“Forget it,” another man said. “Doesn’t matter now. Sucks to lose Stewart, but be glad it happened before everything else got going. Can you imagine cops crawling around later this week?”
The first man replied, but they’d moved off and I couldn’t hear it.
“Marcus,” I said softly as I gently shook him.
He blinked awake, focused on my face and smiled. “Hey, babe. Sorry, didn’t mean to fall asleep. I guess I was too comfy cuddled up with you.”
“There are people here,” I said. “I mean, down on the walkway. I think they’re from the movie.”
He kissed me, then sat up and reached for his shirt. “Not surprised. The big finale zombie attack scene is going to be filmed down on the field in a few days.” His voice was briefly muffled as he tugged his shirt over his head. “They’re probably figuring out lighting and cameras and stuff.”
My jeans and undies were close by, and I began to tug them on. “They were talking about the guy who died,” I told him. “It sounded like they didn’t think it was an accident, that the pipe shouldn’t have fallen the way it did.”
He stood and pulled on underwear and pants. “Probably want to be sure they don’t get blamed for it.” He glanced my way. “Insurance company will check it all out, I’m sure. And Ben’s thorough,” he added, referring to Detective Roth.
I slipped my shirt over my head, ran my fingers through my hair. “Okay, but then one of them said it was good it happened now before ‘everything else’ started so there wouldn’t be cops around.” I leveled a frown at Marcus. “Explain that.”
Marcus grinned. “Filming,” he stated. “They’re in rehearsals and preproduction now. They actually begin filming with the leads in the morning. I suppose it would be a pain in the butt to try and film with a police investigation going on.”
“Damn you for making sense,” I said, lightly smacking him on the chest.
He pulled me close for a kiss. “I always make perfect sense,” he said with a chuckle, then glanced out at the sky. “Rain’s letting up. We should probably get going.”
Taking his hand, I let him lead the way back down and out of the stadium, then together we dashed through the lingering drizzle to his truck.
I fought back a yawn as he drove me back to the morgue and my car. As nice as the date had been—even with the slight strangeness at the end—I couldn’t deny I was ready to get home and chill for a while before bed.
He pulled up next to my car, and I was about to say my goodbyes when Marcus reached into the console and pulled out an envelope. “I have a surprise for you,” he said with a smile. “Compliments of Uncle Pietro.”
I took the envelope he offered and pulled out two tickets to the Gourmet Gala, a swanky annual charity event I’d never even dreamed of attending. Damn near every restaurant in the parish participated, each with a booth or table where they gave out free samples of all sorts of fine cuisine. Tickets were expensive as hell, which meant that all the movers and shakers and rich people made sure to be seen there. I didn’t give a crap about being seen—I just wanted the food.
I stared at the tickets. “You’re serious? Your uncle simply gave these to you?”
“Umm, yeah. Sure,” he said, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. “He passes stuff like this my way now and then.”
“You’ve gone to this before?”
He smiled. “A couple of times in the past few years.”
“And we’re really going? Tomorrow night?”
Marcus snorted, pretty obviously amused by my enthusiasm. “That’s the plan, if you want to. And judging by the gleam in your eyes, I’d say it was a yes.”
Okay, it’s possible that I gave a squeal of excitement worthy of a teen girl at a Justin Bieber concert. “Oh my god. I have to find something to wear!”
Marcus laughed. “You have time. Don’t sweat it.”
I gaped at him in horror. “Easy for you to say! You have a closet full of clothes, and you’re a guy.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, grinning. “Just make sure you get something with elastic in the waistband. Lots and lots of food.”
“I’ll undo the top button. Not a problem.”
“Sounds good to me.” He leaned over and gave me a kiss which I didn’t mind returning. “Go veg out and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing,” I said, giving him a smile as I climbed out of the truck. He waited until I had my car started before driving off. Good dude.
