Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
Reid followed Maliea into her father’s office and came to stand beside her as she stared around the room. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She gave him a weak smile. “I just came face-to-face with the piece of work that kept my husband ‘working’ a lot of late nights at the office.”
“Mama,” Nani said from the chair behind the desk. “Come see my picture.”
Maliea crossed the room, leaned over the desk, and stared down at the coloring book. Her daughter had been happily coloring in. “That’s beautiful. I like the way you used blue for her hair.”
“She has blue hair because she’s a mermaid, like in Papa’s story.” Nani looked toward Reid. “Do you want to see?”
Reid crossed the room to stand beside Maliea. “That’s very pretty,” he said. “Are those seashells? ”
Nani nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“What is that behind the mermaid?” Maliea asked.
Nani looked up at her proudly. “I drew that,” she said. “That’s the gigantic mountain on the big island. Like in Papa’s story.”
Reid shot of glance toward Maliea, cocking an eyebrow.
Maliea shrugged. “My father made a whole book of short stories for his granddaughter. He read them to her every time he put her to bed. It became a tradition. When my father wasn’t there, I read the stories to her from my father’s handwritten storybook. He even had colorful drawings on the pages.” She smiled sadly. “Until he wrote the book for Nani, I never knew my father was such a skilled artist.”
Reid looked back at the mermaid with the mountain behind her. “Have you ever been to the big island?”
Nani shook her head. “Papa promised he would take me one day.” Her brow puckered. “But my Papa isn’t coming back. Is he?” Her gaze met her mother’s.
Maliea swallowed hard as she shook her head. “No, sweetie. Papa isn’t coming back.”
“I’m going to miss Papa,” Nani said.
The sadness in the little girl’s eyes nearly undid Reid. His heart hurt for the woman and her little girl.
Nani laid down the crayon and reached up her hands toward Reid .
Reid lifted the little girl into his arms without giving it a second thought. “Why don’t we look out the window while your mama goes through some boxes?”
Nani laid her head on his shoulder and went with him willingly to the window.
Reid hated seeing the troubled eyes of a three-year-old. Obviously, she had loved her grandfather. If Maliea’s words meant what he thought they meant, this little girl’s father had been having an affair with his Teacher’s Assistant. How could a man risk losing his family chasing some younger woman’s skirts? Reid would have done anything to keep his family together.
“I want to go home,” Nani whispered.
Reid’s chest tightened. What did you say to a three-year-old whose home had been torn apart? “How would you like to come and stay at my cabin?” he asked.
“I’d like that,” Nani said.
Reid’s glance shot over the top of the little girl’s head toward her mother.
Maliea stared across the room, her gaze connecting with his. “Are you sure?”
Reid gave a brief nod.
Maliea smiled weakly. “Thank you. It will give me a place to stay while I figure out what’s next.”
Reid stood for a long time at the window with Nani in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder. Holding Nani was how it had felt when he’d held Abby in his arms.
God, he missed her.
Nani’s breathing became slower, and her body relaxed. She fell asleep like that.
Reid’s chest swelled with a profound feeling of something so deep he couldn’t put a name to it. It wasn’t so much love as need, and not even that but a sense of rightness. Holding Nani, a little three-year-old girl, felt so right. At the same time, he had a twinge of guilt twisting his gut. He should be holding his own little girl. But that wasn’t going to happen except during his court-ordered visitation. He wanted more time than that. He wanted his child in his life all the time.
Less than thirty minutes later, Maliea spoke, “I’m done here.” She straightened from the box she’d been going through on the floor. “I can carry this box if you can carry Nani,” she said.
“I’ll get the box,” Reid said, “if you want to take Nani.”
“No use disturbing her,” Maliea said. “Unless your arm is getting tired.”
Reid said. “I’m fine.” His arm could be aching and nearly falling off, and he’d still want to hold the child.
Maliea lifted the box off the desk and carried it into Andrea’s office. She loaded the photos of her daughter into the box and smiled at the older woman. “What I left behind, you can give away, throw away, or do whatever you like with it.”
“Are you sure?” Andrea asked, her brow wrinkling.
“I’m sure,” Maliea said.
Andrea touched her arm. “Just so you know, the professor loved you very much. You and Nani were his world.”
