Birds in Paradise Read online

  “Mr. Fu was interviewing new prostitutes, looking for a mother for his future child,” I said, thinking aloud. “One of those women has gone missing. But not all of them. So that’s not the common thread. The girls were all new to the street, though.”

  Brandi nodded.

  “The women are getting stress from all sides. New imported Asian girls are flooding the indoor establishments. The police are harassing the girls working the streets, especially Blakely.” Blakely with the thousand dollar shoes. “I should have asked Pete if he gave Blakely those shoes.”

  “What shoes?” Brandi asked.

  “Nothing. I’m sure it’s not related. Mr. Fu has to be wrong about that.”

  “Mr. Fu is never wrong,” Brandi said, echoing the same thought I’d already had. “He might not leave that house of his, but he knows what’s going on in this city more than anyone else.”

  “Perhaps not anymore. He looked bad, Brandi.”

  Brandi shrugged and then tapped her carton of cigarettes on the bench. “Hell, I’m down to my last one. I get these from an importer who used to be one of my regular customers. We’re friends now, and he still supplies me with the best handmade cigarettes out of Vietnam. But because I’m no longer giving out, he’s no longer saving cartons for me. So he runs out. He won’t make another import run until he’s filled his boat with goods that he exports to Vietnam.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, annoyed that she was interrupting my train of thought.

  “It means I’m out of good cigarettes after I smoke this one.”

  “You should give it up. It’s an unhealthy habit, anyhow,” I scolded.

  “What? Are you preaching to me now?” She chuckled.

  What a strange world I lived in. Brandi was worried about imported cigarettes from Asia while the other girls were fighting mad about the new imported prostitutes coming in from Asia.

  “What does he export?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know. I’m sure whatever he’s doing, it’s not legal. I’ve been telling him that he needs to change his ways. But if he did, he’d have to stop bringing me my cigs.”

  “I wonder,” I said tapping my finger against the wooden slat on the bench as some of the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. “What if you’re right, Brandi? What if Mr. Fu is never wrong?”

  I told her what I was thinking, expecting her to laugh and call me crazy.

  Her eyes grew wide with concern, not laughter. She reached over the table and gave my arm a gentle squeeze. “I think I might be able to help you out.”

  IT WAS DARK in the narrow alleyway a few blocks away from where the cruise ships dock and in the thick of an area crowded with newly opened massage parlors and escort services. Only the stars and the glow of the city lit my path. I should have brought a flashlight. I’m not sure I owned one, though. Most places in the city are nearly as bright at night as they are during daylight hours. But this place, with its illicit businesses, embraced the darkness.

  “Brandi?” I called out in a hoarse whisper. “Are you there?”

  No one answered.

  She’d told me to meet her at eleven. And to come alone. Since I always worked alone, I didn’t think twice about agreeing to her terms. But that had been in the light of day. With the soothing sound of the ocean and a full stomach lulling me into trusting her. Standing in the dark in an alleyway that ended with a deeply shadowed brick wall, I was beginning to question whether I’d made a mistake.

  I heard a scratching from a doorway. The hair on my neck stood up as I whirled on my heel in the direction of the sound. “Brandi?” I called again, louder this time.

  Still, nothing.

  A church bell rang softly in the distance. It was eleven. And there was no sign that Brandi was going to show up. I should have gotten more information from her before agreeing to meet her. I didn’t even know how she thought she could help me.

  She’d asked me to dress appropriately—like a hooker. She’d been specific. Short skirt. Tight shirt. High heels. No underwear.

  I’d balked at that last request. It wasn’t as if I was going to let anyone take a peek at what I had on under my clothes.

  Like the other night, I’d applied a generous amount of makeup and had pulled my hair up into a ponytail. Now all I needed was to find out what Brandi had planned for the night.

  I was beginning to suspect that she knew more about the kidnappings than she’d been letting on. After all, she was on the streets night after night from dusk until dawn, preaching the gospel. She had to have seen something suspicious.

  As I stood in the darkened alleyway, I went over every word she and the other women had said to me. She’d acted so innocent, so above what had been happening. But there had to be something else going on, something...

  And then it hit me. This neighborhood with its indoor sex trade and everyone I’d talked to so far—I suddenly knew who I needed to be questioning. I needed to confront the one man who had been arresting anyone who could possibly implicate him. I raced toward the mouth of the alleyway, my heels clomping loudly on the pavement, when an immovable arm closed around my chest. My heart jumped up into my throat.

  I fought my attacker like a wildcat, but the hands on my body only tightened. When I tried to scream for help, the man holding me slammed his hand across my mouth.

  “Shhh,” he hissed in my ear. And grabbed both my arms and whirled me around so I could stare into his cold eyes.

  “Pete,” I said and whooshed out a breath. “Thank god. I thought you were the kidnapper.”

  “PETE?” HE DRAGGED ME out of the alleyway and pushed me against the wall of a surf shop. The shop’s yellowy security light blared down on his face. His gaze, hard and dark as volcanic rock, burned into my skin.

  “Pete?” I said again, not sure what to make of his odd behavior. He pulled my arms above my head while his free hand traveled over my hip and fingered the edge of my short skirt. “What—what are you doing?”

