Chapter 16
As soon as we got back from our shave ice adventure with the Spice Girls, I sent an entire series of spastic texts to Koa that can only be described as manic detective energy meets sugar rush meets please-validate-my-theories.
He let me know he was swamped, but we’d talk soon.
That was yesterday.
It’s the next afternoon, and Koa swoops into the resort like a knight in shining armor. Or a knight in shining board shorts, as it were.
“All right, ladies—adventure time,” he declares as those don’t-make-me-arrest-you brown eyes gleam with a level of mischief that usually precedes either amazing memories or misdemeanor charges.
“I’m in,” Ruby says immediately, abandoning the cinnamon roll she was about to devour.
Cinnamon rolls have clearly lost their long-standing battle for Ruby’s attention next to anything resembling adventure—or at least when it comes to having an adventure with a hot detective.
“Do I get a choice?” Lani asks.
“No,” he tells her.
“Then I’m also in.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re piled into Koa’s truck and pulling up to a roadside plate lunch stand that smells like heaven marinated in teriyaki and deep-fried in coconut oil.
We let Koa order for all of us—Kalua pig with cabbage, mac salad that’s ninety percent mayonnaise and ten percent regret, and rice so sticky it could double as industrial adhesive.
We demolish our food sitting on a picnic bench under a monkeypod tree while chickens patrol the perimeter hoping for a plate lunch of their own.
“So, where are we going?” I ask through a mouthful of pork.
“Somewhere you can’t get murdered,” Koa says. “Well, probably. The statistics are in your favor.”
“That’s comforting.”
He nods. “I thought so.”
“But can she do the murdering?” Lani asks, and if I’m not mistaken, I hear a touch of panic in her voice. I shoot her a look because of it, too.
Koa ticks his head to the side. “Actually, yes.”
And all three of us groan in response. Obviously for different reasons.
Koa drives us to the Hanalei River, where a small rental shack sits surrounded by bright orange kayaks that look like they’ve seen better decades.
The owner, a local guy with sun-bleached dreadlocks and the easy calm of a man who’s made peace with the universe, hands us life jackets and minimal instructions.
“Don’t tip over,” he says. “If you tip over, swim to shore. If you see a waterfall, you’ve gone too far.”
That instruction is either a joke or a genuine warning. I genuinely can’t tell which—which is its own kind of warning.
“Excellent safety briefing,” Ruby mutters, strapping on her life jacket. “Very thorough.”
We load into two kayaks, Koa and me in one, Ruby and Lani in the other, and push off from the muddy bank into water that’s the color of tea steeped in jungle and mystery.
The Hanalei River is nothing like the ocean.
It’s calm, quiet, and happy minding its own business.
The water moves slowly, winding through the valley in lazy curves that feel ancient and unhurried.
On either side, the jungle presses in close.
Massive ferns unfurling like green hands reaching for the sky, trees draped in vines that hang down like party streamers, and flowers I can’t name blooming in colors that seem too vibrant to be real.
Birds call from the canopy, and the air smells like damp earth and something floral. The sun filters through the leaves in shades of gold as dragonflies zip across the water’s surface like tiny helicopters on urgent missions.
“This is gorgeous,” I breathe.
“Wait until we get further up,” Koa says, paddling with the ease of a man who’s done this a thousand times. And, have I mentioned, he’s got some serious biceps?
We fall into a rhythm. Paddle, glide, paddle, glide.
Ruby and Lani are behind us, bickering good-naturedly about who’s steering and who’s just pretending to paddle.
“I’m doing all the work!” Lani shouts.
“I’m providing moral support!” Ruby counters. “That’s equally important!”
I happen to agree with her since I’m more or less doing the same.
We pass a family in matching yellow kayaks who wave enthusiastically, and we wave back like we’re all part of some secret river society united by life jackets and a deeply misplaced faith in our own coordination.
The further we paddle, the more the landscape transforms. The jungle thickens as it becomes wilder, and suddenly there are cattle grazing on the hillsides. Actual cows just hanging out next to a tropical river as if they’re posing for a calendar titled Farm Animals in Unlikely Places.
“Cow!” I shout at the top of my lungs while pointing.
“We see the cow,” Koa says, amused.
“But it’s a COW! In HAWAII!”
“They’re everywhere here,” he’s quick to point out.
“That doesn’t make it any less amazing!”
“Cow!” Ruby sings while standing up in her kayak to take a picture.
“Ruby, don’t—” Lani starts.
Too late.
The kayak wobbles. Ruby’s arms do the windmill—and, well, physics wins again.
Ruby topples into the water with a splash that sends ripples across the entire river and startles a plump heron into flight.
