by Toby Neal
“I’ll see what I can do.” Sophie found a USB cable, plugged it into the pad, then hooked that device to the computer, downloading its contents as her fingers flew.
Everything around her faded as she dove into the task at hand.
Sometime later, she heard the screech of the door, and the noise brought her back to the present moment.
“You really need to get those hinges oiled.” Raveaux looked at the folded-up jacket and yoga mat in the corner, then glanced at Sophie’s face. His brows knit together. “You spent the night down here?”
“I’m done copying all of the hard drives,” Sophie said stiffly. “A significant and time-consuming commitment.”
“Sophie did spend the night down here,” Leede said. “And I have already informed her that no one required that level of sacrifice from her or anyone else on this team. I’m certainly not staying up all night to work on the case.”
“I had my reasons.” Sophie swiveled her chair to face them. “And some of them were personal.”
She was relieved not to have to explain further as the door creaked open to admit Paula, burdened with tea and foodstuffs on a large tray. Raveaux hurried to help her, removing a paper bag balanced on the edge of the tray and clearing an area for her to set it down. “It took me a little while to go to the bakery on the corner for the scones,” Paula said.
She set up the food on an empty table against the wall as Raveaux went to the one window in the corner, raised the blind, and brightened the lights. “It may be a basement but we don’t have to sit in the dark.”
“I happen to like the dark.” Sophie pushed back from her chair, satisfied now that her DAVID program would be monitoring the phone taps. “I’m quite hungry. Thank you, Paula.”
“You shouldn’t have spent the night down here,” Paula scolded. “You need your rest, and you have a perfectly comfortable couch upstairs.”
“I know.” Sophie stretched her arms and yawned. “I was just too lazy to keep going up and down.”
“Tell me next time you’re going to stay after hours.” Paula shook a finger at Sophie in mock rebuke. “I’ll make sure you have everything you need.” She left.
Raveaux headed for the food. “I’ll fix you a plate. You need to keep up your strength.”
Leede frowned, clearly confused, and Sophie sighed and met the woman’s eyes. “Everyone’s fussing because I’m pregnant.”
“Congratulations!” Leede arched her brows. “Well, as I said earlier. No more all-nighters on this job, please.”
Raveaux brought Sophie a mug of tea, prepared with honey and a dollop of cream, and a plate piled with scones and cut sandwiches. “Eat everything.”
Sophie rolled her eyes, but bit into a still warm, buttered scone. “Mmm. So good. Ms. Leede, you have to try these. I had Paula get them for you.”
The Englishwoman was still doctoring her tea—she took it with honey and lemon. “Please, call me Heri.”
“All right, Heri.” Sophie finished her bite and set her plate aside; she took a sip of tea; it was perfect. She slanted a grateful glance at Raveaux, and was gratified to see the corner of his mouth tuck in—that almost-smile she could sometimes tease out of him. “You two see all of these computers? I can’t be the only one sifting through them. Besides, I’m not entirely sure what we’re looking for.”
“Certainly.” Leede sipped her beverage, eyeing the computers thoughtfully. “I understand. Pierre can take the original machines back to their owners today. I, however, have to focus on the paper trail, literally. Pierre, you said you had something to do this morning. What was it?”
Sophie glanced over at Raveaux, and was surprised to see him look away, and flush.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Raveaux
Raveaux stroked the neat goatee on his chin. He avoided eye contact with the two women by taking a sip of his tea, enjoying the rich flavor. “I took Ms. Cho, CEO of Peerless, out to breakfast. I’m building a rapport with her.”
“Excellent work, Pierre!” Leede clapped her hands together, and her rings sparkled as she did so. She reminded him of a child, with her quick enthusiasms. “That woman had a gleam in her eye from the moment she saw you. Did you get anything useful?”
“Not yet. It’s early; these things take time. But I hope to gain her confidence.” Raveaux raised his gaze to meet Leede’s. “I’m playing the ‘my boss is evil’ card. You’re making me do all of this unpleasantness, and I would never suspect her of anything, of course.”
