The Big Kahuna Read online

  “Kidnapped?”

  Jessup shook his head. “No sign of foul play. He had his pilot’s license and was last seen taking off in his private plane from John Wayne Airport.”

  “Crashed?” Kate asked.

  “No evidence to support that either.”

  Kate silently groaned. The only thing worse than a Silicon Valley billionaire was the wife of a Silicon Valley billionaire. “In other words, he’s probably holed up with some bikini model in a Mexican luxury resort. And you want us to hold his wife’s hand for the next two weeks until he runs out of bodily fluids and decides to come home.”

  Jessup smiled again. “Like I said. It’s a real humdinger.”

  * * *

  —

  Kate sat in the driver’s seat of her blue Buick LaCrosse sedan, reading the Richard Wylde case file while she waited for the new partner to show up. Jessup had refused to divulge his identity. Said he didn’t want to spoil the surprise. Nick was in the passenger seat, texting and checking emails.

  Kate finished reading and put away the manila folder. “What’s with the texting? I’ve never seen you so tethered to your cellphone.”

  “I’m amusing myself while you do official government business. This case isn’t exactly an intellectual challenge for me.”

  “This is true,” Kate said. “I don’t need you to help me babysit some billionaire’s wife. You’re attached to this hideous job because Jessup doesn’t trust you to be left unattended.”

  “Completely unfair,” Nick said. “You were the one who stole the Ferrari.”

  “I commandeered it. Big difference. BIG.”

  “Fortunately, as luck would have it, the wife might be a prospective client.”

  Kate narrowed her eyes. “You have clients?”

  Nick read an incoming text and typed a reply. “What’s wrong with having clients?”

  “You do realize it’s considered illegal in most circles to steal from your clients.”

  Nick put down the cellphone. “You’re going to love this.”

  “I highly doubt that. But go ahead anyway.”

  “I found a way to use my entrepreneurial talents without breaking any laws,” Nick said.

  “Oh boy. This should be good.”

  “It took a while to come up with it. At first, I thought I’d form a foundation. You know, the kind that raises money for worthy causes by having me fly around in private jets all over the world and throw kick-ass parties. I was going to call it the Don’t Not Stop Not Helping People Fund.”

  “Catchy. The scariest part is that this was the idea you rejected.”

  “Turns out there isn’t so much money in not stopping not helping people.” Nick leaned in toward Kate. “If you want to be a visionary business magnate you need to follow the money.”

  “And the place you followed it to is . . .”

  Nick smiled. “I’m a social media influencer influencer.”

  “What?”

  “I influence social media influencers. Turns out there’s a lot of Instagram models and social media personalities who need some help getting top dollar for their YouTube videos and from their corporate sponsors. That’s where I come in.”

  Kate started to talk, stopped, then started again. “So, you’re basically an agent for other con men.”

  “Exactly. And the best part is that it’s completely legal-ish.”

  “Good grief,” Kate said. “Could this day get any worse?”

  Nick grinned and pointed at the driver’s side window. Kate looked over and jumped when she saw the smiling baby face of Cosmo Uno.

  “Jinkies,” Kate said, hand on her heart. She rolled down the window. “What the heck, Cosmo?”

  “Hello,” Cosmo said through the window. He opened the rear door, slid into the backseat, and adjusted the headrest. Cosmo was five foot four inches tall on a good day, and he practically disappeared into the backseat of the Buick.

  Kate and Cosmo shared a cubicle wall in the FBI headquarters on Wilshire. Kate spent very little time there. Cosmo spent all of his time there. He ran background checks and did research for other agents. And he lived vicariously through Kate as she chased down bad guys. He had a recurring dream that he morphed into Kate, and Kate had a recurring dream that she was lost in a maze of people-sized hamster tubes, trying to escape from Cosmo Uno.

  “No,” Kate said. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Yep,” Cosmo said. “I’m your new partner. Are you surprised? Special Agent Jessup said you’d be surprised. You’re surprised, aren’t you? I can tell just by looking at you.” Cosmo paused, waiting for a response. He held up his hands and shook them, jazz hands style. “Surprise!”

