a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure) (26 page)

"Can’t." He shrugged my hand away, tossing his cell from hand to hand.

I bristled, the anger burning from deep in my abdomen. I’d never heard Pierce use the word can’t and it didn’t sit well. "What? Why not?"

"I knew Williams. Worked with him some. They knocked me off the case." His words were tight, his body rigid, his face a plastic mask.

"But—" I waved my arm around the room— "we’re here. Watching."

"Pulled in some favors." His brilliant blue eyes flashed with anger.

Okay, then. End of topic.
No.
I couldn’t let it drop, not when Williams had directly threatened me and mine. "I have my security clearance. What good is it if I can’t use it, and maybe they’d let me—"

Pierce’s laugh was bitter. "Not. A. Chance."

Mitch hung up the phone. "Flight’s on time. Landing in two hours. I don’t get it. What could Williams have done?"
 

I made a note of the time. "We need to be there to pick them up. They’ll have all kinds of questions, and we should be able to get Parker through to Annie’s doctors without too much red tape. Without our help, it could take hours." I turned to Pierce. "Can’t we? You can still work with Annie, right?"

"That I can do. But after that I’m on a flight out of here. Need to do cleanup on A.J.’s townhouse."

"Right. The secret computer system. I guess An-annie won’t be…" It hit me hard, and tears burned their way down my cheeks. She wouldn’t be returning to her townhouse. Probably not ever since she and Sean were planning to live in Hawaii, and Pierce was packing up all her confidential stuff. Adam would probably take care of her personal items since she didn't have much. Annie had always lived light.

Pierce handed me a handkerchief, and I mopped up my tears.

Mitch wrapped his arm around my waist. "How about we work on this from a different angle. Let’s focus on getting Annie out of intensive care, and table any contact between you and Williams until later? Maybe we can manipulate a way for you to see him, not that I think it’s a good idea…"

I lurched away from him. There had to be sparks shooting from the top of my head. "What? How could me touching him not help? There have to be useful images hidden in that convoluted mind of his." A tremor wracked my muscles. Those were images I didn’t want to see, not ever. But this was Annie’s life. Not to mention whatever unknown threat Brody had alluded to. It would be worth the addition of his ghoulies to my personal nightmares if I got a lead on how to heal Annie.

Mitch jabbed his hands in his pockets, his eyes filled with worry. "He’s insane. Not much reality going on in his brain, and I’m not sure what it’ll do to you if you touch him."

"It won’t be fun, but I don’t
catch
things through my fingers. It’s not like I’d lose my sanity, too." I shuddered. Could be I’d already lost it to even consider touching Brody again. It would be awful. Worse than when I touched him at my grandmother’s house and found out I’d led him to Annie, and that he’d developed the toxin on that trip to South America.

Before I could drag in a breath, Mitch had me pulled tightly against him in a desperate hug. "I have this insane need to protect you," he whispered. "Loving you sometimes makes me crazy about stuff like this."

I planted a chaste kiss on his chest, then pushed away from him, but caught his hand and wove our fingers together. Touch could say so much more than words. And no way did I want to get into anything personal with Mitch while we had an irritable, unpredictable, and potentially lethal super spy audience.
 

"I get that," I said. "I go a little nutzoid every time you’re on assignment.
 

I turned to Pierce. "Okay. That only leaves my grandfather unaccounted for, and there isn’t any way to check on him without a trip to the North Shore. So, are we done here? Can we whip out there to make sure he’s all right, then head to the airport to meet up with Adam, Jayne and Parker?"

Pierce nodded, tapped his cell. "Yeah. Good plan. A. J. is the same. No breach of security at Tripler. Let’s move."

I stumbled to a complete stop when we left the containment building. Where had the day gone? The night sound of geckos and insects filled the still-warm air, and the scent of heat fading into cool dampness clung to my nose. A few inhalations and I’d replaced the musty scent from inside the building with the fragrance of flowers. A sigh welled, and I blew it out, reveling in the freedom of being outside.
 

We piled into the Jeep, the men in front, me in back, and for the first time I paid scant attention to the night-purple shade of the mountains and the lights blinking along the hillside. Instead, I slid my hand over the seatback and held on to Mitch’s shoulder. He pressed his palm over the back of my hand…like couples do.
 

My stomach grumbled at the lack of food. There had been vending machines in the containment building, but I hadn’t wanted anything, couldn’t even think of food without my gut clenching while I watched the interrogation.
 

"I’ll drive through McDonald’s." Pierce’s announcement didn’t require a response from either Mitch or me.
 

I rambled, words pouring from my mouth. "What could he have been threatening? Is the toxic substance hidden somewhere? My bed at the Ma Kai? In my make-up? My handbag? Am I just gonna touch it by accident, and then kapow, end up at Tripler next to Annie? Or worse, is he going to attack one of you?"

Mitch pressed my hand and the warmth of his love flooded my body, calming me. "Williams obviously isn’t
going
to do anything. You have a point there, Sunshine. Whatever he had planned has already been done. Unless it was an idle threat, meant to throw you off."

A nasty creepy-crawly sensation lodged in the back of my neck. "Or he’s working with the Middle Easterners."

Pierce slammed his fist on the steering wheel, his frustration obvious. "No link between Williams and any terrorist group."
 

"But the guy who was killed last month at Jayne and Parker’s séance was from there, so there has to be a connection." Desperation lay heavy in my heart.

Pierce eyed me in the rear view mirror. "Checked it out. No go."

I wanted to snap at him. Wanted to accuse him of not doing his job, but I didn’t. I knew better. If anything, Tynan Pierce was meticulous to a fault. So, who else, what else, could Brody Williams use to get to me?
 

