Last Night Read online

  Buying a home here had been a stretch. Right out of law school she'd gone into the DA's office. She'd always been a public-service employee. It had taken her years to pay off her student loans.

  When she was finally out of debt she began saving for a house. The other judges had come from lucrative private practices and lived in luxurious high rises or at the foot of Diamond Head in the ritzy Kahala area. She didn't envy them. Maunalua Bay might not be as prestigious, but she preferred the serenity of the back bay.

  As she stopped in her driveway and stepped out of her car to get the mail, her friend came running over. Lillian Hurley was a widow in her mid-eighties who'd lived here since Pearl Harbor. She was a trifle forgetful at times, so Dana helped her, making it possible for Lillian to live at home.

  Tears pooled in Lillian's eyes. "My daughter's coming to visit."

  "Wonderful." Dana gave her a quick hug and hoped the tears were tears of happiness. She'd long since decided the daughter was strange. What kind of a person forgot Mother's Day? In the three years Dana had lived here the daughter had never visited, "Don't forget to mark the date on your calendar."

  "I did already—just the way you told me." Tears spilled out of Lillian's pale blue eyes. "I don't want to go into a nursing home."

  "I'm sure when you explain to your daughter that I'm working with your doctor, she'll understand that you're fine here." Dana hugged her again.

  It was true—for now—but Dana knew the day would come when Lillian would need more help than she could give. That's what happens to the elderly, she thought. They're warehoused, lonely and forgotten, until they die. An American tragedy. She wasn't letting that happen to Lillian.

  "Will you talk to Fran for me?"

  "Of course." Dana smiled reassuringly, silently pledging to take time out of her busy schedule to talk to the daughter. "Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

  "I knew you'd help me. That's why I came over." She looked around suspiciously as if she expected someone to jump out of the dense oleander bushes. "I'm so frightened."

  "Of what?" A frisson of alarm shot through Dana. This was just Lillian's nerves, wasn't it? Dana moved here because this was a safe neighborhood. They weren't having trouble, were they? During the past year the Panama Jack's rapist had attacked several women. Dana had always been careful. Now she kept pepper spray in her purse.

  "I'm so-o-o frightened," Lillian repeated. "Last night I heard the night marchers. I'm going to die." Oh, boy, Dana said to herself. How could Lillian believe that island lore? According to superstition the restless spirits of Hawaii's ancient warriors marched at night. If you heard them someone was going to die.

  "You're not going to die, Lillian. Remember what the doctor said? You're perfectly healthy. Just remember to take your blood pressure medication."

  Lillian perked up. "Oh, I almost forgot. I brought in your package."

  "Thanks." Dana wasn't expecting anything, but she did buy most of her clothes mail order because she despised shopping.

  "I put the box in the refrigerator," Lillian said with pride. "A bottle must have broken. It's leaking. I didn't want the food to spoil."

  "Food? I never order food. It must be a gift. I'd better come get it now." She tossed the mail on the front seat of the temperamental Toyota she'd driven for years and followed Lillian up the walk.

  Inside Lillian's modest home the white linoleum floor had surrendered to time and was now a depressing amber, but it was clean. The dishes were drying in a wire rack on the counter. Lillian was doing just fine on her own in the home she loved, Dana thought as her friend opened a boxy Frigidaire that had been new in the fifties.

  "Here it is." She handed Dana the package.

  With a growing sense of apprehension Dana accepted it, recalling the black rose and the ominous note that she had received at the office. There was no return address on the plain brown wrapping paper. She touched the bottom of the package, then quickly pulled back her hand and stared at it.

  "Sweetie, is anything the matter?"

  "No." Dana beelined for the door, realizing just how poor Lillian's vision had become. Whatever was inside was leaking blood.

  2

  Dana raced to her house, holding the dripping package away from her suit. She dumped it in the kitchen sink, half-tempted to call the police. Perhaps she was overreacting, she thought, as she peeled back the soggy brown paper. There might be a perfectly innocent explanation for this.

