Right from the Gecko Read online

  Governor Wickham, I surmised. The guy with the most expensive-looking suit and the best haircut.

  And a very clever haircut at that, I realized. His hair reminded me of Nick’s, the way it kept falling across his forehead, giving him an energetic, almost boyish look that was an interesting contrast to its silvery-white color. In fact, his locks gleamed almost as brightly as the two rows of straight, even teeth he never stopped flashing.

  A man as comfortable in the public eye as J-Lo, I thought wryly.

  “…Which no-bo-dy can de-ny!”

  At the end of the song, the crowd burst into loud cheering.

  “Thank you so much for your support,” the governor boomed, leaning forward to make sure the microphone carried his voice throughout the room. “I’m extremely pleased to announce the arrival of an innovative new biotech firm on the island. FloraTech has performed conclusive research about the hibiscus plant’s curative powers—powers that no one else has ever tapped. Their plan is to grow them on the island in massive quantities for medicinal purposes, providing not only a boon to the island’s agricultural sector but also to its industrial economy. This marks a major, positive step for the people of this island. Here’s to a bigger and brighter future for our beloved state of Hawaii!”

  His final words elicited bursts of loud cheering and applause. Waving and smiling, Governor Wickham stepped off the stage and into the crowd. He was flanked by two men in suits that looked almost as expensive as his. I assumed they were aides, although given the almost manic vigilance with which the tall one with the dark-red hair scanned the room, he could have doubled as a bodyguard.

  As the three men made their way through the ballroom toward the exit, people moved aside to clear an irregular path. So I was startled when a small group suddenly stepped forward a few yards in front of where I stood.

  The press, I realized, recognizing a few of them as the notebook-bearing crowd I’d noticed earlier. The group also included photographers, some of them snapping pictures while others balanced huge video cameras on their shoulders. As the governor drew close, they swarmed around him.

  “Governor Wickham,” one of the reporters called out. “Nan Higginson from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Have you made a decision yet about whether you’ll run for reelection in November?”

  Flashing those perfect teeth that were an orthodontist’s dream, he answered, “Let’s just say it’s not out of the question.”

  The entire room trembled from the whistles and cheers that followed.

  “Governor, what will your platform be if you decide to run?” a woman clutching a KITV microphone asked.

  The tall, silver-haired politician frowned as if he were giving her question careful consideration. And then, his eyes shining merrily, he replied, “That I’ll continue doing the same good work for the people of Hawaii that I’ve been doing all along!”

  This guy must spend hours practicing in front of a mirror, I thought, shaking my head.

  I’d suddenly had enough of politics. Shopping for aloha shirts was beginning to sound much more appealing. In fact, I’d just turned away from the action, intending to slink out of the ballroom to find Nick, when I noticed a tiny young woman with large blue eyes and short, spiky light-brown hair that gave her a pixieish look. She was dressed in a dark blue miniskirt and a white T-shirt, with a distinctive string of multi-colored beads around her neck. An oversize black canvas tote bag that looked heavy enough to contain a bowling ball was slung over one shoulder.

  I would have thought she was a teenager who’d wandered into the wrong part of the hotel if it hadn’t been for the small tape recorder in her hand. I watched her make her way toward the governor with a fierce determination that reminded me of my terrier, Max. Especially when she planted herself directly in front of him.

  “Governor Wickham, Marnie Burton, Maui Dispatch. Do you feel the arrival of a big biotech firm on an island that most people consider paradise could be seen as a major step in the wrong direction?”

  I noticed that the governor’s smile faltered for the first time since I’d entered the room. But only for a moment. He turned away, suddenly absorbed in waving to the people behind him.

  As he and his entourage strode by, the aide on his left, the one with the red hair, passed right in front of the reporter who’d asked the troublesome question. As he did, I noticed a sudden movement. Before I had a chance to figure out what was happening, I saw the reporter lose her balance. The tape recorder flew out of her hand. She let out a startled shriek as she fell backward toward a huge potted plant.

