Pleasing the Dead by Deborah Turrell Atkinson Page B

No tattoos crawling up his neck, but his collar was buttoned and the shirt had long sleeves. She was leery of handing her ID over to this guy.
    â€œI don’t have it right now. I can give it to you when we sign the contract.” Storm scooped her things back into her purse. “I need references from some of your customers.”
    The phone rang again, and the man answered it. Storm hesitated a moment, then folded the contract and put it into her bag with the hairbrush and lipsticks. She gave the man a little wave, but he was speaking to someone in Japanese and had resumed pacing and gesturing.
    Outside the building, she hopped into her rental, turned the ignition, rolled down all the windows, and set the air conditioner to high. A turkey could roast in there, and she was beginning to. Drops of sweat crept down the sides of her face.
    She readjusted the vent and took a moment to remove the contract from her purse. Nothing too interesting about it. Across the top of the torn paper was Ma‘alahi Storage, with phone and fax numbers, in both English and Japanese. There was also a hand-written doodle in Japanese that Storm couldn’t read, followed by $18,765. Apparently the office manager had been using the contract for scratch paper.
    Storm shrugged to herself, rolled up the windows and exited onto the main thoroughfare. She didn’t look back, so she didn’t see the office clerk at the building’s entrance. He watched her drive away and chattered into his cell phone.
    ***
    At a red light, Storm called the office and made a report of her day to her ever-protective and efficient secretary.
    â€œTwo things,” Grace told her. “Call your Aunt Maile and Hamlin’s on his way home.”
    â€œHe is? That’s great news.”
    â€œI thought so, too. Finish up with the dive shop and get back here. Don’t forget your aunt, either, or she’ll be on the next plane to Maui.”
    That part was true, Storm thought. “I’ll call her. But the dive shop business is a little more complicated than I originally thought.”
    â€œI’ve heard that before.” Grace hung up.
    On her way to Maui Memorial Hospital, Storm had a chance to ponder the ball of tangled ends she was trying to unravel. Lara hadn’t been forthcoming with the information Storm needed to set up liability protection. Instead of volunteering that Ryan and his father owned the land under the shop, Lara had mentioned it as if it were afterthought, even as Storm was begging for the information. Ryan was a little better, but he’d ducked out before Storm got the specifics about water, electricity, and the other stores in the little mall.
    It was not the kind of thing she could let go. What if, God forbid, there was a lawsuit against the shop? Not only would Lara and Ryan blame her, she could be sued for legal malpractice.
    Several other things niggled at her, more misgivings than specifics. Damon had quickly changed the subject when they’d talked about Lara’s family. Storm supposed he felt it wasn’t his place to discuss it, but there’d been something in the way he’d clammed up after bringing up the death of Lara’s sister.
    Another concern was the fact that the older Tagama did business with Paradise Consortium. It could be nothing, as he seemed to be a wealthy, well-connected businessman. Local bars and restaurants would be logical investments. But when the pushy, chop-fingered clerk in the storage facility where Paradise Consortium had its office insisted on her ID, alarm bells sounded.
    She needed to find answers to a long list of questions, but by the time Storm drove into the hospital parking lot, her mind was on the child with the gunshot wound. This visit had little to do with her legal clients. Storm had been twelve, the same age as Carmen, when her mother killed herself. It had affected everything in her life, just as this event would color Carmen’s life. This