by Toby Neal
“I can see that. We’ll likely need to intubate him,” the vet directed his assistant. “Everyone, clear the area so we can stabilize this animal and get him to our facility.”
Wong and Freitan pushed the crowd back and Jake held Ginger’s leash tight as the vet and his assistant worked on Tank.
Freitan touched Jake’s arm, and her sharp brown eyes were compassionate. “We have a BOLO out on the white van, but as you heard, only got a partial plate. We’re going out to pick up Terence Chang and interview him—he supposedly knows this guy. Want to come?”
Jake was tempted, but shook his head. “I need to stay with the dogs right now. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as the situation is under control. Call me the minute you have a lead on Sophie.”
The detectives nodded and the two ran to their SUV.
Jake squatted to pet Ginger. She shivered and whined in distress. It would be best to take her back to the motel room so he could follow the ambulance to the animal hospital and rendezvous with the detectives unimpeded.
His phone rang, vibrating with Unidentified Number. Jake never picked up for anonymous callers, but this time his thumb punched the button and he put the phone to his ear. “This is Jake Dunn.”
“Jake, you don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Sophie’s. I’ve been tracking her phone, and she’s in danger.” The caller had a silky, urbane voice, and the hairs on Jake’s neck rose.
The voice wasn’t Alika’s. Who was this man? “I know all of Sophie’s friends. Who are you, and why the hell are you tracking her?”
“That’s not important right now. She’s in danger. Do you want to know where she is, or shall I call someone else?” The caller’s voice was impatient.
Jake breathed through a wave of jealous, terrified rage, his mind flashing on the men with money and connections he’d sensed were in her life. So many shitty feelings! He hated them. “Tell me now.”
“She’s in a wilderness area just outside the National Park. I have a satellite phone photo I can send you—there’s a dirt track leading to where the van holding her stopped.”
“How the hell do you have a satellite photo? Never mind. Send it.” Jake scanned the area for the Jeep—Sophie had likely driven here from the motel. He spotted the boxy black vehicle, spattered with mud, in the parking lot nearby.
“Sending it now,” Sophie’s secret stalker-friend replied.
Jake pressed the phone to his chest to muffle the audio and turned to the vet. “My name’s Jake Dunn. I have a lead on my partner’s whereabouts and I need to follow up. Call me at this number the minute you know anything about how Tank is doing.” He rattled off the number, and the assistant wrote it down.
The vet nodded. “Good luck.”
“Good luck to you, too. Save my dog.” Jake turned and sprinted toward the Jeep, holding Ginger’s leash tightly. His phone vibrated with the incoming photo, and he glanced at it.
An aerial shot, grainy with distance. A thread of a road. A white spot that was the van’s roof, almost obscured by foliage. He’d have to zoom in to see where the turnoff was.
He put the phone to his ear and spoke to the caller. “Who are you?”
“It’s better that you don’t know. Just find her. I’ll be watching.” The caller hung up.
“Fucking James Bond shit.” Jake dug in his pocket for the spare key, beeped the Jeep open, and got in with Ginger riding shotgun.
Chapter Fifty
Sophie stared into Akane Chang’s brutal brown eyes.
The man had brought her out to this remote location to kill her and dispose of her and the driver’s body. He had already shown his willingness and ability to ruthlessly end any life, even that of an innocent animal. She might as well give it all she had, and get it over with.
Sophie drew herself up into a squat, ignoring the wound in her back, and launched herself at Chang as he opened the van’s side door.
The man was ready and scrambled out of the van ahead of her, spinning to press the silencer to the tender skin of her forehead.
Sophie stopped. Breathed. She was seconds from death. She shut her eyes and waited for it.
Chang stepped back, and gestured with the weapon. “Get out. Up against the van. Put your hands on the vehicle.”
“I fail to see why I should follow your directions,” Sophie said. “You’re just going to kill me.”