  Inside a Ziploc plastic bag was a rabbit-skinning knife slathered with blood. The blade had punctured the plastic, causing the leak. She tested the blade. It wiggled, not quite anchored securely in the handle.

  "Oh my God!" she cried, her voice echoing through the small kitchen. "It can't be!"

  She inspected the bloody knife more closely. It looked exactly like the one she remembered so well —even though it had been over twenty years since they'd thrown it into the swamp.

  Bile rose up in her throat and the memory she'd blocked for years intruded with sickening clarity. There was a bloodstained note the size of a business card with the package.

  I know what you did. Pack your bags, bitch.

  The words echoed in her mind. A similar message had come with the black rose she had received that morning. Twenty years without a word. Nothing. Until today.

  Why, after all these years, when her career was really taking off, did the past have to come back to curse her? She'd grown complacent, believing that after all this time she was safe. You were never safe from something like this. Somehow—someone—knew what had happened that night so long ago.

  She picked up the telephone to call her sister. Then she remembered Vanessa wasn't in Maui. She was here in Honolulu for the evening. Thank God. The Coltrane family compound where Vanessa lived with her husband and young son was her father-in-law's home. Thornton "Big Daddy" Coltrane had his nose in everyone's business.

  She checked her watch. If she hurried she could make the cocktail hour at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club where the Coltranes were staying. It was always crowded and noisy. No one would overhear her talking to Vanessa.

  Dana arrived at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, the pinnacle of society in the islands. While the elite on the mainland congregated at country clubs, Hawaii's wealthy socialized at yacht clubs. The security guard opened the gate and Dana hurried in. Normally she would have smiled at the ridiculousness of having a statue of King Kamehameha overlooking the club's courtyard. Generations ago the wise king had united the warring islands, but now—thanks to the Coltranes and the other white settlers —the king's descendants were in the kitchen or waiting on tables, she thought with disgust.

  Inside, burgees of the great yacht clubs of the world hung from the ceiling. The small, triangular flags all had one thing in common: the red star. A yacht club wasn't a "serious" club until some member earned a star in a death-wish yacht race.

  Naturally, the Royal Corinthian had a star. And the R.C. had what Dana thought of as "yacht snot" —an attitude. The real reason the club existed was to exclude "undesirables." She didn't belong. The welcoming smiles were for a judge, for Vanessa Coltrane's sister. Not for a girl from the backwoods of Georgia.

  Dana spotted Vanessa in two seconds. As usual, her sister was standing in a cluster of men, flirting. Vanessa had a presence about her that would have shouted, "Look at me!" had she been in Levi's instead of tonight's designer gown with a diamond necklace that circled her throat as regally as a crown graced the head of a reigning monarch.

  Dana waved, suddenly a young girl again, fondly waving to her older sister. After the death of their parents Vanessa had raised Dana, but since her marriage to Eric Coltrane they had grown apart. What had happened to the bond of trust that they had shared for so many years? The Coltranes. And Dana's career. She wasn't seeing her sister often enough and she missed her terribly.

  "Dana, darling." Vanessa threw her arms around her and hugged tight.

  For just a second Dana clung to her. She loved Vanessa so
much—and owed her so much—that she couldn't quite bring herself to destroy Vanessa's happiness by telling her about the knife. Her sister had every right to enjoy her life, even if it wasn't a life Dana would have chosen.

  Vanessa's blue eyes became serious. "I wasn't expecting to see you until Monday. You're still vacationing with me, aren't you?"

  "I'm flying over to Maui first thing Monday, just as we planned." Dana steered Vanessa toward the terrace that overlooked the yacht harbor where the members' boats were docked. "But I have to talk to you tonight."

  In the semidarkness of the terrace Dana explained what had happened. Vanessa quickly cast an apprehensive glance at the interior of the club to her husband, Eric. As usual he was standing with his brother, Travis, and their father, Big Daddy Coltrane.

  "It's just a joke," Vanessa whispered.

  "Someone must know something. A rabbit-skinning knife with a loose blade. That's not a wild guess. I haven't mentioned what happened that night to anyone—ever."