Maliea snorted softly. “Maybe so, but not enough of his world to give up his obsession over fictitious treasure.”
Maliea set the box on a chair beside Andrea’s desk. Then she turned and hugged Andrea. “We’ll be talking soon,” she promised.
“Please do.” Andrea’s eyes filled with tears. “I lost your father. I hope I don’t lose you and Nani as well.” A single tear slid down her cheek.
“Don’t worry. We love you,” Maliea said. She bussed the older woman’s cheek with a light kiss. “Let me know if you retire. We’d love to see you more often.”
The older woman nodded and laid a hand on Nani’s back. “Take care of our girl.”
Maliea forced a smile. “I will.” She held out her hands.
As Reid eased Nani into her arms, Maliea gathered her daughter close.
Reid lifted the box and carried it toward the door. They took the elevator down and left the building .
At the SUV, Reid stored the box in the back. Maliea helped Nani into the backseat and buckled her seatbelt. Then she slipped into the front passenger seat. Reid climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Where to?”
Maliea sighed. “I might as well tackle my father’s apartment. At the very least, I need to wrap my arms around what must be done.”
While Reid pulled out of the parking lot, Maliea entered her father’s address on her smartphone with a stop at the store where Tish had promised to leave Nani’s car seat.
Using the map’s directions, Reid wound his way through the streets of Honolulu, his gaze going to Maliea. He tried to gauge her reaction to the thought of going to her father’s house to sift through his belongings. Reid’s mother and father were still alive back in Texas, as were his two sisters and a younger brother. He didn’t know how it felt to lose a parent or sibling. But he knew how it felt to lose a friend and then have to go through his belongings to pack and ship them back to family members. It hurt knowing that a friend or family member wouldn’t be around. The good times they’d shared and the bad times they’d weathered together would be nothing more than memories.
Maliea stared out the front windshield, her teeth chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know how someone will react when we get there.” She tipped her head toward the backseat.
“I’ll do what I can to distract her,” Reid assured her.
Maliea faced Reid briefly and gave him a weak smile. “It’s hard.” She choked on her words, tears welling in her eyes.
Reid reached across the console, took her hand in his, and gently squeezed it. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”
“I know you didn’t sign on for this kind of duty,” she said. “But it’s easier for me, knowing I’m not alone. So, thank you.”
Reid gently squeezed her hand again. He didn’t know what else to say. So, he didn’t say anything and just held her hand. The more he held it, the more he liked how it felt. She had slender fingers, but they were solid and competent. Yes, she was hurting, but she wouldn’t let that detract from being an excellent mother to her daughter. She would protect her from the bad guys as well as her own sadness. Reid admired that. Maliea was a woman who would remain resilient for the people she loved.
He’d like to know more about her comment concerning her husband’s Teacher’s Assistant, but he didn’t feel he had the right to pry. If she wanted him to know more, she’d tell him. Based on the fact she’d left all her husband’s belongings with her father’s secretary, Reid would guess that Maliea had no love lost for her dead husband. She seemed much closer to her father.
Maliea pointed to the next corner. “Turn in there. This is the store where Tish said she’d leave Nani’s car seat.”
Reid pulled in. They found the car seat in a shopping cart in a cart corral, quickly transferred it to the SUV and settled Nani into the safety belts.
Back on the road, it wasn’t long before Reid pulled in front of a white, stucco apartment complex near the university.
Maliea unbuckled her seatbelt and looked up at the building before her. “When I married Taylor, my father sold the house I grew up in. He said he didn’t need all that room and preferred to live closer to the university. I think the empty house got to him. After my mom passed, he had me to keep him from getting lonely. That all changed when I married and moved out. I think the memories in the house were too much for him.”
“I can understand,” Reid said. “I wouldn’t want to be alone in the same house that held only memories of my wife and daughter.”
Maliea shot him a grimace. “I’m sorry. I should be more sensitive. You’ve lost family members, too. Maybe not in death, but it still hurts.”
Reid pushed his door open. “It’s been a couple of years. The pain fades.”
“You must’ve loved her a lot,” Maliea said softly .
He paused before getting out of the SUV. “Looking back, I don’t know that I loved her as much as I loved the idea of being a family.”
