Paradise Crime Series Box Set

by Toby Neal

  “Any further words, boss?” Todd’s voice again.

  “Yes.” Sheldon Hamilton’s intense dark eyes seemed to fix on Sophie’s. “I don’t believe that justice should be blind.”

  His elegant hand reached out and hit a button on his laptop. The recording went black.

  Sophie shivered, a tiny involuntary movement. She picked up her mug of tea, moving back to her place on the loveseat. She felt bereft, a feeling she hated.

  Todd glanced at her curiously and then handed the document that had been beneath his laptop to Ken. “I think you’ll see this is in order.”

  Ken took it, skimmed it, and looked back at the Australian. “Why? You must know more about what this guy is thinking. Why would he leave you everything and take off?”

  “Sheldon is a builder, a visionary. He lives according to his own rules, always has. I’ve known him since we went to international school together.” Remarkian shrugged. “I always knew he had very little interest in Security Solutions except as a way to fund his lifestyle and interests. He’s a Renaissance man, likes to entertain himself by learning new things, perfecting his interests. He always told me he’d be moving on. I just didn’t expect him to bail on me like he did in Hong Kong. It really rattled me.” Remarkian picked up his mug, took a sip. “I’ve got to get ready for the most intense board meeting of my life, because I’m sure Honing’s going to fight me. Replacing Chan is going to take some doing, too. I’m so sorry about him.”

  Sophie could see that he was. The tremble was back in his hand as the Australian sipped his tea. “Well, we need a copy of this document,” Ken said. “And the recording.”

  “Done. I already forwarded them on secure email to your Special Agent in Charge.”

  “One more question.” Sophie set her mug down and leaned forward to make eye contact with Remarkian. “How long have you and Hamilton been planning this?”

  The Australian appeared absolutely blank for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  “You got me there. Don’t quote me because I’ll deny it, but this was always the plan. Like I said, Sheldon likes new challenges, likes the startup phase. But I want something solid. I want to build and guide this company, make it something great. I think we can do what we do, and do it better. And don’t think he’s giving me all this…” Remarkian gestured with his arms, encompassing the apartment. “for free. Oh no. He’s retaining an income stream percentage payment off the company indefinitely. But you can’t track it through the banks. It’s all routing through offshore accounts.”

  “All right.” Ken slapped his hands down on his gray gabardine slacks and stood. “I feel sure we’re going to have more questions for you after we meet with our team, but this is a start. And good luck with your takeover of Security Solutions.”

  Remarkian stood, and Sophie did too. She’d left most of the talking to Ken, as directed, but her one question had been a good one, and he’d answered. Still, she felt deflated. She’d wanted something more. A showdown, some bigger closure.

  She’d wanted to meet the Ghost.

  Remarkian shook hands with Ken and the senior agent headed for the door. The blond Australian turned to her.

  “Can you reach him?” Sophie whispered.

  “Of course.” Remarkian smiled. “What do you want me to tell him?”

  “Good game,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry it’s over.”

  “Who said it’s over?” And Remarkian winked.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sophie stood on the bluestone steps of the Addams family mansion several days later, holding the stuffed rabbit in her arms. She’d taken time with her appearance, putting on makeup to cover the worst of her injuries, but Anna’s mother answered the door and recoiled.

  “Oh my goodness, what happened?”

  Sophie smiled. “Nothing much. Hazards of the profession.” She held the rabbit out. “I called about returning this?”

  “Oh yes. Please come in. Anna has been asking about you all the time.” She opened the door wide. “Anna!” She called.

  Sophie heard the pattering of running feet and smiled as Anna ran into the room. She would never have recognized the bouncy, pigtailed little girl who embraced her enthusiastically as the shell-shocked child she’d carried out of the closet.

  “Sophie!” Anna exclaimed. “You brought Bun-Bun back!”

  “He kept me company for a while, but he wanted to be back at your house,” Sophie said, handing the rabbit over.

