A sour look settled on Garza’s face. He ignored the question and turned his attention to me, apparently—hopefully—pegging Ed as a stoner who was too high to worry about at the moment.
“What are you doing here, Angel?” he asked. I could have sworn he looked disappointed in me.
I gulped, suddenly feeling oddly guilty even though I had no reason to. But, damn, he was intimidating. “It’s not what it looks like,” I said in a rush. “My car got busted up over on Highway 191, and I had to call my buddy for a ride. And then I lost my purse, and I wanted to call my dad to let him know I was all right so we stopped to use the pay phone. That’s all.”
He blinked, then frowned. “I see. That’s pretty far from here.”
I gave a sigh. “Have you ever tried to find a pay phone? There aren’t too many of them.”
He considered that for a moment. “True.” He cast a sweeping look around, eyes narrowing. “You need to finish your business up here and get out of here.” He delivered a scathing glance at Ed before turning back to me. “And be careful of the company you keep.”
I nodded emphatically. “Yes, sir. I will. Promise.”
“And don’t forget about Wednesday.”
“Wednesday?” What the hell was…shit. “Right! Wednesday. Our meeting.”
“Yes,” he said, mouth twisted sourly. “Please don’t miss it.”
“I won’t,” I said as fervently as I could. Cripes, with all the other shit going on, this was the last thing I needed to deal with. And how would he react if he knew I broke into a house and found a dead body tonight? I had a sudden cartoonish image of his head exploding, and I had to press my lips together to keep from busting out an entirely inappropriate laugh.
He let out a low snort, shook his head, then—to my immense relief—turned around and climbed back into his car. I hurriedly dug the quarters out of my pocket and moved to the phone so that he’d believe what I’d said about the phone call. Well, it was partially true.
I started feeding quarters into the slot, relieved beyond all reason to hear the crunch of tires as he backed up and turned around.
“He’s gone now,” Ed muttered. “Jesus, that was close.”
“I am so going straight back to jail,” I moaned as I fumbled with the coins.
Ed let out a snort of laughter. “Yeah, probably.” I shot him a glare, but he lifted his chin toward the phone. “Don’t tell Marcus about Sofia on his voice mail.”
I paused mid-number-punch. “Why?” Then I grimaced. “Oh, right. That would be evidence that I’d been there.”
“Exactly.”
Well here’s hoping he picks up, I thought, but of course he didn’t. No, that would be too easy. I hung up without leaving a message.
I asked Ed for Pietro’s number, amused that the last four digits were the same as my ex-boyfriend Randy’s, and was completely unsurprised when that call also went to voice mail. “Pietro, this is Angel. I’m trying to reach Marcus. I know you don’t like me, but I just want to warn him—and you, I suppose, as well—that Walter McKinney, the head of security at NuQuesCor shot me and tried to kidnap me tonight. I’m worried that y’all might be targeted as well.” I paused, trying to think of some way to tell them about Sofia. “I think he killed Marianne. And…someone else. Someone you both know.” Shit, this was pointless. “Tell him to watch his back,” I said, then hung up.
“I think you did better when you were spouting incoherent babble,” Ed said mildly as he continued to scan the area.
“I think you’re right,” I muttered as I fed more quarters into the phone.
“Who are you calling now?” he asked with a frown.
“My dad,” I replied. “If the cops find my car on the side of the road they might call him or come to the house, and I don’t want him to worry.” I paused before dialing. What the hell was his cellphone number? I had him in my contacts as “DAD.” I never had to actually dial the damn thing. Cursing under my breath, I checked my watch. Nine p.m. I knew the home phone number but at this hour on a Sunday there was no way he’d be home. He’d be down at Kaster’s watching football with the rest of his buddies.
But at least I could leave a message for him.
I jerked in surprise as the phone rang before I could punch the first number in. Ed and I exchanged a wary look, then I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Angel? This is Pietro. I’m sorry for not answering, but I always screen calls from unfamiliar numbers. What’s going on?”
I frantically waved Ed over so that he could listen in. “Sofia’s dead, Pietro. We’re pretty sure that Walter McKinney killed her. Oh, and—”
“Hold on, Sofia’s dead? How do you know? And who’s ‘we’?”
“Yes. We went to her house and saw her body. She’d been shot. And ‘we’ is Ed. And me.”
“Ed Quinn?” he asked, shock and anger in his voice. “Angel, this is ridiculous. You’re not thinking clearly and now you want to get Marcus involved in—”
“Shut up and let me talk!” I yelled. “I’m trying to protect Marcus! Look, it’s complicated, but that’s not the important thing right now.” I quickly explained about Zeke the zombie who was beheaded and then grown back, and my theory that whoever was doing it was escalating their experiments using Sofia’s fake brain research.
He was silent for a long moment. “You’re absolutely certain Sofia is dead?” he said, voice so even that it was obvious he was holding back a great deal of emotion.
“Yeah,” I said. “She was shot in the head. I’m sorry.”
He let out a long exhalation. “I see. As to your dead zombie, I’ll admit that it does seem that he was somehow, as you say, grown back. But that hardly means there’s some sort of secret lab doing covert experiments.”
Somehow I resisted the deep urge to shriek in frustration. “Y’know, I’m not a fucking moron,” I told him, unable to keep the anger out of my voice. “Look, I’m real sorry Sofia’s dead, but it’s pretty clear that she was playing both sides, and I don’t mean that she was bisexual.” Then I shrugged. “Then again, I suppose it’s possible that she was, but that’s not my point.” I took a deep breath to get myself back on track. “You weren’t the only one she was giving info to,” I told him. “And then McKinney shot me several times earlier tonight during an attempt to kidnap me. Ed was the one who fucking saved me. He was duped into killing zombies and turning over the heads to whoever is doing this shit.”
“I’m relieved that Ed was there to assist you,” Pietro said. “But I have a hard time believing Sofia would do that. We had intel that the other faction was after Sofia’s research. And, clearly, tonight they chose to kill her rather than allow us to have it.”
Intel? Seriously? I opened my mouth to argue then closed it before I could say something that would forever ruin my chances of getting any help out of him. He was up to something, the fucker. Meanwhile there was a thought trying to work its way loose from the back of my head.
“Angel,” he said before I could speak. “It’s obvious you’re in trouble. I can help you. Tell me where you are.”
“Nah,” I said absently, still trying to think. “I don’t trust you.”
He let out a low snort of amusement. “At least you’re honest. Are you still injured? Do you need brains?”
“No, I’m cool.” Injuries. Brains. Was that it? I covered the receiver and whispered to Ed, “Your mom—she was friends with Dr. Kristi Burke, right? Was she a neurologist too?”
“They worked in the same practice,” he said, still looking confused. “But she’s not Dr. Burke anymore. She divorced and took back her maiden name. She’s Dr. Charish now.”
I stared at him, suddenly feeling as if my brain was one of those old-fashioned boards at train terminals in old movies where the little tiles cascaded down to form words or a picture. Because, finally, a coherent picture was starting to form.
I smiled thinly. “She changed her hair color too, right?” At his nod I continued. “And did Pietro know her as well?” I already knew the answer to this one since I remembered she’d been at his little soirée.