Chapter 15 Sophie
SOPHIE
The holding cell’s fluorescent light hummed, monotonous, as Sophie finished her morning sun salutation.
The concrete floor was cold against her bare feet, the bed had been hard and the smell, rank—but she’d endured worse in her past. Being the only occupant of the cell had been optimal; she’d spent some time meditating, detaching from her worries about children, relationships, and the case.
This discipline had freed her enough to relax and get a surprisingly good night’s sleep on the lumpy cot with its scratchy synthetic blanket.
Now, her morning yoga routine was there to keep her mind sharp and body limber. She was ready for the day.
As if on cue, the heavy door with its wire-embedded window clanged open.
Detective Multon stood there, his jaw working like he was chewing glass.
Behind him, Marcella’s thunderous expression showed her Italian temper, while Feirn looked fresh and ready to demonstrate some of his more aggressive training.
Sophie smiled at the trio. “Good morning.”
“Ms. Smithson,” Multon grunted. “You’re free to go.”
“Thank you, Detective.” Sophie slipped her shoes back on.
“I . . . apologize for the misunderstanding.” Each word seemed physically painful for Multon to produce. “Agent Scott has clarified your role in the investigation.”
“Misunderstanding?” Marcella snapped. “You arrested a federal consultant conducting authorized research. After I specifically told you she was working with us.”
“She wasn’t arrested. Just detained. And Dr. Yoshimura’s complaint seemed credible—”
“Dr. Yoshimura is now a person of interest.” Marcella cut him off. “We’ve been through all this. Step aside.”
Multon’s face darkened but he stood back and held the door ajar for Sophie to exit. “Again, apologies. Your belongings are at the desk.”
“You should get your blood pressure checked, Detective. Stress can be hard on your heart.” Sophie breezed past him and down the hall, leaving ongoing bickering behind.
At the holding desk she collected her phone, external drive, tablet backpack, and various pocket tools, checking each item for tampering.
Feirn hovered protectively nearby while Marcella continued her controlled demolition of Multon’s career, ending with, “And we’ll need copies of everything from that computer.
And I mean everything. If a single file is missing . . .”
“You’ll have it all,” Multon muttered.
They walked out in formation—Marcella leading, Sophie in the middle, Feirn bringing up the rear. No one spoke until they reached the parking lot where the FBI helicopter waited, rotors already warming up.
As they strapped into their seats, Marcella made eye contact with Sophie. “You okay? Multon didn’t—”
“I’m fine,” Sophie assured her. “Meditation and yoga helped me get a good night’s sleep, calmer than home has been lately with Sean having nightmares. A cup of coffee would be great, though. That stuff in the computer lab was terrible—and a long time ago.”
Marcella handed her a thermal mug. “You can have mine. You earned it.” She scowled. “That station’s captain had everything shut up tight and had gone home by the time Feirn got ahold of me with the news of Multon’s antics. We had to wait until morning for the facility to open up. I’m sorry.”
Sophie shrugged, taking a restorative sip of Marcella’s strong coffee.
“Like I said. I was alone in there, thankfully. Better night’s sleep than I expected.
” The blades whined louder, and the pilot instructed them to don their headphones.
Once the comms were on, Sophie checked her phone; many messages waited for her to sort through, but as she hit the first one, the screen blanked out; it hadn’t been charged overnight. “So, what did I miss, Marcella?”
Marcella’s elegant brows drew down and her mouth made a shape as if sucking a penny. “I sent HPD to pick up Yoshimura at her house in Manoa once I got your message. She was gone. Neighbors say they saw her loading suitcases into her car before leaving.”
“Right after she reported the ‘cyber intrusion,’ I’m guessing,” Sophie said. “She must have realized her cover was blown.”
“It gets worse,” Marcella said. “The collectors who moved their artifacts to the Bishop Museum for safekeeping were robbed. The museum’s vault was emptied last night. Professional job—no alarms, no evidence. Everything just gone.”
Sophie shook her head. “Yoshimura gathered them all in one place. Made the job easy—if she didn’t clean them out herself.”
“She’s stolen twenty-three pieces total,” Marcella said. “Combined value in the millions. The museum’s board has been calling SAC Waxman; they’re in chaos. They’re claiming Dr. Yoshimura must have been kidnapped, forced to give up the access codes.”
“Do you believe that?” Sophie asked.
“We have to get her in custody to find out more.”
