Hide My Light: A Romantic Suspense Thriller Novel (Hide Me Series Book 3) (12 page)

West reached out and touched her hand gently as she passed him. “It’s OK, you’re not in trouble here,” he said so softly that Katerina could barely hear him. She didn’t think the men several seats down could hear him at all. But that was West, always looking to take care of people. Especially women.

She stopped, stock still at his touch. He continued to speak softly to her. “This is almost over, just sit down and answer the question, you don’t have anything to be afraid of.”

Katerina watched the woman closely, intrigued by her behavior. A question formed in her mind. Was Craig wrong? Was this woman the one …? But even as she thought it, the woman relaxed and her gaze went unfocused. She turned around and dropped heavily into the seat she had vacated. Craig looked at her strangely and then asked her the question. “Mrs. Hawker, are you willing to have the psychic paramedic touch you?”

“No,” the woman said and her voice sounded faraway, robotic. Craig looked at her strangely, and he finally appeared slightly shaken, like he didn’t know what to do now. His brow furrowed in heavy thought. Katerina looked down the long table and all of the men were now staring at this woman, looks of confusion on their face. She certainly was acting strangely.

Dora Hawker shook her head and seemed to realize where she was. She raised her right hand to her hair and patted it tremulously. Her gaze flitted around the room and finally landed on Katerina. Craig watched her closely, but chose not to say anything. He could tell something big was coming. Had he been wrong all along?

The woman lifted her hand from her hair and pointed a long finger at Katerina. "God damned bitch,” she finally spit at Katerina, her voice full of venom. Katerina recoiled. West stood up and held up his hands, standing between the woman and Katerina, blocking their view of each other. Craig waved him back and placed a finger to his lips. West sat back down in his chair and watched the hateful woman closely.

Dora Hawker swung around to face Craig. “You got me, I did it. I hired Kurt Kane. I was the one who wanted Victor Ronan dead. He was blackmailing Douglas," she cried, her narrowed eyes swinging to Director Armstrong, then moving back to Craig. "Ronan was going to ruin Douglas' life. Ronan was a rat, and the bible says rats shall not be suffered to live."

Craig exchanged looks with the other FBI agent in the room. Then he turned back to Mrs. Hawker. “So you were in on this with Director Armstrong?”

The woman sneered. “No, what do you think I am, stupid? It was only me.”

Katerina shook her head. She glanced at Director Armstrong and saw he had his head in his hands. “Dora,” he said, anguish in his voice, but she waved him off.

Craig took a step towards her. “And why do you care if Ronan was blackmailing Director Armstrong?”

She sneered at Craig again. “Because I love him, you imbecile. We are having an affair. Shouldn’t you have figured that out by now?" Craig winced, but smiled also. He looked at Katerina and West and waved them away. “You two are free to go at any time. Thank you so much for your help.”

West and Katerina hurried down the hallway, clutching each other, trying to contain snorts of laughter. Katerina couldn’t believe they were finding humor in the situation, but it sure did feel good to laugh.

“Did you see the look on Craig’s face?” West asked her.

“Yeah, she really lit into him.”

“I bet he doesn’t care though, because he got his confession.”

Katerina felt the laughter overtake her again as they entered the elevator and made it down to the first floor. She walked outside, hand in hand with the love of her life, with nowhere to be, and nothing to do. She felt strangely light and heavy at the same time. They climbed inside West’s truck and he started it, then drove away.

“Katerina, I hate to bring this up already, but you have to know. There are reporters outside both of our houses.”

Katerina didn’t say anything. Of course there were. Life just couldn’t be simple.

“So that’s why I want to take you to the airport,” West continued.

“The airport?” Katerina said confused.

“When was the last time you took an honest-to-goodness vacation?"

“Never,” Katerina replied softly.

“Never?” West repeated, looking at her curiously.

“When mom was alive, she never felt like she could take vacations. There was always one more vicious killer who needed to be caught. And when she died, I couldn’t afford to take vacations.”

A grin spread across Wests’s face. “That settles it then, we’re going on vacation right now. I have your bags packed already. They are in the back. In fact, our plane takes off in three and a half hours and we need to get to the airport.”

Katerina’s chest filled with warmth. Vacation? “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Well if you’ve never been on vacation, then I’m guessing it's somewhere you’ve never been. Hopefully it's somewhere you’ve always wanted to go. But I’d like to keep it a secret for a little while longer.”

