03 - You Only Live Nine Times (14 page)

Chapter Sixteen

“I’ll do a more thorough search of Forever Young’s employees and I’ll e-mail you the results as I do them.  You know before they started trying to extend life, they were focused on freezing people’s heads so that they could eventually be reattached to new bodies in the future.  That whole company is hinky.”

“Well, jinkys, Velma, keep me posted,” teased Isis.

“You got it, Daphne,” chirped Jessie as she hung up.

“That was Jessie,” explained Isis.

“So I gathered,” responded Raf, dryly as he rumpled Brimstone’s fur.

Yep, Isis had managed to lure him back to her apartment.  Hey, they needed space to go over the case without interruptions.  Thankfully, Cleo the annoying ghost had made herself scarce.  However, her three cats were all over Raf. 
Sluts
.

Isis explained everything Jessie had discovered about Crowe Medical Supplies.  The company was now defunct, and the CEO Howie Granger and his three employees, his wife and two sons, had apparently packed up and left town.  They closed their bank accounts, donated all their furniture to charity, stopped their daily newspaper, and vacated their home – which was a day away from being taken over by the bank for welching on their mortgage payments.  After checking through Mrs. Granger’s sister’s e-mail account, Jessie found photos of Mrs. Granger and her family on a beach in the Cayman Islands.  Yep, they had packed up, taken their ill-gotten gains and were now in permanent residence in the Caymans.

Raf chuckled as Lucifer scaled his chest and rubbed her head against his chin. 
Whore, rumbled Ms. Kitty
.  Yeesh, she was actually jealous of her house cat – how low could she go?

“If need be we could find out if the Grangers were in the Caymans at the time of the robberies,” he said, thoughtfully.

“Way ahead of you, one of the date stamps on the pictures Jessie found…”

“Illegally,” interjected Raf, disapprovingly.

She ignored him; he was all cute when he was righteous.  His frown actually made his dimples stand out more than his smile.  “Had yesterday’s date on.  I know they can be faked but, it seems unlikely that they would sneak back here to restart their business on the sly.  I think they’d be more likely to set up in another city and start swindling people in a whole new location.  Apparently, their thing wasn’t grave robbery.  No, they had an arrangement with a crematorium.  Someone working at the crematorium pretended to burn the bodies and gave them to the Grangers instead.”

“As good as grave robbing,” commented Raf.  “I’m surprised we haven’t heard anything about it.”

“They only supplied to Forever Young, and their lawyers are working overtime to keep it quiet.”

Raf smiled as Minion purred like a freaking motorboat under his teasing fingers. 
Hussy
.  Although, she knew first hand just how talented those fingers were.  “How did anyone cotton on to their creepy shenanigans?”

“Unofficially, one of Forever Young’s avid benefactors was being given a thorough tour of the facility.”

“More thorough than ours, I’ll bet,” he grumbled.

“And she caught sight of one of the bodies and it just happened to be her neighbor’s son, whose cremation she attended less than two days previously.”

“That was unfortunate.”

“To say the least,” smirked Isis.  “She raised holy hell, then suddenly all the employees of Crowe Medical Supplies were nowhere to be found, and the crematorium worker showed up in Mexico.”

“Damn, not good.”

“Hmmm, you know, we haven’t really considered the option that whoever is stealing the bodies is just eating them.”

Raf paled somewhat.  “Yeah, how about that?   You think that’s likely?” 
He really, really looked like he didn’t want that to be in any way likely.

“If they are, they’re picky eaters. Let’s leave that theory to one side for the moment.  There’s no reason to suggest that is what’s happening.”  There was no reason to suggest it wasn’t either, and there was precedence.  About a year ago in Serpens City, a young witch brought her dead boyfriend back to life as a zombie. 
It was true, even death couldn’t part them
.  No, what did part them was his increasing need to devour brains.  It ended with him trying to eat her brains, and she took an axe to his head.  There have been worse breakups, but not by much.  But then, that was brains – not bodies.  Why take the whole body when you could just take the head?  Plus the first victim that Isis literally fell upon was only missing arms.  Zombies didn’t really need brains or human flesh to live; it was the witch’s half-baked magic that made his into a crazy cannibal.

