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“It’ll happen,” Tannis murmurs beside me. “Generally, right as you’re ready to whack it with a hammer.”
“I don’t understand what this means.” Ronin again. “If what you’re saying is true, MacManus’s relationship with Lea is inappropriate. But what does that and some escaped prisoner from Texas have to do with Charlie being put under house arrest?”
I walk them through it best I can. My meeting with Keahi. Her insistence her sister needs to be rescued. Her lawyer, Victoria Twanow, arranging for me to work on Pomaikai in order to personally confront Lea and hopefully arrange a means of escape.
“Keahi wants her sister back,” I wrap up now. “One way or another, she’s coming for Lea and MacManus. Hence MacManus flees to a remote island in the middle of the Pacific with two bodyguards in tow. He’s safer here than anywhere else, and he knows it.”
“That’s his plan? Hide out here forever? Because sooner or later the plane will have to resume carrying people and supplies. We need to eat, which means the atoll will become accessible again.”
I shrug. “Not sure MacManus has thought that far ahead yet. Dunno. My focus has been Lea. Get her alone, hear her side of the story, then phone home to Keahi’s lawyer, Victoria, for instructions on how to get Lea off the atoll. So far, I consider this mission a total fail. These things happen.”
“Here we go.” Aolani. She turns the monitor slightly so we can all see it. There’s a list of matches for our search. Most appear to be news articles bearing titles such as “The Beautiful Butcher Strikes Again” or “Infamous Femme Fatale Fatally Flees.” That one has me blinking my eyes.
“Which one would you like to read first?” Aolani asks me.
“Something with images. Keahi was supposedly assisted by a corrections officer. I want to know who.”
Aolani clicks on an image button. More spinning wheel of doom. Then, just as I’m itching to grab a hammer, the screen once more fills with results, including several photos. One is clearly a mug shot of Keahi Pierson, staring defiantly into the camera. The second appears to be from an employee security badge and bears a man’s face. Sure enough, Joe Lacchei is the same officer who had seemed so friendly with Twanow just days before.
Had the entire thing been a ruse? A concerted effort on his part to lower her defenses? And why? Did he fancy himself in love with Keahi Pierson and truly believe for a minute that a woman nicknamed the Beautiful Butcher might be capable of loving him back?
A third picture fills the screen. Victoria Twanow, posed with a thoughtful smile, long, dark hair clipped back at her nape, hammered silver necklace accentuating her graceful neck. I can just make out the caption below the image. “Young attorney, working pro bono in an effort to save her client from execution, now hospitalized in critical condition.”
“That’s the lawyer who got you here and was supposed to help Lea escape?” Aolani is tapping the image.
“Yes.”
“Based on what I’m reading, they don’t expect her to make it.”
“That’s what Lea said.”
“What are you supposed to do next?” Ronin asks, staring at me.
“No idea. But first off, the corrections officer, Joe Lacchei. Does he look familiar to any of you?”
They all peer more closely at the image, then one by one they shake their heads.
“Does he have any ties to Hawaii?” I ask Aolani, as she’s driving the computer bus. “I’m curious if he has any connection to Pomaikai.”
“Hmm.” She starts scrolling, a process that is painfully slow as she keeps having to wait for information to load. Finally. “Yes. He’s originally from Waikiki. He studied criminal justice at a university in Texas. Never moved back.”
I sigh. “In other words, he could have family, friends within MacManus’s operations. Catering company, tech services, property management, whatever. MacManus owns major real estate holdings on the islands, correct?”
Ronin nods first.
“So not that difficult for there to be some kind of overlap. I’ll bet that’s why Keahi targeted him. Not just because he had the power to help get her out of prison, but because he has the connections to get her here.”
“In other words, MacManus is right to be paranoid,” Ronin fills in.
“And you no longer have someone to call for backup,” Aolani adds.
“The police are coming,” Tannis speaks up. “That’s gotta be a good thing.”
“Maybe. But here’s another thing. Last night when we rescued Charlie”—I glance at Aolani—“he muttered some words in my ear. Basically that he had to stay on the island until she came. She was the key. At the time the only ‘she’ I could think of was Lea. But now, knowing the Beautiful Butcher has escaped and is headed here…”
My sentence trails off awkwardly. I don’t want to suspect Charlie of working with a serial killer, I really don’t. Except.
Ronin and Aolani exchange troubled glances. Tannis goes with a look of reproach—how dare I question her friend’s integrity.