Yet on the way home, my thoughts went back to the weirdness on the movie set this morning. What the hell was Philip doing there? And why save me from a world of hurt and then run away? He was tied in with Dr. Kristi Charish, which left me more than a little unsettled. I didn’t want that psycho bitch anywhere near me. There was only one person I could think of who might have some answers—Pietro Ivanov.
He’d thrown me to the wolves a few months ago when he’d allowed Charish to kidnap me, but had since admitted he’d screwed up and had done a lot to try to make up for it. Like the pardon. About two years ago I’d been arrested for possession of stolen property—while driving a car my loser-ex-boyfriend had insisted was a totally legit purchase—and ended up with probation and suspended sentence, and a felony on my record. But shortly after I managed to pull off my escape from Charish’s secret lab, my probation officer let me know that I wasn’t on probation anymore because I’d been pardoned. Totally clean record. Fresh start. And I had no doubt Pietro was responsible. As well as being the head of the local “zombie mafia,” he was rich as hell and had a zillion political connections. No one else who gave a shit about me had the power to pull off a full pardon from the frickin’ governor. No way did I trust Pietro yet—or forgive him, for that matter—but there was certainly a truce and potential to rebuild.
There was no sign of my dad when I got home, but since it was barely seven p.m. I figured I could hold off worrying that he was out drinking. He never drank at the house anymore—probably because he knew I sure as hell didn’t approve—and to his credit he was pretty damn careful about not drinking and driving.
Unfortunately, that was primarily because a few months ago Mr. Jimmy Crawford got stopped for driving while intoxicated. Fortunately, it was Marcus who had pulled him over. And even though Marcus bent rules like crazy and called me to come get my dad—saving us a ton of hassle and thousands of dollars—the incident pretty much shattered the shaky peace the two men had made, and my dad had gone right back to an active dislike of “that cop.”
Scowling in annoyance and frustration with the whole situation, I slugged down about half a bottle of brain smoothie to make up for what I’d burned off in my exertions with Marcus, then flopped onto the sagging couch to watch TV.
I woke later to screeching laughter on some nighttime talk show. A glance at the clock told me I’d crashed for a solid four hours.
Which meant that now I could worry about my dad’s drinking.
Not that worrying did a damn bit of good. Or arguing, or lecturing, or yelling. I knew that. I could wait for him, brace myself for an argument or worse when he finally came through the door. And for what? It wouldn’t accomplish a damn thing.
I shut off the TV and went on to bed, unsure whether to be upset or relieved that he still wasn’t home.
Chapter 3
“Five days and counting,” Nick said with a smile.
I could only groan. For the past few months Nick, my oftentimes annoying but basically good-hearted coworker, had been tutoring me for the GED—the high school equivalency exam. Passing it had been a condition of my probation. But then I’d received my mysterious pardon and suddenly I didn’t have to pass the GED.
Except that I did, for my own self-respect. Hell, having any self-respect at all was a new experience for me, so why not go full tilt, right? Besides, I’d learned that zombies had the potential to live a very long time. Living a hundred years or so as an uneducated loser wasn’t all that appealing to me, therefore the first step was to get my damn
high school diploma.
However, being chock full of self-respect didn’t mean I wasn’t totally intimidated by the whole process.
“I’m not ready,” I said, looking with dismay at the pile of workbooks that Nick had forced me to plow through in the past months. “There’s no way.”
His green eyes narrowed. “You won’t be if you keep saying that. You went through the practice test last week and did pretty well, and you’ve been studying your ass off since then.”
I took a deep breath. “Right. Okay. I can do this.” But then my self-confidence wilted. “I’m still so damn slow on the reading part though. I’m afraid I’ll run out of time.”
“And you get slower when you’re flustered,” he pointed out for about the billionth time. “So you need to keep focused on what’s right in front of you and not on what’s left to do.”
“At least I’m good at the math part,” I said. Too bad I had to get passing grades on all of it—math, science, reading, writing, and social studies. But it was only the reading part that had me worried sick.
