Paradise Crime Thrillers Box Set

by Toby Neal

  “Yes. I’ll call Kamuela and meet you at the vehicle.” Sophie didn’t let any emotion into her voice. “Why don’t you brief Waxman?” She wasn’t in a hurry to speak to her erstwhile mentor again so soon.

  Sophie backed out of her computer rigs, checking the time on the write blockers. They still needed a few hours. She strapped on her shoulder holster with the Glock 19, shrugged into her jacket and switched her headphones for a Bluetooth, calling Marcus Kamuela as she walked through the IT lab.

  “Hi, Sophie. No updates on Alika’s condition yet. We’re just getting started down at his warehouse at the docks and I’m sorry to tell you it’s really looking like he was shipping drugs,” Kamuela said. “I’m in his office and I’m uncovering some irregularities in his shipments in addition to enough drug trace to make the dogs go nuts. I’m trying to believe you when you say Wolcott isn’t dirty.”

  Sophie exited the lab and her athletic shoes squeaked down the shiny hallway toward the main entrance to the elevators as her thoughts whirled.

  “It’s got to be planted. Alika isn’t that stupid. Please keep digging! Anyway, I called you about something else.” Sophie rattled off the situation with Lee Chan. “We’ll handle this as a direct request from Security Solutions to find their missing employee. Could your team post a BOLO on him?”

  “Sure.” She could tell Marcus was glad she wasn’t grilling him more about Alika’s investigation. “Gimme the details.”

  She told him. “I’ll have Security Solutions fax a picture of Chan.” Sophie got on the elevator, pushed the button for the ground floor garage.

  “What else can you tell me about Wolcott?”

  Sophie threw up her hands, frustrated, and remembered Kamuela couldn’t see that gesture. “Just follow the evidence. Do what you have to do. But keep an open mind. Remember who this man’s family is. Do they seem like a bunch of drug dealers with connections to organized crime?”

  He blew out a breath. She could almost see him shaking his head. “My mom knows his grandma Esther Ka`awai, the kahu, and she’s been calling me nonstop to help Alika and get the gangster sonsabitches that beat him. So I’m hearing it from all directions, believe me, and so far, Alika’s looking like a Boy Scout if you don’t count his heroin-sprinkled office and weird shipping receipts. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “That’s all I ask. And call me if you hear of any change in his condition.”

  “Will do.”

  Sophie hung up with a flick of her finger to the device in her ear and broke into a jog to join Ken Yamada standing by the shining black hood of the Bureau’s Acura SUV.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sophie and Ken Yamada pounded on Lee Chan’s door at his modest apartment building on the outskirts of Honolulu. “Open up! FBI!” Ken barked.

  When no one answered, Ken gestured to the building’s manager. The stocky Filipino unlocked the door for them. Sophie and Ken kept weapons drawn in ready position per protocol as they entered.

  A simple front room was decorated with a flat screen TV, a sleek lounger, and a coffee table. All was immaculate, the furniture black and the carpet and walls gray. Sophie had the impression that Lee had created his interior living space to feel like the inside of a computer: efficient, monochrome and dust-free.

  They swept through the space and, as the VP had confirmed, empty hangers, missing clothes and sundries confirmed the tech was gone.

  Sophie pulled Lee’s desktop rig out from under the small modern desk in the bedroom and unplugged it. As she straightened up, with the computer in her arms, she felt a shifting inside the metal housing.

  She set the computer back on the desk, pulled open a small desk drawer and rooted around until she found a set of small graduated Phillips-head screwdrivers in a plastic case.

  Ken returned. “Don’t see anything that tells us where he went. What are you doing?”

  “I have a sense Lee is pretty careful. If there is a clue to where he went, it’s going to be on this computer, not lying around on the coffee table,” Sophie said. “I’m checking inside. Thought I felt something shift around in here.”

  She applied the right sized driver to the screws on the back of the panel and opened it.

  Inside were stacks of cash. She removed them and drew a sharp breath. Currency from China. Taiwan. Korea. Japan.

