The Soul Stealer (14 page)

Malia opened her eyes. “I know. Let’s not talk about it again.” She was afraid talk of her mother would send him back into a downward spiral.

“We’ve never talked about it, and I think we need to. I need to.”

She searched her father’s face for cracks in his armor, but all she saw was patience. He was waiting for her to be ready to talk about it. When had he become the stronger one? “Okay.”

“You see, it’s my fault she died that way,” he started to explain.

“Daddy, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but the person who did it.” She shook her head and looked away, not wanting to focus on that today.

“No, Malia. I want you to understand what I’m telling you.” He put his hand under her chin and gently pulled her face toward him. “It was because of me that your mother was killed. It was my fault.”

Malia furrowed her brows. “What are you talking about? She just happened to run into some maniac with a knife.”

“No,” he said with a tinge of anger in his voice. “Andrea wasn’t killed at random. She was murdered by her family, and it’s time you knew that.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” she said, thinking years of excessive drinking had clouded his reasoning.

“Listen, my daughter, your mother was supposed to marry someone else, but she fell in love with me instead. She told me from the start what could happen if her family ever found her, but I didn’t believe it. How could anyone believe such a horrible thing? But it was true. Her family executed her for disobeying their wishes.”

Malia’s eyes snapped to attention. She studied her father for a moment, wondering if he was delusional. “No. I don’t believe it,” she said as blood rushed through her body and her heart raced.

“I know, it’s hard to accept, and I wouldn’t have told you, but I want you to understand why I’ve been such a mess all these years. It wasn’t just the way she was killed, but why she was killed.”

She wondered if this was her father’s rambling imagination taking hold of their family history. “Who was she going to marry?”

“I don’t know. Andrea never told me. But she was supposed to go home, back to her family, and she never did. She couldn’t leave me.”

Malia smiled at that.

“You’re so like her,” he said with a faraway look in his black eyes. “Which is what scares me.” He took her hand and held it while drinking his beer.

“It wasn’t your fault, Daddy. No matter what the circumstances were. Mommy loved you, and she wouldn’t have lived any other way than with us.” Malia didn’t understand any of this, but that much was true. She was glad her father hadn’t told her this before. It would have been too much to take then, but now the pain of losing her mother in such an awful way had dulled. It wasn’t a sharp knife in her heart anymore.

Her father looked away and wiped tears from his eyes.

“You’ve never mentioned her family before. Who are they that they could do such a thing? I didn’t know I had any relatives on her side,” Malia said.

He shrugged. “I’m really not sure. She never spoke of them or where she grew up in detail. She said she didn’t want them to be a part of our world.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police this afterward?”

“I did. They thought I was crazy with grief.” He took a gulp of beer, and then flattened the can with one hand and put it in his backpack. “Besides, they couldn’t find any trace of them in England, or any record of your mother. It was as if she didn’t exist.”

She thought about the way her mother had talked, the accent she had tried to cover up. By the time Malia was old enough to notice, her mother had gotten pretty good at speaking like an American, but every once in awhile she said something odd. Malia had laughed at her funny mommy at the time. She took a deep breath, thinking of another with an accent who also claimed the police wouldn’t be able to find a trace of him, not even in all of Great Britain. “Did she ever tell you exactly where she was from?”

“No.”

She looked away, wondering if Andrea and Hunter were somehow related, or from the same place. The implications of that were mind boggling.

Her father gave her an odd look before continuing. “I think she was from another world, some place magical.”

“Daddy!” she said with a laugh. “Don’t say such things. I’m not a child anymore to be filled with fairy tales.”

“I’m not joking, Malia. Your mother was different, and it was something I loved about her. She never told me much about herself, but the things she did say let me know that she had come from somewhere else, something else. And I never pressed her for more information for fear she would leave me and go back.”

Malia didn’t know how to respond.

He looked around at the charred land, the lava flowing into the ocean, and the steam-filled air. “Look around you, my daughter, at this place. We’re at the center of the Earth, its bellybutton. And fire is flowing out of it. But the goddess Pele has shined upon us and made it safe for us to visit her home.” He stopped and looked at Malia with a serious intent. “And anything is possible when the gods shine upon us. And there’s nothing to fear if you open your heart to it.”

Malia looked around, knowing he was right. The gods had shined upon them and magic filled the air with infinite possibilities, and anyone who came to the volcano should feel its presence, if they were open to such things. She touched the crystal hanging around her neck and felt its power, too.

