Paradise Crime Thrillers Box Set

by Toby Neal

  To Marcella: “Dear BFF, I’m heading to Kaua`i to meet with Alika. Wish me luck and not to be too incoherent. I have no idea how much he will hate me because I never even acknowledged the loss of his arm. I wish I had you by my side so you could tell me what to say and how to act!”

  To her father, Frank: “It’s been a while, Dad, but this is just a note to let you know I’m still alive, all is well, and I’m flying to Kaua`i to meet Alika as you told me I should, to acknowledge the loss of his arm and other things. Thanks for always being there for me, and for always challenging me to do the right thing. I love you.”

  To Dr. Wilson: “Thanks, dear Dr. Wilson, for the session today, and for helping me see that I am in charge of my life, my body, and my choices. I don’t need anyone to take care of, or rescue, me or my baby. I’m capable, I have money and friends, and whatever the men in my life think about me and my child, it’s my opinion that matters most. Though there may be emotional pain ahead, I’m a survivor and I can handle it. I thank you for the extra-long session we had to sort all of this out, and I look forward to updating you on how my visit to Alika and the situation with how the paternity test go. Many thanks, Sophie.”

  The session with Dr. Wilson had cemented her determination to see Alika and talk things through with him. She would always remember Dr. Wilson’s kind, direct blue eyes as the psychologist listened to her outpouring while she described the last few days’ events and her pregnancy news. They’d sorted through Sophie’s fears about Jake, about facing Alika, and even the surprisingly unstinting support she’d received from Connor.

  “In the end you don’t need any of them. Not even your father,” Dr. Wilson had said. “I don’t think it will come to this, but it’s useful for you to acknowledge that you may be the only person this child has, and if so, you can still do a great job parenting.” Together they’d searched out various articles and resources for Sophie to study. “The most important thing is that you get calm and confident about your choice to keep the baby. Everyone else will settle down around that in whatever way they choose to, but ultimately you’re not in control of their reactions—and you have to accept that, and be okay with yourself and your choice, come what may.”

  Sophie put her phone back into the travel backpack she’d packed with a couple of changes of clothes and other essentials, feeling calmer.

  Maybe she’d only be on Kaua`i overnight, but it was better to be prepared. She leaned her head back against the seat and the tiredness that she’d read was such a part of first trimester pregnancy swamped her. She slept for the rest of the hour-long flight.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Akane Chang loaded the hunting rifle, ramming in a shell and ratcheting it home. There was no point in getting some fancy sniper rifle; he already had a good pig-hunting gun in his personal arsenal, and the target wasn’t far. He’d got a call from a friendly cousin telling him where to find that bitch investigator and her partner; taking them down was going to be so satisfying, the perfect way to announce he was back in town.

  Getting back to the Big Island from Oahu undetected had been more of a challenge than Akane had anticipated. He’d called in many a favor to get here, finally hitching a ride on a third cousin’s fishing boat and arriving at night. Many in the family were intimidated by Terence Chang’s massacre of Akane’s family, so he’d had to choose his contacts carefully.

  Disguised as a fisherman, he’d visited the Chang’s memorial park area. His family had all simply disappeared, so not so much as a plaque marked their vanishing. Akane had brought lei, one for each missing member, and he’d draped them along the top of the memorial wall where the ash cisterns were stored. He’d taken time to grieve alone.

  Freakin’ Terence had even shot Akane’s mother! Who knew that poser with his hipster jeans had a heart of stone beating under his designer shirt?

  Akane tried to imagine pulling the trigger on his closest family members. His brother Byron was the only one he’d have enjoyed killing, and Byron had been dispatched by the assassin he’d hired to replace Akane—a fitting irony.

  His family’s murders weren’t even being investigated, because no one who’d witnessed the massacre was talking to the cops, and no bodies had yet been found. His contact in the Hilo PD told him that evidence planted at their homes indicated that they’d left on vacation.

  What had Terence done with them?