Nick leaned back and gave me a considering look. “Have you ever been tested for dyslexia? I mean, it’s not that you aren’t smart enough or don’t understand the words.”
I blinked at him. “Um. Isn’t that the thing where you see words backward or something? I don’t think I have that.”
He shook his head. “It’s not always like that. Dyslexia can show up in a lot of ways. Sometimes it’s only noticed because reading is slow for no other apparent reason, then testing can be done to determine if that’s the cause.”
“Well, what difference would it make at this point?” I asked with a slight frown. “I mean, I read slow as molasses. Not sure anything can be done about that.”
“Not much to be done about the slow reading right now, but if you get diagnosed you can probably get extra time for the test.”
“Oh, wow.” I blew out a breath. “Now that would make it worthwhile.” Even if I didn’t end up needing the extra time, it would take my stress level down by a fair amount.
“No kidding,” he said. “I don’t know how long it takes to get tested and diagnosed and all, but it’d be worth looking into.” He tilted his head. “And then you could get tutoring to specifically address whatever issues you have.”
“I have lots of issues,” I said with a laugh.
He grinned. “Yes, you do!”
It was an interesting thought. Could it be that easy? And if it really was something like that, then why hadn’t any of my teachers noticed it and done something about it?
Or maybe they did, I realized. A whisper of memory intruded, of being pulled out of class when I was in fourth or fifth grade to go to the school office and do all sorts of reading and comprehension tests for a round-cheeked woman. It was more than possible that the school had contacted my mother to let her know I had a problem, and she’d simply never pursued it. She sure as hell wouldn’t have exerted any extra effort for me. And my dad had been working on an offshore oil rig at the time. He wouldn’t have known there was a problem.
The pieces fell into place. Damn. Had my mother really done that? It made a sick sense. The testing. All the problems in school. Everything. A wave of anger passed through me. I wouldn’t put it past her. If it didn’t revolve around her, she had no use for it. And damn it, though she was dead and buried and couldn’t hit me anymore, this reading thing still had me in its grip. I needed to know what that testing had been about, and maybe even get a black and white answer about whether or not my mom had blown off the test results.
With a mental sigh, I added “check school records” to my list of things to do.
“Probably too late to get diagnosed or whatever before the test this weekend,” I said, trying to throw off the cloud of my mother’s neglect. “But after I fail this one, I’ll look into it.”
I knew I’d said the wrong thing the instant the words left my mouth. For a guy who wasn’t much taller than me, Nick could be pretty intimidating when he got angry.
His mouth tightened to a thin line. “If you’re so sure you’re going to fail, why even bother?” He stood and picked up the workbook, dropped it onto the others with a thud.
I sighed and tugged a hand through my hair. “Okay, okay. I’m not sure I’m gonna fail. I’m just…” I winced. “I don’t do well on tests like that.”
He wasn’t appeased. “Well, shit. So far, you’ve told me you’re not ready, you’re going to fail, and you don’t do well on tests like this. From what I’ve seen, you were close to ready a week ago, you were within a few points of passing the practice test, and you did perfectly fine taking that one. If you’re not careful, you’ll talk yourself into being a living, breathing, self-fulfilling prophecy.”
The words hung in the air of the morgue. Nick had gone from being a pain in my ass and a pompous jerk to being someone I could actually confess my insecurities to. We weren’t quite friends—at least not the sort of friend I’d hang out or see a movie with—but I trusted him, and I knew he had my back. It was almost as if he’d decided that since I wasn’t a threat to any of his own ambitions, he was going to do his best to help me with my own. And I liked to think that his association with me helped “unprickify” him a bit, which might even have helped him finally score his recent promotion to death investigator.
“I’m scared,” I admitted, dropping my head into my hands. “I’ve worked really hard to not be such a damn loser anymore, y’know?”