“You’re wearing your mother’s necklace, I see,” he said, interrupting her thoughts.

“No,” she answered with a shake of her head. “Someone gave me this.”

Her father looked confused, but she knew why. “Uncle Kalani told me you threw the one Mommy gave you into the ocean years ago,” she said.

“I guess I did.” He looked toward the ocean, as if trying to remember, but then he returned to the present. “So who gave you that?”

Suddenly she felt like a teenager again, unable to tell her father about the boy she was dating. “Just a friend.”

He smiled a father’s smile. “Ahh, I see. Is he the real reason you’re here?”

“I guess.” She looked down at her hands.

“Should I worry about it, or is he a nice boy?”

“Dad, I don’t date boys anymore.”

“Whatevahs. Is he nice to you? That’s what I want to know.”

“Yes, he’s perfect,” she said with a shy smile, feeling the blush on her cheeks.

“Then that’s all that’s important.” He took her hand once again and held it.

“What about you? Are you going to tell me about your girlfriend?”

“No,” he said with raised eyebrows. “I’m not ready for that conversation.”

They sat in silence some time, soaking in the power of the volcano. Then, her father got up and beckoned her to follow him to fight the crowd at the lava flow, but Malia shook her head. She wanted to sit awhile longer, hoping the goddess Pele would give her answers about Hunter, and her mother. Instead of helping to solve the puzzle, coming here and talking to her father gave her more questions than ever before. She closed her eyes, willing the gods to smile upon her with knowledge. But the desire to trust Hunter got in the way. She hoped the journey they would take together wouldn’t lead to a painful end for either of them.

H
unter felt Pele’s presence all around the volcano, but more than that he felt Andrea’s, and she emanated anger toward him. He didn’t want to absorb her anger because it would pull his vibration down, and he needed that to be high, not low. He shook his head, wanting Andrea’s spirit to go away as he sat down on a rock and waited for Malia and her father to come back to the truck. He would remain behind the rocks until they returned, and then he’d fly near the truck to ensure their safety as they traveled.

Andrea’s presence pestered him to leave Malia alone. She poked him with waves of electricity, but he wouldn’t let her intimidate him. To let someone, even a spirit, from the Trenton family scare him would go against everything he had been raised to believe. Besides, Hunter had encountered meaner and angrier spirits and knew how to deal with them. “Go away, Andrea,” he said out loud. “You’re a Trenton and, therefore, my enemy. I don’t recognize you!”

Looking up at the sky, he closed his eyes, hoping for clarity and calmness in his own raging spirit. He could not keep up this charade with Malia much longer.

The drive back from the volcano seemed shorter, but maybe that was because Malia slept most of the way. Every once in awhile she woke up and looked at her father to make sure he wasn’t nodding off, too, but he kept a vigilant eye on the two-lane highway. Too many times people had drifted over the line and gotten into head-on collisions on this road.

They decided to stop in Kailua-Kona to look at the shops before heading back to Uncle Kalani’s house. Malia enjoyed walking around the boutiques in the small village, especially on a hot summer afternoon. Most of the shops had authentic arts and crafts from Hawaii, but some were too tourist-oriented for her taste. Still, she liked to see how other independent retailers displayed their wares. No one had a boutique similar to hers.

After browsing in shop after shop, her father excused himself to go sit on a bench outside, much to Malia’s relief. He’d been standing over her shoulder watching everything she did but not looking at anything on his own. It drove her crazy. Once he was gone, she was able to look at the small details of the displays and the handiwork of the crafts.

One line of shops in particular was more homey and artistic, and attracted a larger crowd of tourists and local customers than the others. The shops were set in a circular area, and a
hula halau
danced outside in the common area. The girls’ long black hair, colorful
ti
-leaf skirts,
pikake lei,
and rhythmic movements made for an eye-catching performance. Many stopped to watch. As Malia went from one shop to another, she watched the dancers for a moment as well.

Because of the dancers in the circle, the crowd grew so large she could no longer see her father sitting on the bench, but she was sure he was still there waiting. She smiled with affection at the thought of him as she turned to go into the last boutique. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of something unexpected: a head of wild bronze hair in the crowd. Her eyes snapped back to the spot where he had been. There! She narrowed her gaze, unsure of what she was seeing as the dancers heads bobbed in and out of her vision, making seeing beyond them to the other side of the crowd difficult. Now the bronze head that had been above the others was gone.