  His imagination tormented him. That Akane had so much experience making people disappear himself was insult added to injury, and solidified the rage burning in his chest.

  Akane ground his teeth as he ran a rag over the gun and checked the sights. He’d broken into his parents’ empty home to get the rifle. He’d seen a typed note left out for a house-sitting service. The note was supposedly from his mother, leaving directions on watering the plants. His parents’ home had smelled fresh and aired, as if they’d return any minute.

  He’d vomited from grief in their immaculate bathroom.

  “Clever Terence. I’m saving you for last,” Akane muttered. He propped the rifle on the windowsill, sighting down at the door of the business building that housed Security Solutions, directly across the street. “I’m starting here, with these rent-a-cops, and then I’ll kill everyone you ever cared about. And when that’s done, I’ll cut you up alive and throw you to Pele to burn.”

  Terence would pay. They all would pay. Getting the tip about the location of the investigators’ office had provided a good focus, an easy first target. He wouldn’t even have to get his hands dirty—he’d save that for later. “Like shooting fish in a barrel. All I have to do is wait.”

  Akane pointed the rifle at the entrance to the building. He propped a photo of the investigators that his cousin Penny Chang had provided him against the lamp on a side table near his chair. He would easily recognize that ballbuster Sophie Ang and her jock boyfriend Jake Dunn, but a visual aid never hurt. Too bad he wasn’t going to be able to rape the woman before he killed her.

  He was saving that personal touch for Terence’s girl, Julie Weathersby.

  Akane opened a bag of pork rinds and a Kona Brewing Company dark ale, and settled in to wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jake clattered rapidly down the interior stairs of the Security Solutions office building as he usually did. He was already several steps ahead mentally as he pushed through the glass entry door and stepped outside the building, the file Felicia had given him tucked under his arm. The folder slid out and hit the sidewalk, scattering papers.

  Jake bent to the side to retrieve it, and heard the sound of a rifle’s report at the same moment a hot shock of pain bit the back of his calf.

  Combat reflexes took over. He dove for cover as his brain scrambled to catch up: who would be shooting at him?

  From behind an old blue Chevy Impala parked at the curb, Jake scanned the street, applying pressure to his calf.

  Yep. He was shot.

  Blood saturated his pants and warmed his hand as he continued to apply pressure to the wound without looking at it, his weapon in his hand.

  People were going about their business on the busy thoroughfare only a block away and no further shots rang out.

  Jake scanned the building across the street. His eye caught a flash, a glimmer of light on metal several floors up, just as the window of the Impala exploded above him.

  “Shit!” Jake covered his head with his arms as safety glass showered him in a rainbow of sharp, jagged little cubes.

  He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and called 911, barking out the street address and reporting that someone was firing at him from the building across the street. Someone else also must’ve called, because Jake could already hear the wail of sirens in the distance. He slid his phone back into his pocket despite the dispatcher’s protests and squinted up at the window from where the shots had come.

  No gleam of metal. No rifle barrel. The shooter had pulled out.

  This was his chance. The perp was going to be long gone by
the time the cops arrived.

  When Jake stood up, pain hit him like a baseball bat. His head swam. Shock was setting in. He didn’t need to examine the injury to know that it was just a through and through to the calf muscle.

  That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a mofo, but he’d fought entire battles with worse.

  Jake ripped off his black Security Solutions shirt and leaned down to tie it around his lower leg as tightly as possible. Bare-chested, gun drawn, he ran and hobbled as fast as he could across the road and into the building.

  The apartment’s entry foyer was unlocked, and he searched wildly for a set of stairs in the nondescript lobby with its wall of mailboxes. Spotting a door marked STAIRS beside the elevator, he paused to consider.

  The car was descending, the lights changing above the door.

  Maybe the shooter was coming right to him.

  Jake took up a defensive position beside the elevator’s entry, his weapon at the ready, and when a ding! announced the car’s arrival, he brought the pistol down, covering the man getting off.

  “Stop right where you are. Put your hands on your head.”

