CHAPTER 65

Lying in a bed at the Queen’s Medical Center, I opened my eyes to find Audra standing over me, a fifth of Glenlivet resting in her delicate hands.

“For when you get better,” she said.

I parted my lips to ask her to move in with me, but I couldn’t speak. A lawyer without his voice is … almost human, I thought.

Hours earlier I’d had a chat with Jake through Hoshi via instant messaging. They were at the office and kindly let me know that the pink message slips were piling up.

By the end of our chat, we’d decided to have the law firm of Harper & Corvelli go on indefinite hiatus so that I could fully recover, both from the gunshot and my addiction to narcotic painkillers. We’d refer out our current cases and close the office, though we’d continue to pay the rent at South King Street for as long as we could, hopefully with the help of a sublease.

Audra set the bottle down on the nearby tray table and sat on the edge of the bed, taking my left hand, IV and all, into both of hers. She still appeared frail, but she’d clearly gained back a few of the pounds she’d lost since she was poisoned. The torture she’d endured at Tam’s bar was another story altogether. She refused to talk about it, and I didn’t push. Whatever came of our relationship, we’d always have scars, both physical and emotional, to remind us of our inauspicious start.

Truth is, I wasn’t sure if I should be more surprised by the number of people who died during these past four months, or by the number of people who survived.

Wade Omphrey survived. Though not on Election Day. The governor had been six points ahead on the first of November. Then someone anonymously sent Rolando Dias of the Herald a copy of the DVD depicting the governor in Oksana Sutin’s apartment.

“Did you send it?” Flan had asked me when the story first broke. He was standing next to me as I lay flat on my hospital bed.

“How could I have sent it?” I rasped. “I’ve been here the entire time.”

“But Scott hasn’t.”

“If I had Scott send it, I could be disbarred. I received that video in connection with my representation of the governor.”

“Okay, so you didn’t send it,” Flan said, nodding. “But whoever did send it turned out to be a kingmaker. And I think they did the right thing. I think Hawaii’s gonna be a better place with Wade Omphrey gone.”

John Biel seemed sincere enough. He promised during his campaign to fight for better education for Hawaii’s keiki, a more genuine equality for all races and ethnicities and orientations, and for the legalization of marijuana. And if he didn’t follow through, I vowed I would stand high up on the courthouse steps one day and call him on it. Because I’m best when I’m behind a microphone. Hell, while standing behind a bevy of microphones, I may even be immortal.

Maybe they should lower the drip on my morphine.

Miles Flanagan survived Election Day, too. So Flan would get to hear his father rant about Flan’s ex-wife, Victoria, for one hour, six days a week, for as long as it took Miles to die. Miles assured Flan he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Iryna wasn’t going anywhere either. Not if Flan had anything to do with it.

Of course, plenty were dead, too: Oksana Sutin and Iryna’s friend Hannah, two beautiful young women who had merely tried to make better lives for themselves by putting their trust in dangerous men; Gavin Dengler; Tam and friends. In one way or another, they were all victims of Orlando Masonet. Or Thomas Sean Duran, or whatever the hell you wanted to call him.

Whoever he was, the scourge known as Orlando Masonet was now behind bars on enough charges to fill a phonebook. Lok Sun, too, was being held at the Federal Detention Center, as Special Agent Slauson and AUSA William F. Boyd meticulously built their case.

Tragically, after learning he was under investigation, Detective Ray Irvine took his own life with a single shot to the side of the head from his own service revolver. He left behind an ex-wife and a twelve-year-old son on the Big Island.

The man who’d tried to shoot Scott and hit me was dead, too. Shot and killed by Detective John Tatupu in the ensuing chaos in front of the courthouse. His name was Frankie “the Flash” Bianchi, so called because he was so fucking fast. But apparently not fast enough.

I’d always known John Tatupu was all right.

Even if he didn’t feel the same way about me.

*   *   *

“I’m being released today,” I told Scott over the phone.

“I’ll be there to pick you up and take you back to Ko Olina.”

“Not so fast. We’ve got one more job to do.”