Read Online Too Hot Four Hula: 4 (The Tiki Goddess Mystery Series) by Jill Marie Landis - Free Book Online Page B

where the details of a fight at a big Samoan reunion were being sorted out. Lieutenant Chun pushed away from his desk. At six-four he towered over her.
    “Lady, you bettah jus’ let hotel security work it out. We got real worries here. A bunch of Medicare age hula dancers and a stolen recipe book isn’t gonna ever be high on our priority list. I’d say you got better chances of recovery with Hilton security.”
    He left Em and went to help other officers subdue a Samoan grandmother after she tossed a skinny Chinese guy against a wall.
    By the time Em had squished the Maidens into their rental van and was on the way back to the Hilton, they had already broken the law again. There were more passengers than seatbelts inside the van, and so Precious was draped over three laps in the middle row.
    “Louie had better be watching out for my mother,” Big Estelle yelled from the far back seat.
    The last time Em had seen Little Estelle she’d been with the two muscular servicemen at the bar.
    “I’m sure she’s fine.”
    “You don’t sound like she’s fine. You sound like you have no clue.”
    12
    LOUIE WAS STILL DOWN in the dumps when he woke up. Em hated to make things worse, but she decided to tell him she was going to meet her ex for lunch at a nearby hotel.
    “What’s he doing here? Stalking you?” Louie shook his head. “He’s probably regretting letting you go and wants to get back together.”
    “Too late for that. Besides, I’m the one who filed for divorce,” she reminded him. She told him about how Phillip had read about Louie’s participation in the contest and how Phillip was going to be here on Oahu this week too, and so he invited her to lunch.
    “I think it’ll be a good thing. Closure. Gotta be good.” She wasn’t feeling real certain.
    The phone in the suite rang as Em debated what to wear to lunch. It was Hilton security officer Kim calling to tell her that he had recovered the video of their hallway taken around the time they’d checked in yesterday. He asked when it would be convenient for her to meet him at the security office and view it.
    “I’ll be right down,” she said.
    The resort was already swarming like a beehive alive with guests. Em had seen at least two Starbucks coffee shops in the complex with lines of customers streaming out the doors. The body clocks of new arrivals from the mainland were still set on earlier time zones, and most of them had already been up for hours.
    She passed the penguin lagoon where a couple of molting African penguins hid in the shade of a lava rock cave. They appeared to be staring forlornly at turtles lazing on faux rock islands in the middle of an odiferous pool. When she reached the security office, Mr. Kim was waiting at the desk.
    “Thank you for calling me in,” she told him.
    “We were in luck. The camera was on yesterday. Like I said, it’s quirky at best.”
    “The weather,” she said.
    “Right. Too much humidity and salt air off the ocean. Come with me.”
    He led her into another room, smaller, with banks of screens that showed the various locations in the hotel. He made a few strokes on a computer keyboard, and the image of a hallway appeared.
    “That’s the twentieth floor yesterday morning a few minutes before you checked in,” he said.
    As Em watched, the hall remained empty. He fast forwarded the video, and she suddenly saw herself and Louie appear at the bottom of the screen. Louie had the strap of his briefcase looped over his shoulder just as he had assured her. They walked down the hall. Louie used his card key to open the room. They went inside, and the hallway was empty again.
    “Keep watching,” the security officer said. “No one else walks down the hall for a few minutes.”
    Em watched. He kept fast forwarding to a point where Louie stepped out of the room with an ice bucket in his hand. He turned, fiddled with something, and must have been propping the door open with the latch before he walked down the