How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

Chapter 20

I felt Brian’s eyes on me like a knife sliding through flesh. He was obviously up to some shit with the Sabers, but I had zero desire to stick around and confront him. Yet at the moment he was between me and the doors, which meant I needed to find another way out.

The crowd had abruptly grown thick as everyone began working their way toward the ballroom—where I most certainly did not want to go. Gut tight, I turned and started swimming upstream through a river of overdressed people in the direction of a side door. Someone stepped on my toe, and I resisted the urge to drive an elbow into their ribs to get them off me. I settled for their hasty apology, quickly lost in the chatter and music as I slipped between bodies, grateful I was slim, and even more glad I was short enough to get lost in the crowd.

Didn’t matter, as a glance behind showed Brian heading my direction. He didn’t seem to have any problem getting people out of his way without making a scene. I tripped on the hem of my skirt, seized it up while cursing the stupid heels and barely avoided crashing into a tittering woman. I finally made it to the side door and burst through it, then had to stop for a second to get my bearings and figure out where the hell I was.

Restrooms. And down at the end of the hall was a sweet and glorious EXIT sign. I still couldn’t run without attracting a bunch of attention, and I certainly didn’t want to risk being stopped by security, but I did a goddamn Olympic speed walk in my pretty, sparkly shoes toward that sign.

Less than ten feet from the exit I heard a door open behind me, accompanied by a brief outpouring of music along with voices and polite laughter. A quick glance back as I hit the bar of the exit door confirmed it was Brian, and right before I slammed the door behind me I saw him start my way. A quick look around told me I was on the deserted sidestreet near the sewer worksite I’d seen earlier, and nowhere near where I was supposed to come out, which meant that none of my people were anywhere around. I knew I only had seconds before Brian caught up with me, and I used two to kick off the shoes then pelted barefoot toward the main street.

The sound of the door echoed along the buildings. “Angel!”

Shit! I tried to pour on the speed and instead got my legs tangled in my skirts. To my horror I went sprawling, scraping palms and knees as I slid a few inches in some nasty gunk on the pavement. I was like one of those stupid teenagers in a slasher movie, with extra grossness.

Before I could scramble to my feet Brian was on me, literally, with a knee in the middle of my back, pinning me down firmly as I twisted and struggled.

“Angel, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, voice urgent but low. “Don’t run away from me. We need to talk but first we need to get away from here.”

“Get off me!” I snarled as I fought to get out from under him, which only served to grind the yuck more thoroughly into the dress. “I swear to god, I will scream bloody murder.”

“Angel, stop! I’m trying to get Mr. Ivanov back, and I know you are too.”

I twisted my head to glare at him. “You’re fucking up the dress! And I saw you being all friendly with the Sabers here, just like I saw you kidnap Dr. Nikas. I watched the video!”

Shifting off me, he seized my upper arm and pulled me to my feet. “I was trying to determine if the Sabers would work a deal to release Mr. Ivanov,” he said, maintaining an iron grip as he slapped my purse into my hand. “And, yes, I kidnapped Dr. Nikas. It was that or risk Saberton abducting him as well. He wouldn’t get into the car, and I couldn’t let him stay.”

“How did you know he was at risk?” I snarled. Maybe I could bite him and make him behave the way I made Philip behave? Desperate, I lunged at him, teeth bared.

“Jesus Christ, Angel!” Brian growled as he evaded my bite, then twisted my arm up behind my back. “Would you stop?” He glanced back over his shoulder at the door we’d exited from. “I knew he was at risk because ten minutes earlier I defused a bomb under my Escalade, then tried to call Mr. Ivanov and got only voicemail.”

I stopped struggling, bit my lip hard to try and stop the damn tears of frustration, but I felt a couple sneak their way down my cheek. How did all this get so fucked up? “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I asked, voice quavering.

He began walking me toward the main street while he continued to shoot wary looks behind us. “No one to tell. No one to trust. There’s an unknown insider. At least one. And you need to get away from here.”

“You couldn’t even trust me?” The hurt in my voice wasn’t faked one bit.

He sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said still moving toward the street. “With Dr. Nikas in my care, I couldn’t risk contact with anyone.” He glanced behind him again. “Who’s here with you?”

I set my mouth stubbornly. “How do I know I can trust you?”

