by Toby Neal
“Yes, she did. Because she was personally involved with the perp. And now she might be pinned with a murder rap while she’s gallivanting off wherever she went.” Marcella sneezed. “I’m glad you came, Ken, because you’re the expert on the Ghost. We should work closely together on this and try to get some DNA out of this apartment and match it to Sheldon Hamilton.” Marcella’s phone rang. She pulled the device out of her pocket and glanced down, her eyes widening as she looked up to meet Waxman’s gaze. “Speak of the devil. Sheldon Hamilton’s calling me right now.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Ghost waited impatiently as Scott’s phone rang, watching the FBI agent through the video surveillance cam in the ceiling of Pendragon Arches. She finally answered. “This is Special Agent Marcella Scott.”
Sophie’s friend sounded out of breath. He could see why: she’d been fumbling to turn on a recording and tracking app on her phone before she took his call.
Ambivalent and guarded, Connor stroked the small goatee decorating his chin, pressing the adhesive down firmly as he watched SAC Waxman, whom he recognized from the Bureau’s staff roster, follow her into the hall to eavesdrop. The two hunched over the phone just outside his former apartment.
“Agent Scott. This is Sheldon Hamilton returning your call,” Connor said, adopting that identity’s urbane manner.
The overhead cam distorted his view of Marcella. She was obscured by a particle mask, gloves, and booties, and she shucked the gear impatiently, hitting the speakerphone feature on her phone and holding it out toward Waxman. “Mr. Hamilton. Thanks for returning my call.”
A tiny spinning skull in the corner of Connor’s feed marked her phone’s attempt to trace his call, but he was using computer voice transmission and had multiple VPNs masking his location, so he wasn’t worried that she could locate him—and in addition, he was airborne.
He glanced out the window at brilliant midday clouds. “How can I help the FBI today?”
“I’d like you to come in for another interview to talk about Sophie Ang and your relationship with her.”
“I told you already that I have no relationship with her. I thought we cleared that up in our last discussion, that rather rude interview after my partner’s funeral.”
“Listen, buster.” Connor could hear the anger in Marcella’s short breaths, see it in her rapid pacing. “We both know you did a number on Sophie.”
“Buster? What is this, 1950?” Connor gave a relaxed chuckle. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Waxman waved at Marcella to pause, slow down, but clearly Connor had tripped Marcella’s temper as the woman went on. “We found your secret lair, Sheldon/Todd whoever-you-are, and it’s only a matter of time until we find your DNA in this apartment. I almost didn’t believe Sophie when she told me that you had a double, even triple identity—but this place backs up her story. Things would be much easier for all of us if you’d just come in and tell us what the hell you’re up to.”
“I’m sure things would be simpler for you if I agreed to all your accusations. However, I’m on a business trip outside of the United States, and I have no intention of listening to any more of this nonsense. Further communication can be handled by my attorneys.” Regret curdled Connor’s belly. He’d wanted to joust with Marcella, play the game, watch her try to trap him and lure him in, but the woman’s heavy-handed emotional outburst swamped him with guilt as he remembered how brokenhearted Sophie had been over his “death.”
He was trapped in his own web of lies.
“Don’t hang up! Sophie’s in trouble!” Marcella burst out as his finger moved toward the disconnect button.
“I have no relationship with that woman. I’ve told you that repeatedly,” Connor said, but his heart rate spiked.
“Sophie is off the grid, but she’s scheduled for a deposition in the matter of Assan Ang’s death. The DA seems to want to make a thing of this, and if you care at all about her… Maybe you can do something to help her. Warn her, at least.”
Connor digested her words, his mind racing. He spoke deliberately. “Goodbye, Agent Scott. My attorney is the same one who works with Security Solutions. Any further communication with me can be routed through Bennie Fernandez and Associates.”
Connor disconnected the call deliberately, proud of how cold his voice was. He really sounded like he didn’t care two shits about Sophie.
