Page 10

CHAPTER 10

When Sachie woke to the sound of her alarm, she stretched and opened her eyes, taking a moment to remember where she was. When the memories flooded back in, she turned to the empty space beside her, wondering if falling asleep in Teller’s arms had been nothing more than a delicious dream that had chased away her recurring nightmare.

She glanced around the room, the gray light of predawn giving her just enough light to verify she was alone. Her chest tightened with a longing she didn’t expect. After her nightmare, she’d slept deeply. The fact she’d been held in Teller’s arms had to be the reason. The good night’s sleep wasn’t the only reason for the unexpected and overwhelming longing she was experiencing. She’d liked being held. And not just by anybody.

Teller hadn’t asked for anything, hadn’t come on to her, hadn’t berated her for being scared. He’d wrapped his arms around her and held her until she woke up, and then while she finally slept.

Her body tingled at the memory of being pressed against his length.

What would it be like to lie naked with him?

Sachie flung back the covers and leaped out of bed. Such thoughts shouldn’t be foremost in her mind when she had bigger problems to solve. Besides, the man was assigned to her as a protector, not a lover.

And there she was, right back to imagining them naked, writhing together in a passionate embrace. Sachie moaned, reached for jeans and a blouse from her suitcase and quickly dressed, putting an end to any ideas involving bare bodies. A quick glance at the clock on the nightstand showed she had fifteen minutes before the time they’d agreed they needed to leave.

With her hairbrush and toothbrush in hand, she left her room and crossed the hall to the bathroom. As she reached for the doorknob, the door swung open.

Teller stood before her, naked from the waist up, hair tousled and a dot of shaving cream clinging to his chin .

Sachie’s breath caught in her throat, and she struggled for words, her gaze fixing on his broad chest.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice low and sexy as hell, making her quiver all over.

She never quivered. What was wrong with her?

“Good morning,” she managed to say.

Teller cocked an eyebrow. “Is there something you wanted, or were you going to join me in the bathroom?”

His words made her realize she was blocking his exit.

She jumped back. Heat rose up her neck and flooded her cheeks. “No. No. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry about.” He stepped through the doorway and waved a hand. “It’s all yours.”

Sachie dove into the bathroom, closed the door and leaned against it. Holy shit. She’d acted as if she’d never seen a bare-chested man before.

To be honest, she’d never seen a bare-chested man like Teller.

Get a grip, woman. He’s just a man.

Her personal experience with men hadn’t been the greatest. Any attraction to this one could only lead to more heartache and disappointment.

Not that Teller was like the other men who’d let her down in the past, or at least as far as she could tell.

She straightened, relieved herself, brushed her teeth and then smoothed the tangles out of her hair. For a brief moment, she stared at her reflection in the mirror and reminded herself she was a strong, independent woman worthy of respect.

And love .

She’d settle for respect for now. Although she’d come a long way from the abused shell of herself that she’d been, love still seemed a stretch.

Done in the bathroom, she returned to her room, repacked her suitcase and carried it down the stairs. Leaving the case by the front door, she followed the fresh aroma of brewing coffee to the kitchen. Chef Ule stood at the stove, cracking eggs into a skillet while Teller and Hawk hovered around the coffee maker, speaking in low tones.

As she entered the room, Teller and Hawk turned.

“Ah, just in time.” Hawk lifted the carafe and held it over an insulated mug. “The coffee is ready, and we were discussing a plan of action.”

“Has it changed?” she asked as Hawk filled the mug and then handed it to her.

“Not at all,” he said. “I’m just reminding Teller to feed any clues to Swede. He can be searching the internet while you two are pounding pavement for answers.”

Sachie sipped the steaming brew carefully. “That’s good to know.”

“Any names you unearth or incidents you recall that might have made the news, he can research, check online articles, run background checks and, if necessary, tap into the dark web for more nefarious connections.”

Sachie blinked. “He can do that?”

Hawk nodded. “He has and will when it comes to the safety of our operatives and clients.”

“Kalea always sings his praises. What is he, some kind of internet hacker?” she asked.

“We prefer computer guru,” Hawk said with a grin. “Can I interest you in scrambled eggs and toast? Ule should have something ready shortly.”

Sachie glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Thanks for the offer, but we need to leave in the next few minutes for the airport.”

