Jake’s mouth fell open in surprise at the sight of the Weathersby girl. He closed it with an effort and visually scanned the young woman wearing a hotel bathrobe. She looked healthy and freshly scrubbed, with no visible bruises or other signs of trauma.

“Oh, I am so happy to see you two! My parents have been telling me all about how hard Security Solutions has been working to find me, and I feel so bad about that,” Julie gushed, clutching the toweling at her neck modestly. “But it was Mallory at FindUsNow that got the word to me through social media that I was being considered endangered and missing.”

Sophie swayed. She looked ready to keel over in a faint. Jake put an arm around her waist and steadied her.

Sophie had gone to the dark place of her depression since he left last night—he had read the signs by her closed shades and locked doors. He and the dogs had gone to bed alone in his room. Going in to comfort her had been out of the question at that point. Whoever had been on that phone call had jacked her up and his help was not welcome. She’d made that abundantly clear.

“We are a little taken aback to see you,” Jake said, because someone had to say something. He extended his hand. “Jake Dunn. Security specialist. I am very glad to see you, young lady.” He injected his voice with heartiness as Julie shook his hand with a slender cool one.

Sophie extended her hand next. “We thought that you were dead,” she said flatly.

“Oh no! That’s terrible. I’m so sorry for the mix-up. Please, come in. We want to tell you all about it before we go to the police station. Dad wants us all to be on the same page.”

“Oh, hello there, Jake and Sophie!” Mrs. Weathersby’s soft face, filled with joy, still reminded Jake of his mom. After that talk with Patty, he was overdue to give her a call. “Please come in and have some coffee with us!”

Jake and Sophie walked into the suite. Mr. Weathersby rose from a chair out on the deck overlooking a stunning view of Hilo Bay and swaying palm trees. “What’s this about thinking my daughter was dead? We want to make sure we all have our stories straight before we go into the police station.”

Jake clenched his teeth, bracing for spin doctoring. Rich people always thought they could rewrite history, and half the time they got away with it. “We’re eager to hear what happened to your daughter, Mr. Weathersby,” Jake said. “And I hope you’ll be considerate of all the work that’s gone into finding her, both by our staff and by the Hilo Police Department.”

“Oh, we’ll tip you,” Mr. Weathersby said dismissively. “Now sit down and Julie will tell you what happened.”

Freitan and Wong didn’t look like they had gotten much sleep in the hours since Jake had seen them last. The detectives were downright grouchy as they sat Julie Weathersby, extracted from her parents’ arms, on a chair in the interview room. The parents were calling a lawyer, but Julie hadn’t asked for one, and as far as Jake knew, Julie wasn’t in trouble—they just wanted any information she had about Rayme, Webb, and whoever had attacked her. The young woman began to cry immediately when Freitan told her they’d be recording the interview. Freitan rolled her eyes even as Wong pushed a box of tissues over to the weepy woman.

On the other side of the reflective glass coating, the observation booth was dim and smelled faintly of the ever-present Hilo mold. The voices coming through the ancient sound system were thin and tinny. Jake’s plastic chair was hard, and he resisted an urge to reach out to Sophie as she sat beside him, eyes on the drama occurring in the other room. Her hand was just lying there in her lap.

Maybe touching her was a good strategy.

But only if he could do it without it affecting him more than it did her . . .

Jake was determined to take Patty’s counsel. No neediness. No begging. No jealousy. Just being so damn good Sophie couldn’t forget him. Good advice, Patty. He had a plan now.

Jake reached out and took Sophie’s hand. As before when she was in her depression, it was cold and limp. He rubbed slow circles on her wrist with his thumb. He felt silky tissue, bones, and fragile veins. Her pulse picked up as the pad of his thumb moved gently over her skin.

Good. She was feeling this.

And he was still nicely detached. He needed to stay that way.

“Rather than having us ask you questions, why don’t you just tell us, in your own words, where you’ve been.” Freitan leaned back and crossed her arms on her chest in classic “bad cop” mode. “Your parents are calling a lawyer like you need to be protected from some wrongdoing. So, what you been up to, chica?”

