Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2) by Chris Bauer

Author:Chris Bauer [Bauer, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn River Publisher
Published: 2021-05-10T22:00:00+00:00

“We were a mess, weren’t we?” Birdy said.

Birdy’s place, a large camper, was twenty minutes from the landfill in an RV park on a steppe carved out of an inactive volcano’s base. Their fold-down kitchen table talk had commenced over iced tea. A distant horizon that fell away from the volcano shimmered outside the kitchen window like a desert mirage on a hot day. Kaipo’s name change and the reason for it came and went as a topic. Kaipo was now back at the beginning of their friendship.

“We were fresh off the island,” Kaipo said, reminiscing. “Shitty jobs. No friends on Kauai yet. No money. But we always had enough money for drugs, didn’t we? Which put us on our way to moving from one addiction statistic to another.” Kaipo quit the romanticizing, lifted her backpack to her lap. “I need to give you something, Birdy, and you need to pay attention to me on this.” She unzipped a side pocket. Some second-guessing crept in, suddenly freezing her hand inside the backpack.

“What is it?” Birdy asked. “What’s wrong?”

Kaipo tucked away her doubt, exhaled, knew this was necessary. “I need you to take this. I need you to not argue.”

She liberated the handgun. Same gun she’d handed Vena twenty-four hours ago, but hopefully this time it would result in a different outcome. A mini-pang of PTSD wrenched her stomach while she handled the semi-automatic. She placed it on the table between them, a bullet clip next to it.

“What the hell, Kaipo?”

Vena’s words, too.

“Those recent killings,” Kaipo said, struggling, “those mutilated bodies you’ve been hearing about—”

“Yeah. What about them?”

“Add to them one more gruesome murder yesterday, not in the news yet. Vena Akina, from the island.”

“What? Vena? Oh, Kaipo—”

Kaipo took her friend’s hands in hers, Birdy in tears, Kaipo fighting them. “The murders might have something to do with me, Birdy, but then again, they might not. I’m not sure yet. But what they do have in common is the victims are all from Miakamii. Islanders who moved to Kauai. So promise me this, Birdy. Promise me you’ll keep this gun within reach for the foreseeable future, for protection, and—”

Kaipo’s eyes and mouth moistened in anticipation of a good cry, with her nearly losing it relaying this information, this… admonition. Vena, my poor Vena…

“—confirm something for me, that you’re not entertaining undergoing surgery to donate a part of your liver or any other organs for money.”

“Wait, what? How did you know…?”

“Word of mouth, Birdy. Son of a bitch, I knew it. Listen carefully to me…”

Things were worse than she’d thought. Social media: the bane, or the salvation of this generation? Blessing or curse? Regardless, different platforms had picked up on this little get-flush-quick scheme that Ka Hui had going. Kaipo launched into her plea, told horrific tales of mutilated corpses and crime scenes she’d remediated with multiple dead organ donors.

She ended with, “… and selling any of your organs will bring you up close and personal with the people I used to work for.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.