“You can take the coffee with you,” Hawk said.

Ule appeared beside them and held out what looked like paper lunch bags. “Ham, egg and cheese breakfast burritos and blueberry muffins. Don’t go away hungry.”

Sachie took the bag and hugged Ule. “Thank you, Ule. ”

Teller accepted his bag and shook Ule’s hand. “Thanks, Ule. Your culinary skills never fail to impress.” He turned to Hawk. “Thanks for putting us up for the night. We’ll keep you informed of our progress.”

“If you need backup, don’t hesitate to call,” Hawk reminded him. “With some of the team on Oahu, we can have them where you need them quickly.”

“I have their numbers.” Teller glanced toward Sachie. “Ready?”

She nodded and led the way out of the kitchen to the front door.

“Wait!” a voice called out.

Sachie turned back.

Kalea made her way down the stairs, holding onto the rail. By the time she reached the ground floor, she was shaking her head. “You don’t realize how critical it is to see your feet when descending stairs until you can’t see your feet.” She grimaced. “I just want a hug before you head back to Oahu. I’m sorry the Big Island wasn’t the haven you hoped. I hope you consider coming back after you nail the bastard who’s doing this to you.”

Sachie hugged Kalea. “I’m coming back. There are enough young people on the Big Island who need help to keep me busy, and I kind of like the smaller city and quieter pace. ”

“Oh, good,” Kalea said. “I’d love to see you more often, and I want our baby to get to know and love Auntie Sachie as much as we do.”

“I’ll be back,” Sachie repeated. “I want to know your baby as well. I’ve always wanted to be someone’s Auntie.”

Sachie followed Teller out the front door and down the steps to their vehicle. He opened the passenger door and held her coffee and breakfast bag as she climbed in and buckled her seatbelt.

Sachie settled the travel mugs of coffee in the cup holders and took the bags of Chef Ule’s breakfast while Teller rounded the hood and slid into the driver’s seat.

They sipped coffee and ate burritos during the hour-long drive across the island to Kona International Airport, only speaking to comment on the fog in the mountains and the difference in terrain and lush vegetation between the east side of the island and the rugged lava fields of the west.

Though the burrito was amazing, Sachie only ate half of hers, wrapping the rest to eat later when her stomach wasn’t knotted.

“Are you nervous about flying?” Teller asked as they neared the airport.

Sachie sighed. “I shouldn’t be, considering how short the flights are. We’re barely up in the air before we’re descending to land. I just think of all the things that could go wrong and that I have no control over. I’m in awe of Kalea’s ability to fly airplanes. I don’t think I could.”

“I spent so much time in military aircraft, I had to learn to be okay with it,” Teller said. “Mostly helicopters, flying in and out of hot zones.”

“I’m sure you were more concerned about the mission ahead or the enemy shooting you down than the actual flight.” Her lips twisted. “Which makes me feel like a big baby being afraid of flying from one island to another; it’s like riding a bus.”

“Some fears can’t be explained away,” Teller said. “I don’t think you’re a baby. I especially didn’t think you were anything but a badass when you flew out of the closet ready to gut me with a butcher knife. That was pretty ballsy.”

Her brow furrowed. “I almost killed you.”

“ Almost being the keyword. You did good.” Teller nodded. “Had the attacker gotten to you before I did, you might have inflicted serious harm on him. He might have reconsidered any further attacks.”

“Or he could’ve killed me, and you and I wouldn’t be flying to Oahu looking for him,” Sachie said, her tone flat.

Teller cast a frown her way. “Now that’s just negative talk. ”

She sighed. “You’re right. Project your desired outcome and follow through. That’s how I made it through college after all that happened to me.” She squared her shoulders and sat up straighter. “We’re going to find who’s stalking me, put him away and get on with my plan to own a house with a yard and a puppy.”

“That’s my girl,” Teller said with a grin. “Badass to the core.”

“That’s me,” she said, feeling anything but badass. “A firm believer in faking it until you feel it.”

Forty minutes later, as the airplane left the runway and flew out over the open ocean, Sachie gladly accepted Teller’s hand to squeeze throughout the flight and the landing at the Honolulu International Airport. As the plane taxied to a stop, she released her death grip on his fingers and breathed for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

She’d survived the flight from the Big Island to Oahu, placing her one step closer to finding the man who was responsible for smashing the windshield on the SUV her friend had loaned her, breaking into her cottage and burning down her office. Suddenly, the flight over seemed to be the easiest part of her quest. Maybe she’d be better off staying on the plane for the return flight to the Big Island.

