by Toby Neal
“Sure.” Hernandez squinted at the picture of the smiling young woman as Sophie put Ginger back in the Jeep and approached. She introduced herself, and Jake narrowed his eyes as Hernandez checked her out and clearly liked what he saw.
Jake glanced at Sophie, remembering meeting her for the first time.
Yeah, Sophie was hot—five-nine and one thirty-five, all muscle, bone and tender curves. That caramel skin, those gorgeous arms and legs with their secret tattoos . . . Her eyes. That sexy scar. The weird way she seemed both badass and vulnerable. And her voice! That accent. It slayed him.
Even in a pair of hiking pants and a tank top that had seen better days, she was unusual and stunning.
Would this be his life with her if they ever got together? Every man they met checking her out, wishing for the impossible?
If so, worth it. He could deal.
Jake reached for the phone and took it back from the ranger. “So, you haven’t seen Julie Weathersby? Not just here, but at any park? We heard from her parents that she was camping on the Big Island for a week or two before she disappeared.”
Hernandez shook his head. “Nope. We’ve had a lot of missing persons on the Big Island this year. Doesn’t surprise me some folks are hiring private eyes to supplement the police. Police department is pretty overwhelmed. Park Service is stretched thin.” The man folded his lips together suddenly, as if regretting saying so much. He brandished a metal clipboard holding citations. “Could you stay back here and let me do my job?”
“Of course.” Jake nodded respectfully. He needed this guy on his side. Hernandez headed for the hostile couple’s campsite, and Jake’s hand fell to his weapon, just resting there. Waiting.
Chapter Seven
Sophie watched Ranger Hernandez approach the tent containing the illegal campers. The two reluctantly emerged at his direction, but they were too far away for Sophie to hear.
The couple were poorly groomed. They held themselves in defensive postures with folded arms and sulky stares as the Ranger lectured them, obviously directing that they break down their camp and move along. Sophie wondered if he were allowed to conduct a search, and surmised not, as Hernandez pointed at the tent, and they shook their heads. Finally, Hernandez returned in their direction as the couple began packing their belongings.
“Where will they go?” Sophie asked the ranger. “Is there a shelter that will take them in?”
“There are a couple of places in Hilo, but I suspect they will just go somewhere else and squat. There are a lot of encampments on private land here on the island where the homeless congregate.”
“Kinda seems like a problem.” Jake had his arms folded in an unconscious imitation of the campers. “Is there another park toward Waimea? Our client’s parents said Julie camped somewhere on the Kona side, but she never told them the name of it.”
“There are a number of places. East Point is one of the most popular.” Hernandez described a park near a lighthouse on a bay that faced Maui. “It’s got a good beach, snorkeling. Tourists on foot seem to like it.”
Sophie felt compelled to defend the choice to camp. “I am enjoying my own backpacking and camping trip. It’s a great way to really see and experience the island.”
Hernandez nodded, his eyes softening. “I can recommend the top five places on this island to hike,” he said. “Some of them you won’t find in any guidebook. Let me write down the details for you.”
Sophie followed him over to the hood of his truck. The ranger removed a blank piece of paper and made a list of destinations for her to explore, including whether or not they had facilities.
Jake paced up and down behind her. She could feel his restlessness, and the way he kept an eye on the campers as they continued to break down their area.
Eventually Hernandez continued around the park checking everyone’s permits, and Sophie and Jake got back into the Jeep. Jake looked up at the overcast sky, already beginning to darken to the west. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some food, a shower, and that aforementioned soft bed.”
Sophie’s belly gave a grumble of agreement. “I guess we could head in that direction, and see what we find.”
They drove into the town of Waimea and had an early dinner at a burger joint featuring a specialty of the ranching area, local grass-fed beef. Jake was a rapid and efficient eater, consuming his burger in about four bites. Sophie ate hers much more deliberately.
Jake gestured to her with a fry. “You need more meat on your bones. You’re getting skinny, Sophie.”