The sound of the door echoed off buildings again, followed by running footsteps. Brian released my arm and gave me a little shove. “Angel, run. Now!” He turned and sprinted to a building across the street, leaped up to catch the fire escape ladder, pulled up and began climbing. I didn’t waste time watching him. I saw the men pelting my way. I grabbed my grimy skirts and ran.

Kyle was leaning against the building about fifty feet away from the corner, but he pushed off and immediately scanned for threats the instant he saw me running toward him.

“We need to get out of here!” I gasped.

“Slow down,” he ordered in a low voice. “Look normal and walk.” He took my arm casually, though we continued to walk with purpose. My pulse gradually returned to a more normal pace. There were a lot of people on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, and I doubted Saberton’s goons would try and grab me in public. Plus, Kyle would totally kick their asses.

“I had to lose the shoes,” I said through a clenched-teeth smile. Not sure how normal I was able to look with a grunged-up dress and no shoes. And my makeup was probably smeared to hell and back. Oh, and the weird blotch on my face.

“What happened?”

I gave him a quick rundown of everything—warning Jane, seeing the Sabers with Brian, the incident on the sidestreet, and everything Brian told me. “I don’t know what to think about Brian,” I confessed as Kyle hailed a cab.

He made a noncommittal noise as a taxi pulled to the curb. He folded himself in after me, then told the driver, “One twenty-seventh and Lexington.” I hadn’t been in New York long, but I knew that was way the hell from where we were staying. I didn’t question it, though. Everything was so fucked up now it didn’t really make a difference. I tried to brush some of the yuck and grime off my feet, then gave up and wiped my hands on one of the few remaining clean spots on my dress. Didn’t help. I’d only succeeded in spreading the dirt around. I clenched my trembling hands together and tried not to think about how crazy I must look to the taxi driver. Then again, this was New York, so they probably saw worse several times a day.

“He let you go,” Kyle said quietly after a few blocks.

“Yeah, he did.” I exhaled. “At least Jane got away.”

“Saw her come out,” he said with a nod. “Good work.” His phone rang, but when he pulled it from his pocket he frowned. “It’s your number.”

Baffled, I yanked my purse open and dug through it. “Shit. It’s not in here.” Gulping, I looked at the phone in his hand. “Answer it.”

Kyle hit the answer button but didn’t say anything. After a second or two my zombie hearing picked up Brian’s voice.

“Is this Kyle?”

Kyle remained silent another couple of breaths before speaking. “Hello, Brian.”

“Do you have Angel?”

“Yes.”

I heard Brian exhale. “Thank god. I know you think I’m guilty. I’m not. We need to work together, or we’ll end up bumping heads as badly as almost happened tonight.”

Kyle remained impassive. “Do you have Dr. Nikas?”

“I do. He’s safe.”

“I’ll need to speak to him.”

“Let me talk to Angel.”

Kyle shifted his eyes to me and handed the phone over.

I took it. “Brian?”

“Hey, Angel, you okay?”

“Yeah, except some jerk stole my phone.”

“I needed to be able to contact you since you weren’t in the mood for calm conversation,” he said. “Plus, we sort of ran out of time.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I grumbled. “Where’s Dr. Nikas?”

“He’s here with me,” Brian said, and then my heart leaped as I heard the lilting accent of Dr. Nikas in the background.

“Let me talk to him,” I demanded.

“Hold on.” I heard muffled voices, and then Dr. Nikas came on the line.

“Angel, I’m so sorry.”

It was him. It was definitely him. “Oh god, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, though he sounded tired. “What about you and Philip? I didn’t finish the procedure.”

“Yeah, something weird’s going on with that,” I said, then gave him a quick recap of Philip’s overprotective fits and the weird rot patches. “Look, I need to know if I can trust Brian.” It suddenly occurred to me that Brian could be right there listening in on the conversation and holding a gun to his head or something like that. “If I can, um, tell me why Jacques needed the duct tape.” No way would anyone who wasn’t there for the procedure know that.

“I trust him with my life,” Dr. Nikas said, a smile in his voice. “And the duct tape was to keep you from rolling your stool around.”

Heaving a sigh of relief, I gave Kyle a thumbs up. “Awesome. So, can you fix this thing with Philip and me?”

He muttered to himself for a few seconds. “Perhaps. I have very limited supplies. I need some time to consider the problem. For now, take two tablespoons of blue-green algae along with three thousand milligrams of vitamin C twice daily with plenty of water. That should even things out for now, especially for Philip.”

