How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

Chapter 15

To my delight New York was almost exactly like in the movies. The city had the tall buildings, yellow taxis, the strange mix of people walking along the sidewalk, and food carts on the corners, even this early in the morning. It was chilly outside, but I cracked the window so I could get a sense of what everything sounded like and smelled like. Naomi gave an amused snort, and I gave her my I’m-a-tourist-so-get-over-it glare, but no one told me to close the window.

And the traffic. Holy shit, cars everywhere. Philip explained that we were arriving at the beginning of rush hour, but damn. Kyle drove with a lot more calm finesse then I would’ve in that kind of traffic. No way in hell was I getting behind the wheel in this city, that was for sure. Naomi pointed out some of the landmarks along the route—Empire State Building, the theater district, Central Park—but even I was too tired and cramped from the long drive to want to do a bunch of sightseeing. A real bed. Yeah, that was the tourist attraction I wanted to see.

After what seemed like an endless drive in bumper to bumper traffic, we finally turned onto a quieter street and pulled up in front of a hotel that most certainly wasn’t the flea bag rat trap that I’d half expected we’d be staying in. A fancy awning with brass trim overhung the sidewalk with The Fairbourne in elegant gold letters on the front. The building itself was grey stone with all sorts of carved columns and scrollwork and other cool stuff around the windows. And the entrance! I stared in utter delight at the brass and glass and marble. The broad entrance was flanked by two solid doors and in the center of it all stood an absolutely gorgeous revolving door. Brass everywhere, and all polished to a fierce gleam. I’d seen dozens of glass and chrome hotels on our way here, but this place oozed personality and charm and Yes, you want to stay here because I am so very much cooler than the others.

Kyle stopped the car and killed the engine as a young man in a dark green uniform hurried up. Following the lead of the others, I got out and grabbed my stuff as well as one of the coolers, and tried not to look too out of my depth as Kyle handed the keys to the young man. Another man in a dark green jacket and white gloves approached and offered to take our things. Kyle politely declined even as he slipped what I suspected to be cash into the man’s hand.

“The car will be okay here?” I murmured under my breath to Naomi.

She nodded. “I’ll have them put it in long-term parking,” she told me. “We won’t be using it again until we leave, most likely. There are disadvantages to driving in the city.”

“You mean that little bit about the drivers all being complete maniacs?” I asked as I followed her into the hotel—with only a slight delay. I had to make a second round in the big revolving door. When I caught up with the others, I tried really hard not to gape, or rather to gape without looking as if I was gaping, because holy shit this place was nice. Huge lobby with white marble floors bordered with gold-flecked black. A gigantic chandelier that sure looked like crystal and not plastic. Black leather sofas and chairs lined with burgundy velvet pillows. A fresh flower arrangement so big I didn’t think I’d be able to get my arms halfway around it—though I was tempted to try. And uniformed staff all bright and cheery.

“We’re staying here?” I whispered to her.

“That’s the plan,” she murmured back.

“And were going to pay for this how? What is this—some kind of five-star place or something?”

“Only four stars,” she said, and it was obvious she was trying not to laugh. I started to bristle until I realized I was totally playing the role of country bumpkin to a tee. I’d laugh at me too.

“I have money stashed in a dozen different accounts that nobody knows about but me,” she reassured me in a low voice. Her expression grew more serious. “It’ll be worth the expense to have a safe and comfortable place to stay while we plan our next steps.”

With that she went up to the front desk—a massive thing of polished dark wood—while I stayed back with Philip and Kyle and tried to look as nonchalant about the whole thing as the guys seemed to be. After a few minutes she returned with key cards that she handed out to each of us, and then we trooped off to the elevators.

“It’ll be a little crowded,” Naomi explained after we got off on our floor and headed to the room, “but I figured as long as it had two bedrooms we’d be okay. Kyle and me in one and Philip and Angel in the other.”

Wait, what? Philip and me? I started to gently prod for a clarification, but then Kyle opened the door to the room, effectively derailing my thoughts.

Following the others in, I could only stare like an idiot for several seconds before I recovered enough to put my things down and explore the suite. Swanky. Elegant. Two bedrooms—one with a king bed and one with a queen—a living room, dining area with table and chairs, a small kitchen, and two bathrooms, one with a tub big enough to swim in. Plus a terrace, complete with patio furniture. The place was half again as big as my whole damn house back home.

