Page 30

30

KATIE

Early the next morning, Katie settled herself into her ergonomic gaming chair with a cup of coffee in her Haters Gonna Hate mug. Per Lei’s request, she’d brought in a coffeemaker to go with the mugs on the wall.

Yawning, she hit the ‘On’ button on her computer rig and sat back, swiveling a bit as she waited for the machine to boot up. Today she’d dressed for comfort in a pair of spiderweb patterned leggings and a tunic top with a glow-in-the-dark skull on it. Her hair was back in a simple French braid.

After all the excitement of her first crime scene visit and death notification, being back in her familiar Cave felt good, but she hardly had time to type in her password when the computer ‘pinged.’ An old-school voice came through the speakers: “You’ve got mail!”

Katie glanced at the monitor. “Uh-oh.” She typed furiously, and in seconds, a web page opened. Katie gasped. “Oh, shit.”

She reached for the desk phone and called Lei’s cubicle. “Boss? We have a situation and I think Captain Omura needs to see it.”

“What kind of situation?” Lei yawned audibly. “I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

“Me neither, but this is critical. I have a little program set to search for websites or documents containing certain keywords. That alert tells me I got a hit, and it’s got to do with our recent murders.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, Captain Omura, Lei, Pono, and TG had gathered with Katie in the large conference room. The team spoke quietly as Katie fired up her laptop, which she’d connected to a video projector. When the projector clicked on, it shone on the whiteboard at the end of the room, followed by an image of the computer’s desktop. The room went silent while Katie opened her browser and navigated to the URL she’d bookmarked.

When the page opened, there were startled murmurs around the table. The website’s headline was in Hawaiian, with an English translation underneath.

The Warriors of Kamehameha

The life of the land has been destroyed by the occupiers of our sovereign nation. The overthrow of the country of Hawaii in 1893 was an act of war, perpetrated by haole landowners with the support of the United States military. The colonization of our lands was an illegal act, in violation of longstanding treaties and U.S. law. The Hawaiian people have been trampled into the beloved earth of our homeland by the forces of greed and political power.

We have been passive for too long, but we can remain silent no more. American Imperialism brought war to our lands 125 years ago. Today, we fight back.

We demand the immediate recognition of the lawful Hawaiian Kingdom, the return of all crown lands to the people, and the immediate action of the United States to repeal the illegal annexation and subsequent declaration of statehood.

We demand the immediate cessation of further desecration of our sacred cultural lands, including all sacred places, our mountains, our valleys, and our shorelines.

We demand the immediate cessation of any construction or development within the Kingdom.

We demand within thirty days a plan for the withdrawal of all occupying forces.

We are not the state of Hawai‘i, we are the Nation of Hawai‘i.

As an example of our commitment to this cause, our brothers on the island of Maui have carried out the assassination of imperialists intent on destroying our lands and our lives. This is but the opening skirmish in a war you have brought upon yourselves. Comply with our demands or face the consequences.

Your desecration of the ‘aina disrupts the mana. Cease these efforts immediately.

We declare them KAPU.

Signed, Mū.

At the bottom of the page were posted the driver’s license photos of the three victims. “The killer is making his statement,” Lei said. “I had a feeling something like this was coming.”

Below the photos of the driver’s licenses was a button: ‘Click here.’

Katie hesitated to toggle the button; a setup like this couldn’t be showing them anything good. Her cursor hovered long enough for Captain Omura to speak. “What are you waiting for?”

“I’m not sure we want to see this,” Katie said.

“We’re cops, McHenry. Hit that button,” Omura ordered.

When Katie clicked the button, another window opened. Three pictures filled the screen, each of them horrifying: they were death portraits of the victims, in high definition and full color. The photo of the most recent victim showed his brains splattered and blood pooling in a puddle of bones and gore. One blue eyeball glared up at them from the mess.

“ Auwe !” Pono exclaimed. “That’s just nasty.”

“Who else knows about this website?” Omura snapped. “McHenry?”

“I’m on it.” Katie pulled up a tracker app and opened it. She dragged and dropped the site’s URL into the analysis box. “I was in a hurry to let you guys know about this. I’ll dig in and see what I can find.”

“Meanwhile, team, tell me about yesterday’s trip to the heiau and the discovery of Steinbrenner,” Omura said. Lei and Pono described the steps they had taken. The roundtable continued, with multiple overlapping conversations taking place.

“The site has only been viewed a few hundred times,” Katie broke in to say. “I can’t track who’s seen it, and so far I can’t find the originating IP.”

“Good work, McHenry. Carry on and get us what you can,” Omura said.

Katie stared intently at her screen, her fingers tapping away. “Oh, no,” she exclaimed a few minutes later—she’d found something even more disturbing than the main page.

Everyone turned to look at her.

Katie forced the quaver out of her voice. “Do you want to see the rest of what this Mū guy posted?”

“Of course,” Captain Omura said.

Katie hit the secret link she’d discovered. On a new page, a gallery opened up. Within each of three windows, a video played automatically: each of the murders happening in real time, accompanied by color and sound.

A few minutes into the videos, Katie jumped up from her chair as nausea rose in an unstoppable wave. She busted out of the conference room and ran for the women’s facilities. After retching up the coffee she’d drunk, she went into the break room and lay down with a wet washcloth over her eyes. The team would just have to understand that this kind of discovery was no way for a rookie to start the workday.

Katie lay on the break room couch, the cold washcloth cooling against her forehead, her pulse still hammering in her ears. The coffee she’d thrown up left a bitter, acrid taste in her mouth, but worse than that was the weight in her gut—the deep, twisting realization that she had just looked into the mind of a killer. Not just any killer. Mū.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but the images wouldn’t stop. The website had been bad enough. That manifesto, filled with pompous rage, demanding justice through blood. The death portraits had been hideous.

But the videos . . .

Katie gritted her teeth, forcing herself to breathe through nausea as her brain replayed them. “Ugh.”

That moment when Steinbrenner saw he was going to die. The way his body went rigid, his breath coming in panicked gasps, his body shaking, muffled cries audible through the gag. Then the first strike had landed . . .

Katie clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms.

She hadn’t watched long enough to see the end, but she didn’t need to. The crime scene itself had filled in the blanks—the shattered skull, the blood running in rivulets down the altar stone. Mū had made sure his victims suffered.

And he had filmed it all.

“Sick bastard.” Katie sucked in a deep breath, forcing herself to sit up. The break room was quiet, the hum of the fridge the only sound. Down the hall, she could hear the muffled voices of the team still gathered in the conference room, still analyzing what they had seen.

She should be in there. She should be working.

Katie pressed the washcloth to the back of her neck, letting the cool sensation ground her. She wasn’t just some tech. She was the best at what she did. And if this monster thought he could hide behind his manifesto, behind encryption and anonymity, he was dead wrong.

She was going to find him. And she was going to watch his world burn.

But first, she was going to have a little lie-down until she felt better.