Jake picked up his duffel from the checked bags section at the Hilo airport. He hated checking a bag, but carrying his weapons demanded it.

Flying commercial was such a buzzkill.

Security Solutions was expanding its transportation fleet, but it looked like it would be a while before the company jet was whisking anyone but their CEO, Sheldon Hamilton, around the world.

As soon as he picked up his rented Jeep, Jake phoned Sophie.

To his surprise she answered. “Jake. I’m on my way into Hilo with some detectives. Where can we meet?”

His heart didn’t just give a great big thunderous squeeze at the sound of Sophie’s sexy accented voice. No, his hands weren’t sweaty, gripping the steering wheel at the mere thought of being alone with her. He hadn’t just jumped on this job so he’d have a reason to track her down. Nope. Not at all.

Jake cleared his throat. “Let’s meet wherever they’re taking you. We need to start working with the local PD on this missing persons case, anyway. What station are you headed for?”

He listened to a muffled conversation, then Sophie said, “I will meet you at South Hilo Station in an hour.” She hung up.

Sophie often hung up on him.

What did it say about their relationship that she was usually either hanging up on him, leaving him, or getting a new burner phone with a number he didn’t have?

But he had this phone number. Her latest number. He’d memorized it immediately.

Jake glanced down at the inside of his forearm where she had written a series of digits in ink. She crossed her sevens and drew a line through her zeros. Only a faint tinge of blue still showed. Not that he had been consciously trying to keep the number from disappearing or anything—that area up there by his elbow was just out of handwashing range.

Jake remembered that moment in the restaurant vividly. She’d written the number on his arm with a ballpoint pen from the hostess stand; he’d said something funny and as she finished writing she froze suddenly, holding his wrist. He heard the deep inhale of her breathing. Electricity surged between them. She held his arm for a long moment, the pen pressed against his skin, not moving.

The atoms in him streamed toward the atoms in her—it felt weirdly metaphysical.

“Sophie,” he whispered.

This wasn’t the only time attraction had zapped them out of nowhere. They’d almost crossed that invisible line several times.

They’d saved each other’s lives more than once. Saving someone’s life tattooed the person on your heart a little bit—especially when that someone was so utterly awesome.

Sophie had flung his arm down and practically ran out of the restaurant. Jake was so repulsive to her that she’d jogged away to join that bastard Alika with his helicopter and smooth moves.

He was fooling himself, imagining that he could be the one to get past the ways Sophie’s sick, abusive ex had messed her up.

He’d tried to get over Sophie on their last job together by having a thing with Antigua, the estate manager at their client Shank Miller’s.

Antigua was great: gorgeous, a wonderful cook, hot in the sack, a really quality person. She’d given him the heave-ho after a month. “Make a move on Sophie, Jake. I won’t be anyone’s second choice.” Ouch. The lady was right.

He had to make a move on this trip. Sophie was still on the rebound from her boyfriend Todd Remarkian’s death. She was going to get scooped up by that rich player Alika if he didn’t do something.

Jake’s belly knotted. He’d already been stung by the nettle of rejection more than once when Sophie shut down his flirting. He’d never had trouble getting a woman he wanted before; but Sophie had ignored or refused his various tried-and-true gambits, shit that always worked with chicks in the past.

Jake was stuck in the friend zone, trapped between the pillars of work partnership and the way he annoyed her.

Yeah, he was too restless. Too loud. Too impatient. Had too much energy. Always wanted to take the lead. None of that was going to change.

Tough. They’d find a way somehow to rub along and give each other space—they already had, as partners. And he’d make up for how irritating he was by being so fucking good to her in bed she wouldn’t be able to walk or do anything but sigh and say, “Oh, yes, Jake. Yes.”

Jake missed the turn onto the highway because he was so caught up in his thoughts. He shifted in his seat, hot and uncomfortable, and pulled the Jeep over onto the side of the road to put down the soft top and get some more air, since the AC didn’t seem to be working.

“Dream on, Jake. She’s not into you. Why are you torturing yourself?” She was making him crazy. He was talking to himself like an idiot. He never got this twisted up about women!

Jake looked around at the urban sprawl outside of Hilo’s old town area. All vegetation was bright green, saturated by the Big Island’s frequent east side rains. Traffic was heavy on the busy freeway going into town. Hilo had the look of a place that had once been sleepy and small, but had sprawled into utilitarian growth.

