Still See You Everywhere

Book 0: A Frankie Elkin Novel

by Lisa Gardner

Genres: Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner comes a harrowing new thriller: Frankie Elkin is an expert at finding the missing persons that the rest of the world has forgotten, but even she couldn’t have anticipated this latest request—to locate the long-lost sister of a female serial killer facing execution in three weeks’ time.
 
No man truly fears a woman. Not even one who is her father’s daughter.
 
The case was sensational. Kaylee Pierson had confessed from the very beginning, waived all appeals. She had called herself “death,” but people called her the devil. Despite the media’s chronicling of her tragic circumstances—the childhood spent with a violent father—no one could find sympathy for “the Beautiful Butcher” who had led eighteen men home from bars before viciously slitting their throats.
 
Now, with only twenty-one days left to live, Pierson has finally received a lead on the whereabouts of the sister who was kidnapped over a decade ago, and she needs Frankie’s help to find her. The Beautiful Butcher’s offer: 
 
When was the last time your search ended with finding the living?
 
Unable to resist the chance for a rescue, Frankie takes on Pierson’s request. Twelve years ago, five-year old Leilani went missing in Hawaii. The main suspect? Pierson’s tech mogul ex-boyfriend, Sanders MacManus. Now, on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific—the site of MacManus’s latest vanity project—fresh evidence has appeared. In order to learn the truth and possibly save a young woman’s life, Frankie must go undercover at the isolated base camp. Her challenge: A dozen strangers. Countless dangerous secrets. Zero means of calling for help. And then the storm rolls in…

Release date: March 12, 2024

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

IN MY LINE OF WORK, I have seen people die, but I’ve never seen one put to death. My first thought as I stare at the redbrick entrance of the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas, is that I don’t want to start now.

The Mountain View Unit is infamous for housing female death row inmates. No one is executed here, however. For that, the prisoner will be transferred the afternoon of their date with death to the Huntsville Unit, which is even more infamous for being the most active execution chamber in the United States.

These are disquieting facts for a woman who’s been up all night on a Greyhound bus. I look terrible and I smell like it, too, which I’m trying very hard to ignore as I’m anxious and unsettled enough already.

In my line of work—which isn’t exactly a real job if you consider I have no training and receive no pay—I normally choose my cases. I can’t always explain why this missing person cold case versus that one. Given there are hundreds of thousands of missing people at any given time, and even more grieving loved ones desperate for answers, I’m always contemplating a tragically long list. I gravitate mostly to underserved minorities, the kind of people who were overlooked in life and garner little to no consideration after they vanish.

None of that completely explains why I’m here now, with bruised eyes and lanky hair, answering an urgent summons by some lawyer who clearly has excellent investigative skills, because I’m not the kind of woman who’s easy to track down. I have no mailing address, no property or utilities in my name, and don’t even own a real phone. I do, from time to time, use an internet café to post on a message board that focuses on missing persons. That’s where I got the note. Short. Desperate. Mysterious.

I’ve never been good at ignoring mysteries.

I’d left my entire life’s possessions—a single roll-aboard suitcase—in a locker at the bus station in Waco. Given that visiting hours in any kind of penitentiary are subject to change, I called the lawyer upon arrival to confirm my appointment. Victoria Twanow sounded almost as tight and anxious as I felt, which didn’t help my nerves. She notified me that I was allowed to bring in a single clear bag with up to twenty dollars in change for the vending machines. Why twenty dollars? Can you even spend twenty dollars in a vending machine? Given how much my stomach was growling, I figured I might come close, but then I wondered if the vending machine money was meant for me or for my death row hostess.

It was all too much for my sleep-deprived brain, so I gave up on clear plastic bags filled with loose change and settled for buying a Snickers and a bottle of water while waiting for yet another bus, this one to take me from Waco to Gatesville.

And now, here I am. A fortyish woman in worn jeans, dusty sneakers, and a frayed olive-green army jacket.

My name is Frankie Elkin, and finding missing people is what I do. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never bothered to care, I start looking. For no money, no recognition, and, most of the time, with no help.

But I still have no idea what a condemned murderer would want with me.

THE LAWYER, VICTORIA Twanow, meets me at the front entrance. She guides me through the various security gates till I arrive on the other side, blinking under the yellowish glare of fluorescent lights.

“I’ve arranged for a room,” she starts without preamble, already striding forward.

