by Toby Neal
Sophie called her father as she drove to the gym late that afternoon. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get in touch with you, Dad.”
“You were reaching your check-in limit, my girl.” As usual, her father’s warm, deep voice filled her with a sense of reassurance. The world couldn’t be that far off-kilter with Francis Smithson in it. “I was getting ready to activate the emergency network.”
Sophie chuckled, an unfamiliar sound. She cleared her throat. “Well, I was on Maui with a case and then…the man I was dating was killed.” Saying the words, telling someone who mattered to her about Connor’s death, made the situation she’d been struggling with bloom into stark reality. Tears filled Sophie’s eyes, and her hands trembled on the steering wheel as she braced herself to explain the circumstances to her father.
His exclamations and rapid-fire questions hit her like bullets, but she forged ahead, describing how a bomb had gone off in Remarkian’s apartment, and that she now had not one, but two dogs. “The FBI needs to get into your place to look for any trace related to identifying Remarkian’s body. It’s improbable that anything remains from his stay there, but I hope you’ll allow that.”
“Of course. I’m so sorry, darling.” Her father sighed, long and low. “You’ve had an unfair amount of grief to bear in this life.”
“I believe that to be true. I’m unlucky.”
“No, Sophie, no.” His protestations made no difference to the truth she knew in her bones—even as the rational part of her mind argued it was another myth, part of the depression.
Sophie pulled into a parking stall outside of the strip mall housing the gym. The bright sunshine of another day in paradise smote her sore eyes as she removed her sunglasses. “I’m all right, Dad. I’m going to the gym. And then I’m returning to Maui for my case. It will be good to be working again.”
“I’ve always found work to be a tonic,” her father agreed. “I’ll be over for a visit in a couple of weeks. We can spend some time together then. Are you staying in the apartment?” Frank had encouraged her to live in his penthouse apartment in the swanky area of Nu‘uanu, and Sophie had lived there for the first five years she was on Oahu and in the FBI—but recent events had turned a former sanctuary into a place where she felt vulnerable.
“No, Dad. I’m at my other place. We’ll talk soon.” She hung up before he could argue with her about that, too. He didn’t like her identity as Mary Watson, nor the run-down area where she’d rented her off-the-grid apartment.
Sophie looked around the brightly lit, modern interior of her new gym. Mary Watson could not go to her old, beloved gym, Fight Club, with its dim, barnlike lighting and many memories. This new place, Fighting Fit, would have to do.
Hitting the heavy bag sent reverberations through Sophie’s whole body, each blow like striking a drum.
Amazing how quickly she’d gotten out of fighting shape.
She changed up her combination: right hook, left jab, right uppercut, left cross. And again, and again.
She was shaking and sweaty way too soon.
Might as well lie down and wait for Assan to come get me. No point to any of this. The intrusive thought sucked energy from her body, weakening her muscles.
No.
She’d go down fighting. She’d survived this long; she’d survive again.
Sophie lowered trembling arms, took off the gloves, and picked up a weighted jump rope.
She managed to keep going for fifteen minutes.
The manager, a short Filipino man with a hard, compact rubber ball body, came by to check on her. “You seem to know your way around the bag. Do you spar?”
“I would definitely like to spar with a partner. I do MMA and boxing. But I’m going to be out of town for a while.”
“Okay. Let me get your name and some contact info. I’ll let you know if I come up with any female partners for you.”
“They don’t have to be female. I’ve fought men before, and done just fine.”
“I believe that.” The manager raked Sophie with a glance. She felt out of shape, but her body still looked good: five foot nine inches, a hundred thirty pounds of muscle and bone, honed by recent weight loss.
She’d regain the strength she’d lost as soon as she put the time in.
“I’m Bernie Costa.” The manager extended a meaty hand.
“And I’m Mary Watson.” Sophie gave him the burner number and Mary’s email. “I’ll be back soon. I like it here.”
And she did. Because she’d remembered something important, beating on that heavy bag.