As the aircraft came to a halt, she reminded herself she was worthy and didn’t deserve to be terrorized by anyone. Not her father and not some cowardly stalker. It was time to take charge of her own outcome.

First stop...her old office. A patient in those files had to leap out as a potential suspect, and she was going to find him.

Okay, so the first stop wasn’t her old office. It was the car rental counter. They had to get around while they were in Honolulu. Teller rented a nondescript silver four-door sedan and helped her into the passenger seat. He then folded his tall frame behind the steering wheel and adjusted the seat backward to allow his legs to fit comfortably in the confined space.

Sachie called her old boss, Dr. Janek, letting him know they were on their way. He assured them he was at the office and would be happy to let her “look over his shoulder” at the online files once she got there. His receptionist was out sick, so it would be just him.

Sachie arrived fifteen minutes later and spent thirty minutes with Dr. Janek scrolling through the files listed on the computer, asking if this patient rang any bells or that patient had anger issues, while Teller waited in the lobby. She’d have him stop, open a file to allow her to read notes to help her remember what had happened during their sessions. They’d only made it through a third of the folders before Dr. Janek had a patient consultation and had to leave. Once the doctor left to meet with his patient in the consultation room, Sachie went back to work, reviewing patient records. She focused on those she’d spent more time with than Dr. Janek had. Since he hadn’t been followed, attacked or had his office burned to the ground, Sachie had to believe she was the sole target.

Teller entered the office and stood near the door. “How’s it going?”

“Slow,” Sachie admitted. “Nothing is jumping out or screaming, this is the one.”

“Keep looking, you could be close.”

She nodded and kept going, working through the folders as fast as she dared while the psychologist was otherwise occupied with his patient.

Sachie had made it to the records of patients whose last names began with the letter S before she found the fairly recent case of Lily Franklin, a seven-year-old girl she’d removed from a home where the mother’s boyfriend had abused the child. He’d used his cigarettes to burn the girl’s torso and back, not once or twice, but a dozen times, while her mother was passed out on methamphetamines. A discerning teacher who’d had playground duty noticed the burns when the child had hung upside down on the monkey bars. She’d immediately rushed the girl to the nurse’s office and called the police.

Sachie had been called in on the case to formally recommend the girl be removed from the home and placed in foster care, her mother, Candice Franklin, charged with neglect and the boyfriend with assault.

The mother had screamed at the police officers as they’d arrested the boyfriend and taken him to jail. She’d screamed at Sachie when she’d led the little girl away, threatening to kill her for ruining her life, never mind that the daughter’s life would be forever scarred, both physically and emotionally.

Sachie grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from the doctor’s desk and jotted down the patient’s name, the mother’s address and phone number, and the name and number of the child protective services representative who’d taken the child.

She moved on to the next file and then the next. When she reached Luke Stevenson’s file, her hand shook on the mouse as she stared at the screen. For a long moment, her hand froze. She couldn’t bring herself to open it.

Suddenly, Sachie was standing there again, frozen in horror. After Luke had pulled the trigger, everything had blurred in her memory. She didn’t remember calling the police, though she had. Her memories were chaotic, with the blast of the fatal shot still ringing in her ears as first responders converged on the office. She’d been led out into the parking lot where colored lights strobed in the darkening sky, making her head spin.

As she stood over the monitor, her hand on the mouse, her ears rang and her head spun much like they had that day. Her vision blurred, darkening.

“Sachie?” a voice said close to her ear, penetrating the ringing sound. A hand cupped her elbow. “Are you okay?”

She looked up into Teller’s handsome, stoic face as he pressed her gently onto the desk chair.

“Do you want me to take that?” he asked, indicating the mouse.

