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AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: No time to edit today! I don't want this to be any later. So I'm going to edit tomorrow. Please enjoy the unedited version. Don't forget to let me know what you think!
EDIT: I'm done. This is the edited version. I hope you guys enjoy it. If you do hit me with a review. See yah next week!
Chapter 421
Junior had woken up that morning, early. Like Steve usually did.
Steve was almost always the first one up. He'd go for a run or a swim, sometimes Junior would go with them, and by the time they came back Rowan would be up and breakfast would be ready. Junior couldn't afford to give up his daily workouts anymore, not with Rowan making gourmet breakfasts he couldn't say no to.
It was the kid's first day back at school though, so Steve hadn't gone for the run or the swim he usually went for. Instead he and Rowan rushed around the kitchen trying to make the perfect first-day-back-after-a-concussion breakfast for him. They even cheered when he came down the stairs.
Junior found it kind of cheesy, but then again, considering the kid's past, maybe cheesy was what he needed.
He definitely had a large grin on his face, though it was more of a sheepish one.
Steve got him for a hug and then kept patting his back. Rowan kept clasping the boy to his chest and kissing his cheek. Steve often had to pull her off.
They were making a really big deal about this. And the more Junior watch it, the more that beat of longing filled his chest. He wanted a family like this, a wife, and child to lavish with support and love. Or maybe he just wanted that kind of relationship with his own father… which was highly lacking.
It was Halloween that night. Which meant that he'd be going out to a party after school. Oh, he'd be coming home first, to change into his costume, and then he'd be going out for the night, coming back some time the following day, which would be the weekend.
There had been a bit of an argument, as Nahele and Rowan had made their costume choices. Nahele had decided to go as a lifeguard, which was just board shorts and a lifeguard singlet. Pretty sure, once he got to the party, he'd be taking his shirt off. Why not, the kid had washboard abs just like his adoptive dad, of course he was going to show that off.
Rowan had decided to go simple. She was a black cat. She had the skin tight black spandex suit, a pair of kitty cat ears, a tail, and she even had the collar with the bell.
Steve, however, wasn't doing a costume and that there was why they were arguing.
It wasn't one of their big arguments, but still a spat, none-the-less.
Still Steve was adamant that he wouldn't be dressing up and both his wife and son were sure to let Steve know how disappointed they were in his decision.
Today, though they spoke about Nahele's party, which was more a confirmation of what his plan was, there was no arguing. They eventually left all together to drop him off at school, and when they came back, they were acting weird.
Steve said he was going to go for a run, and Rowan said that she was going to go up and shower. What do you need to shower for? Steve had asked and Rowan did something with her eyebrows and then the two of them rushed up the stairs.
Then the shower was on. And then the moaning started.
God they had loud sex.
It was like they had completely forgotten that Junior was there.
And it wasn't like they needed to go at it again. They had literally gone at it last night. They had tried to be quiet, but Junior had supersonic hearing. He heard everything.
Nahele was right. He needed noise cancelling headphones.
After a while Steve actually came back downstairs to actually go for the swim this time, while Rowan stayed up stairs. Tired, Steve had said. His wife was tired.
And there it was. This weird thing that Junior had noticed. Steve always had this half smile on his face whenever he called Rowan his wife. Like just saying the words just made him smirk.
He had asked Junior for a favour, to take Eddie out for a walk. It was normally Nahele's job. And the oy was always very good about getting it done. He had been slacking a little, but that was because of the concussion and Rowan coddling him. For the entirety of his week off of school she wouldn't let him do anything.
He often complained about it, but she wouldn't hear of it. Her baby needed to rest. So they all rotated his duties. The morning walk going to either Junior or Steve as Rowan usually spent the morning making breakfast.
Nahele hadn't been able to do it that morning, and Steve had said he would, but he wanted to go for a swim instead of a run today. And his wife of course was tired.
Junior had just waved it off, yeah, he could do that for him. Steve was letting him stay in his house, basically for free, he could walk the dog for him.