  “He’s all clean!” Anna embraced the rabbit. “Did he help you sleep at night? Because I have trouble sleeping sometimes.”

  “He did. He’s very snuggly and good at helping people sleep.”

  “Let me show you my room.” Anna towed Sophie down the hall. Sophie glanced back. Anna’s mother was making tea in the kitchen.

  “You go on,” she said. “Let Anna tell you all about the book she’s been making with Dr. Souza.”

  They went down the hall. Anna’s room was at the end.

  “I see you like rabbits.” Sophie looked around at wallpaper covered with bunnies, curtains with bunnies, and bunny-themed bedding.

  “Bun-Bun started it,” Anna said. “I want to show you the story book I made with my counselor.”

  Sophie allowed herself to be pulled over to the child’s desk. On it was a booklet made out of stapled sheets of paper. On the cover was written WHAT HAPPENED in wavering capitals, decorated by a drawing of a tall brown woman holding a girl wearing a nightgown in her arms. Orange wings came from the woman’s shoulders, each feather drawn carefully, filling the page.

  “The wings are supposed to be gold,” Anna said. “But I just had orange. See, that’s you rescuing me.”

  Sophie felt her eyes well up. “Nice,” she said, blinking and looking away.

  “No, look here.” Anna tugged her hand, refusing to let Sophie’s attention wander. “I want to show you how it was.” Anna opened the booklet, and took Sophie through a visual narrative of her kidnapping.

  The men who broke in through her window and took her.

  The dark closet.

  The scary noises.

  Anna praying for her mom to find her.

  The sound of guns.

  The angel who flew down from the ceiling and fought the bad guys.

  The angel carrying her out of the building back to her mom and dad.

  “And that’s you,” Anna finished triumphantly. “I know you have to hide your wings most of the time, but I saw them.”

  “That’s a beautiful booklet.” Sophie didn’t want to cry in front of Anna and scare her. “You draw really well.”

  “Dr. Souza says you aren’t really an angel, but I know what I saw. Thank you for bringing Bun-Bun home.” Anna went over to the bed and put the rabbit up against the pillow, much as Sophie had done at her own apartment. “Mom made a copy of the book, so this one is for you.” She thrust the original booklet into Sophie’s hands. “Mom said she was going to fix us a tea party snack. She saves the good snacks for when people come over.”

  “Okay.” Sophie followed, towed along in the girl’s wake, an ocean liner behind a tugboat. “But I can’t stay long. I left my dog in the car.”

  “You have a dog? I love dogs!”

  Sophie ended up in the back yard having a tea party with Anna, Anna’s mother, Bun-Bun, and Ginger.

  Later, replete with sugar cookies and tea, Sophie and Ginger bade Belle and Anna goodbye. Back in the Lexus, Ginger sat on the passenger seat as Sophie dabbed at the cut on her cheek, broken open from too much smiling.

  “I could get used to being someone’s angel,” she told the dog, stowing the booklet carefully in her bag. Ginger thumped her tail in agreement. Before she turned on the Lexus, she checked her email.

  The Ghost had written her back. Her taunt that she’d find him had worked.

  “Good hunting.”

  She laughed, and put the car in gear. There were ghosts to catch.

  Acknowledgments

  Aloha dea
r readers!

  If this is your first Toby Neal book, thanks so much for picking up Wired In, a whole new direction with a beloved side character from my bestselling Lei Crime Series. If you’re already one of my reader ohana, thanks so much for taking a chance on Sophie Ang’s story—I plan at least two more books in her series, and I’m so excited to write them!

  Sophie first appeared in Book 4 of the Lei Crime series, Broken Ferns. She was so compelling that I gave her a point of view in the book—something I’d never done before or since—and then I had to keep editing back to keep the story focused on Lei Texeira, my main character. Sophie demanded her own book, and finally I gave it to her—and along the way, realized I wanted to do a whole new series with her as the main character…So if you enjoyed this one, sign up for new title notifications and keep your eyes open for Wired Hard, #2, and Wired Rogue, #3, in the Paradise Crime Series.

