LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Tonight’s your date with Jake, right?”

      “Yep.”

      “We’ll have to compare notes on Monday.”

      “Sounds good. Why don’t you take off for the weekend? Everything’s all set here for today.”

      Not out of the ordinary for her to let Dina go early on Fridays if they weren’t busy. This gave her some quiet time to prepare for Phil’s body.

      “You sure?”

      “Yes, enjoy.”

      “Well, you don’t have to tell me twice. Thanks. Enjoy your weekend.”

      Kyra watched Dina grab her purse and head out before she changed her mind. After Dina left, she walked into the back room where the cremations were performed. The room housed two chambers—ovens—but the public didn’t like that term. Inside this room there were three smaller rooms off to the right side. A processing room, because at twenty-five hundred degrees the larger parts of the bones, such as the femur and humerus, didn’t burn to ash in two and a half hours. They had to be pulverized. What the family received was the pulverized bones with minimum ash. Windows in the chamber doors allowed the attendant to view the process while the burn took place. She never looked. Ghoulish.

      The outside of the building didn’t advertise that it was a crematory. The chambers were designed to do a double burn. It incinerated the body and all gases and odors as well. Outside the building, clean, white, odorless smoke filled the sky.

      The other two rooms were for storage—one refrigerated, in case the cremation didn’t take place until the next day, and one for supplies. Kyra checked her watch: 2:55. Another check of the chamber area satisfied her she was ready for their arrival. She headed out front to wait.

      Kyra had to give it to Phil—his people were on time. They arrived at three o’clock on the dot. The funeral director stopped in the office. She directed him to the side of the building where she’d receive the body. Meeting the funeral director made her nervous. The more people who knew what she did for Phil, the greater chance she had of getting caught. The hearse pulled into the garage area at the side of the building. She walked out to open the first bay, instructing the driver to back in. Both doors of the hearse opened. The undertaker stepped out of the driver’s side. After a few moments, the guard from Phil’s house stepped out of the front passenger side. He nodded, but didn’t say a word to her.

      She pushed the church table with the hydraulic lift to the hearse and locked the wheels in place. The funeral director, along with Phil’s man, loaded the coffin onto the lift. She assumed a family had sprung for the expensive coffin and not Phil. What a waste of money. A few thousand dollars down the drain, or in this case, up in smoke. The cremation caskets were made of a heavy-duty cardboard, cost a few hundred bucks, though it might not support two bodies. Better not go there, Kyra. She unlocked the wheels and started to push the casket along the corridor to the chamber room.

      “Do you have your paperwork?”

      “Yes.” The funeral director looked petrified.

      “Great. Are you staying through the entire process?” She looked at both for their answers.

      “Yes,” they said in unison.

      “Okay. There’s coffee in the little kitchen by the front door and a vending machine in the workers’ locker room if you want anything.”

      “Why don’t you get yourself a cup of coffee, Tony?” The guard spoke for the first time.

      The funeral director looked from one to the other, then scurried from the room.

      “Kyra, right?”

      “Yes.”

      “I’m not leaving this room until the process is completed.”

      “Phil explained.”

      “Do you need to view the body?”

      “No.”

      “Why not?”

      “It’s not my job to verify the body or the identity of the deceased. The undertaker is responsible for the paperwork and identification. It’s the funeral director’s job not to make a mistake.”

      “Convenient.”

      “Yes.”

      Her pat answer should she be questioned. She didn’t look in the coffins. As long as the person was dead and the undertaker had the proper paperwork she didn’t care.

      Chapter 8

      Phil’s henchman made Kyra nervous. He didn’t flex a single muscle as he stood watch at the oven door. He observed each of her movements from his post. It took all her strength to push the coffin into the chamber. Two bodies weighed much more than one. To protect her ass, she’d claim she had assumed it was a severely obese man. She wondered who they were. The two and a half hours while she waited for the cremation to finish dragged on. Pacing between the offices, she tried to settle down and process paperwork, though her mind refused to focus. She wanted to call Trevor, but not in front of Phil’s guy. She’d wait until she got home.

      At last, it’s done.

      “The burning part of the cremation is now over, Mr.—” He didn’t introduce himself either at Phil’s house or here.

      “What’s next?”

      “What’s your name?”

      “It’s not important. If Phil wanted you to know he’d have told you.”

      Kyra tried not to roll her eyes. “We have to let the ovens cool down for a good half hour.”

      “Then what?”

      “Then I rake the remains—pull the ashes out of the chamber, and load them into the processor.”

      “What does the processor do?”

      “Your larger bones in your arms and legs don’t burn to ash at twenty-five hundred degrees for two and a half hours. They’d take five or six hours. We process those bones—grind them down to an ash-like substance. That’s what the families receive in their urns.”

      Kyra watched for a reaction. Interesting. Unlike most people he showed no emotion at all.

      “After you process everything, what do you do?”

      “I place the remains in a plastic bag which goes into a plastic urn. This is what I return to the funeral director or family unless the funeral director supplies an urn. If he does I then place the remains in the one he brought.”

      “Once you can get into the oven, we’re out of here.”

      “No, as I said, I have to process the remains, and pack them in the urn, then you’re done. Got a date?” she joked. Stone face.

      “Why can’t you open the oven now?”

      “It’s called a chamber. There’s a safety on it. It remains locked until it’s safe to open. We don’t want anyone burned.”

      “So, you can’t open it?”

      “Not unless you want to get burned to a crisp. It needs to cool down.” Kyra stared at him. She’d be damned if she’d endanger herself.

      “I’ll take a cup of coffee now.” He nodded to her.

      Boy, if he’s waiting on me to serve him, he’ll be disappointed. “I’ll show you where it is.”

      To the right of the front door stood the small kitchen for the staff. Kyra walked in with Phil’s man. The smell of burned coffee filled the air. She dumped it into the sink and started a fresh pot. Together they stood in compatible silence as they waited for it to finish brewing. The funeral director had chosen to stay in his car for the duration of the burn.

      Kyra’s head snapped up when he said, “How did you get into

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