Kono paced the office anxiously, glaring at the clock on the computer screen every few steps. Danny should have been there five minutes ago by his timing, which made him ten minutes later than she had asked. "What the hell is taking him so long?!" she muttered furiously.
"An overeager reporter attempted to shove a recorder up my left nostril," came the answer. "I had to turn him over to Duke and get something to stop the resulting nosebleed." Danny stopped next to the computer, and Kono was torn between groaning, laughing, and yelling when she saw the tampon stuck inside his nose. "I don't have a first aid kit in my rental, and one of the reporters gave me this so I could hit the road. It works."
"I bet it does," she grumbled. "I just got back from the lab. I called you from right beside Fong's computer."
"What's the emergency? You'd think some of the evidence included the details of a terrorist bombing."
She narrowed her eyes. "The blood samples from the scene came back way faster than Fong thought they would. Aside from Chin's," she stopped to swallow the sudden lump in her throat, "Fong identified two separate samples. Our dead guy came back as Adam."
"Wait, you mean-"
"Yes, Adam Noshimuri, my comatose boyfriend. Oh, but it gets better: there was another sample, from the footprints and the dumpster, and the results came back to none other than Sang Min."
"You're joking." Danny ran his hands through his hair and muttered something unintelligible. "So we've got a dead guy who apparently has the same DNA as your boyfriend and some identical twin of Sang Min running around with a gun in his hand, right?"
"Sang Min's fingerprint was also on Chin's cell phone, which was used to make the 911 call. Someone's hacked into the database, obviously, and they're doing it specifically to screw around with us." Her blood still ran cold just remembering when Adam's information had appeared on Fong's search results. His driver's license photo was ridiculously perfect, and it made her long for his smile again. "Charlie's going to try and trace the source of the hack and see if he can recall the relevant information."
"Ah, hell," Danny suddenly cursed. "You weren't kidding about them specifically trying to screw with us." Kono raised an eyebrow at him, and he leaned against the computer console with a pained sigh. "A couple of months ago, a guy back in Jersey was going around killing former felons, but only ones who our department didn't know by sight and who had DNA on record. Whenever we'd run DNA or prints, the records would come back to someone in my department. I was our last victim."
"That's creepy," Kono said. "Did you catch him?"
"Yeah, turned out to be a former computer tech from our department who got fired. We stopped him after three victims, but still…" Danny shuddered. "Whoever is behind this knew about that case, and knew that we'd be investigating."
"But how did they even know that Chin and I were on the case in the first place?" she asked. "This just screams of an inside job. Someone in HPD is helping Wo Fat."
"You think it's him too, then?"
She chuckled hollowly. "Of course it's him, Danny. Who else would have the connections to pull this off, who else would be twisted enough to set up a torture chamber like that? Wo Fat is at the heart of this whole case, and now we have confirmation that Sang Min was involved with him in some fashion, too."
Danny nodded but said nothing. She fell silent, too, and just tried to handle everything that had happened over the last several hours.
Chin Ho had arranged for the two of them to work on a low-key investigation into Sang Min's murder, they had stumbled onto a torture chamber like in North Korea, Chin Ho had been shot, her own family had told her she wasn't welcome at the hospital, Five-0 had been restarted, and now someone was dragging Adam into the case. Danny was her partner, and Catherine was trying her best to join the team.
Her mind threatened to explode with all the emotions and facts tied together within her skull. "What now, boss?"
"Don't call me that," Danny said immediately. "Danny, Daniel, even Detective Williams if you have to, but not 'Boss'. Put 'Danno' on the do-not-use list, for that matter."
"Yeah, sorry," she responded. She didn't bother to tell him that as soon as the nickname had rolled off her tongue she had remembered that Steve wasn't there, and that her mouth had filled with a sour taste. "So where do we start, Danny?"
"Well, our Sang Min impersonator called 911, right? Maybe we can get something off the tape. Can you access it from here?" Danny made a strange face after he spoke, like the sour taste had filled his mouth too.
"I was expecting the computer to be a dinosaur by now, but it seems Denning has kept it with the times for whatever reason." Kono pressed a few keys on the tabletop and swiped the screen to the side. An audio player appeared on the screen, ready to be played. "Fong and I were about to listen to it when we got the search results on the blood and prints, so I had him send it over here."
Danny reached over to press play, and the office filled with the sound of the call. "911, what's your emergency?" asked a kind female voice.
"Please help, there's an officer down! Chin Ho Kelly, Captain Chin Ho Kelly! I shot him, I shot him and he's in really bad condition, you need to send someone over here before he dies!" Kono winced at the gravelly shouting. This man had a serious problem if he was talking like that.
"Sir, what is your location?"
"The abandoned shipping warehouses on Kingston Street, down by the piers! You have to get medics here before he dies. I don't know if I can keep him from bleeding out." The caller coughed loudly and cleared his throat before continuing. "ETA?"
Kono froze. She heard the operator as if from a distance, telling the caller that emergency personnel would be there within ten minutes. Then she continued to ask questions, but her only answer was a click. Kono couldn't process the idea that the mystery man had just hung up, mostly because the voice was so familiar.
When her mind acclimated itself to her body once more, she saw the same stunned expression on Danny's face. "Please tell me…that can't be…"
"No. No, that person was ill, and it was just a weird coincidence." Danny turned away from Kono and put his hand over his eyes. "There's no way that was…that was not Steven McGarrett."
Kono wanted to believe him, but her thoughts kept drifting to the times she'd heard her boss utter those three letters. That tone had been all business, unlike the panicked explanation of her cousin's condition. "Are you-"
"It can't be Steve, Kono! Because if that was Steve on that line, that means Steve was the one who shot Chin Ho and that means he's a fugitive and that means we have to find him and arrest him for trying to kill one of his closest friends and murdering another man, and I can't accept any of that!" Danny turned back around, and she was unsurprised to see his eyes shining with tears. "Besides, it was just three letters. That means nothing. Anyone could have said those."
"But Danny," she started, but he kept talking over her.
"Our emotions are just running high because of what we found at the warehouse today and the shooting, and then being back in this office is playing tricks on us, you know?" He sighed, smacked the edge of the table, and turned away. "I need some coffee. You want some?"
She stared at him for a long moment before nodding. "Sure. Could you grab some malasadas while you're there?" Danny nodded and was gone, and Kono leaned against the computer.
She no longer had the desire to cry. She wasn't sure she'd ever be able to cry again with all the emotions running through her head.
Whether she and Danny wanted to accept it or not, they both knew exactly whose voice that had been.
But how was he there? And why?
And how was she supposed to exact revenge for Chin on one of their best friends?
A/N: Aloha! It's the moment we've all been waiting for, the big reveal! And, no, it wasn't as dramatic as it could have been...(maybe because the drama's been set aside for later use ;) )
I'm sorry that I didn't get around to thanking all of you who reviewed this time 'round, but know that I read and appreciate all of the reviews that come in. I'll be working on the next chapter tomorrow, so it should be ready to go by tomorrow or Friday. If I have the time, maybe I'll even get the next Danny chapter done and get back to the regular posting schedule on Saturday...I don't know yet.
Anyhow, mahalo for reading! See you next time!