Over Her Head - A Gemi Kittredge Mystery, Book 3 (EBOOK)

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Chapter 1
Sometimes, the lush perimeter of tropical flowers, palms, ferns, and heliotropes disguising the security fence gave me flashbacks. On rare occasions, my breath would catch and literally stop me in my tracks. In those moments, I would see a woman with a bruised, swollen, unrecognizable face. Or a man in an aloha shirt, a koa wood band inlaid with black onyx and blue opal on the ring finger of his right hand. His head lying a few feet away from his body.
Right now was one of those occasions. With my hands propped on my hips, I pushed my shoulders back and my chest forward to allow more air to flow deep into my lungs.
This fence reminded me of the Tanaka compound . . . and Noboru Shinoda, the beheaded man. The heliotropes made me think of Heleena.
“Gemi?”
I blinked to clear the images from my mind. I blinked again and my sister’s beautiful, concerned face staring back at me from a few paces ahead became clear.
If plants and a fence did this to me, what kind of flashbacks did she suffer? Held captive in a shed so small there wasn’t enough room for her to fully extend her legs when sitting on the ground. Wrists and ankles rubbed raw from the ropes that bound her and prevented her from standing straight. Dehydrated. Covered in insect bites.
“Are you okay, Peep?”
I inhaled deeply, the peachy scent of plumeria and something almondy invading my nose. “I’m okay. Just thinking about housing.”
She’d buy that. We had been discussing our shelter, after all.
“Let’s talk about housing, then.” Ashlyn gave a go-with-the-flow shrug. “There’s only one one-bedroom apartment left and two huts.”
“We’ve got plenty of space.” I continued walking with her along the path of lava rock pavers set in pea gravel toward the north end of Palekana, our ten-acre shelter for women and their kids. Palekana meant a variety of things—saved, rescued, protected, security, safety—all of which was exactly what our residents needed.
“We agreed to keep the living quarters together, though,” Ashlyn noted as we passed behind the small but nicely stocked gymnasium and toward the cluster of housing options that occupied half of the property. “If we moved the playground equipment closer to the gym, we could fit in two or three more huts.”
“We could probably fit four more between the perimeter and the walking path along the west border.”
Most of the women would be okay with that. A few would not. It was only a visual barrier, but the three-foot-wide path gave those women an extra sense of security. They said it felt like a sort of invisible force field, another layer of protection keeping attackers or abusers away. Something I never would have guessed when we installed it. I simply wanted them to have a walking path.
“What about near the residents’ parking lot?” Ash suggested. “We could fit two or three huts there.”
We continued walking toward the lot, which only held a few vehicles. Less than half of the residents had cars. Those that did arrived at our gate with all of their possessions crammed into the trunks, backseats, and passenger seats.
As we got close, I envisioned more of the small structures there. “We could fit two. More than that and it will feel too crowded.”
“We could do one-bedroom huts instead of two.” Ashlyn shook her head, dismissing her own suggestion. “No, the huts are for women with kids. Two bedrooms are a must.”
As we stood there discussing eliminating or moving a section of the walking path and how close was too close to the parking lot—we decided our residents wouldn’t care if the view out their back windows was of a small parking lot—a car skidded to a stop outside the main security gate and a man jumped out.