“Come on, Sophie, take a chance.”

Don’t just take a chance by using the DAVID program—take a chance on him. Jake willed Sophie to understand his double meaning. She glanced up, her golden-brown eyes a little surprised. It almost seemed as if she understood him; but he’d been wrong before.

“All right.” She opened the laptop. “Where is the client information?”

Jake passed her the file containing all of the relevant data on their client submitted by the parents. Sophie had her program open, and began inputting. Her long tan fingers flew, her eyes flicking rapidly back and forth between the files’ contents and the screen of the computer that she was logging data into. Her ability to submerge into the cyber world was amazing. While he appreciated the function of that world, he’d never found it absorbing. He was a man of the outdoors, most at home doing something physical, and he made no apologies.

Jake sipped his amaretto. God, he hated the syrupy stuff, but he’d taken notice of what she liked; a good operative always knew everything about his objective. She liked Blue Hawaiians, too, and those frothy tourist concoctions made amaretto seem like hard alcohol.

Sophie drank a certain kind of tea, smoky and dark, from Thailand. She suffered from depression that could drag her down for days. She loved her dog. She slept in the buff.

Jake’s mind stuttered on that one. He’d overheard Marcella teasing Sophie about her private nudity habits, and had never been able to forget it. His gaze flicked over Sophie’s form, hidden in a body-concealing loose top and leggings. Ugh. He hated those clothes, too.

Whiskey, neat. And Sophie naked in bed. Now that would be a better evening.

“If you aren’t careful, we’ll devolve into actual working.” Jake handed Sophie her glass of amaretto after he topped it up a bit. “Medicinal purposes. We’ve had a long day.”

Sophie took it without looking at him and sipped. “That is certainly true.” She was barely paying any attention. Good. If he could just maneuver her into position . . .

Jake leaned against the headboard and patted the comforter beside him. “Come over here. You need back support.”

Sophie moved onto the bed next to him, leaning against the headboard, her eyes never leaving the screen of the laptop on her knees. She trusted him, and that gave him such a good feeling. She saw him clearly, knew he would cheat, lie, steal, and fight dirty to get what he wanted, and she still trusted him. Kinda made him wish he was a better man. Maybe he could be a better man, for her. Anything was possible—but tonight he was bent on seduction.

Sophie eventually finished her drink and he observed her for any signs of effect, taking her glass and filling it again. She slipped up, made a typo. Giggled as she corrected it. The booze was working.

“What’s so funny?” He drew a line down her bare arm with a fingertip, gratified to see her shiver.

“Just feeling good. Kind of floaty. I am a lightweight, as they say.” Sophie gazed up and to the left, considering. “What keywords, besides our client’s name, should we have DAVID search for?”

“I don’t know. Camping? Female hiker? Come to think of it, I don’t know how much about Julie Weathersby’s current travel is going to be online in any form. She didn’t do much social media, according to her parents and that commercial location media group that’s posting about her.”

“I know not what is available about Weathersby on the Facebook. But we must try all of the avenues.” Sophie’s voice had become pedantic and measured as she attempted to hide her amaretto buzz. She closed the laptop and set it on the nightstand. “And now we conclude our evening’s plan of collegial investigation work and alcoholic beverages.” She gave a little burp and hid it behind her fist.

God, she was adorable.

Time to make that move.

Jake slid an arm around behind Sophie’s back and drew her close against him. He loved how she felt against him; warm, strong, and soft in all the right places. He lifted her chin with his other hand. Sophie’s eyes fluttered shut as her face tilted toward him. Her lips parted. He waited to see if she would pull away, but she didn’t.

So, he kissed her.

Softly, at first. Like a gentleman. But she made a tiny sound, and that was the end of that.

He hauled Sophie over into his lap, and the kiss was bold and graphic. She gave as good as she got, pulling his hair, tugging at his shirt, nipping his lip with her teeth. Their hands were everywhere they’d wanted to be on each other. Thought disappeared in a red buzz of hungry sensation.

They eventually came up for air.

Sophie blinked, her gaze foggy. “I thought it might be that good,” she said. “But now you have to go.” She pushed at his chest.

Jake’s arms tightened around Sophie, but he made them let go. He was playing a long game. It would never be a good idea to rush a goal this worthy.

“No means no.” He gently disentangled himself and kissed her one last time, a touch on the nose, a brush of his lips behind her ear. “You’re the boss.” Leave her wanting more. Leave her believing she was in control. Leave her knowing she could trust him.

But that didn’t mean walking away was easy.

