Freitan and Wong got as much information as they could out of Rayme before the nurse finally shooed them away. The detectives arranged for an extra layer of protection with a guard inside the jail. Once they exited the phone dead zone of the jail building, Jake and Wong waited as Freitan worked her phone setting up meetings with the DA for the following day. She also called Witness Protection to consult with the Marshals, assuring that they would protect the woman until she could testify about Chang.

“A bird in the hand,” Freitan said with satisfaction as she slid her phone into her pocket and started the SUV. “Always best to get all the info you can out of a witness when they’re willing to talk.”

Jake nodded agreement, and checked his own phone. He read a text from Sophie about going running in the park, and his heart did a little flip.

She didn’t know about Chang, but he might well know about her, and all the connections she was putting together about him! The Changs had eyes and ears everywhere in Hawaii. Sophie shouldn’t be running around alone until Akane Chang was locked up.

He phoned Sophie from the back seat of the SUV—the revelations they had uncovered were too involved to describe in a text. Her phone rang, eventually dumping into voicemail. “Please don’t go out without me. I have new information on the case. We need to take some precautions,” Jake said into the recording, and ended the call.

“You leaving a message for your partner?” Wong asked from the front seat.

“Yeah. She was taking the dogs for a run in the park.”

“Sophie’s the key to this case in a lot of ways. She’s made the connections between the bodies and the Changs, and she has the info from Chernobiac’s computer. I want to talk with her ASAP,” Freitan said.

Jake leaned forward between the seats as the SUV got underway. “This is our last couple of days on the job, now that Julie Weathersby has been found.”

“Sorry to hear that. You two have been a huge help,” Wong said.

“And we want all the data Sophie has been able to put together on the missing persons and anything else that woman has found,” Freitan said. “She’s quite an effective investigator.”

Jake felt a swell of pride in Sophie. Praise from Kamani Freitan was hard-earned. “That she is.”

Back at the station, the watch officer raised a hand to the detectives and greeted Jake. “Your partner told me to have you call her. She will come pick you up when she’s back from the park.”

“How long ago was that?” Jake asked.

“About an hour.”

Standing in the entry area, Jake tried Sophie’s cell phone again.

This time she picked up, but he heard nothing after his greeting but some muffled background sounds, then Sophie’s voice came through, unfamiliarly hoarse with anger. “I’m still going to pay you back for killing my dog.”

A man’s voice, echoing and tinny. “Not if I do you first. Like I said, where do you want it? Leg, arm, or shoulder? I can do all three, but that would cut down on the fun later.”

Jake’s heart went into overdrive. Another voice, too distant to make out, yelled something else.

Jake hit Mute on his phone so Sophie’s end of the line didn’t pick up any sound. He ran into the station after the detectives. “Wong! Freitan! Something’s happened to Sophie!”

The two stopped near their cubicle and clustered around the phone as Jake put it on speaker. More cursing and back-and-forth came through the cell. The audio was rendered hollow and distant, vibrating with the roar of an engine in the background.

Freitan looked up, eyes wide. “Someone’s got her.”

“And it sounds like something happened to one of our dogs. I’m guessing this went down at the park, and she’s in a vehicle of some kind,” Jake said.

“Let’s get down to the park and see,” Freitan said. The detectives headed for the doors at a jog as Wong radioed their plans to Dispatch. Jake ran in their wake, the phone still on speaker.

If Sophie could, she would give him a clue to where she was.

“I’m going to try to track her phone.” He thumbed to the Find My Phone tracking app he’d loaded. He’d plugged Sophie’s number into it some time ago, but had never used it. A map popped up, showing a moving beacon. “They are headed out of Hilo in the direction of Volcanoes Park.”

And then, the signal was lost. The phone went black, and the map disappeared.

Jake snarled in anguish as he jumped into the SUV behind the detectives. “We lost her!”