Page 18 of Wired Justice

“Oh.” Sophie rubbed sweaty hands on her hiking pants. “That’s too bad, but good to know because the last thing I need is another homicidally jealous man in my life. It’s a big turnoff to me, Jake, as you can imagine. So I regret to say that, until something about the scenario changes, we won’t be having sex.”

“I guess not. But what do you say to a little friendly making out?” Jake bounced his brows at her.

This was her chance to cut off further contact with him, but Sophie found herself unwilling to do so. Maybe a little friendly making out might still happen. The thought gave her tummy a warm glow. “Perhaps.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence until they stopped for lunch at a café in a tiny hamlet called Captain Cook outside of Kona. A gauzy haze softened their view of the long stretch of land below them, ending in black rocks and the sea.

Sophie pointed out to the horizon with a carrot stick. “The vog must make some pretty sunsets with all the particulate matter in the air.”

“Yeah, I’m sure we can see one firsthand now that we’re on the south side of the island. The east side is much clearer, in general.”

They discussed the ongoing volcanic emissions from the active site of Kilauea volcano that had been going on for more than ten years. “I think I like a lot about the Big Island. So much variety in the microclimates, and it’s so big that you forget it’s an island. But the vog seems like a health hazard,” Sophie said. Conversing about something other than their case and their relationship was easy. She was relieved. Whatever happened, she didn’t want to lose her friendly partnership with Jake. They were good together.

On the way back to the Jeep, Jake took her hand again. This time, she didn’t remove it. It did no harm to allow the connection—it felt nice to have him hold her hand.

The first placethey stopped when they arrived at the sprawling area of Oceanview was a small general store. Sophie perused a bulletin board thick with notices. “Let’s look for anything that seems like a clue.” She frowned at several missing persons posters. “There are many of these.” She pointed to one of their client. “There’s Julie Weathersby.”

“Yeah, I’m beginning to see a trend.”

“I think DAVID would find this many missing persons in one area statistically unlikely,” Sophie said. “I’ll have to set up a hypothesis and test it, but I predict the confidence interval to be low that this is a normal phenomenon occurring within the population.”

“Speak English, woman.” Jake put his hands on his hips.

“DAVID works on keyword searches for input data, developing correlations between possibly related pieces of information accrued under search parameters. This many missing persons, in the relatively small area of this island, being the result of random occurrence or statistically normal disappearance patterns—well, I think it has to be at least partly the effect of some other factor.”

Jake towed her around the building into shadow, where they would not be overheard by the comings and goings through the store’s battered doorway. “What are you saying? That there is a serial killer at work?”

“Perhaps more than one.” Sophie rubbed her arms briskly at the chill that had passed over her. “I want to input all of these people, try to get a number of how many are missing on the Big Island, and work up a larger picture of what might be going on. This data could be the beginning of a case for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.”

Jake scowled. “That investigation is not going to pay the rent, my friend. You are not an FBI agent any longer. We need to stay focused on the case we have, and if it turns up something more, great. Why go looking for trouble?”

“It’s what I do.” The truth of that insight burst across her brain. Sophie turned to Jake. “It’s what I do, Jake. I find things. I fix things.”

Jake’s silver-and-blue eyes were intent as they locked gazes. He was the first to look away, thrusting a hand through his short, dark hair. “I don’t like it.”

Sophie shrugged. “I don’t answer to you. Or Security Solutions, for that matter.”

Jake snorted through his nostrils in obvious frustration and stalked to the front of the store. He opened the door and went inside.

Sophie followed. She paused to photograph each of the posters on the bulletin board with her phone, and the bulletin board as a whole. One small notice in the corner caught her eye.

LOOKING FOR SOMEONE? Call me! I might know what happened to them.

A Hawaii cell phone number was listed in tear-off tags at the bottom. Three of the tags were missing. She tore one off, and made it a fourth.

Jake was likely canvassing the store owner with Julie’s photo as they’d discussed doing. She had time for a quick call to investigate this lead. Sophie walked around the back of the store and took out her cell phone, and called the number.

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