He just wanted to finish his coffee.
Problem was, Eddie hadn't gone out when he was used to, which was right in the morning. He had whined a bit, Junior had told him in a minute, but Eddie either didn't want to wait, or couldn't.
He had pooped on the rug.
Junior hadn't even noticed right away. He had just sat there with his coffee, watching the news and all of a sudden he was smelling shit. It didn't take long to figure out what had happened.
He knew he had to clean it up before Rowan noticed. Get both of them out of the dog house with the McGarrett that didn't want them there.
So he quickly went about cleaning it up. First starting by scooping it up. Now he was scrubbing away, trying to get the stain off of the carpet as Eddie stood there above him, as if he were supervising Junior's job.
Eddie kept whining and hitting him with the puppy dog pout as if trying to say: "It wasn't me." But it definitely wasn't Junior so…
"Hey! Don't give me that look. You know what you did," he said, but Eddie just whined at him again. "Yeah, alright, alright. I should've taken you out sooner, okay? This one's on me, but we both know Ro won't care."
Junior went back to scrubbing for all of two seconds when there was a knock on the door followed by a ring of the doorbell.
That was entirely unnecessary, Junior had gotten up the second the person had knocked. It also meant that Ro was disturbed, already Junior could hear her Rowan groaning from the second floor.
Yeah, a tired Rowan wasn't a happy Rowan.
Junior practically jogged to the door calling: "Don't worry, I'll get it!"
There was a beat of silence and then she called back: "Tell him he's not funny!"
That was weird. That was a weird thing to say.
But Rowan was always saying weird things like that. Things that wouldn't make sense until later. He kept asking Steve about it, but he kept shrugging it off and not in a casual way, either. In a definitely-hiding-something way.
Junior got the door open and someone roared at him. Junior might have been surprised if he wasn't a SEAL and the guy was actually scary.
The man in front of him was dressed normally. Blue jeans, flip flops, light grey shirt, with a robotic looking cast on his left arm. He was, however, wearing a Halloween mask. It had a haunted, rotten zombie look with lights in its eyes.
But that's all it was a mask. And someone had knocked, so Junior knew someone was going to be there.
But at least, now he knew what Rowan meant.
The person in the mask came out of the crouched position they had gotten into when Junior opened the door. They looked him up and down and then said: "You're not Steve."
"No."
The man took off his mask revealing an older blonde man. He shot him a warm smile and Junior decided that the man was probably not a threat.
"Sorry buddy. You, uh, must be Junior, right?"
"Yes sir," he said offering a hand to shake that the man took. "Uh… Rowan said to say you're not funny."
"Wha? How did she… you know what never mind," the man said. "Well, happy Halloween, Junior."
And then he just pushed past Junior and into the house. The fact that the man was so comfortable doing that, attempting to scare Steve, and because Steve constantly bitched about his partner, junior was pretty sure he knew who had just shown up at the door.
"You must be Detective Danny Williams aka Danno," Junior said as he shut the door.
"Oh, that's funny. Did uh… did Steve tell you to say that?"
"Yes, he did, sir."
"Yeah."
He then pointed to Danny's arm. "And I heard about your fall."
"Yeah, well, this, see, Steve bought a cheap ladder for our restaurant because he's cheap. If he woulda bought a nice ladder, this wouldn't have happened."
Junior caught movement out the corner of his eye and then Rowan was coming down the stairs. She looked alright, no worse for wear though he could see fresh hickeys on her neck. She complained all the time that Steve had this habit of marking her up but it never seemed to stop him.
Rowan had changed out of the more conservative skirt outfit she had been in that morning when she dropped off Nahele at school. She was now in frayed light blue jean shorts and a soft grey sweater that hung off of one shoulder.
The sweater was three sizes too big for her, she had only the front tucked into the front of her jeans and Junior knew that the sweater was Steve's. It was part of her comfort wear. Steve only wore it so it would smell like him for her.