Nick moved behind me. A couple of seconds later I felt his hand on my shoulder in an almost hesitant touch. “You don’t need to be scared, Angel,” he urged. “You don’t have to do this for anyone but yourself anymore. Worst thing that can happen, the absolute worst, is that you’ll need to retest.” He gave my shoulder a light squeeze. “Compare that to all the other bad shit that can happen in one day, and maybe it won’t be so scary after all.”
I turned my head to look up at him, gave him a smile. “You’re right. Thanks.” I knew all too well how much bad shit could happen in one day, and failing a test wasn’t even on the same scale. “It’s really not the end of the world if I fail.”
“Nope, it’s not.” Then he put on a grumpy expression. “Except that you’d have to spend that much more time with me. That should be motivation enough to pass.”
I laughed and gave a mock shudder. “Oh, god help me!”
“Yep, you’re in trouble.” Then he cleared his throat and lifted his hand from my shoulder as if he’d suddenly remembered he was maintaining the contact. “Enough moaning. I’ve got work to do.”
“Yeah, moved up in the world from bodysnatcher to big bad investigator,” I said with a smile.
“It’s about damn time they recognized my worth,” he said, only half kidding as he headed out and back to the main building.
I rolled my eyes and bent my head to continue studying.
About half an hour later Allen Prejean, Chief Investigator for the St. Edwards Parish Sheriff’s Office, walked past the door of the office, gave me a sour look and made a point of checking his watch as he passed. Scowling, I deliberately waited another minute before putting all my books away. I still had three minutes before my shift technically started. I wasn’t stupid enough to do my tutoring and studying on company time. Or rather, I wasn’t stupid enough to do so in front of Allen. I studied in the van or in the morgue late at night all the damn time.
Allen had worked for the coroner, Dr. Duplessis, for close to fifteen years, long before Duplessis was elected. As a former paramedic who was studying to be a physician’s assistant, he’d supposedly already been offered a position with Dr. Duplessis’s private cardiology practice once he graduated, and that day couldn’t come soon enough for me. Allen certainly knew his stuff when it came to death investigation, and he ran the office well enough. But he was also a dick. His call schedule seemed to be set up specifically to inconvenience me as much as possible, and he made no effort to be discreet about my drug history when requirin
g job-related piss tests—which I somehow ended up “randomly” selected for every damn month. There was no doubt he disliked me intensely, though I didn’t know whether it was a simple thing of not liking me because of my felony/pill-popping/loser background or if there was some other, more specific, reason. I knew he’d love to find an excuse to fire me, so I did my damndest to keep my nose clean, obey every goddamn rule, and go the extra mile when needed. And not simply because I needed this job for the access it gave me to my brain food supply, but more because there was no way I was letting Allen Prejean win.
After getting my books and notes packed up, I left my borrowed study space and headed through the building to the morgue. The only body scheduled to be autopsied was head-squished guy from the movie set, and after garbing myself in scrubs, shoe covers, plastic smock, paper apron over that, hair cover, and latex gloves, I made quick work of getting him out of the cooler and into the cutting room. Sometimes it cracked me up to go through the whole rigmarole of protecting myself from biohazards. I sure as hell didn’t need to worry about Hepatitis or HIV since my parasite took care of that. There’d been plenty of times when I’d eaten brains straight from the body bag, while still protectively garbed—another one of those things that I did by-the-book, since ignoring safety protocols was a fireable offense.
Blood from Mr. Brent Stewart’s smushed head had pooled in a sticky mess inside the bag, and when I pulled him from the stretcher onto the metal table the bag slid as well and poured a gooey stream of blood onto the floor. I let out a bunch of nasty words, sopped up as much as I could with towels which then went straight into the biohazard container, then fetched the mop and bucket to get the rest of it up before Dr. Leblanc arrived. I’d barely finished emptying the bucket out and putting the cleaning stuff away when the pathologist came in.
“Shit, sorry, doc,” I said as I hurried back into the cutting room. “Had a blood spill, and I don’t have your tools set out. Gimme five minutes and I’ll be ready for you.”
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