Kipuka Blues

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

THREE YEARS ago this place had been a treasured showpiece sparkling along Frayville’s Lake Huron shore. Dark-red brick walls mortared in gray. Broad aluminum-lined eaves to block out Michigan’s summer heat without screening the weaker winter light streaming through vast picture windows. Wrought iron railings along the roofed concrete porch, separating the padded chairs and the creaky iron glider from the sidewalk. A roof angled to the south, allowing the silver-trimmed solar shingles to gobble and convert every scrap of energy.

Three years ago, I’d never have made it to the front door without flashing my badge and, even then, it would have been close. Now, I walked up to the front door like I owned the place. Because my badge was about as useless as most things these days.

All I was concerned about was that it looked up to code and probably wouldn’t burn easily. Probably.

I really wanted to get through today without torching any buildings.

The cool brass latch in the windowless stained-wood front door clicked when I squeezed the thumb slat. At my touch, the unlocked door eased from its frame and glided a few inches open.

Behind me, Eric coughed. He’d eaten something spicy for breakfast. With onions. Eric wasn’t the smartest guy I’d ever worked with, but he knew every water and power junction in the city and could shut down a house in a quarter of the time I’d need.

It was one thing if we torched a house. Houses burning accidentally was a problem.

Besides, I remembered being a cop. The man I had been knew better than to hunt people alone.

Ex-people.

Whatever we were.

Stop. Focus on the job. Do not lose it. Again.

“Ready?” I said.

Eric nodded, shifting his shoulder against the weight of the angular, rust-dotted metal toolbox dragging at his hand. The brisk mossy breeze off the unspeakable lake had brushed the heat away, but a single line of sweat ran down the side of his blocky brown face just in front of his ear.

After yesterday’s disaster, I couldn’t blame him. My palm itched to hold a sidearm, but a gun would only anger whatever we found.

A seagull screeched somewhere behind us. No, not a seagull—something made to look like a seagull. A copy of a seagull. Never forget that.

Seagulls: Taken. Taken grass.

Taken people.

I tapped the heavy wooden door. It gently swung the rest of the way open.

Someone had spent a lot of money remodeling an old house. They had to have been from out of town—nobody who worked in touristy Frayville could have afforded this place. A crystal chandelier shattered the sunlight into a million tiny rainbows, splattering their color across stark white walls. Overlapping footprints and streaks of dried mud and sand smeared across the pricey, black-marbled white tile floor. Someone had made a weak attempt at cleaning the floor near the entryway to a living room, swirling and diluting the dirt before surrendering to it. Sandy footprints faded away towards the dining and family rooms. A family portrait, two adults and a horde of kids, hung opposite the door, its silver frame making it even more obviously askew. A black crushed-velvet chair with wooden claw feet sat just inside the door, its seat host to a grimy blue crumpled windbreaker.

“Police!” I shouted.

Silence.

“Kevin Holtzmann, Frayville PD!”

I bounced the door off the wall of the entryway. Nobody hiding behind it. No silhouette shadows in the living room or down the hall. No nervous scuffle of feet, no click of a pistol safety.

A seagull-creature screeched.

A distant motor roared. Sound carried for miles in this silent town.

I shuddered only a little as what felt like adrenaline threw a dance party in my muscles, and took a deep breath to steady myself.

The stench of burned, rotting meat punched the back of my throat. Party’s over.

“What the hell?” Eric whispered.

My stomach knotted around the sure memory of that stench. “A body,” I said.

You never forget the reek of a corpse, especially when it comes laced with the scorched-pork smell of electrocution.