Twisted Vine (8 page)

Right now, her “meal” was at the hunting, gathering, and prep stage. She’d left all those lures out there. Hopefully, a few would respond to the dummy e-mail address she’d set up. Then she could track their computers, find their addresses, and send Ken and Lei to check them out.

She switched back to digging into the innards of the black Mac that had belonged to Alfred Shimaoka. She tried not to think of his sad end in the SUV with his beloved dog barking a few feet away.

Lei pulled into the Youth Correctional Facility. She held up her ID badge at the gate, and Vinnie, the guard, gave her shaka and waved her through. She was a weekly visitor here, a fact unknown to anyone but Marcella, who’d declined to come as she was having dinner with Marcus Kamuela at her parents’ restaurant in
Waikiki.

Keiki and Angel sat on the passenger seat of the truck. They loved the drive over the Pali to
Kailua, where the youth jail was snugged up against the wall of a green mountain. A slight breeze came down the valley, and Lei cracked the windows and left Keiki in the truck in the cool blue of evening.

Carrying Angel, who wore her therapy dog vest, Lei went through the security admission steps and finally arrived in the group rec room, where she visited the girl she’d captured last year during a burglary spree. She’d forged a permanent bond with the orphaned Consuelo Aguilar.

The pretty Filipina girl bounded up off the battered couch where she’d been lounging with some other adolescents. Lei set the wriggling, ecstatic little Chihuahua down, and Angel ran to Consuelo. Several girls waved to Lei from the couch. “Titas” all, the tattooed tough girls clustered around Consuelo, exclaiming and petting Angel’s little domed head as the seventeen-year-old clasped the dog close.

Lei sat on one of the molded metal stools bolted to the floor. The corrections officer, a sturdy woman they called Aunty Marcie, came up and greeted her. Her graying hair brushed her waist in a braid as thick as Lei’s wrist. “So good you come fo’ see her,” Aunty Marcie said. “Consuelo, she look forward to you all week.”

“She jus’ like see her dog.” Lei had impulsively agreed to care for Angel last year when Consuelo was taken into custody, and so far she hadn’t regretted that decision for a minute.

“No, she talk about you all the time. She always in one better mood after you come.”

“That’s good. Me too.”

“You make all the girls feel good, like they can be somebody because you come,” Aunty Marcie said, her brown eyes warm. “These kids, they need role models.”

“Thanks, eh.” Lei looked up at the woman. “I’m sure you help all you can.”

“I do, but I only one CO, and sometimes I gotta bust them for something. You young, you one big-shot FBI agent, and still you come every week and bring the dog. It means more than you think.”

“Okay.” Lei was embarrassed, and Aunty Marcie walked off to break up an argument brewing in a far corner.

She sat quietly waiting at the round Formica table, and as she always eventually did, Consuelo came and sat across from her. The girl had left Angel with the other teenagers on the couch. She tucked glossy hair behind a small ear and smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi. How are things this week?”

“Pretty good. Almost done with my English class. When I finish, I’ll be ready to get my diploma.” Consuelo wore the bright orange overalls with a natural elegance that belied their coarse message. Her big dark eyes flashed something like defiance as she looked at Lei. “I’m going to college.”

“’Course you are. I never had a doubt.”

“Hey. I could just be a deadbeat, go back to a life of crime.” Consuelo pushed her bottom lip out in a mock pout.

“Ha. You know you never were a normal criminal.”

“Well, did you know my English project is my memoir?”

“I knew your lawyer was negotiating with all those Hollywood people interested in it.”

“I know I can’t profit from it, which is fine . . . But I like the challenge of writing.” She produced the introductory pages and handed them to Lei. Lei had noticed the stark beauty of the girl’s writing when she read her journal last year, and now the opening pages of the memoir brought a lump to her throat.

“Wow, Consuelo. You really have a way with words.”

“So that’s what I’m going to major in. Journalism.”

