Paradise Crime Thrillers Box Set

by Toby Neal

“What’s your interest in Sophie, besides spying on her?” Jake tried for a joking tone.

  “None of your business. Above your pay grade.” Satellite Stalker’s tone was coolly dismissive. Jake’s hackles rose and his grip tightened on the phone as the man went on, “Tell Sophie she has a friend looking out for her. She knows who I am.”

  “A friend who tracks her phone and uses satellites to keep an eye on her. With friends like you, who needs enemies?” Jake’s neck was hot. “She doesn’t need either of us, it turns out.”

  A short, charged pause.

  “Don’t get any ideas, Jake. She’s spoken for.” The line went dead.

  “Fuck you!” Jake snarled. Satellite Stalker could burn in hell.

  Bix had come back on the line. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, sorry. Was talking to my other caller.” Jake looked up to see Sophie approaching. She walked slowly, wrapped in a silver emergency blanket. Her shoulders were slumped, her head hanging, and she stumbled in the crushed grass. “I gotta go. Our best operative needs some TLC.”

  He hung up on Bix and stowed his phone in his pocket. Sophie looked in need of a hug. Jake opened his arms. She walked into them, and rested her head on his shoulder.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Debriefed, fed, and showered after stopping by to verify that Tank was indeed going to survive, Sophie snuggled in bed with Jake at the motel as the TV played some old movie on mute in the background behind her. She basked in his furnace-like body heat as a chilly, wet Hilo night enfolded them. She couldn’t seem to get enough of being hugged and held by him since the ordeal with Chang, and he seemed more than willing. She felt cherished, protected and warm in his arms.

  She really would have liked more than that to be happening, though. Sophie slid a hand under Jake’s shirt, savoring the feel of his rock-hard abs. Jake gently but firmly removed her hand and put it on her own hip. “I told you my terms. I’m your guy, or no nookie.”

  “Nookie?” Sophie’s brows arched at the term.

  “It’s . . . erm. My parents called it that.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about you comparing sex with me to the sex your parents had,” Sophie said, her mouth quirking up in a smile.

  “Ha. Didn’t mean to . . . whatever. You know what I’m saying. We talked about this earlier.”

  Sophie sighed in resignation, folding her hands up under her chin. Jake drew her closer and kissed her forehead, snuggling her against his chest, but with no other body contact.

  “Tell me about your parents. I’ve never asked you about them,” Sophie said.

  “Oh, they weren’t that interesting. Typical Army couple. We moved a lot. Mom lives in Texas now, near my sister who’s married with a baby on the way. My other sister lives in Chicago.”

  Sophie turned away so that he fitted against her from behind. It felt easier to talk without facing him. “You forget. I don’t know much about American culture except what I’ve read.” She stroked the back of Jake’s arm where it crossed over her waist, enjoying the feel of his springy, blondish hairs. She lifted his hand and looked at the tender blue veins at his wrist, remembering an impulse not long ago to kiss him there. So vulnerable, a web of fragile life lying over the toughness of sinew and bone.

  Sophie gave in to the impulse and lifted his wrist to kiss the nexus of veins softly as she’d wanted to do then. “Tell me about your father. You never talk about him.”

  “That’s because he . . . left our family. Abandoned Mom, me and my younger sisters. I was fifteen when he came home one day and told Mom he was leaving her for his secretary.”

  “Oh no.” Sophie stroked Jake’s wrist, her fingers tracing the many textures. He had a calloused area in the web between his thumb and forefinger, likely from handling weapons or pushing weights. “That’s terrible.”

  “Dad was career Army. Mom was a traditional homemaker who hadn’t kept up her job as a teacher because we moved so often with his postings and she had the three of us to care for. I didn’t know it until he left, but he was often unfaithful. Mom wasn’t even surprised about the secretary. She was just surprised that he had no honor about how he left, or providing for us.” Jake sighed. His breath stirred the hairs behind Sophie’s ear and she suppressed a shudder of arousal. “I became an investigator the day Mom sat us down and told us he was gone. He hadn’t said goodbye to any of the three of us. Wanted to avoid a scene, she said. I went after him, trying to find out who he’d really been. I didn’t like the answers I found.”

