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“Who?”
“Keahi. Why did you help my sister escape?”
And just like that, I get it. The new security personnel, MacManus’s now indefinite stay on a remote atoll that in Lea’s own words is one of the most inaccessible places on earth. I hit the brakes, bringing us to a full stop in the middle of the path, with the brilliant sun above and sparkling ocean to the left and waving palm fronds on our right. Paradise. Absolute, complete paradise.
Except it isn’t.
“Keahi broke out of prison?”
“Yesterday morning.”
I close my eyes. “It’s okay,” I attempt. “I’ll contact her lawyer, Victoria Twanow. I’m sure she can still help us. We’ll make some excuse to return to Honolulu, and Twanow will take it from there.”
“No, she won’t.”
“Yes, she will. She cares, Leilani. You deserve a chance—”
“Keahi’s attorney is in the hospital. Keahi beat her half to death, then stole her clothes and fled with some prison guard. They don’t expect the lawyer woman to live.”
I gape like a fish. I instruct my mouth to close, but it won’t cooperate. I want to argue that there’s no way such a thing could happen. But several thoughts strike me at once, including the first time I saw Victoria Twanow and noted how much she resembled her notorious client. Tucked away in a private room, it would be easy for Keahi to attack her idealist lawyer and steal her clothes, particularly with the assistance of some stupidly enamored corrections officer. I wonder about the one who’d greeted Twanow when I was there. Had his friendliness already been an act, a way to further lower the lawyer’s defenses?
The text I received last night. A single word: Sorry. I’d assumed it had come from Twanow, but now I get it. Keahi, stealing her lawyer’s phone, intercepting her messages. The closest she could come to revealing the truth. Of course, that leads to an interesting question. Sorry for lying to me or sorry for what’s about to happen next?
Somehow, I doubt Keahi worries much about dishonesty, meaning…
“She can’t really get all the way out here, can she?” I ask without thinking.
Beside me, Lea shrugs. My immediate concern seems to have eased hers. “Why do you think we’re staying? We would’ve arrived even earlier if not for the storm.”
I nod. “Only two ways to access this atoll, right? Private jet.”
“I don’t think Mac will send one for her,” Lea assures me.
“Or boat. But that takes a week or something like that.”
“Mac has ordered a restriction on all shipping traffic in this area.”
“He can do that?”
She shrugs again. “He’s Mac.”
Enough said. But that still leaves me with questions. “You didn’t send a note to your sister?”
“No.”
“Did you know she was alive, that she’s on death row?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since the day she was arrested. Mac told me.”
I give up on all pretense of driving and turn sideways to face her. “Do you feel safe with him?”
“Of course.”
“Even after what he did to your sister?”