Algae? Ugh. I listened carefully as he gave some more instructions, including specific brand names. Fortunately, Kyle could hear everything, and he gave me a nod to let me know he’d help me remember. “Okay, got it. Thanks,” I said. “Can I talk to Brian again?”

“Certainly. Take care, Angel.”

Brian came back on the line. “What did you tell Dr. Pennington? Does she know Mr. Ivanov is missing?”

“I told her as little as possible,” I said. “Only that he was in some trouble and that she needed to get the hell out of that place.” I quickly explained about finding the invitation at Andrew’s apartment, and why I’d figured she was in danger.

“She’s going to be worried,” he replied. “Which means she might make waves.”

Make waves? Didn’t he think it was important to make sure she was safe? “Well, it’s tough to tell her too much without giving it away.”

“One of us is going to have to contact her. She can’t tell anyone.”

“Yeah, I know that,” I said, annoyance rising. Did he think I was an idiot? “I’ll get in touch with her.”

“Call me back when you do,” he ordered, “and better to do it sooner rather than later.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” I said sharply. “And it’ll be oh-so easy to call you back since you have my phone.”

“You have a fucking phone in your hand,” he snapped. “I’m sure it will work just fine. Let me talk to Kyle.”

Throat tight, I shoved the phone at Kyle. When he took it I crossed my arms over my chest and stared out the window. The dress was ruined, the shoes were lost, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I saw Kyle’s reflection in the window as he looked over at me. I knew he could see my reflection as well, and that I was crying, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

“Kyle here,” he said into the phone.

“Angel’s going to connect with Dr. Pennington to keep her from doing something dangerous,” I heard Brian tell Kyle, because apparently I couldn’t be trusted to pass that information along. “Once that’s done, we need to coordinate.”

“Understood.”

“I have to go. More later.”

Kyle lowered the phone after Brian hung up and gave me blessed silence for several minutes as we made our way north.

“You can let us out at the corner,” Kyle said, leaning forward to pass the driver money. I knew we weren’t anywhere near the address he’d given, but I didn’t argue. He seemed to know what he was doing. He bundled me out of the cab, slipped an arm through mine, and walked me half a block down a side street before hailing another cab.

“He can be a dick,” Kyle said after we were in the second cab and on our way to yet another address I’d never heard of.

“He was right,” I said with a sigh. “I’m being stupid. Anyway, as soon as we get back, I guess I need to call Jane.”

“Face to face would be better.”

“I need to clean up first, and get this thing off my cheek.”

After a few more minutes Kyle stopped the taxi and paid the driver, helped me out and walked me to the cross street. “Start with hot water and brains,” he said as he hailed a third cab. “Once we get back I’ll find a pharmacy and get the algae and C. And you should take my phone for now.” He deftly slipped it into my purse.

“Thanks,” I said, then looked up and met his eyes. “Thanks.” I didn’t even know how to say how much it mattered that he got why I was so upset. I wasn’t even sure I completely understood it myself, but I really felt that he did.

He gave me a hint of a smile, then opened the door of the cab that pulled up. “No worries.”

This time he gave an address that was actually in the vicinity of our hotel. We rode in comfortable silence, and once we arrived he escorted me to the door, quietly making sure that I was safe and okay before striding off down the street, somehow managing to look like an unassuming nobody who didn’t require a second glance.

I wasn’t quite ready to head inside, so instead I crossed the street to the little park across from the hotel. Up close and at night, it wasn’t all that pleasant. Two of the benches had homeless men on them, and a couple of people wearing hoodies and baggy jeans huddled together on the far side of the fountain. Something changed hands, and the two walked off in opposite directions. Common sense told me to return to the hotel, especially since I was still in the battered evening gown and barefoot, but I didn’t give much of a shit about common sense at that moment.

A guy with scraggly hair and a pinched face, with the desperate eyes of a drug addict, began to sidle up to me. I snarled at him and made a mock-lunge, and he scampered off. I swept my gaze around to make sure no one else assumed I was an easy target, but the others seemed to sense the monster beneath and kept their distance. Or maybe I simply looked totally crazy. Either way worked for me. Satisfied, I checked the time. Only nine-thirty back home. I punched in my dad’s cell phone number.

“What?”

The snapped-out question caught me briefly off guard before I remembered my dad didn’t have this number in his contacts. “Um, Dad?”