Katerina nodded her agreement. Vacation. A reprieve. The start of their new life together. Incredible gladness filled her heart and she knew a lightness that she hadn’t felt since her mom had been alive. She thought of her mom then, and knew she would’ve loved West. She reached over and grasped West’s hand on the gearshift.

As they walked into the airport, West finally came clean. Without putting a blindfold on her and sticking earplugs in her ears, he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep their destination from her any longer. As they walked into the large building, pulling their suitcases behind them, he whispered in her ear, “Hawaii.”

Katerina squealed, feeling the stress and horror of the last few months fall away from her. She was with her man, she was blissfully normal, and she was on her way to a vacation in Hawaii.

***

West settled into his first-class seat and watched Katerina happily. She was fiddling with all the buttons and kept looking up and down the aisle. She’d never even been on a plane. West was surprised, considering the importance of the job her mother had done, but Katerina said her mother only worked in the state, and always drove when she had to leave Westwood Harbor. The job really had been her whole life. The job, and Katerina.

The plane left the runway smoothly and he could hear Katerina’s intake of breath even over the roar of the engines. He held her hand and assured her that the sensations were normal. They would pass and when they got in the air, everything would be smoother. At cruising altitude, Katerina relaxed fully and watched the ocean from her window. She talked to the passengers around her, touching everyone. She shook the flight attendant's hand and touched the passenger in front of her on the arm. West watched her with a small smile on his face. He knew what she was doing. She was making sure the power was still gone. Or maybe she was just being friendly, making up for not being able to touch anyone for the last month. Regardless, her happiness was obvious. She kept exclaiming how amazing everything was. West was glad to be the one to give her this experience for the first time. He hoped to give her many experiences for the first time. He patted his jacket pocket nervously, suddenly glad that she couldn’t catch his thoughts anymore.

After the seatbelt sign was turned off, West stood up to go to the bathroom. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered to Katerina.

As he approached the lavatory, he heard a man’s voice, raised and tense. He looked forward curiously. It was not the kind of voice you like to hear on an airplane. As he reached the bathroom and stood in line, he realized where the almost-yelling was coming from. A man stood in front of one of the flight attendants, a bit heavyset, with the big belly and red face of a heavy drinker. The flight attendant had her hands up, trying to calm the man. “I’m sorry sir, but I cannot serve you any alcohol until the drink cart comes around. I can give you a bottle of water now, but you’ll need to return to your seat and wait, just for another twenty minutes or so.”

The man leaned forward, his hands clenched and raising, and West stiffened. If he tried to hit or grab the flight attendant, West would have to step in. But the man didn’t. He shook his clenched fists in front of him, at chest level and told the flight attendant she didn’t understand.

West looked around, wondering if this flight had an air marshal on it. If the air marshal had to arrest this guy would they return to California to unload him before they continued on to Hawaii? That was the last thing he wanted. He stepped closer to the man, thinking maybe he could reason with him.

The flight attendant was trying again to explain to the man that there was nothing she could do, but the man's face was growing redder and more angry by the second.

Just calm down,
West thought, as he looked at the man’s face.
It’s not that big of a deal
. He touched the man gently on the shoulder, meaning to gain his attention and try to speak to him. The flight attendant threw him a cautious glance. The man’s face immediately smoothed out, and his hands dropped to his sides. His face took on a faraway look that West had seen only a few hours before, on the face of Ms. Hawker.

West pulled his hand back in confusion. What had happened? As soon as he stopped touching the man, the red face screwed up in anger and the man raised his fists to chest level again, poking out the index finger of each hand and pointing it at the flight attendant.

West forgot his momentary confusion and touched the man on the shoulder. The man looked at him and West smiled broadly, his best let’s-be-friends smile, and stuck out his hand to shake. The man held up his hand automatically, just like any good American did, and West grasped it firmly.

He started speaking, but as he did he noticed the man’s face went blank again. West's hands suddenly felt hot and itchy and he hoped the guy didn’t have any diseases. “Hi, I’m West, I see you are having an issue. Hey, I know how hard it is to get a drink on these flights, and how stressful it can be, but the lady really can’t help you right now. That’s the way it works. That’s how the government makes sure it happens,” West said, pegging the guy as a conspiracy theorist, and thinking maybe he could get him talking that way.

