Booktree.ng_Forgotten-Witness

CHAPTER 10
It didn’t take Josie long to realize that Stephen Kyle hadn’t
exaggerated. Everyone on Maui did know him. That was
because he owned everything that wasn’t bolted down.
Keoloko Enterprises owned the biggest chain of souvenir
stores on the islands. They were found in every shopping
center, strip mall, and on every highway. His stores sold beach
towels and shot glasses etched with volcanoes, dashboard dolls
that would hula for eternity in pickup trucks from California to
Kentucky, Tiki gods, hang loose key chains, plastic leis and
ukuleles, taffy, Macadamia nuts in all their incarnations, shirts,
and skirts, and salami. If you couldn’t find what you wanted in
a Keoloko store, it didn’t exist in Hawaii.
But Stephen Kyle was an expansive kind of guy and the
stores just weren’t enough for him. He employed half the local
teenagers and housewives to ply his wares from inside fake
grass shacks set up outside parks and along roadsides. They
sold slices of Keoloko pineapple, cones of shave ice,
sunscreen, and more leis. Their husbands, boyfriends and
brothers were employed by Keoloko car and tour services and
fishing boats. He ran another boat out to Molokai regularly to
bring provisions to the three bed and boards on the island and
one place that few knew existed and fewer still knew had a
name. This was the place Stephen believed Josie was looking
for: Ha Kuna House on Molokai, not Ha Kuna Road on Maui.
“Sure you don’t want me to call over first? That might be a
better idea then just popping in.”
That was the last thing he had asked her the night before
and the first thing he said when she got in the car on the way
to the harbor. Both times her answer was the same:
“No. I don’t want Hannah to run. I want one shot at
convincing her that the two of them will be safe at home.”
“And how would you go about doing that?” he asked.
“I’d tell her I would die before I let anyone hurt her or
Billy,” Josie answered.