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Chapter 4

My phone rings loudly, waking me up from my deep sleep. I let out a small groan squinting when the sunlight peaking through my windows clouds my vision. I grab my phone and answer it with a tiresome hello.
"Hey Quinn, sorry to wake you up, I was just wondering if you'd like to go surfing before work?" Steve's sexy morning voice coming through the phone.
A smile grows on my face, my annoyed mood-changing quickly, "Yeah of course."
"Great, I'll pick you up in 30," he replies enthusiastically.
"What time is it?" I ask, letting out a yawn.
"About 6:30," he replies.
I let out a soft groan, "After years of getting up early, it never gets any easier."
He lets out a chuckle, "I'll see you soon."
A smile grows slightly, "See you soon Steve."
After I hang up, I get up and walk into my closet, and grab a black bikini with cut-outs just on the sides. I throw on a white romper and some sandals. By the time I am finished getting ready, I see his truck pull in my driveway.
I grab my phone and open the door heading outside, trying to cover up the over excitement on my face as I meet his gaze. He just wants to get back to the surfing life, it has nothing to do with me."
I walk around to his side of the truck, and lean over his window and ask, "Do you want me to bring my board?"
He shakes his head, "No I have two in the back."
With that he gets out and walks around, opening the door for me. My smile grows as I thank him, and get inside his cool truck escaping the Hawaii heat. Steve gets back in on his side and buckles his seat belt, backing out of the driveway. On the way to the beach, there is a comfortable silence between us, the only sound being the quiet lull of the radio.
Once we get there we get our boards and head to a spot on the sand where we could put our stuff. I pull off my romper and grab my board, Steve takes off his shirt and grabs his board as well.
I look over at him, with a smile on my face, "Ready to get your ass handed to you, I'm going to surf circles around you."
Steve lets out a laugh, "In your dreams, West."
I raise my eyebrows."Oh, that's how it's gonna be? Well, in that case, I'll race you to the water."
With that I run towards the water with my board as fast as I can, Steve following close behind me.
After a couple of hours of surfing, we head back to the beach. "I definitely was better than you," I say, nudging his shoulder as we walk back to our towels.
Steve lets out a laugh, "Sure... So, uh, how does breakfast sound?"
I smile at him, "Sounds amazing... But don't you forget who's the better surfer."
He raised his eyebrows, "Hey, I never-"
Just as he's about to defend himself, the phone rings, interrupting him. He is quick to pick it up. "This is Commander Steve McGarrett... Are you serious? I'll be right there." He lets out a sigh as he hangs up the phone. "I'm so sorry. My sister was caught smoking on a plane, and they need me there to bail her out. Breakfast is just going to have to wait for another time."
"Definitely. I didn't know you had a sister." I say hesitantly, not knowing if the topic was sensitive or not.
Steve nods, "Yeah, her name is Mary."
Soon after Steve drops me off, Danny calls me to tell me we have a case, and that he was picking me up. So I quickly get ready, and we head to the Oahu Prison where an inmate had killed three guards and escaped...
We get there and walk over to Steve's truck as I make fun of the fact that Danny now has a cane. In Steve's truck sits a blonde girl with sunglasses who I assume is Mary.
"What happened to you?" He asks as he gets out of the truck, his sister play barking at him after he tells her to stay.
"I blame you. I tore my ACL somewhere in the last few weeks, all the fun we've been having together." Danny replies as he hobbles quickly to keep up with us.
"Alright. Well once you're done bitching about it, I'd love to know what's going on here." Steve replies with a smirk.
"We've got an escaped prisoner, three dead guards. The Department of Public Safety's trying to figure out what happened." I explain as we walk past the mess of people towards the entrance of the prison."
"Where's Chin and Kono?"
"They're inside getting the background. Is that your sister in the car?" Danny asks.
"Yeah, I just straight from the airport," Steve replies vaguely
"You realize that if she were a dog, you could get a ticket for leaving her in the car like that?" Danny asks with a baffled look on his face.
