by Aleah Barley
“Andrea Mitchell,” I said. “She’s hungry.”
“Good to know.” He nodded at the truck. “She can ride in the back.”
“She’s eleven years old.”
“She’s a hungry Biter, and the truck cab smells like meat.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “She’s riding in the back.”
Okay, so I might have pushed things a little too far by using a dead man’s own instincts against him. I’d made him angry—really angry—and now I had to give a little. I nodded slowly. “She’ll ride in the back.”
15.
We dropped Andrea off at the Mitchell residence, and I picked up my check: fifteen hundred dollars written out in crisp black ink. They’d pay for my expenses too. My mother might not be much for fieldwork, but when it comes to debt collection, she’s an expert.
From Indian Village, we went straight to the diner. D.S. might have enjoyed his steak, but both of us could use some real food to take the edge off.
There are plenty of fantastic diners in Detroit—we call them Coney Islands—but The Randy Goose is not one of them. It’s a hole in the wall around the corner from the office. I waited tables there for an entire summer during high school before the owner fired me over creative differences.
One of the customers got fresh and I stabbed him with a fork.
Sliding into a booth near the door, I waved at the large man behind the counter. “The regular,” I said. “Two of them, some loaded potatoes, and coffee.” There was a slight pause. “Fresh coffee.”
“Hell, Gemma,” Jack swore. “You trying to put me out of business?”
The Randy Goose’s wayward owner was tall and muscular. Ten years earlier he’d been a professional hockey player—he’d made it four whole games before having his knee broken by an enemy enforcer—and hometown hero. These days, he spent most of his time reading paperbacks from the stack near the register and avoiding any kind of real work.
“Next thing you’ll be asking for clean plates and lemon in your water,” he grumbled before putting his book down and lumbering off towards the kitchen.
The booths at the Randy Goose were narrow. When I stretched out my legs, I could feel the warn denim of D.S.’s jeans brushing against my bare knees. Too close, but there wasn’t a heck of a lot of options.
The Biter was glaring at me. The same ominous expression he’d been wearing since we nabbed Andrea.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
“That trick with the steak back there. It was cute. Really cute.” His grass green gaze narrowed slightly, focusing on the vein throbbing on the side of my neck. “You try something like that again, and we’re over.” He leaned forward slightly, the motion bringing us even closer. I could smell the blood on his breath and the tangy citrus scent of his shampoo.
“Being a Biter—living with humans—it takes more self-control than you can imagine, and you… you test me every time you smile. I just want to reach across this table and grab you. I want to taste you. All of you. I need—” D.S.’s hand slammed into the table, hard enough to shake the linoleum covered board. “Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again. Understand?”
For a long moment, the only sound came from the back of the diner where Jack was messing about with the pots and pans. He was whistling. A moment later he whisked his way through the cramped space with a tray in one hand. He slammed two chipped cups down on the table in front of me and poured from a metal carafe.
“Coffee,” Jack said. Not seeming to notice the tension in the air. “Fresh. Mostly. Your food will be up in a couple of minutes. Want to come inspect the plates?”
Neither of us said a word. What could I say? I’d known D.S. was pissed, but I hadn’t realized exactly how much trouble I could have gotten myself into. If he had a little less self-control…
When Jack finally wandered off, I nodded at D.S. “I understand.”
“Good,” D.S. said, but his expression didn’t soften. “Now that this little side-job is over, we can focus on what’s important. George D. Fitzgerald. He definitely wasn’t dead—really dead—he turned, and he was living in Detroit. Or, close enough for them to bring him back when they realized who we were looking for.”
“They?”
“Whoever’s behind all of this,” he said. “The bad guy. Unless you think those Biters came after us of last night of their own volition.”
“You don’t think it’s a paperwork error?” The Biter stared at me like I’d just started speaking in tongues. Okay, so maybe that hadn’t been the smartest thing in the world to say. I shrugged. “I’m not used to there being a bad guy. I’m a Hunter. I go after Biters. Sometimes it’s pick up and delivery—like today—most of the time it’s me and my stun gun against a flesh-hungry monster and calling the police for clean up. I don’t investigate crime. I’m not used to there being a bad guy.”
“Okay,” D.S. nodded. “Don’t think about this like an investigator. Think about it like a Hunter. We’ve got a whole lot of Biters unaccounted for. Where could they be?”
“There are a couple of popular bolt holes. The old train station. Some houses in Brush Park. Dead-os stay away from the riverfront. They’re not crazy about running water.” I took a sip of my coffee, starting to relax. Grand conspiracies aren’t exactly my bag, but when it comes to finding Biters? I’m a freaking expert. “They’d be somewhere quiet. Not a lot of traffic. People in populated neighborhoods tend to notice when a bunch of feral biters move in next door.”
George D. Fitzgerald hadn’t looked particularly feral the night before. Hanging around a bar in the middle of the night, he’d managed to blend in until one of his buddies took his head off.
“Of course,” I continued. “Just because they’re missing doesn’t mean they’re feral. If someone’s going through all the trouble to steal new Biters then, he’s not going to let them go to waste.”