“Anyway, Jessie told me that Crowe Medical Supplies gave them an awful lot of bodies.  Besides their facility here, they have one in Playa Lunar, another in Ursa, and another in Serpens, and Crowe supplied enough bodies for all of them.  I can’t imagine that preying on the sick ward at local hospitals could really bring them nearly the same amount of test subjects as they’re used to.

Raf pulled out his phone as it chirped.  Brimstone took the opportunity to nuzzle his neck.  Ms. Kitty let out a heated yowl.  Was it hot in here?  It was too damn hot in here.

“E-mail from my buddy in the crime scene unit.  He says that piece of plastic you found belonged to a surgical glove.  He couldn’t get any usable prints, but he actually found a substance on it that didn’t come from the cemetery.”

“Oh?”

“Orchid feed.”

“
Oh
.”  She tried not to look too disappointed.  “I suppose it was too much to hope for blood or brain matter I guess.”

Raf waggled his eyebrows.  “You say the sweetest things,” he said, huskily.

Oh, they were nothing compared to the things she wanted to purr into his ear.  “I’ve been told I have a wicked tongue.”  And she wasn’t just talking about her tiger.

“Really?” he breathed in obvious interest.

“Talented, too, I spent a whole summer trying to tie a cherry stalk into a knot with just my tongue when I was fifteen.”  She tried not to look too smug as the smell of his arousal, hot and fierce, intertwined with his fresh, enticing scent.

Beads of sweat actually formed on his forehead.  “Did you manage to do it?”

“Nah, but I was voted best kisser at my camp,” she told him with only a tiny bit of feline pride. 
It wasn’t an actual official award or anything; it was just the general consensus.

Raf blinked and let some of the tension deflate from his shoulders.  He busied his hands with one of the files.  Perhaps he was too concerned about what they might do if given free rein.  It was why she dare not let her tiger out around Raf; without purpose, who was to say what the beast might do.  Newspaper headline: ‘Perverted Tigress Accidentally Kills Detective by Humping his Leg to Death’. 
No, that would go down well at all.

“We’re getting off track,” he eyed her drolly.  “You have a bad habit of leading me astray.”

“Oh, this is nothing, just you wait and see.”  Hey, she’d already managed to have sex with him in a car with very little effort – well, almost sex – who knows what else they could do.

Raf let out a long breath, trying to soothe the rat-a-tat-tat of his heartbeat.  Good luck, even she could hear it.  The thing was virtually thumping out of his chest like a cartoon wolf.  She couldn’t deny it, she liked it.  She generally didn’t send hearts a fluttering.  Dicks, yes.  Hearts, no.

“Back to Forever Young,” he said, in the most censorious voice he could muster.  “Someone who worked there could easily get a hold of surgical gloves.”

Right, right, back to the case.  “So could anyone who shops at a pharmacy.”

Raf mulled it over as he tickled Minion’s ears.  “People who shop at pharmacies don’t also necessarily require corpses.  We need to look at the employee profiles and see if anyone is fanatic enough actually to go and dig up dead bodies.  Trying to slow the aging process is something that a lot of companies are trying to achieve.  Competition could encourage someone to go the extra mile for their research.”

“Yeah, nerds do the craziest things.”  Just look at the shifters in the computer tech division at the SEA.  She knew for a fact that they got together on a Friday night to play role playing games.  No, not the kinky, fun kind, either, the kind that she was hoping Raf would be into.  No, the boring ones that had twelve sided dice and lots of long, tedious exposition. 
Who would want to do that when they could be out on a date?

“Let me guess, you were one of the cheerleaders in high school.”

Isis snorted at that as Ms. Kitty bristled.  “One of those losers?  Puh-lease.”  As if she would spend her free time spelling words with her arms.  “I was the bad girl that all their boyfriends wanted to bang.”  Not that she did; stealing other girls’ boyfriends was not the kind of sticky mess she wanted a part of, but she couldn’t deny a little teasing.  She leered at Raf’s taut frame without a little self-consciousness.  “What about you?  Football?  Lacrosse?”

