Paradise Crime Series Box Set

by Toby Neal

“Things could change.” It was ironic that they were ending their relationship because she was worried about Assan being a threat to him, while he was afraid the Boyz were a threat to her.

  “Kiss me goodbye,” he whispered.

  Sophie leaned over and set her bruised mouth on his bruised mouth. The kiss tasted of blood, pain, and the saltiness of tears. It was unbelievably sweet and tender and hungry.

  She sat back up, stood. Wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’ll keep an eye on the gym. Have your dad call me and we’ll get organized.”

  “Thank you. Be safe.” He looked away, out the window.

  “And you get well.”

  Sophie turned and walked out, face in that familiar immobile mask that hid her feelings and kept her moving. She said goodbye to Lehua, telling her she was in a hurry, a work thing had come up. She fled at a trot down the hall and didn’t cry until she was in the Lexus with Ginger in her arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sophie was waiting in a drive-through line to grab something to eat when her phone toned. She glanced down and put on the brakes when she saw FLORENCE TORRES in the little identification window.

  “I had one of those calls.” Florence’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Apartment 14C. It’s down the hall from the other one. Someone’s moving in today.”

  “Thank you,” Sophie said, but the woman had hung up already.

  Someone honked behind her and she pulled forward, putting in her Bluetooth and calling Ken. “Before I get into what I called to tell you, what happened with the raid Waxman ordered on Security Solutions?”

  Ken made a disgusted noise. “A whole lot of nothing. Honing and his underlings were all we could grab and they all lawyered up. It was a waste of time like I knew it would be.”

  “Well, I just got a call from Torres at the kidnapping building.” She filled him in on what she knew. “Can I assist? Come in and work the surveillance, something?”

  “I’ll call Waxman. We’re going to want to move in to see what’s going on in there.”

  “We are still going to need to get who’s behind this,” Sophie said. “If Waxman won’t let me come in, I’ll keep working on the tech angle.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Sophie got a salad to go and took Ginger to the dog park as she’d planned to—there was no point to moving on the situation until she knew more. But she didn’t have a tech angle to work, she thought in frustration, stabbing her salad with a flimsy plastic fork as she sat down on the park bench. She’d followed every lead she had on Takeda Industries but she still didn’t know who was behind the apartment rental. She didn’t think the kidnapping went beyond the three dead men in the morgue.

  Her phone rang again. “Waxman says no to your participating in the raid,” Ken said.

  “Demon spawn of triple-horned goats,” Sophie said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m just disappointed.”

  “We’re going to stake out that floor and see what comes in. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “Dammit,” Sophie said.

  “I understood that one,” Ken laughed, and hung up.

  Sophie finished her salad while Ginger romped with a pug and a Chihuahua. Around the fenced area of the dog park, the colorful tents and beach umbrellas of the homeless village that inhabited Ala Moana Park created a peaceful, ragtag enclave, in spite of repeated attempts to dislodge them. She watched the denizens playing cards and sharing an anonymous brown-bagged bottle in the shade of a spreading monkeypod tree.

  Her cell phone rang again. Sophie answered when she saw that it was Dr. Wilson, the psychologist, returning her call.

  “Thanks so much for getting back to me,” Sophie said. “Is there a time we could meet or talk?”

  “I’m one step ahead of you.” The psychologist’s voice had a smile in it. “I called your SAC, Waxman, and told him you had requested me. He approved it and canceled Dr. LaSota’s home visit scheduled for this afternoon. Unfortunately, we can’t meet in person because I’m on the Big Island, but we can talk on the phone. Is this a good time?”

  “I guess. I’m at the dog park with Ginger. She’s enjoying a little socialization.”

  “Well, can you speak freely there?”

  Sophie glanced around. The other two dog owners were chatting on a bench a good distance away, and there was no one anywhere nearby. “Yes.”

  “I got a copy of your employee file faxed to me, and Dr. LaSota entered a few notes, concerned about your social life. So where do you want to begin?”

