O'ahu Lonesome Tonight? (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series #5) by JoAnn Bassett Page A

left.
    “He’s worried
about sticky stuff on his hands?” Jeff said.
    We put our arms
around each other’s waist and walked back to the car. “Fun times in the big
city,” I said.
    We headed down Kapahulu to Kalakaua Avenue to
connect with Diamond Head Road. We could’ve cut over at Monsarrat ,
but we agreed we’d rather take the scenic route, along the beachfront.
    “Sometimes I
forget how beautiful the beach is,” Jeff said as we drove along Queen’s Surf
Beach. “I like living on the mainland, but I gotta say, sometimes I miss this so much.”
    I looked over
at him. Even with his sunglasses on, I could see the furrow between his
eyebrows.
    “You can always
come back, you know. There are tons of engineering firms over here.”
    “Not on Maui.”
    “No, not on
Maui, but from O’ahu you can get to Maui in half an
hour.”
    “I’m afraid the
kind of work I do is pretty specialized. Government stuff.”
    “Yeah, well look
around. We’ve got government everything here. Army, Navy, Air Force, Interior,
Homeland Security, DOD, NASA, USGS, and about a dozen other acronyms I don’t
have the security clearance to even know exist.”
    “True. But what
I’m working on is unique to Livermore.”
    “Oh, so it’s
one of those jobs that if you told me about you’d have to kill me?”
    “Probably not kill you, but I’d be expected to mess you up pretty bad.”
    “Fat chance of that. You make good money?”
    “Ridiculously good.”
    “Then spend a
little of it to come home more often.”
    We drove up
Diamond Head Road and turned in at the marker for the park. There was a park in
the crater, but you had to climb to the crater rim if you wanted to catch the
view. Even though it was not yet eight-thirty on a Monday morning the parking
lot was nearly full.
    “Seems we’re
not the only nature lovers up this early,” I said. “You want to do the hike?” I
said, pointing to the trailhead.
    Jeff shrugged.
“It’s a nice view, but I’m kind of sluggish from all the sugar in that malasada.
Why don’t we go as far as the tunnel and then come back?”
    “Sounds like a
plan.”
    We got out and
walked up the paved trail until we reached the two hundred foot long tunnel.
“You sure you don’t want to go all the way up?” I said.
    “Nah. Been there, done that. I’d rather go to the beach.”
    As we started
back down, the wind picked up. A thick bank of clouds was moving in from the
south.
    “Looks like we
might get a little rain after all,” Jeff said.
    By the time we
reached the parking lot the rain was really coming down. A stiff wind blew the
rain nearly sideways so by the time we got into the car and slammed the doors
we were pretty well soaked.
    We sat panting
from the final dash. “You know, I’ve always wondered,” I said. “Do you get
wetter if you run in the rain since you’re quickly moving through all the
falling raindrops, or wetter if you walk, since you’re
out in it longer? It seems you get wetter if you run because you’re coming in
contact with more of it.”
    Jeff looked at
me. “Seriously?”
    “Yeah. It’s an interesting physics question, don’t you
think?”
    “The amount of
rain that actually hits your body is directly proportional to the amount of
time you spend in the rain,” he said. “It’s a question of time, not velocity.”
    “Oh,” I said. “Really?”
    “Who knows? But
that’s the kind of BS we throw around the lab when we either don’t care about
the answer or we’re too lazy to do the research.”
    “It’s really
coming down,” I said. “Look at the windshield. It’s like we’re going through a
car wash.”
    We slowly made
our way back to the penthouse. Jeff called Farrah and they agreed to reschedule
their lunch date when the weather cleared. We slouched around the apartment
hoping the rain would let up in an hour or so but by two o’clock it was still
coming down.
    I plopped down
on the sofa and called Hatch. “So did you make it to