Chapter Twenty-Eight

I’d been so terribly, terribly wrong about so many things. How I’d die was one of them. I closed my eyes on that thought.

There was a commotion behind Jun, startling him. His weight shifted. I bucked, wriggling free enough to bring up a knee, making just enough contact that his hand fell away from my mouth. I rolled to the side, sucking in air, most of my body still pinned under Jun’s.

Suddenly the room filled with people and noise. So much noise.

“Azalea.” Alex was at my side.

I tried to reach for him, but my arm wouldn’t cooperate. He squeezed my hand. I hadn’t known he held it. He pulled me up and into him, and I crawled the rest of the way into his lap, craving his safety. He held me hard, careful not to crush the air from my lungs.

Lips brushed mine and a hand smoothed my brow. I opened my eyes to find Alex’s, very close and intent. “You’re safe now.”

Safe. It all came rushing at me at once. Tenchi. Jun. His hand over my mouth and nose. His eyes so close to mine, watching for my death. And the awful coldness inside him. I hadn’t seen that. How could I have been so close, have liked him so much and been so wrong about him?

“What happened to Jun?” I tried to pull back, but Alex held me to him, turning us both.

Jun lay on his stomach a few feet away, hands cuffed behind his back. His eyes were eerily calm, his gaze watchful and empty. And when he spoke, his voice held a quiet petulance. “You’re not my friend.”

“No. I’m not your friend.” My voice rasped rough, but I managed to put enough force in it to make him flinch.

“Get him out of here,” Kennedy ordered.

Hands grabbed at him, but Jun didn’t resist. He stared at me until he vanished from my sight.

“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked.

“Why do you care?” Alex looked down at me, like he couldn’t believe I was for real. “He nearly killed you.” His voice broke at the end. He didn’t try to cover it up.

“The paramedics are here,” Kennedy said from behind Alex, his mouth set in that perpetual thin line of determination.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re going to let them check you over, or I’ll cuff you and they’ll take you to the hospital. Your choice.” That Kennedy, always threatening.

“Jerk,” I muttered.

“I think that’s the sweetest thing you could say to me right now,” Kennedy said, giving me a wink that didn’t mask his relief.

The paramedics filled my line of vision, making me lay back down. They did their best to annoy me, poking and prodding, pinching and squeezing until they declared me ready to be transported.

“I’m not going anywhere.” I sat up and was suddenly at the center of a merry-go-round. “Whoa.”

“She should really go to the hospital,” the paramedic informed everyone, as if I wasn’t there.

Kennedy filled my vision, slipping his hand into mine. “I agree. You don’t looks so good, Ms. Smith.”

“I’m fine. I just sat up too quickly. There, that’s better.” The room only spun half as fast now.

Alex crouched down next to me. “I think they’re right. You should get checked out at the hospital.”

“And miss Vivian’s wedding? No. What time is it?”

Alex frowned, clearly on Kennedy’s and the paramedic’s side. “Ten thirty.”

“I still have time to get there. Where’s Juan Carlos? I need him to fix my hair.” I reached up to touch my updo where Jun had pulled it and blew out a sigh of relief that I still had any left.

“They can go on without us or change their plans,” Alex said. “Because you’re not going anywhere.”

Kennedy squeezed my hand in both of his, then released it, standing. “I’ll leave you to deal with her. Good luck with that.”

“Wait!” I struggled to stand with some help from Alex. The room tipped and me with it. I swerved, landing with a bounce on the bed. I put a hand to my head. “Oh.”

“She really should go to the hospital,” the paramedic insisted.

“Stop saying that. I’m fine.” Mostly.

Kennedy looked impatient or worried, I wasn’t real clear on anything at the moment. “What is it?” he asked.

“How’s Tenchi? Did he…?” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

“He’s alive,” Kennedy affirmed. “In surgery, but he should pull through.”

“Are Tenchi and Jun really brothers?” I asked.

“Is that what he told you?”

“Yes. Jun said that he killed Dhane because Dhane didn’t want Tenchi around Trinity anymore. He was splitting them up. Jun killed Dhane so Tenchi could stay with Trinity, but Trinity killed herself over Dhane’s death and Tenchi tried to kill himself over Trinity’s death.” I took a deep breath, realizing that I was a rambling moron and if I didn’t hold it together, they would ship me off to the hospital without my consent.

“You got most of that right,” Kennedy said. “All except the part about Trinity’s death being a suicide.”

I blinked up at him, trying to focus, but his face was all swimmy. “What are you talking about?”

But in the back of my mind I’d known it all along. Trinity would never have gone anywhere without Curio, not even to her death. And then I remembered something Jun had said early on about Trinity becoming obsessed with people and stealing from them. Was that how my flower had ended up in her hand when she was pushed over the railing? The same question that had been rattling around in my head since I’d found poor Trinity came up again.

“Who?” I asked. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Dhane’s will left his half of Hjálmar to Trinity. But according to the will, if Trinity died, ownership would transfer directly to his business partner, Mackenzie Todd.”

“Mac killed Trinity?” Although she’d been at the top of my list of suspects, I’d scratched her name off after Juan Carlos had told me about her applying for the product patent.

“The cameras in that hallway were repaired shortly after we discovered they’d been tampered with,” Kennedy said. “We have Tenchi leaving, and then a couple of minutes later Mackenzie Todd goes in. When she comes out of the room a short time later, she looks like she’s been in a fight. It didn’t take long for her to break down under questioning. She wanted Dhane’s half of the company. The only way to get it would be if Trinity died.”