As soon as he said the words, he wished he could take them back. He’d never told anyone as much as he’d just told Maliea. Maybe it was because, for the first time, he’d admitted it to himself. Or perhaps it was because misery loved company.
No, it was more than that. This woman loved her child and would do anything to protect her. She’d also loved her father dearly. He suspected her relationship with her husband had not been the best, but he’d also bet that she would have stuck with the man if only to provide a stable family life for her daughter.
As Reid came around the vehicle, Maliea was already out of her seat, had the back door open and Nani’s harness unbuckled. She lifted the sleeping child into her arms. “Could you carry that box up to my father’s apartment? I’ll leave it with his other things until I know more about what I want to do for a place to live and what I want to do with his belongings.”
“Can do.” Reid opened the rear hatch of the SUV, gathered the box in his arms and closed the hatch. He followed Maliea inside the building and down the hallway, where she stopped in front of a doorway halfway along the corridor.
Maliea fumbled in her pocket for her keys, balancing Nani on one arm .
The door just past her father’s opened, and an older woman poked her head out. “Oh, Maliea, have you come to get the rest of your father’s things?” The woman emerged into the hallway, wearing sleek white trousers, a navy-blue top, gold bangle bracelets and fuzzy slippers. Her short gray hair was neatly slicked back from her forehead, and she wore bright red lipstick.
Maliea turned to the older woman, her key in her hand. “Not today, Ms. Jennings. I just came to get an idea of what I need to do.”
The woman’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, I thought you might be coming for the remainder of the items that you didn’t have moved yesterday.”
Maliea’s body stiffened. “What do you mean? I didn’t have anything moved yesterday.”
Ms. Jennings’ brow wrinkled. “The people from the moving company took several boxes of your father’s things and packed them into a small moving van. When I asked them what they were doing, they showed me an invoice indicating they would move his things that day. Didn’t you send them?”
Maliea shook her head. “I didn’t order any boxes to be moved. Did they say what company they were with?”
Ms. Jennings frowned. “I can’t recall. They showed me the invoice briefly. I didn’t make note of the actual company.”
“Were they wearing uniforms?” Reid asked .
Ms. Jennings nodded, her brow still wrinkled. “The men were wearing white coveralls and baseball caps. I don’t recall seeing any company logo on the coveralls. They carried empty boxes in and left a short time later carrying what appeared to be full boxes. I wasn’t around for the better part of the afternoon because I had an appointment with my hairdresser. I assumed they got everything moved until you showed up.”
Maliea pushed the key into the lock, twisted and shoved the door open. She drew in a sharp breath. Her gaze shot to Nani’s face. The three-year-old was sound asleep, her head on Maliea’s shoulder.
Reid set the box of Maliea’s father’s things against the wall in the hallway and stepped past Maliea into the apartment. The place was a shambles. The living room sofa lay on its back, the cushions flung aside with massive rips down the middle and an empty bookshelf sprawled across the entryway. Reid went quickly through the apartment and returned to where Maliea stood in the hallway. He shook his head. “Not good.”
Maliea swore under her breath.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Ms. Jennings said behind Maliea as she peered over the younger woman’s head into the apartment.
“Ms. Jennings, could you describe, in more detail, the men who came to the apartment?” Reid asked.
The woman shook her head. “They both wore baseball caps and white coveralls. One guy was tall, almost as tall as you.” She tipped her head toward Reid. “The other guy was much smaller. What I could see of his facial features were kind of young or feminine. But I didn’t get a real good look at his face.”
Reid glanced down at Maliea. “Does this apartment complex have a video monitoring system?”
Maliea shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t,” Ms. Jennings said, her lips pressing into a thin line. “I’ve been after facilities management for months about installing a video monitoring system for this place. They still haven’t. Perhaps this will convince them.”
Reid backed into the hallway. “We need to report this to the police.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and entered 911.
The dispatcher answered within seconds.
Reid gave him the address and stated his emergency. The dispatcher assured him that a unit was on its way and would be there in approximately five minutes. He ended the call and waited with Maliea in the hallway.
Ms. Jennings, with her nice outfit and fuzzy slippers, stood with them wringing her hands. “I wish I had known they weren’t a moving company. I would’ve paid more attention. It just made sense for a moving company to come in and pack his things. Isn’t it bad enough that he’s dead? Why did they have to come and steal his things?” She hugged her arms around her body. “Is there any place safe from bad people?”