He usually wore after it came out of the wash and Rowan would wear it until it didn't smell like him anymore.
She took one glance at Danny and then just rolled her eyes.
"Not the ladder story again," Rowan whined. "Danny… come on… you brought this on yourself."
"Brought this on myself? How is this…? Your husband and his cheapness did this to me!"
"If you were so concerned about the structural integrity of the ladder, Danny, why did you get on it?"
"Look at you Miss. Lawyer-words all of a sudden. One case with the brother that never finished law school and you think you can jargon me into being confused," Danny snapped. "For your information, I trusted your husband to pick a safe ladder, as he would have done for you or himself, and he did not. He picked a cheap one and here we are." Rowan had been on her way to the kitchen but she paused at the door to shoot him an unamused glare that she paired with a shake of her head.
Danny stared right back at her, before clasping his hands together in one loud clap. "Actually, you're right, I can see the look. You're right. If it were you going up that ladder he would have tripled checked the structural integrity of that thing and you still would have fallen off of it."
"Ha ha," Rowan shot back. "No coffee for you."
"That's fine, I don't want coffee." He then turned to Junior. "You see what I have to put up with?"
"Which one of you shit on my rug?" Rowan suddenly asked from where she was in the kitchen. And considering she had opened the fridge and was currently looking through it, Junior was surprised she had even seen it. He was sort of hoping she'd miss it. Or think he spilled something.
Danny raised a hand like he was waiting to answer a question, he just didn't wait for her to call on him. "Uh…. I just got here."
"I wouldn't put it past you Williams," Rowan snapped back.
"It's uh… Eddie's fault… Ma'am," he said and Eddie whined as if he couldn't believe Junior sold him out like that.
"Ma'am me one more time, I'll throw the milk at you." Junior's eyes widened but Rowan made no move to throw anything so he figured he was okay. "I thought you were going to take him out?"
Rowan wasn't on the same floor when Steve made that request. She was supposedly resting, how had she heard that conversation? He didn't think they had been that loud.
"I did tell Steve I would… I…. I got distracted."
"Great. So I live with four children. Wonderful." She shut the fridge door deftly and moved away muttering to herself.
Junior turned to Danny who just smiled at him. "You get used to her." Junior was more worried about Rowan getting used to him. Danny looked around for a bit before asking: "Where's Steve?"
"Out for a swim," Junior said.
"He'll be coming home in a minute or two if you want to put that mask back on," Rowan added absently. She was busy making coffees and ignoring them all.
Junior noticed that was common. It would look like Rowan was busy doing something else, but she was always aware of what was going on. Steve said it was something her eldest brother had taught her, something the two of them did well. Con, who had confirmed that he wanted Junior to call him Sin Nombre, had said she was always like that. Her older brother had just helped her fine tune it.
"Oh! Good. Help me hide."
"I mean… he's just gonna punch you Danny," she said but Danny was already moving.
He got into the kitchen half hid himself behind the kitchen island, using it to block the view of him from the back door.
He got that mask back on, set himself so he was ready and then when Steve came in through the back door only a few seconds later, he popped up once again roaring like he had to Junior at the door.
Steve had been using his towel to dry off his hair at that point, he was still in his board shorts and dripping water through the kitchen, and his chest was bare, which was something else he did cause it made Rowan make a face which was the equivalent to the smirk Steve would make when appreciating how nice his wife looked. He looked Danny up and down completely unimpressed.
"Hey Danny," Steve said and then side stepped him and moved to kiss Rowan on the cheek. "Hey babe."
Steve then turned back to Danny who was taking off his mask again. "You know, you really shouldn't do that to someone who's had extensive training in hand-to-hand combat. I might've punched you."
Danny just blew a raspberry at him. He might have said something offensive, Junior might have seen one of their famous arguments, but Rowan interrupted it by putting a mug practically right in front of Steve's face.
"Made you coffee," she said as he took the mug from her.
