by Toby Neal
Chapter Twenty-One
Sophie returned to her office after a lengthy morning meeting with Dunn and Bix. Frustration tightened her muscles and made her breath short. Dunn followed, but she shut him out of her office with a firm bang of the door.
She pushed the small conference table to the side and unloaded her gym bag, taking out a weighted jump rope. She took a few moments to remove a large rubber exercise ball from the bag, inflating it with a small handheld pump. Set up, she got on the jump rope, and soon the rhythmic thwack of the rope smacking the carpeted floor began to soothe her jangled nerves.
Even with her bruises and sore ribs, only movement would help.
“There’s a gym one floor down,” Dunn said, through the door.
“But then I would have to see other people,” Sophie snarled. “Like you.”
She felt rather than heard Dunn’s footfalls as he beat a retreat.
Their Skype conference with Hilo PD had not gone well. Sophie had shared her notes and showed her physical damage to an impassive Lieutenant Ohale. The station chief and two detectives had reviewed all that she and Dunn had submitted, but finally Ohale shook his buzzcut head.
“The cult has strong legal representation and we need a clear reason to search the premises.” Ohale’s big brown hands shuffled the notes Sophie had faxed over. “Without some physical evidence connecting the cult, the cult leader, even this enforcer Dougal Sloane to the missing women, I don’t have grounds for a search warrant. No missing persons reports have been filed in Hawaii on the women.”
Sophie had known that, from her experience as an agent. Still, hearing it out loud, when her body ached from a near-fatal beating, was another thing.
Her role in the FBI had been a layer of protection like a bulletproof vest. Secure in that role, within the bounds of the law, her work had clear consequences even when cases didn’t end the way she wanted them to.
Now she was just another civilian, and getting beat up was part of her new job.
The frustration made Sophie jump harder, her breath rasping against her bruised ribs. Her clothing was soon soaked with sweat. The fervent exercise was the only thing keeping the depression at bay.
Maybe she should try therapy. Perhaps even medication. It wasn’t just her circumstances she was fighting; it was her family history. Her mother’s crippling depression had overshadowed everything in Pim Wat Smithson’s life. Sophie could sometimes sense that same fog bank waiting, waiting, waiting for her guard to be down so it could roll over her permanently.
Sophie switched to the exercise ball, lying on her back to do ab crunches, but they hurt too much. She rolled out a yoga mat for some gentle stretches.
There had to be something she could do. Ohale had said, “Find me something actionable. Find me some legitimate reason to get into that compound and search it, and I’ll bring cadaver dogs.”
DAVID was the only way. Perhaps DAVID could find a financial trail leading from the women to Jackson’s cult, a way to lever open the cult so that its real, rotten core could be revealed. The FBI had used tax evasion to bring down mob bosses for years when no witnesses or evidence could be obtained of the murders that they had committed. This cult might be the same.
Sophie finished her workout, drank some water, and got behind her desk, firing up the laptop with DAVID on it.
She inputted Dougal Sloane and the names of the women, family members, and the new wife she had met. She sent an algorithm to monitor the cult’s online activity, and searched for their tax records. Setting up a new confidence ratio, she queried DAVID about the probability that reported income was truthful given the cult’s known asset portfolio.
DAVID did not take long to produce a low probability of twenty-four percent.
This meant that tax evasion was a definite possibility if she could track the flow of money. Maybe more digging with the families of the missing women would turn up information leading to where their assets had gone.
Several phone calls later, it was time for another interaction with Dunn. She had to steel herself for it—his personality was so intense. He was exhausting for an introvert like her. A few yoga stretches later, Sophie was ready to deal with him. She collected her laptop and went to his office.
Dunn was behind his computer, but his eyes brightened at the sight of her as he looked up. “Feeling better?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.” Sophie smiled and set her laptop down on the table. “I have some thoughts I want to share.”
