Page 70 of Forgotten Promise

“You’re claiming this theft is recent,” Rose said in a dangerously pleasant tone.

Makani transferred his hard stare to her. “If you’re implying my family—”

“Oh, I am,” Rose assured.

“No,” Kailani said. “We didn’t take the gold. And I’m not going to waste time justifying and defending. Like I said, I think that when I was in there two days ago, some of the gold was missing.” She closed her eyes, desperately calling up the memory of that moment. “Yes, some gold was missing.” She opened her eyes. “But not as much as today.”

“You’re saying that over the past two days, someone has been robbing the waihona and no one noticed?” Rose’s brow went up but she didn’t look at Makani.

“The fire,” Makani said. “Maybe the fire was a distraction.”

“Yes,” John said, nodding.

“How did the fire start?” The question came, unexpectedly, from Selene’s quiet husband, Luca.

“A remote detonation system,” Makani said. “It wasn’t homemade. The fire investigator said it looks like the kind used by fireworks companies.”

“You can buy those on Amazon,” Oscar said.

Why did he know that?

“Why do you know that?” Makani demanded.

Oscar smirked.

“Why isn’t all the gold gone?” Carly asked. “If they robbed it, why not take it all? Too heavy?”

“Robbing,” John spoke with quiet authority. “Not robbed, not past tense. This is a crime in progress, and we need to react accordingly.”

“But that…” Makani looked ill, and Kailani wanted to hug her brother.

“However they’re accessing the waihona,” John went on, his gaze focused on the middle distance as he thought it through, “they must be limited in how much they can take out at one time. Clearly they haven’t been able to clear everything out at once. They must be sneaking in and out.”

“We don’t know if anything else is missing, if they made it to the inner part of the vault,” Selene added. “We backed out when we realized.”

Kailani’s stomach went tight with anxiety. She wanted to rush back to the waihona, check what was missing. Not that she had any idea what was in the inner vault. If someone had breached the inner room, there might not be any way to know.

“From what you’ve said, last time Kailani went into the waihona, someone, let’s now assume the robbers, started a fire,” Preston said. “It might be dangerous to be in there.”

“I agree,” John said.

“But we have to go back,” Kailani added.

“If they start a fire with the three of us in there, I doubt we’d all make it out alive. I can only assume losing the keyholders would be—”

“Catastrophic,” Rose said.

“Problematic,” Preston finished.

“I don’t know most of you, and you don’t know me,” John said. “Hi, I’m John, and I’m a major crimes detective. Robbery, homicide.” John pushed to his feet. “I’m going to investigate the crime scene.”

“Take Luca,” Selene said. “If the place is rigged to catch fire, he can deal with the detonator.”

Luca cleared his throat. “Hi, I’m Luca, and I—”

“Blow things up,” Selene said with a serene expression.

Lachlan rubbed his forehead.

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