Sam’s gaze took in their state. “What happened to you?” he asked.
“It’s a long story.” Mano told the detective about Gina and her part in Leilani’s abduction. Sam sent a car to pick up Jason.
“You’re saying Adele was murdered by Gina as well? Talk about an old-time harpy, just like in the old Greek myths. We picked up Aki, by the way.” He clapped Mano on the shoulder. “Good job.”
Annie was drooping. She wanted to crawl into bed and close her eyes. “Where are my father and brother?” Wilson was already sleeping inside her shirt.
“I haven’t seen them,” Sam said.
“Maybe they’re at the observatory. I’m sure Father is anyway.” She clasped her arms around herself. She hated to be the one to tell him about Gina. Even if it was too soon for his heart to have been touched, his honor would be tarnished by his association with her.
Sam motioned for another officer. “Run these folks home, would you?”
“My Nissan,” Annie said, suddenly realizing her SUV was probably destroyed.
Leilani slipped her hand into Annie’s. “You can have my car.”
Her sister’s Ford Mustang was her pride and joy. Annie squeezed her sister’s fingers. “I’ll just get another one.”
“I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come, Annie,” Leilani said in a small voice. “I’ll never be able to repay you.”
“Your love is enough.” Annie kissed her sister’s cheek, then they all crowded into the back of the patrol car. In front of their house, she and Leilani got out.
“Where to now?” the officer asked.
“I’ll get out here. That’s my car,” Mano said, pointing out his car in the driveway. He climbed out and went toward it. He stopped and came back to Annie. “We’re both too tired to think. All I want to say to you can wait until tomorrow night.”
“Come for dinner?” she suggested. Her heart swelled at the promise she saw in his eyes.
“If you let me help.”
“You can keep Wilson out of things.”
His smile lit his tired eyes. “Deal.” His gaze searched hers. “I’m going to have to call navy security and straighten out the mess with Tomi tomorrow. He might be arrested until it’s all squared away.”
Annie gulped. She’d hoped the worst of the ordeal was over. “Can I come?”
“It would probably be easier on Tomi if you didn’t.”
“Will you call me when it’s over?”
“I’ll come tell you in person.” He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose, then went to his car.
Mano sat in Sam’s office in a cracked vinyl chair. Ash lay thick on the furniture, and his throat still burned. Tomi sat beside him. Two navy security officers were waiting to take Tomi into custody when Sam finished his interrogation. A preliminary necessity only, Mano hoped. It was nearly five.
“So let me get this straight. Gina’s dead husband was CEO of Banos. He’d begun negotiations to build the casino here and died with his daughter while diving. Gina blamed Tomi for the deaths and came here to get her revenge. Noah altered research that would have shown the development was on unsafe ground so that the conglomerate could go ahead with the sale of land to developers and homeowners.”
Mano nodded. “Noah was killed when Gina’s associates thought he was going to renege and spill the beans. They’d be stuck holding worthless land.”
Sam grimaced. “They are anyway. They own most of the land the lava is spilling onto now. It looks like Aki actually pulled the trigger. At least that’s what Jason tells us.”
“And Gina planned to pin the murder on me,” Tomi said. “Jason and Aki were going to plant the gun among my things. She killed my mother.”
“Your poor mother never had a chance.” Sam’s eyes drooped, and he blinked rapidly.
Tomi bent his head and just nodded. Mano swallowed the lump in his throat. He’d loved Adele Tagama like a mother, and he could only imagine how devastated her children were at the realization of how she really died.
“What about the calls to Annie, the ones with the altered voice?” Sam asked.
“Jason. He was jealous of how much his mother loved Annie.”
“Some love. She was going to kill her.”
“I think she really cared about Annie in her own way. Killing Annie wasn’t something that she planned to do.”
Sam drummed his fingers on the desk. “What about this money in the bank?”
Mano looked up at the security officer. “Planted there by some Iranians who were trying to blackmail Tomi into giving them some intelligence. With him in custody and the whole thing in the open, they won’t have any option but to go back to their own country.”
“I’d like to find them first,” Sam grumbled.
Mano wished the detective luck, but he knew the men had probably flown out this morning when the news began to leak.