"Can we focus, please?"
"Yeah. Why do you have aneurysm face? " Danny questions, stopping in front of Steve.
"I don't have aneurism face, do I, Quinn?" Steve asks, looking at me.
I look at him for a moment, "You kind of do have aneurism face, sorry."
Danny raises his eyebrows," She gave you aneurysm face?"
"How many times in a row can you ask me the same question?" Steve argues.
"You gotta seek first to understand, then to be understood. " Danny states.
Steve looks confused, so I explain, "It's one of the seven principles of all successful people, and trust me, I've literally heard all of them at least five times."
Steve glares at Danny, "I will literally pay you cash to stop talking." He then turns to another cop. "Excuse me, officer? My blue pickup is just around the corner. There's a woman sitting in it, it's my sister. I'm putting her in your custody, okay? Get her some food, take her back to my office, don't take your eyes off her until I get there, got it?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Thank you." Steve says before turning to Danny, "You happy?"
Before Danny can reply, Chin, walks up, interrupting him, "Hey, the fugitive's name is Walton Dawkins. He's originally from the mainland, but he did ten years at the Allen Correctional Facility in Cleveland for multiple home invasions. Apparently our guy likes hitting families with big money. Then he violated his parole by coming to Hawaii six years ago. My guess is, it wasn't for the surf."
"Dawkins killed a young couple during one of his burglaries," Kono adds.
"But get this, according to the warden, he's been a model prisoner up until now." Chin finishes.
"So what changed?"
We then head into the security room, to see the footage of when he first escaped. We watch as one of the inmates beside him collapses. And when an officer comes to help, Dawkins takes his gun, knocking down one of the guards.
"So, right before the inmate collapsed, he was complaining of shortness of breath, pain in his arm. Clear signs of cardiac arrest." I explain to them.
"He's a little young to be dropping dead of a heart attack, don't you think?" Steve asks the both of us.
"Not if he was poisoned." Chin states as he and Kono walk in.
Chin sets down a box of stuff on the counter. "We found this stuff in Dawkin's cell. Nutmeg."
Danny lets out a small laugh, "Oh, yeah, they got the prison bake sale coming up."
I roll my eyes, "You can extract myristicin from nutmeg. It's an organic compound, has psychoactive properties, it works like a drug, and in large doses, it can be deadly and fast-acting."
"So Dawkins poisons an inmate as a distraction, shoots a few guards, then he walks out the front door wearing one of their uniforms." Danny states.
"Yeah, in broad daylight? I mean, it feels like a lot of unnecessary exposure for someone trying to sneak out the front door." Steve replies, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
"Price of freedom?" Chin suggests.
"Or maybe he didn't think he had the time to dig a tunnel. What else we got?" Steve asks.
"One of the maintenance guys reported his car stolen from the parking lot. We got HPD a description." Kono tells us.
"Well, let's say assume that Dawkins knows that too, so he's going to abandon that car," Danny replies.
"We'll find it. Maybe it'll tell us where he's going ."
I look over at Steve, who's watching the security video closely. " Hey guys, take a look at this. Look at this guard's holster."
I raise my eyebrows in surprise, "The safety strap is unfastened. Hold on, why the hell does this guy have a gun anyway? Weapons are for towers, gates, and transports only."
"Maybe it was a rookie mistake," Chin suggests.
"No, not a rookie mistake He's in on it, he wanted Dawkins to have that gun," Danny replies.
Kono frowns in confusion, "So what's in it for the guard?"
"Whatever it is, it was worth putting an armed and dangerous fugitive back on the streets," Steve states, watching the security feed.
After that, Danny, Steve, and I go into the guard's locker room to talk to the guard whose name turned out to be Billy Omana. On the way, Steve grabs one of the orange inmate uniforms, making me glad I'm not that guard, who knows what Steve is about to do. When we reach the guard, Steve throws the uniform at him, hitting him in the face.