“Ruby!” I yell, laughing so hard I’m crying.
Koa maneuvers our kayak over to where Ruby is floundering. Her life jacket is keeping her afloat, but her muumuu has inflated around her like a tropical parachute.
He reaches out to grab her arm, and the shift in weight tips our kayak.
It takes less than two seconds for me to go over the side.
The water is warm and murky and tastes like I just licked a rainforest. I come up sputtering with my hair plastered to my face, only to find Koa treading water next to me looking simultaneously concerned and trying not to laugh.
“Are you okay?” he calls out.
“I’m wet!” I shout back.
“Thanks for the update.”
Lani waves at the three of us from the safety of her kayak and laughs. “Oh my word, the three of you are all—”
And then she launches herself over the side with a whoop of pure joy before she ever finishes her sentence.
“I didn’t want to be left out of the fun!” she shouts as she surfaces with her wooden spoon in hand. That thing really never leaves her side.
Koa helps Ruby back into her kayak first. She flops over the side like a very determined seal, her muumuu making obscene squelching noises, water pouring out of her pockets.
“Now that’s what I call graceful,” Lani teases.
“That’s what I call effective,” Ruby counters.
I’m next. Koa braces the kayak while I attempt to haul myself up, which is significantly harder than it looks when you’re wearing wet clothes that have tripled in weight.
Or maybe I’ve tripled in weight since arriving in Hawaii?
I do have a penchant to gobble up at least two scoops of ice cream, three cinnamon rolls, and about half a dozen malasadas a day. That wouldn’t have anything to do with it, would it?
I manage to get one leg over, then the other, and collapse into the kayak with all the elegance of a drunk octopus. My shorts make a noise that can only be described as an obscene wet-fabric-symphony. Okay, fine, there might have been a bodily function or two thrown in for good measure.
“That was dignified,” Ruby says.
“That was the goal,” I counter. I never said I achieved it.
Lani is last, and she somehow manages to make it look almost easy, though her muumuu is now clinging to her in ways that make her look like a very stylish swamp creature.
Once we’re all settled, wet, laughing, and smelling like river water, Koa ties both kayaks together with his paddle, creating a makeshift raft situation.
“All right,” he says, his detective voice kicking in. “Spill. I want to know everything you learned yesterday.”
We exchange glances.
“Where do we start?” I ask.
“Start with who looks the most guilty,” Koa suggests.
“Doreen,” Ruby says immediately. “She wanted Debbie Lee dead. She even said it out loud.”
“Maybe so, but Cozy knew Gary was sleeping with Debbie Lee,” I add. “And she was about to be exposed for that wellness retreat scandal.”
“Bubbles used her husband’s mayoral influence illegally,” Lani contributes. “And someone got food poisoning because of skipped inspections.”
Koa frowns. “So all three wives had motive.”
“A massive motive,” I confirm.
We float there for a moment, tied together in our bright orange kayaks, soaking wet and sunburned and probably about to get eaten by mosquitoes—and for the first time since this all started, I feel like the pieces on the table are at least starting to look like a puzzle, even if I haven’t found the corners yet.
“So what’s our next move?” Lani asks.
“We need proof,” Koa says. “Theories are great, but proof is better.”
“Theories are also free,” I add. “Proof costs me sleep.”
“Maybe so,” Koa says, “but we need to figure out how someone got peanut butter into that specific slice of banana bread without anyone noticing.”
“And why Lani’s wooden spoon tested positive for it,” I add.
Lani frowns. “I still don’t understand that. I never use peanut butter at the resort. Like I said, we don’t even stock it because of allergy concerns.”
“Someone planted it,” Ruby says. “It had to be. Someone wanted you to look guilty.”
“But who?” Lani squawks. “And why?”
A bird calls from the jungle, something exotic and loud that sounds like it’s announcing breaking news to the entire valley.
“You know what I just realized?” I say slowly. “We’ve been so focused on who wanted Debbie Lee dead that we haven’t asked the more important question.”
“Which is?” Koa prompts.
“Who was smart enough to make it look like an accident? Who had the medical knowledge to know the exact right amount of peanut butter to use? Who could poison one specific slice in the middle of a crowd without anyone noticing?”
The answer is sitting in my brain, just out of reach, like a word on the tip of your tongue that refuses to show up before three in the morning.
Somewhere between the cows, the capsizing, and the river dragging us back to solid ground, I realized something: figuring out which of three likeable women is capable of murder might be the hardest—and most dangerous—investigation I’ve ever stumbled into.
Because likeable killers don’t leave fingerprints.
They leave banana bread, a smile, and a recipe card.