Constant Craving (Task Force Hawaii #3)

by Melissa Schroeder

  “This is my target?” he asked as he tore his attention away from the picture. “She looks like a sorority girl.”

  “Don’t be so fooled,” Tsu said. “I’ve been to a few of her lectures. She regularly gets asked to write articles and, on top of that, the University of Hawaii has been after her to teach a class. She’s sharp as a tack.”

  “She also has a record,” Remington said.

  That definitely caught his attention. “She has a record? How is she working at TFH?” TJ asked.

  “She was a juvenile. Broke into the school to change grades.”

  “Sure, every hacker thinks of doing that at one time or another,” TJ said. In fact, TJ’s three brothers had bugged him often once they reached the age to understand their brother’s abilities.

  “Not hers. Woman had straight A’s through high school.”

  “But she broke in to change her grades?”

  “Yeah. Doesn’t say why since it was juvenile, and apparently her father’s family has a lot of pull in the town, so the charges were dropped. Then she went to University of Georgia. Dropped out her junior year.”

  “Dropped out?”

  There was a beat of silence. “Happens sometimes, you know that with computer geeks.”

  “But this says she is a forensics tech.”

  “Yes, and she is very good at her job. She can handle all of that and hack like a damned expert. She wrote a few papers, and they got noticed by several agencies. We tried to recruit her—as did the NSA—but the CIA snapped her up before we could. She worked there for a while before she headed off to a few other places before landing in Hawaii. Seems to be settling in since she bought an apartment.”

  The itch was getting worse. Damn, this was going to be beyond a shit assignment. “Great. She’s going to smell this a mile away.”

  “What I need you to do is just be the liaison,” Tsu said. “It will be a few days, tops.”

  “And then I just disappear? That’s going to go over well.”

  “They’ve been screaming for a liaison for months. It won’t raise any flags.”

  He studied Tsu. “So, I’m the lamb to the slaughter, is that it?”

  He shrugged. “In a way. I couldn’t get a designation for someone to work with them until now.”

  “Until you think one of them broke several federal laws and is working with a criminal, who not only has been fucking us over for three years, but likes to profit off the deaths of our agents. Gotta love the FBI.”

  “I’m using it the best I can,” Tsu said. “If nothing comes of the investigation, you can keep working with them. We’ve needed someone over there for more than a year, but the Bureau wasn’t happy when Hawaii decided to form a task force like this.”

  Of course they weren’t. The FBI thought they ran the entire country and everyone should bow to their power. It worked sometimes, but even in the few months TJ had been living in Hawaii, he’d learned you couldn’t force Hawaiians to do what they didn’t want to. It was one of the things he loved about living there. They were the epitome of dancing to the beat of their own drum.

  “So, instead of working with them, and taking some of the load off us, the Bureau decided to be assholes and not give them a liaison?”

  “Until now. And, we can justify it now that you’ll have the job,” Tsu said.

  “Doesn’t really matter in the end,” Remington said.

  “Why not?” TJ asked.

  “If their forensics tech is working for a cyber-criminal like Foley, then I doubt TFH will survive.”

  And TJ was going to be the lucky bastard who got to rip it apart.

  Chapter Two

  Monday morning arrived too early for Charity. It started with her alarm not going off. Or, maybe she turned it off in her sleep. She didn’t remember. Rushing in the morning was never a good thing, and she did it more than she liked to admit. Later than usual, she didn’t even have time to jump in the shower.

  She grabbed her favorite black skirt with white polka dots and stepped into it. Why did they have Monday mornings anyway? They all sucked. Sucked a lot. No one wanted to be there and if they got a case on a Monday it was an omen. It was going to be a crappy case that would give Del what she called his “aneurism” face.

  Charity hurried into her bathroom and checked out her outfit. It was one of her favorites, and always left her feeling powerful. The knit white shirt hugged her curves and paired nicely with the skirt. As she applied her lipstick, she thought about the weekend. It had been fantastic. Still, spending time with Drew and his family always left her feeling a little homesick.