Chapter Nineteen
The Bank of Hawaii branch Sophie headed for was located downtown, shaded by monkeypod trees among swanky shops and busy sidewalks. Sophie parked Mary’s humble white Ford truck at the curb shaded by one of the huge, iconic trees. She left the dogs in the cab, their heads hanging out of rolled-down windows.
Walking into the bank, Sophie flipped through Mary Watson’s ring to the shiny brass key she’d noticed but hadn’t put there. When had Connor left the key there for her to find?
She remembered the day he’d made a point of asking her to stop outside this bank so he could run in and make a deposit. She hadn’t paid attention at the time, but he never did anything that wasn’t purposeful. When they’d begun dating, he’d told her he was going to add her onto his safe deposit box “in case anything happened to him.” Well, it had, and sooner than either of them was ready for.
Inside the bank, Sophie rubbed her hands on the skirt of Mary’s coral-colored halter dress, a garment she’d donned after showering at the gym. A normal boyfriend would have brought her here and had her sign a form… Damn Connor. Why couldn’t he have been like everyone else?
But she wouldn’t have fallen so hard for him if he were.
Sophie went up to a customer service representative in the New Accounts area. “Hello. I need to get into my safe deposit box.”
“Sure.” The woman rose, smoothing down a muumuu printed with bananas and leis. “Follow me. What’s the number?”
“That’s the thing. I’m sorry, I can’t locate it. My name is Mary Watson. Here’s my ID. And my key.” She handed both over, her face as neutral as she could make it.
Putting the key on Mary Watson’s key ring was his way of sending her another message…about what name he’d listed on the box.
“All right. Just a minute while I look that up.” The woman walked behind the counter and Sophie heard the rattling of the keyboard, then she pushed a book toward Sophie. “He filed an extra paper with a copy of your ID so you didn’t have to come in and do a signature card.”
Sophie’s heart squeezed. So much secrecy. So much planning. Was this thoughtfulness, or was it deceit, betrayal?
She signed the line next to the time in the book with Mary Watson’s signature, and the woman handed back her ID. “Follow me.”
Sophie’s heart beat with heavy thuds. Would he have left her a message in the box?
The vault was chilly, and echoed with the sounds of their footsteps. The rep found the numbered box, inserted her key, put in Sophie’s key, and turned them both at the same time.
“You can take your box out and put it back yourself,” the woman said. “And booths are available in the corner for privacy.” She pointed to three curtained alcoves against one wall.
“Thank you.” Sophie waited until the woman walked out, then removed the lidded drawer, and went into the curtained booth.
She lifted the lid and removed a sealed envelope, bulky with an object inside, SOPHIE written on the envelope in Connor’s tidy script.
She tore the envelope open with trembling hands. The rectangular block of a small external hard drive fell into her hand from inside a curl of paper. She slid the hard drive into her purse and unfolded the note.
“Dear Sophie:
If you’re reading this, I’ve had to leave you, by death or necessity…and you must be furious with me. I imagine being in your shoes, wondering what the hell to do ne
xt. All I can tell you is that I’m sorry. If I went…or if I died (which amount to the same thing), it wasn’t my choice. I wanted a lifetime with you.
Please don’t waste time grieving, or looking for me. You won’t find me. I’m dead or gone… Please move on, as quickly as possible. I want a future full of love for you—you deserve it, after all you’ve been through, and it hurts me to have added to your pain.
My estate is left to animal charities; I will not burden you with dealing with that. The Ghost software is my real legacy, for you to do with what you will. I hope you can find a way to use it for the kind of good you can live with, and if you destroy it, I understand that, too.
After all, it’s the reason I’m no longer with you. I would never leave you if I had a choice.
I love you and always will. There was only ever you, for me. ~Connor”
Sophie crumpled the note, her eyes flooding with tears. “Damn you, Connor. Damn you to the plagues of the tenth ring of hell!”
