Crime Bites (Urban Fantasy Novel)

Crime Bites Part 1

Author's Note: So you think you want to copy my book. Well, for one I wrote it very early in my career and it's nowhere near perfect.  So good luck with that. Second, if you do copy it, I will find out and I will find  you and I do have an attorney. Write your own stories!

***

I stared at the Styrofoam containers, my stomach churning with foreboding. They were virgin white under the fluorescent lights of the conference room, only their contents were not quite so innocent.

Each carton had a handwritten label on top. One read, Marion--bright and charming. Another read Stacey--good body. The last, Eileen--agreeable. The writing was large with strong vertical strokes and half-closed loops. I wondered what a handwriting analyst would make of it. Was there a particular flourish that indicated someone was a cannibal?

Too bad I wasn't a handwriting analyst. It would have been more pleasant than opening these containers and touching their contents with my bare hands. All because Marion, Stacey, and Eileen picked the wrong boyfriend. A boyfriend who believed if he collected the flesh of women with the qualities he wanted and then fed it to other women, it would magically create the 'perfect' girlfriend.

Say it with me now...'Ewwww.'

Talk about crazy in love.

A tap on the window behind me broke my train of thought. I looked over my shoulder to see no less than the entire forensic lab watching me through the conference room window.

Ryan, one of the lab techs, pointed at his watch. A compact Italian-American, Ryan talked like the Godfather and thought he was irresistible to boot. He was also remarkably unperturbed at my refusal to date, flirt, or otherwise acknowledge his romantic magnetism. The guy was five inches shorter than me. Seven when I wore heels. I had serious qualms about dating someone whose head would make a nifty armrest.

Besides, I had a boyfriend...or whatever you call a commitment-phobe who blows hot-and-cold. On the up side, Brendan wasn't needy when I had to travel for work.

Another tap on the window brought me back to the task at hand. I blinked and focused on Ryan, who gestured wildly at his watch. The message was clear: Get on with it. I wondered how much money he stood to lose.

When news spread about what I was going to do, a betting pool had sprung up. The bets ranged from how long it would take me to do my job, to whether or not I would throw up.

I don't throw up. I'm not that kind of girl. Anyone betting on puke was going to lose money.

Even so, the thought of touching human flesh made my stomach roil, but I steeled myself with deep breaths. I'd seen dead bodies before, although this would be my first time touching one. Well, technically, it wasn't a body, just chunks of meat someone had chopped up and stored in a freezer. The actual bodies were missing and it had become my responsibility to figure out where they were.

It would have been easier to ask the guy who made these women into gourmet meals, but his dietary habits had left big holes in his brain. He had contracted Kuru, the cannibal's form of Mad Cow disease, and was slipping into dementia and certain death. So 'psychic to the rescue' it was.

I sighed and pulled one of the containers toward me. It was Marion. I turned my head in an effort to get my nose as far away from the containers as possible. Looking out of the corner of my eye, I held my breath and peeled off the lid. When no gross smell of rotting meat assaulted my nostrils, I worked up the courage to look inside and was pleasantly surprised to see the meat was frozen. In fact, it was kind of anti-climatic. It didn't smell. It wasn't squishy, and it had been neatly cubed like steak ready for a stir fry.