Page 6 of Justified Fear (TFH Team Bravo #2)

He exited his vehicle and walked around to open the door for Maya, undoing her doggie seatbelt.

After taking her to do her business, they walked inside TFH headquarters.

While most of Oahu was just waking up, TFH was a hub of activity.

As he stepped into the common area, he realized that several members of Alpha had shown up, including Adam Lee, their captain.

He undid Maya’s leash so she could go hang out in her corner.

She trotted over to get a pat from Nikki, then headed right for her bed.

She was curled up and almost asleep within a few minutes.

“Hey, how’s Keely?” Nikki asked.

“She’s fine. Not happy about staying at Tripler, but her aunt showed up.”

“She’s local?” Commander Del Delano asked.

The former special forces soldier was there, of course.

He understood that Del was less of a workaholic since the formation of the teams on TFH.

When they first formed, Alpha had been the only team.

Now, they had two active teams with a third team, headed up by former Team Alpha member Marcus.

Team Charlie was slated to go active in the next six weeks.

“In a way. Her father was born and raised here. Her aunty is more of a family friend from what I could tell.” He glanced at Adam. “She said to say that Aunty Lulu said hi.”

Adam’s eyes widen. “ Fuck me .”

“What?”

“Lulu Singh. She’s…” He palmed his bald head before looking at Del. “You know her. The terror of Honolulu.”

“You have the wrong woman,” Ryan said. “This was a little Asian woman, really sweet. Worried about her goddaughter.”

“Keely is her goddaughter?” Adam asked.

Ryan nodded.

“Oh, shit .”

“What?” Seth asked, stepping closer.

“Yeah, we need to dig into Keely’s life,” Del said.

“She had no connection to the Kellys. We already figured that out,” Seth said. “They booked with her because of word of mouth. They contacted her through her website, just as she had mentioned. Referred by the Elliots.”

“The Elliots? The ones who own that yoga retreat on Maui and who knows how many yachts they rent out?” Adam shook his head. “This just got a whole lot more complicated.”

Del nodded. “If she has a connection to Lulu Singh, there’s nothing simple about this.

We’ve never had dealings with her, but I have seen her in court on other cases.

She is a heavy hitter for defense attorneys on Oahu.

Check out the Kellys and see if they have any connection to Singh.

If she was their lawyer, that might have implications. ”

“Are you trying to say Ryan’s girlfriend is dirty?” Autumn Bradford said as she munched on an apple. He had no idea where she had come from, but the Team Alpha member was engaged to Ryan’s boss.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“I heard she landed on top of you in the jungle.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “It’s one of my favorite positions.”

He did not need that image in his head. Jesus. Autumn rarely kept her thoughts to herself.

“Autumn.” Seth’s voice sounded resigned, but there was a thread of humor.

She shrugged and gave him a wink.

“Charity is on her way, right? She should be able to find all these connections. Or do we need Emma?” Del asked.

The boss and his wife had met right as they formed TFH several years ago.

Instant hatred from both of them, but from what Ryan understood, she smacked him in the face with a two-by-four, so that was to be expected.

She was a genius—a certified genius—and could work out patterns that other people couldn’t see.

TFH contracted her from time to time—as did HPD and gaming companies for help in developing their games—to help with cases that needed a little extra help.

“No,” Seth said. “We might need her later, but right now, we just need to see what we can find on the surface.”

As if on cue, Charity came strolling into the office.

The forensic tech was dressed down for her.

Usually, she wore… well, themed dressing was the best way to describe it.

A geek at heart, the gorgeous African American woman could show up one day as Rosie the Riveter and then dress in Goth the next day.

Today, though, she was dressed in stretchy pants and an oversized shirt. She looked exhausted and a little pale.

“Hey, everyone. I’ll get started right away.”

“You sure you’re up to it?” Del asked, worry threading his voice.

“Yeah,” she said with a tired smile. “Just a little morning sickness.”

Oh, that’s right. Charity just found out she was pregnant last week. TJ, her husband, came striding in behind her.

“Hammer, what are you doing here?” Del asked. Hammer was TJ’s nickname—which probably had to do with the fact that his first name was Thor.

“She’s having dizzy spells that she’s not telling anyone else about.”

“Charity!” Adam said, his eyes narrowing. “We can survive without you.”

“No, you can’t.”

“You could do this work at home, right?” Del asked.

“I wanted to be here. I work better in my office. Besides, the dizzy spells are usually gone by midmorning. I just had Thor driving me in. And we can use him. He can see if there are any ongoing investigations into anyone who was at the dinner party. I mean, I can, but he can do it legally.”

“We should have a fancy dinner party,” Autumn said.

Everyone ignored her, well, except Seth, who nodded.

He was pretty sure his boss would do just about anything to make his fiancée happy.

And that meant they would all be expected to come.

Not because they were worried about their captain, but Autumn scared just about everyone on both TFH teams.

“Let me see what I can hunt up,” Charity said.

TJ and she headed for the elevators.

“So, we have a bunch of dead dinner guests, a missing bartender, and one survivor who didn’t see anything?” Del asked.

“Did she remember anything else?”

Ryan shook his head. “No. She mostly complained about being at the hospital. They wouldn’t release her without a family member or at least another adult to take care of her.”

“You could have volunteered,” Nikki said.

He rolled his eyes. “Do you know if the canvassing helped?”

Seth shook his head. “The closest two houses are up for sale and empty. We managed to contact two of the other owners. They are off the island on vacation. The other one was dead asleep and didn’t hear anything.”

“I heard from my cousin that it took forever to get them to come to the door. They had the TV on while they slept, and it was so loud, they didn’t hear the cops at the door,” Adam said.

He was Hawaiian, born and bred on the island.

His family had served in HPD for decades, so he had connections all throughout the ranks.

“That couldn’t be on accident,” Kap said. “This feels as if it had been planned for a while.”

“When was Keely booked to do the dinner?” Rami asked.

His tone had Ryan narrowing his eyes at his team member. “She’s not a suspect.”

He shrugged. Rami had a very cynical view of the world. Of course, it had a lot to do with being a former SEAL. Ryan still didn’t know what had happened, but Rami left the service after a few people on his team had been bribed, and Rami barely made it out of the situation with his life.

Ryan glanced at Seth. “So, the idea is that she ran through the forest for hours to throw us off the scent.”

“I don’t think so, but you know we need to look at every avenue. If it is connected to her, it could be that they were after her. With her connections to Lulu Singh, she might have been paying back the attorney. We need to tear apart Keely’s life and her godmother’s.”

Ryan nodded, but he didn’t like it. He always felt protective of the people he’d saved, but there was something completely different with Keely. There seemed to be a connection on a deeper level.

“Elle called in some help from the HPD since there are so many bodies, and with Charity and Hammer here, we should be able to find out more faster. With a missing bartender and one survivor, we need to cover all our bases, folks,” Del said. “Let’s get to work.”