“Not everyone’s bad,” Maliea said softly. Her hand moved up and down on Nani’s back.
Thankfully, the three-year-old remained asleep.
A pair of police officers entered the building and joined them at Maliea’s father’s apartment.
Nani’s eyes blinked open and widened when she saw the police officer standing beside them. She lifted her head. “Why is there a policeman here?”
Maliea smiled at her daughter reassuringly. “They came to tell us how sorry they were that Papa was in a plane crash.”
She met Reid’s gaze. He nodded.
Maliea stepped away from the doorway and out of view of the disaster.
After Maliea and Nani were out of earshot, Reid spoke softly with the officers, explaining the situation, careful that Nani couldn’t hear his words. All the while, he half-listened to what Maliea was saying to her daughter.
“So,” Maliea forced another smile for her daughter, “how do you feel about spending the night camping out in Mr. Reid’s cabin?”
“Yes, please!” Nani’s face brightened.
“Then that’s just what we’ll do,” Maliea said cheerfully, although she felt far from happy.
Ms. Jennings stood at her father’s doorway, staring inside .
“Aren’t we going into Papa’s apartment?” Nani asked, pointing at the doorway she recognized.
Maliea shook her head. “No, sweetie, Mr. Reid is just going to go inside with the police officers and make sure everything’s all right. Then we can go to Mr. Reid’s cabin. They’ll only be a minute.”
Reid’s glance swept both ends of the hallway before he led the police officers into her father’s apartment.
Because he didn’t like leaving Maliea and Nani out in the hallway for long, he made quick work of showing the officers around, giving them the few details he knew and the fact that the owner of the apartment had died in a plane crash. The officers made notes and promised to follow up with fingerprints.
“You might want to speak with the neighbor, Ms. Jennings. She saw the men who came. She said that they removed several boxes before she had to leave. By the looks of it, they emptied the bookshelf in the entryway, the one on the other side of the living room, and everything in and on his desk.”
The lead officer made notes as Reid spoke.
Impatient to return to Maliea and her daughter, Reid hurried through what he knew and ended his discussion with, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure Professor Hasegawa’s daughter and granddaughter are okay. Please lock up when you leave and let us know if you find anything.” He handed a card to one of the officers. “You can reach me at the number on the card.”
Reid emerged into the hallway to find Maliea halfway to the other end. She’d set Nani on her feet and held her hand. When Nani saw Reid emerge from her Papa’s apartment, she pulled her hand free of her mother’s and ran toward him.
Reid met her halfway to keep her from getting close enough to the door to see inside her grandfather’s apartment. He didn’t want her to be upset by the mess inside. Reid swung her up into his arms and kept walking toward Maliea. “Ready?” he asked.
Maliea pressed her lips tightly together. She turned, led the way back to the parking lot, and waited while Reid tucked Nani into the backseat and buckled her belt. After he closed the door, he met her gaze.
“If the offer is still open,” she said softly, “we’d like to stay at your cabin tonight.”
He nodded. “The offer is open. You’re more than welcome.” He opened her car door for her and waited for her to slide into the passenger seat. Once she settled, he closed her door, rounded the front of the SUV and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Are we camping in your cabin?” Nani asked from the backseat, clapping her hands excitedly. “I’ve never been camping.”
“You’ve never been camping?” Reid asked. “Sleeping in a cabin is not exactly camping, but one of these days, I’ll take you on a real camping trip. With a tent and a campfire.”
“Yay!” Nani called out. “We’re going camping.”
Maliea shook her head. “For tonight, we could pretend we’re camping by putting up a sheet like a tent. We can eat popcorn and tell stories.”
Nani’s eyes widened. “That’ll be so much fun!” she exclaimed. Then she asked, “Can Mr. Reid sleep in our tent?”
Maliea’s cheeks turned a soft shade of pink. “If he wants to.”
“Do you want to?” Nani asked, her gaze meeting his in the mirror.
“Sounds great,” Reid said. Again, he thought about everything he’d wanted to do with his daughter Abby and might never get to. He had her for such short bursts of time. Nani would love Abby, and Abby would love Nani. Maybe someday the two could meet and play together.