“Chess Club.”

Isis hooted with laughter as he gave her a baffled smile.  “No way!”

“I play a pretty mean game of chess.  Until I was fourteen, I had asthma, and I weighed ninety pounds wet through.  Couldn’t have played sports if I wanted.  Thank god for that growth spurt.”

“I’ll bet you were a cute little nerd,” she cooed.  “Any other embarrassing teenage secrets I should know?”

Raf blushed to the tips of his ears.  “Nope, none.  What about Howler?  Think he’s capable?”

There was just no distracting this man, at least not for long.  “Sure, but I’m not certain he’s the type to get his hands dirty, he’d probably pay someone.  What about Topanga?  She seemed pretty aggressive; I’ll bet she’s capable of anything.”

“Sure you’re not pissed because she was flirting with me?”  His eyes sparkled with interest at her answer, so naturally she played it cool.

Isis rolled a shoulder, elegantly.  “Was she?  Can’t say I noticed.”

“Sure, if you say so.”  His lips twitched as he let out a violent shiver.  “Jeez, did you feel that?” 

A sudden blast of cold air swept through the room, and Isis scowled at her mother as Cleo waved her hands in apology.  Of all the times to appear - and the place! 
She just walked right through Raf!

“You okay?  You look angry?”  Concern marred his handsome features. 

“I’m fine,” she muttered.  “Just thinking about that film Ghostbusters.”  She gave her mom a look that could melt the paint off a canvas, and Cleo’s ghostly eyes widened as she disappeared, wordlessly.

“Really?  Oh, hey hold that thought.”  His phone buzzed, and he snatched it up.  “A-ha.  Right, okay, yeah.  We’ll be there.”

“What’s up?”

“I think some of our missing arms have shown up.”

*

“Are you like the only patrol cops in the LLPD?” asked Isis with a smirk.

Collins scowled as Titan the dog tried to chew through his ankle.  “You don’t get that animal under control I’m calling, uh, Animal Control!” he hissed at the owner.

“You’re just frightening him!” snapped Mrs. Constantinides.  “He’s a gentle soul, and you’re upsetting him with your shrill voice and big, clompy feet.”

The elderly lady scooped up Titan, who growled at Collins and snapped his small but worryingly powerful looking jaw.  “There, there.  Mommy’s here.  See, isn’t he a sweet thing?”  Mrs. Constantinides gave the dog’s head a punishing stroke that he definitely didn’t seem to enjoy.

“I’m really more of a cat person,” Isis told her honestly.  Ms. Kitty sneered at the ugly little critter.  He looked far too much like a gremlin to ever be considered pretty.  Cats, on the other hand, were always beautiful. 
How often did you see an ugly cat?
  It was a fact that the cat shifters at SEA teased all the other shifters about.  Even male cat shifters were beautiful – just take the SEA’s medical examiner, Rick – an arrogant lion shifter – he looked like an angel and a knitwear model had a baby.

Raf strode over to them.  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Constantinides.  But I don’t think we need to detain you any longer.”

“It’s no trouble,” said the nosey woman as she strained to see what the crime scene unit was up to.  Now that the shock had worn off, she had been taken over by curiosity instead and was keen to report back to her friends about her adventure.  The more juicy details, the better.

“No, no,” insisted Raf.  “We have your statement, and that’s all we need.  And Officers Leaky and Collins will give you a ride home.”

Raf gave the two men a pointed look, which they returned with horrified ones.

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Constantinides, disappointed.

Raf stared at the two officers, not meanly, or impatiently, just stared at them sharply, allowing his eyebrows to waggle up and down and do the talking for him.  They caved, of course they did and led Mrs. Constantinides and Titan away, avoiding the snapping jaws – of Titan that is, Mrs. Constantinides didn’t try to bite them, she was too busy trying to talk them to death.

Isis had already taken a look at the severed limbs and ascertained through scent that they were human.  They smelled like they belonged to the body she had fallen ass over tit on top of a couple of nights ago.  The CSU would run tests to confirm, but Isis was pretty certain.