  Thanks go to several people for helping with this complicated book: first, mahalo to my son Caleb Neal, who agreed to be my tech consultant. I’m not ‘techie.’ I don’t have the instinctive connection with the Internet and its machines that Sophie does. After describing the plot and Sophie’s job and the D.A.V.I.D. program, Caleb gave me all the information he could. I went ahead and wrote the book, making up stuff wildly—“can you really ‘backtrace’ another program? Could you track a location via the Internet? Was a program like DAVID even possible? Can you send data remotely from a hacked-into computer?” Frankly I had no idea—so it was huge good news when, after reading the book, Caleb explained how my made-up ideas were actual reality and gave me names for them—not only that, he enjoyed the book, giving me hope I’d be able to reach a new demographic of readers.

  Secondly, thanks go to my wonderful agent Laurie McLean, who helped me with edits on the book and did her darndest to get me the right deal with it. Thanks, Laurie, you’re the best!

  Thanks also to talented novelist Holly Robinson, who gave me a lot of great feedback on deepening Sophie’s character. Creating a woman like Sophie is challenging. Her abs alone could be intimidating to other women, not relatable enough, and Holly helped me see ways I could show the deeper sides of Sophie that we all share. I know I’d probably be intimidated, meeting Sophie in real life, thinking we’d never have anything in common…but Sophie has her wounds and struggles, like we all do, and she’s trying to heal them. I’m excited to see that happen, and I hope she’ll find love someday.

  Thanks to (retired) Captain David Spicer, who was especially tickled at the name of Sophie’s rogue data mining program! Mahalo for your help keeping my police work real.

  If you liked the story, please leave a review. Especially important with a new series! It really helps readers find the books, and they are the best gift an author can receive. Until next time, I’ll be writing!

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  Much aloha from Maui,

  Toby Neal

  I hope you enjoyed Wired In! If you think other readers will enjoy it too, please leave an honest review on your favorite retailer by clicking here. Your thoughts matter so much, and I read them all!

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  Read on the next book in the series!

  Wired Rogue

  Paradise Crime Book 2

  “Unraveling external selves and coming home to our real identity is the true meaning of soul work.” ~ Sue Monk Kidd

  Chapter One

  Children shouldn’t be treated like slaves. Anger tightened Special Agent Sophie Ang’s hands as she adjusted the binoculars a little more to focus in on ten kids of various ages, bent over in a water-filled patch of land planted in the deep green, heart-shaped leaves of the Hawaiian kalo. They wore bathing suits and palm frond hats as they worked in the hot sun, an adult supervising from the shade of a nearby palm tree.

  Taro farming was backbreaking work, and it looked like the Society of Light cult was using their smallest members to work with the submerged tubers, a staple of the Hawaiian diet. Sophie’s partner in the operation, Ken Yamada, shifted restlessly beside her in the camouflage surveillance tent on a rise of ground across the river from the compound. “Ten is more children than we were told about,” he murmured.

  “We have to locate the two targets,” Sophie said, for the benefit of their SAC, Waxman, monitoring through their comms. “Can’t identify the children positively yet.” The homemade hats hid the red blond hair the children’s mother had told the agents to look for. Sophie widened her scan, and took in the rest of the cult’s property.

  A high wooden wall provided cover and security for the compound deep in the Waipio Valley on Hawaii. Surrounding their location were the vast, steep, green-jungled walls of the largest, deepest valley on the Big Island. Rising to breathless heights, bisected by a giant waterfall at the end, Waipio was a beautiful and untamed place where wild horses roamed and people lived as they had a hundred years ago. Midday sun overhead increased steamy humidity, and gnats and mosquitoes buzzed over the FBI’s pop-up cover in a noxious cloud. Coconut palms and tropical trees broke up a sweep of pastureland before the compound, dotted with livestock grazing beside the wide, jade-green river.

