Chapter 16
Lincoln had no choice but to leave Zara’s house, although more than anything he wanted to stay until that gutted expression left her face. But he wasn’t the kind of asshole who would go against a woman’s direct request. He might be other kinds of asshole, but not that.
He followed Maureen and her bodyguard through the pelting rain and slid into her Mercedes.
She got into the back seat next to him. He didn’t bother to ask where she’d acquired it.
She could have purchased it as soon as she landed, or she could be borrowing it from a friend. Money could get you anything.
Most things, he corrected. It wouldn’t get Zara’s trust back, and he couldn’t even contemplate that disaster. Being with her, spending time with her…it meant something to him on a cellular level. Even since that first crash in the jungle, nothing had felt right. Until her.
He shook off his morose thoughts and turned his focus to Maureen. “What do you want from me? You already won.”
When he’d first formed Kerr Enterprises, he hadn’t wanted his half-sister to get involved with the company, but Violet had begged and pleaded, and since she’d invested in it early on with her own millions, he felt obligated. He should have known Maureen would turn out to be a shark.
“You think I wanted to go against you?” she cried. “You refused to listen to reason. I was only looking out for my family.”
They’d disagreed about the family’s role in a just-finished luxury survival bunker, one of the so-called “billionaire bunkers” that were starting to proliferate, especially here in Hawaii.
To him, the bunkers made no sense, until he’d realized that he could move his Higher Ground lab there.
Maureen wanted to save that space for her own family and accused him of being cold-hearted for refusing her.
She’d launched an all-out battle to oust him, and while he’d been in a coma in the Hawaiian jungle, she’d succeeded. When he’d resurfaced, he’d decided she could have that job—all he wanted was Higher Ground, which she knew nothing about.
“Do we need to rehash all that? You got your space in the bunker. You got everything. Why are you here?”
“You are my brother,” she said with that slight graceful Southern lilt. “Isn’t that enough?”
That question didn’t deserve a response.
His sisters had never been fond of him. He represented a rupture in the family, the secret affair that had ended their parents’ marriage.
Violet and Charlton hadn’t divorced, because their social status might have suffered.
But their relationship had never recovered.
At first Violet had claimed that Lincoln was adopted, but everyone knew the truth, and eventually she stopped pretending.
Lincoln had grown up getting side-eyed and whispered about everywhere he went in Savannah.
His sisters, both of whom were several years older, had rarely defended him.
In their eyes, he was the enemy, along with his father.
“The brother you shafted,” he reminded Maureen.
“I was looking out for my children,” she said through gritted teeth. “Why is that so hard to understand?”
The bodyguard started up the Mercedes and they pulled out into the torrents of rain.
He took one last look over his shoulder at Zara’s house, hoping to see her waving him back.
But her door was shut tight. It was raining so hard that he could barely see through the mist, as if a waterfall was pouring from the sky.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“We’re just taking you back to your hotel, don’t worry. I’m not kidnapping you.” Maureen fluffed her hair back into its preferred shape.
“Good to know.” He hadn’t enjoyed getting kidnapped the first time. “So how do you like being in charge?”
“Is that a joke? You’re just needling me, mocking me? Gloating?”
“Excuse me?” Maureen had always been touchy, but this was overkill. “You hunted me down, not the other way around.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know why.”
He wondered how dangerous it would be to open the door and jump out. “I’m not in the mood, Maureen. What’s going on?”
Her expression shifted. “You really don’t know?”
“I really don’t. I’ve been minding my business, weeding the gardens, blowing the leaves. Recovering.”
“So…” She bit at the edge of her thumbnail, an old nervous habit. “You didn’t hack into our systems?”
He tensed against the cushy leather of the back seat. “I wouldn’t have to hack in. I know how to access everything.”
“Really? I thought they—” She didn’t finish that thought after he shot her a look. “Right. Of course you still know everything. Damn it. I was sort of hoping it was you.”
“So you could blame me and move on?”
“No,” she said, surprising him. “Because the other alternative is worse.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“That I have no earthly idea who it is.”
She pressed the heel of her hand into her forehead, looking so overwhelmed that his heart went out to her.
Was his father behind the hack? Lincoln had always suspected that KiYun Chun had people inside Kerr Enterprises to keep tabs on things. Or maybe Tanaka had done it?
“Was any damage done?”
“At first our tech team said they caught it in time. But ever since then, we’ve been getting messages at random times, on random computers throughout our system.
They’re very odd, and none of us can make heads or tails out of them.
Even though you’re irritating and arrogant, you are extremely smart, so maybe you can. ”
She had the oddest way of asking for help, Lincoln thought dryly. The Mercedes turned onto the Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway. Floodwater was already flowing across it in the low spots.
“What do the messages say?”
