Paradise Crime Series Box Set

by Toby Neal

  “Why don’t you tell us, off the top of your head, what you are most concerned about regarding the Society of Light. You seem older than the usual people involved with the group,” Dunn said. He took out his phone. “I’d like to record you, if I may.”

  “You may not record me,” Corbett said with dignity. “But you can take notes. And I’m older because I was one of Sandoval Jackson’s Elders.”

  Dunn replaced his phone. Sophie never carried pen or paper, and wished she did in this instance. Clearly Dunn did too, as he made a writing gesture with his hand, his brows raised.

  Corbett shook his head. “Really? You don’t even have a pad of paper?” He gestured to the kitchen. “Left drawer next to the sink.” Dunn rose and retrieved a small tablet of hotel stationery from the drawer. He resumed his seat, withdrawing the steel pen he favored from a pocket.

  “An Elder,” Sophie read. “I read that there are five. And they basically run the financial and business end of the Society.”

  “We do.” Corbett cleared his throat, a hollow rattling sound. “Or did, I should say.” He took a breath, pinned Sophie with calm blue eyes. “I am ill. Cancer. When I began not feeling well, the doctor that lives at Waipio told Sandoval that she suspected I had cancer. He told me to make my peace, and that I had earned a place returning next time in the body of one of his children.” Corbett looked away, out the sliding glass door to a view of distant high rises and the sea. “Jackson asked me to consider rooska, to accelerate the process of my reincarnation. I had a crisis of faith when I realized I didn’t want to die…and because I knew he just wanted to replace me as an Elder. I had been one of the few who expressed opinions he didn’t like. He said he appreciated my gift for truth, but I knew that the minute he had a chance to replace me, I’d be gone.” Corbett coughed. Sophie got up and filled a water glass for him from the minimally appointed kitchen. The man sipped, nodding in thanks.

  “How did you get out?” Dunn asked.

  “I had business for the Society in Hilo. I simply didn’t return to the compound when it was completed. As Elders, we had a degree of trust and freedom that others did not.”

  “So in your time there, did you see and experience things that concerned you?” Dunn asked.

  Corbett raised tufted blond brows. “Really? You are asking me this. And here I sit, someone who has continued to speak out about the Society. Haven’t you read my blog?”

  “We need your direct testimony, if you’re willing,” Sophie said.

  Sophie listened while Dunn took notes on the things Corbett had seen and been a part of—activities that, if verified, would put Jackson away for a long time.

  “Can I ask you something?” Sophie said. “Do you think the cult might try to silence you?”

  “I think they’re waiting for the cancer to do that. They have a PR department that has painted me as a malcontent with a screw loose.” Corbett sipped his water, and his hand trembled.

  “Would you consider discontinuing the agitation? The blogging? We’d like to bring this man to justice. If we find hard evidence, we can turn it over to law enforcement, and you’d be a key witness. We want you safe,” Sophie said.

  “Young lady. I appreciate what you’re saying. But those are a lot of ifs, and the cancer is not an ‘if.’ The cancer is now, and if something I say or do can keep one person from joining the Society now, then it’s worth my last breath to speak.”

  Sophie and Dunn were silent on the drive back to the office. “I think it’s time we updated Bix,” Sophie said as Dunn navigated the company SUV into the secure garage.

  “I agree. I don’t want another spanking from him, and this thing is snowballing,” Dunn said.

  Sophie gave him a little punch to the shoulder. “What? Jake Dunn reporting to a superior?”

  “I know when to cover my ass, believe it or not, and I’m getting pretty concerned about what we’re uncovering here.” Dunn’s blue-and-gray eyes were grave as he looked at her. “This cult is bad news.”

  “I wish Waxman had let us investigate a little further. If we’d uncovered all of this, talked with Blumfield more…”

  “But there’s still no case from a law enforcement perspective. It’s still all hearsay, the reports of disenchanted former cult members.” Dunn put the vehicle in gear and turned it off. “I’ll text you when Bix can fit us in. I have an idea about how to get into the cult.”