Philip transferred brains from the coolers to the fridge. Kyle hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, and Naomi flopped onto the sofa.

I picked up a big book off the coffee table. New York: A Photographer’s Memoirs. “Aren’t they afraid someone will walk off with their stuff?” I asked. My vast hotel experience consisted of one night with Randy at Tucker Point’s Sleepytime Palace on our “anniversary.” Everything there was taped, nailed, or glued down.

Naomi answered with a laugh. She wasn’t laughing at me, but only because she thought I was joking.

Allrighty then. I set the book down again as Philip and Kyle joined us in the living room.

“Now what?” I asked.

Naomi glanced at the clock. “Nine thirty a.m. now. The guys are heading out to take care of business. Kyle and Philip will check the security channels, and I’m going to make some calls. Possible targets for later are Saberton Tower, my mother’s condo, or Andrew’s apartment.”

I sat on the couch, then had to control my groan of pleasure at how soft and comfy it was. “It’s Friday,” I said, “which means invading Saberton is out since it’ll be full of pesky employees.”

Naomi nodded. “Right, and unless we turn up something juicy in the next couple of hours, I think the easiest first step is Andrew’s apartment since my mother’s condo has pretty tight security. It’s not likely Andrew would be home in daytime hours, but I’ll see if I can get anything on his schedule.” She glanced around as if looking for confirmation.

“The apartment is the best option,” Kyle agreed. “I assume you have keys or codes to get past security?”

“I have his building and security code,” she said, then bit her lip. “Unless he changed them.”

“He thinks you’re dead,” I said with a shrug, then winced at the brief flash of pain that passed over her face at the reminder. Shit, insensitive much, Angel? “Sorry, I mean he has less reason to change his codes with you dead than if you’d simply defected.”

She straightened her shoulders and nodded. “No, you’re right. And he’s not really a super technical guy. Don’t get me wrong, he’s smart and savvy, but I don’t think it would occur to him to change his apartment codes. After all, I was supposedly killed less than a week after I ran away from Saberton.”

“We’ll keep our fingers crossed,” Philip said then rubbed the back of his neck. “We need rest before we tackle the apartment. I say we get cleaned up, do whatever preliminary work needs doing, then crash until one.”

No one argued. Philip headed to the shower while I quickly claimed the bigger bedroom and flopped face down on the king size bed. See, I was being nice by letting Naomi and Kyle have the slightly smaller bed so that they could cuddle more. Yeah, that was totally it.

I only meant to close my eyes for a few minutes while waiting for Philip to clear out of the shower, but when I opened them again, the clock on the nightstand said 12:07 p.m. Philip lay on his back on the other side of the bed, eyes closed and face relaxed in sleep. I’d never really seen him like this, with the deep lines of pain around his eyes and on his forehead softer, less prominent.

Low voices from the other room told me the others were awake and moving. I eased off the bed, quietly gathered my things, then crept to the bathroom to shower and dress.

“If we’re leaving the car here, does that mean we’re taking taxis everywhere?” I asked as we rode the elevator down to the lobby. We were all rested, clean, well fed on room service and brains, and ready to take on the world. Or at least one small part of the world. Either way, everyone looked a lot perkier now.

Naomi tugged the strap of her messenger bag over her shoulder. “We’ll use some taxis, sure, but it’s a lot faster in most cases to take the subway.”

My mind instantly went right back to my TV-informed knowledge of subways. “Is that safe?”

She turned an exasperated look on me. “Really?”

Oh. Yeah. Brain eating monsters. We were probably okay. Still, I stuck close after we exited the hotel. Naomi headed down the street in a long, confident stride that the others matched easily but had me practically jogging.

“Hey, I’m working with short legs over here,” I panted after half a block. “I’m going to need more brains at this rate.”

Naomi glanced back, amusement twinkling in her eyes, but she obligingly slowed her pace. “We’re almost at the station anyway.” The amusement increased. “You’re going to love this.”

I didn’t love it. Not one bit. It didn’t matter that I was in a group of mercenaries and zombies, including a couple of zombie mercenaries. The subway scared the shit out of me.

