Swimsuit - James Patterson [30]
“Okay, but take off your sunglasses, Charlie. I want to see your eyes.”
“Show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
Chapter 37
“WHOOOOOOO,” Julia screamed as the chopper yawed into the coral-gold sky. The little island of Lanai grew huge, and then they were dropping softly to the tiny private heliport at the edge of the vast Island Breezes Hotel’s greener-than-green golf course.
Charlie got out first and helped Julia to the ground as she held the collar of her windbreaker closed, her curly hair parting, her cheeks flushed. They ducked under the rotor blades and ran to a waiting car.
“You’ve got a great expense account, buddy,” she said breathlessly.
“Our dream date’s on me, Julia.”
“Really?”
“What kind of person would expense a date with you?”
“Awww.”
The driver opened the doors, and then the car rolled slowly over the carriage road to the hotel, Julia gasping as she entered the lobby, all velvety teal and gold and burgundy, dense Chinese carpets and ancient statuary. The sunset streamed through the open-air space, almost stealing the show.
Julia and Charlie had their twin massages in a bamboo hut open to the ocean’s rhythmic pounding on the shore. The masseurs quartered the plumeria-scented sheets that covered them as their strong hands massaged in cocoa butter before proceeding to the long strokes of the traditional lomi lomi massage.
Julia, lying on her stomach, smiled lazily at the man she’d just met, saying, “This is too good. I don’t want it to ever stop.”
“It only gets better from here.”
Dinner came hours later at the restaurant on the main floor. Pillars and soft lighting were the backdrop for their feast of shrimp and Kurubuta pork chops with mango chutney and an excellent French wine. And Julia was happy to let Charlie lead her in conversation about herself. She opened up to him, talking about her upbringing on an army base in Beirut, her move to Los Angeles, her lucky break.
Charlie ordered a dessert wine and the entire dessert menu: zuccotto, pralines and milk, chocolate mousse, Lanai bananas caramelized by the waiter at the table. The delicious fragrance of burnt sugar made him hungry all over again. He looked at the girl, and she was a girl now, sweet and vulnerable and available to him.
Four thousand dollars had been well spent, even if he stopped right now.
But he didn’t.
They changed into their swimsuits in a cabana by the pool and took a long walk on the beach. Moonlight bathed the sand, turning the ocean into a magical meeting of rushing sound and frothing foam.
And then Julia laughed, and said, “Last one in the water is an old poop, and that will be you, Charlie.”
She ran, screamed as the water lapped her thighs, and Charlie snapped off some quick shots before putting his camera back inside his duffel bag and setting it down.
“Let’s see who’s an old poop.”
He sprinted toward her, dove into the waves, and surfaced with his arms around her.
Chapter 38
AFTER A QUICK DINNER out with Keola, I returned to my hotel room, checked for messages, had no new calls from the woman with the accent, or anyone else. I cranked up my computer, and after a while I sent a pretty fine seven-hundred-word story to Aronstein’s in-box at the L.A. Times.
Work done for today, I turned on the TV and saw that Kim’s story was headlining the ten o’clock news.
There was a banner, “Breaking News,” and then the talking heads announced that Doug Cahill was a presumed suspect in the presumed abduction of Kim McDaniels. Cahill’s picture came on the screen, fully uniformed for a Chicago Bears game, smiling at the camera like a movie star, all 6 feet, 3 inches, and 250 pounds of him.
Anyone would have been able to do the math. Cahill could’ve easily picked up 110-pound Kim McDaniels and carried her under his arm like a football.
And then my eyes nearly jumped out of my head.
Cahill was shown in a video clip that had been shot two hours earlier. While I was having pizza with Eddie Keola, the action had taken place right outside the police