  Sophie felt the rigidity of old pain in Jake’s muscles but she held herself still, resisting the urge to soothe and comfort—it wouldn’t work. “Dad was eventually forced to pay child support by the court. I . . . had a rough time that year. Became angry, wild. Reckless. Lots of fighting. Deciding to try for Special Forces after high school saved me from getting into drugs or partying, though. I joined up the minute I was eligible.”

  “You wanted to outshine your father. Beat him at his own career.”

  “Yes. And I did. But I had trouble trusting people. Women. I couldn’t commit. I guess I’ve been afraid I wasn’t capable of it, that I was too much like him.”

  “Smart to avoid it then,” Sophie said.

  Jake gave a mirthless chuckle. “I thought you’d agree with avoidance. You have a secret admirer, you know.”

  “What?” Sophie twisted to meet Jake’s gaze. Evening shadows colored them stone gray in the low light of the motel’s small bedside lamp. “Who?”

  “Didn’t you wonder how I found you?”

  “I assume you tracked my phone. And then at the van, you were smart enough to know Ginger could find me.”

  The Lab, lying on the rug at the foot of the bed, lifted her head at the sound of her name. She was mopey without Tank, who was recovering at the animal hospital and would be released in a few days if all went well.

  “No. Your phone’s signal cut off a few minutes after you answered my call and I couldn’t get it again even with the Find My Phone app. I opted to stay with Tank while Wong and Freitan went off to get Terence Chang and try to shake Akane’s location out of him. While the vet was stabilizing Tank, I got a call from an Unidentified Number.”

  Sophie stiffened. “Who was it?”

  “The dude wouldn’t say. Told me that he was tracking your phone and had a satellite picture to share with me that showed where the van that took you was. I tried to ask him more, and he just asked if I wanted to help you, or should he call someone else?” Jake squeezed Sophie closer. She could feel how much he wanted her, a sweet suffering they shared. “I told him to send me the picture, and that’s how I found the van. I forwarded the satellite photo to Freitan and Wong and they called for an ambulance and backup. Later, while you were giving your statement, he called again to see if I’d rescued you. He warned me off. Said you were spoken for, and that you’d know who he was.”

  “Yes, I know who he is.” Sophie extracted herself from Jake’s arms in agitation. “But he has no claim on me. We are not involved.”

  “I thought you got rid of all the dangerous stalkers in your life when you killed Assan Ang,” Jake said in a dry tone. “That man sounded like money. And power.”

  Sophie decided to ignore the accusation in his voice. “I told you I had secrets I couldn’t share with you. And he is one of them. He is . . . monitoring me. He is not a danger to me.”

  “Anyone who can use a satellite as his personal nanny cam and lacks the scruples to abide by the law could be dangerous to you, or others.” Jake’s eyes had gone flinty and his jaw was hard as he propped himself on an elbow.

  “I can’t talk about this man. I’m sorry, Jake. But trust me when I tell you—I have no romantic interest in him,” Sophie said forcefully.

  “You’ve got no romantic interest in me, either, it seems.” Jake rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling. “You must like guys with helicopters, then. All I’m saying.”

  “Are you pouting? Is that what you’re doing when you
r mouth droops like that?”

  Jake laughed. She’d come to love that—Jake was never discouraged or downcast long, and his unsinkability was a tonic for her depressive struggles.

  “Fine. I was pouting.” Jake sat up. He gave her exaggerated bedroom eyes, fluttering his lashes, and peeled his shirt off over his head, tossing it across the room. He flexed his arms and tightened his abs, striking a pose. “Now I’ll just have to rely on my looks and charm to wear you down. Come over here and snuggle with all of this. Platonically. Until you’re ready to be my girl and have it all for yourself.”

  Sophie groaned. “No, thanks. You are beefcake—I understand that word now—and I’m a hungry woman. I’d better go to my own room so I can respect your terms.” She walked to the connecting door. Ginger rose and joined her, and Sophie looked back at Jake. “I wish I were ready to be your girl.”