  With a sigh, she capped the lipstick, and headed back into her bedroom. She grabbed a white scarf and walked out into the living room.

  Drew was sitting on the couch watching TV. She knew that he hadn’t slept much the night before. While a lot of people in the midst of depression might sleep a lot, Drew did the opposite. She heard him walking the apartment at all hours of the night. They didn’t speak of it—not yet. She was easing into it. She knew he was restless and that was good. He needed another week or two, then she would push more. It was all a delicate process to get Drew back on his feet.

  “You’re going to be late,” Drew said, without looking at her.

  She glanced at him. He was still staring at the TV.

  “It’s only 8 o’clock, and remember, I live closer than I did before.”

  He rolled his eyes and picked up Luke, her male cat, as she walked into the kitchen. She knew he hadn’t eaten breakfast, and would avoid eating for awhile. Pushing those thoughts aside, she grabbed an energy bar. She snatched up her purse and tossed the bar at Drew, who caught it without looking.

  “Good reflexes, slick,” she said. “Just make sure you eat it.”

  Jess came sauntering in, unhappy with the situation. Both her cats had decided they owned Drew, and did not like when the other got attention.

  “Why don’t you come by for lunch?” she asked, as she wrapped the scarf around her head and tied it at the base of her neck.

  “I’ll let you know.”

  She knew it was a lie. He wasn’t going to come into work, hadn’t since the shooting. Six months earlier, he’d almost died, and Drew still hadn’t worked through the issues. Of course, the fact that his brief romance with Cat Kalakau had hit the skids after the shooting did nothing to help things. Work and romance rarely worked, even though it had seemed to for a couple others on the team.

  “You know you can call me any time. Seems we have nothing going on at work at the moment.”

  Drew shrugged. “The moment you think you have nothing to do, everything will explode in your face.”

  “You are just a little ray of sunshine.”

  He gave her a smile that had nothing to do with humor. “Just being a truth teller.”

  “Well, then you might want to think about helping Elle out.”

  Drew was Elle’s assistant in the ME office for TFH, or he had been. She was sick of using that phrase in her head about him. Knowing that starting an argument right now was the worst way to start off a Monday, she brushed it aside.

  “Remember, call me,” she said as she grabbed her coffee.

  He waved a hand in her direction. She wanted to throw something at him, but there was a good chance her own cats would attack her. And, more than likely, Drew wouldn’t even notice it. Shaking her head, she decided concentrating on getting to work was more than enough for her to handle at the moment.

  TJ fought the need to pull on his collar. He hated deception. It made no sense that he was good at undercover work since he loathed to lie, but he apparently had a knack for it. That’s why he found himself standing in front of the captain for Task Force Hawaii Monday morning.

  “So, the FBI decided to stop dicking us around?” Captain Delano said.

  TJ smiled. “Now, I wouldn’t go that far.”

  Delano chuckled. “Please, sit down. Makes me feel like I’m in the Army again with you standing there.”
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  TJ did as Delano asked. In the few minutes he had spent in Delano’s presence, TJ discovered that he liked him. Former military, no nonsense, and blunt to a fault. TJ would take that over slick and smooth talking any day. He liked to know where he stood with a person. There was no doubt in TJ’s mind that a person would know exactly how Delano felt about him. He liked someone or he hated them. Delano would probably have no gray areas in his life.

  “We aren’t that formal here, so you might not like dealing with us much.”

  “I’ve heard that about you.”

  “I like a man who speaks his mind.”

  Delano leaned back, and the casual observer would look at him and think he was relaxing. TJ knew better. The former Army officer’s gaze moved over TJ, and he had to fight the need to fidget. It was an odd feeling, one he rarely got; except when his father was studying him. Delano didn’t miss anything with that clear gaze.

