Paradise Crime Thrillers Box Set

by Toby Neal

  “I have had a contact inside his prison who has kept me informed. I knew Ang was being extradited to Hong Kong to stand trial. Someone helped him escape en route.”

  Sophie’s knees buckled, and Connor caught her close in a hug that held her up. He was just the right height for her to lean on his shoulder, to feel his arms surround her, creating an illusion of safety.

  He was also just the right height for her to feel his heart beating under her cheek, for her to feel his arms closing out the darkness.

  “I couldn’t tell you that on the phone.” Connor’s voice was muffled by the thick curling halo of her hair. She felt his lips near her ear, warm and tingling. “I’ll keep you safe. I’ll find him. And I’ll deal with him.”

  Sophie lifted her head from his shoulder and turned to look at him. Their faces were inches apart as brown eyes clashed with blue. “He’s not yours to deal with. He’s mine. And if you take this from me, we really are finished.”

  “God, you’re sexy,” he breathed, and his mouth descended to meet hers.

  That conversation they’d been having, the nonverbal conversation about how they would fit together, about how they could be together, about how much they wanted each other and how it would feel—that conversation resumed as if there had been no pause.

  No pause to go to another island on a job.

  No pause to be disappointed by each other’s choices.

  No pause to almost sleep with someone else.

  Sophie finally broke the kiss, her hands on his chest pushing him gently away. “This doesn’t change anything.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Connor slid his hands down her arms, clasped her hands, and squeezed them. “But it might make us both feel a whole lot better about life.” He grinned.

  Sophie smiled. “I wish I could say yes, invite you in for the night and forget all this. I wish you’d been here yesterday, when that was all I was thinking about doing. But I’m afraid…”

  “I know you’re afraid, and not just of Ang.” Connor squeezed her hands again. “And it’s the same reason I am. This is about more than sex. Because if that’s all it was…”

  “We’d have been doing it like bunnies,” Sophie said. “As Marcella would say.”

  Connor smiled, touched her nose. “Exactly.” He walked over to the sliding glass doors. Ocean-scented breeze blew in over them. The soft clatter of that night wind in the coconut trees four floors below made music with the distant rush of waves. The moon, just rising, left silver tracks on the water. “Not a bad view for such a dumpy condo.”

  Sophie joined him. Looking out across the inky sea, she was better able to put her thoughts into words. “Thank you for monitoring my ex. I can’t do it. I get too obsessed, and it triggers my memories and makes him bigger in my life than I want him to be. But I did put an alert on DAVID, should anything hit the news regarding him.”

  “His escape has been hushed up. There’s nothing in the news. It’s embarrassing for the FBI and the United States to have lost him.”

  Ang had been busted for importing drugs into Honolulu and his U.S. holdings confiscated. His obsession with hunting Sophie down had ultimately led to his capture; but, as she’d feared, he’d been extradited to Hong Kong to stand trial—and hadn’t even made it there.

  “I would appreciate your help in finding him. But for any further action…”

  “Fine. I hear you. But I won’t promise to stay out of it entirely. Your safety matters to me.”

  “Fair enough,” Sophie said.

  Connor raised his hand and stroked the discolored, overly tight skin graft on the side of her face—and she let him touch her there, the callouses on his fingertips slightly rough and his fingers warm.

  His hand fell to his side.

  She didn’t know how to end things with him in this moment so they stood awkwardly, looking at each other, until Connor gave a small chuckle. “I like that about you, Sophie. You never try to fill the silence with unnecessary chatter.”

  “I wouldn’t know how.”

  They walked to the door. He leaned toward her as if to kiss her again, but she turned her face so that his lips landed on her cheek.

  She didn’t know if she would be able to resist him if they kissed again, and she still didn’t know what to do about his Ghost activities. “I’ll see you when I go to Oahu next week, after the Hui contract is up. I have another laser graft surgery coming up.”

  “Pretty soon you won’t even be able to tell…”

  “That I was shot in the face?” Sophie smiled, but it felt like a tic. “You’ll always be able to tell.”