Marcella stomped her foot and whirled to talk to Waxman. Much waving of hands ensued. The agent was clearly upset, and not for the first time, Connor wished the Pendragon Arches had invested in audio for their surveillance system.
Marcella looked frustrated now, but she was going to be even more so—because, before he set off the bomb that blew up “Todd,” Connor had paid for a mob-connected cleaning service to go through both Pendragon Arches apartments and remove all personal trace.
He’d taken care of scrambling the computers he’d abandoned in the “Batcave” himself. That puppy Bateman, so diligently unscrewing the hard drives in the office, would find exactly nothing.
Connor was done playing footsie with the FBI. He had bad guys to turn against each other, justice scales to right. Outside of the United States was an even more target-rich zone than inside.
But Marcella was right. Maybe there was some way he could help Sophie from afar. She deserved at least that much from him.
The Ghost opened his tablet and went to work.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sophie picked up a small, round rock and tapped on the largest of the cluster of boulders marking the place where she had heard that eerie rendering of the Hawaii state song. Just thinking about it made the hairs on her arms rise. If that was Nakai singing, the boy had an incredible voice. “I heard the sound carrying up through these rocks. I already looked around, and couldn’t see any openings. But I feel confident that a lava tube below is how the sound came up so clearly.”
“Did you try to signal him at the time?” Alika probed the ground around the boulders with a sturdy stick.
“I did not. To tell the truth, I was a little…haunted, I guess you could say, by the voice and its apparent lack of source. I didn’t put it together with the missing boy right away.” Sophie tapped the rock on the boulder in sets of three, the international signal for distress. Hopefully the boy would hear the rhythmic tapping and somehow signal them from below.
Alika continued to probe and push at the boulders. “I think we should go back and bring the first responders to this site. I wish my radio was portable so I could keep in touch with them from here, but I have to return to the landing area to check if they’ve located my chopper.”
“I understand. Too bad there’s no cell service.” Sophie grasped one of the smaller boulders and rocked it with all of her body weight. She was surprised to feel it give, moving with a grinding sound. “Help me! Maybe we can tip this one over and get a little closer to the top of the lava tube.”
“I’m on it.” Alika dropped his stick and grasped the stone beside her. Their arms overlapped, their bodies crashing into each other as they strained to tip the boulder over. “We need to coordinate our movements. On the count of three. Let’s do this!”
Sophie wedged herself beneath Alika’s big frame and grasped the rock with a new grip, rocking back and forth with him as he counted to three, and then heaving with her legs at the same time as he did.
She felt the power of their joint effort surge through both of them. The rock moved, giving an inch with a grind of protest, shifting within its earthen cradle. Sophie lost her balance and stumbled to her knees beneath Alika.
He grabbed her hand and hefted her back up, and his grin was infectious. “I forgot how great it is to work hard with a strong woman.”
Sophie’s whole body lit up at the compliment. Alika had never been intimidated by her or treated her like her strength was emasculating. She blew a breath past the tightness in her chest. “I think we need a few more of the same kind of moves.”
They repositioned in a deep squat, side by side, arms crossed over the rock, and Alika counted. Again, with the heave, and this time Sophie didn’t fall. Three more massive pushes, and the boulder tipped over reluctantly.
Panting, Sophie rushed around to examine the crater. “Looks like lava rubble at the bottom.” They both dropped to their knees and dug at the hole in sync, shoveling rock, cinder, and dirt aside.
Twenty minutes of that and a hole appeared at the bottom. More scrabbling, and the hole widened.
“We are lucky the top of the lava tube’s structure is thin here,” Alika said. “Otherwise we would have needed a jackhammer and God knows how long to get inside. Looks like your guess was correct. I just hope the boy hasn’t expired already.”
Sophie couldn’t take the suspense a moment longer. She leaned forward, bracing herself as she looked into the bottom of the hole. She called down into a blackness that seemed to rise up from it.
