kiDNApped (A Tara Shores Thriller) (19 page)

“Kristen, Lance?” she called out. No one was in the main room. The
lanai
curtain was open and she could see that no one was on the balcony either. She checked the bathroom and found it empty.

Alone in the Archers’ hotel room, she shut the door softly behind her.

The room was clean and orderly. The beds were still made. The clothes they had worn in Kauai were on the floor in the bathroom and on the
lanai,
but aside from that it was obvious the maids had been there earlier. Tara didn't know what she was looking for in particular; anything that would help explain Lance's odd behavior, she supposed.

She looked at the nightstands adjacent to each twin bed. One of them had a small makeup bag lying on top of a handbook entitled
Tropical Marine Microbiology
. She guessed that was Kristen's bed. She went to her nightstand. Except for the customary hotel bible, it was empty. Tara thumbed through the bible, but nothing was hidden within it other than its intended message.

She looked under Kristen's bed. Nothing there. She checked the dresser drawers in the middle of the wall, on which sat the television. They contained only clothing. Then she saw Kristen's backpack hanging from the closet door. She recalled Kristen carrying her laptop in it out on the boat off Waikiki. She crossed the room to the pack. She rifled through it but found nothing interesting.
Where was her laptop? Would she take it with her to dinner?

And then Tara noticed the hotel safe in a corner of the closet. Locked. A label on the safe gave instructions on how to remove its key and what the daily rate was for use of the safe.
She must have put the laptop in there
. Not knowing what she expected to find on the computer anyway, Tara backed out of the closet and went to Lance's bed.

She opened the nightstand drawer and found it empty. Kneeling on the floor, she peered under the bed, which was also free of surprises. Then, on a whim, she lifted the mattress from the frame. Squinting to see into the shadowy space, she was surprised to distinguish a dark object about three feet in. She reached under the mattress and pulled it out.

She was holding a black, leather wallet.

She opened it and extracted an ID. It was a current California driver license belonging to one Lance Archer. In the photo, Lance's hair was a bit longer and he appeared a tad scruffier, but it was definitely him.

The rest of the wallet contained a few credit cards, also bearing Lance's name. No cash. One of his own business cards, touting him as a “Software Solutions Architect.” Nothing else of interest.

Tara closed the wallet and tossed it on the bed.
Lance said he'd had his wallet stolen. That's why he couldn't fly commercial. But he's had it all along. Why would he lie about that?

Tara put the wallet back under the mattress and re-made the bed. He obviously didn't want his sister to find it either. He'd caused Kristen considerable expense by having to charter an airplane instead of flying coach.

Why
?
What else was Lance hiding?

Tara decided that for now she had uncovered enough to mull over. She checked over the room once more to be certain she was leaving it as she'd found it, including a check under Kristen's mattress which turned up nothing—and then went to the front door. After listening and checking through the peephole, she made her exit.

…TTCG
35
TTGC...

Wednesday, June 17, 8:02 AM

Kristen was relieved to see that the Institute for Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics had already opened its doors for the day. She strode through the institute’s front door and made her way to the same reception desk she’d visited earlier. After learning that Dr. Watanabe, the institute’s Director, was not in, Kristen expressed her desire to have gene sequencing done on another microbial sample. The receptionist said that she would see to it that her sample was processed right away, and then shocked Kristen by saying she was sorry about her father’s yacht.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Kristen asked, looking up from her backpack, from which she had been about to take out the pickle jar sample.

“You’re William Archer’s daughter, right? You were talking with Dr. Watanabe about it when you were here yesterday...”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“It was on the local news this morning that your father’s yacht was found abandoned in Kauai, in the river. The crew was dead inside, but your father was not with them.” Then she added, “I’m so sorry. You mean you hadn’t heard?”

“No, I already knew. I was the one who—” Kristen stopped herself. Maybe the news piece didn’t say
who
had found the
Tropic Sequence
. If so, she wanted to keep it that way, since she wouldn’t want to have to explain how she’d known where to look. “Did they give any details?”

