Tangled Passions (Task Force Hawaii Book 4) Read online

  “Why don’t you have a seat?” Agent Tsu, his present supervisor, said. “We have a situation.”

  TJ got the itch on the back of his neck that told him trouble was just around the corner.

  “And that would be?” he asked, as he took the other seat in front of the big screen.

  “Seems like someone at Task Force Hawaii has been naughty,” Remington said. “There has been some...breaches of security in the last few months. Leads all the way back to their people.”

  “What kind of breaches?”

  “Nothing that big, until this past weekend. Seems someone was trying to access security codes to find operative names,” Remington said. “We caught it on time and we informed the operatives.”

  “Location?” he asked.

  “Far East.”

  That didn’t sound good. Not good at all. Remington was being evasive, and that always meant he wanted TJ to do something that might not be kosher with the bosses—or TJ for that matter.

  “So, you want me to question them?” he asked.

  “No,” Tsu said. “We want you to be the liaison to TFH. They’ve been asking for one for months. This gives you the perfect cover.”

  TJ glanced at the screen, then back to Tsu.

  “One of the agreements of me taking this job was not to go undercover. Not after the last job.”

  “It won’t be anything dangerous. In fact, we just want background. But, it is the first lead we’ve had on Foley in over a year.”

  Ice danced over his nerve endings. Then, anticipation surged before he could control it.

  “And you want me to put myself out there again.”

  He’d requested the job in Hawaii. After the mess of Remington’s investigation, TJ had pressed to escape the political minefield of DC. All of the FBI was political, but there it was insane. He wanted to work in his office again, no more undercover. He might carry a sidearm, but he didn’t want to use it on a daily basis. He’d had enough of that last year.

  “I wouldn’t ask if we didn’t need this. But we haven’t been able to get a hit on Foley until now. The fact that he appeared in your backyard is a good thing. Or, at least using someone in your backyard.”

  Foley liked to do that. He would find a woman with expertise, or a young man who was looking for a father figure. They would do all the work, break all the laws, and Foley would disappear. Their thank you for the job was usually a bullet to the back of the head—or a lifetime in prison.

  “You’re considered the expert on him,” TJ said.

  “True, but it would be best if I don’t pop up there and cause a ruckus. You know if I do, he might disappear again,” Remington said.

  “This way, you can at least get inside the building,” Tsu said. “They tend to keep to themselves unless it is required otherwise.”

  “So we, as a federal agency, are going to play patty cake to try to find something out?”

  It sounded like a shit job all the way around. Sure, he might find a lead on Foley, but they wouldn’t let him follow it. He would be ordered to hand it off to Remington.

  “You know we have the authority to just question their people.”

  “Yes, but if you do that, you might scare off Foley,” Remington said.

  TJ heard the unwavering tone and knew he was definitely screwed. If he didn’t go along, they would order him to do it. Then, he would either have to comply or get written up for insubordination and asked to hand in his badge.

  “Who’s the target?” he asked.

  Tsu handed him a file. He opened it and found the picture of a stunning woman. Brown skin, sea-green eyes, and a thousand-watt smile.

  “This is my target?” he asked as he tore his attention away from the picture. “She looks like a sorority girl.”

  “Don’t be so fooled,” Tsu said. “I’ve been to a few of her lectures. She regularly gets asked to write articles and, on top of that, the University of Hawaii has been after her to teach a class. She’s sharp as a tack.”

  “She also has a record,” Remington said.

  That definitely caught his attention. “She has a record? How is she working at TFH?” TJ asked.

  “She was a juvenile. Broke into the school to change grades.”

  “Sure, every hacker thinks of doing that at one time or another,” TJ said. In fact, TJ’s three brothers had bugged him often once they reached the age to understand their brother’s abilities.

  “Not hers. Woman had straight A’s through high school.”

  “But she broke in to change her grades?”

  “Yeah. Doesn’t say why since it was juvenile, and apparently her father’s family has a lot of pull in the town, so the charges were dropped. Then she went to University of Georgia. Dropped out her junior year.”

  “Dropped out?”

  There was a beat of silence. “Happens sometimes, you know that with computer geeks.”

  “But this says she is a forensics tech.”

  “Yes, and she is very good at her job. She can handle all of that and hack like a damned expert. She wrote a few papers, and they got noticed by several agencies. We tried to recruit her—as did the NSA—but the CIA snapped her up before we could. She worked there for a while before she headed off to a few other places before landing in Hawaii. Seems to be settling in since she bought an apartment.”

  The itch was getting worse. Damn, this was going to be beyond a shit assignment. “Great. She’s going to smell this a mile away.”

  “What I need you to do is just be the liaison,” Tsu said. “It will be a few days, tops.”

  “And then I just disappear? That’s going to go over well.”

  “They’ve been screaming for a liaison for months. It won’t raise any flags.”

  He studied Tsu. “So, I’m the lamb to the slaughter, is that it?”

  He shrugged. “In a way. I couldn’t get a designation for someone to work with them until now.”

  “Until you think one of them broke several federal laws and is working with a criminal, who not only has been fucking us over for three years, but likes to profit off the deaths of our agents. Gotta love the FBI.”

  “I’m using it the best I can,” Tsu said. “If nothing comes of the investigation, you can keep working with them. We’ve needed someone over there for more than a year, but the Bureau wasn’t happy when Hawaii decided to form a task force like this.”

  Of course they weren’t. The FBI thought they ran the entire country and everyone should bow to their power. It worked sometimes, but even in the few months TJ had been living in Hawaii, he’d learned you couldn’t force Hawaiians to do what they didn’t want to. It was one of the things he loved about living there. They were the epitome of dancing to the beat of their own drum.

  “So, instead of working with them, and taking some of the load off us, the Bureau decided to be assholes and not give them a liaison?”

  “Until now. And, we can justify it now that you’ll have the job,” Tsu said.

  “Doesn’t really matter in the end,” Remington said.

  “Why not?” TJ asked.

  “If their forensics tech is working for a cyber-criminal like Foley, then I doubt TFH will survive.”

  And TJ was going to be the lucky bastard who got to rip it apart.

  IV

  TANGLED PASSIONS

  BOOK FOUR

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  Facing an obsessive killer proves to be easier than falling in love.

  The last person Drew Franklin wants to work with is Cat Kalakau. Their history makes it difficult being in the same room, let alone being joined at the hip during a case. Months ago, they’d shared a night filled with romance and a bit more, but that ended after he was shot. Since then, even their friendship seems to have fallen apart. But he will do his job, even if spending more time with her is killing him.

  Working with Drew every day reminds Cat she’s to blame for his injury. It doesn’t matter that she wants him more than her next breath, or that every time
he looks at her she melts into a puddle of lust. She needs to resist her own desires to protect him as they hunt a serial killer targeting wealthy men signed up for dating services.

  Soon though, their time together proves to be too much. One fight leads to a kiss, which leads to so much more. Neither of them is prepared for the overwhelming need they have for each other or the connection they seem to have. But when Cat realizes Drew is the object of the killer’s obsession, she will do anything to protect him even if it means sacrificing her life for his.

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