"My clients? Do you think he came up with a way to contaminate my office? Sprinkled evil pixie dust around that’s set to make everyone sick at a specific time? That doesn’t make sense, though. I’m fine, and I would have come in contact with it, too."

They both eyed me like I’d sprouted wings or a forked tongue. "Just stop. I feel fine, other than being ready to strangle the truth out of that insane shell of a human being who hurt Annie and your team."

They both turned, started to respond, and then Pierce was distracted because he had to turn into the McDonald’s drive thru lane. The smell of hamburgers and French fries must have wiped whatever Mitch was going to say right out of his head, because he homed in on the menu with total focus.
 

Saved from the male protective instinct by Micky D’s. A sack full of hamburgers, fries, and three large sodas later we hunkered down into our own thoughts, and munched in silence for the rest of the ride to my grandfather’s house.
 

Aukele, as always, waited for us on his stoop, his smile warm and welcoming. I didn’t realize until I saw him standing there how tense I’d been—how much I needed him to be healthy and untouched by the ugliness that was Brody Williams.
 

We piled inside, and I filled him in on the latest news while he fed us freshly cut pineapple and the rest of the mango juice from that morning…so many hours ago.

And then Kahuna Aukele settled into his cushion and began to speak without me so much as saying a single word beyond the usual aloha greeting.
 

 
"Huna is built on strong tradition, my granddaughter. Elders do not volunteer verbal knowledge, but we always respond to direct questions. Choose your questions wisely."

Frustration bubbled in my abdomen, and I barely kept my temper in check. Why was he making this so difficult? Anger was not going to get the information we needed. I wanted to ask what
getting hers
meant, but first things first. "If I bring you to Annie, can you heal her?"

My grandfather moved his hands together in prayer position, bowing over them for a moment. "Reality is a dream that you can change."

Pierce inhaled, closed his eyes, and ignored us.

Mitch cocked his chin toward Aukele and opened his mouth. I slapped my hand on his thigh, shaking my head. This conversation had to be between my grandfather and me.

"How do we change the dream that is Annie’s illness?" I asked, and prayed that my question would be the
right
one.

"You must change the inner to change the outer."

Irritation sizzled along my nerves. Change the inner to change the outer. Okay, then. I sucked in a few breaths, used what I knew from my yoga practice to soothe my irritation so that I held only positive thoughts toward my grandfather before I formed my next question. "What must change in Annie for her to heal?"

"Illness is a disruption of harmony."

"So Annie’s whole world would need to be in harmony for her to heal?" I didn’t realize I’d voiced my thoughts until Mitch looked at me, eyebrows hiked. I tried to send him a bear-with-me look, but he sort of shook his head, so I mouthed
patience
, to him and hoped for the best.

"But her world was in harmony, grandfather. She had finally found the right person to share her life with, and their wedding was scheduled three, no two, days from now."

He nodded, serene. "Yes. But there was a disruption of harmony between her and the man you call Brody Williams."

"What do you mean by
call
him Brody Williams? That’s his name." The words flew from my mouth with an urgency that was far from harmonious.

"In our language there are many meanings to every word. Haole means without breath, as well as white, and ghost. You know the word as it is used to denote those of English heritage. For us it means much more. We defined English as a language without breath because our ancestor’s first reaction to seeing pale skin was that the people were unwell, that they were without life." He brought his hand next to mine. "You see the difference between the paleness of your skin and the deep shade of mine. Neither of us is ill, but we need to learn how to blend the harmony of light and dark before we understand each other. There are also layers to a name. You only know the top layer of Brody Williams, his mask."

My brain mulled on this until Pierce tapped his watch.
 

I blew out a sigh, annoyance coating every molecule of carbon dioxide. "We need to leave. Annie’s brother, Mitch’s sister and her husband are arriving soon and we have to pick them up at the airport. Can you tell me anything else that will help to heal Annie?"

"Yes."

It was all I could do to stop an eye roll, and when I looked at Mitch, I knew I’d failed. His lips were twitching. I threw out my next question. "What do I need to know to heal her?"
 

"You must cultivate the ability to remain in harmony with yourself and with nature."

No kidding? Seriously? That’s what my Kahuna grandfather was giving me to work with?

Mitch and Pierce were on their feet, moving toward the door. Aukele cradled my cheek in the palm of his hand and peace flowed through me. I held his gaze. "Why can’t you do that for Annie? It would heal her. I know it would."
 

He nodded, and slipped a small, folded piece of paper into my hand.

Twenty-four

The edges of the paper
cut into my palm, and I slipped it into my pocket. There was no light for me to read whatever message my grandfather had passed on, and I suspected I wasn’t supposed to mention it to either Mitch or Pierce. I’m not good with patience, and not knowing what the note said was making me restless.

I hustled to catch up with the guys. Mitch helped me into the back seat and slammed the door just as Pierce turned the key in the ignition. We laid rubber leaving the parking lot. With my seatbelt securely fastened, I met Pierce’s gaze in the rearview mirror. The man had something on his mind, but I didn’t want to probe with Mitch listening. My fingers itched to wrap around his shoulder, and I had to sit on my hands to control the impulse.

We voiced our opinions about Williams’s mental state, all three of us in agreement that it sucked he wouldn’t be prosecuted. A bloodthirsty trio, we wanted, no, needed him to be blasted with the full extent of the law. Mitch’s cell rang with Jayne’s ringtone—The William Tell Overture—and successfully interrupted our gripe session.
 

"Flight must have arrived early," he said, bringing the phone to his ear.
 

His body tensed. I reached for his shoulder, offering support, but waited until he nodded before I let my fingertips touch him to read the images. Cloudy picture shadows hit my internal monitor—Jayne crying and Parker…sick. Must be Mitch’s worry making the pictures cloudy.