  “Yes. And it doesn’t matter.” Before she could stop him, Connor kissed her—a quick stamp on her mouth that zinged right down to her toes. “I’ll see you soon. And I’ll let you know anything I find out about Ang.”

  “Thank you.”

  He lifted a hand and walked out. Sophie held the doorjamb, looking after him as he strode down the open walkway. She liked the set of his shoulders, the way he moved: elegant and disciplined. Connor was truly unique. “One in a million,” Marcella would have said. He was probably even more statistically unlikely than that. She smiled, thinking of running a probability ratio on him through DAVID.

  Sophie closed the door and locked it. That she had even considered sleeping with a stranger who drank appletinis…thank God nothing had happened with that man.

  Or Taggart.

  Or, especially, Jake.

  She went back to her computer and set DAVID to searching for anything to do with her ex, and, when she had done all that she could, she got into bed and called Marcella.

  Bringing her FBI agent friend up-to-date on recent developments, including the fact that she was now included in the murder case, discharged some of the angst.

  But she couldn’t tell Marcella about Connor’s role as the Ghost. Without that piece of information, explaining her ambivalence didn’t make any more sense to Marcella than it had to Lei.

  “You just need to sleep with him and get it over with. You’ll know if he’s the man for you after that,” Marcella said. “It’s that number Ang did on you when you were married. It’s making you paranoid.”

  “And rightfully so. Assan tried to kill me. And he’ll try again, if he can. Knowing he’s free and could be anywhere in the world right now is not helping me relax.” Sophie shivered in the warm wind that came through the window, then she got up to close and lock it. She took out her Glock and slid it under her pillow. “Time to go back to being Mary Watson. I’m moving out of here to a cash-only place tomorrow. This makes me realize that hiding from Assan was the real reason I came up with the Watson identity—even when he was in custody, I was afraid he’d find me again at my father’s apartment.”

  “Ang will be more concerned about evading capture than finding you.”

  “I thought that about the last perp.”

  Marcella was silent at the reminder of the man who’d recently shot Sophie.

  Often logic had nothing to with the urge to kill. Assan had already demonstrated his possessive need to own and control Sophie—and if he couldn’t do that, to murder her.

  “Keep your phone on. And don’t worry. Between you and Todd, I have confidence that the two of you will find him online.”

  “Assan knows how to go off the grid and avoid cyber detection.” Sophie didn’t want to alarm her friend any further, so she downplayed the threat. “But he isn’t as smart as we are. I’m sure we’ll catch him soon.”

  “Well, I’m letting Marcus and Waxman know. I’ll see what the FBI can do to help track him.”

  “Thanks. It can’t hurt.” Sophie ended the call. Knowing that her former Special Agent in Charge, Ben Waxman, and Marcella’s dogged and powerful detective fiancé Marcus Kamuela would also be looking for her ex, gave her a measure of peace.

  As she hung the blackout blankets over the windows and wrapped herself in the plumeria-print comforter, Sophie wished she had asked Connor to stay with her instead of showing
him the door. She also missed her warm, faithful Labrador, Ginger. The dog was company—and an alarm system.

  Instead, she was alone—and vulnerable.

  Sleep took a long time to come.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sophie’s phone, plugged in on the nightstand beside her bed, buzzed in an angry circle and woke her. She picked up immediately when she saw it was Lei.

  “Someone burgled the crime scene,” her friend said tersely. “Come down ASAP.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Tearing the blackout blankets off the windows, Sophie narrowed her eyes against the brilliant light reflecting off the water—it was already nine a.m., much later than she usually slept in. Fortunately, she had made headway on her probes into Magnuson and Mano’s known associates, so she would have something to bring Lei in any case.

  On the way to the Hui site she phoned Jake. It was past time to get her apology out of the way.

  “Hey, girl.” She’d know his playful baritone anywhere. “Hangover done yet?”

  She groaned. “You know about that.”

