by Toby Neal
Sophie stiffened. “We have incoming.” A large black truck was headed their way, coming down the feeder road.
“What did you tell the informant about us?”
“Me and my boyfriend are looking for your missing cousin, Julie Weathersby,” Sophie said. “We’re rich.”
“Rich boyfriend. I like the sound of that,” Jake drawled. Sophie kept her gaze studiously on the vehicle as it approached and parked beside them.
Chapter Nineteen
Sophie assessed the Honda Ridgeline extended cab, noting the extra chrome and silver paint designs on the side and memorizing the license plate. The informant seated inside was young, a Caucasian of average height and doughy build, with pale skin that didn’t look like it had seen much of the Hawaii sun. He wore a billed hat emblazoned with Xbox, and he didn’t get out of his truck.
She approached, going with their usual routine of her out in front and Jake as backup. The dogs barked loudly in the Jeep, lending to a feeling of authenticity that they were a resident couple.
“Hello. Are you Sandy?” the young man asked.
Sophie had given him her false identity name of Sandy Mason, and she nodded. “Yes. I’m Sandy, and this is my boyfriend, Jack.”
The informant’s gaze darted nervously around the park, coming back to rest on Jake’s superior biceps with a look of apprehension. “I go by Cypher.”
Sophie suppressed a smile at the moniker. “Well, as I told you in my text, Jack’s cousin, Julie Weathersby, is missing. She was camping around the island, and supposed to meet up with us in Hilo at the end of her trip. That was over a week ago. Her parents are worried. I saw your poster at the store and thought we’d reach out since the police don’t seem to have any leads.”
“Sandy’s got it right.” It wasn’t strictly necessary for Jake to wrap a possessive arm around Sophie’s waist, but she let it stay there for the moment as he went on. “Julie is super responsible. She wouldn’t just run off.” He took out his phone, and scrolled to her photo. “Here is what she looks like. In case you have seen her, or even the missing person report that was filed.”
Cypher took the phone, looked at the photo, and nodded. “Yeah. I added her to the database, and speculated she disappeared from this part of the island based on her last known location, which was in Volcanoes National Park.”
“What database?” Sophie’s attention was pricked, but she softened her voice as Cypher quickly handed the phone back in response to her tone. “Can we sit down in your truck and get comfortable so we can talk privately?”
He nodded reluctantly and got out to open the driver’s side seat of his extended cab for her. Jake got into the passenger side, and they all settled themselves.
Cypher took out a laptop, and Sophie’s interest piqued further. “I think there might be a kidnapper at work,” the young man said. “Only he doesn’t give back the victims.”
Sophie’s brows drew together. “What makes you think so?”
“Many of the people that disappear have assets. They aren’t rich, necessarily, but a lot of the victims actually have some means.” Cypher’s eyes flicked over Jake. “For instance, I’m guessing you and your cousin aren’t poor.”
“We get by.” Jake frowned. “But my aunt and uncle would have said something if they had gotten a ransom demand.”
“The interesting thing about these demands is that they seem to be unfulfilled.” Cypher was studying his laptop. “The families pay the modest ransoms, but the missing are never returned. I’m tracking the concerns, and I’ve taken it on myself to warn people.”
A tingle of alertness lifted the hairs on Sophie’s arms. There was a shine of perspiration above Cypher’s lip. The young man was nervous, hiding something.
She didn’t dare look at Jake. A secondary predator role of taking money from family members might fit his profile perfectly.
Cypher was setting them up. He was checking them out as a target of extortion money, and he’d decided they weren’t good candidates. Now he was warning them away.
Sophie reached over and clutched Jake’s arm in mock distress. “This is just so much to take in. I think we should really go to the police with this news.”
“Hush, darling.” Jake patted her hand. His voice was warm with supportive comfort. He was reveling in his role, and she dared not glance at him and see the humorous glint in his eyes or she’d lose her composure. “It’s not up to us to solve this, honey. We will take everything we learn back to the cops, of course, but now we have this nice young man helping us, too.”
Cypher smiled. His teeth were not brushed very often. “Yeah, quite a disturbing situation might be going on here.”
Sophie blinked her eyes, as if confused, leaning forward from the back seat. “How do you know all this?”
“I thought you would never ask.” Cypher scrolled to a website and expanded the view for them to see. “This is a missing persons posting on the Big Island bulletin board website where parents and families weigh in on the investigations.”
Sophie recognized the site as one of the ones that DAVID had cross-checked with police records. She was eager to see how his data analysis stacked up to the preliminary findings DAVID had compiled. But would he share?
She took out her own phone to pull it up, but couldn’t get any reception. She frowned at Cypher. “How are you getting any Internet out here?”
“I use a sat phone. Only way to deal with the spotty reception. Got a hotspot set up. But you can look at my laptop for now,” he said magnanimously. Sophie leaned over the young man’s shoulder to look through the rows of posts.
There were many more pictures of each missing victim than the ones she recognized from the police department database. Heartbreaking personal stories, rants about the lack of response from the police department, and a series of highlighted letters, complaining that they had been contacted for ransom, and, once paid, had never heard from the extortionist again.