The man didn’t respond though. He went on shaking West’s hand, his face still slack. West blinked in confusion but pushed on. “Maybe you could go back to your seat and try to relax a little? I’m sure you’ll get your drink as quickly as possible,” he said, knowing it couldn’t possibly work.

But the man pulled his hand out of West's and retreated down the long corridor between the seats and sat down, about five rows in. The flight attendant gave him a grateful look. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” West said distractedly, looking after the man, who was sitting in his seat, his hands folded in his lap, and his entire manner calm. West shook his head at the man's strange behavior and went back to stand in line for the bathroom. By the time he returned to his seat, he had forgotten all about it.

***

They touched down at the Honolulu airport four hours later to beautiful, hot weather, palm trees, and amazingly blue skies. Katerina squealed in excitement and clutched West's arm as they walked into the airport. “Hawaii, I’m really in Hawaii,” she said. West looked around for the first surprise he knew was coming. He spotted it before Katerina did, but only by a moment.

“West, there’s a woman holding a sign with my name on it,” she said, trepidation creeping into her voice.

West smiled. “We better go see what she wants.”

West could feel Katerina’s indecision but he hoped she knew that there was no way the reporters could have followed her here, or even known she was here. Besides, the woman was obviously not a reporter. She was tall and slim, in a beautiful, flowing purple dress with white flowers on it. Her hair was long and black, her features distinctly Polynesian, and she had a pink hibiscus flower behind one ear.

West steered her that way and Katerina went up to the woman. “I’m Katerina Holloway.”

“Welcome to Hawaii,” the woman said in a beautifully melodious voice. She reached behind her onto a chair and grasped a white flower lei and held it up, meaning to drop it over Katerina’s head. A smile broke over Katerina’s face like sunshine over the ocean and she bowed her head to receive it. The woman gently placed the lei around Katerina’s neck and then kissed her on both cheeks. Katerina picked up one of the flowers and smelled it. The woman reached behind her and picked up another lei. West had ordered one of each kind of lei they had, and one after the other, the woman dropped fifteen leis over Katerina’s head until they rested on her neck and shoulders like a field of tropical flowers. She turned back to West and the joy on her face beamed through his heart. He patted his pocket again and considered the moment nervously.
No
, he decided. Too public. He didn't want her to feel pressured.

The Polynesian woman turned to West and gave him his one lei, an open ended, green, leafy Maile lei. She then bade them both goodbye and walked away. Katerina looked around. “Why didn’t anyone else get a lei?”

“Because you have to pay for them these days. It used to be that the Hawaiian government gave one away to everyone who arrived by airplane, but they don’t do that anymore. I called ahead and ordered those,” he said, nodding at her flowers.

“Thank you,” she said, pressing her lips to his cheeks. “You think of everything.”

They retrieved their bags from the baggage carousel and walked outside to heat and traffic. West immediately flagged down a cab and helped her into it. “The Royal Hawaiian,” he told the driver.

“The Royal Hawaiian,” Katerina repeated. “It sounds so elegant.”

“You’re gonna love it,” West said. He had brought Stephanie here on their honeymoon, but they had stayed at the Waikiki Hilton. West had liked the Hilton, but didn’t want to take Katerina there. This was his new life too.

The cab whizzed over entrances and on-ramps and finally settled on the highway, zipping along to Waikiki. Katerina leaned over and whispered, “I didn’t realize this was such a big city.”

West nodded gravely. “Honolulu is a big city, over a million people, but once we head north to the rest of the island, you’ll see. It’s just like on television - small towns, long beaches, and palm trees. I’ll take you out there whenever you want. And maybe we'll go to another island. We could see the active volcano, or do anything you want to do.”

Katerina hugged him, then looked around from the back of the speeding cab, trying to take in all the sights. She rolled down her window slightly to smell the tropical air and marveled that she was here. She was in Hawaii, even though her life was in a shambles. But no, not too much of a shambles. She looked over at West, the strong, amazing man next to her, and snuggled into his arms. Sure she had no job, no prospects, and no ideas, but she had a future. She must be doing something right if West was still around, still loving her.

West smiled at her and she thought she saw a secret in his eyes. A good secret, she hoped, as a tiny worm of disquiet squirmed into her heart.