Maui Madness (Zoe Donovan Mysteries Book 7) (20 page)

“Guess you got about si
x hours to find out.”

Jeffrey left the room.

Keoke continued to sit at his desk, looking totally dejected.

So what now?
Should I make my presence known? Tell Keoke where he could find the men? They were safe with the police; maybe Keoke could obtain the help of the Honolulu Police Department to help free his grandparents.

On the other hand
, maybe I should stay hidden until he left. It did sound like he had been involved in this whole thing on some level from the start. Might he offer to trade my life for that of his grandparents if given the opportunity?

I was leaning toward making my presence known when someone else walked into the office.

Leia?

“You heard?”
Keoke asked.

“I heard
.” Leia sighed. “What are we going to do?”

“Honestly,” Keoke
said, “I have no idea.”

“I’m sorry I got you involved in all of this
.” Leia began to cry.

“You couldn’t have known what was going to happen. You were just trying to help the man you loved.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Leia sobbed. “Anton put his heart and soul into that project, and then my brother goes and ruins everything for him. Kingsley wasn’t happy. I was afraid Anton would be out of a job if I didn’t do something. Anton loved his work. It would have killed him to lose it.”

“I know
.” Keoke hugged Leia. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

“Maybe I should have,” Leia argued.
“I knew Anton didn’t play by the rules, and I should have realized that his partner wouldn’t either. When Kingsley’s goon showed up and announced that he was going to be Anton’s best man, I should have known something was up. I should have come to you right away. Maybe if I had, Anton would still be alive.”

“Love can make us blind
.” Keoke tried to comfort Leia. “Anton was a charming man. He had us all fooled. Come on. I’ll walk you back upstairs. Try to get some sleep. I’ll figure something out.”

After Anton and Leia left
, I snuck back up the stairs. I needed to tell Zak what I’d heard. The only problem was that I still wasn’t certain what it meant. Was Keoke involved? Was Leia? Could either of them be trusted?

By the time we got back to Maui, the sun was coming up. I hadn’t slept at all the previous night and should have been exhausted, but instead I was totally wound up. I put coffee on to brew and then headed down the hallway toward the bedroom. Maybe a swim would wake me up.

Charlie had been sleeping in the living room when we’d arrived home. He was happy to see us but seemed to need
to go out desperately, so Zak had volunteered to take him. I was surprised Charlie hadn’t slept with Ellie. He didn’t normally like to sleep alone, and Ellie had been happy for the company in the past whenever she’d doggie-sat.

As I passed Ellie’s bedroom door, the first in the hallway, I noticed that her bed
hadn’t been slept in. Odd. I continued down the hall and was just passing Levi’s room when Ellie walked out from behind the closed door wearing only one of his long T-shirts.

Her jaw dropped open when she saw me standing in the hall.
To be honest, I’m not sure which of the two of us was more shocked that we found ourselves in this particularly delicate situation.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said before hurrying into her bedroom and closing the door.

Levi and Ellie? Well, what do you know?

I continued on to my own room and changed into a bikini. By the time I g
ot out to the patio, Zak had returned with Charlie.

“Are the others awake?” Zak asked.

“Not yet,” I replied.

“I thought I’d make some coffee
. Can I bring you a cup?”

“Thanks
; I left some brewing. I’d love a cup with a little milk.”

Zak
went into the house to get the coffee while I dove into the pool and swam ten laps. By the time I’d pulled myself out of the water and dried off, I felt almost human again. I laid my towel on one of the lounge chairs and sat down on top of it. It was already warm enough to sunbathe.

“Are you feeling okay after your ordeal?” Zak asked as I sipped my coffee.

“I’ll live.”

Zak
reached over to hold my hand as we sat quietly watching the dolphins in the distance. I tried to relax, but I couldn’t help but think about the events of the past few hours.

After leaving Keoke’s office
, I’d returned to our room and filled Zak in on everything I’d heard. He’d called Judge Gregor’s contact at the HPD and informed him of the involvement of the men staying at the estate in the kidnapping of Judge Gregor and the others. We’d pretty much decided to stay in our room to wait for reinforcements when we heard a series of quick
pop
,
pop
,
pop
s. I recognized the sound as gunfire, and without thinking things through, ran into the hallway before Zak had the chance to stop me.

Keoke was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. It looked like he was dead. The man I recognized as one of the goons from the boat, probably Jimmy or Queenie, had an arm around
Malie’s throat, while Jeffrey had a gun pointed at Pono and Leia cowered in the corner with her hands over her head.

I can’t explain why I did what I did, but the next thing I knew
, I’d jumped onto Jeffrey’s back, demanding that he drop the gun. I wasn’t armed and had no chance of bringing the man to the ground. Luckily, Leia decided to stop being a victim and dove at his legs, throwing him off balance. Jeffrey fell to the ground—on top of me, I might add—giving Zak the opportunity he needed to grab for the gun he’d dropped when Leia tackled him.

The man holding Pono grabbed for his own gun
, but Pono was quicker and managed to elbow him in the groin, rendering him quite helpless. By the time the HPD arrived, we’d tied up Jeffrey and his goons and tried to stop the bleeding from Keoke’s chest.

It was too early to tell if Keoke would live. He’d been rushed to the ho
spital, where a dedicated team of doctors was attempting to save his life. He had not awakened as of yet, but we’d been informed that, although he was still in critical condition, he was stable.

