Karma by the Sea Read Free

open her eyes.
    K sat back on her heels and wondered what to do next.
    I don’t belong here.
    She wiped her mouth with her hand, feeling Rita’s thin, lifeless lips against hers. Then, thinking that poor Rita might actually die , she leapt to her feet. Mouthwash. Toothbrush. Where was her bag? Fear crashed with fury, creating a chasm in her soul. What if the CPR she’d given wasn’t enough? K pushed hard against her stomach, trying to calm the churning before she threw up.
    And she hated to be a jerk and think about money at a time like this, but damn it, she’d worked very hard, earning every cent she’d been promised. It was why she’d agreed to fly from Chicago to pick up the check.
    K was not one to dwell on self-pity, no, she was a woman of action and it wasn’t often she felt cut off at the knees. Powerless. Even when the youngest Santo partner backed her into the corner with slobbering lips and pawing hands, she’d managed to save herself. She’d always had to save herself.
    She paced the beige tiled floor, looking out at the ocean and cursing beneath her breath. The flat line of turquoise blue with white curls waving in toward the sand beckoned, but she refused to believe it offered tranquility. No, it was a ruse to tempt the unwary into the water, right before a storm.
    Paolo had wanted to go whale watching in the bay, just the two of them, where they’d catch fish, cook, and make love in the caves afterward. It had been a serene day along the coast of Hawaii. Peaceful. A lie .
    The memory brought angry tears to her eyes. He’d been her other half. She breathed in, he breathed out. And then, in a freak storm, she survived and he died. Leaving her alone. Alone to grieve. Alone to graduate. Alone to leave the island. A lonely life to live.
    She’d channeled that anger into focused success. Sometimes, not often, the weight of doing everything alone bowed her shoulders. She’d spent the last year and a half putting all of her energy into this client.
    Daring to dream big. And now Rita, who had just been handed everything she’d demanded in the divorce, overdosed because she loved her husband? It was too damn much. The apartment closed in on her, stuffy and cluttered with a life’s collection of things.
    She was going to scream if she didn’t get some fresh air.
    K grabbed her suitcase and left as if someone had tied a lit string of firecrackers to her ass and she had seconds before they blew. I never should have come, she thought and closed the apartment door behind her. She didn’t understand marriage. Men and woman seemed doomed to hurt each other, despite words of love.
    Love made people weak. It had weakened her, and it sure as hell took the legs out from under Rita. She gulped down the rancid taste in her mouth, her breaths coming sharp and quick. Her chest, tight.
    The control she prided herself on was unraveling barbed thread by thread, cutting her as it went as if to punish her. Back straight, steps determined, she made her way to the elevators, keeping her gaze ahead, her mind seeing and rejecting the picture of Rita, not breathing . It was awful for so many reasons.
    K got out of the elevator on the main floor on auto pilot, becoming aware enough of an exit sign leading to the sand.
    To the beach.
    The ocean.
    It had been twelve years since the last time she’d put a toe in the water, but she had some choice words for Namaka now.  Just when things were getting better! Away from the island, she’d moved on from her despair and graduated law school.
    She gritted her teeth and pushed against the door.  Just when I’m on the brink of a successful career! No, I end up by the damn ocean, and under the ancient Hawaiin Goddess’s power.
    Unmindful of the sinking steps she took, fueled by anger, by righteous fire, K kicked off her shoes once the surf was in sight. She dropped her bag and phone. All she needed was to be in the ocean, to tell Namaka where to put her damn blessings, the ones that had