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Dev shook his head in an attempt to climb out of the darkness the memories brought with it. He was in Hawaii with a beautiful woman he’d made love to all night long. If he’d learned one thing, life did get better after the bad times. He needed to focus on the good times back then and the good things to come. “It’s okay. I can’t change the past or bring back the people I lost, but I can remember their spirit, the good times and how much we cared about each other. I lived for a reason. Not to repeat the past, but to forge a new future.”
“Helping others,” Kiana added with a gentle smile. “Like me and Meredith.”
He nodded, hoping he did manage to help her and her friends. They hadn’t gotten very far with what they knew. Joe Akana needed to give them something they could sink their teeth into.
They entered a neighborhood that had seen better days. The houses were dilapidated, needing to be stripped of their peeling paint and repainted. Some should have been torn down and rebuilt.
What they found at the address they’d been given wasn’t much of a house but more like a hut of tin, plywood and concrete blocks. Metal chairs stood on what could loosely be called a porch with a sagging deck and an equally sagging, corrugated tin awning.
As Dev pulled into the gravel driveway and shifted into park, a grizzled man with dark skin and graying hair pushed the torn screen door open and leaned against the rotting doorframe. “Don’t bother getting out,” he called out. “Ain’t buyin’ nothin’. Ain’t got no money, anyway.”
Kiana was out of the car before Dev. “We’re not selling anything,” she said with a smile. “Are you Mr. Joe Akana?”
“Don’t know about the Mr., but yeah, I’m Joe. Who wants to know?”
“I’m Kiana Williams,” she said. “I’m looking for a friend and hoped you could help.”
“Don’t know how. I’m sure I don’t know your friend.” He lumbered across the rotting deck and eased into one of the metal chairs. “You’re wasting your time.”
“I really hope I’m not wasting my time, Mr. Akana.” Kiana stepped closer. “My friend might be in danger, and I’m not sure where to turn.”
He looked past Kiana to Dev. “Your boyfriend not helping?”
Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. “He’s helping by being my bodyguard. Some dangerous people have already hurt others looking for my friend. I need to find her before they do. Please, Mr. Akana, could I ask you some questions? I’d really appreciate it, and it might help us figure out where to look.”
The older man shrugged. “Don’t know what I’d have to say that could help, but since you asked all nice like, I guess it won’t hurt.”
“Thank you,” she said and walked closer to the porch.
“Got another chair up here,” he said. “Have a seat.” To Dev, he shook his head. “Sorry. I only got the one.”
“That’s okay.” Dev dipped his head. “It won’t hurt me to stand.”
“Nice that you can,” Akana said. “Hurt my back several years ago. Can’t stand for long without it causing me a lot of pain.”
Dev wasn’t happy when Kiana climbed the rickety stairs to the porch. The stairs, the deck and the awning looked like a stiff wind could blow them away.
Kiana took the seat beside Akana and gave him a tight but friendly smile. “My friend Meredith and I both grew up in the foster care system. She’s always wanted to know her birth family.”
Akana snorted. “Hoping she could find a rich daddy so she can claim his inheritance?”
Kiana shook her head. “No. Meredith doesn’t care about the money. She just wants to know where she came from, the people who made her and who she is. Her roots. In the foster care world, you don’t have anyone you can call family. Like me, she was passed from home to home.” Kiana stared down at her hands. “People who know who their parents are can say, I got my blue eyes from my father and my red hair from my mother. They can trace hereditary diseases to family members and stay ahead of health issues.”
“What does all that have to do with me?” Akana asked.
“She did one of those DNA tests and joined an ancestry application that links people to others with similar DNA.”
Akana snorted. “I did one of those DNA tests. Told me what I already knew. I’m mostly of Hawaiian, Pacific Islander descent.” He tilted his head to one side. “What I didn’t know was I had a bit of Irish in me.” He waved his hand at his face. “Who would think that, looking at me? Except for my green eyes.”
Kiana hadn’t noticed until that moment that Joe’s eyes were green.
“I got the green eyes; Martina didn’t.” He thumped his chest. “No matter. I’m Hawaiian, through and through. Like you. Your genes show in your face, your hair and your heart.”
Kiana nodded. “I can’t deny my heritage. I took one of those tests as well. I just haven’t seen the results yet. My friend Meredith got hers and found several people who are considered close relatives based on the amount of matching DNA. You were one of them.”
Akana’s eyes narrowed. “Me? I just did the test to learn about my heritage, not to look for relatives. What would she want with me? I’m not rich. I got nothing to give to your friend.”
“We saw that you have a sister,” Kiana said.