“You think it’s a man?”
“Has to be. You saw those guys last night. They were disgusting.”
“You don’t think a woman would want Biters for henchmen?”
“I think she’d make them shower.” A second hit of coffee and my brain shifted into high gear. “You notice how none of the zombies last night were on our list of missing persons? The bad guy wants Biters, but he’s not using them for muscle.”
D.S. blinked in surprise, his long dark lashes ghosting against his golden skin. His broad kissable lips were pulled up into a soft smile that showed the dimples on his high cheekbones. Damn, a shudder ran down my spine. Why hadn’t anybody warned me what a couple of well-placed dimples could do to a girl’s insides?
He still wasn’t smiling, but for a moment the easy camaraderie we’d felt the day before was back.
“What?” I glanced around, confused, just in case some trashy blonde was doing a hoochie-coochie dance outside the diner’s window. No such luck. “What’s so interesting?”
“It’s a pleasure to watch you work.”
“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes. “Who wants Biters?”
“Friends, family, like Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell. They’re not ready to let go—not ready to realize their loved ones are dead.”
“Uh huh, except good old George wasn’t hanging around with his parents. They hadn’t seen him since his untimely demise.” I drummed my fingers against the table. “No one wants Biters hanging around. They’re animals, and the ones who hold things together are no better. They get in the way, taking peoples jobs, making a mess of—.”
Damn. Why hadn’t I seen it earlier? I blinked in surprise. “Jobs. Biters take jobs.”
“Not many. Biters gain intelligence… abilities… over time. There’s not a Biter in this town that’s older than twelve years old. They’re like talking furniture.”
“Tell that to the guys who lost their jobs after the rising.” I shrugged. “Workers who can go twelve hours at a time without eating more than a little ground beef. You don’t have to pay them much, and they don’t give a damn about health and safe
ty. Everybody in Windsor’s so jealous. Economically it’s a boon to the state. For the guys on the block? It sucks ass.”
“You think Mr. Bad Guy has some kind of employment service?”
“Maybe.” Two plates of huevos rancheros—with loaded potatoes—hit the table, interrupting my train of thought. It didn’t matter. I’d already made my point. I picked up a fork and began to dig into the food while it was still hot.
“The factories are pretty well regulated, but that still leaves a whole lot of other places they could be.” I took a bite. The diner might not be much to look at, but Jack could cook up a plate of huevos rancheros like a master. Eggs. Salsa. Avocado. Some crispy tortillas fried in oil and enough cheese to choke on. “If this guy’s using illegal zombies then he could be doing anything.”
I took another bite of my eggs and then dumped some hot sauce on top. Perfect.
D.S. stood up without saying a word and left. He snagged his phone out of his back pocket and was dialing before he hit the door. A moment later, he was outside talking to someone else on the phone, leaving his food to get cold.
Un—freaking—believable. I ground my teeth together in disgust. The man wasn’t just a zombie. He was also rude. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out which fact was more distasteful.
He was stretching while he talked, multi-tasking and keeping his muscles limber. A swing of his arms and I was suddenly aware of just how muscular his biceps were. He must have been a professional bodybuilder when he was alive or even a model. He reached up slightly, twisting towards the sunlight, and his shirt tugged free from the waistband of his jeans.
My throat went dry. My heart started to beat faster inside my chest.
Damn, the man was gorgeous. His lower abdominals were perfectly shaped and shaded, like they’d been cut out of stone or painted by a Renaissance master. What did the rest of him look like?
I knew how he felt. The way his erection, had swollen against me the night before. Long and hard. Forget the huevos. I wanted to lick my way across his body, tasting every sexy inch of him.
He shifted slightly, and I could make out an awkward slash against his cut muscles. A deep gash in his side sewn shut with thick black sutures.
It looked like he’d been torn in half and then stitched awkwardly back together. Had the injury happened during the fight the night before? I swallowed hard. Worry smothering my fiery libido. If he’d gotten hurt because of me…
I gulped my coffee in a struggle to control my emotions. It couldn’t have been from the fight. I would have noticed, except for all that time I’d spent unconscious on the morgue table.
He would have told me. We were friends.
His words echoed in my mind. “Having you call me D.S., it keeps our relationship professional. That’s important. I’m your employer.”
Maybe we weren’t friends after all.
16.
I’d finished my coffee by the time D.S. wandered back into the diner. He sat back down across the table from me like nothing had happened. His strong fingers wrapped around the waiting fork and knife. He started to pick through his food and carefully separate out the spicy chorizo from the rest of the huevos rancheros.
“You eat like this every day?” he asked. “It’s giving me a heart attack just sitting here.”
“You can’t have a heart attack. You’re already dead.”
“Undead. There’s a difference.” When he had a small stack of meat, he backed it up onto his fork and took a bite. His lips twitched up into a small smile, and he let out a soft moan. Hoo-boy. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. There’s got to be a million calories in this meal. You keep eating like this, you’re going to chew your way into an early grave.”
I’m not a raw vegan who likes to worship Mother Nature and run around naked under the full moon—I live in Detroit—but I take care of myself. I do yoga a couple of times a week and martial arts when I can fit it in. I almost never eat pizza twice in the same day.