  “Oh, no!” I cried as I watched the back of her head hit the sharp edge of the metal pot. The necklace she was wearing broke from the impact, sending dozens of beads flying into the air like fireworks.

  A few people gasped, but I was the only one who rushed over to help. “Are you all right?” I demanded.

  She let out a moan. “Ooh! My head!” As she started to stand, she muttered, “That jerk!”

  “Don’t move,” I instructed. “I’ll get security.”

  “Jeez, no! Don’t do that!”

  “Then maybe I can help. Here, let me take a look.” Gently, I moved the young woman’s hand away from her head. She flinched as I touched an area that was quickly swelling to the size of a small snowball.

  “You’ve got yourself quite a bump,” I informed her.

  I glanced around, still expecting someone else to come forward to help. No one did. In fact, the rest of the crowd was already streaming toward the double doors and out of the ballroom.

  “You’ve got to get some ice on that.”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine. Really. I should follow him—” As she tried to stand up, she swayed uncertainly.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied, grabbing her under the arms. “You might have a concussion. I’ll find someone to take you to the hospital.”

  “No way! I’ll get stuck in the emergency room for hours, and I’ve got to write my article. It’s not every day I get a chance to do a big story like this.”

  “In that case, why don’t you come up to my room so we can put some ice on that bump? At least you can lie down for a few minutes.”

  “That’s really nice of you,” Marnie replied, grabbing her black bag and stuffing her tape recorder into it. “I guess I probably should. But just for, like, five minutes.”

  As we crossed the lobby, I spotted Nick in the gift shop. After sitting Marnie down on one of the bamboo couches, I scurried over. Not only did he have three Hawaiian shirts draped across his arm, their tags fluttering like butterflies, but he’d moved on to the display of macadamia nuts.

  “Cinnamon macadamia nuts,” he greeted me. “Does that sound like something we could get addicted to?”

  “Definitely,” I replied. “But right now I’ve got a bit of a disaster to deal with. A reporter I just met—her name is Marnie Burton—tripped and got bonked on the head. I’m going to bring her up to our room and get her some ice.”

  “Whoa. Anything I can do?”

  “Thanks, but I think I can handle it.”

  “In that case, I’ll be up soon.”

  Ten minutes later, Marnie Burton was stretched across the king-size bed in my hotel room with her shoes off and a plastic bag of ice resting on the back of her head. I was about to suggest the hospital one more time when she mumbled, “I’ve got to get out of here. Mr. C is counting on me.”

  “Mr. C?”

  “Mr. Carrera, my editor. He really needs me to get this story in by tonight. Our staff is pretty lean, so it’s not as if there’s anybody else who could fill in for me.” Sounding apologetic, she added, “The Maui Dispatch is kind of a small newspaper. Number two to the Maui News.”

  “Sounds like a great place to learn the business, though,” I offered encouragingly.

  From the grateful look on Marnie’s face, I realized I’d said just the right thing. “That’s exactly what I thought!” Readjusting the ice pack, she said, “You’re being so kind. Who are you,
anyway, my guardian angel?”

  “Sorry. Guess I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Jessica Popper. I’m here for the veterinary conference.”

  “The AVMA, right? I noticed the sign in the lobby.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “So you’re a vet? Cool.”

  “I like it.” In fact, I loved it. But I didn’t take the time to go into details, since Marnie and I were still in a fact-finding mode.

  “Do you have, like, a million pets?” she asked.

  I laughed. “It sure feels like it sometimes. But actually, I only have two dogs, two cats, a blue and gold macaw, and a chameleon. At least, at the moment.”

  “That’s great. Personally, I’ve always been a cat person.” She suddenly laughed self-consciously. “Here I am, telling you my life story, practically, and I realize I haven’t even told you my name. I’m Marnie Burton from the Maui Dispatch—” She stopped herself. “Sorry. Habit. That’s what happens when you’re working your butt off, trying to live out your lifelong dream of becoming a reporter. Although at the moment, I’m wondering if I should have followed my mother’s advice and stayed in Ellensburg, Washington, and become a nursery-school teacher instead. Especially since I never planned on someplace as far away and exotic as Hawaii. But when I found the job on Monster dot-com, I figured what the heck.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Two years.”