I’d gotten this from her messages. Victoria Twanow doesn’t mess around. She’s a woman on a mission, with a client scheduled for lethal injection in a matter of weeks. In person, she’s younger than I would’ve expected. Mid-thirties, with long, dark hair she has clipped into a low ponytail. She’s wearing a crisp gray skirt and blazer with the requisite white collared shirt. Her concession to fashion seems to be a chunky silver necklace, etched with exotic symbols. Mayan would be my guess. A tribute to her Belize heritage (I’ve Google-stalked her just as much as she’s apparently Google-stalked me), or just a piece that caught her eye? There’s no time to ask as she sweeps us down a corridor, heading straight for a stern-faced corrections officer.

His expression immediately softens as she approaches. “Victoria.” He nods warmly.

My lawyer escort flashes him a bright smile. They are friends of a sort, I realize. It makes sense. Twanow probably visits this place on a regular basis. Of course she’s come to know the guards, form some relationships.

It leaves me feeling even more awkward, like the new kid at school. My shoulders round self-consciously. I don’t like this place, with the glaring lights and overly antiseptic smell. The sounds are too loud and all at once, doors buzzing open, chains clanking, and so many people talking, talking, talking with a nearly rhythmic punctuation of sharp, angry exclamation. I’ve worked bars in rough neighborhoods filled with loud, drunken patrons one sip away from exploding into a brawl, and it still felt less stimulating than this.

Twanow touches my arm, offers a bolstering smile. “It’s okay. Focus on the people, not the place. Believe me, it helps.”

Given I’m about to meet a woman nicknamed the Beautiful Butcher for dismembering eighteen men and feeding them to her pigs, I’m not sure how.

The corrections officer holds open the door. Twanow breezes through. I follow much more hesitantly.

The room is small and barren. A single table, three molded plastic chairs. I was expecting more of the classic visitor setup: you know, a nice piece of solid glass between me and the convicted killer. This looks more like the basic interrogation room from every police station I’ve ever visited. Given I haven’t always been sitting on the law enforcement side of the table, I shudder slightly.

“This room is for attorney visits,” Twanow explains, setting down her briefcase. “If anyone asks, you’re now part of Keahi’s legal team.”

“Kayahee? I thought her name was Kaylee—”

“Focus. Here she is.”

A door to the right opens, and a woman with her wrists shackled at her waist appears. Having studied her picture before coming, I thought I was prepared, but I’m not. Even in shapeless prison whites, Kaylee Pierson is stunning. Rich black hair. High, sculpted cheekbones. Dark eyes set in lightly bronzed skin that speak to her Hawaiian heritage. She moves with a catlike grace as she enters the room, powered by a sinewy, muscular presence she makes no effort to diminish. I can absolutely see this gorgeous woman leading men home from bars. And I can also imagine her bulging arms wielding a saw over their dead bodies hours later. A beautiful butcher, indeed.

She pauses just inside the door, studies me from head to toe, then breaks into a grin.

There’s no warmth in her expression. It’s all cold calculation. If I wasn’t spooked before, I am now.

“Hello, Frankie,” she says in a low, throaty voice. “Welcome to my world.”

“DO YOU MIND?” Kaylee turns toward her accompanying guard. She raises her wrists slightly, and he unlocks her shackles. She winks. He steps back, his expression wary. Based on his response, I’m guessing that prisoners aren’t usually shackled for movement around the prison—which makes me wonder what Kaylee Pierson has done to receive such an honor.

“We’re all set,” Twanow addresses the corrections officer crisply, clearly eager to get to work.

The CO retreats out the door. I take a deep breath and have a seat. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Did you really ride the bus here?” Kaylee is asking. “We’d have been happy to provide airfare.”

“Miss Pierson—”

“Call me Keahi. It’s the name my mother wanted to give me, but my father refused. He had no use for her people or culture. Keahi means fire. A strong name for a baby girl my mother already knew would need to be tough to survive. I went through life with my father’s name. I will go to death with mine.”

I’m not sure how to respond to such sweeping statements, so I go with the highly obvious: “Your mother was Hawaiian.”

“She met my father when he was stationed in Honolulu. Married herself a fine sailor boy and returned with him to Texas. Stupid woman.”

“Your father was abusive.”