After a moment, grounding herself in his gaze, she shook her head. “No. I’m all right.” Slowly, she clicked on the file icon and the folder opened, displaying information about Luke Stevenson, listing the dates he’d met with her over the past months. The final entry bore Dr. Janek’s initials. He must have made the entries when Sachie hadn’t been able to bring herself to return to the office, and there was an attachment on that entry. She opened the attachment to find a photocopy of a death certificate dated that day that had changed her life. To her, it was proof positive that Luke was truly dead. The faces she’d seen on the crowded streets of Honolulu and the one in the window of her cottage on the Big Island couldn’t possibly have been Luke Stevenson. He was dead.

Teller rested a hand on her shoulder. “Do you know if his foster family blamed you for his death?” he asked.

Sachie lifted her shoulders and let them drop. Hell, she blamed herself for his death. Why wouldn’t they?

His hand squeezed her shoulder lightly. “Do you have their names and address in his file?”

She nodded and clicked on the screen with Luke’s personal information.

Teller took the pen from the desk and scrawled the information on the pad beneath Lily’s data. “Do you need anything else from this file? Are there notes indicating the name of the police officer who responded to your call? Maybe he remembers something you might not have noticed.”

She went back to Dr. Janek’s notes and shook her head. “There’s no mention of the responding officer. We can ask at the police station. They would have records.”

“In the meantime, keep looking,” Teller encouraged.

She worked her way through the Ts and thought she’d pretty much exhausted the files until she reached Aidan Williams, a four-year-old she’d been called in to evaluate when he’d ended up in the ER after his father had beaten him with a leather belt and dislocated his arm. The mother had disappeared months earlier, having returned to the contiguous forty-eight states, leaving the father to deal with a four-year-old.

At the court hearing, the father had blamed the kid for misbehaving and had blamed Sachie for taking the boy from him and sending him to jail. He’d sworn he’d get even. That had been over a year ago. The father had been sentenced to two years. Could he have been released?

Sachie wrote down his name and moved on, finishing her search through the Zs.

She peeled the notes off the pad, pushed back from the computer and stood as Dr. Janek appeared in the doorway. “Ready to continue your search?” he asked.

Sachie smiled at her former boss. “No. I think I have what I need.”

“Well, let me know if you need anything else. I hate that you’re having to go through this on the heels of what happened.”

She snorted. “You and me both. I just hope whoever it is doesn’t come after you next.”

“I’m already looking over my shoulder,” Dr. Janek said. “If you decide to stay on Oahu, you’re always welcome to come back to work here. It’s not the same without you.”

“Thank you. It’s nice to know I was appreciated.” She hugged the doctor and headed for the door.

Teller followed.

Once outside, he pulled out his cell phone. “Let me send a picture of those names and addresses to Swede so he can start fishing.”

She held up the handwritten notes while Teller snapped pictures of them. He sent them via text to the Brotherhood Protector hacker.

Sachie hoped he found something.

Teller pocketed his cell phone. “Where next?”

“The police station,” she said. “I want to see if they’ve made any headway on finding whoever broke into my apartment and drowned my pillows. I also need to let them know what happened on the Big Island, in case they hadn’t heard. There’s a chance they might know if some of the people on our list have had further encounters with the law.”

Teller nodded. “Then what?”

Sachie shook her head. “I’d really like to know what bothered Luke so much that he thought his only way out was to end his life.”

“I thought you said he’d hurt his girl.”

“That’s just it. He never hit her. He grabbed her to keep her from doing something he was against. When she pulled free, she fell and hit her head against a wall. Though he didn’t actually hit her, he blamed himself. He was afraid he was genetically predisposed to abuse and would turn out to be abusive like his father.”

“Sounds like he had a couple of things going on that pushed him over the edge,” Teller said.

Sachie's lips pressed together. “Anyway, I want to talk with his foster family to see if they noticed him acting strangely or if they’d had a fight. They might also have an idea who Luke was hanging out with. I’d like to speak with his friends and Kylie, his girlfriend. Maybe that will help me understand the signs I should’ve looked for, so I can figure out ways to de-escalate situations like that if I’m ever in a similar scenario. I never want another kid to die that I could’ve helped.”

“I know you’re still hurting from Luke’s suicide, and I agree with learning from tragedy to avoid it happening again.” Teller gripped her arms and stared down into her eyes. “I’m on board with all of that...as long as we stay on course to find your stalker before he strikes again.”

Sachie met his gaze and held it with determination and purpose swelling inside. She’d be damned if she let anyone control ever her again. “Damn right. Let’s find that stalker.”