Paradise Crime Series Box Set

by Toby Neal

  “I don’t need to see your hair dye, your fake glasses, your glue-on goatee,” Sophie snarled. “But I do need to know why you played with my emotions as Sheldon Hamilton. And why you’re revealing yourself to me now.” Tears stung as she stared into his eyes, breathing too fast.

  “I discovered you as Hamilton. I fell in love with you as Hamilton: through watching you on video. Through our duel of wits. Through getting to know the woman you are.” Connor held her gaze. “I love you. I’m not afraid to say those words. I’ve never known another woman like you, nor will I ever meet anyone to equal you.”

  Sophie sat back down in the chair, a puppet with cut strings.

  “I encouraged you to become attached to Hamilton because he was all I had to connect to you, and I didn’t know how to bridge the gap between his identity and Todd’s. I tried to build a friendship with you through Todd, but from the first, I knew it was already too late—I could tell you felt no attraction to Todd, and I couldn’t help hoping it was because your emotions were engaged elsewhere. And then you told me you had feelings for Hamilton the other night, even though I’d been able to kiss you as Todd…” He paused, and through her own labored breathing, Sophie heard his anguish. “I almost died the other day. I can’t go on living a lie with you. I see no way out but to trust you as myself. Trust you to keep my identity as the Ghost secret—or turn me in, as you see fit. Whatever you choose, I won’t fight it.”

  “I have to get out of here.” The room’s walls seemed to be closing in on her. Sophie tried to stand but her knees buckled. Relax. Breathe. He’s not going to hurt you. The bastard just said he loves you.

  “I’m so sorry,” Connor said. “I would like to start over.”

  His words got her on her feet. Sophie turned to spear him with a glance. “With who? Hamilton? Remarkian? Who are you? You know my history. How could you imagine I’d ever be able to trust you after this?”

  “Connor! I’m Connor, and that’s the truth, and all that really matters!” Connor’s face was white with effort and pain as he thumped his chest, his wound. “See me, I’m right here. Have the courage to know me! You’re a hypocrite, Mary Watson!”

  Sophie winced as the arrow struck. They stared at each other for a long moment. There was no sound in the quiet room but both of their ragged breathing.

  “Goodbye, whoever you are,” Sophie said.

  She turned and left—but she didn’t run out, because that would have given him too much power. She squelched the little voice that told her how hard it was going to be for him to make it back to bed alone with his wound. She didn’t walk out of the secret apartment, either, because she hadn’t yet decided what to do about the Ghost, and Monique would wonder how she’d disappeared.

  No, she went back through the secret door, and out through his bedroom, shutting the door behind her and telling Monique something had come up and that she had to go. “Mr. Remarkian is resting. Don’t go in until he calls for you.”

  And once she was safe and alone in her car in the underground garage, Sophie covered her face with her hands and cried.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Three days later, the Security Solutions helicopter entered the Waipio Valley through the wide, deep opening of its bay. As always, the sight of the place stole Sophie’s breath: the patchwork of small farms, the winding green snake of the river, the thick vivid layers of green vegetation, the steep, velvety slopes of the valley, and the tumbling plume of the huge waterfall at the back.

  “This is a stupid idea,” Dunn said into Sophie’s comm. “There’s nothing new here. I don’t know why we’re doing this.”

  Sophie didn’t reply, because she could see the stress in Dunn’s tight muscles, in the big hand he clenched and unclenched on his thigh. This field trip was Dr. Kinoshita’s idea, since both of them were having trouble sleeping and flashbacks relating to the case. “You need to have closure, a different experience out there. I will come with you. We’ll process,” the psychologist had insisted.

  Sophie had cursed long and fluently in Thai as Dunn got up and walked out of the conference room when Kinoshita had delivered her bomb—but now, here they both were, with the psychologist up front with the pilot.

  The cult compound came into view, the gate around it still closed.

  Hilo PD had informed them that the site was empty, the crime scene tape removed now that they had recovered the remains from the garden area. The cult, expelled by police, had taken the opportunity to relocate to their location in Costa Rica—with the exception of Sandoval Jackson, prevented from leaving the country by removal of his passport and a million-dollar bail pending his court date.