"Aw thanks babe…" "—and your dog shit on the rug."
Steve sputtered on the coffee he tried to sip on and at that point Eddie got up and ran away. Straight up the stairs no doubt to hide in Nahele's room.
"Eddie!" he cried and then turned to Junior. "I thought you said you were going to take him out."
"He forgot," Rowan said. Steve turned an exasperated look onto Junior who did move to apologize, he was just cut off. "See if we had a cat this wouldn't have happened."
Steve bit back a groan while Danny just smiled widely.
Junior knew, from the way Steve bitched, that Danny loved watching Rowan and Steve argue, cause Steve never won in an argument with Rowan. Danny loved watching Rowan give Steve a bit of a taste of his own medicine.
"Babe… please… we talked about this," he said but she just ignored him. She was more interested in the two coffees she was making.
Steve clearly wanted to get off of this topic so he jumped at the chance to do so. "Who are those for? Danny and Junior?"
"Nope. Williams doesn't deserve it and Junior already had his morning coffee, he doesn't do more than one."
See he had never told her that. And he had had his coffee after they had left, how the hell had she known that?
"Then who are you making coffee for?"
Rowan said nothing though and just continued. Steve rolled his eyes and turned a pointed look onto Danny. The two of them seemed to exchange a bit of a conversation with just their eyes before Danny just up and shrugged.
"Uh… I gotta finish cleaning this," Junior said. "I'm just going to fill up the bucket, I'll be back."
Steve nodded to him and Junior turned to Danny.
"It was nice meeting you, sir."
"You don't have to call me sir so much. Maybe once every couple sentences, or every three minutes is fine."
"Yes sir!" he said right away and then winced. He just nodded at them, went for bucket and then went back outside.
The second the door closed behind Junior, Steve and Danny turned onto Rowan.
"Right, we need to talk to you," Steve said.
Rowan finished with the coffees and turned back to them. "Oh? So this is an interrogation, not an excuse for Danny to prank you?"
"Don't be snippy! Something's wrong with you," Danny said.
Though it was Danny's accusation Rowan's hurt expression fell on Steve. "You think something's wrong with me?"
"Well, no…" Steve started and Danny muscled right in on him, cause he knew Steve was going to break. He always broke when it came to hard conversations with Rowan, cause he could barely handle her tears.
"So you know where Grover is right?" Danny asked.
"I do. He's gone to Florida. I was there when he told you what was going on."
True she had been. He told them all that some Penitentiary in Florida said that a man on death row had asked for him. Said he wanted him to come down before he got executed. Was part of his last request.
Fried chicken and Lou Grover.
But Grover didn't know who this man was and had no idea why he would want him either. The request hadn't been anything but get Grover down there. The prisoner was going to illuminate when he got there, no doubt.
"Well, he's all upset cause he doesn't know what this guy wants from him, and he said he asked you and you told him that you got nothing. Which is weird for you. So what's going on?"
"Going on? What do you mean?"
"Ro, you know everything. All the time. You have unlimited access to the strings of fate. How can you not know what Grover's walking into."
"Well it's not bad, I'd have felt it if it were bad," she said with a frown.
"But you haven't checked? The strings I mean?"
"Well… no"
"Okay and… I mean… can you? Please? He'd like to know what's waiting for him in Florida."
"I uh… I can't," she said.
Rowan had never said that before.
She had never said that she couldn't tell them what was coming next. Well, that's not entirely true. She had been having some issues earlier on in her relationship with Steven. But that had been a combination of guilt blocking her flow of dreams, and Steven being her off switch and just not knowing it at that point.
Danny had asked him, when they had been texting that morning after Grover went to the airport, if Steve had been blocking her, maybe intentionally and Steve had honestly said that he hadn't been.
But if she literally couldn't tell them what was going on, something had to be wrong, right?
Steve and Danny exchanged glances. "She said can't," Danny echoed. "Why is it can't instead of won't…"
"Well… Cause… cause…" Rowan frantically looked between the two men. Clearly she was flustered which was odd. "Cause I don't know!"
