Page 50 of Deadly Sacrifice

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, Mu.

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 theheiauand 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 Mu 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.Mu.

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.”

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