  “Me too. Now get out of here so I can take a cold shower,” Jake grumbled, and threw his pillow at her.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Sophie rubbed one of her abraded wrists absentmindedly as she sat in Dr. Wilson’s waiting room late the next day. She felt good, considering all that had gone down the day before. She hadn’t needed more than a sturdy bandage for the wound on her back, administered by the EMTs at the van. Her other assorted punctures and scrapes from yesterday’s ordeal were already healing.

  So far, today had been spent wrapping up the case with the Weathersbys and attending a team meeting with the detectives where she turned over all the information she’d gathered on the body dump sites Chang had told her about, and what she’d put together on the missing persons using DAVID. Freitan and Wong had enough to verify the way the “side hustle” had gone down, even with both Changs heavily lawyered up. Hope was high at the station that they’d even be able to unravel the intricacies of the Chang crime operation if they could keep Holly Rayme alive and the Chang cousins would talk. Those were big “ifs,” but a good start.

  Dr. Wilson opened her inner door and stuck her head out. “Sophie! So good to see you. I was worried yesterday until I got your text.” Sophie stood and turned to face the psychologist, and Dr. Wilson widened her eyes. “You look a little worse for wear, my girl.”

  “I got off lightly, considering the situation that occurred yesterday. Is it all right if this is my official post-incident trauma debrief per Security Solutions protocol?”

  “Wow, it must have been a doozy of a day. Whatever you need. Do you want to do some EMDR?”

  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing we the best practices recommendation for post trauma work. Sophie was quite familiar with the technique, a combination of structured question and memory recall accompanied by eye movement guided by a light bar.

  “Maybe, but I would just like to sort through everything first. A lot has happened since I saw you day before yesterday.”

  “Well, let’s get to it.” Dr. Wilson held the door wide, and Sophie walked in.

  Sophie took a seat on the familiar couch, and picked up a fidget toy off of the coffee table. “Do many of your clients play with this while they talk?”

  “They do. I find that males, particularly, need something to do with their hands while they talk.”

  Sophie spun the gadget. “I’m not sure where to begin.” All that had happened, including her confusion on a number of subjects, jostled together to stifle her tongue.

  Dr. Wilson smiled from her comfortable lounger, a clipboard and pen on her lap. Today she wore a simple scoop-necked dress in a vibrant peacock shade that enhanced her striking blue eyes.

  “Why don’t you begin where we left off? Tell me what you were able to find out about your mother’s secret spy organization.”

  “I finally had some time to research it online just before I was kidnapped,” Sophie said.

  Dr. Wilson snorted. “Maybe that’s not the right place to start. Why don’t you start with the biggest thing that has happened since I saw you last.”

  “I am trying to remember what had happened before I met with you last. I don’t think we had found Julie Weathersby or Chernobiac’s body yet.”

  Dr. Wilson shook her head. “Good Lord. Okay, begin wherever!”

  Sophie proceeded to fill Dr. Wilson in on the events of the last few days.

  At some point, Dr. Wilson got up and fetched Sophie a bottle of water from her little fridge. She needed it by then, her throat scratchy from talking. “To conclude, the investigation is wrapping up, at least our part of it. Freitan and Wong have what they need for solving many of these missing persons cases. If Holly Rayme will testify and Akane Chang will cut a deal for his confession, they might even have enough to chisel a hole in the Changs’ crime operation here on the Big Island.”

  “That’s remarkable. And what about you? Were you able to find anything out about your mother and her organization?” Dr. Wilson had circled back around to the original question.

  “Like I said, I finally had time to research the Yām Khûmkạn yesterday at the police station before Chang snatched me at the park. Mother was telling the truth. There is such a clandestine organization, and it does a good enough job concealing its presence that it actually doesn’t have much of an online footprint. Even data mining the dark net didn’t yield the kind of information I’m used to getting. But while spending time learning about it, I began to be concerned about how to tell my father that Mother is a spy.” Sophie laced her fingers tightly together and squeezed. “I have to tell him, and I know it will be devastating. It will also cause a possible national security breach. I will be detained. Questioned. Everything I’ve done, sensitive information I had access to through my work with the FBI . . . everything could come under scrutiny.”

  “I’m sorry, Sophie. It’s not fair. This was none of your doing.”

