“My thoughts exactly,” Detective Torres said. “Which is why we’ll be opening an investigation into the company and more specifically, any issues that cropped up after a renovation project had been completed. If anyone has been harmed due to his negligence and inadequacies, he will be charged for that too, as will the company that allowed him to continue working there. They will likely find themselves sued. Getting fired might be the best thing that could have happened to you.”
“So, what happens now?” Kekoa asked.
“We’re going to get your official statement on record,” Detective Lujan explained. “Both of the incidents at work and the one at the bar. Don’t leave anything out; every detail helps, especially when establishing a pattern of behavior.”
“We intend to reach out to other former employees who were fired after an encounter with him to see if any of them would be willing to go on record too,” Detective Torres said.
“Our hope is that he will be in custody by the time you’re finished and it’s been typed up and signed,” Chief Master’s said. “It’s a good thing he’s not a survivalist, or I’d be worried about having to track him through the jungle. We have officers stationed in front of his home as well as someone keeping eyes on his boat at all times, since those who know him have all suggested he’ll show up there eventually. He’s got no other family on the island, and according to his friends, the woman he was seeing broke up with him two months ago. After contacting her, we were told that he’d better not even think about showing up there, or he’d be the one who needed to call 9-1-1 when she got through with him. While she’s been advised that wouldn’t bea good idea, I doubt my words had any effect on her, so there is a cruiser outside of her house just in case.”
I doubted it would have the same effect on me under the circumstances, but no one needed me adding more fuel to the fire, so for once, I sat still and kept my mouth shut. Detective Torres passed Kekoa a pen and a yellow legal pad, while Chief Masters motioned Nyx and I out of the room. We followed her past a flurry of activity at the desk and ringing phones until we reached her office.
“Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the chairs across from her desk.
“What’s going on, Mom?” Nyx asked.
“During our investigation we turned up some information about Kekoa that doesn’t paint them in the best light.”
I shot Nyx a look and could see that the news was hitting him the same as it was me. We’d kind of expected her to find something after what we’d witnessed at the bar.
“Hotheaded, impulsive,” she began. “I won’t go into detail, but I did feel like I needed to bring it to your attention so you could keep an eye out for warning signs and help them assimilate without too many bumps and bruises. Though what I saw out of them last night confirms my suspicions that they only tangle with someone when they feel like they’ve crossed a line.”
“Yeah, I, um, hearing him talk about it, I got the same impression,” Nyx explained.
“Just spend some time getting to know each other,” she suggested. “You don’t want them getting off on the wrong foot and winding up involved in another public incident. Word spreads fast here, good and bad, you know this, so encourage them to use their powers for good and maybe start letting their hair go back to its natural shade so people will think twice about tangling with them. Nuno’s toxicology report was extremely elevated when he reached the hospital. Had he been moresensitive to jellyfish toxin than he was, it might have landed him in the morgue.
“We’ll, um, mention the hair thing to them,” I said. “It threw us when they shifted in the water; we were searching for a brown jellyfish at first, not a green and purple one.”
“As unfair as it might seem to ask someone to change themselves for the benefit of others, a jellyfish’s hair is, well…” she began.
“…a neon warning sign that they are toxic,” Nyx finished for her. “But Nuno grabbed them; Kekoa didn’t invite him to do that.”
“Nuno might have reconsidered that choice if he’d known,” she replied, scrubbing a hand over her face, “though I doubt it. I would just hate to see Kekoa get off on the wrong foot in the community when this is where you intend to live together.”
“You’re right,” I said.
“Thank you,” she replied. “Now feel free to wait on the bench outside of the interview room for them to finish the statement, then you can join them back in the room. I hope it won’t take too much longer before he’s apprehended. Tips have been coming in from all over, along with a lot of public encouragement for us to catch this guy. He’s clearly stepped on a lot of toes over the years.”
Kind of like our mate, I thought as we headed back to the bench. Another memory flashed through my head, of a moment back at the bar, when Kekoa had done the hand twist thing, like they’d been trying to break free, only they hadn’t; they’d just grabbed Nuno’s wrist and held on.
Shit.
Double the exposure. The bar had been warm; Kekoa had admitted to being sweaty. If his palms had been even remotely damp, his touch would have sent more toxins into Nuno’s bloodstream. But had it been on purpose?
Better still, did I think he was wrong?
My phone chimed and shit, I wasn’t in the right headspace to deal with the meeting and any more last-minute party planning bullshit and quickly fired off a text explaining that I had a family emergency and to please proceed without me. I asked them to cc me in on whatever new details I needed to know while hopeful that there weren’t any, though that would probably change before Wednesday.
It wasn’t exactly a lie; there was a bit of family turmoil going on and maybe more to come as we sat down and started to have real conversations with Kekoa. Too real for the third date; only, like they’d said back at the beach, this was no date, it was the first step towards forever. Here’s hoping we didn’t trip and land on our asses.
“So, um, how do you think the whole hair conversation is going to go?” Nyx asked as we parked ourselves on the bench.
“Not good,” I muttered.
“Yeah, I don’t get the impression from them that they like to be told what to do.”
“Maybe we start by asking why they don’t wear it the way other jellyfish do and work from there,” I said. “We might get lucky and be able to reason with them without having to directly bring up the topic of them changing it back.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Chief Masters remarked as she stalked past us.