  “Lee Chan could be anywhere,” she murmured.

  “That explains these minor digs.” Ken gestured to the neatly made twin bed, impersonal as a motel. “He made plenty at Security Solutions. He was keeping a small footprint.”

  Sophie took an evidence bag out of the Kevlar vest she wore and dropped the money into it. “Maybe he is the saboteur after all. Though he didn’t seem to have the nerve for something like that.”

  “Maybe he’s being set up to look like it, though,” Ken said. “He seemed smart enough when we met him.”

  “I don’t know.” Sophie picked up a black plastic comb from the drawer and lifted a hair with a root bulb from it, slipped it into an evidence bag. “It’s time to dig deeper into Chan’s life, for sure, but frankly, I hope he doesn’t turn up floating in the Ala Wai Canal because he’s someone’s loose end.”

  Interviewing the building manager after the search, they got an idea of his habits. Lee left early for work, returned late, was quiet, had never been seen with anyone else in the apartment, was tidy, and paid rent on time. “The ideal tenant,” the manager concluded.

  In the elevator on the way down, Sophie mulled the situation over.

  “Think he was the saboteur?” Ken asked, his arms around the computer. She’d planned to carry it but he had taken it from her with old-fashioned courtesy.

  “Why else would he run?”

  “Maybe he knew who it was? Was being threatened? Maybe he could tell Security Solutions was going to throw him under the bus in any case.”

  “It’s true that Honing was quick to do that. Lee would make a handy person to blame,” Sophie said. “But the Lee I went to school with in Hong Kong—he had an impulsive side. I once saw him delete a whole day’s work because he’d made a mistake. Maybe this was like that.”

  “You mean, he got spooked and pulled the plug?” Ken was better with the colloquialisms.

  “Exactly.”

  Sophie hooked up Lee’s computer to one of the write blockers that had finished copying one of the previous hard drives. Ken had taken the DNA and fingerprint evidence as well as the cash to the lab for processing. Hopefully, they’d soon have more physical information on Lee, and in the meantime she had a lot of work to do.

  Hours passed in wired-in oblivion as Sophie made headway on the analysis of the hard drives left on her desk, finished the presentation on DAVID, and sent that off to Waxman via encrypted email.

  Sophie revisited the back trace that had tracked her computer to her building and looked at the two destinations: the Arches building, with a hundred and fifty units, and the building Security Solutions was housed in.

  Most likely it was Lee who had tracked her. Did she feel threatened by him? No. He probably was the saboteur and his tracking of her was just necessary counterintelligence of someone who was trying to break into his system.

  So who was Todd Remarkian and what was his role? He and Lee had to be connected if they’d worked closely on developing proprietary software like the surveillance monitoring program that was Security Solutions’ crown jewel.

  She began a file on Todd Remarkian and found it challenging to assemble. He seemed to have very little cyber presence. His credit card was issued by the company. His apartment was paid for by the company. He drove a car owned by the company. He had a squeaky-clean credit score and a phone issued by the company.

  It was as if he’d been invented by Security Solutions.

  She shivered. But she’d heard his voice, that light Aussie accent. He was real. On impulse she called him, clicking on the trace app for the number she’d dialed. A little skull spun in the corner of her monitor as the trace ran. The
number rang.

  Rang.

  Rang.

  “Special Agent Ang. G’day.”

  “You knew it was me.”

  “Who else would be calling from the FBI? Assume this is regarding Lee’s disappearance.”

  “Yes. I was hoping you might have some more information for us.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. I know he’s missing because Frank Honing called the boss and me a few hours ago. We’re worried he’s made off with some of our customer information, if you must know.”

  The little spinning skull stopped. The location bubble appeared. HONG KONG pulsed in it.

  Sophie relaxed. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. “I’m sorry to hear that. Tell me more.” There was an art to interviewing a witness. One had to appear to be sympathetic and grateful for any information, while not revealing anything in return.

