Yah! Reading break! Am I hitting the books? nope :P
Add the usual "this is a non-profit organization"
And I apologize to all the wonderful members of the police force – I needed some bad guys.
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God she hated her job! Particularly during assignments like this one. She was in Chicago, assigned to helping the city police track down a serial killer. The latest freak was picking up prostitutes, raping them multiple times, butchering them and leaving the bodies in public parks. So far, they had four bodies. The F.B.I. had been notified when the third body had turned up. She had been shipped out a week ago, and the problems just kept rolling in. Everything from contaminated evidence, to misplaced paper work. Not to mention the shity behavior she'd been dealing with from the local cops. They questioned her every request until she'd had to resort to ordering people around, which she knew was no way to make friends.
She was staying in a shoddy hotel, living out of a suitcase, and driving a piece of crap rental car. And she'd only been here a week. It promised to be a very long assignment. The fourth body had been found this morning by a bunch of kids playing softball in a park. Someone had hit a home run, and the resulting search for the ball had turned up a body instead. She told them to close down the crime scene to everyone until she could get there. Once there she had gone in and worked beside the forensics team gathering evidence. The forensics guys had been resentful of her presence, but there would be no more contamination, even if she had to work every crime scene herself. She spent a full hour dealing with horrified parents, crying kids, and the ever-present press. She felt terrible for the kids – the body had been grisly. Regular people should only have to experience stuff like that at the movies. They needed to catch this jerk before anymore innocent people were victimized by his horror.
She'd spent the afternoon on the phone to her boss at Quanitco, trying to explain what she was up against. All he'd said was that he could assign someone else. She'd politely declined. Like she was going to let them take this away from her; it was the only decent assignment she'd had since the fiasco at the lake house. Thoughts of that night made her grind her teeth. Another of the doctor's bloody games had wiped out the last ten years of her life. After the board of inquiry decided that she wasn't responsible for what had happened after the barn, she'd been dumped back in the F.B.I.'s lap. There, she'd been treated like a rookie who didn't know her gun from her… thinking of Brigham made her smile. She was seriously considering resigning and starting up her own security company. She'd talked about with Ardelia, who had never come back off of mat leave, and Ardelia had been all for it. Clarice wondered why she couldn't have a nice normal life like her best friend. Oh ya, she was girl that stole the cannibal's heart. That was another thing Lecter had to answer for – her social life had seriously taken the deep six after all the publicity she'd received in the Tattler. No sane guy wanted to be seen within twenty yards of her anymore. And as for the insane one's, well she'd been on the receiving end of some rather unique pick up lines; another agent had asked her 'You wanna come to my place for dinner? I promise I'm a vegitarian!' She still chuckled over that one.
She left her temporary office for the evening and started to walk down the street as she had for the past week. The stupid Chicago PD couldn't even give her a parking spot; she had to walk three blocks to a parking garage, but she was to tired to fight over the little things. She was almost at the corner when the light changed. Shaking her head in disgust, she almost jumped when the pay phone right next to her rang. She looked around and saw no one in the vicinity to answer it. It was probably a wrong number, and she should just ignore it. She tilted her head contemplating the phone as it continued to ring. She vaguely remembered a movie where the girl had picked up a wrong number on a pay phone, and the guy on the other end had turned out to be her true love. Clarice smiled, why the hell not? You never knew; maybe it was her prince charming calling. She could use a little tall, dark, and handsome in her life right now. She picked up the phone and answered "Hello?"
"Well, hello Clarice…" the smoke and ashes voice said on the other side.
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You were expecting something other than a cliffhanger? Tisk, tisk… actually I have no idea where this one is going so any and all plot suggestions would be welcome, thnx luna.