Dunn joined her, lacing his big hands together and resting his elbows on the table. Even in a passive pose, he always looked ready to bound up and tackle something or someone. “I was thinking we could do a raid. Get all those kids out of there. Hand them over to child welfare.”
Sophie shook her head. “It won’t work. The children are not being abused. Yes, they work, but on closer observation, it’s not inappropriate lengths of time except for maybe all the hours in the taro patch. They’re healthy, fed, clothed, and educated, even if it isn’t the way we would like to see it done. Child Welfare won’t have a case, and the children will be traumatized by being forcibly removed.”
Dunn cocked a brow. “I’m surprised to hear you say that. You seemed so—motivated regarding those children.”
“I got to see their lifestyle up close and personal. It’s unconventional, but the children are happy from what I can tell. Jackson is their father. If we get Jackson for the murders, the children’s world will change as a result, and we really have no control over what that will look like. Some of them might end up in foster care, and I’m not sure that’s an improvement over their current situation.”
“Okay, but I think we should hold that as a back pocket strategy. So what’s this update you have for me?”
Sophie filled him in on her inquiries using DAVID and her idea to follow the money trail and get the families to file missing persons reports. “We have to focus on finding a reason for a search warrant. Once Hilo PD has that in place, they can take in cadaver dogs based on the hearsay testimony of our client. When they do, I feel confident they will find the women’s remains.”
“So what do you need me to do?”
Sophie slanted Dunn a glance. That was one of the things she liked about him: he was never afraid to get in and do whatever needed to be done, including a stakeout that had probably driven him close to crazy.
“You’re going to hate this. I want you to pull together copies of all of the cult’s tax returns and call the women’s parents for copies of their wills, and while you’ve got them on the phone, encourage them to file missing persons reports with Hilo PD. DAVID has already confirmed that the income streams into the cult do not match their reported income. If we can find where the gap is, we can alert law enforcement to move in on them for tax evasion. I also think that the women’s families would not want their daughters’ estates going into Jackson’s pockets. Maybe we can prompt them to challenge the women’s financial arrangements, and drag the cult into court.”
“Yeah. Without death certificates, the women’s money will keep rolling into the Society’s coffers. I’m sure they won’t want that to continue.” Dunn gave a brisk nod. “I’m on it.”
By the end of the next day, Dunn and Sophie had shepherded the families of the missing women through filing missing persons reports with the Hilo PD. They also obtained copies of the women’s wills and copies of the Society of Light’s tax returns going back years.
Sophie programmed DAVID to dig deeper into tracking the sources of income in the Society’s accounts. She set the algorithm to drilling all night, and locked up her office.
Dunn clapped her on the shoulder in the hall outside her office, and Sophie winced. He lifted his hand away as if burned. “Sorry, sorry. I keep forgetting you were just in a major fight.”
Sophie gestured to her face. “I would think you would remember, having had to look at this all day.”
“I don’t know. It must be a kind of a normal look for you, with y
our MMA fighting.” His bantering tone reminding her of all the days that she’d dressed so carefully in Hong Kong, hiding the damage that Assan had done—but he’d always been careful to leave her face unmarked, and perhaps that was why she didn’t mind the bruises that she got in the MMA ring. They were honestly won. But Dunn was right—her face was bruised more often than not.
That had begun to bother her. Mary Watson, with her flowy dresses, didn’t look right with a black eye and a split lip.
Sophie gave a brief wave goodbye and turned into the company locker room, where she changed into Watson’s modest floral exercise clothes: a tank top and pink shorts—and walked downstairs to the battered truck, wondering, not for the first time, what and whom she was hiding from.
Assan was behind bars, his case tied up in extradition orders; the IA agents had already visited and could summon her any time they wanted. And the Ghost? She wanted to meet him face to face, anyway.
And still she felt compelled to don this other identity, and hide in a dingy apartment to sleep on a blow-up mattress with her dog.