“My father was a monster. But I think we can all agree, I’m the bigger monster now.” She grins again, a movement of her lips that doesn’t match the darkness in her eyes. According to everything I read, Kaylee, or Keahi, Pierson has never apologized for her crimes. Nor has she sought reprieve from the death penalty. Others, like her determined lawyer, Victoria Twanow, have filed appeals on her behalf. But Keahi has made no bones about her willingness to be put to death. She killed, and now she will be killed.

I’m so far out of my league here. “What do you want?” I strive to keep my tone as flat as hers and am pleasantly surprised when my question ends with only the tiniest quiver.

“Victoria says you find missing people.” Beside me, Twanow nods. She has a legal pad out and looks like she’s taking notes. Keahi continues. “People no one else is looking for.”

“I specialize in working missing persons cold cases.”

“But you’re not a private investigator?”

“No.”

“Are you a computer hacker, someone who can discover a speck of sand in the desert just by following its purchase patterns on the internet?”

“Don’t even own a smart phone.”

Keahi frowns. “Then what are you?”

“A person with a really obsessive hobby.”

Her frown deepens. “Victoria says you’ve found everyone you’ve ever searched for. How?”

“I ask questions. Lots of questions. Sometimes, it’s as simple as people being willing to talk so many years later. And sometimes, it’s that I’m not the police, making neighbors in certain communities more willing to disclose the truth.” I shrug. “Once someone starts to talk, I make sure I listen. Not enough people do that anymore.”

“How many cases have you solved?”

“Nearly twenty.”

“You brought people home to their families?”

“I brought closure to their families.”

Keahi’s lips quirk. She isn’t fooled by my answer. Neither am I.

“You don’t take money.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not about the money.”

“What’s it about?”

“What do you care?”

She grins at my burst of temper. I make my first realization about my new serial killer friend. She likes anger, feels comfortable with rage. Kindness, on the other hand, is probably incredibly threatening to her. And someone like me, who helps people for no other reason than I want to, must seem like a foreign species.

Finally, we’re on equal footing—both of us are alien to each other.

“They will kill me in three weeks,” she says now, clearly seeking another reaction.

“Do the crime, serve the time.”

Keahi actually laughs. Beside me, however, Twanow has stiffened in distress. Apparently, she cares more about her client’s upcoming execution than her client does.

“We still have options,” Twanow starts now.

Keahi is already waving away her lawyer’s words. “I’m not looking to delay the inevitable. I don’t repent killing those men. Let me out of here tomorrow and I’ll start right back up again. I’m an animal. Animals get put down.”

Twanow blinks her eyes rapidly, her gaze now locked on her yellow legal pad covered in scrawled notes. She’s young and idealistic, I think. Maybe that committed to a client she’s had years to come to know, or maybe just that determined about defeating the death penalty. There’s one more element, however, that no one is mentioning: earnest lawyer Victoria and her stone-cold killer client are roughly the same age. In fact, Keahi is probably the younger, scheduled to be executed at the ripe old age of thirty-two. She doesn’t look fresh-faced and dewy-eyed, though. Her beauty comes with a hard edge, lips that might be full but never happy, eyes that are deep, dark pools, but mostly of homicidal intent.

“Why?” I speak up now. I can’t help myself; I’m genuinely curious. “Why did you kill those men?”

“They lied to me. I asked them to never leave, and they did. After that…”

“You picked up strange men in bars and expected them to stay?”

“Bad strategy?”

“Big lie. You knew they’d leave. That’s an excuse for what you did, but not your motive. You wanted something, needed something way more personal than that to butcher eighteen strangers.”

Keahi stills. She tilts her head to the side, studies me all over again. And for just a moment, her beautifully sculpted face loses its cold veneer. Her eyes remain dark pools, but they’re no longer sheened in ice. Her mask slips, and behind it…

I have to look away. Her pain is less an emotion than a primal scream. It slices to the bone, too awful to behold. I have seen grief in many forms, but I’ve never encountered anguish as terrible as this.

“I am empty,” she states softly. “When I am standing behind them, holding my knife, knowing their lives now belong to me, I feel less empty. The pulse on a man’s neck, racing beneath my fingertips. The feel of his blood, pouring hot and thick down my arms. The last choking sound he makes before crumpling at my feet… I need it. Without it, I would have nothing at all.”

Twanow’s pen punches through the legal pad.

I decide never to ask a serial killer about her motivation ever again.

“You’ve lost someone.” I’ve heard enough to fill in the pieces. “You want me to find them.”

