“Yes, I’d prefer that,” he started to say, then realized it wasn’t true. Noelani had broken his teenaged heart. This might be his chance to find out why. “So
rry if I sounded unprofessional. May I buy you a drink?”
“No thanks.”
“I’m Dillon,” he added. “Dillon Makua.” He held out his hand and gave her his best lopsided grin, the one that generally scored big points with the ladies.
No reaction. At least not the expected one. Scowling, she ignored his hand. “Yes and., as you’ve no doubt gathered, I’m Noelani Crawford. We need to talk, Mr Makua. In private,” she added, glancing pointedly at Keoni.
Dillon led her to an empty booth, and she slid in across from him. But even though she was the one who’d insisted that she wanted to talk, Noelani just sat there, staring in silence at the green Formica tabletop.
Virtually everything in the Shamrock was green. Keoni could claim only a minuscule amount of Irish blood, but he liked to consider himself an exiled son of the Emerald Isle. He advertised the Shamrock as “a little corner of Ireland in the heart of Waikiki” and developed a thick brogue every year around St Patrick’s Day. Fortunately, it was June now, so the “top of the mornings” and “begorrahs” were at a minimum. Unfortunately, the green decor was permanent.
Dillon leaned forwards. “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”
“Maybe this was a mistake.”
Maybe it was, but . . . “Fill me in, Ms Crawford. If I don’t think I can help, I’ll say so, and no harm done. OK?”
“All right.”
Catherine Zeta-Jones. That’s who she sounded like. Looked a little like the actress, too, especially her lips.
“Mr Makua?” Noelani said, and he realized he’d been staring at her mouth. So maybe he ought to concentrate on her words, not her accent or her kissability potential.
He cleared his throat. “My secretary said you want me to look into your grandmother’s suicide.”
“If it was suicide.”
“But the story made headlines last week, big island landowner CASSANDRA CRAWFORD JUMPS FROM A HELICOPTER INTO KILAUEA VOLCANO. There were witnesses and, if memory serves, she left a suicide note.”
Noelani frowned. “Someone could have forced her to write it.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know.” She met his gaze again, and damned if his traitorous heart didn’t kick into high gear. “I can’t believe she’d kill herself though.”
“What’s your grandfather’s take on it?”
“My grandfather was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor eight months before my father was born.”
“And your grandmother never remarried?” he asked in surprise.
“She was too much in love with my grandfather, kept pictures of him all over the house.”
“So loneliness could have been a factor. Did she have other family nearby?”
“None,” Noelani admitted. “I’m her only living relative, and I’ve been in the UK for the past few years. Her parents are long gone, of course, and she only had one sibling, a brother who died in his teens. Even my parents are gone, killed in a car crash when I was five. That’s when I went to live with Grandmother.” She paused before adding, “But to kill herself out of loneliness? That’s absurd. Grandmother had friends. Lots of them.” Noelani’s inability to maintain eye contact told him she wasn’t as convinced as she was trying to sound.
“What is it you want from me?” Dillon asked gently.
Noelani stared at the tabletop. “I need to know the truth. Was it truly suicide or merely an accident? I wonder if maybe she slipped when she leaned out to toss the tears into the crater.”
Tears? “I don’t follow.”
She met his gaze, and his heart kicked into overdrive again. God, how could she not remember?
“You know the Pele legends, right?” she said.