A sample from the latest Hawaiian Storm mystery,
Echoes
2019
Where her brother Dylan was tall and brawny, Keahi Koraka was on the short side, thin and wiry. She kept her hair short, buzzed on the side in a cut her mother hated. The mother she hadn’t spoken to in over a year.
Her movements were fast and efficient. She wasted neither energy nor words, and she looked directly into the eyes of whomever she was speaking to.
She always met people after dark, in neighborhoods with more battered pickup trucks than flowers along the streets. She spent as much time out of the light as she could, so that she had acclimated her eyes to seeing better in the dark than anyone she knew.
These characteristics terrified the young men she had recruited into her gang.
“Hey, the Midnight Gang’s assembled,” said Joey. He cursed as he stubbed a toe against the curb and fell to his knees in the gutter.
They were on a dark road that twisted away from the ocean, up the mountain. There were no street lamps here. The only light came from the glow reflected off the low clouds from the town two miles away.
“Yah, we’re all here,” said Benny, closing the door of his truck quietly.
Kana Lee scratched his arm as he paced beside Benny’s battered Toyota Tacoma. Tyler Rooney leaned against the hood of his old Acura, parked nose-to-nose with the truck. He sniffed occasionally, while Lucas Garcia chewed gum beside Benny.
“Are you high, Joey?” Keahi demanded. Her voice was a soft growl, just loud enough to be heard.
“No, man, no, I’m straight,” Joey whined, rising again and reaching out to find the side of Benny’s truck in the dark.
“How many times I tell you not to come to me high?” Keahi said. The flat intonation scared her followers more than yelling would.
“No, I tell you, dude, I straight. Las’ time I had anything was, like …”
“This afternoon,” Benny said. He backhanded Joey against the head, sending him crashing to the ground again.
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“Ow! Hey, brah, what was that for?”
“For showin’ up high. You knew we was comin’ to Keahi. You shouldna’ used nothin’ today.”
“It was just a single line of coke, that’s all,” Joey whined, then cringed on the ground as Benny raised his hand again.
“That’s enough, Benny,” said Keahi in her flat voice. “Relax.” Benny lowered his hand and Joey staggered to his feet again. “And stop calling us ‘the Midnight Gang.’ We’re not a gang. You’re just five men who do what I tell you.”
“Okay, okay, Christine.”
“I told you, it’s Keahi now,” she said, her tone still flat.
“Sorry, Keahi,” Joey said, rubbing his neck. “Geez, Benny, my neck still hurts.”
Other than Benny and Keahi, all of them were dedicated drug users. Benny enjoyed smoking weed when he could, and his belly testified to the amount of beer he consumed. But while he sold harder drugs, he never touched them himself. And he never disobeyed Keahi.
Kana Lee was a long-time heroin user, and he looked like it. He was unnaturally thin, his cheeks hollow, and his long black hair limp. He scratched almost continually at his arms and chest and looked continually startled.
Lucas Garcia preferred weed and, occasionally, ecstasy. He had a short, compact body and kept his short hair carefully combed. His clothes were, at least in his own mind, stylish and he sported a gold chain around his neck.
Keahi neither smoked, nor drank alcohol. She did not use cocaine, heroin, ecstasy or any of the other drugs she dealt. She worked out daily, learning Aikido moves from YouTube.
“How much money did we make this week?” Keahi asked, her voice still flat.
“Hardly nothin’,” said Kana, still pacing and scratching. “More people grow their own weed or get medical marijuana for anything from near-sightedness to gas.”
Keahi looked at him intently. “Stop pacing, Kana. You can get a hit soon.”
Kana slumped against the truck.
“Okay. We make our move tonight. The Thai gang in Honolulu has owned distribution of product all over Oahu for too long. You know the reason they’re untouchable in these parts. We’re going to change that. Tonight. A truck is picking up a load of MDMA right now.” She checked her watch, the only one in the group who could see it in the dark. “They should have loaded up by now. Two vehicles. A brown 2005 Ford van and a Mustang. You know what to do.”
Echoes: Hawaiian Storm mystery 4
“I am hopelessly in love with a memory. An echo from another time, another place.” — Michel Foucault
In 1999, the Kahuna was The Man on Oahu’s leeward side. The coolest guy at the wildest parties, with the coolest posse, the best weed and the most beautiful girlfriend.
Then he disappeared.
Fifteen years later, that girlfriend is no longer a high school senior. She is FBI Special Agent Vanessa Storm, and she sees through every lie the Kahuna spins when he shows up again to beg her help.
How can she say no when the Kahuna wants her help not for himself, but to protect his little sister. Young Christine Koraka is ready to set fire to the whole Oahu illegal drug trade—for revenge.
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