  Sophie felt her pulse pick up as she identified the place where she and Dunn had gone over the wall, marked by a gap in the wire.

  The dump truck was gone, as was the pit, now filled in with sifted soil. The accountant who’d committed suicide and the first woman to disappear, Mandy Newburt, had been buried deep, under the labyrinth’s central mandala. Sophie could almost feel the toe bone she’d found in the dark that night in her hand—forensics had matched it to the missing Amy Fillmore.

  Amy Fillmore and Jennifer Roberts had been dismembered and integrated into the compost heap. The rich black compost, made of yard waste and manure, had been run through a shredder after it was well broken down. The bodies had then been spread over the huge garden. No wonder those lettuces were so lush.

  Sophie wasn’t sure if she was airsick or just nauseated by the thought of the salads she’d eaten at the retreat.

  The chopper settled into the center of the compound. The pilot got out, checking something on the landing gear and giving them a moment of privacy. Kinoshita turned back to face them as they removed their helmets. “How are you two doing?”

  Dunn looked pale. His eyes were the gray of a winter storm. “Never wanted to see this place again, quite frankly.” He glanced at Sophie. “Last time I was here, my partner was bleeding like a stuck pig, her face all shot to hell, and I was carrying her to this chopper wondering if she was going to live.”

  “I’m fine now, thanks to you.” Sophie touched his arm. “I’m absolutely sure I’d be dead right now if you hadn’t got up from being electrocuted to rescue me.”

  “And maybe I’d be the one with the pirate look now. Damn, you stole that sexy scar from me.” Dunn was trying to make light of it, but Sophie could see the strain in his face, his body. “And then, because I didn’t kill him, Sloane came after you again, and Remarkian almost died.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Sophie said. “Can you two give me a moment of privacy? I want to go check out the gravesite. Alone.”

  Dunn shook his head no, but Kinoshita nodded in agreement, so Sophie hit the handle of the helicopter and pushed the door open.

  The humid air smelled of diesel fumes from the chopper, but also of the lush green growing scent that was such a part of the valley. The yurts were deserted, their doors closed, as Sophie walked around a couple of them toward the former garden. Nothing stirred in the compound but a forgotten towel, flapping on a clothesline behind one of the buildings, and a loose chicken that ran squawking at the sight of her.

  The silence was strange when she remembered so much sound during the retreat: the background cluck of the chickens, the chatter of the children, the music of guitar and flute.

  Sophie hadn’t expected to be sad that this place was over and done.

  The huge hole she remembered standing on the lip of had been filled—smooth, raked-looking soil made a blank expanse. Sophie knelt at the edge of the disturbed area, lifted a handful of soil, sifted it through her fingers. Of course. The police had gone through all of it looking for bits of the bodies. What a messy unpleasant job that must have been…

  “I can’t believe you had the nerve to come back.”

  Sophie stood, the handful of soil clutched in her fist.

  Jessie Sparks faced her from twenty yards away. The woman before her looked like a scarecrow ghost of the prett
y woman she’d been, the bulge of her pregnancy distending a smock-like orange dress. Her shiny, curling brown hair now hung in matted clumps, her plump cheeks were caved in, and her legs looked too skinny to support her swollen body.

  Sparks held a gun, pointed at Sophie—a chrome Beretta.

  The cult must have bought them in bulk on sale. The irrelevant thought appeared and seemed to hover, as if in a comment bubble, over Sophie’s head.

  I’m getting awfully tired of looking down the barrel of this particular model.

  Sparks had been concealed in one of the yurts whose door still hung open. They should have checked all the buildings to make sure that the compound was clear.

  So much for the therapeutic visit.

  Dunn is going to be so pissed.

  Each thought blipped through her mind separately.

  So this is the kind of stupid thing that you think about right before you die.

  “I’m sorry.” Sophie slowly raised her hands. “For whatever it is you think I’ve done.”

  The helicopter’s view of her position was blocked by one of the yurts. She flicked her gaze around, looking for Dunn. She had her weapon, but it was snapped into her shoulder holster and might as well be on another planet.