  “I knew you were going to have a humdinger of one.”

  “Yes, it was terrible. I am shocked by how ill I was.” Sophie paused to take a breath, blow it out. “I’ve never been really drunk before. My behavior was…”

  “Don’t mention it.” Jake cut her off brusquely. “I know you’re a lightweight. I could tell you stories, but you’d be embarrassed by them.”

  “I’m embarrassed already. I’m sorry for…the things I said.” Sophie bit her lip, changing lanes on the Pi`ilani Highway to get past a slow-moving car before the road narrowed to two lanes around the cliffs to Lahaina, and she was stuck behind it. “It won’t happen again.”

  “I told you, forget it.” Jake’s voice was rough, abrupt. He really didn’t want to talk about it, and she didn’t either. Once again, she envied the ease Lei had with Pono, but that didn’t seem to be the dynamic she had with Jake.

  “Okay, I won’t mention it again. Some things have developed with the case. I’m going to be staying on Maui for the length of the Hui contract.” Sophie told Jake about her new role supporting the murder investigation. “And now, Lei called me saying that the site has been burgled.”

  “What does that mean? A break-in at the trailer?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t take the time to ask.” Sophie navigated around a truck and got behind another rental, settling into the traffic pattern that would take her into Lahaina. The stunning view of ocean trimmed in a lace of black rocks at the edge of the cliffs distracted her. “I’m on my way to the site now. I’ll phone when I know more. Anything new on your job?”

  “Our famous musician accepted Security Solutions’ bid, so that’s good news. And after your time with the Hui runs out, I’m hoping you’ll be my partner on this job, too.”

  “Hmmm.” Sophie frowned as she entered the short tunnel pierced through a particularly jagged crest of cliff. Per usual, cars honked and kids yelled out the windows. On this stretch of road on Maui, at least every other vehicle was occupied by a person on vacation and blowing off steam. “Setting up security for a celebrity isn’t anything I know anything about, and this job has shown me I need more training.”

  Jake snorted. “Consider it on-the-job training. And yeah, we’ll be screening, interviewing, and setting up bodyguards. Installing house and grounds alarms, even helping consult about some remodeling projects that will increase our guy’s privacy. He even wants a trial with the A.I. nanny cam software that is Security Solutions’ claim to fame…says he thinks someone on his current staff is selling him out.”

  “So when does the job begin?”

  “I have to go back to Oahu, assemble the software and hardware, comb through our security personnel, and pick the best team for him and run ads if we don’t have enough to cover the staffing. So, I’ll be leaving soon. It’s gonna take me awhile to get it all together and come back to Maui, so the timing should work for you.”

  “Okay. Let me see this case through and then we’ll discuss the situation with Bix.” Sophie didn’t want to commit yet. Living with Jake in a little guesthouse was a lot of being together in close proximity. “I have something else to tell you.” She filled him in on what Connor had told her about Assan Ang’s escape.

  Jake exploded. “I can’t believe the feds lost him! Damn incompetence!” He swore ripely.

  “We don’t know how he escaped,” Sophie temporized. “We only know that he had help and that his escape was en route to Hong Kong.

  “Todd has some Security Solutions’ resources looking for him too. The more we know, the better we can be prepared.” Her voice sounded brittle.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get this guy.” Jake spoke forcefully.

  “I hope so. Talk soon.” She ended the call.

  A few minutes later Sophie pulled up at the Kakela site, parking the electric-blue Ford Fiesta rental under a spreading shade tree and locking it as she strode across the lot, frowning at the sight of the gate, its chain lock dangling and cut, leaving the entrance ajar.

  Pomai Magnuson, wearing a fitted sheath dress in a hibiscus print, hair wound into a thick black bun pierced by a chopstick, was talking animatedly with Lei and Pono—and she stood beside two several deep, carelessly dug holes in the area that the GPR report had identified as possible burial sites.

