How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back (8 page)

I processed that as she spoke. I knew every one of those people except Lawrence. “Does Brian know who did this?”

Naomi's face hardened. “
Brian
took Dr. Nikas in broad daylight, out front.”

Cold crept through me at Naomi's words. “Wait. You mean Brian took Dr. Nikas to a safe place?” Nothing else made sense.

“I wish.” She pulled out her phone and thumbed through a couple of screens. “It sucks. Tranqed him and threw him in the back of his car. Check it out.” She held the phone so we could see a segment of surveillance video.

I watched in numb shock as Brian spoke on the phone in the driver's seat of his SUV outside the front door of the lab, then dropped the phone onto the seat and waited. A moment later, Dr. Nikas came out the door, leaned into the passenger window to talk to Brian. About ten seconds later, Dr. Nikas turned back toward the building, and if Naomi hadn't replayed the section, I'd have missed it.

Brian shifted in the front seat, a small motion. Dr. Nikas jerked, then swayed as if about to faint. Brian leapt out of the passenger door, caught Dr. Nikas as he sagged, and hustled him into the back seat. The door closed, Brian got behind the wheel again, then peeled out of the lot.

Naomi tucked the phone away. “You can see the tranq gun better from the other camera view.”

Brian?
Brian
? He'd have been at the very bottom of my list of People Who Would Betray Pietro.

“No one watching the security cameras
noticed
this?” I asked, shaken.

“You saw how quickly Brian moved,” Naomi said. “They all thought he was leaving with Brian voluntarily.” She raked her fingers through her hair, aggravated and pissed. “It was
Brian
. Beyond suspicion.
No one
knew anything was wrong until Dr. Nikas's driver showed up to take him to dinner with Mr. Ivanov. Then suddenly they couldn't get hold of anyone to check in, and security started digging.”

“Do you have any idea where they are?”

She shook her head, grim. “Not at this time. If any ransom demands were made, we weren't informed. Kyle and I are here to back up Raul and Dan. For extra security.”

I flicked a glance at Kyle as he turned a page in his book. How the hell could he possibly be so calm?

“Angel,” Philip said. “Brian was on the phone in the vid. The time stamp puts it before we left here earlier today.”

I turned to him, eyes wide. “That was the call Dr. Nikas got during our treatment.” I grimaced as another realization hit. “He didn't leave us by choice, which meant the procedure wasn't finished properly. No wonder you're a mess, and we're doing synchronized rotting.” I touched the spot on my arm, certain it was uglier and squishier than before. “We need to see Jacques.”

“He's in the treatment room with Reg,” Naomi told me. “Last I saw him he was going through Dr. Nikas's notes from this morning.”

Philip headed off that way, jaw set. I leaned closer to Naomi. “It must be Saberton Corporation behind this.”

Distress shimmered in her eyes even as Kyle's gaze locked onto me over his book. Anything about Saberton hit close to home with Naomi. Everything had turned upside down for her a few months back when she stumbled onto Saberton's cruel zombie experimentation, and she ended up killing one of the researchers to protect a vivisected zombie test subject. When she informed her brother, Andrew, that she was done with the bullshit, he threatened to tell their mother about the murder if Naomi didn't get her act together for Saberton. Instead, Naomi broke his nose, hogtied him with a sheet and fled.

As I watched, Naomi pushed the distress aside and lifted her chin, face fierce like some sort of warrior princess. “I'm certain they're behind it,” she said with conviction. “My mother is desperate enough these days to plan a stunt like this. I only wish she'd been careless enough to screw it up.” She smacked the counter with her hand. “I can't
believe
I used to think of this as a big game.”

“The Tribe screwed up Saberton's movie zombie experiment pretty badly,” I said. “You think your mom might have grabbed Pietro for revenge?”

“I wouldn't put it past her,” she said, eyes narrowing. “With the company in trouble since granddad died, she's lost moral perspective.” Her mouth twisted in a scowl. “With family
and
business. Don't get me wrong, she was never very motherly. But she wasn't so cutthroat or vindictive, and she wouldn't . . .” She trailed off as she ran her fingers over her cheekbone, a deep sadness in her eyes and voice. “What other daughter has to go through
this
to keep their mother from hunting them down and killing them . . . or worse?”