"You don't know?"
"No!"
Steve was just in shock. Danny, however, was confused. And clearly quicker to bounce back. "What… how is that possible?"
"Because I've run out!" she cried. "I never got this far in the series."
Steve blinked his eyes and then thought about it for a moment but it was Danny who said: "Wait what?"
Rowan huffed at the both of them and then focused in on Steve.
"Okay, remember, this is based off of a TV show in my world?"
"Yes," he said carefully.
"Well, I only saw up until the season 7 finale," she said. "Season 8 was coming out but I was waiting for the whole season to come out so I could binge watch all in one go. So… uhm… I unno what's actually going to happen…"
"So… the strings aren't going to tell you? No more… no more visions or crazy dreams?"
"I… uh… I unno," she said. "I know the strings warn me if you guys are in danger, if I really look I can see all the different options and possible outcomes… but uhm… I don't know definitively which is supposed to happen because I don't know what happened on the show so…"
At that Danny raised is hand and Rowan turned back to him. "Is that how Wo Fat got jumped and you didn't get a warning?"
"Well, no, because he died in season 5 originally, so he's off script entirely."
"Ah."
"But it is why Toast died and I had no idea that he was in trouble… I'm going to have to make a list of the people we care about and check their strings daily… but then again, with every decision people make, it changes things, you know?"
That was a lot. And as he really looked at his wife he realized that she was very anxious about this. She had no idea what was supposed to happen, she didn't know what string to pick to get the right outcome.
What upset him was that it was clear that she had been anxious about this for a while. The question was, why hadn't she told him this before?
"You know it's okay, right?" he asked as he reached out for her. He got a hold of her arm and tugged her to his side. "You know you could have told me and I wouldn't have gotten mad?"
"Yes, I know, it's just… I unno, the thing that made me so useful is gone now…"
"You say that like it's the only reason I married you. Firstly, I love you and considering how badly I reacted to those visions, it might have been great if you never had them…"
"You'd've found another reason to be mad at me…"
"Really?"
"Yep."
"Yeah that sounds like him," Danny scoffed but Steve ignored him.
"Oh… okay well scrap that. But still, I love you regardless of the visions. Secondly, you have literal teleportation powers, and you have strings to pull the best outcome in a situation. How are visions of the future the only thing that makes you useful?"
"You guys really like my powers huh?"
"They are great, but I'd love you even if you didn't have powers."
"Well, I knew that already too."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Is that in the strings?" he asked, she was against him now, her hands on his chest. He was angling down, desperate to kiss her. She nodded, her face tilting up to his, a shine in her eyes that Steve loved to see, cause it meant she was feeling the same way.
"Nope. No. Stop that," Danny said right away and then both turned to him. "No, no gooey shit with me right here in front of you. No. Don't wanna see that at all."
"You could always leave, you know," Rowan said dryly and Steve nodded. Yes. He liked that idea best.
Danny shook his head at them and Rowan took half a step away which meant no kisses for him.
They were quiet for a moment before Steve turned to her and asked: "Hey. Your brothers. Do they already know about this… I feel like they do, cause Con's been around a lot more. Would make sense if he's doing that to make up for the fact that you don't entirely know what's coming."
"Uh…."
Yeah, that was all he needed to know the answer to his question. "So that's a yes…"
Ro just smiled at him and Steve rolled his eyes.
"Okay, enough with the competition between you and her brothers," Danny said before turning to Rowan. "Can't you just look at the strings? See which one seems to be the most likely? Cause I'm sure there's like a string he's on right?"
"In theory, yeah. Everyone has one long string and many smaller strings that splinter off," she said with a shrug.
"Right, well can you check his string then? See what they're saying for this situation?"
Rowan winced again and with a heavy sigh, admitted: "Yeah, I can't do that either."
Seriously, what the hell was going on with her today?
"Why?" Danny groaned.
