It was past eleven in the morning when Steve finally crawled out of bed. "I'll order coffee and something to eat. Stay here, I'll serve you breakfast in bed, "he announced with a smile and kissed Sara on the forehead before walking into the living room of the suite. He ordered fresh fruit, toast and coffee from the room service, then put on a T-shirt and shorts. A good ten minutes passed before there was a knock on the door. His surprise could not have been bigger when Danny and Chin entered the suite behind the waiter with the trolley.
"What in God's name are you doing here?" He asked, signing the receipt and tipping the waiter.
"I have instructed the room service to let us know when you are up. We have to show you something, "explained Danny. "I brought Chin with me, as you know, I'm not a great technician." He pointed to the tablet PC that his former colleague had in his hand. The detective held his suspicious look.
"OK. Give us five minutes. Take a coffee."
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He sat on the edge of the bed next to Sara.
"I don't smell coffee," she sighed, eyes closed.
"Sara?"
She seemed to hear his concern because she immediately opened her eyelids and started to pry up. "What's happening?"
"The waiter served Danny and Chin along with our breakfast. They want to show us something. It seems to be important, otherwise they would hardly be here."
"OK. Just give me time to get dressed. "
"Sure. I'm sorry our honeymoon starts like this. "
"Life is not a picnic. But it started well, "she said with a suggestive grin, then left the bed and went to the wardrobe.
When they came into the living room hand in hand a few minutes later, Danny and Chin were sitting on the sofa, each holding a coffee mug, talking quietly. They both apologized again for the disturbance, then the honeymooners also took a seat.
Chin cleared his throat. "Danny asked me to help him here because I helped him with the arrest yesterday. And we didn't want this to go around in the whole team. Apart from the two of us, only Eric knows something and he encrypted everything and protected it with a password. "
Danny nodded: "I made clear to him that he has to keep his big mouth under control."
"Wait a minute," Steve interrupted. "My last info was that you got a paparazzi away. When did the whole thing take on such dimensions here? "
"When Eric saw the hard drives from Kettler's hotel room. Sara ... ", Danny's unmistakable request came to his wife. She briefly explained to him about the identity of the man and the restraining order he had violated the previous day. He struggled to remain calm as she described how the man had been chasing her on behalf of her mother, trying to get potentially compromising photos.
"He has stuck to it for the past few years, I haven't caught him in ages," she justified her discretion.
"It would still have been better if you told me," said Steve.
"Maybe," Chin said. "Take a look at this. That's a small selection from the approximately eight hundred pictures Kettler has taken on the island in the past few days." He held out the tablet PC. "You can take it, it belongs to Five-0, I transferred the photos. Kettler's devices are locked up in the HPD laboratory. "
Steve took the Tablet and started scrolling through the directory. It started harmlessly with beach shots and a sunset. But then came pictures of their house, their car, himself in front of the headquarters. Sara at the entrance to the base, Sara while shopping. Sara with Grace in front of the flower shop. The beach with the tents. He and Sara in the little bistro where they had dinner on Wednesday night. He and Danny in front of a commercial building in town where they interviewed a witness. Sara had watched the pictures and was now quite pale.
"That ... is ... I can't believe it. I didn't notice him. "
Steve put a hand on her shoulder. "None of us has. But this is such a serious violation of the restraining order, this will earn him some time."
"Not if my mother hires him a lawyer again."
"That won't help him either," Danny said. "Eric discovered more on one of the hard drives from his hotel room. That is harmless. "
"You call that harmless ?!" Steve started.
"Mhm."
Chin took the tablet from him, typed, then handed it back. He recognized his parents' house again.
"I already had this picture."
"Take a closer look. At the bottom of the picture is the date of the shot." As a former SEAL, he was trained to stay calm in all situations, but now he almost dropped the device. The picture read April 15, 1998. At the next shot, he also recognized the color of the front door and the freshly planted tree at the gate, which was several meters high today.
"Keep looking," Chin said emphatically.
More photos of the house followed, pictures of his father. Then pictures of himself in navy uniform. He recognized the buildings in the background.
"This is Naval College in Annapolis. I lived there. And here this is in Norfolk. And Maryland." The data moved over a period of about three years. Then suddenly pictures appeared in which Sara and he could be seen together. Sometimes in uniform, sometimes in civilian clothes, in everyday situations.
"That's ... What's coming?" Sara asked next to him in horror, sounding as if she didn't really want an answer. Chin took the tablet without a word, opened another directory and held it out to her.
The pictures were younger according to the shooting date. They showed Sara in the beige uniform, next to her a young, blonde soldier in camouflage dress. She ran her finger briefly over the picture.
"Is that ...?" Steve asked quietly.
"This is Robin. Shortly afterwards we got engaged. What in God's name is this? "She flipped through hectically. Pictures of Sara in an expansive wedding dress, surrounded by uniforms with so many medals on the chest that you were almost blinded, with Robin's hand, both with a forced, tortured smile. The two of them in a street cafe, in civilian clothes, both had an exhausted facial expression, fresh scars were visible on his arm. Photos of a highway, a curve with damaged bushes ...
Next to him, Sara jumped up and hurried towards the bedroom. He wanted to follow her, but she cried, "Leave me!"
So he stopped, then went back to the sofa.
"Shall I go?" Danny asked quietly, which Steve answered with shaking his head.
He tried to block out the faint noises his sharp ears heard from the bathroom as he looked through one picture at a time. Now his wife was the main motive. Sara in a wheelchair, with horrible looking splints on her legs, an arm in plaster and cuts on her face. Another picture with a wheelchair, the legs in other splints, the wounds almost healed, but she became emaciated. Sara with a therapist and walking aids on a path in a park. For a moment he remembered pictures of a visit with Danny to a Veterans Rehab Center in San Diego. It had been some time ago that they had been there, but it just felt like yesterday.