Mai Tais and Murder Page 5

  I sat down on the couch toward one end, and Peter sat next to me, as far as he could be from me and still be on the couch. “Is it true? Did the police really arrest Grace for Carrie’s murder?”

  “They did. I’m not sure what evidence they have, but I hope you know as well as I do that Grace wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  Peter nodded quickly. “Of course I don’t think she did it. You said that maybe I would know something that could help her. What did you mean?”

  “The best way to free Grace would be to figure out the reason Carrie was killed. Whoever did this also wrecked her office. Grace and I think they were looking for something. If they were, then it’s likely that Carrie’s death might be connected to a case she was working on.”

  “Paradise Investigations isn’t exactly a dangerous work environment, Mr. Maxfield,” Peter said with a high-pitched, nervous laugh. “I know television shows make private investigator work look glamorous and exciting, but from what I’ve gathered, the opposite is true.”

  “Doing your job, you would know a lot more about the cases that Grace and Carrie were working on, right?” I persisted. This was my biggest lead, the only real hope I had of helping my best friend in the world.

  “I guess so.” Peter squirmed uncomfortably. He was a jumpy guy. Then again, his boss had been murdered the previous day and now a total stranger was sitting in his house, asking him questions, so maybe the fidgeting was justified.

  “Can you think of anything at all that might help? Was Carrie working on anything that could have led to this happening?”

  Peter shook his head. “I doubt it.”

  I leaned forward a bit—not too much, because I didn’t want to spook him, but close enough that he could see my sincerity. “Please, just think about it for a moment. Anything that can help, anything at all.”

  Peter sighed, pursing his lips, but I must have gotten through to him, because his brow furrowed in concentration for a moment. I felt a small seed of hope stirring in my chest. Surely this guy would know something, and I could take it to the police, and Grace would be out and they could go on looking for the real killers.

  The hope died before it could take root. Peter shook his head again. “No, I’m sorry. None of their cases were dangerous or anything unusual for us. Although,” he added, and the seed rumbled a bit in my chest once more. “It’s always possible Carrie took on a case she didn’t file with me. Sometimes they don’t turn the files in until they’ve wrapped the case. But if that’s the case, I can’t tell you anything about it because I don’t know.”

  I hung my head in defeat. I knew the disappointment I was showing would have been obvious to the thickest of people, but I couldn’t help it. I’d really hoped that coming to Peter would provide me with something to go on, but it was a dead end.

  “I’m really sorry,” Peter said gently. “I want to help you; I really do. Grace is a great person and has always been kind and friendly to me. I just don’t know anything.”

  “I understand,” I said, doing my best to at least pretend to perk up. “It was worth a shot, right? And hey, if you think of anything, give me a call. You never know if something will spring to mind.”

  “I will, of course,” said Peter, rising to his feet. Recognizing the obvious dismissal, I followed suit.

  At the door, I extended my hand for a handshake. “Thank you so much for taking the time to see me so early in the morning, Mr. Michaels.”

  “Of course, Mr. Maxfield. I only wish I could have been more helpful for Grace.”

  I opened the door and gave a little start. For the second time that morning, I came face to face with Maka and Benet. Maka gave me a silly, unexpected half smile while Benet just scowled.

  “Good morning, Detectives,” I said as civilly as I could manage. I held my head high, ignoring the flutter in my stomach at Maka’s smile and the closeness of his scent as I passed between the two of them on my way down from the porch.

  “Mr. Maxfield,” Benet called to me.

  I grimaced and glanced back at him over my shoulder. “Yes, Detective?”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I turned fully around at that, doing my best impersonation of my mother’s patented stony gaze. “I fail to see how that’s any business of yours.”

  Benet’s face purpled, and he took a step off the porch. Maka stood behind him, looking nervous. “It’s my business if you’re interfering with a police investigation. That can be a pretty serious offense. I’d hate to see you end up in jail, too.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Spare me the intimidation attempts, Detective. I don’t scare easily.”

  I turned on my heel and walked back to my car at a reasonable pace, all the while my heart thudded loudly in my ears. The entire walk I expected Benet to come up behind me and arrest me on the spot—not that giving lip to a police officer was a crime, but in this day and age, some police seemed to think not worshipping them was a crime. When I was safely inside my car, I looked back to the porch.

  Peter looked even more distraught than he had when talking to me, and I couldn’t blame him. I’m just an average Joe and a friend of someone he liked. These guys, though, they were cops. That would be enough to make anyone anxious.

  I started the car and put it in drive, sparing one last look at the porch. At that moment, Maka glanced back over his shoulder. Our eyes met and a surge of lust rushed right to my cock. I really needed to get a handle on my returning libido.

  I licked suddenly dry lips and pushed my foot down on the accelerator perhaps a bit faster than I normally would have, eager to put the detectives and the house behind me.

  Driving home, I received a phone call from Grace’s attorney, a Mr. Rembauer. He didn’t seem too keen to talk to me when he did; I got the feeling the only reason we were speaking was that Grace insisted on it.