  Kate barely squelched a grimace. “If my head suddenly exploded, I couldn’t be more surprised.”

  Cosmo looked at Nick. “Holy criminy, what’s he doing here?”

  “He’s part of the team.”

  “For real? Wow. Nick Fox. I’d know him anywhere. He’s famous. I heard a rumor he got a deal, but I never thought it would be like this. Like, he’s one of us now, right? Right? Oh man. You chased him forever. He was a total obsession for you for years. You had pictures of him all over your cubicle.”

  Nick grinned. “All over her cubicle? Pictures of me?”

  “Wall to wall,” Cosmo said. “Some of them had holes, like she stuck pins in them. I thought that was a little sick, but what do I know? I mean who am I to judge, right? Am I right?”

  Kate pulled out of the underground garage into traffic. “He’s on loan as my snitch,” she said to Cosmo. “Let’s not make a big deal about it. And Jessup wouldn’t be happy if this arrangement got out and became common knowledge.”

  “Okay. My lips are sealed. I’m zipping my lips. ZIP! Did you see that? Did you see me zip my lips?”

  “Snitch is such an ugly word,” Nick said. “I prefer to think of myself as a consultant.”

  “Sure, I get that,” Cosmo said. “It’s your cover. Your cons always involved a cover. Kate always said your covers were genius.”

  Kate stopped short for a light, throwing everyone against their seatbelts. “I absolutely did not say anything about Nick Fox being a genius. And you’re grossly exaggerating about the pictures in my cubicle.”

  “What kind of consultant are you?” Cosmo asked Nick. “I bet it’s sexy. Like not politically incorrect sexy but cool sexy. Like slick-new-car sexy, right?”

  “Right,” Nick said, handing Cosmo a business card.

  Cosmo read the card. “Nicolas Nacky. Social Media Influencer Influencer.”

  “Seriously?” Kate said. “You’re going by the name Nick Nacky?”

  Nick reached around and shook Cosmo’s hand. “My extra-close friends call me Nicky.”

  Kate exited Wilshire Boulevard onto Interstate 405 North and began to climb through the Santa Monica Mountains toward the San Fernando Valley. It was the middle of the day, so the normally horrible traffic was moving along at a decent pace.

  Cosmo fidgeted in his seat as they made the slow ascent toward the top of the Sepulveda Pass. “It looks like we’re headed to the Valley. Have you noticed how it’s always at least ten degrees hotter in the Valley? My core temperature runs hot. It’s just how I am. Always hot. That’s why I hardly ever go the Valley. You know why? Because it’s hot.”

  “We’re not going to the Valley,” Kate said. “We’re going to Santa Barbara.” She tossed him the manila folder. “Richard Wylde has his second or third house there. That’s where we’ll find his second or third wife.”

  Ten minutes later, Kate turned left on Ventura Boulevard and made her way through the strip malls and residential neighborhoods of Sherman Oaks, Calabasas, and Oxnard. Cosmo finished reading the case folder and leaned forward from the backseat, poking his head between Kate and Nick. “I’ve never met a billionaire. Or a billionaire’
s wife. What do you think they’re like?”

  Kate turned to Nick. “She’s your prospective client. What are they like?”

  “I haven’t met them in person, but he’s a pretty interesting guy,” Nick said. “Pretty much everyone in Silicon Valley calls him the Big Kahuna.”

  “Why?”

  Nick shrugged. “Who’s to say? I’m not really an expert on kahunas. He’s kind of the under-the-radar Elon Musk of unicorns. Spends most of his time working or surfing.”

  “‘Unicorns’?”

  “Privately owned companies worth at least a billion dollars.”

  Kate looked at Nick. “What makes his business worth that much?”

  “He owns a company called Sentience. The artificial intelligence software he’s developing is supposed to be state-of-the-art, revolutionary stuff.”

  Kate turned north along Route 101, and the brilliant blue Pacific Ocean came into view. “What about the wife?”