First off, it involved going underground. We didn’t do “underground” in south Louisiana, not with the water table so high. And this shit was way underground. Down several flights of steps through tiled corridors lit with bad fluorescent lighting, finally emerging onto a loud and dirty platform between two sets of tracks where it looked as if a single misstep could send somebody falling onto the rails to be squished by a train—which I knew for a fact really did happen every now and then.

Plus, somewhere down there was a third rail which I’d always heard could kill you with a single touch, or maybe even if you got close enough to it or looked at it sideways. It boggled me that the tracks weren’t absolutely littered with dead bodies and skeletons and other gruesome shit.

And even on the relatively safe platform, there were so many people waiting to cram onto the train! Holy fucking shit, but I didn’t think there were this many people in all of Tucker Point.

On the other hand, I had a feeling no one would notice if I was rotting and bits were falling off. Or maybe they’d notice but wouldn’t say anything. New Yorkers seemed to be really good about making a personal bubble of “I don’t care and don’t fuck with me” around themselves. I guess you had to when you lived in a city with so many people.

The train finally roared up with squealing and screeching and a blast of wind before it. I kept a death grip on the back of Phillip’s jacket as we boarded—which surprised me that we were even doing so since the car already looked packed to the gills. No way could I reach one of the overhead bars above the seats, so I wedged myself between Philip and Naomi, clung to a pole and the jacket and honestly didn’t give a fuck that I probably looked as freaked out as a kitten during his first bath.

I couldn’t see many of the other passengers from my position, but nothing blocked my sharper-than-human sense of smell. Ugh. The odors of cheap perfume, aftershave, old pee, new pee, vomit, and a variety of unwashed body parts merged in a sickening cloud. There were plenty of clean smells as well, but the bad stuff kicked their asses and dominated. I tried breathing through my mouth but that simply allowed me to taste the stench, and I quickly gave that up.

After about three stops the train cleared out a bit, and I didn’t feel quite as “crushed by humanity,” though the smell hung around like humanity’s ghost. Still, I kept hold of Philip’s jacket until we were back on a platform, all the while terrified that I’d lose my grip and miss getting off the train with the others and end up lost in the city forever. Y’know, completely normal and rational fears.

As soon as we emerged into open air again, I let out a deep sigh of relief and released my hold on the jacket. Naomi started off down the street as if she knew where the hell she was going, which I pretty much assumed was true. As we followed, Philip glanced at me and smiled.

“You okay, ZeeEm?”

“Peachy.” I gave him a weak grin. “There sure are a lot of people in this place.”

He nodded in agreement. “I prefer a little less population density.”

Naomi was kindly keeping a slower pace, which gave me a chance to look around a bit. This part of the city didn’t feel quite as claustrophobic. In fact it reminded me of parts of New Orleans. More trees, less traffic, lots of little cafés and shops.

“Where are we?” I asked, “and if you say New York I will slug you.”

“This is the Village,” he said as if that explained everything. When I gave him an exasperated Are you fucking kidding me? look, he grinned a bit sheepishly. “Sorry. Greenwich Village. We’re on the lower west side of Manhattan now. This area used to be an artist’s haven and was considered a bohemian capital. Still is, really, though it’s a lot more expensive to live here now.”

After a couple of blocks Naomi stopped on a corner and casually glanced around as if taking in the sights.

“See where that blond woman came out, down the street by the red car?” she said, not looking anywhere in particular. “That’s the place.”

I did my best to copy Naomi’s casual glancing around while looking for a blond woman by a red car. And even when I found her I casually glanced around some more since the place she’d exited from didn’t seem all that deluxe. “Are you talking about that one?” I finally asked with a head tilt toward the woman in question—who, thankfully, was walking the other way and couldn’t see me looking as if I had a neck twitch.

“Yes, the building with the iron railing on the steps.”

“He really lives there?” I said in disbelief. “I figured he’d live in some glitzy Park Avenue condo or something.”

Naomi scowled. “It’s a very nice place. And apartments in the Village aren’t exactly cheap.”

“I didn’t mean any offense,” I hurried to say, but Naomi still looked annoyed. “Sorry, I just . . .” Shit. I simply figured the next head of Saberton would live a lot fancier, and I started to say so then wondered if she’d think I was implying that she was the fancier type as well. “Nevermind,” I muttered. She was under a shit-ton of stress right now because of her family situation, and the best way for me to deal with her current uncharacteristic bitchiness was to shut the hell up.

