Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2) Chris Bauer (free reads TXT) 📖

Vena’s driveway. She took a long look up and down the street before exiting. No lingering BMWs with shady drivers. Kaipo got out, the Uber left. She entered the open garage and knocked on the interior door. No answer. She tried the doorknob; unlocked. She poked her head inside the mudroom.

“Vena?” she called. “Get your lazy ass out of bed, you queen, it’s one o’clock. Vena…?”

The over-under washer-dryer unit was tilted, leaning on two legs, a laundry sink propping it up at an awkward angle. This lit up her senses; there’d been a struggle in here. Kaipo reached behind her back, under her blouse, slipped her handgun from its holster and listened, heard the fridge motor kick in, nothing else. A two-handed pose with the gun led her into the next room.

The kitchen. Drip coffee maker was off, the carafe half full, the way Kaipo had left it. One bowl in the sink, a spoon in it, the aftermath of Kaipo’s breakfast Cheerios. No indication Vena had made an appearance.

“Vena? Vena honey?”

Slow steps forward, Kaipo now almost out of the kitchen, except—

The backsplash. One cracked tile, ruining the bold orange look of the southwestern kitchen. Not cracked, it had a hole. Next to it, two holes in the drywall. If she dug inside all three holes, she knew she’d find bullets. Her eyes darted everywhere, her pulse quickening.

Fight or flight? The urges for both cartwheeled around her head. She had a reason to run, also had a larger reason in the person of her friend to stay. On instinct she eased forward, kept walking on quiet, steady feet, into the living room, resisting calling Vena’s name again.

The deadbolt for the front door was engaged but the door chain hung loose. Had she been chased, with not enough time to open the door? The coffee table was pushed against the sofa, making a wider path. Blood droplets peppered the light-colored rug, continued onto the hardwood floor, into the hallway. No bullet holes visible anywhere in the living room, nothing obvious in the dining room either. Kaipo moved down the hall, past the empty bathroom, the door open. A cursory look inside, nothing of interest, the shower curtain pulled back from the tub. She reached Vena’s bedroom. The door lay flat on the bedroom floor, the doorjamb around it splintered.

Where Vena had made her stand. Kaipo swallowed hard, stood evaluating the damage from the doorway. “Oh my, Vena. Sweetie. Please, please, please don’t be in here…”

Her raised gun preceded her into the bedroom.

Pockmarks speckled the resting door’s off-white panels, one, two… a total of five bullet entries and exits in the top half of the door, fired from inside the bedroom. She turned back to check the other side of the hallway, where the bullets would have entered the wall if they hadn’t hit anything, found holes in the drywall. She counted only three.

Kaipo shuddered, but her heart also leaped with pride; she wanted to pull her friend in close to her right now, to hug her. The blood drips she’d seen in the kitchen and the living room—still viscous, maybe only an hour old—Kaipo was sure they were from bullets four and five, was sure they had found their way into Vena’s assailant.

“Good for you, Vena,” she said, a whimper. “So proud of you, baby…”

Inside the bedroom now, she treaded lightly. The dresser drawers were upended, flung into the corners. A crack in the wardrobe door. A shattered mirror, table lamps in pieces alongside their nightstands. An overturned mattress. A circular divot in the drywall, probably from the snow globe tossed with bad intentions, now on the carpeted floor. Kaipo’s Christmas gift to her from the tropics-averse, wintry eastern coast of the mainland.

Two more bullet holes in the ceiling, directly above the bedframe. That brought the bullet count to ten, the Glock clip’s official capacity. Vena had emptied her gun. “That’s my girl…”

She slid a pillow out of the way with her foot to see the floor on the other side of the bed. Here was the Glock; Kaipo retrieved it. Still no Vena.

The master bathroom: the door creaked open when she entered. No signs of a struggle, the shower curtain closed, covering a tub/shower combo. The bathroom sink was discolored, hair dye trails left to dry. Vena had been coloring her hair when the attack went down.

Something chirped. Vena’s cell phone, on the clothes hamper. A text had queued up. Kaipo read it.

It was from Kaipo. She’d sent it two hours ago, had only just arrived.

On my way back.

This did it. The text was what finally made Kaipo cry, a short burst of tears. She backed out of the bathroom, Vena’s phone in her pocket.

She retraced her steps, came up empty searching the rest of the house. Vena had put up one helluva fight. Kaipo quickly realized she had to leave, like, right now, would need to do it by leaving behind no trace of herself. Not a problem for her to leave undiscovered, considering her after-hours work for Ka Hui, except… she had no supplies. Nothing other than whatever cleaning solutions Vena kept on hand.

She made do. Toilet cleanser, kitchen cleaning sprays, plastic gloves from an open hair dye package when she couldn’t find any others. Fingerprints removed, glasses, bowls, utensils washed, DNA neutralized, hopefully. No attempt at remediating the bedroom crime scene; that was the assailant’s problem. Kaipo gathered up her cleaning materials into a plastic bag that would leave with her.

Vena, gone. Why? Where to? Taken by whom?

The horrible thought, the one that nagged her as soon as she saw the first blood specks and bullet holes, was back: it was more likely that Kaipo was their target, not Vena.

She booked an Uber, stood inside Vena’s garage wondering how the neighbors hadn’t heard anything. Fucking suburbia.

Her own phone was a burner. She’d crush and lose it as soon as her Uber driver dropped her off, replace it with another. Vena’s phone, in her pocket… she’d keep that