  “Brandi told me I’d find you out here risking your neck again.” His voice was low, husky. The sound of it caressing against my cheek reminded me of that night we’d spent in my hotel room and woke up parts of my body that I didn’t need to be worrying about right now.

  “B-Brandi?” I muttered. Why would Brandi tell Pete about—?

  That conniving romantic. That had been her plan. She set me up, dressing me inappropriately and putting me in a dangerous part of town in the middle of the night. She knew Pete would come running.

  “Do you know how many people have been murdered in this neighborhood?” he asked as he pressed his body against mine. “How many brushes with death will it take for you to learn to think before you act?”

  “B-but—but—”

  His lips were on mine. It was more than a kiss. The way his mouth moved against my lips spoke of promises I hadn’t dared let myself dream. And his tongue, so gentle, parted my lips and pulled me deeper into his world. I was his for the taking. He released my arms and, with a tenderness that brought tears to my eyes, caressed my cheeks with both his hands.

  “Kyra,” he groaned, “you’re going to be the death of me.”

  I nodded and sought his lips. All I wanted in the world were his caresses and kisses. Everything else could wait.

  “Oh Pete...” I sighed, clasping my hands behind his neck.

  But he pried my fingers apart and lowered my hands to my sides. When I opened my eyes I saw that he was shaking his head.

  “Kyra,” he said his tone growing hard again, “we can’t do this.”

  My knees buckled when he pulled out his gun. I would have slid down the wall if not for the weight of his body holding me up. He rested the barrel of his pistol above me head.

  “I wish you hadn’t insisted on poking around where you didn’t belong. I tried to keep you out of this, Kyra. I tried so damned hard to keep you safe.”

  Chapter 8

  “YOU?” HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO WRONG? How cou
ld Pete—?

  No, I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. Pete was one of the good guys. He wouldn’t cross that line. He was better than that. And so different from...

  “Blakely,” I said as Pete’s former partner rushed out of the shadows and came to an abrupt stop.

  “I know,” Pete said, his grim voice not giving away anything. “He’s been following you.”

  “You’ve been following me?” Did Blakely hope I would find the missing women for him...or was he afraid that I’d been getting too close to finding out that he was the reason the women had gone missing in the first place?

  Pete hadn’t moved. And he was vulnerable like that, with his back to Blakely.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Blakely said, he sounded out of breath. “Pete has had me running around all afternoon, like I was his errand boy or something. I wouldn’t have had time to follow you even if I’d wanted to. I did find something though.”

  Pete turned around, slowly, while keeping me firmly wedged between him and the wall.

  “Didn’t you see him?” Blakely asked as he put his hands on his knees. “He had to have run this way.”

  “Who?” I asked when Pete remained suspiciously silent. I wished like hell I could see his expression.

  “The kidnapper…murderer…whatever the hell that bastard is doing to those missing women, he came this way.”

  “Pete is the only one who…”

  No, it couldn’t be true. And I was smart enough not to take Blakely’s word for anything.

  “If you were chasing him, he must have doubled back,” Pete said.

  Blakely nodded as if unsure. He remained several yards away from us, and his shifty gaze hadn’t yet taken a rest.

  “I can help you look for him.” Pete took a step toward Blakely. “Kyra will stay here. We can send an officer to meet her.”

  “I don’t know if we should leave her unprotect—” Blakely started to say. His hand moved closer to the gun he had holstered on his hip as Pete continued to close the gap between them.

  “Call it in.” Pete’s clipped words reminded me of rapid gunfire. “Get some backup in here.”

  “I can’t,” Blakely said, his hand even closer to his gun. I wasn’t sure why, but my heart started thudding against my chest. “No time.”

  I moved without thinking. Blakely’s gun exploded, the flash of fire blinding me, just as I slammed into Pete’s side. I let my body drop to the ground. There was no need to repeat history and take a bullet in the chest. And judging by the hole in the wall behind me, that was exactly where it would have landed if I hadn’t moved Pete’s or my own body out of the way in time.

  By the time I peeled my eyes from the wounded wall, Blakely was gone.

  Pete swore and took off running. Naturally, I followed.

  Since Blakely wasn’t nearly in the shape he used to be, we soon caught up to him. Pete brought him to the ground with an impressive flying tackle. Blakely might have been down, but he was still very dangerous as he twisted and fought Pete. His gun fired twice before I wrenched it from his grasp and managed to get one of his wrists into his own handcuffs. Pete gave me a brisk nod and then secured Blakely’s other wrist in the cuff.

  “Where are the women?” Pete demanded.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Blakely growled from where he was lying with his face pressed against the asphalt.

  “He knows,” Pete said, looking up at me. He was breathing hard and his shirt was ripped. And he was towering over the villain. It was the most romantic sight I’d ever seen.

  “How long have you known about Blakely?” I asked Pete.

  “Shortly after you stormed off,” he said. “You should have stuck around. I would have told you.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  He shrugged. “You know me too well, then.” He slammed Blakely’s head against the pavement. “Where are the women?”