  Some hours later, Kendall Bix leaned back in the office chair in the conference room. He pushed a hand through hair marked by wings of silver at his temples, brown eyes coolly intent. “So what I hear you asking in all this is for me to authorize you to go back into the cult, poke around, and look for evidence of these alleged bodies.”

  “Yes. And I have a plan to get Sophie in,” Dunn said. They’d been back at the office for a few hours, during which time Dunn had closeted himself in his office and Sophie had been working DAVID. They’d just presented the results of their last couple of days of investigations to the VP. “It’s not a full frontal attack. Sophie is going to go in undercover to an upcoming yoga retreat at the Waipio compound, and gather what she can. The retreat begins next Tuesday. I already have a spot reserved for a very dedicated yoga practitioner named Mary Watson.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dunn stuck his head in the door of Sophie’s office. “Seriously. I’m going to request that we get a door put in this wall over here so I can just yell over at you when I need to. Since you don’t want me to move in here.”

  Sophie looked up from the glowing screen before her, slightly disoriented from being sunk deep in DAVID’s data stream. “What?”

  “Never mind—it’s just that it’s Friday evening, and unlike the FBI, no work until Monday. Don’t stay late. You’ll make me look bad.”

  Sophie leaned back and rubbed her eyes. “This is all going to take some getting used to. I slept in the lab sometimes when I was on a case. We all did.”

  “It’s comforting to know how seriously you feds take your jobs. This is private sector and there are no current emergencies on this case. Whoever’s dead is already dead. Pack up and go home. Unless you’d like to join me for a ‘pau hana’ drink?” Dunn wiggled his brows.

  “No thanks, Dunn. I’ll wrap up when I reach a stopping point.”

  “Whatcha working on?” Dunn pushed his big body away from the doorjamb and entered. Being relentlessly curious was a good quality in an investigator, if a little annoying in a person.

  “Just tracking the cult’s money stream. You wouldn’t understand it.”

  Dunn narrowed his eyes. “Try me.” He came around the desk and leaned on his fists, looking over her shoulder.

  She should have known he would take that as a challenge.

  “These coded numbers are bank accounts. These are balances. When I get into each account I can see the direct deposits and amounts. Some are passive income that I can track to find what that money was. This one, for instance.” She clicked on one of the numbered deposits. “This goes to a big trust account at a bank in California. The name on the account is one of the missing women. I don’t think these brides were chosen for Jackson based on looks, fertility, and dedication. I think they were chosen for having the right background to feed money into his machine.”

  Dunn straightened up. “Sweet. We have motive, times three. I bet these women changed their estates to benefit the Society.”

  “Well, the tricky thing is that their estates wouldn’t come to the cult until they are declared legally dead, which takes seven years from time of disappearance. But each of these women was on a trust fund income, which was transferred to feed directly into the cult’s accounts. I was going to tell you all this, to follow up with on Monday morning after a restful weekend doing whatever it is you do.”

  Dunn leaned a hip on her desk. “Want to find out what I do on the weekend?”

  “No. Thank you. I’ve had quite enough togetherness with my partner for the moment. No offense.”

  Dunn wa
s opening his mouth for a rejoinder when a knock came from the doorway. “Sophie Ang?”

  They both looked up. A pimply-faced young man stood in the doorway holding an envelope.

  “Yes?”

  “Delivery for you.”

  Dunn pushed off of the desk as the young man approached and handed her an envelope. “You have been served.”

  Sophie’s mouth, opened to thank the kid, stayed that way as the young man turned and strode out.

  “Hey!” Dunn roared out from behind her desk and took off after the kid. She heard the rumbling interrogation in the hallway as he captured his prey.

  Questioning the messenger wasn’t going to change whatever was in her hand.

  She looked down at it. An FBI logo and Quantico address decorated one corner, with LEGAL DEPARTMENT underneath. Her name, c/o Security Solutions, and the business address of this building marked the front of the envelope.

  At least they didn’t currently know where she lived. That was something she’d taken a lot of time, effort, and cash to ensure. But it was too much to hope that the FBI wouldn’t find her here, of course.