Maybe it really was time for therapy. She could always call Dr. Wilson, the consultant whom she’d worked with several times on FBI cases. The petite blonde psychologist had been helpful more than once. But she’d liked Dr. Kinoshita, the Security Solutions psychologist, too…
Long evening shadows fell, wafting in the gold-edge galleons of cumulus cloud that were such a part of the Waikiki skyline at dusk. After picking up Ginger from doggie daycare, Sophie drove down to Ala Moana Beach Park.
She bought hot dogs at a street vendor, and after eating, she and Ginger walked briskly through the park. Sophie listened to the chatter of hundreds of mynah birds settling into one of the banyans to sleep as she passed by a knot of homeless people setting up tents for the night. Her workout earlier in the day had taken the edge off of her need to exercise, but Sophie was still troubled on some deep level.
Not to be able to see Dougal Sloane taken down at the compound was a huge setback. The fact that he could assault her the way he had and get away with it felt fundamentally wrong. She could push to press charges, but she’d then have to reveal the identity she’d used, and why.
In the new case they were constructing, would Sloane even come up as a suspect? It was doubtful he had anything to do with the finances of the cult, so this new angle might capture Jackson, but Sloane would still be free.
The limitations of being a civilian investigator were being brought to the fore.
Darkness fell as Sophie jogged slowly along the Ala Wai Canal’s cement walkway. Waikiki was everything the tourists came for: with the daytime crowd gone, the full moon sparkled on the peaceful canal, and a cool evening breeze made a subtle rustle through the palms.
Ginger tugged at her leash, pulling Sophie forward with a happy, excited bark. There was someone near the canal’s edge—someone with a dog, someone Ginger knew. Sophie allowed the Lab to tow her toward the silhouetted figures.
“Sophie?” Connor Remarkian’s voice was sharp with surprise, and Anubis, in a rare display of disobedience, dragged the man toward the straining Ginger. The dogs met, sniffing, Ginger making little ecstatic noises of happiness as she greeted her friend from their hikes. “What are you doing out here?”
“I might ask you the same, Connor,” Sophie replied, her spirits lifting at encountering the man and his dog. She stepped in for the polite hug that was an appropriate greeting in Hawaii. She had never gotten used to all the physical touching that was a part of the culture here, but she’d learned to deal with it. Connor smelled unexpectedly good, of sandalwood aftershave and warm, clean male.
He seemed to think the same about her, his hands cupping the rounded muscles of her shoulders as he leaned in to kiss her cheek. “What a delightful surprise this is. And here I was, feeling a little lonely and sorry for myself.”
Sophie laughed. “You, lonely? How is that even possible? You must have women chasing you every day.”
He shrugged, a movement in the darkness. “You’d be surprised. So do you come here often?”
“That sounds like one of those things men say in a bar,” Sophie said. “But yes. I do. A couple of times a week, at least.”
“So do I. We should coordinate.”
“That’s a possibility.” But Sophie didn’t always want to share her alone times jogging the nighttime beach or canal area. They fell into step, walking along the canal’s edge. Sophie liked the feel of his easy-moving bulk beside her.
“We talked about doing the Stairway to Heaven this weekend,” Connor said.
Another rigorous hike with him and Anubis would be fun. But when she bent to release Ginger’s leash, her bruised ribs still hurt.
Sophie shook her head. “I got a few injuries on my last job. I should probably take it easy.”
“What? Sophie Ang taking it easy?” She could almost hear Connor smiling in the dark, though only the moon gilded the top of his blond head and his broad shoulders, gleaming in a tank shirt. He released Anubis, too, and the Doberman and Lab commenced playing, leaping, and chasing each other like puppies in a little park area.
“I’m trying to listen to and respect my body more.” Sophie was surprised by the truth of her words even as she spoke them. Driving herself, punishing herself, beating others down and letting them beat her up—those days were over.
The realization felt like a small detonation.