  The site seemed to have been chosen for maximum defensibility. Set deep in a valley that was accessible only through a single steep one-lane road, the complex was walled in wood and topped with razor wire. From their vantage point, they could look down into the grounds. Yurts were clustered like chicks around the hen of a big, metal, barn-like structure, probably where the cult met as a group. Its functions would be revealed as their surveillance progressed. “See any armaments?” Sophie whispered.

  “Yeah. Nine o’clock. Sniper tower disguised as a tree,” Yamada said.

  Sophie’s earbud crackled with their Special Agent in Charge’s cool voice. “Get me eyes.”

  “Roger that, sir.” Sophie turned and opened a plastic case. She took out the small, high-powered video camera with its instant wireless streaming abilities. The reverse camera showed Sophie’s image as she screwed the camera onto a tripod and aimed it at the area Ken had identified. Her golden skin looked sallow in the little square, her large brown eyes haunted—but at least her cropped hair was too short to be any different than usual. Sophie applied her eye to the viewfinder and adjusted the high-powered lens.

  A small platform, camouflaged with branches, was built into the tall avocado tree in the far corner of the compound. A man wearing green camo gear sat in the lookout, a rifle resting on the narrow parapet around the nest.

  “Seems pretty extreme. Why would a peaceful cult out in the boondocks of this valley need to be walled and guarded with firepower?” Ken said.

  “And yet here we are, surveilling them,” Sophie muttered.

  “Right. Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t watching you.” Ken’s severely handsome face was unforgettable when he smiled. Good thing he was gay. The last thing she needed was to be attracted to a partner. A devastating breakup with her almost-boyfriend Alika six months ago had left Sophie lonely, prone to wondering if she’d always be that way.

  “Stay focused. How many unsubs?” Waxman’s crisp voice brought her back on task.

  They continued to gather data all day, counting thirty adults, mostly white, in the twenty to forty-year-old age range. They tracked the flow of behavior patterns: children, supervised by a single adult, worked the taro fields in the morning while adults did other tasks among animals and gardens. A noon meal was held all together in the main building. Another shift of afternoon work by adults in fields, gardens, and outbuildings went on as the children were seated in a circle for some kind of instruction, in the shade of the sniper tree.

  The cult leader, Sandoval Jackson, distinctive in orange robes trimmed in gold, walked the grounds, t
railed by a woman attendant. Flowing silver hair and a full beard distinguished him from the severely buzz cut hairstyles of the other adults, all wearing various shades of orange robing.

  “What does this cult believe in?” Ken kept his binoculars to his eyes as Sophie filmed the children, holding small whiteboards, participating in school-type instruction.

  “The Society of Light promotes a blend of Sufism and Hindu beliefs.” Sophie had put together a quick case file before they took the chopper out of Honolulu that morning. “Jackson apparently had a revelation that led to his development of the Society. He’s been recruiting members of the well-heeled yoga set.”

  Sharon Blumfield, mother of two, a Society member that had “escaped,” had initiated a case against the cult to get her children returned to her. It had come to the FBI after the Big Island PD had asked for their help in investigating the child kidnapping complaint.

  “I don’t see any abuse happening from the data you sent, or from the visual surveillance.” Waxman’s voice sounded tinny and detached. “Where is the father of the children?”

  “They were fathered by Sandoval Jackson, the cult leader.” Sophie’s throat tightened on her reluctance to speak the words. She wanted this case. She’d pushed to get out from her computer lab and into the field to check out the complaint. The endless series of computer file reviews and hard drive reconstructions that made up the bulk of her work had been hard to concentrate on and find fulfilling, after the drama of her last case.

  For the first time in her life, Sophie felt restless ‘wired in’ to her computers. She wasn’t allowed to use DAVID, her data analysis program. She missed Alika and worried over his recovery from injuries, even though they weren’t a couple and she was having no luck locating the enigmatic online vigilante, the Ghost, whom she’d uncovered on that last big case, though they continued to chat and flirt online.