Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) (25 page)

“How do you know?” Keanu asked.

I swallowed, keeping my gaze anywhere but at him. What was wrong with me? I had been pretending ignorance about dracons for so long and now I was just slipping my cover left and right.

“I could just see it in his eyes when he talked to me,” I said and turned to the crowd on the lawn.

Mele’s mother, who had been standing on her raised entrance watching Senator Hale talking to the press on the lawn, turned to where Mele and Auli were walking up the driveway. Mele waved to her mother and her mother’s response was to hold a finger up to her lips in a sign for silence.

I added, “And Mele’s house isn’t safe enough for you, it’s not even warded.”

“It is now,” Keanu said, “They’ve had people digging, filling and pumping a water ward all morning you just can’t see it because all the cars are in the way.”

“What?” I said, while shaking off Keanu’s hand and grabbing for the door handle. I was about to shout Mele’s name but it was too late. I opened the car door just in time to see Mele step onto a sheet of plywood that must have been a makeshift bridge, and walk straight into what looked like an invisible wall. Exactly as she had done last night, Mele bounced off the water ward and hit a parked car. She slid down the red car’s door, unconscious.

Mele’s mother’s scream was just audible over the blaring alarm that rang into the air.

I leapt out of the car, running to where Auli stood confused staring down at Mele.

Everyone on the lawn had turned to either where Mele’s mother was screaming or to what she was screaming at, Mele, lying unconscious just outside the invisible ward line.

I reached Mele before anyone had reacted to the scene. Even though Mele probably had twenty pounds on me, I had been trained to carry heavier people. Scooping up her limp, awkwardly-positioned body into a fireman’s hold, however, proved a bigger challenge than it should have. My left shoulder was mostly mended by the magic but it was still sore.

Auli just stood still, motionless and shocked.

I yelled, “Auli, get her legs.”

Auli looked up at me with panic written all over her expression. She whirled to face her father and the crowd of reporters staring at us and then glanced back at Mele awkwardly held in my arms. Auli stepped back onto the plywood; it was only a small step, but it might as well have been a world away, because Auli stepped back onto the water ward.

What did I really expect?

I dragged Mele back, slowly.

“Mele?” I heard Mele’s mother sob. “Mele!”

“Whoa,” Mele said as she shifted in my arms. “What the …? What happened?”

“We have to get out of here, Mele,” I said yanking her up.

Mele scrambled to get her feet under her, and then trudged along, letting me drag her to Keanu’s car.

Keanu looked like he was about to exit the car, but I called, “Stay in the car!”

As I shoved Mele into the back seat and slammed the door behind her, I glanced back at our audience. They were not running at us with pitchforks and torches, that was a good sign, I guess. A few of the cameras had turned our direction, and unfortunately, that was not such a good sign.

Without further delay, I climbed into the passenger seat and said, “Drive!”

Chapter Fourteen

The Hale estate was a mess. I had not been in the right mindset to gage the damage the night before, but as I lifted the police tape to step through the gateless entry, I had a clear view of the ruin.

A ‘ruin,’ to put it mildly.

“I’ll just stay out here,” Mele shouted unnecessarily from the SUV.

The police-tape behind me shifted and Keanu stepped up beside me. He had been uncharacteristically unresponsive on the ride between Mele’s and his house, the moment we drove away we all had settled into a tense silence.

Mele had not even questioned me on what happened; I guess she figured it out herself, or did not want to know.

Keanu stayed silent, probably just too kind to say what we were all thinking—that no matter what now, Mele’s life as she knew it was ruined.

Even if the dracon-blood wore off now, her being rejected by the water ward had been captured on camera by more than one national news station. Who knows how they would interpret that scene. Why did there have to be reporters at her house? Why did her mom have to scream like that?

“It looks worse than I remembered,” Keanu said as he examined the ruins of his home. I did not need to sense it, to know that he was devastated by the sight, devastated and exhausted.

I took his hand gently as we walked forward. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah, thanks, but it will be okay,” Keanu said. “It’s just a house, you know?”