“I get it, Angel,” Kyle murmured. I sent him a weak smile of thanks.

“Front door’s the only way in?” Philip asked.

“Pretty much, unless you feel like climbing up a fire escape,” she replied. “But that’s a bit noisy and noticeable.”

“Does he take the subway to work?” I asked.

She started a casual stroll down the street. I fell in beside her while the men hung back and pretended to consult with each other about something on one of their phones. “He cycles, or has a limo come for him,” she said. “Depends on what he’s doing.”

“Did you used to ride in a limo?” I asked with a teasing smile.

She shrugged and didn’t smile back. “Sometimes. Not much. I was away a lot.”

Wow, she was not in a joking fun mood. Probably way more on edge than she wanted to admit. “How do we get into his place?”

“With the code, of course,” she snapped.

“Well, yeah,” I shot back at her. “That’s what you said back at the hotel. I meant how does it work?”

“I’ll handle that part. Don’t worry about it.”

Maybe I’ll go back to shutting the fuck up for a while, I decided since I didn’t want her to finish biting my head off. I fell back a couple of steps, though she didn’t seem to notice. Kyle moved up smoothly to take my place, put a hand on her shoulder and then leaned down to murmur something into her ear. Possibly something on the order of Chill out or you’re going to fucking blow this. But, y’know, nicer.

Whatever he said, it earned him a scowl at first, but she followed it with a deep breath and a nod. She glanced back at Philip and me.

“Sorry, Angel,” Naomi said with a little smile. “Being here is getting to me.” She turned back toward the building. “Here’s the plan. Angel and I will go up to the door since it’ll look less suspicious with only the two of us, and I’ll enter the code. There’s no security guard. We’ll stop at the mailboxes in the lobby, then let the guys in if it looks all clear.”

“I can totally look not suspicious,” I said with a slightly manic smile.

Her mouth twitched. “Right. Come on, weirdo.”

Strolling not at all suspiciously, I did my best to follow her example of “I totally belong here.” As we approached the steps, a tall and slender woman with dark hair and striking blue eyes exited the building, gave us a cursory glance and a distracted faint smile before she turned to walk to the corner.

“That lady’s a supermodel!” I whispered to Naomi, and shamelessly goggled at the woman’s back. “I know I’ve seen her on magazine covers before!”

“Uh huh, she lives across the hall from Andrew,” Naomi said as if it was the most normal thing in the world to live so close to a supermodel, then shot a hand out to grip my arm. “Oh, shit. Shit.”

I followed her distressed gaze to see a black car pull up and stop at the curb.

“That’s his driver,” Naomi hissed. “Angel, duck, move, do something.”

Seriously? Where the hell was I supposed to hide on an open sidewalk right in front of the building? Naomi had been nicely surgically altered, but there was a damn good chance Andrew would recognize me.

Since I couldn’t possibly hide, I chose to work with the “duck” suggestion. Yanking out my phone, I pressed it to my ear and pretended to talk on it, then dropped into a crouch and proceeded to retie my shoe.

“Uh huh, right, look,” I said as the door opened, faking a thick British accent since I figured my real voice might be a giveaway as well. “I can be there for two but you blokes better have the lights set up right this time.” Beside me, Naomi dug in her purse. I kept my head down as a pair of suit pants above expensive-looking shoes swept down the stairs.

“Cheerio, mate. Ow!” I bit back a yelp as Naomi delivered a kick to my leg, apparently not appreciating my dramatic attempt at vocal disguise. As soon as Andrew passed I glared up at her, only to see that she’d forgotten all about digging in her purse and stared after him as he climbed into the car. She began to step that way, and I grabbed her hand to stop her. “Naomi, you can’t.”

A second later the door closed, and the car pulled off.

She turned to watch as it continued down the street. “He walked right by me!”

“Damn good thing too,” I snapped as I stood, unnerved by the close call. “Did you want all that surgery and pain to be for nothing?” After a deep breath I continued more gently, “You look different, and he sure as hell isn’t expecting to see his dead sister here.”