  “She’s his third. Twenty years younger. Actress turned Instagram model.”

  Cosmo perked up. “Really? I’ve never met an Instagram model either.”

  “They’re just like you and me,” Nick said. “They put on their pants one leg at a time, except before that they take a picture of themselves in their underwear and post it on the Internet.”

  3

  The town of Ventura disappeared into Kate’s rearview mirror, and they began the roughly thirty-minute drive along the coast to Santa Barbara. The highway was literally wedged between cliffs and ocean in places and seemed far removed from busy, frenetic Los Angeles.

  Kate exited Route 101 into the village of Montecito and wound her way up into the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains. A mixture of contemporary and Spanish Colonial–style mansions dotted the hillside. The Big Kahuna’s forty-acre ranch was near the top of the road, hidden behind an ornate cast iron gate.

  Cosmo rolled down his window and surveyed the property. “Zillow says it’s worth thirty million. I just checked on my cellphone.”

  Nick nodded. “This area of Santa Barbara is called the Golden Quadrangle. It’s one of the wealthiest communities in the United States. Oprah. Ellen DeGeneres. Rob Lowe. They all have homes here.”

  Kate pressed the intercom at the gate and held out her FBI credentials to the camera. “Agent Kate O’Hare to see Victoria Wylde.”

  Cosmo leaned over Kate and waved his identification as well. “And Senior Agent Cosmo Uno.”

  Kate released the intercom button, and the speaker crackled in response. “Call me Vicky. The door’s open. I’m in the back by the pool with my useless limp dick of a lawyer.” The intercom turned off for a few seconds before crackling back to life. “And bring the tray of mimosas with you from the kitchen. I’m running low on mimosas.”

  “She sounds delightful,” Cosmo said.

  Kate slowly turned to look at Cosmo. “‘Senior Agent’?”

  Cosmo fidgeted in his seat. “Technically, I started a week before you. So, technically, that kind of makes me the lead.” He paused, waiting for Kate to say something. “Of course, it’s only a technicality.”

  Kate took the wallet from Cosmo’s hand and held it open for him to see. “Technically, you just identified yourself as an FBI agent using a Blockbuster premium membership card.” She handed the wallet back. “So, you’re in charge the next time we need to rent a VHS tape. And, by the way, Blockbuster closed all its stores but one.”

  “Good thing I’ve still got my card,” Cosmo said. “It’s not like there aren’t any.”

  The gate swung open, and Kate drove through, meandering along a cobbled driveway and parking in front of a fifteen-thousand-square foot, two-story, red-roofed house. Kate opened the front door, and they all made their way through a sea of modern furniture and surfing memorabilia to the sliders leading to the pool deck at the rear of the house.

  Cosmo stopped in the kitchen and picked up a giant silver platter holding twenty crystal flutes, all filled to the brim with orange juice and champagne. “I guess Vicky really likes mimosas,” he said, trying hard not to spill as he walked toward the pool. “Do you think they’re all for her?”

  “Some of them might be for her horse,” Nick said.

  Kate looked sideways at Nick. “Pardon?”

  “I might have forgotten to mention some small details about Mrs. Big Kahuna,” Nick said. “You know how some Instagram models specialize in photographing themselves making duck faces while wearing bikinis or doing yoga in the supermarket?”

  “Not really,” Kate said.

  “Well, anyway, it’s a social media fact that you can only make so many duck faces before people start to get bored with them.”

  “Shocking.”

  Nick nodded. “I know. That’s why you need to be constantly reinventing yourself to find the hole in the selfie marketplace. It’s what makes the difference between an Instagram model and a super Instagram model.”

  Kate opened the slider door and stepped out onto the pool deck with Nick and Cosmo. “And which is Mrs. Big Kahuna, regular or super?”

  The tray of mimosas slid from Cosmo’s hands and crashed to the floor. A white horse with a horn attached to its head was standing in the pool with Victoria Wylde. A weaselly looking photographer jumped around taking pictures from every possible angle.