"Uh… I'm actually… kinda… taking a break from my powers."
Danny glanced to Steve who was now staring at his wife slack jawed. They had argued bout her powers for year and now, out of nowhere she was just going to take a break from them. What in the hell was happening right now?
Three-years-ago-Steve would have been ESTATIC if this had been happening back then.
"Okay, now that we need more of an explanation for," Danny said and Rowan sighed again.
"It feels weird when I use them now, I don't know why. So… we decided…" "—That's you and your brothers?" "… me and Con specifically. We decided to take a break until we figure it out."
So that was why Con was hanging around more. Because Rowan wasn't getting visions and not using her powers. She was basically defenseless.
He had been so annoyed by Con's constant presence, now he was going to have to thank him.
"Wait… so just Con? No Wo?" Steve asked. Rowan's eyes narrowed at him no doubt wondering why that mattered. "Do I finally know something before one of your brothers?"
"Uh… yes?"
"Woo!" Steve cheered. "Finally!"
"Oh my god, you're crazy!" Danny said. "You know… the only one in this competition is you. Neither of her brother's give a shift who finds out stuff first."
"No they do," Rowan admitted and Steve gestured to her as if that made all of this okay. "But it's between the two of them, don't think they include Steve in it."
At that Steve rolled his eyes as Danny smirked at him.
There was a sudden bang and the front door opened, but instead of Junior coming in, it was Con.
Con was once again in his lawyer's outfit. A grey suit, white shirt, no tie. His hair was slicked back, he was wearing a watch Steve was certain he borrowed from his brother. He looked, normal. Almost.
He didn't say hello, he didn't kick off his fancy pointed-toe, leather shoes, in fact the man looked flustered, upset. Which was odd for him because he was usually the king of cool.
"Stop following me," he cried when he realized that someone had followed him through the door.
Alicia Brown was in a sensible outfit, similar to what Rowan had been wearing that morning. Navy blue skirt with matching blazer and a peach silky blousy with a wide neckline.
She was the one who shut the door behind her. But at that point Con was running for Rowan like a toddler ran for their mom. "Ro, make her stop!"
"No!" Alicia cried. "The fact of the matter is that I'm indebted to you, so I'm sticking with you to help you with your jobs."
"I don't HAVE a job a right now," Con cried. "And even if I did, I'm not taking you on a damn hit!"
"But, I'm a shrink, I could give you helpful tips about your mark!"
Con turned incredulous eyes onto the three watching as if asking for help and Steve stepped up right away.
"Hi, so what's going on?"
"Today was the court date. About Grey and my daughter and… she was posthumously sentenced as guilty," she said. Yeah but none of that explained why she was following Con. He had been there, he had shot Grey, but why was she indebted to him now.
"Con was your lawyer, wasn't he?" Steve asked.
Con had been doing that a lot recently. He was starting to think that the man should just finish out his law degree and go for the bar.
"It was just a formality. I wanted to be sure she got everything coming to her, including the guilty charge. Dead or not," Con said and then turned back to Alicia. "But that does not mean that you owe me!"
"Yes it does!" she cried. "If it weren't for you, Grey would have gotten away, I wouldn't have found my daughter and I full believe that if Grey really wanted to she would have come back and taken my daughter away again or hurt me. And, you made sure that someone paid for their crimes, in the legal sense."
They all just stood there staring at her as she calmly stared them all down.
"So I owe him. And since I owe him, I am willing to help him."
"Murder people?" Rowan asked. "Cause that's what he does. For fun."
"Yes, I know what he does for a living. But I'm hoping to help him out with the jobs Steve gives him. Though I would like to analyze why it is he's so cavalier about death, something had to have made you like this, something in your past?"
Rowan and Steve both knew exactly what it was, so when they turned to Con they saw the fear that was on his face. Yeah, he didn't want Alicia knowing about his past.
"Tell her that's nonsense! Tell her!"
