Paradise Crime Thrillers Box Set

by Toby Neal

  The cursor blinked, and Sophie stared at it, realizing that was the truth. Sheldon Hamilton’s disappearance just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Maybe her conclusion yesterday was wrong. The Ghost wasn’t Hamilton after all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Ghost’s phone beeped with an alert to his secure email address. He was in the middle of a difficult section of a Bach concerto, and he ignored the tiny beep. But even as he held a note vibrating at the top end of the scale, then ripped through an arpeggio, he wanted to check it.

  Only a handful of people had that email.

  One of them was Sophie Ang.

  The Ghost faced the windows overlooking the moonlit ocean, the music stand open in front of him. He’d been working out before practice, and just wore the silk boxers he liked for bed, a swatch of silk protecting the violin from the skin of his shoulder. He enjoyed the easy movement of his muscles, the warmed up feel of his fingers, the sensation of air on his skin and the feeling of the music coming to life under his fingers, moving through his body.

  When he got to the end of the piece, he lowered the violin and bowed to Anubis. The dog’s alert eyes watched him from a graceful pose.

  “I want to get that email,” he told Anubis. “That means I need to play the piece again. Delayed gratification is what makes life sweet.”

  Anubis twitched his ears and blinked.

  The Ghost started the piece again, and shut his eyes, giving himself over fully to the music, his mind completely silent for once as every sense and nerve ending engaged with playing it perfectly. But not just perfectly. With passion.

  At the end, Anubis sat up and inclined his head.

  “You’re a king among dogs.” The Ghost set the violin in its case and tossed Anubis a treat. Anubis only provided that acknowledgement when the Ghost had played perfectly.

  He delayed gratification further by taking a shower. Under the stream of water he mentally reviewed his earlier live chat with Sophie Ang. He didn’t think he’d given her any clues, and he’d tried to allay her justifiable anger at being under surveillance. He hoped he’d succeeded. He’d meant it when he said he hadn’t planned to spy on her.

  But now, he missed seeing her. Knowing what she was doing. Still, he knew the next overture had to come from her.

  Finally, dressed for bed in a fresh pair of boxers and a thin tee, he sat down at his workstation and opened the email.

  He finished reading Sophie’s note and savored the fact that she had told him about her day, even though it had obviously been harrowing.

  Using a search program, he tracked everything he could find about the attack at the hospital. He blanched at the sight of the bullet-riddled wall of the hospital room where “an intrepid off-duty FBI agent moved quickly to save the life of a friend.”

  No details about who it was or why they were attacked.

  But he knew. Alika Wolcott was her MMA coach and “friend.” His name had been kept out of mainstream news articles and features, but he’d followed the blog of one of the gym members at Fight Club who was speculating on Alika’s beating and the case against him.

  The Ghost suspected Alika and Sophie were dating, though he hadn’t been able to confirm it. He didn’t like having competition for her, but he wasn’t going to exploit his superior position against someone who didn’t deserve it. For now, it appeared Alika wasn’t in need of anything but the hospital.

  He hunched forward over his keyboard, nimble fingers flying.

  Sophie drove to Queen’s Hospital and entered the cool underground garage the next morning. “You should be okay here for a half hour or so,” she told Ginger, cracking the windows and filling the water bowl on the back seat. She locked the car and glanced around in the dim acres of parked cars, wondering if there was a security guard she could ask to keep an eye on her dog. Parking garages were not safe environments, and she hated to leave Ginger. But the place was deserted, echoing with the sounds of faraway traffic and smelling of gas and rubber.

  She’d put on her spare weapon. It was a comforting weight in its holster under her left armpit beneath the lightweight FBI-gray jacket. In the elevator, on the way up to Alika’s floor, she rehearsed what she’d say, how she’d explain to him who she was. There hadn’t been an opportunity for that last night.

  She was met at the door of Alika’s room by Lehua Wolcott, looking radiant in a short fitted muumuu, glossy hair wound into a roll pierced by koa chopsticks, brown eyes sparkling.

