when the hell I wrote over a hundred thousand words. Kahu, in comparison, was a self-described “navel-gazer” who took three hours to put together a hundred words.
The literary media couldn’t get enough of our friendship. One of the latest headlines had described us as The Literary Wunderkind and The Bloodthirsty Bestseller. Would we have been friends if we’d competed in the same sphere? I didn’t think so. Kahu’s level of arrogance mirrored mine—we worked because he thought literary accolades were the pinnacle of success, while my counter was millions of copies sold.
Paige had always thought Kahu was an ass. “All those backhanded compliments he gives you in interviews? You need to rethink that toxic relationship.”
That was the one thing about which we’d never agreed. I didn’t think Kahu was toxic. Yeah, he could be an ass, and he was one of my chief enablers when it came to the drinking, but he was also one of the few people who understood even a small piece of me.
I was staring out at the falling darkness thinking I should give him a call and wondering vaguely why he hadn’t dropped me a note himself when a gleaming black Mercedes turned into the drive of the residence next to Alice and Cora’s.
Hemi Henare was home.
Yellow light glowed in the windows of the modern three-level wood-and-glass structure that was his house. Either Tia Henare or one of their three adult children was already inside. The house didn’t appear as tall as it was because it had been built in a slight hollow—that positioning also gave the family even more privacy than the rest of the Cul-de-Sac.
But my father’s house was located on a small rise at the end of the street. Not elevated enough for anyone to comment on it—but enough that from my tree-shrouded aerie, I could see nearly all movement in the street—including some otherwise-secluded areas.
Such as the corner of the Henare family’s triple garage.
Hemi didn’t lower the electronic garage door after nosing in his car beside his wife’s sporty red roadster. Neither did I see the home’s lower front windows glow with the internal sensor light that meant he’d exited into the hallway. He was still in the car. Probably on a phone call or—I glanced at my watch—listening to the hourly news bulletin.
I moved before I’d consciously processed the decision. Cane in hand, I hobbled as fast as possible down the stairs, and out the door. My breath was coming in puffs, and the wet chill in the air reminded me I’d forgotten my jacket—but when I finally made it to the Henare place, I found I was in luck.
The garage door was still up.
Stepping onto their heavily tree-shadowed drive just as the streetlights came on against the falling night, I walked into the garage and around to the passenger-side door of the Mercedes. There was plenty of room even with both vehicles inside, and since Hemi hadn’t bothered to lock his car, I opened the passenger door and got in.
20
The radio was playing music, an old song that’d had Hemi smiling before I startled him.
Eyebrows snapping together, he said, “What’s the meaning of this, Aarav?”
As if I were still a student being called on the carpet in the principal’s office.
I held his angry brown gaze, his irises two or three shades lighter than the burnished brown of his skin. His thick and slightly wavy hair, in contrast, was a rich ebony. Of proud Māori descent, Hemi was heavily involved with the management of the local iwi, and his children were standard-bearers for Māori achievement.
Ariki was in the army and rising quickly up the ranks.
Mihirangi had just graduated law school.
Rima was currently in medical school.
Both women still lived with their parents.
Beautiful and curvy Tia was a devoted homemaker with extensive charity interests. She and my mother had hated each other for reasons I’d never understood—though I had my guesses. As for the family money, no high school principal made the kind of salary that would allow him to live in the Cul-de-Sac.
The money came from a multimillion-dollar building supplies business started by Tia’s grandfather that was still fully family-owned. Tia was one of three siblings and—per interviews given by their parents—each one had been given a ten percent shareholding in the company on their twenty-fifth birthday.
“We want to see what our tamariki do with their wealth,” her father had said. “They’ve been brought up to be of service, and to do the mahi.”