“So, what’s your skin in this game?’ Jake said. “What do you get out of it?”
“I’m just a concerned citizen living in a dangerous community. Trying to help by warning victims’ families.”
“Then I’m sure you won’t mind coming down to the station in Hilo with us, and making a statement to that effect,” Sophie said, as Jake reached over and plucked the truck’s keys out of the ignition. “Being the good citizen that you are.” Sophie pointed her Glock at Cypher’s ribs. “We’re taking you in. Let’s go.”
“Sure you got him handled, babe?” Jake bounced his brows as Cypher groaned, closing his laptop.
“This young man will be driving straight to Hilo PD to make his statement. I’m sure he won’t give me a minute of trouble, babe.”
Jake’s teeth flashed in a grin as he got out of the truck, slamming the door. “I’m right behind you in the Jeep, Cypher, so don’t give my girlfriend any crap.”
Cypher banged his head on the steering wheel as Jake got into the Jeep, preparing to follow them. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you guys get in the truck.”
Sophie kept the gun on Cypher, dug into his ribs, for the forty-minute drive back to Hilo. Freitan and Wong were not back from wherever they’d gone, but the intake officer checked their permits to carry and their IDs, and they settled Cypher in the waiting area.
The minute Sophie’s gun was stowed, the young man made a run for the glass doors. Jake seemed to enjoy wrestling Cypher back inside and making him sit.
Freitan and Wong returned. “What did you chase out of the bushes?” Freitan asked.
“This young man knows all about shaking down the families of missing persons,” Jake said.
The two detectives took charge of the witness, after a brief conference with Jake and Sophie. “You should go to his residence. Search for evidence related to the victims,” Sophie urged.
“He’s lawyered up already, so it’s going to be a process.” Freitan had a vein in her neck that pulsed when she was annoyed. “His weird scam of warning peop
le might not be enough to get a search warrant on his home.”
Sophie frowned. “Perhaps . . . his address fell somewhere and we saw it and took matters into our own hands.”
“Unscrupulous private investigators that we are,” Jake filled in.
“That would never happen around here,” Freitan swiveled her monitor so they could read Cypher’s address. She stood, and walked off toward the interview room where Wong already waited with the witness.
“Cypher” was named Paul Chernobiac, and he lived at 1140 Ocean View Terrace.
Sophie plugged the address into the GPS on her phone, grateful to have a signal. “Let’s go.” They hurried out of the building.
The day was waning. Sunset was upon them, a glorious molten red that reminded Sophie of the lava flows. She glanced at Jake as they got into the Jeep. “I hope we have time to make it out there before dark.”
Chapter Twenty
Jake resigned himself to doing the long drive again. According to the GPS, Ocean View Terrace was located well off the beaten track on the other side of Volcanoes Park. They needed to try to hit this house while Paul Chernobiac, a.k.a. “Cypher,” was being interviewed. Jake was glad Sophie had downloaded and saved the map with the location as they drove an hour back in the direction they had come.
The sunset was a spectacular streaking of reds, yellows, and purples over the sky from the ocean to the west. Sophie sat quietly, her gaze out the window, her hands folded in her lap. The dogs snored peacefully in the back.
How could he move things forward between them? Chicks loved hashing over that shit. “Should we talk about what’s been happening?”
“With the case?”
“No. With us. You and me.”
Sophie glanced at him. “No.”
Her answer hurt, but he tried to sound humorous. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who never wants to talk about a relationship and where it’s going.”
She leaned even further away. “I’m not like other women.”
“You can say that again.” Jake winced. He was mucking it up. Stop talking now!
Sophie scrunched her nose. “Why would I say that again?”
“I never realized how many expressions and idioms there were in the English language until I began explaining them to you all the time.”
Sophie’s cell phone rang. She took it out of her pocket. Her mouth made a little O. “It’s Alika.”
Jealousy felt like a punch to the solar plexus, but Sophie had told him that jealousy was a turn-off after her homicidal bastard ex-husband. Jake smiled with difficulty. “Tell your helicopter buddy hi from me.”
Sophie rolled her eyes, and Jake laughed. That they could even kind of joke about it felt good.
She answered the phone. Jake could hear their conversation. “Sophie. How’s it going on the Big Island?” Alika had a nice phone voice. “I miss you.”
Jake never sounded good on the phone—too abrupt and too loud.
Damn the man and his slick manners, sweet chopper and those armband tribal tats . . . maybe Jake should get some. Barbed wire around his biceps, or some shit. But Sophie wouldn’t be impressed with that. It would have to have meaning. And other than his Special Forces unit, he had never cared about symbols enough to put them on his body.
“Well, actually I haven’t been able to do much of what I planned,” Sophie said. “I found a body dump on my second day hiking, and then was drawn into an investigation right after that.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Unfortunately, no. I am not.”
When was it that he had come to love even her pedantic speech patterns?
“Alika, Jake and I are working a case for Security Solutions. Searching for a missing young woman, and we’re driving to do a recon of something related to the case. I should go.”
A pause. Then, “Jake is with you?” Alika didn’t sound happy.
Jake leaned over and spoke into the phone. “Howzit hanging, Alika? I’m working with Sophie twenty-four seven. We’re even sharing a motel room. Catch you later, pal.”