I ground my teeth. “Can we go back to talking about the case?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I just called down to Toledo. They’re going to send a team of agents up here: real agents, not just cubicle monkeys. A Detroit Police liaison should be calling me any minute now. In about—” He checked the antique watch on his wrist. “Three hours we’re going to start making spot checks on every employer in the greater Detroit area—.”
I blinked in surprise. He had to be kidding. It wasn’t possible. “There are hundreds of them. Thousands.”
“We’re going to go to every grocery store, every parts plant and auto assembly, the corner bars and the night clubs. We’ll get a list of known criminal enterprises from the police—you and I can check those ourselves. We’ll check to make sure everyone’s got the proper paperwork for their employees, and while we’re there we can remind them that Biters might not be geniuses—they might be monsters—but they’re also United States citizen. Subject to the same labor laws as everyone else.”
“You’re kidding. They’ll go ballistic.”
D.S.’s expression shifted slightly. His jaw locked tight in place. He looked dangerous. Ominous. “You think I should care?”
“You’re going to piss off an awful lot of important people.” Biters didn’t mind working long days and hard hours. Swing shift. Night shift. No problem. They didn’t know they could do better. They hadn’t been told. “There will be riots in the streets.”
“Too damn bad.” The man was dead serious. “When people start forgetting about the little things—lie about labor laws and minimum wage—that’s when it gets really easy for them to start forgetting about the big things like murder and theft. If a Biter’s not worth as much as a human being on the line, then who’ll notice when a few of them go missing?”
“Hell.” I thought about it for a minute. D.S. made a whole lot of sense. “Am I going to need any kind of special equipment?”
“Yeah.” He reached underneath the table. His rough callused fingers brushed against the bare flesh of my knee making me quiver and squirm in response. Oh, god. Was he really touching me? What else was he going to do? My breath started to come a little faster. My heart was pumping inside my chest. If I slid forward another inch then he’d be able to reach up under the hem of my shorts.
He’d be touching me.
D.S.’s thumb ghosted against my skin in an easy circle. His head tilted to the side. “Do you own any pants?”
I own pants, lots of pants. Of course, most of them had holes in the knees or bedazzling on the ass.
After breakfast, we made a quick stop at the Sinclair family homestead—a fake Tudor in Palmer Park, north of Downtown, north of Midtown, and north of Highland Park. So close to Ferndale it might as well not even be Detroit, but they still get me on the car insurance—and I stole a pair of tailored black slacks from my mother.
I added a quick swipe of mascara, a layer of lipstick, and a high ponytail to the look and glanced in the mirror. Between the long sleeved shirt and the high-wasted pants, I looked rational. Adult. Boring.
D.S. seemed to like it. I think. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of me on the drive back to town. It was enough to give a girl a complex.
“See something you like?” I waggled my eyes in his direction.
“Just wondering how I’m going to do my job and keep you out of trouble.”
“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” He reached down and snagged his DUA windbreaker from where he’d left it in the passenger foot well. “Here.” He handed it to me. “Wear this.”
“So I can look like a government issued stooge? No, thank you.”
17.
Ten minutes later I was standing in front of a room full of cops wearing the DUA jacket. It definitely wasn’t my best look. The most I could hope for was that no one would recognize me.
“Gemma.” My cousin Brody stepped up be
side me, looking all spic and span in a Detroit Police Department uniform. “You’re looking mighty official.”
Okay, so my disguise wasn’t perfect.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“You sound grumpy.” I turned towards him.
Brody’s got the plastic-fantastic face of a fashion doll, with bright blonde hair and clear blue eyes. Cindy says he’s got a pretty fantastic ass too, not that I cared. Brody and I grew up together. He’s the closest thing I have to a sibling, and one of the few guys I trust completely.
At the moment, his handsome good looks were contorted into a dark scowl.
“Don’t screw with me, Gemma. Last time I checked, you weren’t exactly Conroy’s favorite person.”
“He’s not so bad—.”
“Uh huh, you stun gunned him. I figured we’d be pulling your body out of the river any day now.”
I blinked in surprise. “D.S. is a government agent. He’s not going to do anything illegal.”
“D.S.?” Brody raised an eyebrow. “You even know what that stands for?”
Dead Sexy. My teeth dug into my bottom lip. “Not exactly.”
“Me neither, but you should have seen the mess when we brought him in the other day. One-phone call, and suddenly we’re up to our ass in government officials. Not just the DUA either. The governor called my boss. Personally.” Brody paused. “Every cop in the city’s working on this thing. You need any more bodies; you’re going to need to call in the border patrol. Used to be a Biter with a gun got a quick bullet to the head, now we’re all bowing and scraping.”
I glanced across the police squad room to where D.S. was consulting with Brody’s boss. My gut clenched. I’d never felt bad about turning a rogue Biter over to the police before. Bad guys were bad guys. The government was literally the judge, jury, and executioner.
What if they’d killed D.S.? A bullet to the head and he never would have come back to introduce himself to me.
“I didn’t know you were a bigot.”