Her breath came in hard, fierce pants, and I wasn’t entirely sure she’d heard me. I gave her hand a little tug. “Hey, is this going to be a problem?” I asked, putting on a bit of a scowl. Down the street I noticed Kyle and Philip being very aware of what was going on with us without actually looking our way, though they’d progressed to looking like tourists, complete with foldout map. I almost hoped some pickpocket or mugger made the mistake of thinking they were easy marks.

“No, I’m cool,” she said tightly. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, then let’s get inside.”

Naomi pivoted and marched up the steps to the door, jabbed the code into the keypad, then jerked when the light flashed red. I kept my mouth shut as she took a deep breath and re-entered the code more slowly. This time the light turned green, and the door buzzed. Relief stark on her face, she pulled the door open and entered with me right behind her.

She moved to a bank of mailboxes and a table that held what I guessed was mis-delivered mail. Scooping up a stack of envelopes, she proceeded to flip through them, but I saw that she was also checking out the locations of security cameras.

I pretended to text on my phone. “Clear?” I asked, voice low.

“Looks good,” she said, dropping the mail back to the table. “Same old system. Not monitored.” She snorted. “The building manager said that if something happens they can pull the recording, but six months ago he was still using a system that recorded on VHS tapes and used the same tape over and over.”

“Cool. I’ll let the boys in.”

“I’ll go hit the elevator.”

I went to the door, opened it and peered out as if looking for a taxi or anything besides the two men striding down the sidewalk. They came up the steps, and I held the door for them as if I was simply being polite.

“Nice to see you again, ZeeEm,” Philip murmured as he passed.

“Right back atcha, ZeeBee,” I replied quietly.

We headed straight for the elevator. Naomi pushed the button for the top floor, and I resisted the urge to hum dorky elevator music. When the elevator stopped Kyle exited first and checked the hallway carefully before moving to a door at the end that I figured was Andrew’s. He pulled a slim wallet from a pocket of his jacket, then crouched and opened it to reveal a set of lock picking tools. I desperately wanted to watch and see how he did it, but I forced myself to be a mature and responsible spy, and instead leaned against the wall in a way that would keep anyone coming into the hall from seeing what Kyle was doing.

It only took about twenty seconds for him to get the knob lock open, but I was starting to sweat our oh-so-casual lounging in the hall by the time the dead bolt finally turned. When Kyle opened the door and slipped into the apartment I moved to follow, but Philip caught my arm.

“Wait,” he said softly. After a few seconds I heard a series of low beeps. “He’s putting the code in for the alarm and hoping Andrew didn’t change it,” Philip continued, then smiled. “If the code’s wrong, it’s easier for us to skedaddle from out here.”

“Gotcha.” I grinned as I had a sudden absurd image of everyone trying to cram through the door at once.

I heard a low ping, and Philip nodded. “Now we can go in.”

We entered and closed the door behind us. Philip threw the deadbolt and put the chain on, and when I gave him a funny look he simply shrugged. “Habit. I don’t like worrying about someone coming in when I’m busy searching.”

Couldn’t argue with that. I turned and took stock of the place. The apartment was more than a little cozy, but it didn’t feel at all cramped. To the left was a small and neat kitchen with butcher-block counters, glass-fronted cabinets, and an adorably tiny gas stove. Past it and down a short hall a half-open door revealed a bathroom with a claw-foot tub on blue and white tiles. To the right was a little dining nook, and beyond it the apartment opened out into a modest-sized living room, tastefully furnished with antiques—and not the pretentious kind. The entire far wall contained bookshelves, with a desk built into the middle of it. A stained glass picture of flowers hung in front of a large window to the left, and French doors to the right opened into a bedroom, tidy and decorated in warm colors.

I loved it. It was gorgeous and homey and awesome. And not at all the kind of place I’d expected Andrew to live in.

Naomi stood in the middle of the small living room, eyes forlorn and glistening as she turned slowly around in place. “He got rid of my pictures,” she said, the hurt in her voice palpable.