“Of course.” Leede smiled. “And you’re unhappy at home?”
“A widower. Which is the truth,” Raveaux said.
Leede’s face fell. “Oh, Pierre, I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Don’t make light of it, Pierre.” Sophie turned to Leede. “Heri, his wife and child were tragically killed in a car bomb as the result of one of his investigations. That’s why he’s here in Hawaii.”
“As I said,” Raveaux looked down—he’d crushed the scone he held without realizing it. Crumbs drifted from his fist onto his immaculate pants. “A long time ago. Five years.”
“So that’s why you left France and your job there.” Leede leaned forward to pat Raveaux’s arm. Her touch was warm and gentle. “I wondered.”
Raveaux stood abruptly, brushing down his trousers. “Yes. A terrible thing, a difficult time—but it’s behind me. I’d better get these computers back; I know the Kama`aina Schools’ people want their equipment.” He stepped forward and picked up three of the stacked machines, turned, and headed for the door.
“I’ll have the men come help you,” Sophie said. He heard a note of regret in her voice. Was she sorry for so flippantly sharing his tragedy with Leede? He hoped so.
Raveaux took the stairs, needing to work off the angst of stirred up emotions. By the time he reached the back exit for the Security Solutions building, two muscled operatives met him at the door and one of them held open the back of one of the company SUV’s doors. “Let us help, Monsieur Raveaux.”
The men came back down with him and in one more trip, thanks to the dolly, the back of the vehicle was loaded. “Secure these computers with some padding and strapping, will you? We wouldn’t want to cause any machine failure for the people who own them,” Raveaux said. “I have to go back down to the workroom for a few minutes.”
“You got it.” Perkins, one of the men, threw him a little salute.
Raveaux headed back down to the basement and was surprised to find only Sophie at the computer table. Her back was to the door, but she turned at its familiar screeching. “I have to oil that before it drives me mad.”
“Where’s Leede?”
“She went upstairs to talk to Bix, and then back to her ledgers.” Sophie swiveled fully in her chair to face him. If he hadn’t already noticed the makeshift bed in the corner, the dark circles under her eyes would have told him of her sleepless night. “I’m sorry I just—told her your story like that. I thought Heri should know it was a much bigger thing than just—cancer or something. Sometimes I’m not as tactful as I should be. I apologize.”
“An understatement, but apology accepted.” Raveaux’s jaw felt tight. “Do you think watching a spouse die of cancer would be easy?”
Sophie’s cheeks reddened. “No. Losing a loved one is terrible, no matter how they die. But sometimes you get to say goodbye. You have time to get used to the news. Maybe their illness causes pain, and by the end, you want their suffering to end, and they want that too, and somehow a peace can be found.” She met his eyes at last. “Other times—the one you love is just taken from you. Snatched away without even a goodbye, and it’s your fault.” She glared at Raveaux, her eyes shining with tears. “We have that in common.”
Raveaux sank into the chair beside her. “Yes, we do.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his eyes because they burned. “I want it to be okay. I want it to be behind me. But five years later, it still isn’t.”
&
nbsp; “How do you think I feel?” Sophie banged her fist on the table, a loud thump that made the monitor near her wobble and Raveaux jump. “Jake and I had just made a commitment to each other. We’d cleared up our old hurts and—we’d celebrated that, and just being alive together. We had one time to make love. Once! In two years! And then he . . .” She shut her eyes and fat tears rolled out of them. “Jake gave his life so I could live. I have to find a way to deal with that. And have this baby. And keep going somehow. Without him.”
Raveaux met her bleary gaze. His own eyes were hot and stinging. “It’s not fair, Sophie. It’s not, and it never will be.” He extended a hand to cover Sophie’s fist where it rested on the table. “I don’t know much, but I do know this: children are a gift to be celebrated. You are rich indeed, if you get to have two of them.”
“You can be their godfather,” Sophie burst out. She gave a wet laugh, as she swiped tears away with the back of her free hand. “If you want to, that is.”