They met at the Jeep the next morning. After they’d settled their belongings in the vehicle and secured Ginger, Jake handed Sophie a bamboo stick with three sugar-dusted malasadas speared on it. “Eat these. And drink this.” He handed her a large cup of the strongest tea he had been able to find.

“Thank you. I slept very well.” She wouldn’t look at him. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Me too. Let’s drive over to that park Hernandez suggested and continue canvassing. Did your computer program turn up anything?”

“Not yet.”

Ginger thrust her head between the seats, and Jake caressed the dog. The Lab shut her eyes and rubbed against his hand wantonly as Sophie watched. Blotchy red appeared on her neck and she turned away, taking a bite of the local Portuguese pastry. She was thinking about him touching her. Wishing he’d touch her like he was stroking her pet.

Good.

Jake brushed her arm as he put the Jeep in gear, and once they were on the road, he took her hand.

It was a bold move, and he knew it was the wrong one when Sophie pulled her hand away and tucked it into her lap. “Jake, we have to talk. Last night . . .”

“Last night happened, and I’m not sorry.” Talking was a mistake. Talking would make her withdraw back into her shell. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I won’t be one of your . . .”

“I know. You told me. And I told you . . . what I told you.” He cleared his throat. He didn’t want to have to try to define what they were to each other at this stage. “Can we just move on? Do we have to analyze this?”

“Do we?” She eyed him. “I think you were a little generous with the amaretto last night.”

He cracked a grin. “Was I? Didn’t notice.”

She rolled her eyes and groaned. “You’re what they call a bad boy, Jake.”

“You have no idea.” He winked.

She punched him in the arm, hard, and this time he was the one who groaned.

East Point Park was on the dry side of the island’s volcanoes. Golden brown hills covered in dried grasses swept down to a horseshoe bay of gleaming turquoise water, black sand, and stunted kiawe trees. The area was sheltered from the prevailing wind by a rocky promontory. Tents were clustered under the overhanging trees.

Jake and Sophie began their questioning at the edge of the campground.

They had no luck with the campers, nor the beachgoers enjoying the sun and sand. Finally, the pimply young man occupying the ticket booth on the way into the park nodded at the sight of Julie’s picture. “Yeah. I saw her. She was here for two days. Let me see where.” He typed into a laptop and looked up. “She stayed in campsite 19A.”

“Was she with anyone? Did she share the campsite?” Sophie’s voice was low and urgent, and the young man looked up, really taking her in for the first time. His eyes widened as he tracked her face, her scar, both of their utilitarian black clothing.

“Who did you say you were?” They showed their Security Solutions IDs.

“This young woman is missing. We are trying to find anyone who might have seen her.”

“Well, people are not supposed to share campsites, and it didn’t seem like she did. But she was sharing a fire with a couple.”

Jake took out his phone and showed the couple from the park outside of Hilo. “Any chance it was these two?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact. The three of them were barbequing. I leave the ticket booth when it closes at six, but they already seemed to be having a good time before I left.” The tops of his ears turned red. “We’re not supposed to allow alcohol in the campground, but it’s hard to call people on it.”

“Did they camp that night?” Sophie asked.

“Yes. The couple only stayed the last night that your missing woman did.” He tapped some buttons, and nodded. “Yep. Spot 19B right next to her.”

“What were their names?”

“Jim Webb and Holly Rayme.”

Jake and Sophie thanked him and walked through the campground to the site in question. Jake surveyed the level, sandy sites with their tidy enclosed metal fire ring. “So she met them here. Probably went to the next park with them. They know something, I’m sure of it.”

“I agree. Is it time to contact Freitan and see if we can get that couple picked up?”

“Time to update Freitan, at least. We’ve got a lead. We need to share it.” Jake made prayer hands. “Please, Sophie. You call her.”

Sophie laughed. “Big bad Jake is scared of the detective! All right, I will call her.” She dialed the detective directly, and he listened to Sophie updating Freitan on speakerphone.

“All right. I’ll put out a Be On Look Out for this couple. Can’t do anything more at the moment.” The woman’s voice came through a bit fuzzy.

“What about the dead family? What’s happening there?” Sophie asked.

“Can’t discuss it, unfortunately. But I will say—that idea you had? Spot on.” Freitan clicked off.

Sophie looked at Jake. “So, I was right. That family who was murdered was in Witness Protection. There must be some kind of leak.”

A WITSEC leak was serious. “I don’t see what we can do about that,” Jake said. “The Marshal Service doesn’t like working with local law enforcement, let alone private investigators.”

“I do not know what we can do either,” Sophie said, but she was frowning thoughtfully as she walked toward the ticket booth, away from Jake. What was she thinking? Jake wished he knew.