  “Right now the police case against Ms. Park is thin,” he informed me in his watery voice. When I heard him, I couldn’t help thinking of a mole or a similar animal. “I can’t tell you too much, as I’m sure you understand. I didn’t want to tell you any of this, but my client insisted you be informed as much as possible.”

  I rolled my eyes, comfortable in the fact that he could not see me. “What led to her arrest in the first place? What could possibly make the police think she did this?”

  Mr. Rembauer muttered to himself, no doubt wrestling with just how much he could—or wanted—to tell me. “They found her fingerprints on the murder weapon, a statuette from the victim’s office. They were the only viable prints there. Combine that with the fact that there was no sign of a break-in and a series of rather terse text messages exchanged between them two days prior discovered on the victim’s phone, and the police pegged that as motive.” He huffed disdainfully. “As I said, their case is paper thin. It will not be too difficult to tear it to shreds in court.”

  The sudden intensity in the man’s voice caught me off guard. I had been thinking that Grace would be better off with a better lawyer, one that looked like he could actually stand up and present his case in court, but now I reconsidered. Grace rarely did things for no reason, so something made her hire Rembauer.

  As happy as I was that he was prepared to go to court and decimate the police case, I hoped to get Grace out of there before it came to that. “How soon before she has a bail hearing?”

  “That will happen when she’s arraigned. She was just arrested this morning, and processing will likely take some time, so I doubt we can make a docket before Monday.”

  I swore under my breath. “So she’s stuck in prison—”

  “She isn’t in prison, Mr. Maxfield. She’s in jail, or lockup, and it isn’t anything terrible. She can survive the weekend. I will have her out first thing Monday morning—earlier, if at all possible.”

  Rembauer ended the call without saying anything more. I wondered for a moment if I’d be getting a bill for that call in the mail. More likely Grace would, and that was her problem.

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nbsp; Exhaustion dug its claws into me pretty much as soon as I walked through the door of my condo. I refused to take in the boxes that were still there; I didn’t have the energy to deal with them, and seeing them would just depress me.

  I barely remembered entering my bedroom before I all but collapsed onto the bed. Sleep took me before my body struck the mattress.

  Chapter Five

  I stood on a beautiful, white sand beach, staring out at an ocean bathed in moonlight. The moon hung in the sky, enormous and full. I could hear the waves, not a booming crash but a gentle slap as they climbed the sand, stopping short of wetting my toes.

  “This is my favorite spot.”

  I jumped, surprised to find him standing to my left, staring out at the ocean. The glow of the moon gave his dusky Islander features an almost ethereal cast, like a statue that had been given life.

  “Why is that?” If I sounded breathy when I asked, I chalked it up to our enchanting surroundings.

  “Because there’s no one around at this time,” answered Maka with a mischievous grin. I had a moment to wonder about that grin before it became plain. Maka began to strip his shirt off, slowly revealing the muscled contours of his chest and stomach. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sight; it captivated me in a way the ocean never could. My eyes traced the shirt’s upward path, starting on the rocky plain of his abs and rising to the swell of his pecs, the dark nipples sharp points. The path continued up until our eyes met.

  Something burned in Maka’s eyes—something like triumph.

  The shirt tossed aside, Maka’s fingers dropped to the waistband of his board shorts, pushing below the elastic. He gave me a wink and then the shorts were down around his ankles, and he kicked them casually aside. My eyes did not follow the arc of the shorts; they were glued firmly to what hung between his legs, long and heavy, swaying like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

  “Have you ever been naked on a beach?”

  “Uh…” Any ability I might have had to answer left me when he took a step closer to me. I thought it might be my imagination, but it looked like his manhood was thickening, perking up ever so slightly.

  “It’s probably the most freeing thing I’ve ever felt,” he went on, voice becoming a purr, sex given tone. When his hands grasped the hem of my shirt, I could only stand there, entranced. The cool ocean air seemed to caress every inch of skin as Maka revealed it with the gentle touch of a familiar lover.

  “You want to feel free, don’t you?”

  I nodded my head, heart pounding in my chest. At that moment what I wanted more than anything was to feel whatever Maka wanted to make me feel. Maka’s hands grazed down my body to my own swim trunks, which were at that moment tented out by my almost painfully hard cock.

  Maka saw my erection and grinned. He slid his hands lower, grasping the legs of my trunks. He looked into my eyes, never breaking contact, and jerked them down. My cock slapped loudly against my stomach as he released the shorts, letting them slide to the sand and allowing me to step out of them.

  For the first time in my life, I stood naked on a beach, and I was with a man of godlike beauty—and godlike endowment, I saw, taking in the sight of his fully blood-engorged cock. Its weight made it too heavy to stand straight up, so it pointed out at a ninety-degree angle, like a compass arrow persistently pointed north.

  “Isn’t this amazing?” Maka murmured, stepping in close enough for our shoulders to brush as we stood there, side-by-side, naked and erect, facing the vast expanse of the ocean.

  “Yes,” I croaked. “Amazing.”

  Language abandoned me then, as Maka’s hand enclosed around my cock, gripping it with a confidence that told me he’d definitely had practice on more than just his own. His touch was expert. He knew exactly when to tighten and when to release—when to expand his palm so that his flesh barely ghosted over my own.