She wanted to throw the Ghost hard drive on the ground and stomp on it with all the rage and pain coursing through her. Instead she cursed, in Mandarin, and Spanish, and Thai, and she tore the note into tiny, tiny bits—and just when she was going to sweep them into the handy trash can, blinded by tears, she knew she’d want to read his words again.
She swept up the fragments and dropped them into an inside pocket in her purse. She wiped her eyes, replaced the drawer, and left the bank.
Connor was dead.
And even if he was alive, he wasn’t coming back.
Chapter Twenty
Back at her apartment, Sophie inserted the external hard drive she had retrieved from the safe deposit box into her laptop. She flexed fingers, leaning in to examine the files as the drive opened.
But it didn’t open. An access code window popped up, instead.
“Son of a two-headed yak,” Sophie swore. Of course, it was coded. But he’d left it for her. What would he know that she knew, that no one else would?
The thought was so intriguing that it reminded her of one of the online flirtations they’d indulged in before they met in person.
And now he was dead.
There would be no more games, no more flirting. No more intoxicating moments in his arms. No more working companionably side-by-side in the “Batcave.”
There was only Sophie looking for answers, and a future that felt bleak and doomed to end at the hands of a man who’d sworn to kill her.
The pain was overwhelming.
She pushed the pain and the memories away, into that dark place where she kept Assan—and now that lockbox contained Connor, too. She focused on the little blinking cursor in front of her instead.
Sophie ran through a series of dates first: the first time they went out together. The weekend they spent in Hana. Their first date at the Bishop Museum. Her birthdate, something she had never told him but was pretty sure he knew, like he knew everything else about her. She tried dates with initials, dates with names, dates with their dogs’ names. Frustrated, she pulled up one of her password-breaking programs and set it to work.
She refused to dwell on the dull throb of betrayal she felt looking at the blank, empty place where an access code belonged. She needed to think like Connor. What would he have done?
But she’d never had much of a window into his clever and devious mind, and even trying to imagine thinking like Connor hurt too much right now.
She turned off the codebreaker program, closed the laptop, and put it in her backpack. Bix had left her a message that he was sorry for her personal loss, but she was needed on Maui at the Miller estate.
Work would have to suffice as a reason to go on living.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sophie hadn’t been able to return for the Miller job in Wailea until she’d closed her affairs and boarded the dogs, all of which took a couple of days. Leaving the animals at the kennel had been difficult—but there was no place for them at the Maui job, where she intended to immerse in work. She was already as attached to Anubis as to Ginger. Something about the way the dogs needed her, the way they accepted her no matter how she was feeling or acting, brought solace and kept her moving forward.
Sitting on the Hawaiian Airlines flight to Maui had begun to feel routine, but this time, sipping the plastic container of passionfruit-orange-guava juice handed her by the flight attendant was disorienting. She’d been so happy on her last flight, looking forward to a break from work and seeing Connor.
Today her body was a mass of aches after a sparring session with a Tongan woman the previous evening at Fighting Fit. The bruises and throbs were familiar, a return to a known state of body and mind after a brief hiatus to somewhere happier.
The aircraft bounced in strong trade winds funneling between the two volcanoes that formed the Valley Isle, and swooped in over a quilt of colorful sugarcane fields, a distinctive sight. The sugarcane industry was coming to an end, but the fields still waved gracefully in the wind for a while longer.
Jake met Sophie at Maui’s open baggage claim, driving the Tacoma loaded with ocean equipment that Miller kept for his vacations on the island. Her partner unlocked the vehicle’s door without getting out of the cab. Sophie tossed her backpack into the truck bed and got in.
Jake was in his usual all-black combat gear, and she felt leashed tension vibrating off of him as she settled herself. “Get in a fight I don’t know about?” His steel-gray eyes assessed her. “Your ex make another run at you I didn’t hear about?”
“No. Just getting back into my old sport. Enrolled in a new gym. Got a sparring partner yesterday that gave me a workout.” Sophie touched the swollen corner of her mouth where the Tongan had landed a good punch. “Like old times.”