Sophie scowled at him and lifted the phone tight to her ear. She turned away to face the window. “I’ll call when I can speak privately, Alika,” Sophie said softly. She murmured something he couldn’t catch, and ended the call. She slid her phone back into her pocket and turned to him. “Don’t be obnoxious, Jake.”
Jake rolled his shoulders. “Can’t help my natural charm.”
The headlights caught a reflective sign marking the turn off, and Sophie pointed. “There!” Soon they were bouncing along a rutted, unlit road.
Jake tightened his hands on the wheel. “I want to park away from the house. We need to drive by it, identify it, park with our lights off and go in dark.”
Sophie nodded. They drove slowly as Jake strained to see between the thick bushes that screened the driveway coming off of the narrow road. “I don’t see any mailboxes or other number identification,” Sophie said. “but the GPS says we have arrived.”
Jake pulled the Jeep over deep onto the shoulder. Sophie took a bag of kibble out of her backpack and shared it into small piles on the back seat, leaving a fresh bowl of water for the dogs on the floor. The two animals seemed perfectly content to eat their dinner and relax together.
Jake produced a small, high beam flashlight as Sophie checked her weapon, stowed it in her cargo pocket, and produced a similar light. Jake locked the Jeep, and they headed up the road toward Chernobiac’s driveway.
Jake signaled that he would take the lead as they turned off the main road, and he was gratified when Sophie did not argue, merely falling into his shadow as they worked their way stealthily toward the house. As soon as they reached a clear area in front of the dwelling, motion detecting lights bloomed on.
Jake took cover behind a tree, and Sophie stayed glued to his side. “Let’s see what happens now.”
Jake assessed the simple wooden house, just another of so many built on the Big Island made from standard kits shipped to Hawaii. A lamp burned in an upstairs window, implying someone was home. An untrimmed yard surrounded the place, and a showy Honda street rod gleamed in an open garage on one side of the house. Jake pointed. “Seems like a pretty nice ride for a gamer dude of Chernobiac’s age,” he whispered.
“His truck was too expensive as well.” Sophie’s breath stirred the hairs near Jake’s ear and brought up goose bumps on his skin. Her body warmed his back.
No movement from the house. Eventually the light went off.
“I don’t think anyone is home, though that sensor light will out us,” Jake whispered. “But we can always pretend we’re a stranded couple in distress.” Jake reached back to take Sophie’s hand. Her fingers felt warm, slim and strong, just like the rest of her.
A rush of endorphins flooded Jake’s system.
He stood poised at the brink of danger, lawbreaking for a good cause, the woman he loved at his back, and a couple of good dogs waiting for his return.
He was a simple man, and he knew it. Jake shut his eyes for just a second, overwhelmed. So this was what happiness felt like. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sophie held Jake’s hand and reached her other one into her cargo pocket, her fingers curling around the cool pebbled grip of her Glock. The weapon felt comforting as she ran on bent knees in Jake’s body shadow, the sensor light striking them with illumination. They reached the cover of the carport, and another beam bloomed, lighting up the back door above wooden steps rising out of the carport’s cement floor.
Jake led and they sidled along the wall to the back door, scanning for any movement. Nothing broke the silence of the night but the high-pitched calling of coqui frogs from the trees in the surrounding area.
Jake tried the back door handle. “Locked.”
Sophie felt quickly around the door jamb and under the mat, and smiled as she held up a spare key.
“I didn’t think Cypher looked that bright, and now I know he isn’t,” Jake
said.
Sophie unlocked the door. She stepped inside and they left it ajar, alert as they entered for any dog or other occupant. Jake signaled for them to spread out and check the house, and she went one way as he went another. They moved quickly through the rooms to check that they were clear, reconnecting in the living room.
Sophie swung in a circle, assessing. The house was decorated with mismatched castoffs. A big screen TV took up one wall in the living room, which was fronted by a lounger with built in cup holders and a heated massage feature. Pizza boxes and takeout containers, crusty with dried leftovers, littered a coffee table.
“What are we looking for exactly?” Sophie frowned.
“Anything tying Chernobiac to the disappearances. I don’t know what that would be, but hopefully, we will recognize it when we see it.”
“He’s a gamer. Anything relevant will be on his computer, most likely.” She turned and headed for a set of stairs at the back of the building leading to the second floor. She found his computer station in a bedroom that contained nothing but the desk with his monitor and a rumpled queen-sized bed. Sophie unslung her small rucksack and dug in it for the write blocker program. She sat down and plugged it into the computer’s back port to copy Chernobiac’s hard drive. She accessed her codebreaker software on a stick drive and was working on decrypting Chernobiac’s security code when Jake rejoined her.
He held up a lumpy black plastic bag. His bulging biceps told Sophie that it was heavy. “Guess what I found in the linen closet? I think we just hit pay dirt. Literally.”
“I need a moment.” Sophie cracked the encryption and activated the write blocker. The software would make a complete copy of Chernobiac’s hard drive, but it needed fifteen minutes or more to run, depending on how much data he had. She swiveled Chernobiac’s office chair and turned back to Jake.