What would that mean for her MMA fighting? She didn’t know, only that she didn’t want to show up for work covered with bruises anymore, didn’t want to see a battered face in the mirror every day.
“Did I—overstep myself?” Connor’s voice was hesitant.
“No. I’m just…figuring out some things.” Sophie lifted her head, straightened her spine. Enough with the foolish crush she’d been entertaining toward the Ghost. It would never go anywhere. Sheldon Hamilton was overseas somewhere, unlikely to return, and Connor was flesh and bone, right here, and he made her feel good. That was something, at least, and more than most. “Would you—like to go out with me? On a date?”
Connor halted and they faced each other. Sophie wished it were brighter so she could see the expression in his eyes, but they were hidden by shadows. His voice was rough. “I’d like nothing better. I was working up the courage to ask you, but I was afraid I wouldn’t even have our hikes to look forward to if you said no.”
Sophie laughed. It sounded nervous, thin, her breath hitching. “I’m not very good at this dating thing. And I should warn you, I seem to be cursed. Bad things happen around me.”
“You trying to talk me out of it? Not going to happen.” Connor lifted his hands slowly as if approaching some wild, shy creature. He set them on her shoulders, his fingers squeezing, stroking. “You have the most marvelous deltoids.”
This time Sophie’s laugh was free and genuine. “Now that is one I doubt you say to all the girls.”
“Only to you, Sophie.” Connor’s voice was husky. He leaned forward slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull away, but Sophie didn’t want to. She stepped in to meet him, her hands coming up to rest lightly on his shoulders. His face descended to hers, backlit by the moon, and his lips touched hers gently. Sophie shut her eyes, the better to take in whatever there was to know from this experience.
She was surprised by an unfamiliar tug of desire at the base of her spine as the kiss deepened, surprised by an impulse to lean deeper into Connor, to slide her hands up over his shoulders, to cup the back of his head. She drew him down closer into her, pressing her body to his. Connor had made a sound, something between a groan and a whisper, as his arms slid down and tightened around her, bringing her flush against his hard torso.
Sophie remembered the last time she had been kissed by Alika, a moment so magical that she hadn’t allowed herself to recall it until this right now.
Connor wasn’t Alika, but he was a little bit wonderful, too.
She opened her mouth to his, and they tasted each other. Their
hands traveled lightly over each other’s bodies, exploring. Sophie’s skin felt sensitized, every touch igniting heat, but still not sure. She stopped moving, standing passively and allowing his hands to caress the deep curve of her waist, slide along the muscles of her back, the contours of her arms.
She needed to know what she was feeling, if this was right, or too soon, or the wrong man. He took advantage of her pliancy to bend her so that her head rested against him, angling her jaw so that he could kiss her deeper. One hand held her close, as the other slid up her side, and back down, feathering over her butt.
Connor noticed her stillness and paused, lifting his head to gaze down at her. Sophie opened her eyes. She couldn’t see his face, and wished she could.
“Are you all right?” He was gentle and alert to her. She liked that he was paying attention.
“Just taking it all in. This may be—moving a little fast for me.” Her voice sounded breathless.
“We have all the time in the world.” Connor let go of her, his hands sliding down to take hers. “No rush. I’m not going anywhere.”
The acceptance in his words, his willingness to let her set the pace—all of that gave Sophie the confidence to rise up on her toes, clasp his face in her hands, and pull him down for one more kiss.
“Let’s have dinner on Saturday,” she said. His teeth gleamed briefly in the dark as he smiled.
“It’s a date. Thanks for asking me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dunn barged into her office the next morning, practically hopping with amped-up energy. “My surveillance camera picked up some unusual activity.”
Sophie frowned, looking up from checking DAVID’s cache files. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the lo-res, time lapse surveillance camera I set up pointed at the compound.” Dunn threw himself into one of the chairs at her little conference table without invitation. “Also, our informant Corbett made contact to let me know that the cult is packing up and leaving the Waipio Valley location. They’re going to South America.”