A house is never
just
a house. I knew that better than anyone. However, I let him pretend it was not important.

We walked down the driveway, zigzagging around balled up cars and fallen trees. When we reached the house, the raised foyer, living room and hallway leading to the bathroom was littered with debris but intact. It even had electricity.

“This is the bathroom,” Keanu said, pointing to a door I had not checked all the way down the hall. Their hallways were entirely too long.

The house felt strange, eerie, too quiet and large. The bathroom was also large, it had several closets and had a full bath, which was unusual for a bathroom that was intended for visitors and not associated with any bedroom.

First, I checked the window to see if the latch could have just locked itself after she climbed out, like my original guess. There was no possible way, though, as the lock turned horizontally into its fixture, rather than falling vertically.

Just to be thorough, I pulled open all the cabinets yet found only the typical bathroom towels, soaps and toilet paper. I checked the ceiling, but there were no crawl spaces out of the room. I felt around the walls for fake walls or secret doors, but there were none. Keanu looked as well, feeling around the surfaces.

“There’s nothing here,” I whispered.

“—but dust,” Keanu said smiling. He stood up and washed his hands.

My hands were dusty too.

“Want me to leave this faucet on for you?” he said just as I was at that moment wiping my hands on my pants.

I smiled at him and said, “No, I’m good.”

He gave me a straight-lipped smile, not looking happy. He shook his head, then said, “I need to ask, did that dragon infect Mele?”

“No,” I said. “She’s just tainted by being covered in its blood. Tell your father she’ll be fine in a couple days…”

“My father?” Keanu said, furrowing his brow. “Why would I tell my father anything?”

“Because he’s the leader of the anti-anything to do with dragons, dracons, infected humans or magic of any kind coalition and he saw her get knocked out by a water ward…?”

“Yeah, of course,” Keanu said, then sighed. He rubbed a hand through his brown hair, mussing it up. “It might take a couple of days, but I’ll tell him. Honestly, I’m worried about her.”

“Me too,” I said. “But Wyvern isn’t a full-dragon so—”

“Could have fooled me,” Keanu said.

I opened the first two linen closets, seeing stacks of blankets and sheets. “He can’t be a full-dragon, he…Why is your closet locked?” I said as I yanked at the last door that would not budge.

“That’s not a closet,” Keanu said. “My dad just had his office moved into that room. It used to be a guest room.”

I looked back at him, exasperated.

“Don’t give me that look.” He laughed and touched my cheek with his knuckle. “It’s locked from the other side. My dad was going to have it framed in tomorrow. And before you ask, yes, I checked it was locked last night.”

I crouch down to look at the lock; it was likely a standard bathroom knob just turned around so it locked on the outside. The center of the knob had a small hole that almost anyone with five minutes and a paperclip could pick.

“Does your dad usually have a good security system in his office?”

“It’s usually a fortress,” he said.

“Did your dad know you guys were going to have a party?”

Keanu laughed, “No.”

“When did he move his office?” I asked.

“Thursday.”

“Why did he move it?”

“He doesn’t tell me stuff like that,” he shrugged, “Why do you want to know?”

“This was the only real possibility for an exit route,” I said, pointing to the door. “She must have picked the lock,” I said. My hands shook as I realized I had a real, legitimate reason to look around Senator Hale’s office. Actually, you could say that I had to snoop through Senator Hale’s office to save his son’s life.

“
Honua
picked the lock?”

“You say that you were in front of the door the whole time and she never exited?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m positive,” he said.

“Then, unless there’s a trap door somewhere, she must have exited through this door,” I said.

“Why would Honua break into my dad’s office?” Keanu asked, like the idea would never have occurred to him.

“Did she seem scared at all to you?” I asked.

“A little shy, maybe, but…no… she seemed happy. Why?”

“People do weird, irrational things when they’re scared…but there could be a million explanations for why she would want to escape the party without anyone noticing.” I stood up. “Unless someone came through the office and took her…”

I looked up into Keanu’s eyes and caught him shaking his head.

