The Killer of Oz Read online

  The Killer of Oz

  Chelsea Field

  THE KILLER OF OZ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, poisons, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Chelsea Field

  All rights reserved.

  Published by JFP Trust

  2019 First Digital Edition

  ISBN: 978 0 6482532 2 8

  www.chelseafieldauthor.com

  For the Indigenous peoples of Australia,

  I’m sorry so many of us have been assholes.

  Contents

  Series Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  From the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from EAT, PRAY, DIE

  Series Introduction

  If you’ve never read an Eat, Pray, Die mystery, here’s what you should know about us poison tasters:

  Harry Potter got a letter inviting him to Hogwarts to become a wizard. My offer was less exciting, but no less top secret. In fact, they didn’t even tell me the truth until I was weeks into the training.

  Welcome to the Taste Society.

  A secret organization where you’ll only be told what you absolutely need to know.

  Throughout recorded history, wherever there was power, there was poison alongside it. As the use and knowledge of poison became more sophisticated during the rise of the Roman Empire, the role of food taster, known then as praegustator, was introduced.

  Both poisoners and tasters still exist today. But instead of poor untrained slaves putting their lives on the line every time someone important wants a meal, you have Shades like me. Poisons are more advanced, but so are the antidotes and job training. And while I don’t have magic in my blood the way Harry Potter does, I do have the rare gene mutation PSH337PRS, which gives me increased resistance to toxic substances. That’s why the Taste Society recruited me in the first place.

  So why haven’t you heard of any of this?

  The same reason I hadn’t until I’d jumped through a thousand hoops and commenced my training. Because both the authorities and the Taste Society go to great lengths to cover it up.

  There’s a scary logic behind why the rich and powerful elite favor poison over more direct methods. It’s discreet, versatile, hard to protect against, and damn near impossible to trace back to the person responsible. Nobody wants to popularize poisoning among the masses.

  But beneath the falsified news stories? The climb to power and fortune is a war zone, and poison is the weapon of choice. And around a third of those accounts you see about yet another public figure dying from a drug overdose or ruining their careers while under the influence are, in truth, carefully planned sabotage.

  Oh, and Shades like me are the only means of protection.

  1

  Scouring the crocodile-infested riverbank for human remains was not on my list of preferred holiday activities.

  Mud sucked at my shoes. In another country that would be an unpleasant inconvenience. Maybe an expensive one if you were wearing nice shoes. But here in far north Queensland, Australia, it was life-threatening.

  If a crocodile surged out of the river to sample the Izzy steak special, that mud would slow me down.

  “Did you know that saltwater crocodiles have the most powerful bite force ever measured?” Etta asked. “Three thousand seven hundred pounds per square inch. That’s like four grand pianos smacking down on a hammer. Only their teeth are a lot sharper than a hammer.”

  “Wonderful,” I muttered. “That’s exactly what I want to hear right now.”

  It wasn’t the first or the last time I would lament Etta’s decision to become a fountain of fun facts about Australia.

  I ignored the polite urge to look at the person I was conversing with and kept my eyes peeled on the muddy bank and more vitally on the river’s edge. My entire body was covered in sweat from humidity and maybe fear. My ears were pricked for any unusual sloshing noises. Or maybe screams. And my heart was drumming against my rib cage.

  It turned out it was damned hard searching for body parts when you were worried about becoming an ancient predator’s lunch.

  If Etta’s heart was drumming, it was with excitement. “Maybe we should’ve brought Herbert as bait.”

  My head snapped round to stare at her incredulously before self-preservation turned it back to the river. “We’re not trying to catch a crocodile, Etta! We’re distinctly trying to avoid crocodiles.”

  “I know, I know.” Her tone implied this was a great flaw in our plan. “But don’t fret. I’ve got your back.”

  I heard the sound of a gun being cocked and, despite myself, looked her way again.

  Impossibly, she was holding some kind of large revolver.

  Crap. “Where did you get that?”

  “A friend let me borrow it.”

  “What do you mean? How could you have friends out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  She gave me a look that suggested we didn’t all have difficulty making friends.

  “Besides, that’s not how it works in Australia. We have laws, you know. We don’t just let people borrow guns!”

  “Sure. That’s why I promised not to shoot anything unless I had to. Don’t wanna get him in trouble.”

  I belatedly remembered to turn back toward the river. For good measure, I squelched my way a few feet in the opposite direction. So I’d have more time to react if an oversized reptile took advantage of my distraction. “Wild crocs are protected,” I reminded her. “It’s illegal to shoot them.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “And there’s no law against being eaten by a crocodile… But what would you prefer?”