  Sophie’s stomach tightened. Without her keeping an eye on the site, the burglar had been able to return, and deep, corrugated tracks digging into the soil from the gate showed that they’d driven a small backhoe in, dug the holes rapidly, and exited the same way. They’d probably loaded and unloaded the backhoe off a trailer. The yellow crime scene tape surrounding the body dump area lay shredded and strewn everywhere.

  Pono had a black Canon camera out, photographing the scene.

  This was no stealth operation—it was a blitz attack, as her former coach Alika would have called such a move in the MMA ring.

  “Ms. Magnuson. I’m so sorry this happened!” Sophie exclaimed.

  Pomai Magnuson turned. Her richly toned complexion was sallow, and the red lipstick on her full, pinched mouth had wandered on one side. “Ms. Ang. I’m sorry you weren’t here monitoring the site, as your contract calls for.”

  “It was a crime scene now, and thus under MPD control,” Lei intervened. “We met with Ms. Ang yesterday afternoon about the case. None of us thought the thieves would be back so soon after this place was filled with law enforcement personnel, or of course we would have had someone monitoring it!”

  “Well, as I was telling you, these dig locations are almost surgically precise. The thieves knew where to dig and what they were looking for—and there’s only one way that could happen. Someone got a copy of the ground penetrating radar report!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Brett Taggart’s voice was harsh. “I have no idea how the thieves got the GPR report.” He folded his arms across his chest and divided a glare between Lei and Pono, seated across from him at a steel table in one of the interview rooms at the Kahului Police Station.

  “How many people have access to the GPR report?” Pono asked. Their voices came tinnily through the feed into the tiny observation room where Sophie sat. Pono was playing good cop, his usual role, Lei had told Sophie—but this was the first time she had actually seen their team in action. The big Hawaiian leaned forward, resting his thick forearms on the table as he addressed Taggart man-to-man. “We thought we’d talk with you first, because you’re in charge of archaeology at the site.”

  Taggart imitated Pono’s gesture by leaning forward onto his elbows on the table, but now the men were too close, and appeared to be locked into a confrontational stare. “You should be asking Pomai these questions. She’s been plenty free with copies of the report and who she has given them to.”

  “Oh, we will. But first, we’re interested in your copy of the report, and who has access to it,” Lei said.

  Sophie, watching this unfold, rubbed sweaty ha
nds on her slacks. She could not be more grateful that her ill-advised flirtation with Taggart had only ended with a kiss. Lei and Pono had invited her to sit in on the interviews and come in and question the witnesses regarding security matters and the burglaries. Pomai Magnuson had identified that the thieves had been able to target identified densities of possible artifacts, thus pointing to the GPR report. The field of people who had access to that report was narrow, and began with Taggart.

  Taggart had arrived at the site shortly after Sophie had, and had been as upset as she had ever seen him—his sharp-featured face had appeared drawn, his eyes hollow as he looked at the desecrated area. Careless piles of dirt surrounded the two large, jagged, slashed holes ripped deep into the ground. Splintered, rotten wood remained at the bottom of the hole.

  The lights around the site had been shot out with something silent and accurate—broken bulbs dangled from the poles. The door of the trailer had been pried open and the monitoring equipment smashed. Sophie had left the cameras on after she left, and the thieves had taken care of the surveillance equipment in a way that was crude, but efficient. She had not been able to recover any usable images from the crushed recording devices.

  Sophie traced the conical, cigar shape of a buried canoe on an interior page of her own copy of the GPR report, which she’d taken back to her condo after the body discovery.

  Magnuson had been distraught about the destruction of the buried canoe. “This is where we think the queen might have been laid to rest,” she had said at the site, dark eyes wide with anger. “Because she drowned in the lagoon, we think that they may have put her body inside this canoe and buried it along with items special to her and the family. That the thieves got to it…” She had not even been able to finish her sentence, as tears welled in her eyes.

  Now, his hands resting on the steel table, dirt still under his fingernails from climbing into the holes and trying to discern what might have been taken, that same outrage and grief was stamped on Taggart’s face.