Jeffrey, Jimmy, and Queenie
had been taken away in handcuffs, and I suspected by now Kingsley had joined them downtown.

Judge Gregor positively identified Jeffrey as one of the men who kidnap
ped him after being shown a photo of his tattoo. Deciding not to go down with the ship alone, Jeffrey had been talking ever since.

As we
’d suspected, the project Anton and Kingsley had hoped to build was at the heart of everything that had happened. It had been Anton’s idea in the first place. He’d talked Kingsley into not only signing on but also investing some of his own money. Anton was dating Malie at the time and wrongly had believed he could “handle her” if anyone from her group decided to contest the location of the opulent resort.

When
Pono had found the environmental study conducted by Trenton Baldwin and used it to convince Judge Gregor to issue the injunction, Anton knew he was in trouble. It was our belief that Anton had hooked up with Leia as part of a campaign to gain Keoke’s financial and political support.

According to what we could find out
from Leia, after Kingsley and his men kidnapped the judge and his friends, Keoke threatened to go to the police, which was when Kingsley sent Jeffrey and a couple of other men to Keoke’s grandparents’ island to keep an eye on everyone, and to make sure no one ruined their plans. When Anton found out Pono was diving in an area in which he might very well be recognized by the goons going back and forth, he tried to warn him off. When he was unsuccessful, he went to Jeffrey to tell him that whatever the cost, he was out of the whole business, and was killed for his efforts. Leia believed he had been placed in the pit to serve as a very public warning to Keoke and anyone else who might be involved that he wasn’t a man to mess around with.

“You’re probably going to have a bruise where Jeffrey fell on you
.” Zak kissed my shoulder.

“It’ll be worth it.”

“Jumping on a man holding a gun isn’t the wisest thing you could have done.”

“I know.”

“You could have been badly hurt or even killed.”

“I know.”

“If anything were to happen to you . . .”

“I know.”

“Although if you hadn’t done what you did, who knows how things would have turned out.”

I smiled at Zak. He always made me feel special
, even when I knew he really wanted to throttle me for almost getting myself killed.

“I guess Judge Gregor and the others can return to their homes and their normal lives now,” I said.

“Yeah. It looks like any danger they were in has passed. I heard they arrested the men keeping Keoke’s grandparents captive as well. Neither of them were hurt, but it’s taken a toll on both of them. I understand they took Keoke’s grandfather to the hospital for observation after he complained of chest pains.”

“Do you think Keoke will be charged with anything if he lives?”

“It’s hard to say. On one hand, he knew about the kidnappings and didn’t do anything about them. On the other, he was trying to protect his grandparents from being killed by keeping quiet. I guess it’ll depend on how involved he actually was.”

Charlie jumped up onto my chair and licked my face. I could see he was happy I was back. I rarely le
ave him alone for any length of time. Still, I was happy he wasn’t at Keoke’s estate when everything went down. I don’t know what I’d do if he got hurt.

“Do you think that given everything that’s happened
, we should pack up and head home early?” Zak asked.

“The event at the Maui Ocean Center
is this afternoon,” I reminded him.

Zak smiled. “I’d forgotten. I guess we can’t let all your hard work win
ning the tickets go to waste. Maybe we should stay through the weekend and fly home on Monday.”

“M
ight as well. I’ll be glad to get home, but I’m sorry we won’t be able to stay to continue the treasure hunt.”

“The reality is that figuring out what they have and what more there is to find could take Pono and Malie years,” Zak reminded me. “We’ll stay in touch. If they get closer to figuring everything out, we can come back.”

“Malie is going to e-mail me some of the stuff she got from her uncle. I figure I can help with the research part of the adventure from Ashton Falls. There’s something about that necklace we found that’s nagging at me.”

“Nagging how?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I have this feeling I’ve seen it somewhere before.”

“I can’t believe we’re going home tomorrow,” I said as Zak and I walked down the beach hand in hand while Charlie trotted in front of us. The warm evening air wrapped itself around my shoulders like a comforting embrace as the gentle waves of the sea gently rolled into shore, encircling my ankles and bubbling up between my toes.

“Personally
, I think I’ll be happy to get back to our daily routine,” Zak commented as I leaned my head against his strong arm. “The trip has been fun but stressful.”

“
Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I admitted. “Maybe you and I can come back sometime when there isn’t so much going on. I still have unused gift cards I need to spend. Most don’t have expiration dates, and the ones that do are good for a year or more.”

“
We can come back any time you’d like.” Zak stopped to kiss me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck as a tingling sensation worked its way from my lips down my body.

“I think,” Zak nibbled on my lower lip, “we need some time,” he made his way down to the side of my neck, “alone.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Charlie barked, breaking the mood. I watched him dig for a sand crab that had burrowed out of his reach. It was comical to watch him dig for the crab only to have it surface somewhere else and then burrow into a new hole. Charlie hopped from hole to hole with little to show for his efforts other than a sandy nose.

“I’ve enjoyed spending time with Levi and Ellie
, but it seems like they’re still dealing with issues that have put a damper on the last days of the trip,” Zak said as we continued walking. “I thought they were doing better with everything that happened, but it seems like ever since we got back from Keoke’s, the tension between them is thick enough to cut with a knife.”

“I guess they have some stuff to work out
.”

I’d tried to talk to Ellie about her night with Levi
, but she’d told me quite clearly that it was a mistake and she didn’t want to talk about it. Ever. Levi was uncharacteristically close-mouthed as well.