“Naomi,” I began, then stopped as memory rose in a choking wave of sixteen-year-old me ripping up pictures of my mother as my dad struggled to get them away from me, screaming at me to stop, that I was crazy. I’d been sixteen for a whole twelve hours when the officer came to the house to inform us that my mom had killed herself in prison, slit her wrists and bled out before anyone found her. In my sixteen-year-old eyes it was so obvious that he was trying to save those pictures because he loved her more than me, so obvious that he’d smacked me hard to get me to let go of them because he hated me for wanting to destroy them, hated me for being so angry at her for doing this with less than two years remaining in her sentence. At the time all I’d seen was my dad defending her, siding with her once again. He’d taken the remaining photos and gotten drunk and cried over them because—I was certain—he loved her and wished he’d chosen her over me and didn’t give a shit that she’d gotten one last vicious lick in on me by picking that day of all days to kill herself.

And now, looking at Naomi, it felt as if a layer of dried mud crumbled away from the memory of that hideous day. My father and I didn’t know how to share our grief, and so we’d used it against each other and ourselves, and gouged the wounds even deeper.

My mouth was bone dry, and I had to swallow a few times before I could speak. “Naomi,” I said again, “people deal with grief in different ways.” Had Andrew raged and ripped up the pictures of his sister? Had his mother? I couldn’t guess how Andrew might deal with grief. I knew he was her brother, the Saber heir, and that he either tolerated or supported the zombie experimentation, but I didn’t know anything about him beyond that.

“Yeah.” Her mouth firmed, and I watched her push it down to deal with later. “And I have work to do.”

“Where do you want us to start?” I asked.

“Angel, you and Philip can check the bedroom,” she said, getting her focus back. “Bedside table, bottom dresser drawer, and shoeboxes in the closet are places he usually puts stuff. I’ll go through the desk and bookcases, and Kyle can search the living room and in the kitchen.”

“Got it.” I headed to the bedroom with Philip. Maroon and dark green and dusky blue in this room. Bed cover, curtains, and upholstery coordinated with one another, but didn’t match. Not like one of the “bedroom in a bag” deals from BigShopMart. No dirty underwear in sight, though one sock lay half under the end of the bed.

“Put everything back exactly like it was,” Naomi called after us.

I dropped to my knees in front of the nightstand and began going through the books stacked on top of it. Two thriller novels, a book titled Hungry Flesh with a picture on the cover of a rotting zombie reaching through a window, a field guide to medicinal plants, a manual for lucid dreaming, and a big photo book of Reefs of the World. Interesting, but nothing helpful. The drawer held more potential, and I carefully lifted out a big stack of photos and envelopes and placed it on the bed, while doing my best to remember how everything had been arranged.

Still in the drawer were a bunch of smaller items. A little flashlight, a bottle of ibuprofen and another, almost empty, of anti-anxiety meds. Several pens, a remote control, and a hand gripper exercise thing. Oh, and a bottle of lube and several condom packets. Vaguely interesting, but probably not at all what we needed.

I picked up a large, fat envelope from the stack and opened the clasp, wincing when one of the metal prongs fell off. So much for “exactly like it was.” Since I couldn’t fix it, I dropped the bit of metal into the drawer then slid the contents of the envelope out onto the bed.

Photos. Tons of them. Photos of Naomi were here—some that looked as if they’d been removed from frames plus a bunch more that probably hadn’t ever been displayed. There were some of Naomi—Julia—on her own, but more with her and Andrew when they were younger, both with blond hair and bright blue eyes. Birthday parties, boating, playing on the beach, holidays, and more. Plus one of two newborns cuddled close together.

They’re twins, I realized with surprise. She’d never mentioned that. And it sure as hell looked as if they’d been pretty close, at least when they were younger. There were more recent ones of Julia on her own as well, including a four by six smiling headshot taken in front of a blue curtain, and “HM” followed by a six digit number printed in the lower right corner. Like a combination of a school picture and a mug shot. HM. Heather Miller, the cover name Julia Saber had lived under for the last decade, before her untimely death and rebirth as Naomi Comtesse.

Mixed in with the photos were a half dozen scraps of paper with complex and beautiful geometric drawings on them that I recognized as Naomi’s doodles. I snagged my phone from my pocket and quickly took a few pictures of the collection, then carefully tucked everything back into the envelope and sealed it with the one remaining prong.