  The passenger exiting the elevator froze, his mouth open. He dropped a bag he was holding and put his hands on his head. Six feet in height, with gray hair in a ponytail, the middle-aged white male wore a really bad tie-dyed sweatshirt advertising a head shop.

  “No gun violence!” Tie Dye yelled. “Get the hell away from me with that murder stick!”

  Not his shooter.

  Jake shoved the man forward out of the way and jumped inside the elevator. He hit the button for the fourth floor repeatedly.

  Years of studying maps and floor plans for various missions had trained him to match locations with internal structures seen from different angles. An internal schematic of where the window was relative to Jake’s current position stayed clear in his mind, and he watched the floors changing impatiently. The first rush of adrenaline was wearing off and pulsing pain had set in, a hot poker beating a tattoo on the back of his leg.

  The fourth floor was dim and quiet. Jake flicked on a light switch, but the power was off. Drop cloths, paint buckets, and the dim shapes of equipment, told him that the floor was being remodeled. It appeared unoccupied at the moment—ideal for the shooter.

  Jake ignored his calf dripping blood as he trotted lightly on the balls of his feet to the door that matched the window he’d spotted from the street below. He reached out from the cover of the wall to give the handle a quick twist, just to check if it was open, and the portal swung inward. Jake waited a moment for the rush of feet, the report of a gun, but heard nothing from inside.

  He peered around the jamb into an empty, barely furnished apartment. A chair, nightstand and lamp were set up near the window. An empty beer bottle and an open bag of pork rinds gave testimony to the shooter’s presence, but the brass from the rounds had been picked up.

  The guy had probably been taking the stairs while Jake took the elevator.

  He tried not to be too frustrated—it was a fifty-fifty gamble, one way or the other. Time to let the cops do their job. He looked down at the beer bottle. Careless. The shooter had picked up his brass, but likely left prints.

  Jake called 911 again to inform the officers about his discovery.

  He was told to wait for their arrival, and Jake was finally ready to sit down and take the weight off of his injured leg.

  Then he called Sophie. The call went straight to voicemail. “Soph. Hey. I got shot in the leg across the street from our office building. It’s not terrible, but I’m gonna need a hospital visit.” His voice wavered as his gaze fell on the beer bottle. “Looks like the shooter left some evidence behind. I’m thinking it’s Akane Chang. Call me. I need to know that you’re safe.”

  He slid the phone back into his pocket.

  The cops burst in, and all was chaos until he was able to establish that he was both the victim and the 911 tipster.

  “Why didn’t you stay in the street?” The uniformed cop holding a gun on him asked. “You probably scared the assailant off.”

  “The shooter took two shots and cut his losses.” Jake said. “I would have caught him if I’d taken the stairs. Bag that bottle and check for prints.”

  The cop scowled. He flicked a glance at Jake’s buff, naked torso. “Who do you think you are? Rambo? Shut up, haole. I’d still like to bring you in.”

  The EMTs had finally arrived, and by then, Jake was ready to let them strap him on a gurney and haul him away.

  “Call Detective Freitan!” Jake yelled from the gurney. “Tell her to look for the bullet that got my leg over on the street by the Impala. You might be able to match it to a weapon in the system.”

  None of the local cops, eyeing him suspiciously as if he’d somehow brought this on himself, appeared inclined to listen.

  Jake shut his eyes as he was wheeled onto the elevator he’d come up on, slightly alarmed by the amount of blood he’d trailed through the building. That was going to be a bitch to clean up. They’d probably send him a bill…

  He must have passed out, because getting his pants cut off in the Emergency Room brought him around with a groan. Where was Sophie? Was she safe?

  “Who should we call for you, sir?” the intake nurse asked, pen poised over a clipboard as the tech yanked him to and fro, hacking at his bloody combat pants with a pair of shears.

  “Call my office. Tell Felicia to notify our supervisor, Kendall Bix, on Oahu. And have her call Sheldon Hamilton from my company—he’s the big boss, and he’s on island.” Jake’s brain felt too fuzzy to recall the numbers, so he fumbled the phone out of his pocket and read them off.