  “I just left the hospital. Alika and I broke up before anything even got started.” A thickness in her throat threatened to choke off her words.

  “Why don’t you start by telling me about the attack.”

  “That was really intense.” Even though the scene flashed before her eyes as she described what had happened, it was still less stressful to tell about how she’d responded to the attempt on Alika’s life, minute by terrifying minute, than it was to tell about how the tiny bud of their relationship had died.

  But of course, one thing led to another, and she finally ended her sad tale with her worry about Assan’s involvement in the attempts on Alika’s life.

  “Is there any evidence of that?”

  “No.” Sophie shut her eyes on horrible memories of Assan and his threats. Ginger reappeared at her knee, reaching up to lick Sophie’s hand.

  “I think you should stop torturing yourself with guilt that you somehow brought this on Alika, when everything appears to be pointing to him bringing it on himself. Unjustly, but nothing to do with you.” Dr. Wilson blew out a breath. “You were a victim of domestic violence. Your husband was your first sexual partner, and he did his best to break you down, ruin you for any future healthy relationship, even if you got away from him. That’s part of his pathology. It’s important for you to remember it was done deliberately. If you let him keep you from ever trying to be with someone else, he’s won.”

  “It’s a hard thing to live with. I can’t think about it for long or I just want to find a way to kill him.” Sophie bit down on her lip, fondling Ginger’s ears. “Until now, just having escaped was enough. Finding a way to rebuild my life. Achieving all I have in the FBI and the fight scene so no one could make me a victim again. But then, I began to want more. A relationship. I was even attracted to a female friend at one time. But I knew I wanted Alika. From the time I first met him. It’s been five years, and something was finally happening. Then, bam.”

  “Life’s not fair, is it?” Dr. Wilson’s voice was so soft, so sympathetic, that Sophie shut her eyes and let the fat tears collecting under her lids slide out and roll down her cheeks.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Focus on the good things. Alika woke up. He’s going to recover, even if it takes a while. And if Detective Kamuela can get some traction on the Boyz in Honolulu, it’s possible you two could move forward.”

  “I don’t think I want to anymore. I don’t want to take the chance. Not until I know Assan isn’t going to be a problem, ever again. It’s been forty-five minutes. Are we done?”

  “I don’t know. Are we?”

  Sophie gazed around the park. The other dog owners had left. It was early afternoon, and Ginger sprawled at her feet. High white clouds scudded by in a deep blue sky, and a soft wind shushed in the high branches of the trees overhead. Off to the left, Diamond Head cut the sky with its jagged, iconic silhouette, and on the right, the homeless people had laid down their cards and were napping on beach towels.

  Just another day in paradise.

  “I have a confusing case. Can I tell you about that?”

  “Total confidentiality means total confidentiality,” Dr. Wilson replied. “There are no case notes on this session except documentation that it occurred. Did you ever see that old TV show Get Smart?” She chuckled. “Consider me your Cone of Silence.”

  “No, I grew up overseas, without TV. So, there’s this security compan
y.” Sophie described Security Solutions and the various events within the company, which still weren’t producing anything that the FBI could act on besides searching for the missing CEO, Sheldon Hamilton. She described why she believed he was the one who’d breached her apartment.

  “I have begun a dialogue with him. I’m going to try to lure him into view,” she concluded. “I think he’s a vigilante of sorts. Used the company to draw in criminals and then set them up against each other.”

  “Fascinating.” Dr. Wilson sounded sincere. “What an interesting criminal.”

  The word “criminal” didn’t seem right to describe Security Solutions’ saboteur.

  “Brilliant is what he is. Obviously has his own code of ethics. He’s living and operating under a different set of rules.” Sophie couldn’t quite bring herself to describe the flirty dynamic that had arisen between them, the favor she’d asked of him. “It’s a deep game he’s playing, and my sense is that no one is going to find him until he wants to be found. What I wonder is why he let Lee Chan get away. If Chan knew who was selling the company’s information gathered by the nanny-cam, AI, and other records, then he’d be a real threat.”