"Hey, Billy Omana, right?" Steve asks.
"Yeah."
"Yeah, put those on," Steve states crossing his arms over his chest.
Danny leans against the locker," He said put those on."
Billy glares at the three of us, "Who the hell you guys think you are?"
"What did Dawkins offer you to help him escape from prison today?" I ask.
Billy shrugs his shoulders, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Billy, so help me God, you answer incorrectly one more time, I'm gonna put those on you myself and then drop you in general population. How long you think you'll last there?" Steve asks in a threatening voice, a hard glare set at the man.
Billy scoffs, "You can't do that."
Steve pulls his shirt up pointing at his badge, "This here says I can."
Billy lets out a sigh, letting his gaze drop to the floor," Dawkins said that if I helped him, he'd give me 50 grand."
I raised my eyebrows, "And you believed him?"
"He arranged for $10,000 to be wired into my account. He told me it was everything he had. I'd get the rest as soon as he got out." Billy replies, defending himself.
"Where'd he say the rest of the money was coming from?" Steve asks.
Billy shakes his head, "I don't know. All he told me was that there was a lot of it waiting for him on the outside, but in order for him to get it, he needed to get out today."
We then head outside to ask Dawkins' cell neighbor Skeet a few questions, who was currently playing basketball with his fellow inmate. This makes my nerves rise slightly seeing as I was the only female most of these guys had been around in a long time, and I couldn't help but stick closely to Steve's side. Steve and Danny, noticing my nerves, positioned me in the middle of them, sticking close to my side. Danny calls out to Skeet, who stops what he's doing and walks over.
"I'm Detective Williams, that is Commander McGarrett, and this is Detective West," Danny states, introducing us, as all eyes are on us.
"We hear you and Walton Dawkins were neighbors," Steve says, still standing pretty close to me.
Skeet nods, "Yeah, four and a half years."
"Warden says you guys used to be pretty tight," I say, drawing his attention to me.
"Well, in the non-biblical sense, if you dig what I'm saying. We don't get girls like you here to keep us company."
Steve takes another protective step closer to me as Danny asks, "So what happened? Why the beef?"
"I didn't appreciate him trying to gut me with a shiv last week. He said I was asking too many questions." Skeet replies, moving around the basketball in his hands.
"Questions have anything to do with why he bounced today?" Steve asks.
"You know, it's possible I may have some pertinent information, but, you two gonna have to play me for it," Skeet replies, looking at Steve and I.
"Play you?"
Skeet nods, "That's right, you two win, I tell you everything I know."
Steve glares at the guy, "What's to stop me from taking that basketball and beating it out of you?"
Skeet throws the ball roughly at Steve, who catches it with ease, "Bring it. They got better food in the hospital anyway. What the hell you got to threaten me with, man? More lockup time?
"We might be able to help you. Shave some time off your sentence?" Danny suggests.
Skeet lets out a laugh, "I'm doing double life, gimp."
"Excuse me?"
"You got a busted ear, too, man? I'm on permanent vacation, no parole. You could shave two years off my time but I ain't never getting out. So it's either B-ball with tall, dark, and uptight, and the pretty lady, or nothing. I got all of the time in the world."
"What do you get if we lose?" Steve asks.
"I get the pleasure of beating a cop's ass in front of the whole yard." Skeet replies, causing his fellow inmates to cheer.
Steve nods and throws the basketball back at Skeet, causing Danny to roll his eyes, "Oh, yeah, go play basketball. It's not like we have a killer to catch or anything."
I let out a sigh as we walk onto the court, "This is our best lead."
"Game to 21."
"10."
"Man's in a hurry. Okay, since you're guests in my house, you take it in." Skeet says tossing the ball to me.
I let out a slight sigh, I haven't played basketball in forever, this should be interesting. I drive to one side of the hoop, and Skeet follows, so I pass it to Steve, who drives as well, only to get the ball taken from him, Skeet scoring.