She weaved through the crowd standing around the dancers, trying not to disrupt anyone’s attention from the captivating performance while making her way to the other side as fast as she could. She went in the opposite direction from where her father sat, not wanting to have to explain to him what she was doing. She found herself in the spot where that handsome face and bronze hair had been. She looked around. Had it just been her imagination or was Hunter really in Kona? And if he was, it could mean only one thing: He was following her. Malia grabbed the cell phone in her backpack and tapped in a number.

“Hey girl. Howz Kona?” her friend answered on the other end of the line.

“Lani, listen. I need you to do me a favor right now,” Malia ordered as she looked around, making sure there was no one there who wanted to overhear her conversation. “Go to my house and see if Hunter is there.”

“What?”

“Please,” Malia added in a nicer tone.

“You want me to check up on your boyfriend while you’re gone?”

“Are you home? ‘Cause if you are, it will take only five minutes,” Malia said.

“Li Li, you’ve got some serious trust issues if that’s what you’re asking me to do.”

“It’s not what you think. Please just go over there and let me know if he’s there.”

“And if he is, what am I supposed to say?”

“Tell him I asked you to pick up some dresses for the shop.”

There was a moment of silence. Lani took an audible deep breath. “All right.”

“Call me back as soon as you can,” Malia said with urgency. She looked around as she turned off her cell phone. No sign of that face anywhere. It had been him across the crowd, she was certain. But why would he follow her? Maybe they did have trust issues.

Malia made her way slowly back to the last shop, all the while holding her phone, waiting for Lani’s call. After what seemed an eternity, the ring finally came through. “So?”

“Well, it’s hard to say if Hunter’s staying there or not. The house was locked, so I couldn’t go in and look around, but I could see Max inside through the kitchen window. There were newspapers all over the kitchen floor and two bowls of dog food. Max wants out, by the way.”

Malia sighed in frustration, wanting more conclusive evidence of Hunter’s whereabouts than that.

“Maybe he’s been there today and maybe he hasn’t. I can’t really tell you for sure.”

Malia didn’t reply. She was too preoccupied with trying to figure out why Hunter would follow her.

“Am I off the hook now?” Lani asked.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Malia put her phone away and paced around the store, deep in thought. After a moment she stopped, aware that the shop owner was watching her curiously, so she smiled at the woman and stepped out into the circle once again. The performance had ended and the crowd had thinned, making it easy to find her father.

Malia sat down on the bench and watched the tourists with him in silence for awhile. Thoughts raced through her head. How could Hunter have followed her all around this island? He didn’t know how to drive. And how could he have gotten on a plane without any form of identification? She drummed her fingernails on the backpack in her lap.

“Daddy,” she said after awhile. “I need to get going. I have to go home this afternoon.”

“I figured as much.” He looked at her, his face full of concern. “Be careful, my daughter. Don’t get in over your head with this guy until you have a firm footing on the ground.”

“That’s not so easy,” she said with a shake of her head.

The house looked dark when Malia pulled into the driveway. But as she got her suitcase out of the back seat she noticed flickering lights coming from the kitchen window.

Max waited at the screen door ready to smother her with affection as soon as she stepped into the house. The table was set with her formal china and crystal goblets, and two tapered candlesticks lit the room, casting shadows against the walls. Hunter stood stirring something in a pot at the stove, but he turned to her with a welcoming smile when he heard the screen door squeak open. The candlelight made his hair and eyes look like they sparkled.

“Wow, you cook, too.” She walked into the kitchen and looked around, almost forgetting her suspicions that Hunter had been on the Big Island.

“A little,” Hunter said with an engaging smile. “But I’m very picky about my ingredients. Everything has to be organic and vegetarian.”

“Naturally,” she agreed, knowing she had never cooked an organic vegetarian meal in her life.

He stopped stirring the pot and walked over to her with a melancholy look on his face, then engulfed her in his arms and kissed her on the neck. “I missed you terribly,” Hunter said in her ear. “It’s been torturous without you.”

Malia breathed in the sweet fragrance of his hair and skin. His lips went to hers, lingering there for a moment before becoming more demanding, and his arms crushed her into his chest.

“Don’t ever leave me again,” he said in a soft voice as he pulled away. Hunter put his forehead against hers, obscuring what was in his eyes.

“I won’t.” And at that moment, Malia meant it. She had no intention of leaving him again, despite her doubts. Hunter was like a drug she couldn’t get enough of, even though she kept telling herself she wasn’t addicted.

The sound of something sizzling in too much heat came from the stove, along with an odd smell, so Hunter let go of her and ran over to turn down the gas burner. “Uhh, well, you might not be too impressed with my cooking tonight. I’m afraid the marinara sauce is a bit burned.”