“I see.” Jake looked away and pressed down on the accelerator, pulling out into the busy traffic that flowed around the airport’s open design. She’d ignored all his attempts to reach her since she left, and she felt his hurt like an accusation, vibrating in the air between them.
“I’m sorry I was out of touch.”
“And I’m sorry about Todd.” Jake’s hands clenched on the steering wheel.
“What for?” Sophie kept her eyes on the changing scenery. “Todd is the one who died.”
“‘I’m sorry’ is what you say when a friend suffers an untimely loss.” Jake glanced at Sophie. “But you seem to be taking it well.”
“I cared more about him than you know, but it’s not something I want to talk about with you. Or anyone.” Sophie twisted her hands in her lap. The fragile bubble of detachment she was cultivating threatened to burst, leaving her showing emotion in front of a man she was determined to keep a distance from.
Long moments went by as Jake navigated the Kahului traffic and got on the long straightaway of the Mokulele Highway toward Shank Miller’s estate in Wailea. Finally, Jake said, “I was worried. Tell me more about what happened.”
“It’s an ongoing investigation, but everything points to Remarkian being dead of a small, targeted explosion.” Sophie kept her voice expressionless. “The fire inspector says it was a small IED.” Sophie stared out the window, the sugarcane fields rolling by, a backdrop to her thoughts. There was nothing she could say about Connor that didn’t lead into more unanswered questions.
“Who do they think did it?”
“They have no idea. But I think it might have been Assan. He had the last man I dated almost killed, and I’d only kissed him.”
“It’s not your fault. You aren’t responsible.” Jake squeezed her arm with a big warm hand, and she wished she could let him comfort her—but nothing good for either of them lay down that road.
“Tell me what’s going on with the Blondie case. I’m here to work.”
“Fair enough.” Jake said. “Well, in addition to training the AI, the case against Miller’s cousins is getting complicated. Bobby Miller’s out on bail already, and both of the cousins refuse to talk or make any statements. Don’t forget, they lawyered up early. Dr
. Kinoshita thinks they might go after Miller again when they are both out.”
Sophie’s heart rate picked up. “Unbelievable that their attempt could be that blatant and the authorities don’t take it seriously.”
“It’s not that they don’t take it seriously. Lei and Cruz are as frustrated as we are. It’s that this kind of case seems to favor the stalker. Kinoshita is advising Miller to go after the two of them in civil court and wipe out their financial resources, but he won’t do it.”
“Survivor guilt?” Sophie glanced at Jake. “Miller feels bad that he’s wealthy and successful and so many members of his family aren’t?”
“It could be partly that. But I suspect it’s something more…personal.”
“Like what?”
“Like he might have had a relationship with those two in his foolish youth.”
Sophie sat up and turned to face her partner. “Did he tell you that?”
“No. But I know him pretty well, and I can tell he’s hiding something about them and feels guilty. Too guilty to go after them the way he needs to.”
Sophie touched the side of her head. “Amy hit me hard. With a gun. I’ll testify to that.”
“Of course. The assault is indisputable, as are the threats we all witnessed. But they are not enough to put Amy away for long. And Bobby? They’ve got nothing on him but criminal harassment.”
Sophie frowned. “So, Miller’s safety continues to be a concern.”
Jake nodded, turning the truck onto Piilani Highway, the long straight stretch leading to Kihei and Wailea. “Hence my asking for you to come help—in spite of your bereavement. And I thought it might be a distraction for you.”
“Yes. Work is good.” Sophie sighed. “To make matters worse, if possible, the FBI still hasn’t found anything on Assan.”
Sophie’d held back telling Marcella about her lead on Assan and visit to the Paradise Treasures Gallery because she wanted another look at it, now that the gallery had left a message that her art piece was framed and ready for pickup. “I have a lead on Assan that I haven’t shared with law enforcement. I wonder if you’d be willing to go follow it up with me, give me a second opinion.”