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

She narrowed her eyes in the twilight. A large man sat on a deck chair out front in a tight suit, his phone monopolizing his interest.

A bodyguard.

The car in the space in front of the bunkhouse—an SUV limo, in gold—closed the deal for her. Wally Lanakai liked gold limos. In Wally Lanakai’s past life, he also loved this hotel.

Tomorrow, if she still had the balls to do this, she’d march in to see him. Would have him call off whatever the hell he was doing related to these grotesque murders; possibly related to him looking for her.

One overkill aspect. If she was right about this, about approaching Wally, then Birdy and the other Miakamiians out there, wherever they were, would be safe, the Glock she gave Birdy not necessary. If she was wrong, and something else was going on, well, better safe than sorry. Either way she’d need to have a heart-to-heart with Wally regarding their future together, or lack thereof, and let whatever was going to happen between them happen.

Time to check into the hotel. Head down, she about-faced and thumbed her phone as she walked, caught herself in mid-stride just before plowing into a man in her path.

Japanese. Broad shoulders beneath a small smile. “Oh. Sorry, sir, I wasn’t paying attention—”

The last thing she remembered after the pinprick to her shoulder was hearing someone speaking on a phone saying he got her bag from the lobby.

Kaipo felt the leather against her cheek, her head against the seat, her nose against the car door. Her mind was a wandering, unsettled mess.

What’d he give me, damn it…

“A derivative of the Michael Jackson drug.”

Someone sitting next to her, a man… she’d asked the question aloud. Her fuzzy head processed the answer, translating it.

Propofol? The anesthetic?

Again what she thought was a mental response, wasn’t.

“Propofol-lite. The real stuff could kill you. We’ll be there in a minute. What a beautiful, starry night you will be missing.”

Her mind latched onto something else. Getting injected with a propofol derivative meant she hadn’t relapsed. A small comfort. The thought stayed a thought only, no comment from her kidnapper.

She struggled to sit up, her wrists and ankles wrapped in duct tape, her head burdened by a massive headache.

“We’re here,” he said. “Don’t try to stand, I’ll carry you.”

Inside a motel room, he laid her on a twin bed. Three men, her guess Japanese, surrounded her, one at the foot of the bed, the others on each side. The one who carried her in pulled up a side chair, began speaking.

“Stay calm, do not scream, or we will tape your mouth shut. Not that anyone would hear you; we booked all the rooms in this wing of the motel. Oyabun will be here to see you momentarily.”

They waited. Kaipo faded in and out, then was out for the count.

Her eyes opened, her body aching. The same man sat in the chair next to the bed, but behind him a slender man occupied a wing chair, his legs crossed, his hands folded in his lap. Her face and body were softly lit by sunlight through a window. The man in the wing chair spoke, his voice calm and even. “Good morning, miss.”

“What time is it?” Kaipo said through cotton-mouthed lips.

“Seven a.m. You slept through the night.” He handed off what he was looking at. “Show her the photo.”

The bedside associate thrust a photograph in her face. In it a woman sat ringside at what appeared to be a boxing ring at a casino. The man sitting next to her in the photo had his arm on the back of her chair, was smiling, but the woman had an I-can’t-be-bothered look.

“You are this woman,” the man in the wing chair said. “You are a part of Ka Hui. You are with Wally Lanakai. You are Kaipo Mawpaw, correct?”

“No. I’m… my name is Aiata Hauata. I’m visiting friends… I’m… please, let me go…”

“That is bullshit. You are Kaipo Mawpaw, and Wally Lanakai is desperately combing the islands for you. You mean something to him—a lot, I suspect. Except, I also suspect, he does not mean the same to you.”

She got it now. They were watching Wally. Watching him, interested in him, probably not liking him. He’d spent a long time away from the islands—more than a decade. Time for other players, other organized crime factions, to materialize in Hawaii, to get a footing.

Like from Japan.

“I… Wally Lanakai and I were business associates,” she said, “but not any longer. That’s all. I needed to disappear. Be away from him. Not something that’s easy to do. Why are you doing this? Why kidnap me?”

“Remove the tape,” he barked to the bedside thug. Moments later, Kaipo’s wrists and ankles were free. “Sit over here.” He gestured at a wing chair on the other side of the floor lamp.

She sat as requested, rubbing her wrists, wary of her inquisitor.

“I will give you more information than you are entitled to, Ms. Mawpaw. Listen carefully and understand. I am Mr. Yabuki. I am oyabun of the Yamazuki clan. You might know us as the Yakuza. Your association with Ka Hui has put you in a bad position, and me in a rather good one. I want Ka Hui out of the islands, and you will help me accomplish this.”

And suddenly she saw a way out of this. Yes. A very simple way out. “I’m more than a simple bargaining chip, Mr. Yabuki,” she said. “I’m your solution.”

“And the solution as you see it is what? Why you were there, at his hotel? To see him? To sacrifice yourself? That is your solution?”

Her confidence waned with his assessment, but she had to bite. “Yes. To plead with him to stop what he’s doing. To stop exploiting people. To leave the islands again. With me, if that’s what he wanted.” The last statement she hadn’t quite come to grips with, but there it was.

Mr. Yabuki sipped some bottled water, analyzing her. “Get her something to drink.”

A bottle