Who was he kidding? Once Reid neutralized the danger, Maliea wouldn’t need him anymore. He’d move on to his next client, and she’d forget all about him, as would Nani. It’s not like they’d set up play dates for the girls. Although, the idea had merit. Now that he’d settled in Hawaii, he could have his daughter for at least two weeks during the summertime. It would be nice if she had a friend to play with.
He pushed thoughts of the future aside and focused on the present .
To keep her excited daughter occupied, Maliea dug into her purse and pulled out what looked like a kludged-together, homemade book. She handed it back to Nani in the backseat. “Here, read Papa’s stories or at least look at the pictures.”
Maliea straightened in her seat and stared out the front windshield. “I just don’t know what’s happening,” she whispered.
“I don’t know what your father had of value in his apartment. But it appeared as if they were looking for something in particular.”
“Just like in mine,” Maliea said softly.
“The empty bookshelves in the front entry and the living room struck me. They stripped your father’s desk entirely.”
Maliea turned toward him, her brow dipping. “My father had a lot of books, especially books about Hawaii. And his desk was always stacked with papers. Some of those papers could have been student dissertations or test papers he might have been grading. He wasn’t the neatest man, but he had his way of organizing things. He had dozens of books and journals on the shelves.”
“When was the last time you saw those papers and books?”
“Nani and I visited my father the day before his trip to the island.” She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. After a moment, she continued. “His shelves were just as I remembered them. Every other time I visited, the shelves were full of books, journals, and notebooks. And his desk was stacked with papers. I can’t imagine he cleared any of that before he left for that trip.”
“Well, it was all gone,” Reid stated.
“Why would they take all his books and papers?” Maliea asked.
Reid struggled to answer her question, but he had an idea. “When you were talking to Andrea at your father’s office, she said your father kept a journal with all his notes from his interviews with Islanders about the Redbeard Treasure.”
Maliea nodded. “Andrea said my father had his journal with him when he left. They found my father and Taylor but, as far as anyone knows, the journal is at the bottom of the ocean. My father didn’t go anywhere without that journal.”
“You know your father, and if he had it with him, you’re right. It’s probably at the bottom of the ocean.”
“When I spoke with the Teacher’s Assistant, Heather,” Maliea said, “she mentioned that she worked with my father and Taylor, taking notes in their meetings. She also said that my father didn’t share much about his research on the Redbeard Treasure.”
“Would your father put that information on his computer at work?”
Maliea shook her head. “No. He kept his research on the Redbeard Treasure strictly on his time and the interviews and notes in his personal life. He would not use university time or equipment chasing down what most people considered only a legend, a piece of fiction found in a California newspaper.”
“I think someone is hoping that your father made notes elsewhere. They took books and every piece of paper out of his office in case he stashed something away that could give them the clues they need. Maybe they hope to find his notes on the research he’d done so that they could go after the lost treasure of Red Beard.”
“But who would know he’d been researching the treasure?” Maliea asked.
“His secretary, the Teacher’s Assistant, people he interviewed on the various islands,” Reid suggested.
Maliea frowned. “He’s been searching for years. Ever since my mother died. I thought it was good for him to have something to occupy his mind. The research eased his grief. It gave him something else to think about—but he still made time for me and Nani.
“They trashed my apartment, my car and my father’s place. Why haven’t they trashed his office? Or Taylor’s, for that matter?”
“I noticed the university hallways have video surveillance,” Reid said. “That could’ve kept them from so blatantly tossing those locations.”
“Surely, by now, they’ve realized I don’t have my father’s notes. Hopefully, they’ll leave us alone.”
Reid wasn’t so sure. They had been pretty ruthless with the contents of both apartments, and they’d tried to drag Maliea under a car. To do what? Reid’s mind went through several scenarios, and he liked none of them. “We don’t know if they’ll leave you alone. In the meantime, you can stay with me until we have a better handle on who is behind this and why.”
He headed for the other side of Oahu, to the little cabin he’d rented for the duration of the Kualoa Ranch assignment, going over every detail he’d learned that day and coming up with no answers.
One thing was clear—he couldn’t leave Maliea and Nani to their own devices. These people were dead set on finding whatever it was they were looking for and might not stop at stabbing sofa cushions.