“My baby sister. You must locate her. I need to know that she’s safe and sound. This is my dying wish. You have three weeks to get it done.”

She smiles again, triumphant and arrogant, and filled with quiet menace.

I go with the obvious answer. “No.” Then I sit back with some triumph and arrogance of my own.

YOU WOULD DENY A DYING woman—” Keahi leans forward, features already darkening. I wonder how fast the guards can move. “How dare—”

“Stop it!” Twanow slaps the table, startling both of us. Keahi and I both blink in surprise. We’d already dismissed Ms. Idealistic from our conversation. Our mistake.

“You came.” Twanow turns her attention to me first. “You responded to my note by spending nearly twelve hours on a Greyhound bus. That must mean you have some interest.”

“Curiosity, yes. Interest, TBD.”

Keahi’s turn. Twanow pins her client with the same gaze she just used on me. “You are a woman about to be put to death due to your own horrible actions. You don’t get to make demands of others now.”

“Feisty, aren’t you?”

“Stop. Just stop it. With the exhausting displays and endless manipulations. Three weeks, Keahi. That’s it. Three weeks left here on earth. You really want to find your sister, gain some sense of closure? Then cease with the drama and get down to business.”

I take it all back. I’m incredibly impressed by young gun Victoria Twanow after all.

Since I hadn’t lied about my curiosity, it’s easy enough to play along. “Tell me about your sister. Her name?”

“We called her Lea, but her secret Hawaiian name from our mother was Leilani, or heavenly child. She was a miracle baby, born fourteen years after me. There’d been other pregnancies in between, but none of them…” Keahi rolls a white-garbed shoulder. “From the very beginning, Lea was different. Happy. Sweet. Almost… sparkly. She laughed all the time. Offered up hugs and kisses just because. Would break into this huge smile every time she saw me even if it had been only five minutes before. My mother loved her best. She would spend hours in the kitchen brushing out her hair and plaiting it into elaborate braids. I understood. I loved Lea best, too. And the kitchen was the safest place for her; Daddy rarely ventured there.”

Keahi regards me seriously. “I am my father’s daughter. But Lea was my mother’s child.”

I get the picture. “What happened?”

“In the beginning, it was easy to keep Lea away from my daddy. He had no interest in a baby. But as she grew older, could toddle about, of course she came to his attention more and more. Daddy had no patience for sweet and kind. The sound of laughter would throw him into a rage. It was his nature. Anything light and pure must be beaten into something dark and twisted.”

“He beat her, too,” I fill in. “Like you, like your mother.”

“Not if I was around.” Keahi raises her chin. “If I saw him lift a hand, I got there first. He wanted to beat the shit out of me, what did I care? Nothing that hadn’t happened before. By seventeen, I met my father hate for hate. The more he beat me, the more I defied him. The more I bled, the more I promised to make him bleed. The nights I lay awake, picturing every horrible, sadistic thing I would do to him…”

“You murdered all those other men in lieu of killing your father?” I ask drolly.

That curl of her lips again. “How do you know I didn’t?”

“Keahi,” Twanow warns, but she doesn’t need to continue. I’m already making a note to never ask questions I don’t want the answers to.

“My mother was no match for him,” Keahi states flatly. “Weak. Small. A tiny little mouse that spent her days scurrying about to fulfill his every demand, while keeping her head down and lips sealed. Sometimes, when he was away, I would hear her sing softly in Hawaiian. When I was young, I wanted more. When I grew older, I wished she would just shut up already. But then Lea came, and not only did Lea like her singing, Lea would sing along; I’d come upon them in the kitchen, humming these little duets. It was… painful.” Not the word I was expecting. Keahi clarifies: “The sound of hope in a house where no such thing exists.”

Unfortunately, I know from experience there’s only one direction this story can go. “I assume something terrible happened.”

“No.” Keahi shakes her head, sounding surprised even after all these years. “Something good happened. The morning of my eighteenth birthday, my mother crept into the bedroom Lea and I shared and announced we were leaving. Not her, she didn’t have enough money for that. But she had purchased two tickets to Hawaii for Lea and me. We were to go, find her family, and never come back. And… it worked. She filled my father with whiskey and beer till he passed out cold. I took Lea’s hand and ran all the way down our driveway to the main road, where a neighbor drove us to the airport. I told everyone Lea was my daughter, and just like that, we were on a plane. We were free.”