Jake programmed the South Hilo PD location into his phone’s GPS, and fifteen minutes later was pulling up to a small, older building wedged between a Vietnamese nail salon and a laundromat. After parking, he pulled open a bulletproof glass door covered in peeling reflective coating, entering a tiny lobby guarded by a duty officer.

The individual was the size of a mountain and held a Sudoku tablet in front of him. He looked up at Jake and narrowed his eyes. “Help you?”

Jake showed his Security Solutions ID, introduced himself and his errand. “Our firm has been hired to find a missing person. I’m looking for Julie Weathersby. Anyone assigned to the case that I can interview?”

The behemoth typed in the name on his computer as Jake surveyed a row of hard wooden chairs, scuffed linoleum, and a crowded bulletin board. He recognized his client’s face on a missing persons printout thumbtacked to the board, issued by a company called FindUsNow.com. Her sweet-looking smile stood out among the most-wanted posters and a homemade ad for pet sitting. “Social Media can Find Us Now! Forward to a friend on Snapchat, Twitter or Facebook!”

The Weathersbys had probably employed that company, too. Jake took one of the several flyers and tucked it into his pocket.

“Detectives Wong and Freitan have that case. They are on their way back from the field.” The giant pointed to a hard wooden chair. “Sit and wait.”

Jake sat and waited.

Sitting and waiting was not something he enjoyed.

He worked his phone first, checking in with the office on Oahu to report that he had arrived and was meeting Sophie; then he logged into his case file. He already had one started for the Weathersby girl; he added a quick phone photo of her missing persons poster. He ran a search for FindUsNow.com and checked out the write-up they’d done on Julie. Apparently, she wasn’t big on any social media but Instagram; her last photo was of the big lava tube in Volcanoes National Park.

Bored, he stepped outside and got into the Jeep. He extracted a hand exerciser and a couple of heavy duty rubber bands from his bag, and using those, with his seat tipped back, he was able to run through a fairly complete upper-body workout. He was just getting ready to do another set of curl reps when an extra-duty truck towing an ATV on a trailer pulled up.

A male and female detective exited the truck along with Sophie and her dog.

Everyone looked overheated from being on the lava; their shirts were sweaty and their skin was gleaming. Sophie, dressed in a black tank and ripstop hiking pants, still managed to look stunning even with dark circles under her big brown eyes. He hated how she didn’t take care of herself.

Jake opened the Jeep’s door and stepped out. “Sophie!”

Ginger yanked loose from her owner to run over to him, thrusting her nose into his crotch and then lashing him with her sturdy tail.

Sophie grinned at the sight. “Someone is happy to see you.”

“At least Ginger knows a good thing when she sees it.” Jake joked. He wanted to grab Sophie and kiss her; he made do with a casual half wave, catching Ginger’s collar to drag the Lab, now investigating a trash can, back over to her mistress.

Sophie took the leash and introduced him to the cops. “Detective Freitan and Detective Wong, this is my partner Jake Dunn. The detectives responded to the crime scene I found, and were kind enough to bring me here.”

Jake sized up the two. Freitan looked like a multi-ethnic Wonder Woman; tall with a curvy build and a shiny thick braid, her handshake wrung his hand like a truck driver’s as she ran an eyeball over him in a frank, full body check-out. Wong was wiry and short and disliked Jake on sight, judging by the squint of his eyes and his refusal to shake.

Jake forged ahead, adopting a confident manner. “Just the people I came to see. My agency, Security Solutions, has been retained to investigate the disappearance of Julie Weathersby. I hear you’re the detectives on the case.”

“Yeah. We are looking into that one. It’s early days yet. Her parents seem a little overprotective. She’s probably holed up with a dude, which can be fun.” The detective licked her lips and showed her teeth like she wanted to take a bite of him. “Can’t blame a girl for getting swept away by the right man.”

Jake ignored the byplay and grinned his most charming. “Well, since my friend Sophie here just found you a big case with that body dump, maybe you wouldn’t mind letting us run with the ball on the missing persons a bit.”

“Sure thing.” Freitan narrowed her eyes at Wong, who had opened his mouth to object. “Fred, the Weathersby case is back burner right now with this other discovery. Why not let the private dicks run with it?” She emphasized “dicks” in a way that made Jake squirm internally, though with an effort, he kept his expression neutral and his stance relaxed.

Wong gave an almost imperceptible head jerk towards the bull pen area through a closed gate. “We can give them what we have, at least.”