  “He’s much better today.” She hugged Sophie’s stiff body. “He remembered us! Remembered his name, remembered he grew up on Kauai. Just can’t remember anything about the attack.” Distress puckered her face. “I told him that you saved him. I’ll give you two some privacy. Maybe when you talk, it will help.”

  The officer was back at the door, Sophie was relieved to see. He gave her a little salute of recognition. “I’m not leaving no matter who calls me.” He was wearing Kevlar over his uniform.

  “Good.” She followed Lehua into Alika’s room.

  “Son, this is Sophie. I hope you remember her,” Lehua said. Alika was sitting upright this time, wearing a buttoned aloha shirt over his bandaged chest. It gave him a look as if any minute he’d get up and walk out, but the casted leg, back in traction, gave lie to that.

  “I remember Sophie,” Alika said impatiently. “Thanks, Mom. Give us some space, will you?”

  Lehua rolled her eyes at Sophie, still smiling. Sophie could tell that she was so happy to have Alika awake she didn’t care that he seemed irritable. She shut the door gently behind her.

  “Hello.” Sophie approached, sat in a plastic chair beside his bed, still tentative even though he’d said he remembered her. How much did he remember?

  “Hi.” He studied her intently. “What’s with the bruises? Did you get those during the attack yesterday?” Alika’s voice was so clear, so familiar and energetic that she smiled, and winced again, touching her sore lip.

  “No. Had a bout with The Breaker at Fight Club before I came to visit you yesterday.”

  “Hell no, you didn’t! Man’s got a fist like a hammer!”

  Sophie smiled, her lip cracking at this evidence that he remembered more recent events. “I probably shouldn’t have taken him on, but I was in a mood. I made him work for it. Six rounds with a woman. I suspect it is some kind of record, somewhere.”

  “That’s my girl.” His familiar grin brought up the less-swollen side of his face. He remembered—if not their date, at least that he was her coach.

  She reached out a hand and touched his arm lightly, that tattooed spot she’d made friends with. “I’m glad I was here yesterday.”

  “Me too.” His good hand, bandaged, but at least not in a cast, came to pat hers briefly where it rested on his arm. “I have to go back to Kauai for awhile. Do rehab and physical therapy. Can you help out at the gym for me? Maybe run things in the evenings?”

  She glanced up into his golden-brown eyes, looked away again. “Sure. You’re going to hire a manager, then?”

  “I have to. Don’t know when I’ll be able to come back.” He coughed, and his whole body constricted around the obvious pain. Sophie weathered it with him and he finally went on. “My dad is going to stay back and try to get things set up at the gym and my business for me, but HPD wants my parents to get me out of here as soon as I’m safe to transport. For my safety, and they want their man back. They’re thinking tomorrow.”

  “That’s soon.” Sophie felt her face settling into that expression that hid her emotions. “Of course I’ll help in the evenings at the gym. I go there anyway.”

  Did he remember their date, their emerging feelings? There was no indication of anything but the collegial friendship they’d had before in his face or demeanor. This was her opportunity to cut their connection—for his safety, and for hers. Until she knew Assan wasn’t part of the equation. She drew in a quick breath and steeled herself.

  “This is awkward. I get the feeling your mom might
have said the wrong thing about what we were to each other. We were friends. You trained me, and I recently graduated from having you coach me. And we went on one date. We were…” Sophie fumbled for the right words. “We were exploring if we might be more than friends. But it was just one date.”

  “I remember everything about it. We both know it was a lot more than just one date.” Alika’s golden brown eyes were intense as he looked at her. “But I don’t want to drag you into this situation. So for now we’re just friends, and I don’t expect you to wait for me, for all the time it’s going to take for me to heal. For things to be different for me on Oahu. For someday.”

  Sophie let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

  “Things could change.” It was ironic that they were ending their relationship because she was worried about Assan being a threat to him, while he was afraid the Boyz were a threat to her.