Wow. I nodded, struggling to process it all. What a totally screwed-up family they were. Poor Trinity. And poor Dhane. He’d tried to protect his sister, only in the end he wasn’t able to. What a loss.

“I knew you’d be the lead I needed to completely solve this case.” Kennedy paused as if he were trying to decide something. “I’m glad I followed my hunch, and I’m glad you’re okay.”

So much made sense now. Kennedy letting me listen in while he questioned Jun, letting me take Jun with me, and that feeling in the hallway afterward of Kennedy setting a trap for me. I tried, but couldn’t muster the anger I should’ve felt toward him. I was just so glad it was all over.

“You’re good,” I said to him.

“Yeah. I am.”

“King Kennedy.”

Kennedy angled himself to leave, his mouth twitching as though he held back a smart-aleck remark. “I’ve got to go, but I’m going to want you to come down to the station tomorrow. And Ms. Smith?”

“Yeah?”

“Try to stay out of trouble until then, will you?”

“I’ll try.”

Kennedy inclined his head with a smirk, as though he didn’t believe me. He exchanged a handshake with Alex, then left.

The paramedics packed their things and tried one last unsuccessful bid to get me to go to the hospital. When they’d gone, Alex sat down next to me on the bed and drew me into his arms.

“What happened?” I asked. “What made you come into the room?”

Alex looked down and away. “It was Kennedy. Tenchi recanted his confession at the hospital when Kennedy questioned him before he went into surgery. Tenchi guessed it was Jun who had really killed Dhane. He tried to protect Jun by confessing. Kennedy figured he thought he’d take the confession to his grave and Jun would be safe.”

“Kennedy rescued me?”

“Yeah.” Alex didn’t seem too happy about that.

“You wanted to be the big hero?”

He made a face.

I took his hand. “You’re still my hero.”

He looked at me with the goofiest grin on his face. I couldn’t help but smile, like a big fool, back at him.

“Azalea?”

“Hmm?”

“I really want to kiss you.”

“So why aren’t you?”

He put his hands on my cheeks, gazing at me, like he was trying to impart some deep, important message. I grew impatient and threw my arms around his neck, dragging him toward me. Our lips met in a searing kiss that melted away all thoughts except for him and how he made me feel. We tumbled onto the bed, rolling around like two teenagers, all hands and hot mouths.

A fist banged on the door. “Azalea! Open up.” The fist struck again louder. “Azalea!”

Alex dragged his mouth away from mine and looked down at me, like he couldn’t believe his rotten luck…again. “I think he and I need to have a little talk.” Alex rolled off me and opened the door to a frantic Juan Carlos and placid Richard. “Your timing sucks as usual.” He made a sweeping gesture for them to come inside after they had already brushed past him without being invited. “Come on in.”

“Oh, Azalea! Look at you.” Juan Carlos turned to Richard with a smirk. “She’s finally been properly smooshed.” He returned his attention to me. “Good for you, girl. I knew Detective Drool-worthy would come through.”

“I wish it was, but that’s not my work,” Alex said.

“What do you mean?” Juan Carlos looked from Alex to me. “What’s he talking about?”

I told Juan Carlos and Richard about Jun with Alex filling in the spots where I was either not there or had nearly passed out from lack of oxygen. When we finished, Juan Carlos just stared at us, struck dumb for probably the first time in his life.

“I’m okay,” I told him.

Juan Carlos shook his head. “Oh my God. Oh my ever-loving God. I knew it! I knew that Jun was no good. Rotten to the core. A bad seed. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Is that why you flirted with him?” Richard asked.

Juan Carlos sputtered, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I’d never seen Juan Carlos at such a loss for words.

“Will you help me put myself back together?” I asked Juan Carlos. “We have a wedding to attend.”

“I will, but we haven’t got much time. Considering what you went through, I won’t complain about not having much to work with. Or remark on the travesty that is your hair. Or worry about where your other eyelashes went. Or…”

I held up a hand. “You’re wasting valuable repair time, you know.”

Richard escorted me to the chair he’d put up to the mirror and they both began their work on me. I tried not to look too closely at myself in the mirror. If I did, I might worry about the bruising that was just beginning to appear around my mouth, reminding me of what I’d just been through.

Instead I focused on the steady stream of Juan Carlos’s commentary, ignoring the pain in my wrist and the bruises where Jun’s fingers had left their mark. I hardly felt the tug on my tender scalp as Richard brushed my hair back into a twist or how each hairpin dug in, like a giant needle.

What had I called Jun? Innocuous? As dangerous as a basket of kittens under a rainbow? Something in him had called to something in me. I’d felt a kinship, a friendship with him from the start. How wrong I was. How terribly, horribly wrong. Alex had called it a gift, my wanting to see the best in everyone. I wasn’t so sure of that. At the moment it weighed on me, feeling more like a defect.

No, I wasn’t going to think about any of that. I turned my thoughts instead to Vivian.

“Promise me something, guys.” I looked at all three of their faces in the mirror. “Nobody tells Vivian what happened today. Got it? This is her day. And I want her to have it.”

They agreed, unable to hide the grimness of the secret. Tomorrow we’d tell her. If I couldn’t give her Dhane back, I could at least give her a wedding day filled with joy and love.