  “That’s why I hate this so much. Not only has my mother no love for me and only a desire to use me and my father, she has . . . corrupted my life with this attempt to recruit me. I am in a bind because of it.” Sophie gazed into Dr. Wilson’s compassionate eyes. “I have worked so hard to be free. To be able to chart my own destiny. That was what this trip to the Big Island was supposed to be. What my trip to Kaua’i was supposed to be. Instead, I keep finding . . . pilikia. Trouble.”

  “I’m not sure if this is what you want to hear, Sophie, but I have to ask. Is it possible that some part of you wants to find these bodies, solve these crimes, even more than you want to be free? Whether they are missing people, lost boys, cyber vigilantes, you name it—you put yourself into a crime-solving life by joining the FBI, and now, though you are out, you still keep stumbling into hot cases.”

  “I know. It’s so strange.” Sophie rubbed the scar over her artificial cheekbone in agitation.

  “You say you want to be free. What does that even mean to you? Let’s make sure we are on the same page with the concept.”

  Sophie looked down at her hands. Her short nails were ragged, and the zip ties Chang had put on her wrists had left angry red lines. “I don’t know exactly what freedom means. I just know that sometimes I have these feelings. Expansive feelings, like I am flying, like I have found my place in the world, and I do not have to answer to anyone or anything. I am . . . happy. Very happy.” She sighed. “These moments pass too quickly. I only get the feelings sometimes, usually when I’m alone with my dog, out in nature. But those feelings are the opposite of the depression. They are the antidote to it.”

  “But you have told me in the past that you had those same feelings of freedom, of flying, when you were in the cyber world, online. Could it be that what you are doing is already bringing you freedom? Could it be that this feeling of freedom is what some others call fulfillment?”

  Sophie glanced up to meet Dr. Wilson’s wise gaze. “English has been my second language, though it’s quickly becoming my primary one. Maybe the words are more related in my mother tongue, or in Chinese. I do speak five languages, and sometimes concepts get mixed up. But what I know is that I want more of those
feelings. I don’t want to be depressed anymore.”

  “Have you been taking your medication?”

  “Not regularly enough.” The little white pills she’d begun a few months ago were hard to remember to take when so much was going on.

  “Please try to make that a priority.” Dr. Wilson sat forward, capturing Sophie’s gaze. “I would propose that you can have those exultant kinds of feelings within whatever you are doing as a job. What you are describing is flow, a phenomenon that occurs with the right mix of endorphins and the attainment of a difficult goal. There’s a book about it called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian psychologist. You can look it up. People chase after the feeling, but it cannot be bottled—except perhaps as a recreational drug.” Dr. Wilson smiled. “And of course, you would be too smart to want that kind of pale substitute.”

  “This is . . . so good, Dr. Wilson. I want to understand everything that you are saying.” Sophie glanced at the clock. “But I don’t have much time, and I don’t even know what to do next. I don’t know what to do about my mother and her proposal. I am considering calling my father’s Secret Service protection agent, Ellie Smith, and throwing myself upon her mercy to guide me. Perhaps I will become a double agent, and spy on Mother’s organization.”

  “Dear God. What a can of worms!” Dr. Wilson rubbed her temples.

  “It’s true. And simple next steps: should I stay here on the Big Island, or go back to Oahu and resume work with Security Solutions? I need to make a living somehow. It’s not urgent at this moment. I have savings, and I will be paid for my work on the Weathersby case. But I also need to figure out my love life. Jake told me he wouldn’t have sex with me anymore unless I become his girl. In other words, acknowledge that we are an exclusive couple.”

  “I know what that means,” Dr. Wilson said. “And how do you feel about that? About him?”

  “Not ready to make such a commitment. I still have feelings for Alika, too, and I don’t have room for Jake in my life with all that’s going on and how much he would want to be a part of it. There’s so much I couldn’t tell him, and he hates secrets. To complicate things further, Connor has been tracking me. He called Jake and provided my location via satellite when I was kidnapped, which was how Jake was able to find me before I . . .” Her voice trailed off. “The most troubling thing is not that the Ghost is watching me and monitoring me . . . I am not surprised by that. He told me he was. What I am surprised by is something else.”