“Or, I can hack all her personals and see what’s going on behind the curtain,” Sophie smiled. “Show her the real meaning of cyber intrusion.”
“There’s a Be On Lookout posted for her, and I’m working on a federal warrant for her house, office, computer, etcetera as we speak.” Marcella smiled back; it was more of a baring of teeth. “Let’s get you back to our computer lab where you can really do some damage.”
The helicopter banked, heading inland. Below them, the Big Island’s varied landscape spread out—black lava fields giving way to deep valleys, merging into rainforest as they left the dry areas behind. Soon they were streaking across the Pacific toward Oahu.
Sophie was grateful the wind was calm this early in the morning; she pressed her forehead against the window and watched for the telltale spume of whales, but none ever showed this time.
* * *
The helicopter touched down at the FBI’s rooftop on Oahu as the morning sun bathed Diamond Head fully in golden light.
Sophie headed straight downstairs for the FBI’s computer lab, familiar territory from her years there, Feirn trailing behind. Marcella peeled off to her office to brief Special Agent in Charge Waxman.
Sophie’s mind was already racing through the digital infiltration she’d need to execute. Upon entering the cool, sound baffled space with its dimly lit work bays, the familiar hum of servers and clicking of keyboards was a form of greeting.
She dropped into an ergonomic chair in an empty workstation and immediately dialed Armita. The line connected on the second ring.
“Armita, it’s Sophie. Calling from the FBI office. My phone is dead.”
“Sophie! Marcella reached me yesterday, said you were detained. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, really. How were the children last night?”
“They’re good. Sean had a rough night again, but he settled around three a.m. I gave him some warm milk with honey, and it did the trick.”
Sophie’s chest tightened with regret that she wasn’t there, but relief too. Motherhood was full of ambivalence. “And Momi?”
“Drawing pictures of dolphins this morning before preschool. She wants to show them to you when you get home.” Armita took a breath, blew it out. “Sophie, are you safe? This case is worrying me.”
“It’s worrying me, too. I’m being careful, and Feirn is at my side. I'll try to be home for dinner.”
After ending the call, Sophie cracked her knuckles and got to work. The federal warrant for Yoshimura’s digital assets had come through while she was in the air; it was time to show the curator what a real cyber intrusion looked like.
Feirn dropped to the floor. He sat cross-legged beside Sophie in her computer bay, his back against the wall, and appeared to go to sleep.
Meanwhile Sophie’s fingers flew across the keyboard, exploiting a vulnerability in Yoshimura’s home router that she’d identified during her initial reconnaissance. Within minutes, she was inside the home’s network, tunneling to Yoshimura’s personal computer.
The woman had decent security—for an academic. But Sophie had cut her teeth infiltrating Russian crime syndicates and Chinese state hackers. Getting into Yoshimura’s cloud storage backup was child’s play.
“Come to mama,” she murmured as she accessed Yoshimura’s encrypted backup drives on her desktop. This took longer, but Sophie’s custom tools chewed steadily as she cloned the entire information cache.
The artifact database, when she got it open, was breathtaking in its scope. Hundreds of Native Hawaiian pieces had been catalogued with obsessive detail: provenance, current location, owner information, estimated value, and detailed security assessments of each owner’s home or storage facility.
“This isn’t just research,” Sophie murmured aloud. “It’s a shopping list.”
She forwarded the entire database to Marcella via the FBI’s cloud storage, then began cross-referencing the entries with the stolen items from the Bishop Museum.
Her phone buzzed with Marcella’s text: “Got it. Contacting all the owners on the database now to warn them. This is huge.” Then, a few minutes later, “Come upstairs to Waxman’s office at 3:00 p.m. for a briefing.”
Sophie continued digging, finding encrypted communications between Yoshimura and someone using the handle “Mainland Buyer.” The messages discussed shipment schedules, payment structures, and—Sophie’s blood chilled—“removing obstacles.”
She archived everything, creating redundant backups on the FBI’s secure server. This was evidence that could put Yoshimura, and any of the Ancient Ways members they could catch, away for a long time.
An hour later, Sophie’s eyes burned from screen glare and her shoulders ached from tension. She stood, stretching until her spine popped, and spoke in Thai. “Feirn, I need to hit something before we go to this FBI meeting.”
Her bodyguard looked up from his position on the floor. “What kind of something?”
“Let’s go to the gym. Now. Before I start breaking office equipment.”