  “That’s weird. Why is Mrs. Wylde swimming in a silk nightgown?” Cosmo asked.

  Kate raised her hands. “There’s a unicorn in a swimming pool drinking a mimosa, and you think it’s weird she’s wearing a nightgown?”

  Victoria Wylde stepped out of the pool, walked over to Cosmo, stared down at the spilled drinks, and shook her head. Cosmo, for his part, was trying unsuccessfully to look everywhere except at the thin piece of wet silk clinging to her enormous silicon-enhanced breasts.

  The photographer approached and offered Vicky a towel.

  “This is Larry. My worthless lawyer slash photographer,” Vicky said.

  Larry handed Nick and Kate a wrinkled business card. It read “Larry, Esquire. Attorney-at-Law.”

  “You know most people wouldn’t hire a lawyer with no last name,” Nick said. “But it works for you.”

  Vicky dried her bleached-blond hair with the towel and looked Cosmo up and down. “You can take a selfie with me for a hundred dollars. For two hundred, I might throw in a wardrobe malfunction.”

  Cosmo looked over at Kate for help. “I don’t know. The daily stipend for field agents is fifty dollars per day, and I already bought a coffee and an egg salad sandwich this morning. Okay, okay. Let me start from the beginning. I suffer from low blood sugar, so unless I start my day with an egg salad sandwich, I tend to sweat excessively.” He paused to check his armpits. “And that’s why I’d have to fill out a Department of Justice form J19, Request for Additional Funds, except that I don’t have any with me.”

  Vicky wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”

  Cosmo looked over at the horse in the pool. “You seem to be doing all right. Why do you need the money?”

  “I just do it as an homage to my fans. Before I met the Big Kahuna and settled down, I was a famous actress.”

  “Really?” Cosmo said. “Would I have seen you in anything?”

  “Probably. I had some pretty big hits. Did you see Bi-Curious George?”

  “I don’t think so. What was he so curious about?”

  “Mostly boners,” Vicky said. “How about Whack-a-Doodle? It made a really big splash in the indie market.”

  Cosmo shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d be interested in.”

  “Your loss.” Vicky turned to Kate. “So, moving on. What do I have to sign in order to have my husband declared legally dead?”

  “I don’t know that he is dead.”

  Larry and Vicky looked at each other.

  “He doesn’t have to be actua
lly dead,” Larry said. “Just legally dead, per se.”

  “I’m a little confused,” Kate said. “Don’t you want to find your husband?”

  “I’m not in any rush. Right now, I have a bit of a cash-flow problem and a two-hundred-page prenup that gives me diddlysquat unless my husband dies while we’re still married, so I kind of need a death certificate more than a living Kahuna.”

  “I’m not really allowed to declare him legally dead until I’m sure he’s actually dead,” Kate said.

  “Well, there are other interested parties,” Vicky said.

  Larry nodded vigorously in agreement. “Yes. Surely you must realize there would be other interested parties, per se.”

  “Tell me about the other interested parties,” Kate said.

  “My husband is the owner of a business worth a billion dollars. His son, Hamilton, will inherit the whole thing minus what’s left to me. That is, unless the vultures who’ve invested in the company don’t steal it first.”

  “Is that a possibility?” Kate asked. “Could the investors stage a takeover?”

  “Do bears poop in the woods?” Larry asked.

  “Do you think one or more could be responsible for your husband’s disappearance?” Kate asked Vicky.

  Vicky shrugged. “The Big Kahuna was acting a little crazy just before he disappeared. Kind of jumpy. Always looking over his shoulder. Plus, he’s a good pilot. It wasn’t like him to leave without filing a flight plan.”

  “How about the son?” Kate asked.

  “Hamilton? I’ve only met him once,” Vicky said. “He’s been living the dream in Hawaii ever since dropping out of college. That is, if your dream is starting every day surfing the perfect wave and ending it with a big bowl of weed. Comes off as pretty harmless. Didn’t even question when his father married me. Said if his father was happy, he was too. Still, people will do a lot of crazy stuff for money.”