4 Maui Macadamia Madness (19 page)

“I’m taking a nap,”
Aunt Eunice declared. “All this sleuthing has me worn out.”

“April?”

“How about shopping?
I’m still sunburned from yesterday.” She glanced at her perfectly tanned arm.
Sunburned, ha! With her blond hair, fifteen minutes in the sun left her a
beautiful shade of brown. Me, I tended to burn and peel.

“Shopping where?”

“Some
flea markets?”
April
grabbed her purse. “It’ll be fun. We can buy muumuus.”

Joe groaned. “If you
go out, then Ethan and I have to go. We can’t let you two go alone.”

“Good grief, Joe.”
April planted fists on her hips. “It’s just to a local flea market. I think
we’re perfectly fine, surrounded by people, if we stay together. It’s almost
time to head home and we haven’t done anything non-touristy. All of our
suspects are busy preparing for the luau.”

I stood back and
watched his face redden. Clearly, he was as surprised as I was at April’s
outburst. Usually, she sat in the background, content to be the silent
observer. I wanted to cheer.

“It’s not a good
idea.” Joe stepped forward.

April took another
step to meet him. “I need some girl time without men shadowing us.”

My face hurt from
grinning. Ethan gave me a look that said to knock it off. I mouthed, “What?”

“Where are we going
to go, Joe?” By now the two stood nose to chin. “We’re on an island.”

“I’d rather go to
the flea market than nap,” Aunt Eunice said.

“See, now there’re
three of us.” April crossed her arms.

“There were three
stooges, too.” Joe shook his head. “I can’t force you to stay.”

Hmmm. Sure he could.
Joe had every intention of following. I glanced at Ethan. Yep. We’d have
company for sure. Maybe we could ditch them.

I met April’s gaze
and knew without saying a word that she had the same idea. We could fill Aunt
Eunice in on the plan once we were in the van. I didn’t know, or care, what
vehicle the guys would drive.

“I’ll go put on some
comfortable shoes. Meet you at the van in fifteen minutes.” I planted a quick
kiss on Ethan,
then
dashed out the door and to our
cottage. A Hawaiian flea market ought to be fun. What could possibly happen at
one of those?

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Not the way I envisioned spending my honeymoon, going shopping with the
girls, but so far very little seemed like my original dream of a Hawaiian
honeymoon. Oh, well. I snatched the keys from April’s hand. “I’m driving.”

“Have you ever
driven a van?” she asked.

“No, have you?” She
shook her head.

“I have an idea.
Wait here.” Aunt Eunice hefted her purse up on her shoulder and marched for the
foyer. Minutes later she returned with a set of keys twirling on her index
finger. “Anyone fancy a ride in a baby blue convertible?”

“Yes!” I grabbed the
keys and raced to the parking lot. The
Wahine
B &
B tended to have everything a guest could desire, why not a car?
“Hurry.”
I wanted to put some space between us and the guys.
I glanced down the lot. There the scoundrels sat in a black SUV, grins on all
their faces. Ugh.

I pulled a wadded
slip of paper out of my purse and dug for a pen. “Find another piece of paper.
Aunt Eunice, I know you’ll have something in your purse.”

“Why?” She rummaged
in her shoulder bag.

“I’m going to jot
down some random items and give the list to the guys. We might as well have
some fun while they’re following us. Kind of like a scavenger hunt. Winner gets
a foot massage.”

“Excellent! Okay,
I’ve got it. What’s on the list?”

I tapped the pen
against my lip.
“A picture of all three of them in muumuus.”
If we were going to do this, we might as well be wicked. I knew they wouldn’t
turn down a challenge.
“A picture of Uncle Roy eating poi.”
He’d never eat something so foreign.

“This will be fun.”
April laughed. “On our list, it will have to be Aunt Eunice. We’ve got to keep
it fair.”

“True. What’s that
rice thing with the leaf?”

“
Musubi
.”
April spelled it.

“They have to bring
one back. We need some harder things that won’t be readily available at the
flea market.”

A knock on the side
of the car caused me to scream and drop my pen.

“Yes, Ethan?” I
fumbled around my feet.

“What’s taking you
so long?”

“Don’t sneak up on
me.” I straightened. “Since you’re going to follow us anyway, we thought we’d
make it fun. So, we’re coming up with a scavenger list.”

“Fun.
Hurry up.” He trotted back to the guys.

“A
plumeria
lei.”
Aunt Eunice leaned on the seat. “I love the smell.”

“A
snapshot of a painting in
Lahaina’s
art gallery.”
April wagged her eyebrows up and down.
“It’ll be harder for the guys to distract the sales guy in order for one of
them to take a picture.”

“Good one.” My pen
raced across the paper. “And if we say to meet back at five
o’clock,
that
gives us four hours.”

“
Here’s
a few things we’ve added.” Ethan appeared at my side again. “Let’s switch
lists.”

“What?” No. We had
to do the same list or we might not win.

“Fine.”
He leaned against the door. “We’ll combine
the two. We’ll still win.”

“You’re on. Step
away from the car.” The moment he did, I roared from the parking lot and headed
toward
Lahaina
. “What’s on the list he gave us?”

“Well, one thing is
a barracuda.”

“Just
three?”
I pressed the
pedal harder. “Does it say the barracuda has to be alive?”

“Yes to three, and
no to being alive. It doesn’t specify.”

Aunt Eunice clapped
us on the shoulders and then settled back in the back seat.
“Piece
of cake, sweetie pies.
That ninety-nine cent store in
Lahaina
had a stuffed barracuda, and I know just where we
can get a fire eater. Those boys think they can get one up on
us,
well they’ve got another thing coming. I’ll even be glad
to eat the poi, if it means beating them.”