Skeet starts with the ball on top of the key, and I stand in front of him, guarding him. He goes to drive, but I am quick to get in front of him. Instead of stopping and shooting, he continues to drive, knocking me over, and scoring a layup causing the crowd to cheer.
Steve helps me up, "You ok?"
I nod, "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Time out!" Danny yells, before calling us over. He looks over at Steve,"You, uh, never played basketball, have you."
Steve shakes his head, "No, I've played once or twice."
"Yeah? Yeah, I mean, I can see that. It looked like I was watching Lebron, and maybe he's just a little bit better."
"You know what? Football was my sport, okay?" Steve says, defending himself.
"But it is one of Quinn's sports. So use that to your advantage, she was actually pretty good. " Danny says, looking over to me for suggestions.
I look over at Steve, "So, what I want is for you to drive the ball a few feet, getting Skeet away from me, then pass the ball back, and I'll shoot a three. After that, he should lay off you for a bit, enough for you to go in for a layup, and don't worry about fouling him, he obviously doesn't care about that."
Steve has a determined look on his face, "Let's do this."
My plan worked out perfectly. I managed to make the three three's, and Steve made the layup, winning us the game. Causing the inmates to boo as Skeet walks back over to us.
"Let's have it, man," Steve says crossing his arms over his chest, confidently.
"Alright, here it is. A couple weeks ago we're in rec watching some tube. Samoan dude walks by, he tries to change the channel. Dawkins almost throws down right there, you should have seen his eyes, they were crazy." Skeet tells us.
I frown in confusion,"Just because he tried to change the channel?"
"No, no, it wasn't that. It was something on TV that made him go crazy." Skeet replies.
"What was he watching?" Steve asks.
Steve and I lean over Danny's desk as he plays the video Skeet told us about. It seemed to be some type of game show. It was an old white-haired man in a tux, standing next to a redhead. The old man turns to the woman, "Dana, your luxury vacation includes first-class airfare, seven nights at the Kohiko Hotel, all-access VIP passes to the annual Festival of the Islands, which kicks off two weeks from now. And since you'll need a little spending money while shopping on the beautiful Kalakaua Avenue, we're throwing in one million dollars!"
This causes Dana the redhead to cheer loudly, along with the crowd as a man runs onto the stage and hugs her.
Danny rolls his eyes and pauses the video," She's the reason that Dawkins broke out of prison?"
Steve shrugs, "She just won a million dollars and a trip to Hawaii."
"Okay, but why her? Like there's not enough rich people on this island." Danny states.
"Well, she's away from home, out of her elements. Maybe Dawkins sees her as an easy target." I suggest.
"I need everything on Dana, okay? Travel itineraries, flights, car rental.." Steve says.
"Hey guess what? I've done this before, but thank you." Danny calls out as we walk out of his office and into our own separate offices.
After doing some research on Dawkins, Steve calls me into Danny's office.
"Yes, thank you very much..." Danny says into the phone before hanging up at looking over at us. "So Dana Thorpe and her fiance Craig Ellers, landed at Honolulu International earlier this morning. Just checked into a hotel ten minutes ago."
The phone rings again, it's Chin, and Steve is quick to answer.
"Hey, HPD found the car. Dawkins abandoned it about ten minutes ago, parking lot Kaako Beach Park." Chin tells us.
"Got it," Steve says before hanging up the phone.
"That's three blocks away from where Craig and Dana are staying," I say before standing up quickly, ready to go to the hotel. We are quick to get our vests on and get into Danny's car, calling Chin and Kono on the way.
We quickly make it to the front door of the room, guns out ready to go.  Once we discover it's wide open, we head inside quickly doing a sweep of the room. Everyone shouts clear as they survey their areas. But Steve and I enter a room from different doors, seeing Dana on the ground blood pooling around her, her skin so pale that she looked dead.
We run over to her and kneel in front of her. "You're going to be okay."
"Dawkins is gone, and so is Craig," Kono says as she walks into the room.