  “You’re probably the first public official that would,” TJ said.

  “I value honesty above blind devotion. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like people to buck orders, but I do like to have open communications. Our team thrives on it. So, the fact that you are honest means we’ll deal well with each other. Most of the office will be gathering for a meeting in a few minutes, so it will be easiest to introduce you to them.”

  “Most? Not all?”

  “Well, Cat is on vacation over on Maui. Then we have one out due to injury. Oh, and there is always a good chance Charity will be late. She lives the closest, but the woman is hardly ever on time.”

  “And you put up with that because?”

  “First, she’s only late by five minutes most of the time. If you have lived here for any amount of time, you know everything runs late in Hawaii. Second, she’s a first rate forensic tech who rarely asks for overtime pay. We were lucky to nab her here for the salary we offered. When you meet her you’ll understand.”

  He didn’t need to meet her to understand. He had spent the weekend working on installing his kitchen cabinets and reading up on Charity Edwards. She not only had a first rate mind when it came to computers, but some of her forensic testing had been adopted by not only the HPD, but also the FBI. It was her ability to think outside the box that had garnered her the most success.

  That’s what worried TJ the most. A person with no real rules of engagement when it came to testing often would take chances in other parts of her life—including getting tangled up with Foley. It would be out of character, but he wasn’t sure he could pin down her.

  “What might help is if you give me an explanation of how you handle a case with the team.”

  Delano nodded. “We don’t have partners on the team.”

  “Then how do you work a case?”

  “We structured the team to work together at all times. The FBI has files on all of us, so you can get an idea that we all have different strengths.”

  “Group management?”

  “No.” The denial was quick enough to tell TJ that Delano didn’t have a problem with the question. “I’m in charge, but I do believe that our structure allows us to solve cases that might give other departments issues.”

  “I don’t know how that would work in the real world.”

  “First, we are the real world.”

  “Noted,” TJ said, acknowledging he had hit a nerve.

  “Working a case within HPD is hard. In any department. My team isn’t graded on their amount of collars. We all get credit. So, they aren’t trying to steal cases from each other. It wouldn’t work in a bigger department. A small department like ours has our advantages, but we do have our limits. We aren’t here for normal policing. We normally take on one case at a time, all of working the same issue. When they throw the case at us, it is either a hot case, crosses state and federal lines, or it is a FUBAR that no one wants. We have to work differently to succeed.”

  TJ nodded. “Makes sense.”

  And it did. They had a pretty high success rate their first eighteen months in existence.”

  Delano studied him. “You like doing everything by the book?”

  “Yeah, for the most part.”

  “Oh, you are going to have fun with us.”

  Charity walked into TFH headquarters and found everyone hanging out in the conference area, which was about normal since they had an early morning meeting. This morning though, there was something different.

  “Where’s the boss?” she asked.

  Emma, Del’s wife, rubbed her hand over her rounded belly and nodded toward Del’s office door. She was in the last six weeks of her pregnancy. “Looks like we finally have an FBI liaison.”

  Charity turned towards the door, and immediately lost almost every thought in her brain. Good lord, the man walking beside Del was gorgeous. He was tall, about the same height as Del, who was well over six feet. But, he wasn’t bulky like Del. He had more of what they called a swimmer’s build. Long and lean. He had slightly wavy dirty blond hair. She wanted to slip her fingers through his thick locks. He had a tan, not uncommon in Hawaii, but it looked natural on him. The golden tone to his skin brought out his light gray eyes. He dressed in a suit and a tie that made him stand out in Hawaii. Even the mayor of Honolulu didn’t wear a tie. Usually, she would dismiss him because of that, but there was something about him. He definitely knew how to wear a suit.

  “Oh, great, everyone is here,” Del said.

  “Drew is still not here and Cat’s on leave,” Emma said. Emma Delano was a genius, who took almost every statement literally.

  Del shook his head. “I mean all of us who are active at the moment.”