  “Frank, Sheldon, and I suspect he’s the saboteur. We think he’s taking his chance to run now that we’re onto him. We’ve sent one of our private investigation teams after him. No offense, but we thought you might appreciate the help.”

  “None taken. Your company has its own private army and it’s true that there are only two of us on your case,” Sophie said. “But we expect to be apprised as soon as you find him. He hasn’t done anything that we can charge him with yet.”

  “Except steal our information and sabotage our customers.” Remarkian’s tone was silky and deadly at the same time. “But of course. We’ll let you know the minute we find him.”

  A silence. She could hear Remarkian breathing, which was amazing considering he was halfway around the world in Hong Kong.

  “Anything else?” she asked. “Anything at all?”

  “Yes. Lee isn’t all he appears. Dig into his financials.” Abruptly, Remarkian hung up.

  Sophie immediately revisited Lee’s identity file. She’d been able to crack into his employee file at Security Solutions through her backdoor into the company’s server, and saw there was a direct deposit for his paychecks.

  It was a simple matter to follow that to locate his account at Bank of Hawaii. A few phone calls later, the email alert on one of her rigs beeped with the receipt of faxed copies of his bank statements.

  Sophie set one of her smaller analysis programs to weed through the reams of information to find any payments or extraordinary data, and quickly identified a pattern of nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine dollar payments twice a month in cash, payments that wouldn’t trip the federal reporting laws designed to track drug traffickers.

  She printed up the anomalies and further wire transfers out of his bank to another account in the Cayman Islands. Lee had been stockpiling. Perhaps for this move. His current balance was zero. Her phone rang in her headphones, jarring her out of hypnotic analysis mode.

  “Special Agent Sophie Ang.”

  “Sophie? This is Alika Wolcott’s mother, Lehua. The doctor has allowed Alika to have visitors. We’ve just been in sitting with him and I thought you might want to stop by.”

  Sophie’s heart began pounding. “Is he okay? Any change?”

  “No.” Her voice came out on a sigh of released sorrow. “But no change for the worse, either. Come down and we’ll update you more fully.”

  Sophie glanced at the clock on the wall. It was well past the dinner hour and she’d done enough today. “See you soon.”

  On the drive to the hospital, she ticked over Alika’s situation. It was frustrating not to be able to do anything for his investigation. She mulled over the similarities between what Alika was being investigated for and what she suspected her ex, Assan Ang, of actually doing.

  She’d heard about the investigation against Alika that her friend Lei had initiated on Kaua`i, the murder of a young woman involved with the drug trade. He’d been completely exonerated, but the fact remained that he’d been associated with those accusations and it had left a stain, made him vulnerable.

  Sophie didn’t believe Alika was a drug smuggler because it went against everything he believed in as an athlete and a mentor to so many. But Assan was a different story. The only thing he loved more than power was money. For him, they went hand in hand.

  Assan had an operation that shipped into Honolulu. Perhaps he had ties to the Boyz. She had to remember to ask Kamuela to look into it.

  A uniformed police officer was seated outside Alika’s room when Sophie arrived just as Lehua was coming out. The older woman’s rich brown skin looked gray with fatigue and stress, and her sleek black bun was unraveling. Still, she forced a smile and took Sophie’s cold hands.

  “He’s stable,” she said. “Try not to be too shocked when you see him. The doctors say the coma is the best thing for him right now because of the swelling in his brain.”

  Sophie bit her lip. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Wolcott. I’m just sick about this.”

  “My boy is strong. He wants to live. My mother, Esther, has been communicating with him in the gray place between and she says he has every intention of coming back. It’s not his time yet, and we’re all supporting him with prayer.” Lehua’s large brown eyes shone with conviction.

  Sophie couldn’t find a response to a statement so far outside of her world’s operational framework. Her mother had been a Buddhist, and she and her father were agnostic. She knew Alika practiced hula with his grandmother’s halau for special occasions, but she wasn’t familiar enough with Hawaiian tradition and spiritual practice to do anything but nod in agreement.