  I leaped a foot in the air as a bird splashed into the water for a quick cool-off. When I could speak again, I gave Etta a nod.

  “Okay, if one of those monsters comes at me, it’s all yours.”

  2

  TWENTY-SEVEN HOURS EARLIER

  I was hurtling through the sky in a hunk of metal at five hundred miles per hour, and all I could think about was going to the loo. Should I go now? Or wait another hour to use bathroom facilities attached to the earth?

  Etta, my seventy-something-year-old neighbor who’d invited herself along on this trip, had other things on her mind. “What’s down there?”

  I looked out the airplane window and saw nothing but clouds. The screen in front of me, however (a larger one than I was used to in economy), showed the little plane icon hovering over the northwestern corner of New South Wales on its route to Adelaide, Australia.

  “Nothing’s down there,” I said.

  While the screen was larger in business class, the plane icon was exactly the same: a two-dimensional, uninspired likeness that appeared to be going nowhere fast. You’d think they’d add some cool turbo effects or something for the fancy VIP folk.

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  Etta had swapped seats with my boyfriend, Connor, half an hour earlier. I�
�d agreed to the arrangement partly because Connor wanted to sleep anyway, but mostly because I thought her seatmate had earned a break on the five-hour journey over the South Pacific Ocean.

  Etta was apparently unenthralled by the plane icon too and was looking to me for entertainment.

  “Nothing,” I said again. “Red dirt and not much else. There might be a sheep or cattle station, I suppose, but if there is, it’s about the size of a small country. You need that much land to keep larger animals alive down there.”

  “Anything that can kill you?”

  That question coming from anyone else might’ve been asked in worry. But though Etta had all the makings of a sweet Disney grandmother—a halo of snow-white hair, rosy lined cheeks, and a petite bony frame—her voice was bright with hope.

  “Aside from the blistering heat and lack of water?” I clarified.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  My seatmate’s sharp blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “Well, it’s not like I ever wandered the outback looking for things that might kill me.”

  This seemed perfectly valid to me.

  I should’ve known better.

  “What did you do with the twenty-eight years you lived here then?”

  I glanced longingly at Connor who was sleeping peacefully in Etta’s seat. Why was it I’d agreed to this swap again?

  “Lived like a normal privileged Western person. You know, went to school. Worked. Got married.” The last had been a mistake, but I didn’t regret the rest of it.

  Etta crossed her arms. “Well sheesh, I sure hope other Australians have lived more adventurous lives than you.”

  Said the woman I hadn’t invited.

  Two hours later, we’d touched down on Australian soil, made it through customs, and were standing outside Adelaide airport, awaiting our ride. The view wasn’t anything you couldn’t get elsewhere—a road, crawling traffic, and a bunch of parking spaces—but for the first time in fifteen months, the accents filling my ears told me I was home.

  I was ridiculously thrilled to be here.

  Take California and stretch it to the size of the forty-eight contiguous states of America, and you pretty much have the continent of Australia.

  Except you need to make the desert interior swallow up everything but the coastal regions, add some Florida-style tropics in the north and a dash of freezing in the southeast, and then make the dirt redder, the heat harsher, and the wildlife a whole lot stranger and more deadly.

  After that, you simply cut the population of California in half. Then switch out their favorite historical figures from beautiful, successful actors and artists to roguish outlaws who lifted a middle finger at the people in charge (never mind those outlaws were thieves and murderers) and brave but hopeless explorers who died in the desert.

  Now it really is starting to look like Australia. With the addendum that we care an awful lot about coffee and very little about politics.

  So much so that in 2010, the contending leaders of this fine country rescheduled the televised federal election debate from its traditional time slot so they wouldn’t have to compete with the finale of MasterChef.

  Of course, all that seemed normal to me.

  Sure, we drank too much and gambled more than any other nation in the world (with our lives if not our money), but what else was there to do in a harsh land that was dead set on killing you? It went hand in hand with our inclination to find humor in anything and everything and to not take stuff too seriously—including life, death, or ourselves.

  Yep, Connor would fit right in. Like a fish out of water with an exceedingly sore thumb.

  He was nervous about meeting my parents.

  Most people fidgeted when they were nervous. Connor grew more still. His nerves channeled into self-control. His face even harder to read than usual.

  I gave him a wordless squeeze of support.

  He very nearly hadn’t made it here. Not out of anything so basic as a fear of my parents, but due to his greatest fear—the one of heart-rending loss.

