Free I'm Kona Love You Forever (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series Book 6) by JoAnn Bassett Page A

you a real good deal,” she said. “Will you be the only driver?”
    “No, my friend here will also be driving.”
    Friend ? Seriously? And then I realized it would probably have been awkward for Hatch to call me his “girlfriend.” My gender was obvious, and to this kid, a couple of mid-thirty-somethings like us probably fell in the “senior citizen” category. At least he hadn’t referred to me as his “lady friend.”
    “ Okay,” she said. She pecked on her computer. “We’ve got a Jeep Wrangler I can let you have for fifty a day.”
    “Fifty bucks?” said Hatch. “That the best you can do?” He eyed the next counter down, where a strawberry-blond clerk at a competing rental agency was giving him a come-hither look.
    “It’s normally almost eighty,” said Dimples.
    “Make it forty total and you’ve got a deal.”
    “ But the taxes and airport fees are more than that,” she said.
    Hatch put his hands flat on the counter, as if about to push himself away. “Consider it a public service donation.”
    “I can’t do that with a Jeep. But I could probably give you a compact car.”
    Hatch looked at me. I nodded.
    “Fine,” he said. “But the forty’s gotta include everything. No add-ons.”
    The dot matrix printer behind her started chunking out a rental agreement.
    “It’s an inclusive rate,” Dimples said. “But you’ll have to fill it up before bringing the car back. Get a receipt. Otherwise we’re gonna have to charge you eight-twenty a gallon.”
    We went to the numbered parking space and found the car. Cars didn’t get any more non-descript than the car sitting there. A sliver-grey Ford Focus with a grey cloth interior and dozens of dings and scratches adorning the door panels, bumpers and hood. The windshield was so smeared it looked as if it’d been wiped off with a greasy hamburger wrapper.
    “ Why do people beat on these cars so much?” Hatch said, fingering a particularly glaring door ding.
    He documented every dent and mark on the rental agreement and handed it to the security guard as we drove out of the lot.
    “ So, here we are,” I said. There’s no mistaking Kona for Maui. The area around the Kona airport is about as bare as it gets. Red dirt, chunks of lava rock lining the road, and a horizon of flat ocean to the west that stretches for thousands of miles with no other islands in sight. People have likened the North Kona area to the moon, but it would have to be a moon with warm humid air, a well-maintained highway, and a spectacular rugged coastline.
    “Yeah. Where to first?” Hatch said.
    “ Let’s drop our stuff at the B and B and then see what I can dig up on this birth certificate. The sooner I get that handled, the sooner we can start relaxing.”
    “ Do you want me to go with you? Because I was hoping to start relaxing at about…” He checked his watch. “Eleven-thirty-two. Exactly twenty minutes from now.”
    “ I’ll be fine on my own. Tell you what. Why don’t we check in and then I’ll drop you off at the beach? I’ll keep in touch and let you know when I’m done.”
    Our B & B was cozy , with seven rooms clustered around a large palm-studded courtyard. The room we were given was decorated in plantation style, featuring an enormous canopied bed with thick dark wood posts and yards and yards of sheer ivory fabric flowing from headboard to footboard and then cascading on down to the floor.
    “Whew,” said Hatch. “That bed looks like it came from ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’ I hope it isn’t hungry.”
    We unpacked and headed back outside.
    “I’m going to ask around and see if I can locate the woman who’s listed as the mother on Lili’s current birth certificate,” I said. “The one whose baby died. Hopefully, after all this time, she’ll be willing to talk about it.”
    I slid into the driver’s seat. I had to adjust the seat forward about four clicks since I ’m eight inches shorter than Hatch. “Which beach would you like to