Alien Marigold Living in Denver (working title)
an excerpt

The employee was on his twelfth back-alley hunt for clues when the blood analyzer and detector finally pinged for the presence of Salvaian blood. He looked around to make sure he wasn’t being observed, then got closer, studying the image on the analyzer.

Blood on the dumpster. Blue, and some of it still visible, looking like paint, around the edges of the lid. And on the pavement, and the wall of the restaurant. He got out his digital camera and hooked it to the detector, and took several pictures, with his phone in place for scale. He flipped up the lid, made a face at the smell, and took another photo of the blood streaking down the inside. He took samples of the blood; it really couldn’t be anyone but Joe Andrews’, but better to have proof of that, once they found a culprit.

So. Someone had stashed Joe here, long enough for him to bleed out—though from the spatter on the wall, he could have already been dead—then transported him from mid-town Denver up to Westminster. A twenty-minute drive, at least, and knowledge of the area. The videotapes appropriated from the Denver PD showed two women; probably the ones whose post-mortem traces were found on his body. Probably not his killers, if Vanna was correct about the human blood under Joe’s talons.

But how had two human women found out about Salvaians? And why would they have arranged for him to be found in a way that kept his identity intact?