"You two clearly have differing views," Rowan said. "She's entitled to her feelings and you're entitled to yours. I'm sure if you two sit down and talk it out, calmly and rationally, you guys can come to a compromise."
She ushered them towards the kitchen table where the two mugs of coffee were waiting by a plate of cookies Rowan had made the day before so Nahele could take them to lunch. Ah, so she was still getting some intuition, because otherwise she wouldn't have made two cups of coffee for two people she didn't know were coming yet.
At that point Danny's phone rang and he picked it up only to find out it was case. Steve almost wondered why they didn't call him, but since his phone was upstairs he figured they had and he hadn't answered.
His kissed his wife quickly before heading up the stairs to get changed. Danny stayed to give him a ride, and when he was ready he gave his wife another kiss before leaving.
She wished him luck at work, and he wished her luck with the argument she was no doubt going to mediate.
They were both going to need it.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
First it was the murder on the road.
Their victim's car had broken down and the man was shot, point blank to the chest. No cash was missing, all the pigs he had been transporting were still there, though they had been let out so they were wandering around the scene messing things up. So it wasn't a robbery. They couldn't see a motive at point.
But, despite the pigs tramping all over their crime scene, Eric still managed to find the impression of small feet and a dog paw prints in the mud.
The second murder was a man who was knocked out and the submerged in cement. Nothing was missing from that body either. So once again not a robbery. When they did a search of his place they found evidence of someone up in the roof. Someone who had watched this guy carefully, so that they could knock him out and get him in that cement. Up in the attic they found footprints, similar to the ones on the road, and moss and seaweed.
Now that tipped Steve off that something else was going to happen, and he tried to stop it, he really did, but he couldn't.
He got there too late, and by then the little girl had gotten kidnapped.
It was then and there that Steve knew he was going to need help.
You see, all of these murders and now the kidnapping all had one thing in common.
That whoever was doing this killing was a serial killer and making it look like characters in pivotal Hawaiian folklore were to blame.
The guy on the road, he was tied to the myth of Pele and Kamapua'a, it was said that if you took pork into Pele's territory she would punish you. That meant you weren't supposed to take pork over the Pali road, which was where the first murder happened, and if you did an old woman would show up with a white dog. If you wanted to survive you had to feed the dog pork, otherwise… well… Pele would punish you.
The second guy was tied to the folklore of the Menehune. These were trolls, said to have colonized the islands before anyone else. They were master builders, but they were super sigh. It was said that, if you caught them working at night, they would punish you by turning you to stone pillars.
And the little girl that got kidnapped. That tied to an old Hawaiian legend. The Green Lady of Wahiawa. This one was about a woman who took her kids down to the Wahiawa gulch, one of the children went missing and was never found. The mom died of heartbreak soon after and now the ghost of the mother wandered around Wahiawa looking for her missing kid.
There were lots of reports of her being seen covered in moss and seaweed.
Steve knew he was going to need help, he needed to get into the mind of this person. So he called Alicia and was not happy to find out where she was.
Steve drove home, very concerned about why the hell he and Alicia were still in his house. Were they still arguing? Had Rowan been dealing with them all day?
God why hadn't she called him?
He would have come back and kicked them out.
He got into the house and found Con sitting on his couch with Alicia in Steve's laz-e boy chair. The two of them stared at him while he glared back.
"Are you two still arguing?"
"Not really," Con said. "I mean, we haven't come to a compromise yet, but we're not arguing."
"Okay… and is there something going on at your house that I don't know about? Plumbing issue? Gas leak? Fumigation?"
Con looked at him like he was crazy. "No."
"Then why are you still at my house?!" Steve cried. "God. Honestly. When you moved in next door… I thought it would keep Ro safe, and I was down for it but… now… god. Go home."
That wasn't fair, though. Because he knew Con was there because Rowan was basically defenseless. Sort of. She was still pretty deadly without the magic powers. The powers were just her go to move and they all knew it.
Con just glared at him. "I'm keeping your wife company," he said.
