Chapter 40
When Zara got home, she found the place transformed. Everything had been put back in order. The place was tidy again, even more so than before Dad had ransacked it. All signs of her father had been erased.
And there was some paperwork sitting on the koa wood coffee table.
The title to the house. In her name. What the hell? The bungalow had belonged to her father and he’d insisted on keeping it in his name even though she had to cover the mortgage payments. Now, it was apparently hers, free and clear, not only of bank liens, but of Lou Morrissey’s claims.
“Oh, Lincoln,” she whispered. He must have done this before they even went to the jungle. “But what about Dad? What’d you do with him?”
That question got answered pretty quickly by a knock at the door. She ran to it and flung it open to find Marley dropping off Mia and Eddie. The kids flew into her arms in a flurry of hugs and nonstop chatter.
While they were busy ransacking the fridge for snacks, Marley pulled Zara onto the lanai. “I have a message about your father.”
Marley was from Fiji originally, a heavy-set, dark-skinned woman with an irresistible radiance to her. She’d been good friends with Zara’s stepmother before the crazy cult leader had come along. Since then, she’d tried to fill the gap for the Morrissey children as much as she could.
“Okay,” Zara said warily. “Don’t tell me he’s already been arrested again.”
“Not so far as I know.” Marley’s face creased as she gave a hearty laugh.
She had the most beautiful laugh lines. “The message is, he’s on his way to Bermuda.
A lawyer came to him with an offer for this house.
Your dad was given the choice between a new house or a chunk of cash.
He chose the cash and booked himself a flight to the Caribbean. ”
Zara’s stomach twisted into a hard knot. Lucky Lou had always chosen himself, and he always would.
“He came to say goodbye to Mia and Eddie. Brought ice cream and kept them entertained for hours with stories. Now Mia wants to write a comic book about him and his capers.”
Zara winced at the thought of what those stories might contain. “I’m glad, I guess? At least they saw him before he left.”
“Yah. All good. No tears. And he left you this.” She pulled out a tightly sealed plastic grocery bag. “It’s cash,” she added, before Zara could open it. “I think it’s from the house sale so it’s clean.”
Zara whooshed out a breath. “Well, we’re going to be splitting this, just so you know. We’ll call it the babysitting fund.”
“No need, I got my own envelope. Your father’s not all bad.” She flashed that gap-toothed smile again.
“He is what he is.” That grocery bag was heavy. Zara wasn’t even sure she wanted it. “I think I can guess what happened. The lawyer said if Dad took the cash, some of it had to go for taking care of the kids.”
“Sounds right.”
Lincoln’s doing. All of it. The house purchase, the offer to her father. She had to admire his efficiency. Now she had a house that belonged to her, mortgage-free, and some of the money from its sale. Not even her dad could think up something that smooth.
Later, Mia agreed to hang out with Eddie while Zara went out.
She had no concerns about their safety. The invisible magic carpet ride apparently included a bubble of security around them.
She could feel it. If Lincoln had made all these arrangements for their financial security, no doubt he’d also included their physical safety.
She appreciated that, of course, especially on behalf of her sister and brother. But she wasn’t one to sit back and let a man take care of everything.
To hell with that.
Rory said Lincoln was making some kind of deal with Tanaka. But was he making the best possible deal with the best possible person? She didn’t think so.
The recent string of sunny days had dried out the spark plugs of the Kumquat sufficiently so that it started right up.
The gurgling hum of its vintage engine made her smile with nostalgic delight.
She and the Kumquat had been through a lot together.
You couldn’t replace that connection, not even with a Mercedes.
She drove to the Royal Leilani Resort, where the guards let her in because Big Joe told them to. She still had friends here, no tight-ass manager could change that. Of those friends, someone had to know the information she was looking for.
An hour and ten conversations later, she had what she needed. The person she wanted to talk to was staying at a boutique inn on a coffee farm in the hills above Kona.
The Kumquat struggled, but made it there with only a slight whiff of overheating engine. She parked on the street—Mamalahoa Highway—so she didn’t have to make the steep descent onto the inn’s grounds. Her car might never be able to get back up.