  “Kiss me goodbye,” he whispered.

  Sophie leaned over and set her bruised mouth on his bruised mouth. The kiss tasted of blood, pain, and the saltiness of tears. It was unbelievably sweet and tender and hungry.

  She sat back up, stood. Wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’ll keep an eye on the gym. Have your dad call me and we’ll get organized.”

  “Thank you. Be safe.” He looked away, out the window.

  “And you get well.”

  Sophie turned and walked out, face in that familiar immobile mask that hid her feelings and kept her moving. She said goodbye to Lehua, telling her she was in a hurry, a work thing had come up. She fled at a trot down the hall and didn’t cry until she was in the Lexus with Ginger in her arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sophie was waiting in a drive-through line to grab something to eat when her phone toned. She glanced down and put on the brakes when she saw FLORENCE TORRES in the little identification window.

  “I had one of those calls.” Florence’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Apartment 14C. It’s down the hall from the other one. Someone’s moving in today.”

  “Thank you,” Sophie said, but the woman had hung up already.

  Someone honked behind her and she pulled forward, putting in her Bluetooth and calling Ken. “Before I get into what I called to tell you, what happened with the raid Waxman ordered on Security Solutions?”

  Ken made a disgusted noise. “A whole lot of nothing. Honing and his underlings were all we could grab and they all lawyered up. It was a waste of time like I knew it would be.”

  “Well, I just got a call from Torres at the kidnapping building.” She filled him in on what she knew. “Can I assist? Come in and work the surveillance, something?”

  “I’ll call Waxman. We’re going to want to move in to see what’s going on in there.”

  “We are still going to need to get who’s behind this,” Sophie said. “If Waxman won’t let me come in, I’ll keep working on the tech angle.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Sophie got a salad to go and took Ginger to the dog park as she’d planned to—there was no point to moving on the situation until she knew more. But she didn’t have a tech angle to work, she thought in frustration, stabbing her salad with a flimsy plastic fork as she sat down on the park bench. She’d followed every lead she had on Takeda Industries but she still didn’t know who was behind the apartment rental. She didn’t think the kidnapping went beyond the three dead men in the morgue.

  Her phone rang again. “Waxman says no to your participating in the raid,” Ken said.

  “Demon spawn of triple-horned goats,” Sophie said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m just disappointed.”

  “We’re going to stake out that floor and see what comes in. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “Dammit,” Sophie said.

  “I understood that one,” Ken laughed, and hung up.

  Sophie finished her salad while Ginger romped with a pug and a Chihuahua. Around the fenced area of the dog park, the colorful tents and beach umbrellas of the homeless village that inhabited Ala Moana Park created a peaceful, ragtag enclave, in spite of repeated attempts to dislodge them. She watched the denizens playing cards and sharing an anonymous brown-bagged bottle in the shade of a spreading monkeypod tree.

  Her cell phone rang again. Sophie answered when she saw that it was Dr. Wilson, the psychologist, returning her call.

  “Thanks so much for getting back to me,” Sophie said. “Is there a time we could meet or talk?”

  “I’m one step ahead of you.” The psychologist’s voice had a smile in it. “I called your SAC, Waxman, and told him you had requested me. He approved it and canceled Dr. LaSota’s home visit scheduled for this afternoon. Unfortunately, we can’t meet in person because I’m on the Big Island, but we can talk on the phone. Is this a good time?”

  “I guess. I’m at the dog park with Ginger. She’s enjoying a little socialization.”

  “Well, can you speak freely there?”

  Sophie glanced around. The other two dog owners were chatting on a bench a good distance away, and there was no one anywhere nearby. “Yes.”

  “I got a copy of your employee file faxed to me, and Dr. LaSota entered a few notes, concerned about your social life. So where do you want to begin?”

  “I just left the hospital. Alika and I broke up before anything even got started.” A thickness in her throat threatened to choke off her words.

