Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2) by Chris Bauer (mobi ebook reader .TXT) 📗

live there. Their way of life, their culture, their long-term financial and physical health, their artisanship. And I have the best intentions regarding you and the Logan family, personally, as well. I simply feel it’s time to return the land and its commerce to its native people, to those who can best steward the island into the future, but you already know my feelings on this subject. I remain hopeful you will eventually see it my way.”

Logan spoke, his head shaking his answer. “That island and those people are a part of my family. We will weather this temporary hardship. None of it is for sale.”

The gold Cadillac Escalade exited the ranch gate, the two paniolo escorts and their horses leaving amid additional clouds of volcanic ash rainbow dust visible in the rear view.

Wally grabbed a bottle of guava juice from the limo’s bar, tossed the cap, sipped, then drilled a stare into the man sitting next to him.

“I need to know what happened, Magpie.”

Magpie Papahani was a big man. Polynesian-African descent, his was a nickname earned not because of his ruddy onyx skin. It came from his ruthlessness in getting what he wanted, for his boss and for himself. The dramatic, self-inflicted departure of Wally’s first in command, Olivier ʻŌpūnui, had left big shoes. No one else on Wally’s remaining staff had bigger shoes, or balls, than Magpie.

Magpie returned the stare. “This ambush, if that’s what it was, the copter crash, came out of left field, but we’re asking around about it, boss.”

“I want that island, and I want the Logan family to want me to want that island, for a fair price, after all this drama is over.” Wally softened, sipped more guava juice, spoke the next question to Magpie calmly rather than bark it.

“You found any leads on her yet?”

“Her” was Kaipo Mawpaw, ex-Ka Hui mob cleaner and fixer who recently left Wally’s employ on the U.S. mainland. A contractor. By day, hers was a lucrative personal training business. But her business cards for her after-hours work could have read Have industrial pressure cooker, will travel, with lye, electric saws, tarps, and hazmat suits. Ice in her veins. Need a body to disappear? She was your man. Was ex-Ka Hui based on her terms, not Wally’s, which did not sit well with him or the rest of the Ka Hui enterprise, and for more than one reason. Kaipo Mawpaw was a rare gem of a woman, exquisite, a true original, and a beautiful love interest of Wally’s, but the feeling wasn’t mutual.

“We found her pressure cooker behind Icky’s center city Philly restaurant in a dumpster, then we found her van abandoned in North Philly.”

“Anything inside the cooker?”

“Spotless. Nothing helpful in the van either.”

“She’s good,” Wally mumbled. “Too good.”

“That’s why she works for you.”

“Worked for me,” he said. “I just never thought she’d run, never thought she’d leave…”

Me was how Wally wanted to finish the sentence, but he didn’t, leaving an awkward silence.

Magpie filled it. “Still checking East Coast airport passenger lists, boss, when we can get our hands on them, day in, day out. A crapshoot, but we’re doing it. She hasn’t kept any of her mainland personal training client appointments since, you know, the night of the bareknuckle fight. And if she’s no longer going by Kaipo Mawpaw, if she has a new identity—or if she’s doing drugs again, if she wanted to disappear, it’s a great big world out there, boss—”

“Shut up. Shut the hell up. Find her. Just… do something and find her.”

Wally knew he never really had her to begin with. He’d tried, but she’d rebuffed him. Treated her like a queen. Coveted her. Most importantly he’d cleaned her up, got her sober, groomed her, had his Ka Hui thugs monitor her extracurricular activities until she was able to function alone, this after a few relapses. Relapses that forced Wally to maintain a scorched-earth approach regarding dealers in Hawaii, then again in Philly: if you give drugs to Kaipo, your head will end up in a bag on a doorstep on Christmas Day, or shrink-wrapped among the packaged lettuce at the grocery store, or in a trash can at a carwash, the latter detached from a body Kaipo herself had been brought in to remediate, a gift from Wally that she didn’t want. She’d stayed sober because she’d gotten with the program, accepted that she needed to, accepted the gravity of her addiction—quit, or die from it—but also because she had guardian angels eliminating many of her sources of temptation.

Guardian angels wasn’t quite accurate as a description. More like grim reapers, in the person of Ka Hui’s soldiers.

She was on his arm that last night, for a lucrative illegal bareknuckle bout he’d arranged in Philly. Then she ran.

His limo was now on its way to Lihue Airport. Wally had hired a private helicopter to take him up, wanting to see if he could get a view of the helicopter crash site on Miakamii, maybe learn something more than he already knew.

He looked up from his phone to catch the big man grinning, a barely noticeable event similar to all the man’s grins, which made him more sinister. “What are you happy about, Magpie?”

“You can make it so she’ll come to you.”

“How?”

Magpie leaned forward, folded his hands between his knees, and spoke with self-assurance, his eyes half-lidded.

“First, there’s already been an incident on the island. The copter crash. Wherever she is, if she’s seen any news lately, she knows about it.”

“Go on.”

“She’s Miakamiian. She left the island as a teen. You should put the word out, start a whisper campaign, make your contacts on Kauai and elsewhere more aware of your interest in the island. She knows you, knows what you do. Knows your new business venture. She’ll hear about it somewhere.”

This was one of the things that had sent her packing, not being able to square herself with Wally’s newest undertaking: illegal organ trafficking. If he made inroads with gaining partial