Chapter 6

Keone put my bike in the bed of his truck and took me home after our surf session. When I opened the door, Aunt Fae was in the kitchen and the whole house smelled like Christmas.

Keone brushed past me like a cookie-seeking missile and headed for the kitchen. "Auntie, whatchu got bakin'?"

"More holiday cookies." Aunt Fae was a no-nonsense sort of woman who wore jeans and flannels back home in Maine; she'd traded those in for shorts and tank tops here in the tropics, but over her usual casual garments today, she wore an apron I remembered from a dozen holidays growing up. Made of red and green cotton patchwork squares, the apron had been sewn for her as a girl by my grandmother, who was long gone. The sight of it, along with the rich smell of gingerbread, made my eyes prickle. For all the years I'd been in the Secret Service, Christmas was the one time Aunt Fae insisted I come home to visit, so I usually took two weeks of vacation to spend time with her in the depths of winter in Maine.

Now, we were together on Maui at the holidays for the first time, and even with the stress of Tiki being missing and my troubling new case, seeing how Auntie intended to keep all our traditions going warmed my heart cockles.

Keone headed for the counter where a row of gingerbread men was cooling on a rack. "Mind if I sample the goodies?"

"That's what they're there for," Aunt Fae said, smiling and accepting a kiss on her cheek as he helped himself to a large brown cookie. "Though I always say the frosting is the fun part on gingerbread."

I hugged Auntie as I reached for a warm cookie. "These are my favorite, frosting or no frosting!"

She mock-scolded us as Keone and I stuffed our faces with gingerbread. "You two must have been out surfing with those swimsuits and towels you're wearing," she said. "You should go get a shower and some warm clothes before you kids catch a chill."

"We're in Hawaii now. It's seventy degrees outside, at night in December." I pointed to Tiki's food bowl, currently filled with healthy kibble. "Where's Tiki? She usually eats at five p.m."

Auntie frowned, glancing at the metal dish as she opened the oven to check on her latest batch of cookies. "I refilled it for when she usually comes in. That's strange. Come to think of it, I haven't seen her all day."

Keone's and my eyes met. Both of our cheeks were bulging with gingerbread, but that didn't stop the cold finger of dread from tickling down my backbone. By his expression, he felt it too.

Keone chewed and swallowed with difficulty. "Kat. Is there something you aren't telling me? Where is Tiki?"

I grabbed a glass and filled it from the nearby carafe of filtered water. My throat had gone so dry I couldn't swallow the lump of gingerbread in my mouth.

A moment later I was able to say, "I don't know. She wasn't in bed with me this morning. I looked around but I thought she was outside, chasing birds like usual."

Aunt Fae shook her head and her silver bob shimmered like tinsel under the light above the stove. "She hasn't been hunting lately. Every time I see her, she's either eating or napping, so I don't think she's sick."

I forced a smile in my boyfriend's direction. "I'm sure her disappearance has nothing to do with our case, Keone."

Aunt Fae almost dropped the metal pan of cookies she'd removed from the oven; they were all the baked sections of a gingerbread house. "What's this investigation you're doing now, Kat?" Auntie set the pan down on the stovetop and turned to me, tugging off her padded oven mitts. "Sounds like something I should know about."

"We're looking for a missing cat. Not at all like Tiki." I rushed to fill in more details when Aunt Fae's face blanched. "A fancy, pedigreed Himalayan. Valuable. Probably stolen to obtain her upcoming purebred litter. Nothing like our girl. No one would steal Tiki, let alone be able to take her anywhere against her will."

I pictured Tiki's missing ear, her kinked tail, her homely patchwork calico body with her grumpy orange tabby face. Tiki was no beauty queen, and she was the size of a large raccoon.

"Yeah, but what about all those other missing cats we've uncovered while looking for Lady Sapphire?" Keone was reaching for another cookie when Auntie grabbed the edge of the counter for support. Fortunately, he was right beside her and caught her by the elbows as her knees crumpled. He helped her into a nearby chair as I rushed over.

"Oh my. I must've straightened up too fast and got dizzy," Aunt Fae said, brushing him off. "I'm a little overheated from the stove."

I fetched Auntie a glass of cool water, frowning at Mr. K over her head. "Take a load off and rest, Aunt Fae. You've been working too hard."

And maybe that's all it was, but I didn't like what I'd just seen happen with her. We needed to steer away from this stressful topic. "I wanted to tell you what a hit your fudge and cookies were with our mail delivery guy, Chad. He's been in a funk lately with such big loads to drive all the way out here, but when I gave him your plate of goodies today, he perked right up."

"Oh good." Auntie chugged from her water glass. "I'll make him some more treats ASAP."

"Yes, and Pua and I already decided to pass on most of the goodies customers drop off for us," I said. "The kid needs a little meat on his bones to deal with that drive and all the holiday boxes."

Throughout this exchange I observed Aunt Fae closely. Color was returning to her cheeks, and she stood up, grabbing a spatula to transfer the gingerbread house pieces to a cooling rack. "Do you have any leads on the missing cat you were hired to find?"

"Sadly, no." And there were a lot more than one missing feline. Even in the warm kitchen I shivered, tightening the towel around my body as I glanced out the uncovered windows into the darkness.

"But I've got us a meeting with the biologists at the Hana Bird Refuge tomorrow," Keone said. "Maybe we'll find out something useful about the anti-Cat People."

"There are anti-cat people here on Maui?" Aunt Fae frowned. "I'd want to know why."

"Feral cats, I should say," Keone clarified. "Truly wild felines are all over the island from the heights to the beaches, and they prey on critically endangered birds. Also, according to scientists monitoring the rare monk seals, female seals are dying from a disease carried by wild cats—and every female monk seal that dies also ends its family line. It's a serious problem."

Auntie blinked, frowning. "Feral cats are not a big deal in Maine. Eagles, hawks, and coyotes carry off any cats that aren't protected by their owners. I didn't realize what could happen in a place with no natural population safeguards like those predators."

"Sometimes the hunter becomes hunted in a place with a hierarchy of species," I said. "Hawaii is a different world, and from what I can tell so far, nature is in a delicate balance easily disrupted by outside creatures that are brought in. Even the plants are like that—new ones from elsewhere choke out the endemic species and throw everything off."

"Now you're getting life on a remote island," Keone said, looping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder to look over at Auntie. "Want some help frosting those cookies? I volunteer as tribute."

Auntie laughed and I smiled and leaned into him, enjoying the warmth of his body. My old touchphobia still acted up with strangers, but since my relationship with Mr. K had deepened, I'd come to enjoy the occasional Public Display of Affection.

"Why don't you kids go take a shower and we'll decorate when you come back down?" Auntie reached for a bag of powdered sugar. "I'll get started on the icing recipe." She turned to wink at us. "Don't take too long, or I'll know what you're up to."

"We'll have to be quick then." Mr. K grinned and reached for my hand.

I let him tug me up the stairs, trying not to blush—but that was impossible. I was too new to this whole relationship deal not to feel self-conscious that my aunt guessed how we'd be soaping up when we stepped naked into the big walk-in with the rain shower fixtures.

But did that stop me from having bubbly fun with Mr. K once I got there?

Heck no.

I'd come a long way from my touchphobic past.

But later, after we'd decorated gingerbread cookies and Keone had gone home, Auntie and I took the golf cart abandoned by the New Ohia developers and drove around the artfully winding streets, calling for Tiki.

She never appeared.

Though my favorite stray had disappeared during the day plenty of times before, she always came home at night.

I had trouble falling asleep without Tiki beside me, and eventually had to take a sleeping pill to escape the worries that crowded my mind.