kiDNApped (A Tara Shores Thriller) (6 page)

“Good afternoon, Agent Shores, my name is Kristen Archer, the daughter of William Archer, the missing scientist. You’re in charge of his case, and you had told me to contact you if I had any questions.”

Instantly Tara’s eyes were drawn back to the Archer case file, the INDETERMINATE stamp lying in wait atop the folder.

“Hello, Miss Archer. I’m afraid there haven’t been any major developments in your father’s case. Is there something specific I can help you with?”
Does she have new information for me?

“My brother Lance and I are here in Hawaii—we’re just checking into our hotel in Waikiki right now—we came here to see if there’s anything at all we can do to help with the investigation. As I’m sure you’re aware, our father will be declared legally dead in two more days.”

Tara empathized with Kristen, for she knew that coming to Hawaii was a desperate attempt to reach out to her father before his case was closed and the active investigation ended. She didn’t see what she would be able to accomplish for Kristen and her brother, but since they had come all the way out to the islands, the least she could do would be to meet with them in person.

“Listen, I'm leaving right now to take care of something on Waikiki Beach. Can you meet me on the beach right in front of Duke's restaurant? We can discuss the case there,” Tara said.

“How will I recognize you?” Kristen asked.

“I’ll be the short-haired brunette with an FBI badge around her neck and a gun on her hip.” She gave directions and they clicked off.

Two birds, one stone, Tara thought as she walked toward the door to head for her car. At least this way the Archers wouldn't have to take a cab all the way downtown; she had no good news to tell them.

Then, as her eyes caught her camera on the desk, lying next to the Archer case folder, a thought overtook her. Small, at first, but it coalesced into something that made her stop walking. She opened the case folder one more time, then reviewed the TV map image on her camera’s screen. Thirty seconds later, she smiled and left the office.

… GAAA
10
TTGA...

Duke’s
,
5:27 PM

Tara threaded her way through the crowded bar, where the noise of vacationers and locals taking advantage of happy hour almost drowned out the waves thundering on the reef offshore. She headed for the open-air seating area, only slightly less packed than the bar, where she was greeted with a stunning view of the ocean.

Beyond the umbrella-shaded tables situated on the sand, surfers rode waves across the coral reefs while tourists floated closer to shore on rafts. A three-piece band played island music as people danced nearby, most holding drinks.

Shielding her eyes from the sun, Tara scanned the tables while she mentally pictured the blond haired man she’d just seen on television. Before long, she fixated on a shaggy haired surfer type in shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops occupying a seat at an end table. Three other college-aged men sat with him, but as Tara watched, two of them patted him on the shoulder, got up and left.

Tara made her way to his table.

“Excuse me, are you Dave Turner?” Tara asked the surfer guy. The other man who still shared his table stood up and smiled briefly at Tara before turning back to Dave. “I won’t keep you from your fan club, bro. Just wanted to make sure I’d still be able to collect on that beer you owe me after I heard about what happened out there. Glad you’re okay.”

The two engaged in an informal handshake and then Dave, now alone at his table, turned to Tara.

“Yeah, I’m Dave Turner.”

Tara showed him her badge.

“Hi Dave, I'm Special Agent Tara Shores. I need to talk with you about what happened today.” She took a seat at the table.

Dave set down his bottle of beer and then swept a hand over the table. “Be my guest. I sure would like to know who killed my boss out there today, and who almost killed me.”

“So far I don’t know much beyond what was reported on the local news. Tell me what happened.” Tara surreptitiously thumbed a voice recorder in her pants pocket.

Dave recounted his being hired by Johnson, the metal detector training, looking for the ring, the dive and seeing Johnson’s body plummet to the bottom with a severed neck. He ended with an account of his “rescue” by the canoers, although he was quick to point out that he would have easily made the swim to shore anyway.

As he spoke, Tara evaluated the young man. His manner of speaking was commensurate with that of a recent college graduate. He did not seem to show signs of drug abuse—in fact, he seemed to be in good physical condition—although she would of course check his files with the Bureau. Her intuition told Tara that Dave was being honest, but she knew that if need be she could always subject him to a polygraph test and controlled interrogation.

