Page 66 of Deadly Sacrifice

Would he take Her body before he dressed Her in the skirt? Or after?

He’d used Goodwin’s body before he dressed her for the kill.

But She was special.

When She was pliant from the drug, he’d put the skirt on Her. Maybe thelei po’otoo. Then, he’d use Her body for his pleasure the way he’d fantasized about for so long. The thought made him hard.

She’d be out of his system after that—easy to discard as he had the others—but such a unique thrill because he’d wanted, craved, and hungered for Her this long.

The first three had been necessary steps. Practice subjects. Each sacrifice had taught him something vital about how long the drugs took to work, how tightly to bind the restraints, how much abuse and deprivation the human body could withstand before it broke.

Three times he'd packed this van. Three times he'd returned it to the garage, the sharp iron scent of blood still clinging to his clothes. Each kill had honed his skills and prepared him to make the most of this last sacrifice. They had all been preparation for Her.

Mu’s lip curled with contempt as he checked his burner phone. The message boards churned with theories about Hawaiian sovereignty, about political motives, about everything except the truth. Fools, all of them, chasing shadows while he moved unseen toward his real purpose.

He pressed the button to raise the garage door. It groaned open, rusted hinges protesting. A dog barked in the distance, then fell silent. The afternoon felt heavy with promise, like the hours before a storm. Mu got in and started the van.

By tomorrow, everything he'd worked toward would be complete. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. After all this time watching, waiting, learning . . . She would finally be his.

He drove out of his neighborhood as the garage door rumbled shut behind him. A few miles further on, the van sped past the sugar mill's ruins, leaving Kahului's sprawl behind.

Heat waves rippled off the asphalt of the highway as Mu merged into traffic. On one side, Haleakala’s vast slope rose into a crown of clouds, while mountains loomed on the other, their jagged peaks carved by centuries of rainfall into deep, shadowed valleys.

The highway curved along the island's shore. Winter waves could pound the cliffs, but today the ocean lay flat and turquoise, deceptively peaceful. Like him—biding his time. Tourist cars crept along, stopping at every turnout for photos. He passed them with practiced patience. He had memorized every curve of this road during previous journeys.

The miles unwound like the coiled cords in Mu’s kill kit. Theleiomanoseemed to pulse behind him, as if sensing they were near, when at last he turned onto an unmarked private drive. Her house waited at the end. The afternoon heat would soon give way to evening clouds rolling down the mountainside. By then, he would have Her and be ready.

Everything he had learned from the others would serve him as he took Her to the perfect place he had chosen for his final sacrifice. But he wasn’t in a hurry for that final act; he’d savor every moment of his time with Her in the van first.

40

KATIE

After Lei leftto surveil Beck Noble, Katie drummed her fingers against her desk, her eyes on the monitors but her mind a million miles away. The hum of multiple computer fans provided a soothing white noise in her basement workspace. The Cave smelled faintly of coffee, electronics, and the vanilla scented candle she'd lit to combat the sterile air. The wall of novelty mugs cast elongated shadows under new, customized LED strips she’d put up that shed a gentle blue light around the perimeter of the ceiling.

Katie watched the AI enhancement software process Jeff Brian's photos, the progress bar crawling forward with excruciating slowness as the enhanced versions were compared with photos of everyone known to have been involved with the Kuleana project—and the MPD’s criminal database, too.

There were a lot of photos. This was likely to take a while.

Katie’s three-monitor setup cast a glow across her face as she leaned back in her ergonomic chair; it squeaked slightly as she shifted her weight back and forth.

"Come on, beautiful machine," she murmured, tapping a painted black fingernail against her mouse. “Gimme some sugar.”

Her thoughts drifted to Jeff, the source of the photos.

Katie liked the way his blue eyes crinkled when he laughed. How his glasses were such a cute contrast with his tanned biceps, hinting at intelligence as well as physicality. She’d felt comfortable with him—like they really ‘got’ each other. That didn’t happen often for her.

Katie bit her lower lip, tasting the strawberry-flavored remnants of her bright red lipstick. Before she could second-guess herself, she grabbed her phone, the cool metal case familiar against her palm, and scrolled to his number.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite techie cop,” Jeff answered, his voice warm through the speaker. “Ready to go on a date with me?”

Heat rose to Katie’s cheeks; she wasn’t prepared for him to be so direct. “Sadly, duty prevents such fraternization until the case is over. I'm just calling to talk to you about those bleary horrors you call photographs."

"Ah, so this is a professional call." She could hear the smile in Jeff’s voice. “And here I hoped you might want to go standup paddleboarding or something.”

“Nope,” Katie said, twirling a loose strand of hair that had escaped her French braid. "If I were asking you out, you'd know it. I'd be much smoother than that."

"Would you now?" Jeff laughed. "I'm intrigued. Give me a sample of this legendary smoothness."

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