  It was true. She had tried to block out that fatal night and everything that had happened. She thought she'd done it with amazing success—until this evening. But there was always some hidden corner of the mind set to betray with terrifying memories of the past.

  "I never told anyone, not even Eric." Vanessa glared at her husband, who was standing inside, his back to them. "We never talk."

  Normally Dana would have been sad for her sister, who'd married for money, not love, but tonight she was too upset. "There must be an explanation—"

  "Help me," Vanessa pleaded suddenly, and Dana was stunned by the turn their relationship had taken. Once she would have expected Vanessa to help her, to mother her as she had when they'd been teenagers alone in the world. Time had bolstered Dana's confidence, while it had eroded Vanessa's. "This has to be a Coltrane plot. They're going to take Jason away from me."

  The panicked look in her sister's eyes alarmed Dana as much as Vanessa's convoluted logic. This was totally out of left field. "How could they take your son away from you?"

  Vanessa stared out at the harbor, where the lights atop the forest of masts swayed rhythmically with the surge of the ocean. "You don't know Big Daddy. He has his ways."

  "The notes were sent to me, not you. I don't think this has anything to do with the Coltranes, " Dana said. "It must be a blackmail scheme. Someone must think I have money. Obviously they haven't checked to see how little municipal court judges make."

  "I can't get any money to pay off a blackmailer." Vanessa's voice was trembling now. "Big Daddy sees all my bills."

  "We have to find out who's behind this and…" And what? What would she do when she found the blackmailer?

  "You've got to do something," Vanessa cried, clutching Dana's arm. "Don't let them take Jason away from me. He's all I have."

  "Don't panic," Dana said with more confidence than she felt. "I have a friend who can help us. I'm going to see him right now."

  Vanessa followed her outside, whispering, "Don't call me at home. Wait until you see me on Monday to tell me what's happening. I don't trust the Coltranes."

  Convinced Vanessa was paranoid, Dana walked out to her car. Vanessa had never had a childhood; their parents' death had robbed her of any semblance of a normal youth. Men flocked to her, yet she had never found love.

  Dana had prayed that having a child would help Vanessa, and it had. Vanessa loved Jason, so much so that she was overly protective. Borderline obsessive.

  Was Vanessa's paranoia about Big Daddy justified? Even if he had discovered their secret, why would he send notes to Dana, not Vanessa? The whole thing was strange, confusing. Right now she needed an objective, analytical mind to help her, someone clear-headed and intelligent.

  Garth Bradford. The criminal attorney was the best legal mind in the islands—probably in the country—and he was the man she'd choose to defend her. If it came to that.

  She called him on her car phone. There was a momentary pause at the other end of the line after she identified herself. She knew what he was thinking. They'd been friendly for years, but not so close that she ever had called him at home on a Friday evening.

  "What's on your mind?" As usual, there was a smile in Garth's voice.

  "I need to discuss something with you in private." Suddenly she thought he might be with a woman. "Are you busy?"

  "No," he responded. "Have you eaten? I'm fixing dinner. Come over and we'll talk."

  "I'm starving," she fibbed, already mentally calculating just how much to tell him.

  She drove along the shore into the exclusive Kahala section of the city, where the homes were nestled at the foot of Diamond Head, fronting a private beach. Just hearing Garth's voice had calmed her, and she recalled the first time she'd met him. The DA had assigned her to a murder case where Garth had been defending the man. She had seen him sitting at the counsel table, but didn't consider him much of a threat.

  He'd looked like a sandy-haired jock who'd be more at home on the football field, if he hadn't been confined to a wheelchair. But it wasn't his handicap that had totally disarmed her. It was his easygoing smile. How serious could he be?

  Well, she found out. He annihilated her case, only half-trying. She could laugh now, but she'd been humiliated then. It had taught her an important lesson: Never underestimate Garth Bradford.

  He was the most honest, ethical man she'd ever met. He accepted his handicap with complete dignity. She'd never once heard him complain. Come to think of it, Garth never even mentioned it. All she knew about the accident that had left him without the use of his legs, she'd heard from others.