  “So criminal is a good word if you suspect this vigilante or saboteur is capable of murder.”

  “Oh, certainly capable. If you count all the bodies he’s incited to kill each other, it’s quite a mountain. But as far as I’ve been able to tell, he’s never actually killed anyone himself.”

  “So, you don’t think it’s murder. What he does.”

  Sophie squirmed on the bench. She felt a chill breeze waft over her. “Not exactly, no. It’s not always killing, either. Sometimes the perpetrators turn each other in. It’s a kind of justice.”

  A long-distance crackle as Sophie waited.

  “Sounds like rationalization to me,” Dr. Wilson said.

  “Anyway.” Sophie didn’t want to discuss that further. “The only other thing I feel kind of at a loose end about is the little girl, Anna Addams.” She filled Dr. Wilson in on the kidnapping operation, and the lack of answers. “I’ve been wanting to visit her, return the rabbit she gave me.”

  “That’s a great thing to do,” Dr. Wilson said. “She probably needs to see you as much as you need to see her.”

  “Okay, I’ll visit her.” Sophie said. “And I have a couple of other places to stop by, too.” She ended the call. She needed to get home and look under the Takeda Industries shell corporation, and she wanted to get into that mysterious apartment in the Pendragon Arches building, 9C. No one seemed to know who lived there or what it was used for. Could that be Sheldon’s hideout? And she wanted to swing by Lee Chan’s apartment. It was worth one last try to find him, warn him.

  That reminded her to check her messages.

  The Ghost had responded to her email. Her heart hammered as she clicked on the message box.

  “I am working on a plan to get the target out. Do you want me to get rid of Assan, too?”

  Sophie blinked. That casually, the Ghost was asking if she wanted to participate in murder. She clicked Reply.

  “Let me know if there is any information I can give to assist in her escape. I know, for instance, that Assan pays the building staff to report his wife’s activities to him. He also has a locked safe room where she may be held prisoner. You probably have one chance to get her out.” Sweat beaded on Sophie’s forehead and under her arms as she remembered the ways Assan had punished her own early attempts to flee. “But leave Assan alone. He’s mine to deal with.”

  She pressed Send.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sophie rested a hand on the glossy brass rail inside the rosewood-lined elevator of the Pendragon Arches building as it rose. She had a funny feeling in her gut, the kind of tingling that told her something was close to breaking on a case. After an hour of digging under the Takeda Industries shell corporation, she’d finally unearthed a physical address—and it was 9C Pendragon Arches, the suite she’d already been planning to visit.

  What did it mean? There was no way to tell until she saw inside.

  The doors whisked open and Sophie stepped out into a long, expensively carpeted hallway. The lighting was subdued with ceiling spots highlighting art prints on the walls. She looked for the direction of the alphabet, and walked down to where a pair of heavy brass urns flanked the glossy black door of 9C.

  The building’s doorman had let her go up after she’d shown her ID. “Not official business, just interviewing one of your residents for a background check,” she’d said, and it had been enough.

  Sophie found herself tight with nerves, wishing she’d at least called Ken Yamada to let him know what she was doing, but he was busy with the stakeout of the kidnapping apartment building, anyway. She smoothed her black pants and straightened the plain white button-down she wore, with her spare weapon and a gray linen jacket over it.

  Glancing around, she spotted the shiny recessed dome of a mirrored security camera.

  Her visit was not going to go unnoticed.

  “Blighted offspring of a split-tongued serpent,” she muttered, and pushed the doorbell.

  No one answered.

  She pushed it again.

  Still nothing.

  “Cursed twin typhoon devils.” She hadn’t packed her lock picks.

  It was severely anticlimactic to go back down on the elevator. At the help desk, she asked for the building manager. She was led to his tiny office, identified herself again, and then inquired as to the inhabitants of 9C.