“We appreciate that you are cooperating with us,” Wong’s body language was opposite: leaning toward the girl, arms open, smiling and friendly.

“It’s all a big misunderstanding. I mean, part of it is.” Julie gestured to her clothing, a pair of jeans and a tee that still had creases from packaging on it. “I guess you heard from the Security Solutions people that I was robbed and left on the side of the road?”

“Yes. We even have your friends Webb and Rayme in custody.”

“That’s great! Those two are total assholes! They pretended to be friends with me, and then took all my money and jewelry. They did leave me with my backpack, though.”

“Yes. Then the Security Solutions people found your backpack, boots and clothing, and feared the worst. And yet, here you are,” Freitan said.

“Well.” Julie chewed her bottom lip. The kid was adorable. Even hearing the story for the second time, Jake was impressed with how she oozed sincerity. “I was so upset after Holly and Jim threw me out of their car. I tramped into the jungle to get away, worried they were going to take the rest of my stuff. They had propositioned me for a threesome and when I said no, that’s when they decided to rob me, I think. Anyway, I was out there and just starting to turn around and head back to the road, when this guy came out of nowhere.” Julie’s gaze cut up and to the left as she recalled the events. “He was way scarier than Jimmy and Holly.”

“Tell us about him. What did he look like?”

“Close to six feet. He was a local—you know, dark skin, maybe Hawaiian and something Asian. Black hair. He was fast and strong.” Her eyes filled. She blinked and sniffled, and Wong handed her a tissue. “He had a knife and threatened me with it. Made me take off all my clothes and told me he was going to . . . enjoy what he was going to do to me before he killed me.” Julie’s voice shook and she covered her face with her hands, plastering the tissue to her eyes.

“More details please,” Freitan rapped out. “We are going to want you to work with a sketch artist. As much detail as you can recall is really important.”

“Anything I can do.” Julie wrung the tissue with her hands, shredding it. “Dark eyes. He looked like a local guy, like I said. Someone from here. I had an impression he was good looking, but I was too scared to really notice his features.”

Freitan leaned forward, her gaze intent. “Young? Old?”

“In his thirties, I’d say. He had rough hands, like he did outdoor work or something. I remember that.” Julie dropped her eyes, wiping her hands on her stiff looking jeans. “He had a pidgin accent. Anyway, I didn’t want to take my clothes off, and we struggled until he put that knife against my neck.” Julie tipped her head to the side, and showed the detectives a healed scratch beneath her jaw. “Once he had the knife there, I cooperated. I took off my clothes and boots.”

“And then what happened?” Freitan was relentless.

“He started to take off his pants, but he couldn’t get them down one handed, so he put the knife aside. I scrambled up and ran for it. I figured he was going to kill me; I had nothing to lose. His pants caught on his ankles and I was able to jump over the ditch and get to the road. I ran along the road as fast as I could in my underwear and bare feet. A car came. I waved my arms, and the driver pulled over. I told the guy I needed help; I was running away from someone who had attacked me. The driver let me into the car and we took off.”

“Who was this?”

“His name was Terence Chang.”

Jake felt Sophie stiffen beside him. The name meant something to her. She had reacted to it back in the hotel room, too. She had gone out into the hall to make one of her secret phone calls, and had returned with that blank mask in place. She knew something about this Terence Chang, and so far, she wasn’t telling what it was.

Freitan and Wong glanced at each other and took note of the name. It meant something to them, too. “And then what happened?” Wong asked.

“I had nothing. No clothes, no money, no phone. Terence said I could rest up at his place. Get cleaned up. He was really nice. Seemed sorry about what happened to me. Said that there was someone in the area preying on travelers, and that everyone needed to be careful.”

“So why didn’t you get in touch with your parents? Why didn’t you call the police about this man who attacked you?” Wong sounded genuinely concerned and confused.