  “And how do your parents back in Ellensburg, Washington, feel about that?”

  She made a face. “Not exactly supportive. In fact, they haven’t talked to me since I left. Not even a birthday card. They’re, like, totally the opposite of me. They’ve never been anywhere, and they have no interest in going anywhere. I guess they figure they can change my mind by freezing me out. Heck, I bet they don’t even know my address. I keep writing to them, sending them long letters about how well I’m doing, but for all I know, they just throw them out without even opening them.”

  “You must feel awful about that.”

  She shrugged. “I’m still hoping they’ll come around once they find out what a success I’ve become.” Grinning, she added, “That is, once I actually manage to become a success. In the meantime, at least I’ve got my boyfriend, Ace, to keep me from getting too lonely.”

  “Ace? Are you serious?” I hadn’t meant to sound stuffy, but somehow the words just popped out that way.

  Fortunately, she laughed. “I get the same reaction from everybody. It’s not as if he’s some card shark or something. Actually, he has his own business. Bodywork. He’s really good at it. The best on Maui, in fact. And his real name is Ashton—Ashton Atwood. But when that actor got so famous, he couldn’t stand being teased anymore, so he started telling people his name was Ace. Of course, it turns out he gets teased just as much.”

  An expression of alarm suddenly crossed her face. “What time is it?”

  I glanced at my watch. “Almost six.”

  “Oh, no! Ace is gonna kill me!” Quickly she added, “Not that he’s not absolutely crazy about me, but he’s got a bit of a temper. I’m supposed to meet him for dinner tonight, and he goes ballistic if I’m even, like, five minutes late.”

  I raised my eyebrows but kept my opinions to myself.

  “I’ve got to rush home to shower and change,” she went on. “Ace picked a really romantic restaurant, this quiet, out-of-the-way place in Kula he really likes. We go there all the time. He said he has something important to talk to me about tonight.” She grinned impishly. “I think I can guess what it might be.”

  If this boyfriend of yours pops the question, I thought, I hope you handle it a lot better than I did.

  She stood up, then grimaced and sat down again, as if she’d been hit with an unexpected jolt of pain. She reached up and gingerly touched the back of her head. “Ugh, my head feels like a volcano that’s about to erupt.”

  “Can I get you anything?” I asked anxiously.

  “I’ve got some Advil in my bag—if you don’t mind looking through all my stuff to find it. It’s in a little cosmetics bag with flowers on it.”

  I looked at her black canvas tote bag and grimaced. It was so big that finding anything in there was guaranteed to be a challenge. But I rummaged around until I found the small flowered bag, hidden beneath her tape recorder, cell phone, pens, makeup, notebooks, manila file folders, Band-Aids, and chewing-gum wrappers.

  “Thanks.” Dutifully, she downed the two Advil I retrieved for her, gulping down the entire glass of water. “Boy, I can’t believe that idiot John Irwin actually decked me. Jeez, what a creep! You’d think a governor’s aide would be a little more civilized!”

  “I’m sure it was an accident,” I assured her.

  Marnie’s blue eyes widened. “I’m not.”

  I tried to hide my confusion. “Surely you don’t think someone from the governor’s office would do something like that on purpose!”

  “Are you kidding? One of the first lessons I learned in the newspaper business is that things are rarely what they seem,” she insisted. “Especially in Hawaii.”

  As if she’d suddenly remembered something, she raised her hand to her throat. “Oh, great.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My favorite necklace. It’s gone!”

  “I saw it break when you fell. Beads went flying everywhere.”

