Miko smiled. “I have a feeling you know exactly what she’s like. She was looking over the investigation into your family’s death. Did you know they suspected Lance Hiller?”
Lila shrugged. “They could never really pin it on him. I think they were just trying their best to pin it on anyone they could. No spy agency wants to admit that someone got the drop on them and killed two of their analysts.”
“Who is Lance Hiller?” Ian asked, his gaze still on Lila.
“He worked with my mother.”
He nodded. “We should do a deep dive on the man.”
“I already did,” she said. “There’s nothing.”
“Did they question him?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “He disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Why isn’t he on your list?”
“Listen, the guy didn’t have it in him. I met him a few times, and I never thought he had the connections to kill my family and then go on the run.”
“Why do you say that?” Miko asked, her voice soft.
With a sigh, Lila walked over to the coffee maker and started to make coffee.
“Mom always had geeky boys—her term not mine—who looked at her like she was the Aphrodite of coding.” Once she had the coffee brewing, she turned to face them, “You saw the way Stryker acted. It’s been years, and he was still going on about my mother.”
“Do you think that it could have been twisted?”
She glanced at Miko. “Do you mean like an obsession for my mother led the guy to blow up our house? Doubtful.”
“Why do you say that?” El asked.
She sighed. “I get that he might have been infatuated with my mom, but it can’t be him. Even if he did go that way, he didn’t have the connections to be on the run all of these years. The person hunting me has to be able to float around the world and this person has skills and money.”
“He was working with your mother on that crypto investigation,” Miko said. Not a question.
Ian’s mind was starting to make the connections.
“You think he could have stolen the money and Eloise realized it?” he asked.
“Yes, but…I’m not sure about what is going on right now. It seems…off. Did you get too close? Did something change?”
Lila shook her head. “As I said, I hit a plateau a few months ago. Everything seemed to be swirling around Hawai’i which makes no sense.”
“You’re here,” Miko said, her voice serious.
“But I was drawn here because of my investigations.”
“What drew you here to Hawai’i?”
“Hiroto Doi. He was reported to have been here. Also, Luis Schmidt owns some property in the area.”
“You were working for Jin at the time,” he said.
“Yeah, I wondered if one of her investigations had hit on one of the crypto suspects, but it was just a normal drug deal and murder thingy.”