“Of course I will.” Raveaux felt his chest swell with feeling; a painful, beautiful feeling. Joy? Hope? Love? Maybe a little of all three. Sophie’s high-energy daughter Momi reminded him of his own strong-willed Lucie, but he’d avoided her because of that. Knowing that he could be in Momi’s life in some kind of role, indefinitely, made his eyes brim. “Whatever I can do to help you.”
“I am angry with God, right now, not even sure he or she exists, but I’ve always liked the idea of godparents.” Sophie groped for a nearby box of tissues, pulled some out, and dabbed her face—and still her hand stayed under his. “My children will need other people in their lives. Male role models, since they only have me and Armita during the month that they’re here. I am going to ask Dr. Wilson to be an honorary grandmother, because Pim Wat is unfit. And I had thought Connor could be their godfather, like an uncle—but I’ve cut off all communication with him, and I think that might have to be for a long time.”
Raveaux sat up straighter, his attention sharpening. He kept his hand on hers. That small contact felt so vital. “What about the GPS chip?”
“I removed it.” Sophie sniffed and wiped tears from her cheeks. “I have lost him, too. You don’t know what he meant to me.”
“You were lovers.”
“Only for a short time. Mostly, we have been friends.” Sophie finally removed her hand from under his and blew her nose. “This is what happens when I don’t take my five minutes.”
“Five minutes?”
“Five minutes to cry. Every day. I set a timer.”
Raveaux felt that unfamiliar tug at his mouth—and this time he let the smile happen.
A grin born of the happiness she’d given him by offering to share her children with him, by sharing her grief with him, by just being Sophie—spread across his face.
He chuckled.
And then he laughed, a deep and wild laugh that loosened his gut and his knees and the knots of pain that pulled his heart in so many directions.
“You’re cackling like a chicken.” Sophie stared at him, wide-eyed. “I’m not usually very funny.”
“You’re not. It’s just that . . . if I’d taken five minutes a day for my grief, instead of trying to numb it, maybe I wouldn’t have spent two years at the bottom of a bottle.” Raveaux shook his head, still smiling. “Who knew? A timer. Five minutes a day.”
“Works remarkably well.” Sophie blew her nose with dignity.
Raveaux felt the familiar stab of grief again—but it was softer now, its edge blunted by the shiny, full feeling she’d given him with her trust. “I bet you worry, some days, that five minutes won’t be enough. I think that’s why I never wanted to cry. I was sure I’d lose myself if I did.”
“Yes. On those days I promise myself a second session, late in the night, if I need it. I’ve seldom needed it.”
“You’ve already answered your question.”
“What one was that?” She was smiling too.
“How you go on.”
Sophie shook her head. “I know that old cliché. One minute at a time, one day at a time, etcetera. In my case, five minutes at a time.” She turned back to the computers. “We didn’t get to the part of the meeting where Leede told us what we were looking for on these rigs.”
Sophie seemed to be fading into drowsiness before his eyes, her shoulders rounding, her eyes half-lidded.
“You look like you need a nap, Sophie. Why don’t you go upstairs and use the couch Paula mentioned? Get a few hours rest. I’ll deliver the original computers back to Kama`aina Schools’ staff and to Peerless, then come back here, and poke around on the one you set up for us. You can come down when you’re rested.”
“Excellent idea.” Sophie yawned. “What I could use are keywords related to the case. Names, dates, places, specific accounts used by the Kama`aina people. Anything I can set my program to searching for.” She stood up and stretched. “I think I’ll take you up on your excellent suggestion and get a nap.”
“You’ll have to tell me about this program.”
“Oh, I will.” Sophie yawned again. “But it’s a bit of a long story.” She headed for the door, weaving on her feet with exhaustion.
Raveaux restrained himself from supporting her, following to close the workroom door behind her. She got on the nearby elevator.
“Rest well, Sophie,” he said. She nodded as she leaned against the elevator’s wall, her eyes closed. The doors shut, taking her from him.