We had this game in
the bag. One glance in the rearview mirror showed Ethan driving the SUV and
gaining ground on us. Were they going to follow and then get their items from
the same places we did? “April, pull up the GPS on your phone. We’ve got to
lose those three if we want to win.”

“Take a right
through an apartment complex, then
hang
another
immediate right, then a left. That will take you to a road that runs parallel
with this one, and hopefully, have the guys searching the complex for a while.”

“You’re a genius.” I
followed her directions. When we made it to the other side of the complex, we
stopped behind a school bus. Only on Maui would little girls in sun dresses get
off the bus carrying their shoes in their hands. Maybe someday, when Ethan and
I retired, we could buy a little place here and spend part of every year under
the Hawaiian sky.

I checked my
rearview mirror. No sign of the men, which meant we lost them. We whooped and
hollered for a minute and drove away as soon as the school bus moved.

My cell phone rang.
I had April hand it to me. “Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“On
the hunt, silly.”
I
grinned at April.

“Why did you ditch
us?”

Uh-oh.
Ethan was not happy. “It’s part of the
game.”

“It’s dangerous.
Tell me where you are, and we’ll meet up.”

“No.” I turned left
toward the ocean. “We’ll meet at five to declare the winner. I love you, and
us
three will be fine. I promise. Bye.” I hung up and
dropped the phone in my lap. “They did intend to follow us for every piece of
the game. Ethan’s a little upset with me right now.”

“It probably is
irresponsible.” April rested her arm on the frame of the car and closed her
eyes. “But Joe hasn’t let me out of his sight all week. I was going crazy.”

Hmmm. Ethan and I
both lived such busy, full lives, him with high school and football, me with
the store, that we were more than happy for large chunks of time together. With
Joe a cop and April a teacher like her brother, I would have thought they felt
the same way about time together.

I smiled,
remembering how Joe proposed at the County Fair right after April handed her
County Princess crown to her successor.
So romantic.
Then, we’d been mauled by a man in a guerilla suit a few minutes later. Oh,
good times. There were plenty of memories being made this trip, too, and not
all of them were ones I wanted to make.

“There’s the store.”
I pulled into the parking lot. “We should start with the hardest thing on the
list.”

“Let’s get the
barracuda out of the way, then there’s the art gallery across the street.
That’s two things in ten minutes.” Aunt Eunice was already climbing out of the
car. She dashed into the store and returned with a rubber barracuda. With a
triumphant lift of her arm, she threw it into the back seat. “Art photo, here
we come.”

Before we entered
the gallery, Aunt Eunice lifted my shirt and shoved the camera against my
stomach. “I’ll cause a distraction. You take the picture. The other day, I saw
a beautiful piece of art embedded in the floor.”

Perfect. Within
seconds, Aunt Eunice dropped her purse, scattering its contents. The sales
woman knelt to help her, and I had snapped the photo. The three of us collapsed
in giggles against the car.

“It isn’t going to
be hard, except for the fire eater and the spear,” I said, sliding the camera
back into my purse.

“No,
It
won’t.” Aunt Eunice climbed in the back. “One of the guys
who
was
going to do the luau tonight eats fire, and
also has a spear. I know where he lives. Take a right at the next stop sign.”

I climbed behind the
wheel. “How do you know this?”

“Well,” she crossed
her arms and leaned back, looking mighty pleased with herself. “I heard him get
fired yesterday and offered him my condolences.”

“Why was he fired?”
I watched her through the rearview mirror.

She shrugged and
studied her fingernails. “Not sure, but he was yelling at that Leroy boy. So,
with my natural ability for sleuthing, I looked up his address when Mr.
Wahine
took a bathroom break.”

“Really?”
My aunt was a genius. But where had Ethan
been? He was assigned to watch Leroy. Maybe the young man would answer a couple
of questions for us. “So, we have the fire eater and the list of things to find
at the flea market. We’ll be finished early.” Especially since I figured the
guys wouldn’t even bother with the hunt until they’d located us.

Aunt Eunice directed
us to a small white house with red-and-pink-flowered bushes that covered most
of the yard. I decided that was the type of little house I wanted to live in
someday, when I won the lottery and purchased a home on Maui.

The three of us
scooted from the car and hiked the steps to the front door, which was painted a
brilliant turquoise. Aunt Eunice pressed the doorbell in three quick motions,
then
stepped back.

A
very
tanned young man with inky hair pulled back into a ponytail answered the door.
“Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Meadows.”

Why didn’t he look
happy to see my aunt?

“Are you here to ask
more questions?” He crossed his arms, drawing attention to bulging biceps.

“No, Kevin.” Aunt
Eunice frowned. “We need you to show up at the
Wahine
B & B for five minutes at four forty five.”

“Why?” He scowled.
“I’d rather never step foot there again. Not after the way that weakling son
treated me.”

“What happened?” I
moved beside my aunt. “They seem so nice.” Wouldn’t it be great if we won the
scavenger hunt
and
went back to the hotel with a juicy nugget of
information?

He cursed. “Nice?
Lady, you’re crazy. That is one wacked up family. They’re about to go bankrupt,
and now that people are dying like flies, well…”

I got the picture.
Desperate people took desperate measures. “Why did they fire you?”

“Why
not?”
He shrugged.

“Weren’t you going
to dance in the luau?” Aunt Eunice tried to peek around him. “Do you have a
spear?”

“
Yes,
and yes. But I’m not dancing now.”

“Why?” This cryptic
exchange made me want to pull my hair out. Obviously, this guy didn’t volunteer
any information unless you asked the right question. “Why were you fired from
the luau?”