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“Yeah, I don’t mind,” I said. “You missed him by only a couple of minutes. He seemed to be in a real hurry to get out of here.” I paused. “He was looking at some of the pics from this accident and got real upset,” I grimaced. “I feel bad. If I’d known his folks died in a car wreck I wouldn’t have kept all these pics out on the table like this.”
A baffled look came over her face. “They didn’t die in a car wreck. Ed doesn’t like to talk about it, but the story I’ve always heard is that his dad was killed in a boating accident, and his mom committed suicide a few years later.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly baffled as well. “Well, that’s pretty awful too.” So why did he lie to me? And if they didn’t die in a car crash, why did the picture of the blood in the car trigger such a reaction?
Marianne gave a sigh. “Look, sometimes he can be kind of moody. Whatever upset him probably had nothing to do with his parents at all. I think that sometimes he lets things from work get to him. He’s a fun and funny guy, but he also has a really big heart.” Then she grinned. “Almost as big as his stomach. That boy sure can put away some food.”
I smiled. “I’ve seen him eat. It’s a sight for the record books.” My gaze fell to the picture again. It was taken from the driver’s side and showed the front seats. I could see the passenger seatbelt dangling, obviously unused. Blood lay pooled in both seats, smeared across the doors and soaked into the carpet. It looked as if a pig had been slaughtered.
I jerked my head up to look at Marianne. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I was saying how Ed can put away an entire pizza on his own,” she said with a laugh. “I always have to order a large one for him and a small one for me!”
Cold shock rippled over me. “Your dog, Kudzu, does it, um, stay in a pen or a kennel?”
Marianne gave me a perplexed look. “Huh? No, she has free run of the house. She’s very well-trained. She’s practically my baby. Why?”
“Pizza Plaza, right?”
The confusion on her face increased.
“When you order pizza, do you ever order from Pizza Plaza?” I asked as I threw the papers into a rough pile. I knew I sounded impatient and a little demanding but I suddenly didn’t have time for niceties.
“Yes.” Marianne narrowed her eyes. “Angel, what the heck is going on?”
I shoved the keys toward her. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I have to go.” I dropped a five dollar bill on the table to cover my coffee, grabbed the pile of papers, and dashed for the door.
I knew exactly what had happened that night. I knew who’d made me a zombie. And I knew who the zombie killer was.
Chapter 34
Herbert Singleton wasn’t a zombie—just an asshole who could only get laid if the girl was too wasted to say no. That piece of shit had slipped me some date rape drugs and taken me for a drive so he could score some one-sided action. I could be charitable and say that he hadn’t planned on dumping me out in the middle of nowhere after raping me—probably in some hotel room, or maybe some local parking lot. But when he saw I was starting to seize or have trouble breathing, he panicked and headed to someplace remote where he could dump my body.
The picture showed a fuckload of blood in the car. Yet the report said the driver had been ejected.
In other words, the report was wrong.
When Herbert lost it on that curve, neither of us were thrown from the car. Maybe Herbert was killed in the accident, but I was still alive—though pretty badly fucked up.
But there’d been someone else out there who’d either seen the accident or come upon it before I managed to finish dying. Someone who knew me. Someone who thought that maybe I could use a second chance. Someone who made up a story about having to change his shirt so that he could get me away from the accident scene.
I drove like a bat out of hell with one hand on the steering wheel and the other working my cell phone. The dispatcher at the Sheriff’s Office refused to give me any of Marcus’s contact info at first. I finally told her I worked for the Coroner’s Office and lied and said I needed to get his cell phone number for a report. She reluctantly gave it to me but only after putting me on hold for an interminable length of time, during which I was pretty sure she called the Coroner’s Office to be sure I actually worked there and wasn’t some sort of psycho stalker chick who had a major crush on Marcus and was doing a really sloppy job of stalking him.
Okay, I probably did have a crush on him, but if I was going to stalk him I’d be a lot better at it than this.
I called Marcus, cursing when it went straight to voice mail. I left a message asking him to call me as soon as possible, stressing that it was really important. But I had a feeling I was wasting my breath. Somehow I suspected that Ed wasn’t going to give anyone the chance to warn Marcus that he was in danger. Ed—who somehow knew about zombies and who realized the pizza delivery guy was one when Marianne’s dog indicated that he was a corpse.
He’d seen the blood in the picture from the accident scene and realized that I had been in the car. He knew there was an explanation for how I’d survived, realized that Marianne’s dog had indicated on me because I was a corpse—not because I handled corpses. And that wasn’t the first time he’d found a zombie that way. He’d probably been part of that search team on Sweet Bayou Road when that teenager went missing, and Adam Campbell had been so hospitable to the search teams. At some point Ed saw Kudzu indicate on Adam.
Ed had also realized that there was only one person with the motive and opportunity to turn me into a zombie—one person who obviously also had the means to do so. And who had a relative with the connections and influence to get me the job I needed.
That explains the grief, I thought, sick with worry. He realized that Marcus—his best friend—is a zombie. And for some reason he feels compelled to kill zombies. I didn’t know why, but I knew I was right. But would Ed really be able to bring himself to kill his best friend?
That wasn’t something I was willing to gamble on.
Unfortunately, right now I was dead in the water. I didn’t know where the hell I was going. I had no idea where Marcus lived, and I was damn positive there was no way I’d be able to squeeze that info out of the dispatcher. I even called information, but I wasn’t very surprised to find he was unlisted and unpublished. There weren’t many cops who made it easy for people to find them. I could understand that, but right now it was pissing me the fuck off. Shit, at this point I wished I was a psycho stalker who followed him home from work and that sort of thing. At least then I’d know where he lived.
Wait. I was being stupid. I needed to slow down and think this through logically.