  “Feel me,” he urged.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I reached over with my left hand, encountering the hard-yet-soft flesh of his abdomen, which I groped for a moment before going south toward my goal. I wondered for a second if anyone had ever been burned by the heat radiating off a man’s cock before. Maka’s was hot to the touch, heavy in my hand. When I gripped it, my index finger and thumb could barely touch due to his girth.

  I watched my hand sliding along his length, the foreskin covering the head before sliding back to reveal it, purple and leaking.

  Maka moaned loudly. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop!”

  I increased my pace on his cock, twisting my wrist a bit at the tip. Maka rocked back and forth on his heels, eyes closed, head thrown back as he abandoned himself to his pleasure—his hand still working my length.

  With a guttural cry, Maka unloaded, spurting out onto the sand before us.

  The sight and sound of Maka losing it spurred me closer and closer to my own orgasm. I could feel it building deep inside, my balls pulling in tighter, my shaft thickening in Maka’s hand—

  The rude, impatient blaring of a nearby car horn brought me out of the embrace of the dream. I lay on my own bed, panting heavily and coated with a sheen of sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room. My cock strained in the confines of my underwear and khakis as I ground it into the bed beneath me with fervor. I was so close to coming, my release held back only by my self-control and desire not to literally jizz my pants. With great willpower, I forced my hips to still, arching my back so my cock was no longer pressing against the bed.

  Once I drew back from the abyss, so to speak, I became aware of the room around me. It was dark; no sunlight came in through the window, just the pale glow of a light in the parking lot, a ways off from the window.

  How long had I been asleep? I must have been more worn out than I had thought.

  I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling and trying to shake the final remnants of the dream. My cock refused to soften, though, despite my efforts, and that was only made worse by my realization that the literal man of my dreams might at that very moment be somewhere nearby.

  Guilt gave me the power to resist my baser urges. The thought that while I was home, comfortable, Grace sat in a cell somewhere kept me from whipping out my cock and going to town. Someone had to help her, and there was nothing more her lawyer could do. That meant that responsibility fell to me.

  I sat up on the bed with a sigh. What was my next move? Peter had been my one and only lead, and he’d given me nothing, dashing my hopes. But did he really give me nothing? Sure, he didn’t have anything that he could tell me himself, but he did offer another avenue of investigation, which I would have realized at the time if I hadn’t been so disappointed. I thought about the short conversation and everything he’d said.

  Sometimes Carrie and Grace didn’t file anything until the case was done. So what if whatever case got Carrie killed was one she hadn’t finished? If that were the case, would she have kept her paperwork in the office? If so, then whoever attacked her probably took the evidence with them. But if not, the files might still be at her home.

  But what if whoever attacked her had already been to her home, as well? It only made sense; they wouldn’t stop at just searching her office, not if it was worth killing over. There wasn’t much of a choice, though. I had to at least try to find something, even if I wasn’t successful.

  I turned the bedroom light on, not yet comfortable enough with this place to be wandering around in the darkness. My stomach growled; I hadn’t eaten anything since pizza the previous night. But there was no time—I couldn’t bring myself to eat, not while I could be doing something to help Grace.

  I grabbed my keys and was halfway to my car before I realized I didn’t have any idea where I was going. Oh, I knew my destination—Carrie’s house—but where did she live? Cursing my stupidity, I went back into the house. The business card Grace had given me listed a phone number for herself and for Carrie, but that was it. No sign of a personal address.

  Not knowing what else to do,
I went to the computer and pulled up Google. I realized that I was an amateur, but if it worked for so many people, it was worth a shot. Much to my surprise, an address came up along with Carrie’s private investigator’s license. It was a matter of public record, and it looked like her home address was used. I personally would have never used my home address on anything of public record, but everyone had their own scale of what was safe and what was not, and I couldn’t knock her for it.

  Unless it meant that whoever did this had gotten to her house before me. That would pose a problem.

  I wrote the address down and went straight out the door. Once I entered it into the GPS, it wasn’t too difficult to make my way there—very few turns. It was nearly nine p.m. and the street was still full of cars. Was Honolulu ever quiet or calm?

  At least I’m out and about. That’s what Grace wanted. Though, I doubt she wanted it like this. Things were as they were, however, and bemoaning them didn’t get anything done.

  The GPS told me I was about four minutes out from Carrie’s house, indicating a left turn up ahead. I soon found myself in an upscale neighborhood, where the houses sported nice big lawns, white picket fences, and porch swings. If I had to guess, I’d say Carrie’s money didn’t come from private investigating.

  Carrie’s home was inside a cul-de-sac with four other houses that looked exactly alike. I only knew which was hers based on the GPS. The house had no car parked in front of it, which didn’t come as a surprise, since it was still parked in front of Paradise Investigations.

  I started to pull the car into the driveway but stopped halfway through the turn. What the hell am I thinking? What kind of idiot parks in front of a house that they’re planning on breaking into?

  A cold sheen of sweat broke out on my forehead at the thought. It was the first time I’d actually given words to my intentions. I’d never so much as run a red light in my entire life, and now I was planning on committing a much larger crime by breaking into the house of a dead woman. If I got caught by the police, it would not look good.