Dana looks into my eyes, putting her bloody hand on my upper arm with fear in her eyes, "Craig.."
I give her a comforting smile, "We're going to find him."
As soon as I say that, her eyes shut and her body goes limp. Steve's eyes go wide, "She's not breathing."
Steve gives her two breaths mouth to mouth, then I begin CPR compressions. The ambulance is quick to arrive putting her on a stretcher, and by the time we get to the ambulance, I'm finally able to stop CPR as she was stable. Steve and I ride along with her in the ambulance. When we arrive we help get her out, while telling Dana that we would find Craig. When they wheel her away, I'm finally able to catch my breath. After finding out all I can on her condition, we find our way back to headquarters. When we walk in everyone is gathered around our computer surface.
"Hey, how is she?" Chin asks.
Steve lets out a sigh," She's in surgery. Didn't give us anything on the way. What do we got."
"Hotel surveillance camera picked this up right after the attack," Chin says, showing a picture of Dawkins with Craig.
Danny frowns, "Doesn't add up. Why take Craig and leave Dana? She won the money."
"But they're engaged, so maybe they have joint bank accounts," Kono suggests.
"Or maybe he wants Craig for something else," I tell them.
Steve nods, "You know what? Freeze their accounts. I want thorough backgrounds on Dawkins, Craig, and Dana. Run their names through NCIC... Chin, what about the phone you found?"
"Dawkins got it from the car he stole at the prison, but the call history was erased, so I figured he must have made some phone calls. Reached out to the phone company, and sure enough, two calls were made right after the escape. The first one went to a local woman named Sofia Archuleta." Chin explains as he puts Sophia's picture on the screen.
"That's Dawkins' girlfriend. Warden said she's a regular visitor," I tell them.
Steve nods, "Alright, so she's the first one he's gonna hook up with for help. What about the other call?"
"That one was made to a local lightweight ex-con by the name Makani Huku. They spoke for three minutes." Chin replies.
"Kono, follow up on the phone call with Makani. Find out what they were talking about. Chin, pull Dawkins' jacket. Quinn, dig deep into Dana and Craig's lives, see if either of them have a connection to Dawkins's."
I nod and begin heading to my office when Danny calls out to me, so I turn around, "Oh and Quinn... Don't forget to change your clothes."
I roll my eyes at him before grabbing some clothes and going to the bathroom to quickly change out of my bloody clothes and got digging into Craig and Dana's lives.
I started by looking into any connection between Dana and Dawkins and Craig and Dawkins, letting out a frustrated sigh putting my head in my hands. I lift my head up when I hear a knock on the door. I look up to see Mary standing outside of the door. I put a smile on my face, motioning her in as I stand up.
"You must be Mary, I'm Quinn West."
She smiles at me, and I can instantly see the resemblance between the two McGarrett siblings, "Nice to meet you. You're dating my brother right?"
My eyes go wide at how blunt she was, "Oh... no, we're just friends."
She lets out a laugh at my nervousness, "Oh well that surprises me, I can already tell how much he cares about you. We'll see how long that friends thing lasts." Her face turns slightly serious, "If you guys do end up together, just make sure you take care of him. He may look like he has no emotions, but underneath that cold navy seal exterior, there's a guy who lost both his parents far too early."
After she leaves, I begin to look into Dawkin's life and his criminal past. He had several charges of robbery, and two charges of murder. I looked deeper into the robberies, and find out that he was suspected to have had a partner by the name of Paul Stark. I pulled up his file in shock as I see that it was a picture of Craig with longer hair.
I run out the door heading to the diner where Dawkin's girlfriend works, which is where Danny and Steve currently are, taking Chin along with me. I pull up alongside them as they are walking out of the diner.
"Hey guys, so we pulled Dawkin's jacket. You guys have to see this." Chin says, walking up to the back of Steve's truck.