Just as Dave finished talking, Tara saw a man and woman walking on the sand past the row of tables, looking around. When the woman turned to look her way, Tara held out her badge. “Kristen Archer?” she called. She recognized Kristen and Lance from photos in the William Archer case file.

Kristen nodded, and she and Lance made their way into the patio area to join Tara.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Kristen said, offering her hand.

Tara stood and shook Kristen’s hand. “I wish it were under better circumstances,” she said. She then shook hands with Lance, who spent more time visually appraising Tara’s outfit than did his sister. Tara wasn’t wearing the stereotypical FBI dark suit, but rather a conservative business outfit, Hawaiian style with a floral print top. Lance thought she looked like a banker, maybe a CPA, except for the pistol on her hip. “Please have a seat,” Tara said, waving them over to two empty chairs at the table.

“I’m confused,” Dave said, looking up at Tara. “Why are they here?”

“They're here for their own, unrelated case, and this was the only time I could meet them.” Tara explained. Then she added, “However, their case also involved an unusual boating incident in these waters, and although I don't in any way mean to insinuate that the two cases are connected...”

“What is it that happened?” Kristen cut in as she and Lance took seats at the table.

Dave recounted the events of the day yet again for Kristen and Lance, while Tara took the opportunity to check his story for inconsistencies. She found none.

“Where are you two from?” Dave asked the Archers. Kristen told him they were from Los Angeles.

“Ah, mainlanders. Well, I shouldn’t be too harsh. I was from there once, too,” Dave said. “And it looks like I’ll be going back again soon, the way things are going.”

“Why’s that?” Kristen asked. Lance had settled into a seat opposite Dave and was now eyeing several full beers on the table that appeared to belong to no one.

“I was hoping that my new job was going to pay for me to live here long enough to find something more permanent. But now my boss is dead, so this new gig is out the window.” Dave appeared sullen for a moment, but then perked up after watching Lance.

“Hey, bud, help yourself to a brew—people keep bringing them to me because they saw me on TV, but they’ll be warm before I can get to ‘em all. Same for you, miss…or is it Mrs.?” Dave said, looking at Kristen, who had taken a seat beside him.

“Actually, it’s Doctor,” she said, not wanting to get too personal. “And no thank you, I’ll take an iced tea if the waitress ever comes around.” Dave waved at an attractive female server some distance away who smiled and approached their table.

Lance was tipping back his beer, enjoying the scenery. Clearly he would be of no help here, Kristen thought.

“Doctor, as in medical doctor?” Dave asked.

“No, PhD,” she said. Cutting off the chance for more small talk, Kristen turned to Tara, who was silently absorbing the details of the conversation ]

The waitress arrived with the iced tea for Kristen. Tara declined the offer of anything to drink.

“I did notice one small thing,” Tara said, “which is why I thought it appropriate to meet with you at the same time as Mr. Turner here,” Tara said, nodding in Dave’s direction.

“And that is?” Kristen asked. Dave also looked on with interest. Lance guzzled his beer and gawked at a passing waitress.

“It isn’t much,” Tara began, “but I have copies of the ship’s log from the
R/V Tropic Sequence
, and I noticed that they stopped to collect water samples at coordinates very near the ones where the
Honu
was anchored,” she said.

Kristen said, “You actually think this incident may be related to our father's case?”

“I'm not saying that,” Tara said, not wanting to falsely inflate the Archers' hopes. “I'm only pointing out an observation. It may mean nothing at all.”

“But two boating incidents in the same area within three months? That isn't normal around here, is it?” Kristen said.

“No,” Tara said. And before she had a chance to continue, Kristen interjected.

“So Dave,” Kristen said, turning her attention to the diver, “do you really think it was a ring that you were looking for down there today?”

From time to time in the course of her career, Tara had been confronted with family members of victims who fancied themselves amateur sleuths. They were more annoying than anything else, but they could be time wasters and, occasionally, even dangerous.