“No ma’am, it was just a short little story about how the yacht was found by Kauai police. There was no video or anything.”

Kristen didn’t know if Detective Nikamoto was deliberately withholding information to protect the details of the new investigation, perhaps even trying to make his department look good by claiming credit for the discovery, or if the news station had simply neglected to report the full details of the story. Whatever the case, she was glad her name had not been mentioned.

Kristen thanked the receptionist for the information. Then she pulled the mason jar full of water with the green glowing microbes out of her backpack and handed it over.

Waikiki

Thursday, June 17, 8:05 AM

Tara sat in the window of a coffee shop across the street from the Archers' hotel. Twenty minutes earlier she'd watched Kristen exit the hotel and get into a cab. She'd been expecting this. Kristen had said yesterday that she'd be dropping off the pickle jar sample of seawater at the university bioinformatics lab. Lance was the one she wanted to covertly observe. He'd said that his plans were to sleep all day, but Tara had her doubts.

Those doubts were confirmed when, after ordering a second fruit plate to prolong her occupation of the window table, she saw Lance Archer come walking through the hotel's front entrance at a brisk pace. He wore shorts and a T-shirt with sandals, a baseball cap and sunglasses. He turned left out of the hotel, toward Diamond Head, looking like he knew exactly where he was going.

Tara left cash on the table, grabbed a pineapple slice and casually ambled out onto the street. Looking down the block, she found that Lance was easy to spot because of his red hat. She began to tail him, not worried too much about being recognized because she, too, was dressed as a carefree beachgoer. She wore a black bikini under a purple sarong wrap and a T-shirt with white sandals, a wide-brimmed sun hat and oversized sunglasses. She carried a beach bag in her left hand, and a coral bracelet completed the ensemble.

Tara followed Lance at a distance of about half a block, the sidewalk thick with tourists. Lance kept walking straight ahead, not looking around at all. Tara, who had undergone training in how to follow a subject on foot in an urban setting, walked at a normal pace, waiting lights out rather than jaywalking, generally blending in. Once she even lost sight of Lance, but she didn't panic, just kept walking while looking ahead, using her peripheral vision to check the shops lining the sidewalk in case he'd ducked into one.

His red hat appeared again, though, Lance having made a right turn toward the beach. She waited for the light to change to WALK, laughing to herself as two tourists who jaywalked received an angry horn blast from a motorist turning left, and then she also made the same turn. She continued to follow Lance from a safe distance, turning left onto Kalakaua at the beach, passing a popular bodyboarding spot the local kids called “Walls.” They continued toward Diamond Head to the edge of Waikiki, past the Honolulu Zoo, then past the Waikiki Aquarium, which marked the end of Waikiki proper.

Where the heck was Lance going?

Tara fell back a little as the crowd thinned and the sidewalk narrowed. She passed sprawling banyan trees as well as stands of Australian pines. Suddenly she saw Lance leave the sidewalk into a parking lot. She caught up to the spot where he had turned and kept walking straight while glancing right. He was entering the New Otani Hotel.

Tara waited until he was inside and then followed past a koi pond, up the steps past the porters and into the cavernous, marble-floored lobby.
What business could Lance have in this hotel?

And then she saw through the lobby to where the patio dining area fronted the beach, a sign reading, Hau Tree Lanai. She watched as Lance descended the steps to the restaurant and was led by a hostess to a table overlooking the sand. Tara stepped away from Lance’s line of sight while she pondered his choice of destination. Could he just be out having a nice breakfast alone?

Then Tara caught a glimpse of the sparkling water and the dazzling bright sand, and she had an idea. She exited the hotel back out onto the sidewalk and then took the public beach access way to Sans Souci Beach, which fronted the hotel. There, she removed her sandals and walked over the already hot sand out to the middle of the beach until she was in front of the restaurant and she could see Lance’s red cap above the
lanai
railing.