  Sophie slid a finger under the flap of the envelope and loosened it.

  Dunn reappeared, shaking his head. “Messenger service. Kid doesn’t know anything.”

  “I know what this is.” Sophie removed the folded paper and opened it.

  SUMMONS TO APPEAR IN FEDERAL COURT blared at her from the top line.

  Sophie skimmed, feeling the heat of Dunn’s presence as he came around to read over her shoulder.

  A court date one month from today had been set “in the matter of the legal ownership of the program known as Data Assessment Victim Information Database.” The Honorable Judge Reimbold would be presiding. Sophie’s patent was still under review, and until it was awarded, she was vulnerable.

  “Those fuckers.” Dunn’s big hand squeezed her shoulder. “They’ve been taking more than they’re entitled to since J. Edgar Hoover.”

  Sophie blinked. The letters on the paper had just disintegrated into meaningless gibberish. “Why don’t you take off, Dunn. I have some phone calls I have to make.”

  “No. Let me help. I can…”

  “No, Jake!” Sophie snarled. “This is my private business, started before I came to work here. I’m handling it. Now get out of my office and give me some space!”

  Dunn drew himself upright, gray eyes hurt. “If that’s how you want it.” He strode out, shutting the door hard.

  Sophie looked back down at the letter again and swore long and fluently in Thai, then folded it neatly and replaced it in the envelope. She picked up the handset of the office phone and called her lawyer, Bettina Smithers, and apprised her of the court date and the situation.

  “I knew this was coming, but it’s still a shock to see it in black and white. They really think they can steal my work from me.”

  “Well, you have work logs on the hard drive of the computer you used while you were creating DAVID, right? And it wasn’t an FBI computer?” Bettina Smithers was a stylish forty-something black woman based out of Los Angeles. Smithers loved patents and inventions and the hapless people who always seemed to fall prey to those trying to steal them. The Smithers contact had come from her father, whose diplomatic job helped him cross paths with professionals in many different positions. “Let’s have a Skype meeting tomorrow and revisit our strategy and I’ll see what I can come up with. For now, I’ll file a stay-put motion so you can keep using DAVID legally up until the court decision.”

  They set up a time for their conference the next day.

  Sophie sagged in her chair as she hung up. She had to call her father and tell him all that had gone on, including her departure from his apartment, but she didn’t feel strong enough for that conversation just yet. He was going to be worried and upset that she’d left.

  Right now, she needed to pick Ginger up from doggie daycare.

  Sophie shut down DAVID, saving all the data she’d collected on the case to the cloud, and unplugged the laptop.

  The heaviness of depression sucked at Sophie, deadening her energy as she stood, flicked off the lights, walked out of the office and took the stairs down to the secure garage.

  The depression rose around her like a dark greasy fog, engulfing her as she drove the Lexus to the public parking garage where she stored it, only a few blocks from the doggie daycare. She parked the Lexus and changed inside it into Mary Watson’s flowing sundress, sandals, and pretty straw hat.

  Collecting her backpack filled with everything that mattered to her from the back seat, she beeped the SUV locked for the weekend and went two floors down in the garage to Mary Watson’s beater truck. She drove the truck out of the garage, the hat down to shield her face from any cameras, turning out onto busy Kalakaua Avenue.

  She picked up Ginger and headed home.

  The dog, sitting on the battered, sandy passenger seat beside her, sensed her mood and whined, thick tail lashing. “Yeah, you want a beach walk, don’t you? It’s ‘pau hana’ Friday, as Jake reminded me. We might as well stop at the beach on the way home.”

  Maybe a beach walk at sunset in Honolulu, a gorgeous event any day of the week, would head off the crippling malaise swamping her brain.

  Driving on autopilot took her to Ala Moana Park. The sunset was indeed a glorious sight, painting the sea and sky with scarlet and gold, touching poufy cumulus clouds with Maxfield Parrish glory.