  “Any family to call?” The woman persisted. “You’ll need someone to give you a ride home if you’re not admitted.”

  “No family.” Jake’s belly tightened at the way the words sounded. Sophie was the closest person he had to family. “My relatives are on the Mainland. They can’t help.” He checked his phone again, and this time noticed a text from Sophie. She was on Kaua`i, and she’d left Ginger for him to care for in his apartment.

  Sophie was talking to Alika. Good. She’d be safe, for the moment, away from here.

  Jake tried not to imagine how that difficult talk was going. Was she even going to come back to the Big Island? Or would she just—stay with the guy? He hadn’t given her much reason to return, and even with this latest crisis, he still wasn’t sure how to move forward.

  Better she left him now if she and Alika were having a baby together… Jake clenched a fist. Waiting to know something had never been so hard.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood in spite of this improvised tourniquet,” the doc said, once the pants were out of the way and she was assessing the wound in his calf. “I’m going to need to stitch this up, and it’s going to take a while. Need something for the pain?”

  “Hell yeah. Bring on the meds.” Jake shut his eyes and awaited blessed relief.

  Several hours later, Felicia wheeled him out of the ER toward her car, a new VW Bug in bright blue with surf racks on top. “I can’t believe you don’t have someone else to call. Where’s Sophie?”

  “She had to go off island on personal business.” Jake’s head felt too heavy to hold up and his tongue was thick in his mouth. The doc had been on the verge of admitting him, but Jake had insisted on going home—the dogs were trapped in the condo. He had to get back to them.

  He gave Felicia the apartment building’s address, and soon she was helping him up the stairs and into the building, her petite frame wedged under his armpit, holding him up surprisingly well. Clearly the girl worked out a lot, as if her sexy shorts and strong arms hadn’t already told him that.

  “I need to get those crutches the doc prescribed,” Jake murmured. He was so sleepy from the medication he could hardly keep his eyes open. “But first, I’ve gotta walk the dogs. They need to go out.”

  “Oh, now I know why you were so hell-bent on getting back to the apartment,” Fel
icia panted, propping Jake against the wall of the rickety elevator and punching his floor’s button. “Don’t worry. I’ll take the dogs out and run by the pharmacy and get your meds and the crutches, too.” The elevator creaked as it slowly rose.

  “Don’t know what I’d do without you, babe.” Jake’s arm was still over Felicia’s shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head. “My girl Friday.”

  “Don’t call me babe, Jake.” Felicia stiffened and pulled away to stand across the doorway from him. “You’re with Sophie.”

  “I thought you liked being called ‘babe,’ sweetheart.” Jake tried to enunciate.

  “That was…before I knew you guys were together.” Felicia’s face was turned away. “I didn’t mind then. I mind, now.”

  “I don’t know if we’re together. I don’t know what’s going on with Sophie. As usual. She’s pregnant. It might be mine, it might be someone else’s.” Jake clapped a hand over his mouth. “Oops. Pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to tell you. Meds talking.”

  “Oh my God!” Felicia’s eyes were a very bright blue. “That’s…wow. Tough stuff, Jake. I’m sorry you guys are going through that. Did she say what she’s doing about the baby?”

  “Yeah. She’s keeping it. She’s on Kaua`i telling the other guy to get a paternity test. I’m doing one too. Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Felicia echoed, her voice hollow. The elevator dinged as it reached Jake’s floor, and Felicia hefted him out. She puffed as they staggered down the hall. Jake pointed to his door, and she used his key to open it.

  The dogs, waiting on the other side, swarmed them. Jake batted at them with a hand, shooing them away. Felicia maneuvered him to the open, unmade futon bed parked in front of the sliders. A breeze blew in and cooled his hot face as he sat down. The room whirled around him, and spots danced in the corners of his vision. “Wow. I’m tripping on these meds.”

  “We should get those pants off you. They’re cut to bits and covered with blood,” Felicia said.