparing to pounce, I was crouched on the other side, readying for the counterattack, and then Leilani was standing there. This sweet little girl. Staring at us both. Taking it all in. The bruises darkening her sister’s eye, the blood dripping from my forehead. And I saw myself. Through her eyes. I saw exactly who I’d become. And for the first time, I felt like a bad person.”
“What did you do?”
“I ordered my driver to take Keahi to the ER for the medical attention she clearly needed. Then, after a brief visit from Keahi’s aunt when I assured her she should be grateful I wasn’t pressing charges against Keahi, I grabbed Lea and flew my private jet to New York. I knew Keahi and her family lacked the means to find us there.”
“You did kidnap Leilani!”
“And thank God, don’t you think? Can you imagine what her life would’ve been like, being raised by her big sister, the serial killer?”
“When Keahi got out of the hospital, she came looking for her sister. She wanted her back.”
“I’m sure she did. And then she dealt with her pain by butchering over a dozen men. Gee, so sorry to have removed Leilani from that kind of loving family.”
I honestly don’t have a reply for that. “Leilani implied you plan on sleeping with her on her eighteenth birthday.”
“I sincerely doubt she meant any such thing.”
“She did.”
“Just stop—”
“No, you stop. Are you looking around you right now? Do you realize the level of danger we’re all in? Keahi is here, on the atoll. And she came on your plane. How do you think that happened?”
“Brent, obviously.”
“All by himself? And why, why is she here?”
“You said it yourself: she wants her sister back.”