“Nakai? Nakai? Are you there?”
And then the lip of the hole caved in, and Sophie tumbled forward into space.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The drop was short and hard. Sophie tried to take the landing on her shoulder, but she felt the impact jar through her body as clods of earth rained down on her. As she hit bottom, her mouth filled with dirt. Instinctively she curled her arms over her head, pushing the dirt out of her mouth with her tongue, making a space for air with her arms in front of her face. Chunks and clumps of earth continued to pelt down on her, and she waited, breath held, for an endless moment to find out if she had been buried alive.
The stream of pebbles and dirt slowed. Sophie curled inward and lifted herself, rolling up onto her knees and throwing the debris off. She struggled up out of the soil and looked up into the light, wiping dirt from her face and eyes.
“Sophie!” Alika yelled. “Sophie, you okay?”
“I’m okay.” She dusted dirt off of her arms and lowered her head to shake the earth out of her hair. Her shoulder felt wrenched, but when she rolled it back she could move it. She peered up at his backlit form. “How far down am I?”
“Not bad. About eight feet. I’ll need to get a rope to pull you out—and this edge is still crumbling. I’ll have to find a spot that can take your weight. Hang on while I look around.”
“Okay.” Sophie dug herself out of the pile of soil and stones, grateful that none of the heavier boulders had decided to follow her into the pit. She stood, her shoulder throbbing, knees shaky, and head swimming. She looked around.
Sophie was standing in an almost perfectly circular two-foot circle of blazing sunlight. Total darkness surrounded her in every direction.
Hopefully, the noise they had made would have alerted Nakai to their entry into the lava tube.
She stepped cautiously out of the light and into the lava tube, allowing her eyes to adjust. Cool air drafted over her, carrying the trickling sound of water. Reflected light from overhead gave a small area of illumination. She spotted a shallow hole dug at the edge of the stream.
That hole had been made by a human, and not long ago. She could see scuff marks in the pebbles surrounding it.
“I found a boulder I can attach the rope to,” Alika called down to her. “Hey, where did you go?”
“Right here.” Sophie stepped back into the circle of light to look up at him. The contrast was blinding. “There’s evidence that someone was here recently. The boy is down here, I just know it.”
“Great. That’s one good thing to come out of this mess. I’m heading back to the chopper to get my rope and check on those first responders.” Alika’s warm tone told her how relieved he was that she was unhurt. “Don’t move. I’ll be back shortly.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
He nodded, and disappeared.
Sophie sat down on the pile of fallen rubble, trying vainly to see into the gloom. If only she had her flashlight… She surrounded her mouth with her hands and called out into the tunnel. “Nakai! Nakai, are you there?”
A long moment passed, and then she heard a faint sound. Not a call exactly, more like a distant cry. She crawled down off of the dirt pile and walked forward into the dark. Nakai was alive, and he needed her.
“Nakai! I’m here to help you! Come toward this sound!”
She heard it again, just a tease of a whisper, just enough to identify a voice, and then a tapping sound.
Three taps. And then, three more.
An SOS.
Alika would be back shortly with the first responders to get them out. Thanks to Assan, she was comfortable in the dark. With a glance back at the column of light, so bright it seemed like a solid, Sophie rose to her feet and walked forward into the darkness.
She located the stream to one side of her and navigated by feel, her arms outstretched, her eyes straining involuntarily. She banged her shin on a rock and let out a yelp.
“Help!” Now she could hear a faint voice for sure. “Help me!”
“Nakai!” Sophie shut her eyes. She used to do that when Assan locked her into that hated windowless “safe room” that had been the site of so many of his tortures. Keeping her eyes shut seemed to reduce the exhaustion caused by a sense straining for information that wasn’t available. “Nakai, my name is Sandy, and I’m here to help get you out.”
She had lost the stream and its guidance toward the boy. Somehow, she’d wandered into one of the walls. It rose before her, jagged, poky with lava protrusions, and impenetrable. “I’m on my way.”