Then Tara proceeded to unpack her beach bag, like any other tourist. Unlike any tourist, however, her “beach bag” was really a pre-packed disguise accessory filled with eavesdropping and surveillance equipment. The bag was kept ready at all times in the trunk of her Crown Vic. Living in Hawaii, she had already found it useful on several occasions.

Tara put down a colorful towel imprinted with a map of the Hawaiian islands. She took off her sarong and shirt so that she was clad only in the bikini. She lay down on her stomach, in what she thought of as a prone sniper position, on the towel facing the restaurant. Next, after looking at the people laying out nearest to her to be sure they weren’t watching, Tara pulled out a device which looked like a tiny satellite dish with a pistol grip, with earbud style headphones attached.

She set the parabolic microphone, which could pick up soft conversation from a hundred yards away, low in the sand, tenting her bag over it so that it couldn’t easily be seen. Then she put a pair of white earbuds on and powered up the device. She pointed the dish at Lance, who sat by himself. Perhaps he would make a phone call, Tara hoped. But presently a waiter came to Lance and she heard him order a mimosa, which Tara knew to be champagne and orange juice.

Tara smiled, trying to appear relaxed. Lying there in the sand with headphones on, Tara looked to those around her like just another sun worshipper listening to an iPod on the beach.

8:25 AM

Lance sat down at an empty table in the Hau Tree Lanai. At the Diamond Head end of Waikiki, its patrons dined in the shadow of the extinct volcano. This morning the patio was full of hotel guests having breakfast before embarking on a day of sightseeing. The clientele was well-to-do—this hotel was clearly a cut above the discount hotels in the heart of Waikiki that catered to the package deal hordes. It was also an international crowd; there were as many Europeans, Canadians and Japanese as there were Americans.

The beach beyond the patio was already populated, and beyond that, swimmers plied the protected water inside the reef while surfers rode breakers beyond the exposed line of coral where the waves unleashed their stored energy after travelling thousands of miles across the open ocean.

This was not a place Lance would have found on his own. As soon as his sister had left for the sequencing lab, Lance had contacted his Asian associates to request a meeting. He looked up from the menu, casting a nervous glance toward the patio entrance. His associates had seen the news reports about the scuttled yacht found in the Kauai river, and had agreed to convene immediately, giving Lance the name of the establishment he now found himself in.

He looked to the door again, then at his watch. His contacts were late. A waiter asked Lance if he needed more time. He ordered a mimosa; he wanted something stronger, but decided that the mimosa would not look out of place here at this early hour.

Then a pair of Asian men appeared suddenly at Lance’s table, wearing some kind of exercise outfits with designer sunglasses—getups that blended in with this environment. He hadn’t seen them come in because they’d used a side entrance instead of the main breezeway from the hotel as Lance had. They took seats on either side of him, and Lance bid a good morning to Mr. Left and Mr. Right.

“This morning is anything but good,” Right began without preamble. Left nodded in agreement, and then they had to pause as the waitress returned with Lance’s drink—earning Lance a frown from Left—and took their orders. The Asians ordered croissants and fruit with bottled water, while Lance went for the local favorite of Portuguese sausage with eggs, two scoops of rice and gravy. Then the waiter left them alone again. Lance tried to start things off on a light note.

“No
fugu
on the menu here, or I would have ordered that. What’s the point of eating something if it can’t kill you, right?”

Left looked out at the ocean while he spoke. “The cholesterol and fat in sausage and eggs will kill you slowly and surely over the years, if you eat them enough. Danger is everywhere, my American friend. It seems you have yet to impress upon yourself this fact.”

Lance sipped from his champagne flute, staring at Left though his sunglasses which he now wore constantly during the day to hide his swollen eye. Right started in on him in earnest.

“How is it that your sister knew where to look for the yacht?”

This simple though not unexpected question sent a chill up Lance’s spine. In fact, it would not be incorrect to say that he’d lost a good deal of sleep over it last night. He knew that to mention the messages his father had been “sending” would be a showstopper for the arrangement he’d entered into. His father’s captors would abort the deal—just vanish into thin air with his father. If they let him live at all, Lance thought.