Page 8 of Liaising Kai

Amber stood up and caught the remote Austin tossed to her. She fired up the large screen in the office.

“Mayta Mosquera is the only daughter of Lena and Eduardo Mosquera. She and her mother immigrated from Ecuador to New York when Mayta was five, then when Mayta was stationed here in San Diego, her mom moved to California. Eduardo and Lena are divorced; Lena married a banker after she moved to California. Mayta’s father stayed behind in Ecuador, and he’s a fisherman by trade. Her mom is a looker, and her daughter reaped those benefits. Mayta was stunning. There are several sexual harassment complaints on her record, but all seemed to have been resolved.”

“Lucy, track down who the men were who were harassing her. Find out where they were at the time of the crime.”

“Will do, boss,” she said.

Amber tossed the remote to Austin. “Mayta works in intelligence out of the Information Dominance Corps. She graduated at the top of her class, speaks five languages, and holds a master’s in information analysis. She was scheduled to report to the USS Troy Godfrey, Carrier Group Five’s aircraft carrier based out of Yokosuka, Japan for duty in a week. She was heading into the South China Sea, but the information regarding her assignment is classified.”

“Could have been why she was targeted,” Lucy piped up.

“You think the Chinese tortured and killed an American over naval secrets?” Derrick scoffed. “Damned unlikely, and if they had, then we better make sure we have the evidence to back it up.”

“Ironclad evidence,” Kai said, her gut tightening. Was there something that was important enough to murder a naval petty officer on American soil? “You and Amber get over to her office and see what you can find out.”

After they left, Austin turned to her. “I’m waiting for her phone records. As soon as I have them, I’ll let you know.”

Kai nodded and settled down at her desk.

She didn’t want to be idle right now. Didn’t want to go back to thinking about Davis and how she should go about apologizing to him. She knew where his office was, and had his work telephone number, but calling him seemed cowardly. Maybe she could duck out of work an hour early to slip over to his office and request some time with him.

“Boss?” Austin said.

She looked up. “I pinged her phone and found it. It’s still on.”

“Where?”

“The crime scene.”

When she and Austin got back to the house, they searched everywhere for the phone but came up empty. “It’s got to be here,” he said, consulting his cell again. Kai looked at the first evidence of blood. It was near the TV stand. She knelt and peered under the cabinet. Maybe Mayta had hidden it there to keep it out of the hands of her attackers.

“Got it,” she said, reaching under and snagging the phone. Coming to her feet, she swiped the screen. “It’s fingerprint protected. Let’s get back to NCIS and get it open.”

In the morgue, she and Austin waited while Kelly picked up Mayta’s limp hand and pressed her thumb to the icon on the phone’s lock screen. It opened. “Calls to her mom, dad, doctor, and many calls to My Man.”

Austin said, “That’s got to be her boyfriend.”

Kai pressed the button for her text messages and looked at the log. “A text from her dad two days ago and her response is confusion as to the meaning, but her dad didn’t respond.”

“What’s the message?”

“A bunch of numbers and a word: 2501, 3865707 7785 Freedom.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“That’s what Mayta asks. She seems just as confused.” Kai pressed the number for My Man, and it started to ring and went to voicemail via the basic message. She pressed until she got to the man’s information under Mayta’s contacts. There was a work phone number, and it looked familiar. She pressed that number.

It rang for several seconds then a man’s voice came over the line. “You’ve reached Special Agent Carter Lennon at the Coast Guard Investigative Service. I’m not at my desk right now. Please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

She looked at Austin, realizing that she wasn’t going to have to take off early to see Davis Nishida as Austin asked, “Who is it?”

“CGIS,” she said. “Mayta’s boyfriend is a CGIS special agent.”

“Seriously?”

As serious as it got. She was going to have to tell Davis she was sorry for slapping him. That she was so very sorry that she had struck him when he was trying to be such a gentleman. And that is what he had been, foregoing his pleasure to allow her to keep her dignity in the wake of her grief and pain.

But she wasn’t going to apologize for kissing him, or for wrapping her fingers around the heavy length of his erection. She wasn’t sorry at all. Not one bit.

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