Twenty minutes later, they pulled up to a converted warehouse that smelled of sweat, determination, and sterile cleaner. The familiar sound of gloves hitting bags echoed through the space.
Alika, her ex and Momi’s father, looked up from wrapping a fighter’s hands. He smiled when he saw Sophie. “Soph. Good to see you.”
“Just need a little workout.” She kept her tone upbeat, neutral. Their history was too complex for small talk, and co-parenting Momi had no place here. “Mind if we use the ring?”
“You never have to ask.” He gestured to the equipment wall. “Gear’s where it always is. Try not to hurt your new recruit.”
Feirn bristled, but Sophie was already heading for the lockers; she pointed to the men’s area for his benefit.
Once in the locker room, she changed into workout clothes she kept in her go bag, wrapping her hands with the methodical precision of muscle memory and slipping them into padded gloves.
When she emerged, Feirn had changed too, looking slightly uncomfortable in borrowed shorts and gloves. “You sure you want to fight me, Sophie? I’ve had extensive combat training with the Yām Kh?mk?n . . .”
Sophie slipped through the ropes. “Let’s just see how we go.”
They put in mouth guards, bowed slightly, and began circling. Feirn moved with the kinetic grace of someone who had spent years training in martial arts. Sophie’s heart rate went up. She was rusty, but she’d once been a Mixed Martial Arts women’s champion.
“Just like riding a bike,” she muttered, an American saying Marcella liked.
Feirn moved in with a choreographed series of kicks and jabs that telegraphed hesitancy; Sophie evaded all contact and countered with a hook that tapped his jaw.
The young man’s eyes widened as Sophie backed away, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Come on, Feirn. Give me what you’ve got,” Sophie said around the rubber between her teeth.
He came at her harder, throwing combinations that would have dropped most opponents. But Sophie had learned MMA fighting under Alika’s tutelage. Years ago, she had found an outlet in the ring for rage against her violent first husband.
She flowed around Feirn’s attacks and landed pokes, jabs and kicks that could have been knockouts if she’d followed through.
Sophie worked out her frustration with each sweaty, whirlwind round: last night in jail.
Connor’s abandonment.
Her son’s nightmares.
Yoshimura’s betrayal of Hawaiian culture.
She channeled all of it into the pure physicality of combat.
Finally, she caught Feirn’s arm, pivoted, and executed a perfect hip throw. He hit the ground hard but clean, and she followed him down into an armbar position, stopping just short of hyperextension of his joint.
“I yield,” he gasped against the rubber mat.
Sophie released him, sitting back on her heels. Sweat dripped down her spine, and her muscles sang with exertion.
She felt like herself again. Her real self, not just the roles of mother, investigator, and CEO that seemed to consume everything these days. “I don’t get enough of this lately,” she said, rising to her feet. “Maybe we can make this a regular thing.”
Feirn accepted her hand up. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“Here.” Sophie grabbed a water bottle from the cache on the side of the ring, catching Alika watching from across the gym.
She pointed the bottle at her ex, once her coach.
“From him. But enough playtime. We should go; time to get ready for that meeting with Waxman and Marcella.” She punched Feirn lightly on the arm.
“Had to see if you were good enough to be my bodyguard.”
Feirn’s brown eyes gleamed. “I hope I passed the test.”
“You’ll do.” She smiled. They touched water bottles and drank. As they exited the ring, Alika approached. “Sophie. Momi told me you’re helping with the stolen artifact case. Something about endangered birds and feather capes.”
“Yes. But I’m sorry—I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.”
“It’s fine. I just wanted to say—these sacred items belong here in Hawaii, with the people.
I hope you get them back.” Alika rubbed the stump of his missing arm, gone just above the elbow.
He’d lost that limb in one of her cases; a final wedge that drove them apart.
“You look good. Fighting, I mean. Haven’t lost a step. ”
“Nice to hear since it’s been so long.” Sophie shouldered her bag. “Talk soon.”
Once they’d cleaned up and were outside, Feirn shook his head as they walked to the car. “That was . . . a surprise. Remind me never to do anything to make you angry.”
Sophie smiled; the last of the tension drained away. “I have a history you know nothing about. Never underestimate an opponent.”
The drive to FBI headquarters was quiet as Sophie’s mind shifted back to the case. The physical release of sparring had cleared her head and sharpened her focus. She was ready for whatever came next.