Free Pleasing the Dead by Deborah Turrell Atkinson

overbearing future mothers-in-law, but Lara’s mother couldn’t even get her name right half the time, let alone force a china pattern down their throats.
    Nor did Lara nag about crystal like his friends’ wives had. No, she wanted real estate. She wanted the deed to the whole goddamned strip mall. Ryan kept telling her it would be in the family once they got married. It was part of Mālua LLC, Tagama and son’s business. Lara wasn’t the only one with a new corporation.
    Lara’s Aquatic Adventures took up two-thirds of the prime real estate space in the mall, which was worth over a million. The amount of her lease rent was for property half the value—and she knew it. There was even room for future expansion; the only stores left were an art gallery, an upscale wine shop, and an organic coffee/sandwich shop whose bread tasted like sawdust and the coffee like road tar.
    â€œâ€¦this afternoon.” Tagama narrowed his eyes. “You listening?”
    â€œSorry. Didn’t get enough sleep last night. What did you say?”
    â€œCan you show the wrought iron people the other half of the warehouse this afternoon?”
    â€œThe sculptor’s willing to share it?”
    â€œThey use some of the same equipment.”
    â€œIt’s a great location.” Ryan looked around the high, wide space. “And clean. Must have been expensive. How’d you find it?”
    â€œHeard about a Chapter 11. Bank was going to repossess it, so I made an offer.”
    â€œWhere we going now?” Ryan wondered if he might get another cup of coffee on the way.
    â€œA shopping center about a mile from here. We bought it about the same time as the warehouse.”
    That “we” sounded very good.
    â€œHas a good family restaurant in it. Home-cooked food, popular with the locals.”
    â€œNice. Have we closed on the properties?”
    â€œA few days ago.”
    â€œGreat,” Ryan said.
    He was amazed. They were worth millions, as in multiple millions. He wondered where his father got that much money.
    Until five months ago, Tagama would invite Ryan to dinner and take him to his golf club once a month, but they didn’t interact much. They didn’t talk about business, and often his father’s colleagues, foreigners with vague but important titles, were around.
    When Tagama invited his son to join Mālua LLC as a principal partner, the timing couldn’t have been better. Ryan and a friend had just decided their gelato business wouldn’t support the two of them. He thought he might have to persuade Lara to move to Honolulu, where jobs were more plentiful, and he’d been in turmoil at the prospect. But Tagama said he wanted to work with his son, get to know him as a man, and leave him a legacy for the future.
    â€œDid you turn over some other properties to buy these?” Ryan asked.
    Tagama gave Ryan a sideways glance, but answered. “I had two houses in Kahala and two on Waialae Iki Ridge. Nice, desirable neighborhoods on O‘ahu. Made some good money.”
    Ryan didn’t ask how his father had bought those. He knew the areas. One of his friends, a lawyer, had bought a ridge home a year ago for two million.
    Ryan knew his father had made astute investments over the years, and was delighted to be his partner in commercial real estate. His income had skyrocketed to the point that he hardly knew what to do with it. Brokerage houses loved him; someone from Merrill Lynch called at least once a week.
    He played it down around his old friends. Marini, in particular, was still barely scraping by with gelato. Riley Murakami’s tattoo parlor was marginal, too. These were good guys, and Ryan hoped they got out of the hole. Maybe he could help them out some day.

Chapter Ten
    Stella interrupted the conversation about toxic ex-boyfriends with a call for Lara to get the phone. Lara shot from her chair as if springs had fired her into the air.