A second packet, smaller and not so thick, yielded more photos and a regular white envelope. A chill went through me as I emptied the contents onto the bed and saw me smiling up at myself from the top photo. Me, happy, exiting Paco’s Tacos arm in arm with Marcus. Me loading a body into the morgue van. I spread the photos with a quick swipe of my hand. Pietro, Rachel, Jane, Brian, and others of the Tribe, plus a few people I didn’t know. None of them posed. All of them obviously taken without the subjects’ knowledge, and likely some taken by Heather/Naomi before she broke away from Saberton. Unsettled, I took more phone pictures. It was one thing to know photos like this existed, but actually finding them in Andrew’s nightstand was majorly creepy.

The plain white envelope contained two more photos. One was of Kyle walking past the police station in Tucker Point. The other was of him as well, but in the blue-curtained school mugshot style with the initials “KG” and a number printed at the bottom.

I peered at the second one, bothered by it but unsure why.

“How are you guys coming along?” Naomi called out.

I quickly took pics of the Kyle stuff, then glanced up to check Philip’s progress. He’d finished with the dresser drawers and was rifling through a neat stack of papers on top. “We still need to go through the closet,” I replied. “We won’t be too much longer.” I slipped the Kyle photos back into their envelope and the packet with the rest of the Tribe stuff, then carefully replaced everything in the drawer and slid it shut.

“Find anything?” I asked Philip, standing.

“Nothing noteworthy yet,” he said. “Social stuff. Party invitations, a wedding announcement for Audrey Robinette.”

“Hey, wasn’t she the lead in High School Zombie Apocalypse!!?”

“That’s the one,” Philip replied. He set items aside. “Everyone wants to hang with Andrew. Or wants his money.” He let out a low snort as he held up an invitation on fancy cream card stock with raised lettering. “Charity event tomorrow night to benefit the Child Find League.” He pursed his lips. “I’ve heard of them—founded by a Louisiana guy after his daughter disappeared.” His eyes narrowed as he peered more closely at the invitation. “Shit. Check this out.” He flicked a finger at penciled writing in the upper right hand corner.

“What?”

“Jane Pennington.”

My skin prickled. “Let me see that.” I damn near snatched the invitation from his hand as he held it out to me. Jane Pennington. The congresswoman and Pietro’s girlfriend. “Shit,” I echoed. “That sure as hell isn’t his date.” Back when I saw her at Dear John’s she’d told me she was heading to New York for this fundraiser. I took a quick picture of the invitation, then moved out to the main room. Naomi, camera in hand, scowled at the contents of a file folder, and Kyle meticulously searched through books in the living room.

“Philip found something,” I announced.

“So did I,” Naomi all but snarled, eyes still glued to the folder. “Andrew’s in bed with the fucking Dallas lab.” Her hand tightened on one side of the folder, crumpling it.

“The zombie lab?” I said.

“Yes!” she said. “From the little bit I’ve scanned it looks like they’re now using zombies in longevity research. And Andrew is totally okay with that.”

Duh. You saw him in a zombie video with your mom not too long ago, I thought, and even started to say so, but the edge of a photo sticking out of the folder caught my eye. “What’s up with the pictures in front of the blue curtain?” I asked instead, pointing to the photo.

Naomi tugged the photo free and flipped it around to show me a man of about sixty with gold wire rim glasses and a scar across the bridge of his nose. “Saberton personnel photos. That’s Dr. Kerazny, the head of R&D. Why?”

For a moment I could only stare as the connection between the blue-curtained mugshot of Kyle and Saberton personnel clicked in, then I abruptly remembered I needed to be super cool. “No reason. Just wondering.”

She gave me a dubious look, but before she could question me we both jerked our heads toward the front door at the sound of a key in the lock.

Kyle moved like a whirlwind, closing drawers, and shoving Naomi and me toward the bedroom. “Out. Fire escape.” A hard bang on the door punctuated his words, and right before Kyle pushed me into the bedroom I got one good look behind me of a man in a dark shirt and fatigue pants as he burst the door chain. I knew him. Boat Launch Guy. He was the Saberton man at the boat launch when Philip—working undercover—dragged me from my car and held me down for their tech to draw my blood. A few days later I saw that same man at the filming of the zombie movie and slugged him with great pleasure.