Dave answered before she could regain control of the conversation. “Like I said, I was told I was looking for a wedding ring,” he said, before quickly adding, “not mine—for the guy who hired me—the dead guy, Johnson. He said he dropped it off his boat,” he concluded with a frown. “But now I’m not so sure,” Dave said, finishing off a beer and starting in on another. “I mean, like I told the cops, I find it hard to believe that someone would kill for a stupid ring.”

“What about the boat?” Kristen asked. Tara continued to appear bored, looking out over the water from behind dark sunglasses.

Dave laughed. “Nah. Don’t get me wrong—I’d love to have a little boat like that, but the
Honu’s
not worth killing over.”

“Honu?” Kristen asked.

“That’s the name of my boss’s—former boss’s—boat. It means—”

“Sea turtle,” Lance interjected, setting his empty bottle on the table and sequestering another.

“There ya go,” Dave said. “Not bad for a tourist. So no, nothing I saw was worth killing over. All I can think of is that Johnson must have been involved in some bad sh—stuff that I didn’t know anything about. It’s not like I really knew the guy.”

“To look for the ring,” Kristen said, “what kind of equipment did you use?”

Dave explained in detail the diving setup and the metal detector, then finished by relating how his detector had just locked onto a solid signal when Johnson’s body had come plummeting down.

“So whatever it was that was down there…”

“…should still be down there,” Dave finished for her, his eyes taking on an intense gleam.

A moment of silence ensued as the four of them contemplated this, sipping their drinks. Tara appeared slightly more interested.

Despite the trade winds blowing in from the ocean, the detective felt a trickle of sweat slide down the back of her neck; almost ninety degrees, and humid, but she wasn’t sure if the weather was responsible. She was certain the weather wasn't responsible when she heard Kristen say, “Let’s go get it!”

… CGGA
11
TTGC...

The sound of Dave Turner’s laughter mixing with the music from the band flowed across the table. Lance also laughed, but his was tinged with a certain edginess. He knew his sister was serious. When the mirth subsided a bit, Dave asked Kristen, “Did you just say, ‘Let’s go get it?’”

“Yes!”

Dave smiled at her before looking away, picking up his beer again, and then looking at Tara. “Can we do that? Or is it FBI jurisdiction now or something like that.”

Tara shrugged. “Do you feel that you’d be able to recover the object?”

“Probably, as long as we had a boat, some dive equipment…oh, and an underwater metal detector.”

Kristen’s features took on an accepting expression. “I can rent us a boat for tomorrow morning, scuba gear too. I’m pretty sure I’ve got my C-card,” she said, fishing out her wallet and removing from it a scuba certification card. “I’m not an advanced diver—I’ve got less than fifty dives overall, but I’m competent. The metal detector, though,” she said, flipping her card onto the table for Dave’s inspection, “I thought you already had one of those.”

Dave paused for a moment. His eyes were locked onto the scuba card, but Tara could see that the young man’s thinking now focused on the logistical matters Kristen had so unexpectedly introduced. Dave set his beer back on the table without having taken a sip since the last time he picked it up.

Tara studied Kristen while the conversation unfolded. The marine microbiologist was highly intelligent. Kristen very well might convince Dave to help her find whatever it was that he was looking for, on the off chance it had something to do with her missing father. Tara decided that any collaboration between the two of them was good for the FBI in that it made it that much easier to keep tabs on two cases at once. She continued to listen.

“The one I was using should still be down there, I guess,” Dave was saying.

“You guess?” Kristen asked, perhaps a little more forcefully than she’d intended. But Dave seemed not to notice.

“Well, I told the police I was using one, and I thought they would have taken it along with Johnson’s body, but they said they never saw it. Probably they just left as soon as they got the body. So it must still be down there. It's heavy enough not to drift away.”

“And what about the site location—did you mark the anchor position with GPS?”

“Yeah, I know the coordinates by heart because we made a bunch of trips out there. I don’t have an actual GPS unit, though—I was using the one on the
Honu
.”

“I have a handheld GPS with me,” Kristen said matter-of-factly. Lance rolled his eyes and started in on another beer. It occurred to Tara that Kristen Archer was the kind of person to be prepared for anything—the kind who brings a GPS unit to go looking for her father.