  Just thinking about how Garth must have suffered, then rebuilt his life, gave her courage. Vanessa had a child and Dana had a career. Their only option was to stay—and fight.

  Garth Bradford stared at the telephone receiver still in his hand. "I'll be damned. Dana Hamilton just invited herself over."

  "Sue the bastards! Sue the bastards!" shrieked his parrot, Puni, cocking his crimson head to one side and ruffling his bright blue feathers. "Sue their asses!"

  "Give me a break. Be quiet for one minute." Garth wheeled himself into the kitchen, thankful he had enough veal for two people. He liked to cook on the weekends and fancied himself to be an amateur chef.

  Tonight was suddenly special. He rarely entertained. Too often people felt sorry for him, tried too hard to help him. It was simply easier to eat alone. Dana was different. She never made him feel awkward; she always treated him the way she did the rest of the guys—with cool disdain.

  Some called her a ball buster. Others claimed she was a frigid bitch. Garth figured she was a little shy, secure only when she was in court. She was most comfortable when doing something like ruling on points of law. When it came to personal relationships, that confidence evaporated.

  He knew the feeling. He never dwelled on his handicap. It had made him stronger, wiser, and twice the man he would have been. Except physically.

  He wanted to be friends with Dana, sensing a kindred spirit. She had always kept her distance though. That made her unexpected call even more surprising.

  "Sue the bastards! Sue the bastards!" Puni chanted rap-style. "Sue their asses!"

  Garth didn't have the heart to cover the cage. Maybe Puni would provide comic relief. It was as hard to get Dana to laugh as it was to appeal her decisions. She was one tough judge.

  He loved the challenge. That's what he lived for.

  He answered the doorbell and had to concentrate to keep from gasping. Dana? Right, but she wasn't wearing those hideous glasses. Makeup made her look younger, more feminine. The dress—well, there ought to be a law against wearing anything that sexy.

  She wasn't his type—not that he could afford to be picky. Still, something in him yearned for a leggy blonde. His last relationship had ended months ago, but he was too weary to try again. He had his career. That had to be enough.

  "Thanks for letting me come over," Dana said as she followed him, putting him at ease because she i
gnored his wheelchair.

  "Sit, sit." He poured wine and she wearily dropped into the chair.

  "Your call surprised me," Garth admitted after they'd chatted for a few minutes. He placed a salad before her, then wheeled to his place. He reached for his fork, saying, "Are you concerned about the superior court appointment?"

  "Not at all. They're going to select a man."

  "You're the best candidate. If there's any justice you'll—"

  "Sue the bastards! Sue the bastards!" screeched Puni.

  Dana laughed. "What a great parrot."

  "Appeal, appeal." Puni moonwalked along his perch. Obviously he'd been watching too much MTV while Garth had been at work. "Sue the bastards! Sue the bastards! Sue their asses!"

  "What's your parrot's name?"

  "Puni." He caught the quizzical look in her eyes. "Short for Punitive Damages."

  She laughed again. "I should have known."

  Dana dutifully consumed two forkfuls of the salad, never commenting on the raspberry vinaigrette that he'd made himself. Something was on her mind and it wasn't the pending court appointment. He didn't press. Patience was his long suit. Not always, of course, but the accident had changed everything.

  Dana wasn't an easy woman to get to know. Oh, she was friendly enough—up to a point. One of the advantages of his handicap—he'd managed to find several—was that people thought he was harmless. True, it was a subconscious thing, but people tended to trust him, to open up to him more than they would have otherwise.

  Except Dana. There was an invisible shield between Dana and everyone around her. Why?

  "This is fabulous," Dana said with a sigh after he served the veal Normandy.

  "You've been eating at the courthouse cafeteria too much. The only place with worse food is the county jail." He grinned, but asked himself why he always discounted his talents. For some reason he was uncomfortable with compliments.

  "Garth," Dana began, then stopped. She gazed into her wineglass for a moment. "Over twenty years ago something happened to me. I thought it was done, forgotten—until today."