  “They weren’t beads. The necklace was made of little shells, dyed these really cool colors. A native woman who lives out in the middle of nowhere makes them. They sell them in Lahaina in a shop that specializes in crafts made by local artists. That necklace was one of the first things I bought myself when I got here. Darn!”

  “I noticed you wearing it,” I commented, sharing her regret. “It was really pretty.”

  “It matched these earrings—see?” She pointed at the cluster of tiny shells, dyed pastel colors, bobbing below her earlobes. “Oh, well. Maybe I can get her to make me another one. Whenever I get the money, that is.”

  She began rummaging through her big black bag, pulling out one thing after another before finally retrieving her tape recorder. It wasn’t much larger than the palm of her hand. “I hope this stupid thing fared better,” she muttered, grimacing. “I’ve been having enough trouble with it lately, even before I dropped it. I finally figured out I have to check it each time to make sure it’s behaving.”

  She flicked a button and the sound of her own voice emerged from the tiny machine. “…feel the arrival of a big biotech firm on an island that most people consider paradise could be seen as a major step in the wrong direction?”

  She clicked it off and stuck it back in her bag, muttering, “I got the question on tape. Too bad I didn’t get an answer. But at least this stupid thing is working. I’m supposed to meet with my secret source later on tonight.”

  “Secret source?” I repeated, not sure if she was serious.

  Apparently she was. “Cool, huh?” she replied, grinning. “It turns out that’s something reporters really do. Just like in the movies!

  “Anyhow,” she said as she stood, smoothing her skirt and running her fingers through her short, spiky hair, “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  I had to admit, she looked a lot better than she had twenty minutes earlier.

  “I owe you,” Marnie said. “If there’s anything I can do for you while you’re here…”

  “I think I’m set, but you should try to take it easy for a few hours.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I could take you on a tour later this week,” she offered. “You know, give you an insider’s look at Maui that most tourists don’t get to see.”

  “That sounds great,” I told her sincerely. “Let me talk to my boyfriend, Nick. Between the conference and what’s supposed to be a romantic vacation for the two of us, we’ve got a lot of activities to squeeze in over the next few days. But it would be fun if we could work something out.”

  “Here’s my card,” she said, reaching into her purse. “It’s got all my phone n
umbers on it.”

  The business card she handed me read, Marnie Burton, Reporter, Maui Dispatch, followed by the newspaper’s Kaohu Street address, phone number, and, in the lower left corner, her cell phone number. I stuck it into my pocket, then gave her one of mine.

  “Thanks.” As she dropped my card into her giant tote bag, she caught sight of her watch and cried, “Now I’ve really got to get out of here. ’Bye, Jessica. Thanks for everything. It was great meeting you. And I can’t wait to show you around Maui!”

  The room seemed strangely silent after she left. I realized that Marnie Burton was one of those people who was always surrounded by a whirlwind of energy. Just talking to her was exhausting.

  Still, Nick’s arrival five minutes later, his eyes glowing in a way that can only come from a shopping victory, immediately reenergized me. That, and the colors in his flashy aloha shirt.

  “Is this shirt cool or what?” he asked, holding out his arms to model it for me.

  “Way cool. The other law students will love it.”

  Wearing a satisfied smile, he flopped down on the bed, his arms folded beneath his head. “Right now, law school feels very far away. I’m much more interested in the wahine standing in front of me. That would be you.”

  “Wahine, huh?” I countered. “Have I just been insulted?”

  “It’s the Hawaiian word for woman.”

  “In that case, I’m guilty as charged. Come here. You’re too far away, you…you…What’s the Hawaiian word for man?”

  “Kane.”

  As I sat down on the bed next to him, he rolled away to make room. And promptly let out a yelp.

  “Ouch! Hey, what’s this?” Nick asked. From underneath his khaki-covered butt, he pulled out a brown mailing envelope. The initials MB were handwritten in pencil on the front.

  “Oh, no. That’s probably Marnie’s,” I said. “She must have left it here by accident. It probably fell out of her giant tote bag, either while she was going through it or when I was scrounging around for Advil.”