“I know.” Stress over recent events, combined with haphazard packing and nutrition on the camping trip she’d finished in Kalalau, had not helped. “Marcella said the same thing. Some people eat when they are stressed. I work out.”
Jake’s blue-and-silver gaze pierced her. “You’re not in danger any longer. Assan Ang is in the ground.” He pushed the big basket of fries toward her. “Eat all of the rest of these.”
She did, and enjoyed his story of a river raft trip on the Congo to deliver needed supplies to an outpost there. She tipped her head back, laughing at the details of his encounter with a hippo.
“Don’t laugh,” Jake admonished. “Hippos are bigger killers than crocodiles, even. They top the charts ahead of wildcats and piranhas.”
Sophie shook her head. “I did not know that. I would like to see a hippo someday.”
“No, you wouldn’t. They have awful breath.”
Soon they were checked in to the hotel with a pineapple theme on the edge of the quaint town of Waimea. Jake got them two rooms and put the accommodations on his Security Solutions credit card. Lathering up in the shower, and later, washing Ginger’s muddy coat in the same space, Sophie had to admit that Jake had been right. There was nothing quite like a hot shower—and now she had a soft bed to look forward to.
A knock came at the door when she was on that bed, dressed in her favorite lightweight, yet warm, leggings and vest-style top that doubled as a cold weather outfit. Ginger, on the bed beside her, lunged off and gave a happy greeting bark as she ran to the door.
“Hello? Sophie?” Jake’s voice.
Her heart hammered. What was he doing here? She and Jake alone in a hotel room after dark seemed like a profoundly bad idea. She undid the bolt and chain and peered around the jamb. “What is it, Jake?”
“I come bearing an opportunity to log business hours and a nightcap.” Jake held up a laptop and a bottle of some sort of alcohol. “May I come in?”
“For the business hours. Not for the nightcap.” Sophie held the door open and he stepped inside.
Lemony aftershave and the smell of clean skin hit her nostrils as he passed. The hairs on her arms stood up and her nipples tightened. The room suddenly seemed too small because, son of a cockroach! Jake took up a lot of space leaving nowhere to sit but on the queen-sized bed with its exuberant display of pineapples in a repeating pattern.
Sophie drew pineapple-patterned drapes closed as Jake sat on the bed and booted up the laptop. She spotted a single side chair resting against the wall and perched on it. Jake held up the bottle and waggled it. “Best I could do at the corner store. How do you feel about amaretto?”
“I love amaretto.” Sophie’s mouth watered thinking of the taste of the almond flavored, sweet liqueur. “I guess I will have some, after all.”
“I’ve been stealthily studying Sophie Ang’s favorite things.” Jake winked and pointed to the pair of sterilized water glasses wearing little ruffled tops that rested on the sideboard next to the coffee maker. “Nothing beats a good drink at the end of a productive day.”
Sophie fetched the glasses and he splashed a couple fingers’ worth of dark amber liquid into each. “Cheers.” They clinked glasses. Sophie swirled the alcohol and closed her eyes, inhaling the almond scent, before she sipped. She so seldom drank. She would have to be careful. This situation was a set up.
“So. I am writing up notes from today and thought we could check the details.” Jake
’s big fingers typed rapidly on the slim silver laptop. “I’ll begin with our meeting at the station, leaving Detective Freitan’s harassment out of it.”
Sophie’s skin prickled, remembering the uncomfortable scene at the station. She sipped her drink, savoring the delicious taste and the ball of heat it ignited in her belly.
“I’m more interested in finding out what happened with the Marshals and the body dump I discovered. I wonder if Freitan and Wong would give me any information if I called them.” She tightened her lips. She didn’t need to call them. She could use DAVID to hack the case file and see for herself.
DAVID, her rogue data mining program, was designed to penetrate law enforcement databases and collect and search data based on keywords, then use a comparison algorithm to test hypotheses. She could ask DAVID if there was a pattern connecting the family’s shooting with any other killings . . .
