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“Have you met us lately?”
“Yes. And so did Brent.” I wait a beat. “Do you want to retreat to the cabins? Wait to see what will happen next?”
“No. You?”
“I’ve never been good at patience.”
“Well, they’re probably pretty distracted at the moment.”
Torturing a grown man and all.
“Ronin and Aolani are manning the defenses,” Vaughn continues. “I guess that makes us the tip of the spear. You want the shotgun?”
“I’m no good with guns. It’s what makes my witty repartee so sharp and cutting.”
He nods, rakes a hand through his hair, the motion so touchingly normal I find myself smiling. He catches my expression.
“When we get out of this,” he states roughly.
“When we get out of this.”
On that note, we pick a UTV, fire up the engine, and head toward the owner’s lodge to take on a serial killer and her sister.
Or die trying.
CHAPTER 38
WE CAN HEAR THE FIRST scream before we ever see the residence. A low moaning carried by the wind that builds and builds to a high-pitched crescendo. Wordlessly, Vaughn pulls over the UTV. We run from there.
MacManus’s residence is lit up like a beacon in the night. No need for secrecy anymore; the inmates have taken control of the asylum. A fresh round of screams. Clearly male. Keahi must’ve started already.
We crouch low as we jog across the cleared expanse toward the house. Between MacManus’s guttural shrieks and the ocean’s pounding waves, we don’t have to worry about noise.
Vaughn carries the shotgun down by his side. We don’t have a plan and are probably lacking in common sense, but at least one of us is armed.
We arrive at the exterior wall of the lodge and press ourselves against it. The front half of the lodge is basically a giant screened-in porch, similar to the mess hall’s setup, designed to show off the water view while allowing in the maximum amount of cooling breeze. It also enables us to see and hear everything, as we tuck ourselves to the left of the expansive side window.
“Just give me the account numbers and passwords,” Leilani is ordering crisply. I risk peering in long enough to get the lay of the land.
MacManus is tied to a dining room chair and already dripping so much blood it hurts to look at him. Keahi is standing behind him with a savage-looking butcher knife. Leilani sits casually on the tropical-print love seat across from him. In front of her, on the coffee table, rests a bloody machete, a handgun—probably from Elias—and even more importantly, the two missing sat phones.
“I don’t know,” MacManus gasps out, “what… you’re… talking about.”
“Oh, please. Francis figured out a year ago you were skimming funds.”
Francis? I’ve heard that name before. I glance at Vaughn, who nods in recognition. It comes to me, MacManus’s CEO. Mac had mentioned calling him daily even from the atoll. When Mac didn’t make contact, Francis would be the first to realize something was wrong and send help. Or not.
“You know as well as I do, these are not men you steal money from.”
“I didn’t want… their money! Shawn. He did it. Wanted the company to grow faster. More research. More innovation. More… everything. I tried to warn him. Be patient. We’d be okay. But no. He took their investment funds. Poor… stupid… bastard.”
“And then you kept taking their money.”
“Couldn’t… say no. Especially after… what they did to Shawn.”
“Exactly. He paid for the sin of trying to end the arrangement the first time, and now you’ll pay for messing it up the second time around.”
I hear movement, risk another glance. Leilani has risen off the sofa, coming to kneel at eye level before the bloody wreckage that is her guardian.