  But walking in sand warm from the day, little waves curling around her feet, Mary’s soft rayon dress blowing around her legs, just emphasized her isolation. Her loneliness. Her emptiness. The futility of all she’d tried to rebuild of her life after Assan Ang—now in prison, but likely to be extradited to Hong Kong for trial if he hadn’t been already.

  Assan had judges on speed dial in Hong Kong. But never mind. He, at least, was no longer her problem. She’d paid a high price to make sure of that.

  Sophie walked the length of the beach and back. Ginger panted happily as they climbed back in the car and drove “home” to the awful little apartment.

  What was she going to do with herself for a whole weekend?

  Oh yes. She had a phone conference with her lawyer tomorrow.

  And she had a hike-run with Connor Remarkian in the morning.

  If she could find the energy for it, which was unlikely. Better to cancel now. The thought of interacting with Connor’s upbeat personality, dragging herself on a strenuous run-hike was almost as repellent an idea as having to see Jake Dunn again any time soon.

  Sophie narrowed her eyes at Ginger, currently rolling on her feet, whimpering in bliss that she’d had a walk and was now home with her mistress. Life is good when you’re a dog.

  Sophie composed a text to Connor from her burner phone, canceling the hike because she was sick. In a way she was: sick the way that her mother had been. Sick at the heart. Sick to the core. Sick of the fight that was living.

  But she didn’t send it. Not yet. Maybe she would feel better in the morning, and exercise always helped her dig out from under the boulder. No. She couldn’t cancel. It would be good for her. Medicinal, like castor oil, or the herbs her aunt used to dose her with in Thailand.

  She fed Ginger.

  In the shower, she stroked the tattoos in Thai that were a part of her new life, a reminder of what she sought: the inside of one arm reminded her, hope and respect. The other, power and truth. On the exterior of one thigh, freedom. On the other courage. Circling her navel in tiny writing, were love, joy and bliss.

  Maybe someday she’d have some semblance of any of those.

  Sophie dried off and walked naked into her tiny bedroom. She drew the blackout drapes she’d bought at Target. She fell onto her blow-up mattress, drew up her blanket, and sank into the oblivion of sleep.

  Stars spun in her vision, obscuring the man’s face as she tried to break his hold with her good hand, writhing beneath him. He’d landed on top of her, sour breath inches from her face, his fingers
squeezing her throat. The razor sliced down toward her, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Sophie.” He breathed her name in the voice of nightmare. She opened her eyes. She was looking into her ex Assan Ang’s face, congested with rage and adrenaline, his panting breaths burning her skin, his bloodshot eyes inches from hers.

  His hand tightened and her breath shut off. His weight on her body and his practiced grasp on her throat were as effective as ever. A slow grin twisted his full lips.

  “My Sophie.” The razor caressed her cheek. “I didn’t dare hope it would be you coming after me. This is just too good.”

  Sophie felt blackness closing in. A sense of hopelessness and inevitability rose up and swamped her. It was as if the whole five years between her escape and this moment had never happened.

  “You’re mine until I’m done with you,” he breathed into her ear. Goose bumps erupted as she shuddered, gasping in vain for breath. One arm was trapped beneath him, one raised beside her head but still nerveless from the blow. Her heart lurched as his big hand depressed the nerves and veins in her neck, just as he’d done a hundred times in the past.

  She was disappearing, conditioned by his assault and smothered by his weight.

  He was going to kill her this time. She’d seen that in the exultant certainty in his eyes as he recognized her. Her heart felt like it was bursting. Her vision dimmed as he raised the razor.

  Sophie thrashed, and her arm connecting with Ginger’s furry bulk woke her up. She sat upright, bathed in sweat, panting.

  She’d survived. He couldn’t hurt her anymore.

  She lay back down, and Ginger snuggled close. She draped an arm over the warm, smelly dog.

  It was a long time before she fell asleep again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Connor Remarkian strode up to Sophie in the parking lot the next morning. Ginger slavishly groveled and wagged at the sight of Anubis, his stately Doberman. The only indication of Anubis’s excitement was the swiveling of his pricked, cropped ears.