Julie looked down. Jake could tell she was blushing, even though the privacy film bleached the color out of the scene they were watching. “I was ashamed. I felt like a fool. My parents had warned me many times that it wasn’t a good idea to go on my hiking adventure; and all their warnings had turned out to be right. I definitely planned to report it and do all the right things, but I just wanted to recover a little bit first before I had to deal with all of that. So, I didn’t call anyone, and then Terence and I . . .”

Who was this Terence Chang? Jake Googled him on his phone, but the name didn’t come up in the Hilo area. Bizarre. Guy must go to a lot of trouble to keep such a low profile.

“So, you got involved with Terence Chang? Rewarded your rescuer the old-fashioned way?” Freitan’s voice was frosty. “And meanwhile, you let your parents think the worst had happened?”

“When you put it that way, it sounds so bad. But at the time, I didn’t think anyone knew anything about what had happened to me, or even missed me. I’d only skipped one weekly call to my parents. And I was really just . . . disoriented, I guess. I wanted to stay in the little bubble of safety I found with Terence for as long as I could.”

“It didn’t strike you as odd that this Chang character didn’t encourage you to go to the cops? Didn’t tell you to do the right thing about your attacker?”

“All I can say is that I wasn’t thinking straight. I finally got on one of Terence’s computers and went online. I left and found my parents as soon as I saw the social media posts from FindUsNow that said I was a missing person.” Julie covered her eyes with a hand. “I feel so bad. I’m sorry for all the hassle.”

Jake had heard all of this before, and it seemed just as lame the second time.

“So this Terence Chang. He didn’t coerce, imprison, or in any other way delay your reporting what happened?” Wong asked.

“Of course not. Terence was just amazing. I mean he is just amazing.” Julie’s eyes glowed with infatuation as she looked up at the detectives. “I think we fell for each other so hard that we were both distracted. I lost all sense of time. I admit it. But as soon as I wanted to leave, he took me to my parents’ hotel. He has been nothing but a perfect gentleman.”

“Interesting that you describe him as a ‘perfect gentleman,’ when Terence Chang is the heir apparent to the Chang crime family. How convenient that he happened along when he did, and took you in and showed you such a good time.” Freitan’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Jake felt a twinge of sympathy for the girl as Julie’s face drained of color and her eyes grew wide.

“What?”

“To be fair, Terence himself has never been charged with anything. Claims to be going straight. But his family is at the heart of anything unsavory happening on the Big Island. We certainly know whom to bring in for questioning about the bodies in the stream now,” Wong said.

“Bodies? In the stream?” Julie paled further.

Jake and Sophie hadn’t told the Weathersbys about the remains found in the roadside ditch, particularly the corpse that looked so much like Julie’s. Providing her any information might contaminate the police procedure of her case. But an idea was beginning to nibble at Jake’s mind.

He squeezed Sophie’s hand and whispered to her. “I’ve heard of the Chang crime family. Were you calling someone about that name when we heard it at the Weathersbys’ suite?”

Sophie nodded, her gaze still on the interview. “My friend Lei Texeira has had dealings with the Changs in the past. I called her to ask about him. She didn’t know anything except that Terence is the grandson of Healani Chang, the head of the family.”

“What if there is some kind of connection between Rayme, Webb, this ditch killer, and the crime family? Could they even be connected with Chernobiac and that black SUV we saw?”

Sophie finally looked away from the interview to meet his gaze squarely.

Jake hated how pale her full, beautiful mouth was, the ashen tone of her skin, the clammy coldness of her hand. But vibrancy flowed into her as their gazes held, and excitement chased the depression shadows from her eyes.

“I think you might be onto something, Jake. We already know what Julie has to say. Let’s go talk to Chernobiac. I don’t know how, exactly, but my intuition tells me he’s the connecting link.”

“Finally. Your gut and my gut are on the same page,” Jake said as they pushed their chairs back and stood.

Sophie gave a tiny smile as she passed him. “That’s an unpleasant visual.”

He bit his lip to hold in a laugh, and the tiny pain felt good. They were going to solve this case.