With Chris and the others stuffed in his pocket, Joe strolled along Simona's street until he came to house number ninety-one. It was a duplex with two mailboxes by the curb.
Joe glanced at the names listed on the mailboxes. "What's her last name now?"
Chris's head popped out. "Kai."
"This is the place, then."
"Good luck." Chris ducked back in.
While walking across the lawn dotted with weeds, wildflowers, and tufts of long grass, Joe regretted accepting the leadership role in the meet-and-greet portion of the plan. He thought Chris should be the one to flounder and fall. Simona was his sister-in-law after all. Although she might think Chris had killed her sister, Joe knew she wouldn't be happy to see him, either.
There had been no fight or anything along those lines. But, after Chris's wedding, Joe had said, with sweet pillow talk in her hotel room, that he would "call her sometime" and would "visit her in Hawaii" that same summer. Joe never did, though. Not that summer, not spring break, not the summer after. . .
And he avoided her calls. Until they stopped.
He was having too much fun at home and in college. Plus, everything he earned, he spent.
Chris chose well, but Simona was a close runner-up in every manner. So that wasn't the problem. He just didn't have the discipline to do the long-distance thing. Or have any desire to return to Hawaii. It was never really winter on Oahu and for that he was currently grateful. Still, it didn't make a good first impression on him. And his infatuation for Simona was neither true nor lasting.
It just wasn't meant to be. And rather than explain that, he let her figure that out for herself.
Then, Joe was out of steps. He was at the door, not ready, but as ready as he'd ever be to get this over with.
He tried the doorbell a couple of times. Not convinced it was working, he knocked instead. When he heard the scamper of children, and still got no answer, he tried again, increasing the volume.
The door swung open without any warning. Simona was before him, squinting in the bright morning sun, no doubt in his mind. She hadn't changed a bit. He was getting the confused, do-I-know-you look. Then he accepted that he was roughly five years older and wasn't wearing the glasses that would have made him instantly recognizable—not to mention what he'd been through in the past week.
"Hi, Simona. Long time, no see. . ."
His voice apparently congealed everything for her because her expression went sour. "Joseph MacRae . . . you are the last person in the world I would ever expect to see here."
"Really? The last? I figure there would be a lot of people more unlikely than me." He tried to win some approval with a wink and a forced smile.
Simona crossed her arms. "Especially since the police have been making daily appearances. Maybe I should give them a call."
She slammed the door in his face.
"Wait!" Despite his instinct to abort the mission, he pounded on the door, louder than loud and more desperate than ever. "Please, Simona, open up! I have something to show you. There is so much more to the story, things the police couldn't possibly know. Chris didn't kill your sister. And I can show you something that will make you believe me."
There was a long pause. A scratching sound came from the other side of the door. Simona opened the door to a crack with the chain lock connected. "Fine. You have two minutes. If I'm not convinced, I call the police."
"It won't even take that long." Joe reached into his pocket and pulled out Cassie, Chris, Morgan, and Ryan. The twins buzzed out of Joe's hand and circled over his head.
"Mind if we come in?" Joe asked, now confident she would say yes.
Simona's jaw dropped and so did the chain lock.
Inside, cartoons were blaring and there were toys all over the floor. A baby girl, no more than a few months old, was fussing in a baby swing.
Two little boys tore down the narrow hall in front of them. The older of the two was trying to hit his brother with a foam baseball bat. They jumped on furniture, leaped over toys, and almost knocked over the baby swing in the process. Simona had to launch herself across the room to prevent the swing from tipping. The baby's fussing escalated into a full-blown wail.
"Sorry. It's a little chaotic here." She popped a pacifier into the baby's mouth, shut off the TV, shooed the boys out to the backyard, and moved some toys out of Joe's immediate vicinity. "I wasn't expecting visitors."
"No big deal. We're used to chaos."
Simona's eyes followed the twins as they returned to Joe's hands. "What are they?"
"They—we—are fairies. The good news is, you're probably one, too. The bad news is, you're probably one, too, and there are other fairies trying to kill us. All of us," Joe said matter-of-factly.
She squinted one eye and then the other. "Fairies? Seriously?"
"I know. I felt the same way."
In Joe's palm, Chris signaled to the backpack, where Joe was carrying his human clothes.
"Is it all right if Chris joins us now? He wanted to stay out of sight for obvious reasons, but now. . ."
"That's really Chris in your hand?" Simona paused indecisively. "What do you mean by 'join us'?"
"You'll see. Uh, where's your bathroom?"
Simona, in a sort of daze, gestured to a room down the hall. Joe set Chris and the backpack on the floor and closed the door. As he returned to the living room, he put Cassie and the twins back in his shirt pocket.
"I had been assuming Chris was guilty," Simona continued, "but the police have lowered his status from 'suspect' to 'person of interest.' I guess they found blood from two unknowns. Alana's murder could have been staged, but the new evidence did cast some doubt on their wife-killer theory."
"Well, that's good news. But it's not like either Chris or I can resume our old lives anyway."
Simona's eyes narrowed.
"May I sit?" Joe asked, his eyes flicking to a vacant spot on the couch. "We'll explain. But let's not get too comfortable."
"To be completely honest, we can't even get our story straight. I can't get ahold of Kale. No one can find him."
"Is that unusual?"
"Not really. But it would be nice, if once in a while, he'd. . ."