“That will make Wendy Watanabe happy.” They grinned at each other. Watanabe was a ruthless but passionate TV reporter, and she too visited Consuelo regularly. Her fundraising efforts had procured Consuelo the best defense lawyer in the state.

“Yeah, and now I’ve got Wendy doing writing workshops with the girls here. She’s organized editorial help for us. We’re all writing our memoirs, not just me.”

Lei glanced up and looked around the room at girls of every size, shape, and shade—all troubled teens who’d hit the wall of the law. “I bet there are some good stories here.” She felt her own chest tighten with a moment of memory—if her aunty Rosario hadn’t taken her in, she might well have ended up here herself.

There but for the grace of God go I,
she thought. It was something her father, converted to Christianity in prison, often said.

She set the pages back down on the table. “These are very good. But then, you knew that.”

“Thanks. It’s my chance to explain everything, and I don’t want to miss it. Mr. Fernandez is sort of acting as my agent; he said I can choose any charity to give the proceeds to. That’s perfect. I can always write something else and make money on it.”

“That’s the spirit. So do you hear from
Tyler?” Tyler, Consuelo’s boyfriend, had been subject to some tougher sentencing and was incarcerated in California.

“We write. But he’s kind of depressed. We’re just friends now.”

Angel had fought her way free of the clutches of the other girls, and she trotted back to Consuelo. Lei watched their affectionate reunion.

“Do you still ever think of suicide?” she asked suddenly. Her mind had wandered back to the case.

Consuelo looked up, her dark eyes hard. “What do you think? I’m in prison, and I’ve got a record that will follow me when I get out. I’m broke and my parents are dead.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so abrupt. I have a case that involves suicide, and I’m trying to understand it better.” Lei had had her own brushes with those dark thoughts, but they’d led in other directions—to self-injury. She looked down at the faint white lines of scarring on the insides
of
her arms.

Consuelo stroked the little dog, who’d flopped on her back in the girl’s lap. “I wanted to die when I was first captured. I thought my life was over.”

“I remember.”

“I actually thought I could will myself to die. But that’s not how it works, is it? Every day I kept waking up. Now I just let the thoughts pass by. I observe them. Dr. Wilson taught me how. Thoughts are not reality. They’re just thoughts. It’s helped me to realize they aren’t the truth.”

“Told you she’s a good therapist.” Dr. Wilson, Lei’s former therapist, had worked with Consuelo on and off since her capture. Lei thought about the Hale case. “If you’d been feeling that way, and you’d had someone agree to help you commit suicide when you couldn’t do it yourself for some reason, would you have taken advantage of that?”

A long beat passed while Consuelo stroked Angel’s belly, scratched under her tiny pointed chin. Finally she looked up at Lei. “I wouldn’t be here today.”

“Thanks,” Lei said. “This actually helps me with a case.”

“Weird convo, but glad I could help.”

“Back to your rooms; it’s the boys’ time!” Auntie Marcie called, and with good-natured grumbling, the girls got up from the couches. Consuelo stood, handed Angel to Lei.

“Thanks for coming.”

“You’re welcome. Thanks for loaning me Angel.” They smiled at each other, and Consuelo straightened her uniform and walked back to her friends, hips swinging, shiny black hair bouncing.

The girl had style, there was no doubt.

Lei waved goodbye to Aunty Marcie and left, a little surprised at the glow of happiness she felt to be in Consuelo’s life, to be making even a little difference with these tough teen girls through her limited contact.

On the way back over the steep and winding ribbon of the Pali, Lei put her Bluetooth in her ear and speed-dialed Stevens.

“Twice in one week,” he said. “I’m going to get spoiled.”

“I know. I missed you. Just got done visiting Consuelo. She’s working on her memoir.”

“That’s going to be worth reading.”

“I think so too. Wouldn’t be surprised if someone wants to make a movie out of it. Anyway, she’s doing well.”

“Was there a doubt? The girl’s tough.”

“Not really. You know, she kind of gave me food for thought on my case.” Lei told him about the situation with the suicides. “She confirmed that if she’d had someone to help her die, she would have. And just think of these suicides. If there’s some sort of assistance going on—many of them will be dying too soon. Or when there might have been a solution of some kind.”