“If you don’t agree with me you can just say so,” I said.

Keanu shook his head again, but this time with a smile, “Dakota, you need to relax.” He gently turned me away from him and started rubbing my back.

As much as I wanted to tell him not to patronize me, I was sore everywhere.

“Yeah, I think those ideas about what happened to her are unlikely, but I don’t have anything better. Actually… we might be able to find out,” he said.

“How?” I asked.

“My dad has a security system already installed in there, I saw the men who came to install it. If Honua or anyone else went through there, it would be recorded.”

Crud.

Good for this mission.

Bad for snooping.

But… “Where are the recordings?” I rolled my head back looking up at him while he continued to work magic on my back.

“In our security room, hopefully, it’s still standing,” Keanu said.

Just my luck, I would have done almost anything to get into the Hale family security room yesterday, before the house was destroyed.

“Do you want to check it out?” he asked when I did not move away from his wonderful hands.

“In a minute,” I said.

He chuckled, then leaned in to whisper, “You know I meant what I said to your sisters.”

It took me a second to retrieve the information; it had felt like three days, not three hours ago. “You want to be my boyfriend?” I said as my heart picked up speed.

He brushed his lips over my ear and whispered, “Yes.”

A smile hijacked my lips. I was crazy because I wanted to tell him that I would be his girlfriend, but I did not. It was too complicated and I was already too…emotionally compromised. The best thing for my mission would be if I said yes, infiltrated his life more; but I could not delude myself into thinking that I could say yes just for the mission.

I reluctantly turned out of his hands and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “How about I save your life, then we can talk about going on a date,” I said, smiling up into his half-amused half-smoldering eyes.

Keanu’s eyes were lighter than Wyvern’s, and even though Keanu was staring intently into my gaze, Wyvern’s eyes were more intense.

And why was I thinking about Wyvern?

“I thought we were on a date,” Keanu said.

I stepped away from him. “If this is what you consider a date then…” I walked out of the bathroom door, shaking my head.

He ran up behind me, grabbing my left hand, which hurt, again. “Come on, you,” he said.

The security room was in the very back of the house and had not been destroyed. The power, on the other hand, was out in that part of the house. Also, all the video recordings were on computers that were not connected to any internet nor could be reached remotely.

Glancing at my phone I realized it was half past four. I said, “I am supposed to be somewhere at six…but maybe if we move really quickly we can set up the computer system in the foyer? We know there was electricity out there.” The computers were all-in-one desktops, large, but thin and would not be too hard to move. “As long as we leave by five fifteen…”

“Sorry Dakota,” Keanu said, leaning against the desk, “It will probably take me more time than that. I can usually figure out my dad’s passwords, but it might take me a while and only my dad has access to the security system. I would say we should just break into his office and check it out, but I think the cameras are still recording. I would be in deep shit if my dad caught me on tape bringing a girl into his office.”

“Okay, we’ll just have to come back tomorrow,” I said even though the idea was annoying. I really just wanted to suggest we bring the computers to my house, but saying that would sound too invasive.

“I can’t, I have stuff to do all day tomorrow. I guess… we could just take the computer with us,” Keanu said.

“Where?” I asked, determinedly not looking at him and focusing on the best way to unplug the cords.

“Well Mele’s house is out. Could we go to your house?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I have to go eat dinner with my grandfather at six. You and Mele could stay for as long as you want though… I do have electricity.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said.

“I could even have my uncle Bobby help you,” I put in, as casually as I could manage, “he’s a whiz with computers.”

“You don’t need to bother your uncle, I could probably do it,” Keanu said.

“He’ll be happy to help.” That was a huge understatement. I forced myself to look over and smile at him naturally. I did not even jump for joy. I was about to have Senator Hale’s security recordings from his office and possibly his whole residence at my fingertips. “I’ll just text Bobby and tell him to meet us at my house.”

And then I was going to make Bobby kiss my feet.