Keahi’s voice breaks slightly on the last word. I give her a moment to recover. There’s a softness to her features when she speaks of her sister, a wistful look in her eyes. She’s either an incredible actress, or she truly loved Lea. I don’t know why Keahi would lie on the subject, though. Reconnecting with a long-lost sibling would hardly change her sentence at this point. Especially as she seems not just resigned but resolved to die.

“You and your sister made it to Hawaii. Did you find your mother’s family?”

“They were kind. Especially to me. I might’ve looked like them, but I knew nothing of their culture. More haole than Hawaiian. Lea, of course, took to everyone and everything immediately. We shared a tiny room in my auntie’s house. She had a small farm, not so different from my parents’, though no pigs.” Keahi flashes a quick smile. I refuse to take the bait.

She continues. “I got up early each morning and rushed out to do chores, working twice as hard as any of my cousins because I had to. I was terrified my auntie would change her mind, send us back. Or worse, Daddy would show up one day and burn it all to the ground. I already knew I’d kill him first. He was never going to touch my sister. I promised it to her. I swore it to myself.”

“Keahi.” The lawyer’s warning tone again.

Keahi dismisses her with another wave of her hand. “What are they going to do, give me a second lethal injection?”

“But your father never appeared,” I hastily interject, trying to get us back on topic. “You and Lea were safe in Hawaii?”

“For two whole years.”

“What happened?”

Her lips compressed into a tight line. “I proved to be my mother’s daughter after all. I met a man.”

“I STARTED WORKING a little farm stand, selling eggs, vegetables, and cut flowers from my auntie’s garden. One day, this man pulled up in a baby-blue convertible. I’d never seen anything like it, certainly not in Texas. The guy who got out was as flashy as his car—expensive Hawaiian shirt, linen trousers, fancy loafers. Handsome, too, but I wasn’t that stupid. He asked about the eggs, teased me about how many boys bought the flowers just to give them to me. I did my best to ignore him, but he kept chatting away. Wanted to know my recommendation for places to go on the island. Seemed interested in my answers. He smiled. All the time. Often. Easily. I thought to myself, He isn’t anything like my father.” On the table, Keahi’s hands clench and unclench. “So maybe I was a little stupid after all.”

“You fell in love?”

“What is love?” The Beautiful Butcher rolls one shoulder dramatically.

I’m now as impatient as the lawyer. “You ended up with this guy. You and your sister?”

“Of course. I’m dependent on my aunt for every bite of food, and I’d never seen much outside of a Texas pig farm. And this man, he’s handsome, charming, and rich. Like crazy rich. In a matter of months, Lea and I had left my auntie’s tiny house for Mac’s oceanside villa.

“My auntie didn’t like him. She said I was too young, and he was too pretty. She didn’t trust a man who didn’t have calluses on his hands. But he was good to Lea. Bought her dresses, dolls, even got her a kitten. I saw how he treated her, and I thought, There is a good man. I’m the luckiest girl around.

“Have I mentioned yet my stupidity?”

I stay quiet, watching her strong fingers twitch in agitation.

“Mac had an entire household staff—chef, housekeeper, grounds crew—so no more chores for me. My sole obligation became to look gorgeous every evening when he came home. And Lea, she was ecstatic, running though this huge mansion, splashing around in the pool, playing games with her kitten. The staff adored her. They were more reserved with me, however. From the beginning, I recognized some of their looks were pitying.”

“When did he first hit you?” I ask softly. Again, there is only one direction this story can go.

“I asked him one too many questions when he came home from work one evening. He slapped me, then immediately apologized.”

“You accepted his excuse.”

“I slapped him back.”

This grabs my attention.

“He liked it.” Keahi regards me intently, her dark eyes nearly glowing. “He liked it very much. We were late to dinner that night, he liked it so much.” She pauses, as if this should shock me. I keep my features neutral. I would like to say this is the first time I’ve heard of such things, but it isn’t. Finally, Keahi continues in a more casual tone. “Lea was too young to understand. But the moment she saw us, she stopped chattering away with the cook, grew subdued. I got it then. She didn’t have to know what had happened to know that we were back home again. We’d come all the way to Hawaii to live like Texas. I’d failed. I just didn’t know how badly yet.”

“It grew worse.”

“Gloves were off. Mac would strike me for no reason, just to see what I’d do. And I’d explode on him. It felt great.” Keahi’s voice is nearly feral with satisfaction. “He hit me; I punched back harder. He knocked me to the ground; I kicked the legs out from underneath him. I didn’t care how much I hurt, as long as I could make him hurt worse.