At that Alicia perked up. "Interesting. And would you say you're quite codependent on your sister?"
"Hey! Don't shrink me!" Con ordered but when everyone just stared at him he frowned. "It's not me, it's her!"
"So it's Ro who's codependent?"
Steve faltered a bit. "I mean, it's not really her, she's just… she doesn't like being alone," he said which was he exact definition of codependency. "Look, her mom fucked her up, you can shrink her if you want, but her mom was a shrink and it doesn't really work on her. Actually… where is my wife?"
"Sleeping," Con said. "She's upstairs."
"Thank you for not getting in bed with her," Steve muttered bitterly.
Alicia's eyes widened and turned to Con. It was almost like she had discovered his inner most secrets. She clearly wanted to discuss the sleeping habits of Con and Steve's wife and Con was desperate not to.
He turned back to Steve and cried: "Okay, what do you want? Why are you here?"
"It's my fucking house Con!"
"Well if you're not here to see me or your wife, what the fuck do you want?"
He was right, he was there for a reason. Steve turned to Alicia with a sigh.
"I got a file for you to look at."
He led her into the kitchen and away from Con, because honestly, he made his blood pressure sky rocket. He handed her the tablet he had taken from work with all their case notes and pictures. He gave her a couple of minutes to look it all over before deciding that was enough time.
"Right, so what do you think?"
Alicia looked up at him, clearly surprised that he wanted some sort of input that quick. She looked back to the table before shrugging slightly.
"Your unsub is smart. Patient. One murder right on top of the other, different MOs, different parts of the island, no witnesses. This… this had to be meticulously planned," she said. Steve nodded cause he knew all that. He needed a different insight. Something that would help him catch the guy. "And they're both males so that's interesting."
"Why is that interesting?"
"Mean's it's probably a woman," Con said from the living room, great he was eavesdropping.
"Well, that is certainly one theory," she admitted. But when Steve just stared at her she continued. "70 percent of serial killer victims are female. If this person is picking males, either he's trying to be a dominant male or, it's a female taking out her anger on a surrogate for the cause of her pain."
Steve nodded, guess that made sense.
"They have something else in common," she said. She put the tablet back in front of him.
"They're both white."
"This person has gone to great lengths to make this look like the work of Hawaiian spirits. They might be trying to make a statement. Maybe this person is Hawaiian, got something against those who aren't."
"Okay," Steve said. "Look… uh… I'm going to need you for this…"
Alicia shot a glance back to Con and then to Steve. "I can't help but think that maybe you want me on this case to keep me from bothering your brother-in-law."
Steve cocked an eyebrow. "As if I care…"
"As if he's smart enough to come up with that shit," Con shot back and Steve shot him a glare. Con clocked it and glared back. "Well it's true. I'd expect it from Ro, but not from you."
Steve shook his head. "Look, a little girl's missing, can you help me or not?"
Alicia glanced to Con who groaned. "Go, fucking go, please God go!" Alicia opened her mouth to argue and he said. "Look, I get it. But if you want to help me, please help my brother-in-law with this so he's home at a decent hour so my sister doesn't bitch."
"Would that help you?"
"Yes, yes it would. Cause honestly, I need the break from him. And if you're with him, I can hand out candy with my sister, while he works and keep her distracted from how annoyed she is that he expects her to do all of these favours for him but he won't wear a Halloween costume for her."
"Wow… you have a very interesting family dynamic."
Yeah, he didn't need Alicia knowing that.
Steve glared at him. "Yeah, well the joke's on you, Con, cause I want you to help me track this son of a bitch."
"I'm not a Dog Steve," he cried. "And you have a dog. Take Eddie."
"I am and I'm taking you too," Steve said heading towards the stairs to both see his wife and get his dog who was probably sleeping on his son's bed.
As soon as he was on the stairs he heard Con cry: "Fuck!" and tried not to snort.
That made him a feel a little better about Ro being left all alone.