  “I’m investigating on behalf of Security Solutions, who leases that apartment. There’s been some confusion and changes in the company, and they’ve lost track of which employee is actually living there.”

  “Interesting that they had to send an FBI agent to find out who’s in their apartment,” the rotund building manager said, squinting skeptically at her. “Especially since they’re a security company.”

  “It’s part of a bigger investigation. Confidential.” Sophie held her neutral expression. She wished she had some of the quick glibness that Ken and Marcella demonstrated in the field.

  “Well, okay.” The manager activated his computer console and tapped a few buttons. “I can’t let you in without their permission or a warrant, though. Residents are listed as the upper management team of Security Solutions: Frank Honing, Lee Chan, Todd Remarkian and Sheldon Hamilton. I don’t think any of them live there. It’s a job perk kind of thing. They use it here and there when they want to.”

  “Thank you.” Sophie considered leaving a message for Todd Remarkian, who must be returning from Hong Kong soon. But no, it might be better not to. “Do you happen to keep any video footage of the hallway?”

  “We do.”

  “Well, I’d like to review that, if you wouldn’t mind.” She deployed her smile. “It would save a lot of time and back and forth with other agents if you’re just able to give me a copy of the hallway surveillance footage.”

  She was able to get him to make a copy of last week’s footage on a quickly burned CD. Back in the Lexus, Sophie cued up the CD on her laptop, curious to see who, if anyone, was using the place.

  The first sign she saw of anyone approaching the door happened several days prior. A messenger service dropped off a package, sliding it through the elegant little slot at the bottom of the door.

  She froze the image and zoomed in on the package.

  It wasn’t large, just a white cardboard envelope. There was no name on it, just the address.

  She fast-forwarded, but frowned and paused the video as a man appeared within the hour of dropoff. The man in the video wore a white belted robe and a baseball cap. He kept his face angled away from the camera, obviously well aware it was there, and unlocked the apartment door. He retrieved the package, relocked it, and walked away.

  The man could not be Todd Remarkian, who was in Hong Kong at the time. She checked the datebook feature on her phone. The time and date stamped on the recording was the day she’d starte
d streaming data from the Security Solutions transmitter she’d planted in their building.

  The robe the man wore at first looked like a bathrobe. Could this be some other resident in the building? Perhaps someone authorized by Todd to pick up mail? She froze the image of the man, door open, reaching inside to pick up the package.

  Sophie took hasty notes in a text box on the side of the screen as she tried to gather every detail she could.

  She blew up the still photo from the video and studied it. All she could see was a hard jawline in the shadow of the ball cap. Skin was consistent with Caucasian ancestry. Hair was hidden by the cap but appeared to be a medium shade in the black and white video, either dark blond or light brown, and short. Height was around six feet. Build, athletic.

  The man was wearing white pajama-style pants that matched the robe and simple rubber slippers, common Hawaii wear. She blew up the image more. The weave of the robe was the rough cotton of a martial arts gi, and what had at first appeared a bathrobe tie was, in fact, a black fabric belt tied martial arts style. While not the dishabille at first indicated in the video, the outfit was not the kind of thing people wore walking around on the street.

  This unsub did martial arts, lived somewhere in the building, had a key to the apartment and was authorized to pick up mail. She was quite possibly looking at the man who called himself the Ghost.

  It couldn’t be Todd Remarkian or Sheldon Hamilton. They’d been in Hong Kong at the time date-stamped on the video. But this person could be whoever had tracked her computer’s location, because as she traced back her own movements, she realized that package could contain the transmitter from Security Solutions that had resulted in her breach.

  She had one more apartment to visit before the day was over. She couldn’t shake a sense of urgency about finding Lee Chan.

  Sophie got into the Lexus after dropping off Ginger at the apartment. The Bluetooth in her ear toned, and she checked her phone—it was Marcus Kamuela.

  “Hello, Marcus. Got some news about Alika’s case?”