  “Why don’t you start by telling me about the attack.”

  “That was really intense.” Even though the scene flashed before her eyes as she described what had happened, it was still less stressful to tell about how she’d responded to the attempt on Alika’s life, minute by terrifying minute, than it was to tell about how the tiny bud of their relationship had died.

  But of course, one thing led to another, and she finally ended her sad tale with her worry about Assan’s involvement in the attempts on Alika’s life.

  “Is there any evidence of that?”

  “No.” Sophie shut her eyes on horrible memories of Assan and his threats. Ginger reappeared at her knee, reaching up to lick Sophie’s hand.

  “I think you should stop torturing yourself with guilt that you somehow brought this on Alika, when everything appears to be pointing to him bringing it on himself. Unjustly, but nothing to do with you.” Dr. Wilson blew out a breath. “You were a victim of domestic violence. Your husband was your first sexual partner, and he did his best to break you down, ruin you for any future healthy relationship, even if you got away from him. That’s part of his pathology. It’s important for you to remember it was done deliberately. If you let him keep you from ever trying to be with someone else, he’s won.”

  “It’s a hard thing to live with. I can’t think about it for long or I just want to find a way to kill him.” Sophie bit down on her lip, fondling Ginger’s ears. “Until now, just having escaped was enough. Finding a way to rebuild my life. Achieving all I have in the FBI and the fight scene so no one could make me a victim again. But then, I began to want more. A relationship. I was even attracted to a female friend at one time. But I knew I wanted Alika. From the time I first met him. It’s been five years, and something was finally happening. Then, bam.”

  “Life’s not fair, is it?” Dr. Wilson’s voice was so soft, so sympathetic, that Sophie shut her eyes and let the fat tears collecting under her lids slide out and roll down her cheeks.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Focus on the good things. Alika woke up. He’s going to recover, even if it takes a while. And if Detective Kamuela can get some traction on the Boyz in Honolulu, it’s possible you two could move forward.”

  “I don’t think I want to anymore. I don’t want to take the chance. Not until I know Assan isn’t going to be a problem, ever again. It’s been forty-five minutes. Are we done?”

  “I don’t know. Are we?”

  Sophie gazed around the park. The other dog owners had left. It was early afternoon, and G
inger sprawled at her feet. High white clouds scudded by in a deep blue sky, and a soft wind shushed in the high branches of the trees overhead. Off to the left, Diamond Head cut the sky with its jagged, iconic silhouette, and on the right, the homeless people had laid down their cards and were napping on beach towels.

  Just another day in paradise.

  “I have a confusing case. Can I tell you about that?”

  “Total confidentiality means total confidentiality,” Dr. Wilson replied. “There are no case notes on this session except documentation that it occurred. Did you ever see that old TV show Get Smart?” She chuckled. “Consider me your Cone of Silence.”

  “No, I grew up overseas, without TV. So, there’s this security company.” Sophie described Security Solutions and the various events within the company, which still weren’t producing anything that the FBI could act on besides searching for the missing CEO, Sheldon Hamilton. She described why she believed he was the one who’d breached her apartment.

  “I have begun a dialogue with him. I’m going to try to lure him into view,” she concluded. “I think he’s a vigilante of sorts. Used the company to draw in criminals and then set them up against each other.”

  “Fascinating.” Dr. Wilson sounded sincere. “What an interesting criminal.”

  The word “criminal” didn’t seem right to describe Security Solutions’ saboteur.

  “Brilliant is what he is. Obviously has his own code of ethics. He’s living and operating under a different set of rules.” Sophie couldn’t quite bring herself to describe the flirty dynamic that had arisen between them, the favor she’d asked of him. “It’s a deep game he’s playing, and my sense is that no one is going to find him until he wants to be found. What I wonder is why he let Lee Chan get away. If Chan knew who was selling the company’s information gathered by the nanny-cam, AI, and other records, then he’d be a real threat.”