I heard a quick intake of breath. “Angel? Angel?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” I had to work hard to control the slight tremble in my voice as a wave of homesickness swept through me. “Just calling to check in, y’know? Make sure you’re doing okay.” I saw the scraggly druggie returning, and I bared my teeth at him.

“Yeah, sure. I’m okay,” he replied. “How ’bout you? You still, um . . . You still in Denver?”

“Sure am. Staying in a real nice hotel. Four stars.” I laughed, but it sounded strained. The connection was crappy and cutting in and out, but it was damn good to hear his voice, even with static. “Nicest place I’ve ever been.” His words abruptly registered. Why did he specifically say Denver when he knew it was a cover story? My worry rose. “You okay, Dad? Are you at the house? Is someone there with you?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. Shit! That was a lot of questions, Angel,” he grumbled. “I’m fine. With Rick at his house.”

I grimaced. Rick Belluci. Bad enough my dad went on a double date with him, but Rick’s house was where some of the worst drinking used to happen. “You sure that’s a good idea? He can put down a six pack in about an hour.”

“I ain’t seen him drink yet,” he told me, “and that don’t matter anyway. Not with him taking me in like he did.”

“Wait. Taking you in? Why?” I shook my head as if that would help things make sense. “You’re sleeping there?”

“Well, I spent last night here and prolly gonna stay tonight as well.”

I reached up to grip my hair. “But you hate going to his house!”

“Huh? I ain’t never been here before. You should know that. You sure you’re okay?” He paused. “Uh, maybe you need a . . . snack?”

“What? No! I’m not hungry. Not like that. You’re the one I’m worried about.” I scowled. “Every time you get back from Rick’s house you complain about how it stinks like old cabbage and how he keeps the TV full blast and how the toilet’s always clogged.”

He made an aggravated noise. “Shit, Angel. Why the hell would I be at Rick Belluci’s house? I ain’t been to his house since he got busted for drunk driving his four-wheeler through the Tucker Point High School homecoming game, and his ex-mother in law moved in. I’m at Nick’s house.”

That still didn’t make any sense, and my poor brain refused to help me out. “Nick? Nick who?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered. “Your Nick. From the morgue.”

“Why—” I needed a couple of seconds to completely shift my thinking. Not that it helped. “Why the hell are you at my Nick’s house?”

My dad took a deep breath. “’Cause he came to our place to check on me ’cause of the fake lawyer and your phone, then there was a car out front that left when a cop car drove by, so I came here.”

I fought to understand any of that but finally seized onto the “phone” part. “Oh! My phone! It made it to the coroner’s office? And what fake lawyer?”

“The fake lawyer that came looking for you at work. Supposedly she wanted to give you a bunch of money from a trust fund or some shit like that, but because your phone rang, the other guy, um,” I heard someone speaking in the background, “Huh? Oh, okay. Allen. Yeah, Allen didn’t fall for it and didn’t tell her nothin’.”

With anyone other than my dad I’d have thought they were fucking with me. Once again I dug through the nonsense. “Someone was looking for me? And what was the deal with the car and the cop?”

He made an exasperated noise. “You’re makin’ this hard, Angel,” he said, and in that moment it was a damn good thing he was over a thousand miles away. “Your phone rang in the box and they figured something was wrong, ’cause phones don’t usually show up in the mail there. When the fake lawyer turned up, Allen saw right through it and didn’t tell her shit. Then Allen and Nick figured someone should check on me, so Nick came out. That’s when the car stopped out front being all suspicious and mysterious-like, and Nick called the cops. With the, er, trouble going on and everything,” he cleared his throat, “y’know, I figured I needed to get outta there. I was gonna go into town, but Nick brought me here instead.”

“Oh.” Holy shit, I actually understood him. “You’re staying with Nick?” And I still sounded like an idiot. “That’s really cool. Can I talk to him?”

“Sure. He’s right here.”

I heard some rustling and then, “Angel?”

“Nick!” The homesickness ratcheted up a notch. “What’s the deal with my dad?”

“I went to check on him, and a suspicious car stopped out front,” he said, automatically slipping into the cadence of giving a report or testifying. “He told me there’d been trouble before, and with you mailing the phone to yourself, and the woman looking for you at work, I thought it best to bring him here.”

“You’re so fucking awesome,” I said with a smile. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this. What did the woman look like?”

He cleared his throat. “Athletic-looking black woman with braids that reached to mid back. She had a business card, but there’s no firm by that name.”