Raveaux turned and took the stairs to the SUV parked in the alley outside, missing her already.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Marcella
Marcella sat in the FBI’s conference room with Waxman, Gundersohn, and Pillman. The large monitor used for distance meetings had been raised up out of its slot in the table. The triangular table mic was on, and they could see small panels framing Kate Smith from the Secret Service, MacDonald and Karl Beckett from the CIA, and Stefan Voise, Interpol.
Everyone but the FBI group had been ordered back to their posts in order to work more productive cases, and today they were tuning in from London, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Smith from Washington, DC.
Pillman opened with his opinion. “The subjects have all gone to ground. Until we find a way to pry those three out of that compound in Thailand, this case is closed.”
Marcella raised a finger. “What if we were to turn Connor to do our work for us with the Master and Pim Wat? I would like to propose that I look into seeing if Sophie Smithson will re-engage with him, and whether or not he is willing to trade one or both of them for immunity.”
“Why would he possibly do that?” Beckett asked, impatience clear in his tone.
“Because Connor loves Sophie,” Marcella said simply. “And Sophie is vulnerable and alone. His competition for her affections is dead. Maybe he still wants a chance with her.”
“I saw the two of them together when I was trying to recruit Sophie as a CIA asset,” MacDonald said. “The dude definitely has a thing for her.”
“From what Frank says, Sophie still harbors a great deal of affection for Connor, too,” Smith said. The Secret Service agent’s dark blue eyes sharpened on Marcella. “But I thought you said your agenda was keeping Connor out of your friend’s life.”
Marcella felt hot, and unbuttoned her collar. “That is my agenda. But let’s grab whoever Connor helps us get, then nail him, too. That man has no moral compass, and it’s going to get Sophie hurt someday.”
Waxman chimed in. “This idea has legs.”
“Do we have any other ideas? Any contacts within the compound?” Stefan Voise’s frown didn’t sit well on his good-natured face.
MacDonald scratched his beefy, whiskered jowls, making a rasping sound. “Everyone in Thailand is afraid of the Yām Khûmkạn. I do have a source inside the compound. So far, he will provide only passive observation information, and I can’t get leverage for more at this point—I’ve tried. He reported that there was a dissident contingent within the compound recently, and the entire fa
ction was executed by sword. Their heads were displayed on pikes before the men for a week.” Silence fell upon the group at his words. “We don’t have an incentive powerful enough for anyone in that compound to betray the Master.”
“That’s medieval,” Smith said. “It’s bizarre to hear of something like that in the twenty-first century.”
“The Master is a spiritual, military, and spy agency leader, all rolled into one,” MacDonald said. “And Connor, as his Number One, or second in command, is being groomed to take over. I can’t see him giving all that up. And were he to betray the Master, the world would not be a big enough place for him to hide from all of the trained ninja assassins who’d come after him.”
“Well, let’s let Marcella take her long shot and see what happens, since we don’t have any better ideas,” Waxman said. “Keep us informed, MacDonald, if your contact has any updates for us.” They wrapped up the meeting.
Waxman shifted his chair to look at Marcella as the telemonitor slid out of sight. “How do you feel about using your friend this way?”
Marcella frowned. “Well, that’s a stark way to put it, because the truth is, I don’t think Sophie is going to be safe until both Pim Wat and Connor are out of her life. The Master, I’m less sure about. Frankly, I don’t care what he does over there in Thailand as long as it doesn’t affect my friend.”
“Are you able to keep this team, and your role on it, confidential?”
Marcella met Waxman’s gaze squarely. “I will do whatever is necessary to gain the objective of removing Connor and Pim Wat from Sophie’s life. That may involve keeping my role here secret; or it may be wiser to take her into my confidence. I will know when we have that conversation.”
Marcella needed to work out after the tension-filled meeting, and there was no time like the present for implementing phase two of her plan. She hit Sophie’s number on her favorites list. She was delighted when her friend picked up. “Sophie! How do you feel about a workout? I’m headed over to Fight Club to deal with the office blues.”