  “I hope the prayer helps,” she said carefully.

  Lehua squeezed her hands one more time. “They’re only allowing two people in the room at a time, and I’m meeting the family in the cafeteria for dinner. So you have him all to yourself for a little while. They say to talk to him. He may be able to hear you.”

  Lehua let go of Sophie’s hands, patted her arm, and walked away. Sophie smelled a hint of gardenia perfume in Lehua’s wake. Sophie squared her shoulders and pushed down the door handle, stepping inside.

  She’d tried to prepare herself. She’d told herself it would be bad, and she’d seen what people looked like after a fight many times. But there was no way to brace herself emotionally for what lay on the bed.

  Alika’s was a body she’d studied from every angle as a coach and an opponent, someone she’d known so well she could predict his moves in the ring. Someone she’d dreamed about, whose heavily muscled, lithe body she’d craved to know in a different way, and whose kindness, intelligence, and business savvy she’d admired.

  Someone whose friendship and passion she’d only begun to explore.

  He was propped at an angle, his head swathed in bandages. An oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth, but every bit of skin on his face was discolored, swollen, and unrecognizable. His arms lay stiffly on top of the covers, one of them in a cast, his hands bandaged. One whole leg was encased in plaster and hung from an overhead pulley. Sophie could barely see any skin that wasn’t empurpled with bruising.

  He was breathing on his own, she noted. That was something.

  Her legs collapsed and she dropped into a hard plastic chair beside the bed. The room was filled with a chorus of tiny beeps and blips, and she could see his various functions tracking on a monitor.

  Talk to him.

  “Hi Alika. It’s me, Sophie.” Her voice sounded thready and her lips felt numb. She tried to imagine where he was, somewhere in the “gray between” as Lehua had said, and what might help him come back.

  A storm of emotions engulfed her in a toxic welter that made her breathe hard, eyes prickling. Grief and rage at his brokenness. Compassion. And something like shame. She hadn’t been able to protect or help him, and she’d been angry with him while he was being attacked and fighting for his life.

  None of that matters right now.

  All that mattered was that he get better, and come back from this. The rest would sort itself out.

  She leaned forward to touch the one uncovered spot of skin she could find, the bulge of his
shoulder muscle. It was patterned with a curving tribal tattoo of interlocked triangles that followed to a dent where the cap of deltoid muscle met his biceps.

  Sophie scooted as close as the IV stand, dangling dripping bags of liquid, would let her. She traced the tattoo gently with her fingertips, then leaned forward and placed her lips on it in a soft kiss.

  “I’m so sorry this happened to you. I want you to know I’m here, and I’m going to help with your case as much as I can. I don’t know what we are to each other yet, but I care. A lot. More than is comfortable.” She stroked the small patch of golden brown skin with the black triangles on it. It felt hard and cold as marble, as if he were already dead. “I know you’re in there. And you can relax, and leave this to us. Marcella and Marcus are working it hard, and no matter what they uncover, we’re all fighting for you.”

  She leaned forward and rested her forehead on his thigh under the white blanket, feeling her eyes sting with unshed tears, her hand still on his shoulder.

  The door opened with a snick and she sat up abruptly, blinking.

  Marcella had slipped inside the room. She sucked in a breath and covered her mouth with a hand at the sight of Alika, big brown eyes wide.

  “I know. There’s just no way to be prepared for how bad…” Sophie didn’t want to finish her sentence in case Alika could hear her, somewhere in the dim place where he was. “They say to talk to him.”

  “Hi Alika.” Marcella came around to sit on the chair opposite Sophie. “You look like hell, man, like you’ve gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson and his six cousins, which I guess in a way you did. And they had bats and a pipe.” She nodded to Sophie. “We found one of the weapons used in his assault. The piece of pipe was thrown into the bushes beside his warehouse at the docks. We’ve gotten some DNA evidence off it. I’ve put a rush on the trace. He had some skin under his fingernails too. The lab thinks we might have something we can use to check for matches in ViCAP and AFIS by tomorrow.”