“It will be perfect, I’m sure. Besides, this is a great homecoming, so that’s all that matters.” She went to the refrigerator and got out a bottle of white wine to open for dinner, thinking a red might be too heavy with a vegetarian pasta dish. “So how did you know I’d be home tonight?”

She wasn’t surprised to see Hunter’s back stiffen with the question and was anxious to hear the answer he concocted.

“I could feel your presence getting nearer,” he said without looking at her.

Malia nodded, unsure of how to respond to that, so she poured a glass of wine for herself and a glass of ice water for Hunter.

“How was Max while I was gone?”

“He missed you almost as much as I did,” Hunter answered.

The sweet tenderness in his light eyes caught her off guard and melted her resolve. She wondered how it was possible that anyone had eyes that color.

“Go sit at the table,” he said as he poured a pot of steaming pasta and hot water into a colander in the sink. “I’ll be right there with dinner. Oh, and you have a couple of messages on your answering machine. One is from that detective.”

She walked over to the small shelf beside the counter where her phone and answering machine sat. The red message light blinked at her. Malia sipped her wine and watched it, unsure if she wanted to push the button, while Hunter dished up plates of pasta and set them on the table. She pushed the message button and sat down at the table. Hunter sat down on the opposite side and looked at her with a blank face, waiting for her reaction.

“Hi Malia, this is Ryan Green,” said the voice on the recording. “Please call me as soon as possible. I got the results of the background check on your tenant, and basically there’s nothing, and I mean nothing, about this guy. There’s no evidence that he even exists, anywhere. So, he’s probably lying to you about his identity. Like I said, call me as soon as you get this message. He could be dangerous, and I really should call this into immigration.”

Hunter continued to stare at her, gauging her reaction. She wasn’t surprised by the information, so she stared back at him with an equally blank expression. She picked up her fork to begin eating.

“Aren’t you going to call him?”

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “There’s no need.”

Hunter relaxed a little but still didn’t smile. He took a couple of small bites of the pasta, as if testing it, and then started to really eat.

“Hunter,” she said between bites of food. “Theoretically speaking, do you think it’s possible to be in love with someone you don’t trust?”

Hunter’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. Slowly, he set it back down on the plate. “I’d say that depends on why the one person doesn’t trust the other. Is it because one has done something wrong, or just because the other thinks he’s done something wrong?”

“Let’s say she knows he has lied to her on many levels because he isn’t willing to trust her with the truth, and she thinks he does things that show he doesn’t trust her at all. So why believe he loves her when he doesn’t trust her?”

“What sort of things has he done to show his mistrust, other than tell some necessary white lies?”

Malia smiled for a moment at the last part of the question and then took on a look of innocence. “He’s followed her, even to another island.”

“Is she sure about that?”

“No.”

“Then she shouldn’t make any rash conclusions or decisions, I’d say. He might be innocent of any wrong-doing. Or, maybe he just wanted to protect her.”

“From what?” she asked in a bit more of a demanding voice than she intended.

Hunter squared his eyes at her with a penetrating gaze. “What is it that you want to know? Ask me straight.”

“Did you follow me to the Big Island?”

A moment of dread passed over his face, and then Hunter steadied his gaze at her. “Ask me something else. I refuse to answer that question. Isn’t it called ‘Taking The Fifth,’ or something like that?”

“So much for you giving me straight answers.” She took another sip of wine, trying not to get frustrated with him. “Okay let’s try again. Do you know anything about my mother’s death or the death of that woman recently?”

“You’ve asked me that before, and the answer is still no,” Hunter said with an edge to his voice.

“But you know why they were both killed, don’t you?”

Hunter nodded and continued to stare at her without emotion.

“Let me guess,” she said before he could speak. “They were executed by their families for disobeying.”

Hunter’s dark brows went up in surprise. “How do you know that?”

“My father told me. He said my mother told him what would happen to her if she married him. He didn’t believe her, but then it actually happened.”

Hunter looked away.

Malia swallowed hard, needing to ask the one question that had been on her mind the entire flight home. “Is that what will happen to you because of being with me? Will your family come after you to kill you?”

Hunter’s eyes snapped back to her face. “They can try, but I won’t be an easy target, and Father knows it. Besides, he wants me to be with you . . . for now.”

“Why?”

“Because being with you makes me stronger. And in his mind the stronger I am the more I can help him when I return home.”