Page 27 of Just My Luck

When she saw Benito pushing a wheelbarrow toward the garden shed, she pulled on a hoodie and ran outside to talk to him. She’d seen him and Jim working together on more than one occasion.

“Quick question for you. Do you know where Jim is staying? The gardener who got fired?”

She’d checked the linen closet this morning, but there was no sign that anyone had been there. The guards probably wouldn’t have let him on the property anyway.

“No, miss. He didn’t say.” A frown crossed his face. “Why everyone want to know?”

“Everyone?” she asked. His thick Filipino accent could be hard to understand sometimes.

“A man ask me the same thing.”

“What man?” A horrible thought occurred to her. “Was he a Japanese man dressed in black?”

“No, miss. White man in a black Mercedes S-Class.” One thing about Benito, he knew his cars. “Woman in the passenger seat. “

“What did this man say exactly?”

“Questions. Where was Jim. Did I see him. Did I know where he lived. I say no, no, no. I don’t know anything. Then he threatened me. ICE,” he added when Zara looked alarmed. “Imigrasyon. I’m legal but he wanted to scare me. So I tell him nothing.”

Zara pounced. “But you do know something? You can tell me. I don’t want to hurt him, I just…well, I felt bad about him getting fired and I wanted to offer to write him a reference.”

As if a concierge had any standing to do so…but her fiction worked.

“On my day off, I saw him on Ali’i Drive. Outside the Seaside Paradise. Maybe he has another job there. I better go.” He picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and hurried down the path.

Zara dashed back inside just in time to avoid a wave of heavier rain. If Jim had another job, that would explain why he wasn’t too worried about losing this one…and why he hadn’t accepted her job offer.

But when she swung by the Seaside Paradise after work, they told her no one named Jim worked there.

Frustrated, she got back into the Kumquat and checked in with Mia, who was mourning the cancellation of her coffee shop meetup due to the rain. “Sorry about that. I’ll stop at Costco on the way home. We might need to stock up for this storm. Any requests, besides toilet paper, obviously?”

“Ramen noodles and Godiva chocolate.”

In the background, she heard Eddie chant, “Ramen, ramen.”

Zara probably should have predicted that. “Sorry, they’re all out. Try again.”

“You aren’t even there yet, are you? I can hear the rain on the Kumquat’s roof.”

“You’re so smart, why aren’t you the one doing online law school?” Before Mia could answer, a black Mercedes caught her eye as it pulled out of the Seaside Paradise parking lot. A man was at the wheel, a woman in the passenger seat.

Was it the same one Benito had seen? It turned right onto the street just ahead of her.

“Gotta go. Be back soon,” she told Mia.

“Ramen, ramen,” Mia and Eddie chanted as she ended the call.

13

Zara let the Mercedes get a head start on her, then pulled into traffic. She followed at a discreet distance. They were headed down the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway, which led to Costco, the airport, and then up the coast to Kohala. She didn’t think they’d noticed her, but then again, she was driving a bright orange Beetle, so she couldn’t exactly blend in.

She put in her earbuds and pretended to be chatting up a storm. If they did finally take notice of the car following them, hopefully they’d think she was a flaky girl gabbing away on her cell phone.

The car had Hawaii plates, which she committed to memory. It wasn’t a rental, which she knew because the number didn’t start with a Z. Besides, only Turo and one rental car agency offered Mercedes S-Class cars—one of those random bits of knowledge she’d picked up as a concierge dealing with the wealthy.

The Mercedes turned east, up into the steep hills above Kona. Zara groaned as she followed suit. Her ancient Beetle didn’t care for those hills at all. If her engine started overheating, she’d have to pull over. Right now she didn’t have the funds for any car repairs.

She fumbled for her phone and called Jim’s number. Once again, it rang a few times, then went dead.