Page 43 of Shark Cove

“It does seem strange. An armed guard seems strange too.”

“Something’s going on.”

“Maybe the ordeal of sending Camille to the fat farm brought them together?” Blake sounded doubtful. He turned on the vehicle. They drove in silence, and as the adrenaline from their adventure drained away, Malia’s eyes grew heavy. She woke to a gentle shake of her shoulder. “Wake up, sleepyhead. You’re home.”

Malia sat up. “Oh, sorry.”

Blake’s hand remained on her shoulder. “Sure you haven’t changed your mind about a good-night kiss?” He leaned temptingly close. “You don’t know how much I wanted to wake you up with one.”

“No. Yes. No. I better get out before I change my mind.” Malia threw the door open. “See you Monday.”

Blake looked up at her from inside the car. “Text me from the burner if you find out anything new.”

“I will.” She felt a physical wrench as she shutthe car’s door. She used the painto get herself to jog back to the dark, silent house.“Oh, Camille. Where are you?”

Chapter Seventeen

Still at thestation as full darkness fell, Lei suffered through the process of booting up her computer, using the time to give Harry a quick update about the raid via phone.

Somehow, by the time she ended the call, she’d navigated to Jeremy Ito’s record. He had been a short, wiry mixed Japanese man in his early thirties. His narrow face with its sharp, intelligent brown eyes popped up quickly as she typed his name into the police department’s database.

Just seeing him made Lei’s stomach clench, even though DECEASED in red marked his status.

And Lei was the one to have killed him.

She didn’t regret it. She’d rid the world of a man who might well have gone on killing; Jeremy Ito had possessed the earmarks of a psychopath. But just because Ito was gone didn’t mean that whoever was involved with kidnapping these girls wasn’t some kind of psychopath or deviant, too. Those hair samples were a good indicator of pathology; and God knows what the victims endured before they were shipped to their next destination. The clock was ticking even now.

Lei powered down her computer. She’d stop in on Becca Nunez to see what progress the tech was making on the evidence collection from the warehouse.

Descending utilitarian metal stairs to Nunez’s basement domain, Lei rubbed the bone hook in her pocket. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have trouble getting to sleep tonight. The memories of Ito and that case were charged with old trauma and grief.

Nunez’s hair was done in a bright purple spiked shag, and she perched on the tall stool that she preferred, hunched over her microscope. Lei tapped on the door’s frame to alert the crime tech to her presence; Nunez turned, frowning. “You still here?”

Lei advanced into the room. “I might say the same to you.”

“This case is really bugging me. I want to catch these perps,” Nunez said. “After your team left, I crawled around inside those metal boxes looking for DNA. I came up with this,” she pointed to a bloodied rag. “I think this was used as a restraint or a gag. I’m testing the blood on it and checking for any additional substances. I’ve got DNA samples and hair samples from several donors, but as you know we don’t process those here. I’ve got to send them to Oahu. I’m trying to get as caught up as possible.”

“Anything on the hair trophies?” Lei advanced over to where Nunez had laid each of the hair swatches on a long plastic tray, neatly labeled with numbered codes.

“Unfortunately, there were no bulbs available on the swatches for DNA trace,” Nunez said. “But tomorrow, I’m going to match them visually with samples from the victims. I did a quick check first thing. Yes, these hair samples match our missing girls, but what’s really troubling are the ones we don’t have references for.”

Nunez’s confirmation unknotted a tiny piece of tension that allowed Lei’s shoulders to drop and her breath to sigh out in relief. She’d unconsciously worried that they might have discovered a whole new case that they hadn’t even known about.

“Good news for the most part,” Lei said. “Now we know that warehouse is a solid link in the transport chain of the girls.”

Nunez nodded, making a line of diamond stud earrings in the shell of her ear twinkle in the light. “I think you’ve done all you can do today, Lei,” Nunez said. “Why don’t you get home to that family of yours? We’re moving as fast as we can on this. A few hours one way or the other won’t make much of a difference.”

“Tell that to a girl stuck in a metal box.” Lei patted Nunez’s shoulder. “But yeah. You too. Wrap things up and get on home. That’s an order.”

“Aye aye, sir. Soon as I finish just one more thing.”

“You’re a woman after my own heart, Nunez.”

The tech waved as Lei left.

Lei ascended the stairs and exited the building, mostly empty now, headed for the parking lot. Her mind ticked over a plan for the following day. At least, they had a trail to follow now, which was more than they’d had before.

Chapter Eighteen

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