“I wanted to believe I gave as good as I got. Except, of course, I didn’t. He was bigger and stronger. I bruised his jaw; he knocked me out. I blackened his torso; he had me spitting up blood. And soon enough, he was reminding me it was his home I lived in, his clothes on my back, his charity keeping my sister safe. I learned to wear a lot of makeup and ignore the staff’s concerned glances. I’m sure you can fill in the rest.”

“He hurt your sister.”

“Huge, climactic brawl.” Keahi’s tone is once again flippant, which is how I know this part of the story matters. “I was on the floor, Mac kicking and punching the shit out of me. Lea came running into the room. She tried to grab his arm to stop him. And he threw her across the room so hard I could hear the thud of her body hitting the wall. That was it. My jaw was fractured, my ribs broken, but I didn’t care. I went after him with everything I had while screaming at Lea to run. I heard her get up. I thought I saw her flee from the room. Then Mac was on his feet and I was on my back and I don’t remember much after that. When I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital, most of my body covered in bandages and my auntie holding my hand.”

Keahi’s breathing has grown ragged. She seems to realize it, draws in a deep lungful, then slowly lets it out. Anyone else, I would feel compelled to touch their arm, offer comfort. In this case, I don’t want to lose the hand I’m pretty sure she’d snap off at the wrist.

“I asked about Lea,” Keahi continues now. “I begged my aunt to find her. She went straight to Mac’s house and demanded to see her niece. Mac denied it all. Claimed he hadn’t seen Lea since the night I physically attacked him. Most likely she’d run away, terrified of her violent older sister, and instead of harassing him, my auntie should be thanking him for not pressing charges against me. Given the damage to his face… My auntie waited outside the gates, catching the grounds crew as they were leaving. They swore they hadn’t seen Lea. As they were locals, she believed them, even though she couldn’t believe Mac.

“After that, my cousins scoured the city, searching for Lea. But Honolulu is big, and there’s only so much ground they could cover.”

“Did they go to the police?”

“The police.” Keahi already sounds disgusted. “Do you know how many native Hawaiian girls disappear each year? Versus how many they bother to look for, let alone find?”

“No one knows,” Twanow murmurs, glancing over at me. “Federal studies gather data on Native Americans and Alaska Natives, but not Indigenous Hawaiians, as they don’t have tribal lands that fall under federal jurisdiction. What we know from the populations that are tracked—one report found that of the fifty-seven hundred missing and murdered Indigenous girls, only a little over a hundred show up in the Justice Department database. And in Hawaii, which is a major hub for sex trafficking, those numbers are probably even worse.”

I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not. All the cases I’ve worked these past dozen years have been filled with statistics just as depressing as these.

“You never found your sister.” I look at Keahi.

“Once I was out of the hospital, I tried everything. Days and nights, nights and days, flashing her photo to anyone who would look, pleading for information. I even broke into Mac’s villa. Her room was empty. Like she’d never been there. Like she’d never existed at all.”

Keahi looks away, a muscle twitching in her jaw. “I spent two years on the island, living off my auntie’s generosity while I searched for my sister. In the end, even my auntie told me it was time to let go. Lea was most likely dead. I had to accept that.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Lea disappeared almost a dozen years ago. She was five years old. Only five years old.”

I understand. “After you gave up the search, you returned to Texas? Your father?”

“What choice did I have? I couldn’t stay in Hawaii forever. My auntie had done enough, and what had I given her in return? I had no job, no skills, no formal education. So that was that. I came home. Whatever my daddy did now, at least I deserved it.”

I take a deep breath, my mind whirring through the story of Keahi’s life, trying to make the pieces fit. “All right. Your sister had disappeared, you return home and spend, what, the next three years taking out your rage on other men? Which may or may not have included your father?”

Twanow glares at me.

“He happened to die shortly after I returned to the homestead,” Keahi retorts blithely.

Ahh, here is the murderess I’ve come to know and not love. “You never returned to Hawaii, followed up with your auntie, cousins, whomever?”

“No.”

“But now, three weeks before your execution, you’re suddenly overcome with the need to locate your baby sister?”

“I’ve always been overcome with the need to save Lea. I just assumed it was no longer possible.”

Finally, I get it. “Something changed. You have a lead on her, a reason to believe she’s still alive?. . .