The next morning, Sophie woke to the second hangover of her life. “Not again. Never doing this again.” She groaned, and rolled to the side of the bed, setting her feet carefully on the floor. Ginger reached up to lick her face with an eager tongue, and the sensation sent Sophie running to the bathroom. She managed not to vomit, but it took a few minutes of deep breathing for her stomach to settle. She rinsed her furry mouth and brushed her teeth, hoping to get her energy flowing again.
Several cups of tea later, Sophie picked up her phone and checked her messages. Connor had left a text: cracked the code on the blackmail list. Come get it. Also, I missed you last night.
Sophie texted back. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Americans say. Just putting that theory to the test. I will be by in an hour.
An hour seemed ambitious to feel better, so she texted Marcella: got any hangover cures? Marcella had some ideas, and several aspirins and a bottle of orange juice later, Sophie showed up at Connor’s apartment with Ginger in tow.
“Got any hair of the dog to put in here?” Sophie held up the jug of orange juice she was sipping on. “Marcella told me to ask you for some. Said you’d know what that meant, and that it wasn’t hair from Ginger.”
Connor broke into a grin. “You’ve come to the right place, my hungover friend.” He led her to a wet bar concealed in one of the cabinets of the room’s sleek, modern decor. “A dash of vodka in that OJ ought to fix you up.”
“Yes. This is what Marcella recommended as the final part of my hangover cure.” Sophie sipped at the concoction, and grimaced. “I went out with my friends last night, and I’m really not a drinker. I didn’t even have any alcohol at my apartment to do the hair of the dog with.”
“Well, you certainly brought a hairy enough animal,” Connor said as Ginger rapturously fawned over Anubis. The two dogs wagged and sniffed, and even frolicked a little in the spacious living room. “I copied the blackmail list onto the stick drive. Do you want to go back to the Batcave and work on it?”
Sophie’s first smile of the day felt good. “The Batcave is a good name for your office. I should probably just hand the list straight over to Lei, but I can’t wait to dive into it and cross-check the initials you uncovered with the names of everyone we’ve associated with the case so far.”
Connor’s secret office was as cool and peaceful as she remembered it, and putting on her headphones and diving into the wired universe through the secure rig Connor had set up for her felt like finding an unexpected haven. She loaded the name file she had already created that included all of the employees of the Hui, everyone they had so far uncovered associated with Mano’s murder case, and all of Mano’s known business associates, though Sophie was prepared to find out that list did not reflect half of the scope of whatever his activities had been.
It didn’t take long for the list to ping with several names—and one of them raised Sophie’s brows. “Got a name here that Lei is going to be very interested in.”
“Going to share?” Connor slanted a blue-green glance at her.
“I can’t. We have confidentiality agreements. But I’ll tell you as soon as I can, and you are overdue for a thank-you.” Sophie got up and rotated Connor’s chair so he was facing her, and before she could second-guess herself, she climbed onto his lap and straddled him, ignoring his surprised intake of breath.
Taking Connor’s face in her hands, Sophie kissed him.
Oh, so good.
She seemed to sink into him, and he into her. He tasted of coffee and passion, and sensation zipped up and down Sophie’s spine, tingled over her skin, and softened her heart. Connor’s arms around her gave her the same sense of a surprising haven that the computer work area he’d made for her had wrought.
She kissed him some more.
Connor finally broke their embrace, looking up at her. “That’s some thank-you. Want to continue this…elsewhere?”
Sophie smiled. “I have to get this information to Lei. And I don’t want to rush whatever comes next. This will just have to be a preview.”
Connor squeezed her and stroked her. “Consider me hooked by this trailer, and eager for the opening night premiere.”
Sophie touched his cheek and hopped up off of his lap. “I have to run. But keep my chair warm.”
Connor’s smile made her think of dawn breaking over Haleakala. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
Lei danced a little jig in her borrowed cubicle at the HPD, holding the stick drive aloft. “You’re amazing, Sophie, and whatever Security Solutions is paying you, it’s not enough.”
Sophie grinned. She hated taking credit for Connor’s work, but it couldn’t be helped. “I have often thought the same of you, Lei. But this has never been about the money, has it?”
Lei smiled back. “No. It hasn’t, it’s about the satisfaction of getting guys that need to get got.”
Sophie couldn’t help thinking of Connor’s determined expression as he told her the why of the Ghost: “because it needs to be done, and because I can.”
She and Lei did what they could, too.
Lei plugged the stick drive in to the departmental computer and booted up the list that Sophie had cross-checked. “Blackthorne? I thought Blackthorne Industries made an offer on the Kakela site.”
“Yes, they did. After the site was burgled, that offer was rejected. My theory is that Mano sold out the GPR report to Blackthorne, and then tried to blackmail him. Blackthorne, or whoever was representing him, took matters into his or her own hands with the rock found on the premises—and I think it was a male perp because Mano’s body would be hard for a woman to move from where he was killed in the parking lot, to the pit where the body was dumped.”
Lei nodded. “That’s a good working theory. If Blackthorne’s behind the artifact looting, we should find some evidence of it at his home.”
“He seems pretty well-connected. Will likely have legal representation,” Sophie said.
“That’s fine. With his name on this blackmail list, I’ll have grounds to get the search warrant.” Lei rubbed her hands together. “This won’t take long. Go find the gear you used for the other raid. We’re going on a field trip to search a mansion.”