“He was wearing a vest,” Ed told me. Then he thumped his chest with his fist. “So am I, for that matter.”
Blinking in surprise, I took a closer look at him. Yeah, now that I was looking for it I could see a slightly thicker look to his torso beneath the hoodie. I’d been so distracted by the skulls and other goth or emo stuff that I hadn’t even noticed.
Goth…
“Oooooh,” I breathed. Now I knew what K@ScottFH meant and how I knew that phone number. “Sofia was two-timing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She was playing both sides of the zombie factions. There was a phone number on her desk calendar that looked vaguely familiar, with what I thought was an email address above it. But it wasn’t. It stood for ‘Kang at Scott Funeral Home.’” Kang, the seventy-year-old zombie who’d always dressed like a twenty-year-old goth.
“Who the hell is Kang?” he asked, sounding slightly exasperated.
“The zombie you killed at Scott Funeral Home.” Yeah, sure, Ed had rescued me and seemed to be changing his ways, but I still wasn’t ready to pull any punches. “If anyone was a leader of another zombie faction it would have been Kang,” I continued, talking it out more for my own sake than for his. “He was old as shit and had a tight hold on the brain distribution from the funeral homes in this area.”
Ed was silent for a moment, face stony. “That’s how I tracked him down. Two of the others had his name and number.”
As sorry as I was for Kang, I still couldn’t help but feel a teensy bit of I told you so. I’d told the damn man that I thought someone was hunting zombies and that he should be careful, and he’d blown it off as “not his problem.” Jerk.
“I need to call Marcus again,” I said after a moment. “And Pietro. He needs to know.” I frowned. “Shit. I don’t have his number.”
“I know his number,” Ed said. Then he gave me a puzzled look. “But what does Pietro have to do with any of…” His expression abruptly shifted to one of shock. “Oh, my god. He’s a zombie too, isn’t he.”
“Yeah, he’s another Zombie Leader. I think Sofia was playing Kang and Pietro off each other. In fact,” I said, musing, “I bet it was Kang’s murder that started getting her all freaked out.” I considered this for a moment as I fought to get all the pieces to fit together. I was still missing something. “You’ve known Pietro a long time, haven’t you?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “He and my parents were friends.”
A horrible suspicion came over me, but I didn’t want to say anything just yet. However, Ed wasn’t stupid.
“How long has he been a zombie?” His voice was calm, but I had the feeling that if he tightened his grip on the wheel any more it would crumble.
“Um, a pretty long time, as far as I know.” I watched him, wary. Dude was about to snap. “He’s the one who turned Marcus,” I continued. “Marcus got bit by a raccoon or something and got rabies.”
Surprise flashed over Ed’s face. “I remember that.” His shoulders slumped and his death grip on the steering wheel relaxed a fraction. “He…Marcus told me he got the shots in time.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “He didn’t know he was infected until he started to get symptoms. It didn’t even occur to him.”
Ed shuddered. He was medically trained and knew that it was almost always too late by that point.
“He was going to die,” I went on. “So Pietro…saved him the only way he could.”
Ed didn’t respond. He stared at the highway ahead as we drove. I didn’t ask him where we were going. Right now it didn’t really matter.
“He’s the one who killed my dad,” he finally said in a voice so raw it made me shiver.
I didn’t ask him if was sure. He was. I could see that. His eyes were on the road, but memories flickered behind them.
“He killed my dad,” he repeated. “But not my mom.” His throat bobbed again as he swallowed hard. “He loved her.” His voice broke on that, and then it was as if the dam opened up. He began to sob, and I quickly put out a hand and took hold of the steering wheel. To my relief he slowed down, retaining enough control of himself to pull over to the side of the road and put the truck in park before completely breaking down.
“I used to hear my parents fight,” he managed to get out as he leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, his body shaking.
I blew out my breath as it all clicked together. Pietro and Dawn Quinn. Pietro didn’t kill her. Her husband shot her in a fit of jealous rage. But why didn’t Pietro turn Dawn into a zombie to save her? I thought, but then realized the answer. She was probably already dead, and it was too late. And then Pietro killed Sam Quinn in revenge….
Jesus fucking Christ, it was a zombie soap opera.
And I didn’t know what the hell to do with Ed while he cried. Ah hell, should I try and comfort him or hug him or some crap like that? I mean, the guy had obviously been through a ton of shit, but he had tried to kill me not all that long ago.
Fuck it, I thought with a sigh and pulled him to me so that he could cry on my shoulder. First Marcus, now Ed. What the hell was it about my bony little shoulder that made it so easy for men to cry on?
He regained control of himself after a couple of minutes—to my intense relief—scrubbed a hand over his face, put the truck back into drive and pulled back onto the highway. “Let’s find you another pay phone,” he said.
We didn’t want to go back to the pay phone we’d used before, since we both had our paranoia meters pegged on Everyone’s out to get us! However, it turned out that pay phones were rarer than phone books, and it took almost fifteen minutes of driving around to find another. We eventually located one at a decrepit gas station in an unspeakably dicey area of town, where I knew damn well we were being watched and sized up. I’d been in the drug scene long enough to know that if I’d ever wanted to switch from painkillers to crack or meth, this was the area to find it.
Ed parked and got out, then kept a scowl on his face and the gun in his hand while I scrounged quarters from the floor of the truck.
“Shit,” I heard Ed breathe even as the crunch of gravel warned me that someone was pulling into the lot. I straightened and stuffed the quarters I’d found into my pocket as I got a look at the newcomer.
“Shit,” I echoed.
“That’s a cop,” Ed muttered as he leaned against the truck in what looked like a completely casual pose. I didn’t see the gun. Both his hands were in plain sight, thumbs tucked into his front pockets. He looked bored and mildly impatient, as if he was waiting for me to finish up what I had to do so that we could get the hell out of there.
It would have worked great in any other location, most likely. But here his gothed-out look made him look like he was in the neighborhood trying to score drugs.
Then I got a good look at the car and my mood sunk even more. “Not just a cop,” I groaned, doing my best to keep from looking guilty or furtive, though I was probably managing to look even more so simply by trying to look all innocent and shit. One thing I certainly wasn’t was innocent. “That’s my probation officer.” Damn it! I could get into trouble just for being in a high-crime area if my probation officer wanted to be a jerk about it. And what if he happened to recognize Ed as Ed? Hanging out with a suspected serial killer probably wouldn’t look too great either.
Probation Officer Garza’s mouth was pressed into a thin, tight line as he got out of his car. He sure as hell didn’t look like he was too pleased with me. He gave Ed a long and measuring look as he approached us. I fought the urge to glance at Ed to see what he was doing. I could only put all my faith in the fact that he’d worked around cops for years and knew what to do—and what not to do—to keep from arousing suspicion.
“’Sup?” Ed said to Garza. “Y’got a light, man?” He slurred his words ever so slightly, and when I finally risked a peek at him I saw that he seemed to be having trouble focusing on the probation officer.