  “They are still alive, aren’t they?” I cried, barely able to restrain myself from attacking Blakely myself. “Tell me you haven’t let anyone hurt them.”

  “Of course they aren’t hurt. They’d be worthless damaged.” Pete paused and then frowned. “Surely, you’ve figured it all out. You wouldn’t be in the middle of this neighborhood, otherwise.”

  “Right...” I bit my lower lip as the rest of the pieces fell into place. “Of course I suspected Blakely all along,” I lied.

  But I was beginning to understand what was happening. The Vietnamese women who had been flooding the area. And where there was importing, there was usually some exporting going on, too. Even if it was human exports. The young white women would be exotic treasures in the Orient. “But I didn’t have any proof,” I said.

  “I do,” Pete said. “I dig some digging this afternoon and found the account Kevin had opened several months ago. Money has been flowing like water into that account from several banks in Vietnam. It’s over, Kevin. You might as well talk. Make everything easier for you and cooperate. Agree to testify against the men who are paying you and tell us how to find the women.”

  “They’re in a warehouse,” he said, his voice deflated with defeat. He gave an address. “I think they said they were going to ship them to Singapore the day after tomorrow. I was supposed to get them another girl before then.”

  “How could you agree to sell those women?” I asked, appalled at the thought of anyone doing something so...so...vile.

  “Selling them? Those bitches were selling themselves. I was merely cleaning up our city and putting them with a service.”

  “You were selling them into slavery!” I shouted.

  “I was earning my due,” Blakely shouted back. “I was sick of seeing everyone else benefit from a take-what-you-can world, while I was keeping my nose clean. I decided it was time to think of myself first and get some of that money that’s out there for the taking. That’s how it is. I was simply doing what I had to in order to get ahead.” He craned his neck until his eyes met mine. “You can’t say you don’t worry about money first and everything else second.”

  My stomach clenched. He was right. I’ve lied, cheated, and stolen in order to get my hands on enough money to survive. “I might not be perfect, but I’m nothing like you,” I said, quietly. But still, I felt sick.

  Everything always seemed to be about money.

  “It’s okay,” Pete said pulling me into his arms. “After we take care of him, I’m going to take you home.”

  I NEVER DID GET TO SEE PETE’S HOUSE. It was for the best. At least, that was what I’d kept telling myself that night. Instead of spending the night in each other’s arms, celebrating our success, we spent it at police headquarters. Soon after we stepped foot into the building, Pete handed me over to a female rookie who had taken my statement while he disappeared into the chief’s office.

  Early the next morning, I heard that Blakely had confessed to everything, including poisoning me. I guess he saw firsthand how determined I was to find out what was happening to the missing women, and he got nervous. That was why he’d been so accommodating in providing me with water. And it also explained why he showed up every day to question me even though my story never changed.

  The women he had kidnapped were safely recovered, though most of the men responsible for this particular sex trade operation escaped the island before the net could close around them. At least, most of the Vietnamese girls that they had brought to Hawaii were also freed and handed over to an organization that helps young women recover from the horrors of forced servitude.

  The biggest injustice, at least in my mind, is that there was no huge round up of the men who frequented this thriving black market industry. But that is another matter that I could go on and on about.

  At least, for now, a few women were saved. And life on the islands went on, though a few things have changed.

  Sally Porter soon took over my room and my role as maid at Mamma Jo’s. Mamma Jo quickly discovered that Sally w
as much better at negotiating than I ever was. In addition to getting a room for her services, Mamma Jo is paying her a rather impressive salary. I think Sally is going to do well for herself.

  Anna and Tina, on the other hand, still had some growing up to do before they’d be in a position to make it on their own. Tina was frightened from her ordeal, but Pete had been right. She escaped captivity unharmed. She was lucky. And I told her that several times as I rode with her and her sister to the airport where I gave them both crushing hugs before watching them board the plane that would take them back to their parents. Tears had flooded my eyes as I watched the plane take off, and I was close to calling my own parents. I hadn’t spoken with them in well over a year—not since I’d been shot and Pete had called them without my knowledge.

  They hadn’t been thrilled to hear about how I’d been spending my time the last time I’d talked with them. Since nothing really had changed since then, they probably wouldn’t appreciate a call from me now. I did grab a postcard at the airport gift shop, though, one with a beautiful hula dancer with the crystal blue ocean and a rainbow in the background. I scrawled on the back how much I loved them and dropped the postcard into the mail on the way back to Mamma Jo’s.

  Sadly, Mr. Fu had been telling the truth about his failing health. He didn’t live much longer than a week after that odd meeting with him. I recently heard a rumor that three of his chosen women are pregnant with his child, and that another one is still trying. Apparently, Mr. Fu had been stockpiling sperm for years.

  Murders in the Mr. Fu hierarchy rose dramatically for a short time after his death. But that soon settled. Despite Mr. Fu’s absence, nothing seemed to change at the Fu household. The money, power, and that dangerous mystique are still there. All waiting for his heir, I suppose.

  I’m still not convinced he didn’t order my death, but since he’s no longer around to defend himself, I’ve been feeling more inclined toward forgiveness than I normally would.