“Are you sure there isn’t just one ‘angel of death’ offing people who say they want to commit suicide?”

Lei considered this new idea, tapping her fingers on the top of the steering wheel as she navigated a steep curve. Far away below, the ocean gleamed under a silvering of moonlight,
Honolulu spread out before it in a net of lights. “I don’t think we considered that scenario because of the print of one victim appearing in the scene of the other one.”

“Well, maybe the doer knows there are enough inconsistencies to draw some attention. The print could be some sort of misdirection.”

“I don’t know. Really, all we have are two dead bodies with anomalies—nothing conclusive—suicide notes that are genuine, and both victims having memberships on this fishy website. I’m not even sure the case is hanging together at this point. Ang seems convinced, though. What would you think of a program that could mine all the different law enforcement databases for commonalities in a case? Nationwide?”

“Impossible,” Stevens said. “Too much security, too many different and incompatible databases. But if it could be done, and the interagency problems resolved, incredible.”

“That’s what Ang’s working on. Girl’s some sort of genius with computers.”

“Awesome potential. You fixing to have another friend?”

“Don’t know. I like her, but she keeps to herself.”

“Speaking of keeping to yourself, and being sick of it, have you given any more thought to what we’re going to do when I’m free?”

“I don’t know. It’s so hard. One of us has to give something up with work.”

“I know. But I’ve been thinking about you. Remembering.” The deep note in his voice activated longing, a throb that spread outward and beat in her veins. The feeling, instant as fire blazing through a dry field, rippled down the insides of her arms, and she squeezed the steering wheel, hard.

“I’ve been trying not to think of you. That way. Any way.”

“It’s not working. What are you wearing?”

Lei laughed. “I’m driving. I have two dogs as chaperones. And I’m wearing the usual Bureau pants and shirt.”

“I meant—under that.” His voice dropped lower.

Lei gulped, speechless. “You first.” She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. Phone flirting had never been their thing—but desperation led to invention.

“Well, I got off work and went surfing. I just got back, took a shower. Got a towel on.”

Lei’s nipples tightened with a tingle akin to pain as she pictured his long corded arms, the light sprinkle of chest hair over his wide chest, the ripple of his abs ending at the towel.

“This is torture. I hate you,” she said.

“Yeah. I wish you were here. If you were, I’d put you in front of me and unbutton that white blouse. Slowly. One button at a time.”

“No,” she breathed, turning off the freeway onto the side street that would eventually lead to her house. “I’m driving. Stop.”

“You have to call me back. Later.”

“Okay. I will. And keep the towel on until then. I’ve always liked you wearing less.”

This time he was the one to hiss though his teeth. “Don’t know if I can wait for you.”

“You better.” She put her foot down and sped home.

Sophie circled her mixed martial arts coach, Alika Wolcott.  Marcella had canceled again, some excuse that meant she was seeing her new boyfriend. Sophie kept her stance low, and when Alika finally made a move, throwing a roundhouse kick, she caught his leg and tripped him to the ground.

She wore a boxer’s padded helmet, split-fingered, open-palmed gloves, and tight Lycra athletic wear—not out of any vanity but to keep the clothing from getting caught and used against her.

Alika was large, at least six foot two and a hundred and ninety pounds, all muscle, from what she could tell, and considerably stronger than her pound for pound. That’s why she had to be more tenacious and agile—and she felt a frisson of triumph as she succeeded in wrapping herself around his back in a hold called the spiral ride.

Alika’s thick muscles bunched beneath her, and he flexed, breaking her grip. He held up a hand, indicating a stop to the action, and she moved away, sitting up on the mat and circling her arms around her knees.

He unclipped his headgear and took it off, kneeling on the mat. Black hair rippled back from his forehead; he was a light brown color too, but more golden than she. His heritage was Hawaiian and Caucasian, what they called
hapa
in Hawaii.