“Our fates are never written in stone,” Chang said conversationally. “Which is what makes all of this entertaining. Like your little friend Julie Weathersby. She got away, and you’re a hell of a lot tougher than she is. So, what’s it going to be? Die now, or maybe die later?”
Sophie weighed her options, looking into the black eye of the pistol’s silencer.
To live a little longer was always better. If she went for him now, she was a dead woman. “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” Marcella’s voice said in her head.
Sophie raised her hands slowly and climbed out of the van. She turned to face the vehicle.
She felt Chang approach, and kicked back viciously with her left leg, glad that she was wearing sturdy running shoes.
Chang yelped as his leg buckled. He hit her with the pistol on the back of the head. Stars exploded in Sophie’s vision, and she staggered forward, falling against the side of the van.
Chang grabbed her and flung her to the ground, dropping to put a knee in her back. He cackled like a demented television villain as he wrenched her arms up and zip tied them behind her back.
Her chances of a slow death versus a fast one had just increased exponentially.
Chapter Fifty-One
Jake sat in the driver’s seat of the Jeep and took a moment to zoom in and study the satellite photo. The white dot of the van stood out in an ocean of green at the end of a thread of dirt track, but an inserted photo close-up showed the name of the turnoff from the main highway leading out of Hilo.
“I’m half an hour away, tops,” he muttered. He turned the key. The Jeep roared into life. He threw it in gear and pulled out, realizing for the first time that his shirt and hands were covered with Tank’s blood. Wiping his hands clumsily on a paper napkin as he drove one-handed, he voice-dialed Freitan. She didn’t pick up, but he left a message detailing the new info and took a moment to forward the satellite photo to her and Wong’s phone. “I need backup. Meet me at the location ASAP.”
Once on the highway, breaking speed limits to get out of town, Jake let himself wonder. “Who was that, Ginger? Who’s tracking Sophie’s phone? I’m going to find out no matter what happens today.”
The dog cocked her head and gave a woof, clearly as confused as he was.
Jake hit his horn, dodging through a red light at an intersection, weaving among other vehicles. Ginger gave an excited yap beside him, her front legs braced, her tongue hanging out like they were going on a Sunday drive. “I should put a seatbelt on you, girl.” He reached across and buckled the dog in place. On another day, the sight would have been amusing.
Jake voice-dialed Bix, and was relieved when his boss didn’t pick up. He left a brief message on the latest developments. A few minutes later, he spotted the small, bent road sign marked PRIVATE and naming the dirt turnoff outside of Hilo.
The Jeep took the turn too fast, tipping dangerously, as they barreled down a potholed road. They hit a bump, and Ginger yelped, scrambling out of the seatbelt to end up in the foot well. “Should have left you at the park, girl.”
His phone toned and he managed to pick up. “Jake Dunn.”
“What the hell, Jake? Who sent you this satellite photo?” Freitan’s voice was tight with tension. “We just got Terence Chang in the vehicle. He denies knowing where Akane takes his victims.”
“Bring him or cut him loose. I need backup. Now. There were at least two in that van, and they have a major head start.” Jake hit another bump and the Jeep levitated, out of control. He wrestled the bucking steering wheel and banged his head on the soft top. “Shit! Call an ambulance too. If anyone
’s alive out here, they’re going to need medical attention.” He could feel Freitan’s indecision over the hissing phone line, and he snarled. “Get your butts out here, Detective Freitan, or you’re going to have so many bodies you’ll be buried in them!”
“All right, Soldier Boy. On our way. Wong’s radioing for backup and ambulance.” The detective ended the call, and the calm decisiveness of her reply centered him.
He wasn’t alone with the odds stacked against him . . . at least not entirely. He slowed the Jeep, trying to tamp down his fear for Sophie.
Whoever had taken her must know her value to the case, and other cases—it had to be Chang! And if he eliminated Sophie, Holly Rayme would be the only witness connecting him to his “side hustle” and his work for the Chang family. Guaranteed there was a contract out on the woman already. They had to get her into Witness Protection, but what about the leak in that program?