I set down Dawkin's file on Steve's truck, "This guy's rap sheet reads like a grocery list he's checking off. In Boston, he's jacking cars, in New York, he's robbing ATMs, and then he graduates to bank robberies in Cleveland. Cops over there suspect him of murdering his stickup partner, a guy by the name of Paul Stark. The five million they stole together was never found."
I flip over to Paul Stark's file, putting down Craig and Dana's picture at the game show, and watch as Steve and Danny's expressions turn to shock.
"So no wonder he doesn't take Dana. He doesn't care about her prize money, he wants the five million he stole with Paul, or Craig."
Steve then calls Kono to track him, and she is quick to do it, locating them at Pacific Rim Bank.
We head to the bank and get out, putting our vests on, when we hear gunshots, so we run inside to find a mess of people running and screaming, Craig on the ground bleeding, and no Dawkins insight.
Chin applies pressure to Craig's shoulder, and I call for backup, as Steve and Kono try to chase down Dawkins.
A few minutes later, Steve comes back leaning down alongside us. "Dawkins took a woman's car, Kono is checking traffic cams now, how's he doing?"
"Shoulder went through and through," Chin replies.
"Dana," Craig groans.
"The surgeons are working on her right now. Listen to me, did Dawkins say where he was going after the bank?" Steve asks.
"I saw... a passport. Now that he has his money he's gonna disappear." Craig replies, his voice strained from the pain.
After an ambulance arrives, Steve, Chin, and I leave to chase after Dawkins.
"Dawkin's was on his way to the airport, saw our checkpoint, and made a u-turn. He's in the H3 tunnel, headed into Halawa Valley... Uh-oh. We're about to lose traffic cam coverage in about two seconds... He's gone."
After hanging up, Steve calls his cousin, who is a part of the Navy, who gets us clearance to track Dawkins, who tracks him to a helicopter tour company. We follow close behind him, getting a helicopter of our own. As Steve drives, I sit in the passenger seat talking to Danny, as Chin sits in the back, watching for Dawkins' hijacked helicopter through a pair of binoculars.
"I spoke to Honolulu Approach, your bird is six miles east-southeast, heading towards Molokai."
"Ok, copy that," Steve says as he hangs up.
We watch as the hijacked helicopter, begins slowly dropping towards the ground, they must have run out of gas, which means a bad thing for the family and the guy flying. Steve follows after the other helicopter, landing safely and slowly beside it. We get out, guns ready to go as we near the other helicopter finding the flyer dead, and the family is gone. The three of us follow in their direction,  Steve in front, Chin in the middle, and me in the back, walking carefully through the dense forest terrain.
We come across a creek, Steve looks down at the footprints, then back at us, "They stopped here." Steve reaches down to put his hand in the water, Chin and I calling out to him, getting him to stop.
"Molokai's rain forest has pathogenic microbes in the water that will put a man down in an hour," I explain.
"Judging from the tracks you found, it looks like they drank from it. They won't get much further. Come on tarzan. Now we got an advantage."
We finally catch up to them, Chin staying with the family, as Steve and I go after Dawkins. I move myself to higher ground, and aim, shooting Dawkins three times in the chest. When we get back and cleaned up, Steve and I go to the hospital to see how Dana is doing and to bring Craig to see her, because I know that he changed for her, that is if she wants to see him. Steve and I wait by her bed for her to wake up, and me leaning my body against the wall, tired from the day.
A few minutes later, she wakes up, and we tell her that Craig is ok and that we informed her of her fiances past, to which she was shocked as expected, but still wanted to see him. So we wheel her to his room and watch as the couple makes up.
Steve turns to me, "I believe I owe you some food... I can hear your stomach from here."
I roll my eyes, elbowing him lightly in the stomach, "Shut up, I haven't had much time to eat.  But I believe you do owe me some food... but you're paying."
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Hey guys!!! I'm so sorry for the long wait, but I've been super busy. Thanks for all of the positive comments of encouragement and many votes, keep it up! I love hearing positive feedback!
-S