Sophie’s burner phone buzzed with an incoming text as she headed back to her office. It was a texting phone with a flip-open case, and she read the message. “This is Connor. Still up for a hike-run day after tomorrow?”
She already badly needed some sort of physical outlet. “Wish I could go today,” she texted back, reaching her office and shutting the door. “But Dunn has me working hard on the cult case. We are investigating three missing consorts of the cult leader on behalf of our client.”
“Sounds more fun than what I’m doing. Quarterly shareholder reports. Just kill me now.”
Sophie smiled as she read. Connor had been left in charge of the growing security company by its departed CEO Sheldon Hamilton, and clearly some parts of the CEO job suited the breezy Australian better than others.
She plugged her laptop back in and was organizing her notes and files when Dunn reappeared from escorting the women to the elevator. “So. We gonna do some investigating today?”
“Yes. Let’s divide up some of the tasks. I want to run a deep background on Sandoval Jackson using DAVID. I no longer have official access to VICAP and the other FBI databases, but I can still get into them using DAVID and search keywords. I will also build a background as much as possible on these victims. But we can find their parents easily enough. Why don’t you do phone interviews with the parents, find out their attitudes about their daughters’ involvement with the cult, and what they know about the women’s whereabouts?”
Dunn gave her a level look out of those gray eyes. “You trying to give me orders?” He quirked a brow. “You know I’m in charge of this case, right?”
“Really?” The back of Sophie’s neck got hot. “You can’t have a simple talk about who’s doing what without throwing your weight around?”
Dunn lifted his hands. “Hey. We’re new at working together. I just thought I’d remind you of the lay of the land. And it so happens I agree with your plan. What I don’t like is this separate office deal. If I could make these phone calls in here, you could listen to them and I wouldn’t have to recap everything I just said.”
“And if you think I can do highly complicated computer inputting and calculations with you talking in the background, putting your feet on my desk and thinking I’m hanging on your every word, you’re unfamiliar with tech work. I need cool. Quiet. Dim light. No ambient noise but my music.” Sophie lowered the shiny metal blind to shut out the bright Honolulu day. She rotated the blind and the room plunged into twilight. “So no. I don’t think sharing an office would work.”
Dunn stood up, offense in every line of his big body. “Sorry to cramp your style.” He took three long strides and was out the door, shutting it hard enough to rattle the blinds.
Sophie blew out a breath. Clearly neither of them was used to having a partner. At least they’d worked well together on the raid and the interview.
She checked the thermostat on the wall and turned it down to sixty, then took her headphones out of her bag and plugged them in. She put on a padded Bose headset, settled back in her chair, and sank into the oblivion of being wired in.
Some hours later her phone buzzed again, interrupting the spell of her background building with DAVID. She picked it up and read a text from Dunn. “Sorry I was an ass. I haven’t worked with a partner before, only a unit I commanded. So we’re going to have a few adjustments. Can we confab?”
Sophie stored her latest input and texted back. “Yes. You can come in now.”
She hardly had time to take off her headphones when Dunn appeared at the door. “Got some good stuff from the parents. Mind if I hit the light?”
“I prefer natural light if at all possible.” Sophie swiveled the blinds halfway open.
“You really are a delicate flower, aren’t you? Brr. It’s cold in here.” Dunn’s buoyancy was back.
“I’m more like a finely calibrated machine that needs certain conditions for optimal performance,” Sophie said stiffly. His energy might just be a good balance for her, especially when the depression was bad.
“Whatever.” Dunn flopped in the chair next to the table that he seemed to have chosen. “So. All the parents have concerns about how long their daughters have been missing, and about not being allowed to see their grandchildren. Jennifer Roberts’s parents hadn’t heard from their daughter in ten years and didn’t know where she was at all. The grandchildren and the cult were news to them. We may get more contributions to this op than just Blumfield and her money. The women’s parents who knew about it hated the Society of Light.” Dunn had brought in two water bottles along with his legal pad, and he tossed her one. “You need to hydrate, for that finely tuned brain to be properly calibrated.”
Sophie took the lid off the bottle and drank deep as he continued. “So Mandy Newburt’s parents, the first woman who disappeared, have been the most active. They filed a missing person report, but they did that in their hometown in California, not with Hilo PD. So it seems that the message never got through to Hilo. Amy Fillmore’s parents are also concerned that they hadn’t heard from their daughter, but chalked it up to her being ‘so involved with that sick guru of hers.’” He air quoted his words. “And as I said, Jennifer’s parents hadn’t heard from her in ten years, but they were estranged from their daughter.”
“Did anyone suspect foul play?” Sophie got up and came around the desk. “We need to get a murder board going. Okay if we do it in my office? That way if we need something on the computer I can pop over and look it up.”
“Fine. Use the whiteboard on the wall.”
Sophie began a timeline at the top of the board with the month and year of each woman’s disappearance, according to Blumfield. She turned to Dunn, frowning. “Is it possible that any of these women might have fled, like Sharon did, and just be hiding?”
“Blumfield didn’t think so, if you recall. But I suppose that’s a possibility. I bet that’s what Jackson will say if we confront him about these disappearances.”
“And that brings up an interesting question.” Sophie capped her marker. “Is it murder if the victim voluntarily committed suicide?”
“How voluntary could it be in a setting like that?” Dunn said. His sleek metal pen had reappeared. He spun it helicopter-style around his fingers. “I’d say it’s inherently coercive, but we don’t have to determine that—we can let the district attorney and Hilo PD figure that out. At the very least they have an illegally buried body under the vegetables, the accountant whose rooska suicide was witnessed by the cult. We find that body, and we can boost it as evidence to Hilo PD. Once they have a search warrant, they could bring in ground-penetrating radar and scent dogs and look for the other bodies.”
“But how are we going to get back in there and look for the body?”
“You leave that to me.” Dunn winked. “Now, what did you come up with on Jackson?”
“Interesting background. He is the son of a pair of medical doctors who spent their lives overseas, working in hot spots doing humanitarian aid. They were killed during a coup in Africa when he was twelve. An impressionable age, it turns out. He was shipped back to the United States to an aunt and uncle, where he had his revelation about accelerated reincarnation and began his spiritual quest.” Sophie went back behind her computer and read off her notes. “Jackson studied in ashrams in India and Nepal. He mastered many forms of yoga and other spiritual practice, and began to gain followers. He has a group of six “elders,” and they seem to do the main running of the Society of Light empire—which is quite lucrative.” She read off some statistics. “Their tax return revenue last year as a nonprofit was ten million.”
Dunn whistled. “And where does that money come from?”
“Franchises of his Society of Light yoga studios, curriculum, workshops, swag, and merchandise—and from donations from the Society’s members. All members living in the group settings turn over their income to the cult for the duration.”
“Any malcontents out there we can talk to? Preferably in Hawaii?”
“As a matter of fact, there are. Several members who left Waipio have started blogs. There’s one here in Honolulu. Peter Corbett.” Sophie swung her monitor, and Dunn got up to lean in and look. “Seems a bit angry.”
“I’ll say.” The website featured a pulsing skull and a rambling rant against both the Society of Light and law enforcement, for not taking Corbett’s numerous complaints seriously. “Seems like someone we can talk to in person. Ready for a field trip?”
Sophie stood. Stretched. Locked eyes with Dunn. “What I really need is an exercise break. Ever done any mixed martial arts?”