“Let’s not get into that kettle of fish—Hilo PD working with WITSEC on a quintuple homicide has no room for private agencies getting nosy. Instead, why don’t you use that laptop of yours to look for our girl online?”
“DAVID needs secure bandwidth to be used safely. What I mean is, the wide open Wi-Fi signal at this motel is not a place I’d like to use it. The program has firewalls, of course, but anyone in range of this signal could pick up some of the highly confidential data DAVID might access. I only like to use it when I have a cable uplink in a secure location.” But still, her fingers itched to input all the information about their missing girl. She went to her backpack and dug out her waterproof, satellite-capable laptop. “Even if I set up a secure hotspot with my sat phone, the data is vulnerable.”
“Look around you, Soph.” Jake gestured to the hideous décor. “We’re in Hawaii cattle country in a small town in the middle of the Pacific. What high tech cyber thief is going to be driving around Waimea with an antenna out, trying to steal data?”
“You never know,” Sophie said darkly. Because you never did know. People wanted DAVID and might be tracking it, and there was one particular Ghost that was . . . not an enemy, but no doubt watching her every move.
Chapter Eight
“Come on, Sophie, take a chance.”
Don’t just take a chance by using the DAVID program—take a chance on him. Jake willed Sophie to understand his double meaning. She glanced up, her golden-brown eyes a little surprised. It almost seemed as if she understood him; but he’d been wrong before.
“All right.” She opened the laptop. “Where is the client information?”
Jake passed her the file containing all of the relevant data on their client submitted by the parents. Sophie had her program open, and began inputting. Her long tan fingers flew, her eyes flicking rapidly back and forth between the files’ contents and the screen of the computer that she was logging data into. Her ability to submerge into the cyber world was amazing. While he appreciated the function of that world, he’d never found it absorbing. He was a man of the outdoors, most at home doing something physical, and he made no apologies.
Jake sipped his amaretto. God, he hated the syrupy stuff, but he’d taken notice of what she liked; a good operative always knew everything about his objective. She liked Blue Hawaiians, too, and those frothy tourist concoctions made amaretto seem like hard alcohol.
Sophie drank a certain kind of tea, smoky and dark, from Thailand. She suffered from depression that could drag her down for days. She loved her dog. She slept in the buff.
Jake’s mind stuttered on that one. He’d overheard Marcella teasing Sophie about her private nudity habits, and had never been able to forget it. His gaze flicked over Sophie’s form, hidden in a body-concealing loose top and leggings. Ugh. He hated those clothes, too.
Whiskey, neat. And Sophie naked in bed. Now that would be a better evening.
“If you aren’t careful, we’ll devolve into actual working.” Jake handed Sophie her glass of amaretto after he topped it up a bit. “Medicinal purposes. We’ve had a long day.”
Sophie took it without looking at him and sipped. “That is certainly true.” She was barely paying any attention. Good. If he could just maneuver her into position . . .
Jake leaned against the headboard and patted the comforter beside him. “Come over here. You need back support.”
Sophie moved onto the bed next to him, leaning against the headboard, her eyes never leaving the screen of the laptop on her knees. She trusted him, and that gave him such a good feeling. She saw him clearly, knew he would cheat, lie, steal, and fight dirty to get what he wanted, and she still trusted him. Kinda made him wish he was a better man. Maybe he could be a better man, for her. Anything was possible—but tonight he was bent on seduction.
Sophie eventually finished her drink and he observed her for any signs of effect, taking her glass and filling it again. She slipped up, made a typo. Giggled as she corrected it. The booze was working.
“What’s so funny?” He drew a line down her bare arm with a fingertip, gratified to see her shiver.
“Just feeling good. Kind of floaty. I am a lightweight, as they say.” Sophie gazed up and to the left, considering. “What keywords, besides our client’s name, should we have DAVID search for?”
“I don’t know. Camping? Female hiker? Come to think of it, I don’t know how much about Julie Weathersby’s current travel is going to be online in any form. She didn’t do much social media, according to her parents and that commercial location media group that’s posting about her.”