A changed appearance and a faked death. Sure, it kept Julia/Naomi safe from Nicole Saber, but it also meant isolation from her family, however crappy that family was.

“It sucks big time,” I agreed. “All we can do now is focus on getting our people back. Who's on it? Rachel? I bet she'll tap you to get the inside scoop on what you think Saberton's next move is.”

“She hasn't yet. I should probably call her.” Naomi gave me a determined, closed-lip smile. “Rachel doesn't much like me, but I know a lot of shit about Saberton.”

“Yeah, you do,” I said. “And welcome to the Rachel Hates Me club.” I gave her a quick hug. “I'm going to see if Jacques has a fix for Philip and me. I'm not too happy with the permanent rot thing.”

Naomi made a face. “I'm with you on that one.”

I left her and made my way to the treatment room where I found Jacques drawing a blood sample from Philip, while the other tech, Reg, worked at a computer on a counter nearby.

“Dr. Nikas didn't document what he was doing,” Jacques said, face pale and voice unsteady. “He was adjusting as he went. He often works that way.” He pulled the needle from Philip's arm. “Some notes. Nothing clear.”

This was an absolute fountain of words from the man. “It's cool. We trust you,” I said, but I heard the high, thin worry in my tone. “It's cool,” I repeated. Reg glanced over from the computer station and gave me a somewhat steadier smile, though his eyes held plenty of concern as well.

Jacques took the blood samples over to another table and began doing stuff with vials and machines. “He
never
leaves before a procedure is finished,” he muttered, distressed. “I never would have let you leave. I assumed it was complete. I should have known, should have realized something was wrong.”

“Hindsight is some awesomely useless shit,” I stated firmly.

“None of us could have known,” Philip said at the same time.

Jacques gave a slight nod, though the level of anxiety in his eyes remained the same. “I'll run these and we'll go from there. It'll take about twenty minutes.” He gathered up the vials and moved to the adjoining room.

Philip took the small cup of pureed brains Reg offered him and downed it. The tiny mark from the injection faded, but the rotted areas stubbornly remained. He murmured a thanks to Reg and handed the cup back, then gave my shoulder a bump with his. Though, with the height difference, it was more like my shoulder met his bicep. “C'mon, ZeeEm, we can wait in the main room,” he said. “The lab boys don't need us hovering over them.”

I turned with him toward the door. “ZeeEm? Seriously? Zombie Mama?”

A smile twitched. “You don't like it?”

Tilting my head, I pretended to consider. “Y'know, it's not bad. And I kinda like the idea of calling you ZeeBee.”

“Zombie Baby,” he groaned, then chuckled. “Okay, I deserved that.”

Grateful for the humor, I bumped my shoulder against him. But even with the brief distraction, the severity of the situation didn't stay away for long. “Surely there's someplace we can start looking,” I said as we made our way down the corridor. “There's a crime scene somewhere, right? Wherever Pietro and the others were kidnapped?”

“We can check with Kyle and Naomi, but I'm sure security's been on that all day.”

“And how much training do they have on crime scene investigation?” I asked with a frown.

A faint grimace touched his mouth. “Basic, but they won't be calling in any experts.”

“Why not? If they report it to the police, do they
have
to mention that Pietro and the others are zombies?” My frown deepened. “The cops have a lot more equipment and training and connections. They'd stand a better chance of finding out what really happened.” But even as I said it I knew it couldn't possibly work out that way. “Shit, no. If the cops investigated they'd find out about the rest. It's why I didn't report it when Saberton's goons took my dad.”

Philip nodded. “The risks are too great. As bad as the abductions are, exposure is worse.”

We entered the central lab. Kyle was still reading his book, and Naomi studied maps on one of the work station computers.

“So in the meantime we wait.” I
sucked
at waiting, being patient, and most other things that were supposed to come with that whole maturity thing.

“I doubt the Tribe is sitting on their hands,” Philip said. “What
we
do is another matter.” Worry tightened his expression, and I saw his gaze flick to the darkened patch on his arm.