The white van appeared so unexpectedly that Jake almost slammed into it. The Jeep fishtailed, never the most stable vehicle with its rear wheel drive, and he pulled up against a dirt berm marking the end of the crude road.
Jake turned off the vehicle, palming his weapon and swiveling to check for anyone nearby. Nothing moved. “Stay, Ginger.”
The dog whined, but settled back in the foot well, clearly overwhelmed by all the stimulation of the last hour.
Jake opened his door cautiously.
If there was someone in the van, they’d already had plenty of time to draw a bead on him. He stuck his leg out, and, using the door for cover, looked the van over.
The side door was closed. The passenger door was closed. He was a little ahead of the vehicle, enough to peer through the windshield—and what he saw chilled him.
The driver was slumped against the door in the front seat, and a red spray of blood and brains decorated the window.
Not a good sign, but one less perp to deal with.
“Sophie?” Jake called.
A strange stillness lay over the jungle. Not even a bird call disturbed the silence.
Jake crouched, weapon in ready position, wishing he’d taken the extra few minutes to put on his tactical vest. He moved out from the cover of the Jeep’s door, closing it carefully to keep Ginger inside, and approached the van.
He moved around the vehicle and checked the interior through the back window.
Empty.
He opened the side door.
The stench of blood hit his nostrils with a coppery tang. His gaze fell on Sophie’s phone, lying crushed on the metal floor of the van beside her billed running hat.
“Sonofabitch.” Jake spun, searching around the vehicle. Which way had they gone? The jungle was thick, pressing in around the vehicles where they’d parked against the berm of bulldozed soil left over from the rough track’s construction.
Jake spotted a broken fern, a spot where someone had stepped—it would take him forever to track Sophie and her assailant through this jungle without a trail!
But he wasn’t the only one who wanted to find Sophie.
Jake reached into the van and grabbed Sophie’s hat off the floor. He ran back to wrench open the door of the Jeep. “Ginger! Find your mama, girl!” He held the hat out for the dog to sniff.
Ginger swarmed up off of the floor of the front seat with an excited bark. Jake was barely able to grab the dog’s leash as she leapt to the ground, sniffing around the side of the van and then taking off into the area of the broken ferns with a happy snort.
Jake clung to the leash like a lifeline as the dog plowed into the jungle.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Sophie stumbled over the large root of a huge ohia lehua tree. The tall, white-barked tree with its silvery-gray oval leaves and red blossoms, familiar from going out run-hiking with Lei Texeira a few times. Sophie’s friend Lei had learned to identify all the native plants, fruits, flowers, and birds from her Aunty Rosario, a lovely woman recently lost to cancer.
Sophie wished she’d been able to meet Rosario. Another regret in a sea of them. Maybe this was her bad luck for plucking that lehua flower on a day that seemed like forever ago…
Odd, the thoughts one had when close to death.
Sophie had noticed before the tendency of the mind to hyper-focus on details that were likely irrelevant, as it tried to escape an extreme situation.
“Keep moving.” Chang used the knife to prod her. “And don’t pretend I really hurt you with that poke to the kidney earlier. I hardly dented you.”
She would not engage. This man was like a cat who liked to play with his food before eating it. Denying him his game might help her live longer.
“There is no trail here.” Sophie picked her way around a towering koa tree draped in vines. “How did you find this place?”
“Pig hunting. And go left. I’ve got the location on my GPS.” She glanced back. Chang was holding his phone out. “It’s a sat phone, so no worries about losing the signal.”
The worst moment of this whole ordeal so far had been when Chang smashed her phone after he zip tied her hands. She’d felt the metallic, splintering sound in her very bones, knowing it meant no one could find her by any electronic means.
The Ghost. Maybe Connor could track Chang’s active satellite phone . . . but how would he know about Chang, or anything about where she was right now? He was out of the country. How could he help her?
She had to help herself. It always came down to that, always would.