Simona was about to sit down as well, but she froze at the sound of Chris's footsteps. When he came out, they stood there staring at each other, as if waiting to see who would break first.
"I am so sorry," Chris finally said. "Sorry I couldn't save her."
Simona's tearful nod seemed to exonerate him from any blame. She collapsed on the couch. Joe stood to give Chris his seat, and Chris tentatively sat beside her. She leaned into his shirt and he put his arm around her. Once the support was in place, she burst into a sob.
Joe spotted a box of tissues next to a tropical plant on a table beside the front window. He glanced down at Cassie on his walk over. She was on her tiptoes, watching the drama unfold, tears in her eyes as well. "Are you going to be all right, Princess?" he whispered, stuffing the first tissue into his pocket for her to use.
He then handed the box to Simona, and was soon shifting his weight and feeling out of place. His eyes returned to the window. Three muscular men were strutting down the sidewalk in front of Simona's house. He took in a relieved breath when he saw their bright clothes and their lack of any interest.
Why was he suddenly feeling so uneasy? Was it the grief he couldn't quite match? Or something more?
Eventually Simona pulled herself away from Chris and wiped her face dry with the tissues now in her possession. With a few last sniffles and quavering sighs, she put the tears on hold.
"So you're fairies. And what makes you think I might be?"
Joe looked to see if Chris wanted to answer. Chris urged him to answer with an upward nod. He had yet to see Chris really mourn, but there was no denying that he was close to that point and would need a moment to reel it all back in.
"See Morgan and Ryan?" Joe began, pulling them out and letting them fly again. "They have wings. Our theory is that they inherited them from their mother."
"You came all the way to Hawaii because of some 'theory?'"
Simona kept her eyes on the twins flitting around her living room. Their antics had caught her baby's attention and were keeping her amused in her swing.
"No, there's a lot more to it than that," Joe assured her. "We're running for our lives and looking for our father. Have you seen him?"
"Your father?" Simona said, turning her puzzled face back to Joe. "I barely knew him. I don't even remember what he looked like. Why would you think I have any idea where he is?"
"Clues have indicated he's in Hawaii somewhere."
"Sorry. I hate to say you've wasted your time, but. . ." In a matter of seconds, Simona's doubtful expression settled into something that appeared curious, as if she'd pieced a few things together and it was finally starting to resemble something. "Wait a sec. My mother. You've heard she's in her own little world, right? But sometimes she rambles on about my father. Supposedly, he 'flew off' to be with 'his kind.' I thought she believed he was an alien or something. Do you think maybe her rambling could tell us something?"
Joe and Chris exchanged looks. Simona's story corroborated their theory that her father was a fairy.
"Do you think we could see her today?" Chris asked. "Who knows? Maybe your father and our father know each other. They might even be friends."
"We could try. I'm overdue for a visit. It's been almost a week."
"Chris, before we make any more plans here, do you want to warn her, or should I?" Joe asked, tossing one more glance out the window.
The street was suddenly clear of passing cars and pedestrians, and he didn't necessarily consider that a good thing.
"I will," Chris replied. "Simona, I don't want to scare you, but there's a chance Alana's killers are only a few steps behind us. If I were you, I would disappear without a trace as best you can and as soon as possible."
"My family is in danger? Why? What did we ever do?"
"These fairies want our father and anyone connected to him dead, even people remotely connected. They have shown that they will not hesitate to kill innocent people, like Alana. Please take this seriously. We'll even help you pack and get everyone out of the house."
"So have I—and my kids and my husband—been in danger all along or just since you two knocked on my door?" Simona rose from the couch and began clearing a path through the clutter of the room, her confusion, sadness, and anger all boiling over into a flurry of activity.
The mood had plummeted, the mistrust rearing up again, like a beast they couldn't tame.
Chris looked about to speak again but closed his mouth before anything came out. One wrong word, and. . .
It was Joe who came to his aid: "All along, most likely—and all the more so if our fathers do actually know each other."
Simona absorbed that with a sigh and then marched to the kitchen, her mind made up, her objective clear. While she made a phone call to her husband, a grocery tote already half full, Joe and Chris took inventory of the household items the Kai family would need to go into hiding with three small children, cringed at the size of Simona's car, and took turns scanning the street for suspicious activity.
With no conversation beyond what was necessary, they packed up the children and loaded the car to capacity in less than ten minutes.
Backing out, Simona paused in the driveway. People were strolling the sidewalks again, approaching from both directions. There was a fortuitous break in street traffic, however.
From the passenger seat, Chris gave her the signal to gun it. She was no Joe behind the wheel, but she took her foot off the brake and kept the car rolling.
It was a good thing, too. The road was about to get busy again and it appeared there'd be no break in activity for a while.
And that was the last Joe saw. He had Modified just before they left. They wouldn't all fit in the car otherwise. There was little room for even a fairy to roam. And once Chris's seatbelt was on and the car was in drive, he added Joe to his shirt pocket. Joe settled in with Cassie and the twins, there already.
Would a minute or two have made a huge difference? Joe had no reason to think that. But he had to admit, his little fairy gut felt a whole lot better once they turned a few times and surpassed twenty miles per hour.
Judging by the breath Chris took—loud enough to hurt Joe's ears and deep enough to disrupt his sitting position—Chris felt exactly the same way.
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