“I know not what is available about Weathersby on the Facebook. But we must try all of the avenues.” Sophie’s voice had become pedantic and measured as she attempted to hide her amaretto buzz. She closed the laptop and set it on the nightstand. “And now we conclude our evening’s plan of collegial investigation work and alcoholic beverages.” She gave a little burp and hid it behind her fist.
God, she was adorable.
Time to make that move.
Jake slid an arm around behind Sophie’s back and drew her close against him. He loved how she felt against him; warm, strong, and soft in all the right places. He lifted her chin with his other hand. Sophie’s eyes fluttered shut as her face tilted toward him. Her lips parted. He waited to see if she would pull away, but she didn’t.
So, he kissed her.
Softly, at first. Like a gentleman. But she made a tiny sound, and that was the end of that.
He hauled Sophie over into his lap, and the kiss was bold and graphic. She gave as good as she got, pulling his hair, tugging at his shirt, nipping his lip with her teeth. Their hands were everywhere they’d wanted to be on each other. Thought disappeared in a red buzz of hungry sensation.
They eventually came up for air.
Sophie blinked, her gaze foggy. “I thought it might be that good,” she said. “But now you have to go.” She pushed at his chest.
Jake’s arms tightened around Sophie, but he made them let go. He was playing a long game. It would never be a good idea to rush a goal this worthy.
“No means no.” He gently disentangled himself and kissed her one last time, a touch on the nose, a brush of his lips behind her ear. “You’re the boss.” Leave her wanting more. Leave her believing she was in control. Leave her knowing she could trust him.
But that didn’t mean walking away was easy.
They met at the Jeep the next morning. After they’d settled their belongings in the vehicle and secured Ginger, Jake handed Sophie a bamboo stick with three sugar-dusted malasadas speared on it. “Eat these. And drink this.” He handed her a large cup of the strongest tea he had been able to find.
“Thank you. I slept very well.” She wouldn’t look at him. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Me too. Let’s drive over to that park Hernandez suggested and continue canvassing. Did your computer program turn up anything?”
“Not yet.”
Ginger thrust her head between the seats, and Jake caressed the dog. The Lab shut her eyes and rubbed against his hand wantonly as S
ophie watched. Blotchy red appeared on her neck and she turned away, taking a bite of the local Portuguese pastry. She was thinking about him touching her. Wishing he’d touch her like he was stroking her pet.
Good.
Jake brushed her arm as he put the Jeep in gear, and once they were on the road, he took her hand.
It was a bold move, and he knew it was the wrong one when Sophie pulled her hand away and tucked it into her lap. “Jake, we have to talk. Last night . . .”
“Last night happened, and I’m not sorry.” Talking was a mistake. Talking would make her withdraw back into her shell. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I won’t be one of your . . .”
“I know. You told me. And I told you . . . what I told you.” He cleared his throat. He didn’t want to have to try to define what they were to each other at this stage. “Can we just move on? Do we have to analyze this?”
“Do we?” She eyed him. “I think you were a little generous with the amaretto last night.”
He cracked a grin. “Was I? Didn’t notice.”
She rolled her eyes and groaned. “You’re what they call a bad boy, Jake.”
“You have no idea.” He winked.
She punched him in the arm, hard, and this time he was the one who groaned.
East Point Park was on the dry side of the island’s volcanoes. Golden brown hills covered in dried grasses swept down to a horseshoe bay of gleaming turquoise water, black sand, and stunted kiawe trees. The area was sheltered from the prevailing wind by a rocky promontory. Tents were clustered under the overhanging trees.
Jake and Sophie began their questioning at the edge of the campground.
They had no luck with the campers, nor the beachgoers enjoying the sun and sand. Finally, the pimply young man occupying the ticket booth on the way into the park nodded at the sight of Julie’s picture. “Yeah. I saw her. She was here for two days. Let me see where.” He typed into a laptop and looked up. “She stayed in campsite 19A.”