“I’m trapped. Rocks fell on my leg,” the boy yelled.
His voice echoed now, so close that he might as well be beside her. Interesting effects happened down here with sound. The irrelevant observation kept fear at bay as she felt down the wall, straining to hear the sound of the stream. What if the lava tube branched, and she went the wrong way? The tunnel must have curved away to the right…
“Are you hurt?” Sophie called back.
“Yes.” She heard the break in his voice, the barely restrained tears. Adrenaline surged through Sophie and she dropped to a squat, feeling her way along the ground, navigating carefully over rocks and obstacles, heading toward the sound of water again.
Sophie sighed with relief once she felt the water on her hands again. She was sure Nakai had been following the stream—it made sense to stay close to it and hope it would lead to an exit. Afraid to lose the water again, she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled through the dark toward the boy.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Nakai raised his head, straining his ears to listen. He heard the soft crunches and shuffling sounds of the woman’s approach. What had she said her name was? Sandy? Why didn’t she have a light?
Not long ago, he’d woken from uneasy drowsing to hear a rumbling similar to when the rockfall had caught him. He’d cringed, wrapping his arms over his head.
In the many breath cycles since he’d been trapped by a boulder landing on his leg, Nakai had begun to hallucinate. Memories and images swept over him and played out in front of his eyes so vividly he was almost sure they were real. He’d just imagined one of his happiest birthdays so intensely it felt real: playing Super Mario Kart with his cousins, surrounded by the smell of pizza and the demolished remains of birthday cake.
Pain pulsed through him with his heartbeat, radiating from his trapped leg. Why couldn’t he just die and get this over with? But alas, wishing didn’t make it so. And if the woman was coming, maybe he would be rescued after all.
“Sound carries through the stone,” he remembered Shepherd saying. He picked up the largest fallen stone he could and banged it down on another stone in sets of three. Bam bam bam!
“Oh, please let them find me, God,” he whispered. “Please.”
It seemed like forever, and he thought he knew where she was, but he still cringed and yelped when a warm hand touched his shoulder. “Nakai. It’s me, Sandy.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Your mother Enola came through my camp looking for yo
u. She was so distraught that I had to try to find you.” The woman’s hands patted and brushed over him. She was trying to see how hurt he was.
“I am all right. Except for my leg. It’s…buried.” Bile burned Nakai’s throat as a fresh wave of pain surged up his leg when Sandy jostled the rock trapping him. “Please don’t touch it. I’m going to puke.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Sandy had a soft rich voice with a little bit of an accent. Her hand brushed his hair softly. “Just relax. Help is on the way. My friend went to get a rope and he’ll be coming soon.”
His mother had tried to get help for him?
In all of Nakai’s imaginings, that was not something he had even dreamed of. The knife of betrayal had slid between his ribs a final time when the fish he’d worked so hard to catch for them to eat was gone from their camp, traded to fill her crack pipe. He remembered his last words to Enola vividly. “You’re a worse mom than a dog!” he’d railed. “At least a dog tries to feed its pups!”
He’d taken his meager possessions and headed for the cave by the waterfall, where he’d heard other runaways lived with a man who took care of them.
And look how that had turned out.
He was so unlucky.
Sandy’s soft touch on Nakai’s hair penetrated dark purple thoughts tinged with the red of pain. He’d begun to see his thoughts in color, too. Being down here was doing strange things to his mind.
“Hang on, Nakai. Just rest. You’re not alone.” Sandy’s breath was sweet on the curve of his ear. Maybe that luck was changing.
Chapter Thirty
In the foul-smelling hallway of Pendragon Arches, Marcella slid her phone into her pocket, done with her diatribe about the Ghost.
“You need a break,” SAC Waxman’s pale eyes were steely. “Go home. Take a shower. Get your emotions under control. You flubbed that telephone interview with Hamilton and scared him off.”