  At ten years old, Connor had been told his father was never coming home. Two decades later, his fiancée, Sophia—a highly trained security professional—was killed on protective detail. Wiped out by the notorious assassin Stalenburg. Sophia hadn’t even been the target. Just collateral damage.

  Connor’s grief had nearly driven him and his company into the ground. So when I’d insisted on putting myself in dangerous situations to help people—situations I was unqualified for, no less, Connor had almost walked out on our relationship to avoid the unbearable pain of losing me too.

  But he’d overcome his demons for me. Faced down his greatest fears. And I’d promised to do what I could not to die.

  Perhaps not an entirely fair trade-off, come to think of it. Him wrestling with fear, pain, and hope, and me merely agreeing to do some training and use common sense to aid my survival. But they’d been necessary steps on both our parts to bring our relationship to a place where we could work together on equal footing. A true partnership.

  After all that, I had no doubt Connor would overcome this new challenge as well. But to win over my parents, he didn’t need self-control. He’d need to loosen up, let his guard down… bond. A much harder ask of him.

  Still, I’d convinced him to stick with me. So now we just had to convince Mum and Dad that was a good idea.

  I’d told Connor that Mum was the kind of sweet soul who’d love him just because I did, and Dad was the laid-back, friendly sort who could get along with anyone. But secretly, I was uneasy.

  My parents might be more protective and prone to worry about my taste in men after my first disastrous marriage. Connor wasn’t what you’d call… charismatic. It had taken me long enough to decide I liked him, so what would my parents make of him?

  We were about to find out. So long as my parents hadn’t forgotten about picking us up at the airport.

  More likely, they were just late.

  Connor hated people being late.

  I looked over his straight, unbending form. The severely cropped hair which no plane seat could muss. The stern gray eyes currently set to “unreadable” mode. The expensive shirt, slacks, and leather shoes he’d refused to exchange for something more casual.

  I elbowed him encouragingly. “Relax. You’re on holiday.”

  Despite the bland wall of his gaze, I could guess what he was thinking: I prefer to spend my holidays outside the airport. He was gracious enough not to say it.

  Etta had sucked down a cigarette and was now nose deep in a book she’d found about the dangers of Australia, looking a little too enraptured for my peace of mind. She hadn’t noticed the late thing at all.

  An old green Subaru station wagon pulled up at the curb, and Mum leaped out the driver’s seat to wrap me in a giant hug.

  “Izzy, darling, it’s so good to see you. I’m so sorry we’re late. You wouldn’t believe what happened this afternoon, but how was your flight? Oh and introduce me to your friends.”

  The long-yearned-for experience of being hugged by my mother—the soft scents of hay and lavender, the loose, unflattering knit jumper, and the frame beneath feeling a smidgen more fragile than I remembered—brought a warm ache to my chest, and I had to free one hand from our embrace to swipe surreptitiously at my eyes. It was so incredibly wonderful to see her. So why did it make me want to bawl like a baby?

  I clung to her a few moments longer, and the urge faded enough that I could step back and make introductions.

  “Mum, this is my boyfriend, Connor, and my neighbor and dear friend, Etta. Guys, this is Mum, or Wendi.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Avery.”

  There was an awkward split second where Connor went to shake her hand and Mum went in for a hug, but Connor’s quick reflexes saved him.

  I gave him a morale-boosting thumbs up over Mum’s shoulder. I’m not sure he appreciated it.
/>   Mum and Etta embraced like they’d rehearsed it beforehand. Maybe I should’ve introduced Etta first so Connor could’ve seen what was coming.

  But where was Dad and my longtime best friend, Lily? I suppose we couldn’t have fit everyone in the car along with luggage, but I’d expected at least one of them to greet me.

  Mum caught me scanning the empty seats. “Lily’s feeling unwell, so I left your father home to look after her.”

  She might as well have told me she’d left a toddler in charge of dynamite.

  “You’re telling me Lily is feeling unwell enough not to meet me at the airport after more than a year apart, but you left Dad at home to care for her?”

  It was a fondly repeated story in my family that when I was six years old and stayed home sick from school, Dad had, with the best of intentions, given me a bowl of ice cream and sat me down in front of the very age-inappropriate comedy horror film Gremlins. I’d wound up vomiting, unable to sleep due to nightmares, and needing a second sick day.

  Now Mum’s eyes crinkled, and she gave me another squeeze. “Don’t worry, Lily’s just had a bit of an upset. She’ll be okay.”

  In Mum’s terminology, “a bit of an upset” could range from Izzy dropped her lollipop, but the doctor let her have a second one all the way through to Izzy’s heart has been broken, peeled, minced, and served up to her ex-husband’s family in a delicious ravioli.