Voices from the living room told me Boat Launch Guy wasn’t alone. Philip had the window open and practically threw me out and onto the fire escape. “Climb down!” he ordered—unnecessarily, since I had no problem figuring that much out on my own. Naomi was a few feet ahead of me, already clattering down the narrow metal stairs. My mind whirled as I tried to remember if I’d put everything back in place in the bedroom, then realized it didn’t matter since obviously someone had known we were there and sent the goon squad. Those guys hadn’t shown up to water the plants.

Philip climbed out as soon as I was near the bottom and started down the stairs, taking them several at a time. Naomi shoved the folder into her jacket as we reached the last landing, then did something to the ladder to make it drop to the ground. As soon as it clanged down she leaped nimbly onto it with a cool move where she put her feet and hands on the outer edges and slid down like a goddamn action movie star. For a brief instant I was tempted to try it, then decided I’d end up with two broken ankles, and therefore simply climbed down as quickly as possible using the normal method. I looked up as I did and saw Kyle finally climbing out the window. I didn’t see any men in black fatigues, so I could only assume he’d dealt with them. He was still hurrying, though, so apparently it wasn’t a permanent “dealing with.”

I hit the ground a few seconds after Naomi. She looked up to make sure both men were on their way down, then took off at a run for the end of the street, me at her heels. I heard boots hit the ground behind me but didn’t waste time looking back. If it wasn’t Philip and Kyle I sure as hell didn’t want to slow myself down by looking.

At the corner Naomi dropped to a normally paced walk, then gripped my arm to pull me close and make sure I slowed down as well.

“Don’t look back,” she warned, somewhat breathless as we proceeded down the sidewalk. She pulled her phone out and did something, and when I heard the click of the camera I realized she’d taken a picture behind us. “Philip and Kyle are going the other direction,” she told me. “No sign of pursuit, but we need to do some traveling before we head back to the hotel.”

“To make sure we aren’t being followed?”

“Right.” She flashed me a slight smile. “You’re getting the hang of this espionage shit.”

I snorted. “Hey, illegal activity is kind of my thing, You know?”

She snorted right back at me, turned a corner and ducked down another street, then broke into a run again. I kept up with her, and this time was ready for the abrupt shift to a walk when we reached a larger avenue.

“They’re in a drawer,” I said as I settled into an amble beside her.

She did a quick scan of the traffic then motioned for us to cross the street. “What’s in a drawer?”

“Pictures of you,” I said. “Tons of them, all the way back to when y’all were babies.” I gave her a sidelong glance. “You never told me you and Andrew were twins.”

Naomi shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and quickened her pace slightly. “Who wants to be twins with an asshole?”

I stayed right beside her. “He wasn’t always an asshole, was he?” I asked. “I mean, there were some really cool pics of you two when you were younger. Hell, even when y’all were teens, you looked really close.”

“A lot can happen in ten years.” Expression tight, she glanced both ways before jaywalking toward the subway station. “Andrew made his choices, I made mine, and that’s that.”

And what about Kyle and his Saberton personnel photo? What kind of choices did he make? The memory surfaced of Chris dead with K Y scrawled in the dirt. Had we all been thoroughly played? I felt queasy at the thought. It didn’t help that I felt ready to burst with the need to talk to someone about it, but no way could it be with Naomi. She was too close to both Saberton and Kyle to see clearly. I needed to get Philip’s take on the whole thing.

I stuck right by Naomi’s side as we descended the subway stairs, and I even managed to swipe the MetroCard the right way on the first try. Only a couple of other people were on the platform waiting for the train, but we walked farther down to be sure we were alone and to give us a better chance of seeing anyone coming after us.

“Those were Saberton men at the apartment,” I said as soon as I knew we wouldn’t be overheard. “How the hell did they know we were there?”

Her forehead wrinkled with worry. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s surveillance I wasn’t aware of.” She grimaced and shook her head. “But I can’t see Andrew putting up with that in his own place.”

“Oh, shit, I almost forgot!” I said and smacked my forehead. “I think something’s going to happen to Jane.”

“Why? What did you find?”

I yanked my phone out and pulled up the picture of the invitation. “This.”

Her expression grew more serious as she peered at the tiny picture. “Damn. He sure as heck has some sort of interest in her. When is that?”

“Tomorrow, eight p.m.”

From down the tunnel we heard the roar of the approaching train. “Let’s get our asses back to the hotel nice and safe,” Naomi said. “Then we can figure out what to do.”