  “You killed him.” Sparks’s hands shook. She raised the pistol and tracked from Sophie’s head, to her chest, to her abdomen and back again as if unable to decide what to shoot first. “You killed the love of my life. My baby’s father.”

  “What do you mean? Jackson’s alive.” Sophie’s lips felt numb. The madness in the young woman’s eyes was somehow more terrifying than Dougal Sloane’s murderous intent.

  Someone had come to the door of the yurt. A man stood behind Sparks.

  “Jessie.” The resonant voice with its Scottish burr was smooth as cream liqueur. “Jessie, what are you doing?”

  “This woman killed Dougal.” Sparks’s hands trembled but her eyes were steel. Sophie could feel the young woman’s emotional instability oscillating around them like a force field.

  “Did I hear you say—Dougal was the love of your life?” Jackson was descending the stairs behind Sparks. “But you’re with me.”

  “No, no, I’m not. Never was. This is Dougal’s baby.” Sparks let go of the gun with one hand so the other could caress her rounded abdomen. “I slept with you so I wouldn’t get kicked out of the Society.”

  Jackson approached her, his voice flowing like oil over troubled waters, his gaze serene, as Sparks divided a glare between him and Sophie. “We can work all of this out. You shouldn’t stress yourself. It’s not good for the child. Perhaps it’s Dougal coming to join you again, when you give birth.”

  Sparks reared back in revulsion. “That’s totally perverted! You are a fake, Sandoval, and I’m done swallowing your lies!”

  She turned and shot Jackson, the report of the weapon shockingly loud.

  Sophie dove for the ground as the cult leader’s hands came up to clutch his neck, blood spurting between his fingers. Sparks spun back and shot the place where Sophie had just been standing.

  She fired again and again, screaming with rage, as Sophie rolled frantically—until the sound of another gunshot, much louder, silenced the onslaught.

  Jake Dunn, saving her again.

  Sparks’s wailing cry showed she was still alive. Sophie, face turned sideways in the soft loam of the gravesite, closed her eyes and murmured a prayer of gratitude.

  She turned her head at the thunder of Dunn’s footsteps passing and saw him kick the pistol away from Sparks’s foot as the woman screamed in outraged horror and pain. Even from where Sophie lay, she could see that Sparks was missing two fingers.

  “You okay?”

  “Good shot, Jake.” Sophie let Dunn pull her to her feet. “Good thing Sparks has terrible aim.”

  “Tell that to Sandoval Jackson.” Dunn gestured with his head to where Dr. Kinoshita and the pilot were vainly trying to administer first aid to the cult leader as he bled out messily. “We really screwed up not checking that the compound was clear.”

  “I know. Son of a two-headed yak. This could all have been prevented.” Sophie walked over to Sparks.

  The pregnant woman had collapsed to the ground, her bleeding hand wrapped in her skirt and pressed between her thighs. She’d stopped screaming, but her gaze up at Sophie was just as hate-filled as before.

  Sophie stared down at her. “I pity your child. It will be taken from you as soon as it’s born, while you serve a sentence for murder.”

  “Screw you,” Sparks hissed. “You don’t know true love.”

  No, Sophie didn’t—and if this was where it ended, she didn’t want to.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Sophie tugged at her ex-FBI gray suit jacket as she left the Honolulu PD video conference room, where she’d just finished giving an official statement to Hilo PD regarding the death of Dougal Sloane and the events at the compound. The case was on its way to being officially ruled self-defense by the Honolulu investigators on their case, and her step was a little lighter leaving than it had been going in.

  Dunn had insisted on coming in with her for “moral support” even though the detectives interviewing her had made him wait outside. He fell in step with her as Sophie strode down the hall and out the front door of the Honolulu Police Department building. He’d been relentless in his attempts to get her back to work at Security Solutions. “Since you’re out and about, I was hoping you could come into the office for a few. I have someone who wants to see you.”

  Sophie stopped on the cement steps outside and turned to him, her heart kicking into overdrive. Would Connor show up at the Security Solutions building? It would be perfectly normal for him to do that, considering he was the boss.