“We need to see what Jacques comes up with first,” I said. How much help could either of us be if we couldn't control the rot? And I didn't want to think about Philip's weird fit and his greyout in the parking lot.

I flopped into one of the chairs and amused myself by slowly spinning around. Kyle glanced at me once, snorted very softly, and then returned his attention to his book. Fine, I'd be picking him last for my hallway office chair bobsled team.

The glass doors slid open as Raul leaned in from the outer hallway. He swept his gaze around before it came to rest on Kyle. “Hey, Griffin, could I see you for a minute in the security office?”

Kyle carefully marked his page with a scrap of paper, set his book on the counter, and moved lithely to the door. Raul gave the rest of us a nod, then the doors slid closed behind the two.

I spun my chair again. “How long has it been?” I whined.

Philip leaned against a counter and folded his arms over his chest. “I think we're up to a whole five minutes.” He straightened and patted his pocket. “Crap. Left my phone in the treatment room. Be right back.” With that he headed back the way we'd come.

Pushing off against the desk, I sent my chair careening across the floor. “I just want to
dooooo
something.” My eyes fell on Kyle's book, and I scooped it up to peer at the cover, which had a cool painting of a sword with dragons carved into the hilt. I began to flip through to see if I could find out more about the dragons, then jerked my head toward the main corridor at the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.

Naomi bolted upright. “Kyle!”

Shoving up from the chair, I sent it skittering back across the room as I ran to the door. It obligingly slid open before I realized that if people were shooting, opening the door might not be the safest thing to do though by then it was too late to change my mind.

Across the hall and a little to the left the door to the security room stood open, giving me a perfect view of Raul crumpled against the wall, gurgling and clutching at his throat while blood poured between his fingers. Dan stood beside him with a tranq gun in one hand and a real one in the other, both leveled at Kyle who already had one dart sticking from his lower stomach. As I took all this in, Dan fired the tranq twice more. Kyle staggered as the darts struck but still managed to lift the gun in his hand and squeeze the trigger. Dan jerked and bared his teeth as the round took him in the shoulder, even as Kyle slumped back against the desk and slid to the floor.

All of this happened in the couple of seconds that it took me to cross the hall. “What the
fuck?
” I stopped in the doorway and stared at the completely unexpected scene.

“Angel, stay back,” Dan ordered, keeping both guns on Kyle.

“Kyle!” Naomi pushed past me and hurried to him.

“What happened?” I demanded. “Why'd you shoot him?”

“We need to take him into custody,” Dan replied, jaw tight and tense.

Teeth bared, Kyle fought to lift his gun. “Take . . . him . . . out.”

Take
Dan
out? “Goddammit,” I snarled, “who's the fucking bad guy here?”

Naomi jerked around to shoot me an
Are you fucking kidding me?
look an instant before she spun and drew her own weapon on Dan.

Dan didn't waver, but I saw the hesitation in his eyes. Shooting Naomi with a tranq would kill her—the powerful drugs designed to stop a zombie in seconds were lethal to humans in the same amount of time—but Dan obviously didn't want to shoot her with a regular gun either. “It's orders,” he said through clenched teeth. “He's been implicated in today's actions and we're detaining him. That's all.”

“Shit,” I breathed. Naomi trusted Kyle, but the fact that they were lovers probably had her a teensy bit biased. I clenched my hands in frustration, and realized I still held Kyle's book.

Raul let out a gurgling cough, his color already grey as the parasite used resources to keep him alive, and Dan flicked a quick glance at him. I turned as if to move back, then slung the book as hard as I could at Dan.

Holy hell, but I hope I'm not making a huge fucking mistake
, I thought as it arced through the air, closely followed by the hope that Naomi could take some sort of advantage of the distraction.

Fortunately, the last thing Dan expected was a thick book with a big sword on the cover to bean him in the head. He let out a startled yelp and staggered, but that was all Naomi needed. She launched up and drove a shoulder into his gut, seized the tranq gun, twisted, and shot him twice.

Dan tried to bring his other gun up, but between my literary attack and the tranqs, Naomi had no problem relieving him of that weapon as well.

“What the hell's going on, Naomi?” I all but shouted as Dan crumpled. “Tell me why I threw a book at Dan's head.”