“I took a picture of one on my phone. Sometimes they flash across the screen so fast you hardly have time to see them. But this one stayed long enough for me to capture it.”
She handed her phone to him. It was cued to a photo of a laptop screen. The image of a large bluish, jagged crystal filled the screen. Large block letters read, Can This Save the World? Solve the Mystery at FreeEnergyForAll dot com.
A chill ran down his spine. Someone was pushing that same meme into the Kerr computer system.
He squinted at the bottom of the meme. In much smaller print were the words “The Crystal Collective.” That was new.
If it was Tanaka, what motive would he have? Lincoln could understand some kind of espionage or sabotage. But this appeared to be neither.
Unless… Maybe Tanaka was trying to clue Maureen into the gem that she’d let go.
She hadn’t fought him over Higher Ground because on paper it didn’t seem worth anything.
She knew nothing about the missing CHUM sample or any of the rest of it.
If she found out, she’d probably figure out a way to ruin it for him.
Show her nothing. He couldn’t trust Maureen, even if she did seem more vulnerable than she ever had before.
“What is it?” he asked, squinting as if he’d never seen the image before. “It just looks like a crackpot meme you might find on a subreddit.”
“Then why is it popping up in our system?”
They reached the intersection where a right turn would lead to Ali’i Drive. Police officers had cordoned off the road and were waving vehicles through. When he peered that direction, he saw nothing but rain and parked vehicles that looked like they might be swept away by floodwaters.
“I couldn’t say. Unless…”
She waited, her eyes widening. Maybe he could make some trouble for Tanaka.
“Have you heard of Kendo Tanaka?”
“I have. He’s your father’s nemesis. You think it was him?”
“I think it’s worth looking into. Put your best people on it. He skirts the law, so see if you can dig up anything damaging on him. But keep a distance yourself. Hands-off only. He’s dangerous.”
The Mercedes pulled up outside the Seaside Paradise hotel. He set his hand on the door handle, ready to bolt into the rain.
“It’s also possible it’s just an Internet troll trying to make a splash. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t take the bait. Just let it go.”
“Your advice is to let it go? You’ve changed, Lincoln.”
He smiled at that. But he really needed to keep her at bay. He reached for the one argument he knew she would pay attention to. “Trolls can be trouble, and so is Tanaka. Think of your kids. Their safety comes first, right?”
“My kids?” She scoffed. “Do you even know their names?”
“Biff, Chad and Ellie-Mae.” Quickly, before she completely lost it, he added,“Of course I know their names. Miles, Logan and Delilah. Just because I think billionaire bunkers are ridiculous doesn’t mean I don’t care about my nephews and nieces.”
She gave a short laugh, then a longer one. “I think this might be the best talk we’ve had in years. Maybe we should have done it earlier.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have backstabbed me at my own company.” He held up a hand to stop whatever commentary she had about that. “The truth is, I’m almost glad you did. It’s nice to have a break. I got a Hawaiian vacation out of it.”
He climbed out of the car and was immediately drenched to the skin. As he hurried toward the door, he felt a twinge of guilt. For a moment there, he and Maureen had communicated like normal adults. But then his old walls had come up almost automatically. Maybe he hadn’t changed much after all.
He looked up at the sky and let the rain sluice across his face.
There was so much water coming down that he had to laugh.
Such an intense force of nature made it impossible to think about anything else.
It demanded his full attention, and he loved that.
He didn’t want to think about anything else right now, not Tanaka, not the missing CHUM, not Maureen, and not how badly he’d screwed things up with Zara.
He had to slosh through ankle-deep water to make it to the pergola that covered the hotel entrance. No tiki torches flickering along the walkway today.
A bell hop helped him into the lobby, where he shook water out of his hair and stomped his feet on the floor mat. The entire foyer smelled like wet grass.
The desk clerk flagged him down as he trudged across the lobby. “A message came for you, sir.”
“Really?” He checked his burner phone and realized it had run out of battery again. It must be defective. He still hadn’t turned on his actual phone, which was upstairs in his suite. Very few people knew he was even staying here, although if Maureen knew, maybe she wasn’t the only one.
The clerk slid a piece of Seaside Paradise notepaper across the counter toward him. The note read, “Call me right away. Mia missing. Zara.” Her phone number was written below that.
He raced up to his suite and activated his smartphone. He called Zara’s number; she picked up immediately.
“What happened? What do you need?” He was already changing into different clothes, although they would get just as wet in no time.
“Mia’s gone, I think she might have gone surfing, which is insane. My friends aren’t here and neither are any of their vehicles. I’m in my car right now but it won’t start. Rain must have got into the engine. Are you still in that Mercedes? That thing is like a tank.”
“No, but I’ll figure something out. Stay where you are. I’ll be right there.”