  Light wind played with the few curls long enough to cover some of the scar on her head, but the damn skin graft hurt every time she went into the sun. Sophie fumbled in her oversized purse, smacked on her hat and pushed on her sunglasses. “Who is it?”

  “Our former client. Sharon Blumfield. Who were you expecting? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Sophie gave a snort of hysterical laughter. She’d hardly slept or eaten in the last couple of days with the depression so bad, the wrestling match in her mind so severe. She’d only been able to get herself together enough to come down to the station because the alternative was a bench warrant for her arrest.

  Dunn clapped her on the back.

  “Get it together, woman. This is a good thing. Come with me. I promise you’ll like it.”

  “Okay. Since you promise I’ll like it. I’ve had too many things I really didn’t like lately.”

  She followed Dunn down the steps and got into her vehicle. Dunn was refreshingly transparent and heavy-handed. Whatever else he was, there was no subterfuge in him—and subterfuge was something she’d had enough of.

  Sharon Blumfield met them in the reception area on the ground floor of the Security Solutions building, and she wasn’t alone.

  Her children, the boy, Lono and girl, Pele, who Sophie and Jake had rescued, put down comic books and stood to greet her—and two more children behind them also rose. Zeus, the thirteen-year-old boy she’d met at the retreat, and his sister Hera were brushed and scrubbed, wearing bright new clothing. Sophie came to a halt in front of the four kids and took off her sunglasses. “Hello. I’m Sophie Ang.”

  “And I’m Jake Dunn. Forget shaking hands. You can high-five.” Jake got Zeus to try it, along with a complicated fist-bump combination that made them all laugh. Ice broken, Sophie helped Sharon tug chairs into a rough circle.

  “You were Mary Watson at the Society. We wondered where you’d gone,” Zeus said, when they were all seated. “Dougal told me you didn’t like the yoga class and ran for the hills.”

  “That’s true, in a manner of speaking.”

  “What happened to your face?” Pele asked.

  “I got shot. This is a skin graft. They took skin from my hip and put it on my face.” Sophi
e smiled, hoping it wasn’t too scary of an effect, but their expressions weren’t encouraging. She turned back to their former client. “Ms. Blumfield, thanks so much for bringing the kids in to talk with us.”

  “The least I could do. Zeus and Hera are going to live with us—their other relatives can’t care for them right now, and the therapist we’re all seeing suggested we all get some closure by seeing our rescuers in person—and the kids really wanted to see you again.”

  Dunn told the story of rescuing Lono and Pele to Zeus and Hera with many an embellishment—enough to make Sophie roll her eyes.

  “How do you feel about…Sandoval Jackson’s death?” Sophie asked.

  “Our father, you mean?” Zeus was perfectly composed. “He’s going to come back soon. Probably in the body of someone close by, so he can be near us.”

  Sophie met Blumfield’s gaze over the top of the boy’s head. The woman gave a slight headshake.

  “That’s good then,” Sophie said lamely. “So. Have you any questions for us?”

  “We want to see your equipment lab! All the stuff you have, like Batman!” Pele exclaimed.

  Sharon laughed. “The kids have been glutting themselves on TV since we all got outside. Old Batman reruns seemed harmless, and now the kids think Jake is Batman and Sophie is Catwoman.”

  “Not really. I just think you’re kind of like superheroes,” Pele said, ducking her head in embarrassment.

  “It so happens I’ve got a few things I can show you in our lab,” Dunn said. “Follow me.” He took off like the Pied Piper, the kids in pursuit.

  “I heard Sloane was the one who shot you,” Blumfield said.

  Sophie turned her face away from Blumfield’s gaze. “Yes.”

  “The man was a pig. I hated him.”

  “He’s dead now. And not coming back.” The memory of Sloane’s drowning body under her knee made her shudder.

  Blumfield set a hand on Sophie’s arm. “Your face will get better. And your heart will too. We just really wanted to thank you. All of the children are doing remarkably well in their new homes, with their grandparents and other relatives. I was delighted to take Zeus and Hera—my kids were so used to the group living situation that they cried for days, missing their brothers and sisters. We’re going to bring them all together often.”