  She shrugged and said nothing. From the disinterest she was showing, Charity knew Emma had something else on her mind. Her brain was always working on something.

  “This is Agent TJ Callahan of the FBI. He’s our new liaison with the feds, so make nice with him.”

  Charity glanced at the agent in question to see if he was irritated. From the way his mouth twitched, Charity was guessing he wasn’t.

  “This is the team. You can learn all their names as they go along.”

  Adam stepped forward with a smile. As second-in-command, he was a formidable man, well over six feet tall, a shiny bald head, and his Hawaiian and Polynesian ancestry stamped on his pretty face. His size made him intimidating, but Charity knew the fierce look hid a softer side.

  “Hey, Hammer,” he said, shaking the agent’s hand. “So, I see they stuck you with this job.”

  “What can I say? The boss loves me.”

  “I didn’t know you knew Adam,” Del said.

  “We met during that first responders conference year before last,” Agent Callahan said. “I had just moved to the island, and you were with the HPD then, right?”

  “Yeah. Moved over here a few months later. I can show you around TFH if you want.”

  “Sounds good, but truth is, I’m not going to be haunting the hallways.”

  “Sure,” Emma said, rubbing her rounded tummy. “That’s what Carino from HPD said, and he is over here all the time.”

  “He says we have better food,” Marcus said.

  “We do,” Emma said. “As long as he knows not to spread the word around. I am not sharing any cocoa puffs with those losers.”

  “Emma, I’ve asked you not to call them losers,” Del said. Since becoming pregnant, Emma had become a little mercenary about food, especially her favorite treat.

  “They come in here and take one of my cocoa puffs, they won’t be losers. They’ll be dead.”

  Del shook his head and apparently decided to ignore that comment. “So, why don’t I introduce you to the team.”

  Del’s phone went off before he could begin, and he looked at the screen. The grimace meant it was someone he did not want to talk to.

  “It’s the mayor. Adam, can you handle this?”

  “I was born for the job,” Adam said.

  “Thanks. I’ll catch you later, Callahan. Good to have you on board.”
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  He clicked on his phone as he headed to his office for privacy.

  Adam smiled. “So, you know me, which is the most important person to know.”

  “I bet your mother tells you that,” Marcus said.

  “Of course she does. She’s a smart woman.” He motioned toward Emma. “This is Emma Delano, she’s one of our contractors.”

  “Hey. Do you like cocoa puffs?”

  TJ blinked, trying to follow the conversation. Most people looked like that the first time they had a conversation with Emma. “The cereal or the pastry from Liliha’s?”

  Emma rolled her eyes. “The pastries.”

  “I do.”

  “You have to put in an order ahead of time if I go.”

  TJ didn’t say anything but nodded.

  “This is Floyd,” he said, waving his hand to Marcus.

  TJ narrowed his gaze. “DC police?”

  Marcus smiled. “You remember.”

  He nodded. “Seems we all are trying to escape the next snowmaggeden.”

  “The tall goofy looking one back there is McGregor. Dr. Elle Middleton is standing beside him. Then, this is our Charity.”

  “Our Charity?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Adam said. “You’re ours, and no other agency gets you. We just like them to know that.”

  “Great. Now I know how you really feel about me.” She turned and smiled at the agent, who was staring at her with a dazed expression on his face. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  He pulled himself together and nodded. “Likewise.” Then he glanced around. “I had another name on the list. Drew Franklin.”

  “He’s recovering.”

  TJ raised his eyebrows at that, but before he could ask them anything about it, Adam took over. “Why don’t I show you around the place?”

  “What about the meeting?” Charity asked.

  “Del said we would reschedule for one,” Adam said.

  “Oh, good. I’m in the mood for some cocoa puffs from Liliha Bakery. Any takers?” Emma asked.

  Everyone but the agent raised their hands.

  “Great.”

  She waved at Del before leaving the room.