“You,” said Maureen Kerr, as she opened the door half an hour later. “The girl with the orange car, the one chasing after Lincoln.”
“Technically, I was chasing you. Can I come in?”
Maureen shrugged and allowed her inside the airy suite. The hotel was painted as pink as a sunset, and must have a magnificent view of them. It featured vintage wicker furniture and scenic underwater photographs of coral reefs and brilliant tropical fish.
“I’m glad you’re still here. I wasn’t sure you would be,” Zara said with a smile.
“Well, it’s pretty nice around here.” Maureen refused to smile back. “And my business is ongoing.”
“See, I have a little theory. Sure, you’re here on business.
But Lincoln says you’re like a mama bear with your family.
He’s your family too. I think it bothers you that you tanked your relationship with him.
That’s why you’re sticking around, not just for business.
You want to repair things with Lincoln.”
“My business is none of your business,” Maureen snapped. But her hostility didn’t have the same energy as it had before. That was the Hawaii effect. Zara had seen it many times. If you allowed the aloha spirit in, tension eased, conflict faded, blessings abounded.
“What if I could help you?” she said. “With Lincoln, I mean.”
“You can’t,” Maureen said flatly. “It’s hopeless.”
At that point all her antagonism drained out of her and she flopped into a wicker armchair, which creaked from the impact. She buried her head in her hands. With her crisp white capri pants and sleeveless peach blouse, she still managed to look elegant.
“I haven’t handled this well,” she mumbled into them.
You think? Zara thought, but kept it to herself. She perched on the chair next to Maureen’s, recognizing the signs of someone who needed to vent. “Look, I’m a hot mess, and so is my family. You don’t have to put on some front with me. Go ahead, spill whatever you need to.”
As if she’d been waiting for just such an invitation, Maureen unleashed a torrent of words.
“I’m Lincoln’s sister and he wants nothing to do with me.
He doesn’t care about anyone in our family, not even my children.
He never comes to family events. Sometimes he comes for Christmas but he might as well not bother.
He works the whole entire time. Then I…well, I did something unforgivable, I guess.
I wanted a survival bunker for my kids’ future, and Lincoln refused.
So I got him booted from his position at the company.
Now it turns out that my children want nothing to do with that bunker.
They’re teenagers and all they talk about is getting rid of microplastics and saving the freaking polar bears.
They don’t want to be stuck in a bunker.
Our valuation has been going down without Lincoln.
Someone hacked us and at first I thought it was Lincoln.
I confronted him about it but it didn’t go well, as you saw.
He doesn’t trust me. I can’t blame him. We were horrible to him when he was little. ”
“Have you ever told him that?” Zara said gently.
“No. Why would I? He’s an insanely successful investor and entrepreneur. He’s the most driven man I’ve ever seen in action. He left home and took off like a rocket ship. He doesn’t need anything from me.”
“Maybe he doesn’t, I don’t know for sure. But it might do you some good. It sounds like you regret how you treated him as a child.”
“I regret…” Maureen looked skyward, her perfectly frosted hair glinting in the light. “I regret a few things. That’s one. You know what I regret? Growing up in a jungle where you had to fight for scraps of attention.”
“Okay, I get that, but I have to object to the jungle slander,” Zara said with a smile. “The jungle is full of life, enough for everyone.”
“But it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Prey and predator. The strong eat the weak. That’s just how the world is.”
Zara leaned forward and took Maureen’s hands.
“The world isn’t just one thing. It’s complex and multifaceted, and impossible to pin down to one phrase.
And the thing is, we can choose how we want to be in the world.
We can choose how we treat people. It doesn’t always have to be dog eat dog.
Lincoln is out there fighting alone to save us all. I think we should be there for him.”
“How? What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you come with me and I’ll show you. I’ll explain on the way.”
“Go where? Will Lincoln be there?”
“At some point, he will be, I have no doubt.”
Maureen frowned in confusion, but at least she wasn’t saying no. “How long will we have to wait?”
“I can’t say. But it’s fine. In the meantime, we’ll just relax and catch some waves. You’ll love it.”