Sophie turned her body and trailed her hand along a branch and broke it, bending the leaves downward. Anything she could do to slow her progress and leave a trail that could be followed was worth trying.
“I see what you’re doing. And it won’t work.” Chang grabbed the branch and tossed it away. “The driver is dead and he’s the only one who knows where this place is. We are in a private wilderness area no one knows about.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“Sure I can. Keep moving.”
Sophie had laced her fingers together when he zip tied her, pushing her wrists apart as far as they would go, hoping she could create some space between them. But the old escape trick hadn’t quite worked. Even now, she worked her wrists up and down inside the hard, plastic bonds, trying to gain space to pull out one of her hands. Chang had forced her wrists very close together, and the plastic bit deeper into her skin as she tried to move her wrists up or down.
Sophie had to pay attention to her feet, too, as she tripped on roots and trailing vines. The ground was rough, covered with fallen branches, ferns and bushes, and the remains of trees being swallowed into the jungle floor. Even in the extremity of the situation, Sophie noticed the wild red and white hibiscus, the hapu’u tree ferns, the exotic saucer shapes of lilikoi blossoms, their bright round fruit dangling like unlikely Christmas ornaments. Tiny purple orchids grew in clumps up through the mass of ferns and ginger. Hawaii’s native birdsong sweetened the air.
Another day or time, this would have been a beautiful and interesting hike.
Suddenly Sophie felt a draft of heat. She stopped. A tendril of steam wafted up from a crack in the ground beside her.
“Yes. We are getting closer to Pele’s heart,” Chang said from behind her. “Some say that Pele feasts on blood.”
A terrible suspicion curdled Sophie’s gut. They were headed for active lava territory. Even though this upcountry area of Kilauea Volcano was largely inactive, the area was still riddled with deep steam vents, lava tubes, and even active flows that moved beneath the crust of the earth.
The depression’s familiar voice whispered in Sophie’s ear. “Since you’ve got to go, being a sacrifice to the volcano goddess is at least interesting.”
“No.” Sophie muttered aloud, mustering the will to live that always seemed to take so much effort. “No, I won’t die easy. I won’t go quietly. I didn’t survive Assan Ang to be this monster’s plaything.”
“What’s that language you are speaking? Tell me.” Chang prodded her with the
tip of the knife again. Her back felt like one of the little satin pillows filled with sandalwood dust that her aunt had used to store sewing needles.
“I was just telling myself that I didn’t survive a sadistic ex-husband who tried to kill me just to become your next statistic.” She could feel by his body heat how close Chang was. Sophie coiled inward and threw herself backward, trying for a body slam. If she could just get him down, she could stomp him . . .
Chang flung himself to the side with a curse, but she’d connected with him enough to make him stagger. The knife left a line of fire on the outside of Sophie’s arm.
“Dammit, bitch! You’re making me work for it.” Sophie heard the sexual excitement in Chang’s voice, in his panting. “You make all the others seem like chopping wood; no fun at all. And this ass.” He grasped her buttock, the rough grab shockingly intimate. “So fine.”
“Foul swine!” Sophie kicked backward.
Chang dodged, and shoved her in the center of the back so that she stumbled forward. “Just a little further, now, babe.”
Sophie noticed the flutter of a green plastic tie, affixed to a branch. He was navigating through the forest with more than his GPS. Her mind scrambled for a way to even the odds, to slow him down. The longer he took to get her where he was going, the better chance she had for someone to find her.
Jake’s face appeared in her mind, his gray eyes intent with passion as he gazed at her, his hand warm over her cold one. Her chest squeezed. Jake was going to be so frantic to find her. He would blame himself that she had been taken, no matter how illogical it was.
Alika’s dear face flashed to mind next. That kiss at the helicopter had truly been goodbye. At least they’d ended their relationship as friends, and saved a young boy together. Tears of self-pity filled her eyes for the first time. Why couldn’t her life be simpler? Safer? More normal? Alika always made her wish for those things.