Rachel Delancey, Tribe security second-in-command. Not a Saberton person. “Okay. I know who that is. I can’t imagine you’ll have any more trouble from her.” I doubted Rachel would do anything to hurt my dad. She was after Kyle, not me. “Are you sure you’re okay with my dad staying with you?”

“It’s no trouble. I have plenty of room.” Nick paused. “Are you okay? Your dad won’t tell me anything.”

Relief and regret coiled together. Nick was a good guy and would watch over my dad like his own, but there was no way I could let him know what was really going on. “I’m okay,” I told him. “I promise. I’m here with some other people. And, well, I can’t talk about it. Sort of a nondisclosure thing, y’know?”

“As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters,” he replied, voice upbeat but with a layer of stress and worry he couldn’t completely hide. “And you’re going to stay okay, right?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “I will, I promise.”

“Good. Dr. Leblanc misses you, so come back soon.”

“As soon as I possibly can.” The homesickness swelled up again, and I had to quickly scrub at my eyes. “I miss you guys too.”

I caught a whiff of the scraggly druggie even as I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and only my zombie reflexes made it possible for me to twist away before he could snatch my phone. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, YOU GODDAMN LOSER!” Growling, I slammed the palm of my other hand into his chest to send him staggering back to fall on his ass. “And take a fucking bath!”

I heard someone frantically calling my name then realized it was Nick. I yanked the phone back up. “Hey, sorry about that, Nick.” I raised a fist and took a threatening step toward the druggie as he scrambled up. He backpedaled, then finally had a smart idea and hurried off. “Some dickwad here, uh,” I quickly shifted what I was going to say since telling him that someone had tried to steal my phone probably wouldn’t go over well, “he, um, keeps wanting a handout.”

“Angel, where are you?” he asked, worry thick in his voice.

“Across the street from my hotel,” I said glibly, avoiding a direct answer. “It’s all cool. Can I speak to my dad again, please?”

“But . . .” He sighed. “Sure.”

My dad took the phone. “What happened?”

I scowled. “Some fucking druggie tried to take my phone, so I knocked him the hell down. Stupid jerk.”

“Kick his fuckin’ ass!” He gave a quick cough, and I easily pictured his guilty glance at Nick. “I mean, that’s what he deserves, y’know.”

I laughed. “I got it covered. Don’t worry.” I wanted to tell him how messed up everything was, but I knew it would only worry him more. “It’s really good to hear from you. I love you and miss you.”

“Love you too, Angelkins,” he said, with a rich warmth in his voice that brought tears to my eyes again. “You know when you’re coming home?”

I winced. “No. Not yet. I’m sorry.”

“You call me again soon, y’hear?”

“As soon as I can.”

I hung up after we said our goodbyes then made my way across the street again. To my surprise the doorman gave me a very nice, “Good evening, ma’am,” as he opened the door for me, and didn’t bat an eyelash at my bedraggled appearance. Made me wonder what the hell would earn an eyelash-bat.

Yet, as I entered, I caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure leaning against a building about half a block down the street. Kyle, who’d obviously seen my complete lack-of-common-sense park visit and had stuck around to be sure I remained in one piece. I smiled and continued inside while Kyle pushed off and headed the other way.

Naomi was in the process of hanging her jacket in the closet when I came in. Her eyes swept over me and widened in shock. “What the hell happened?” she demanded. “I thought everything went down as planned. Jane came out, and then we got the signal to return to base.”

I trudged toward the bathroom. “Well, the good news is that I found Brian,” I said, peeling off the fucked up dress as I went, noticing barely in time that Philip was in the room as well.

“What?” Naomi hurried me into the bathroom then helped me with the zipper. “Did you take him out?”

I explained what happened as I stripped down and scowled at the various scrapes on my forearms and knees. “And now I need to get cleaned up so I can go talk to Jane even though it’s late as hell.” I grimaced. “Sorry about the dress. And, I lost the shoes when I was making a run for it.”

She peered at the ruin of the gown. The rip at the knee could maybe be dealt with by making the dress a lot shorter, but the stain on the front was such a combo of street-grime that I doubted there was any way to get it out. “Yeah, you sure did a number on it.” Then she smiled and shrugged. “No worries. You’re in one piece, and that’s way more important.”

She gave me a quick hug, then went out to get a change of clothes and a slice of brains for me. About the time I finished cleaning up, Kyle returned with a brown paper bag containing a big jar of loose algae and two bottles each of algae capsules and Vitamin C.

After taking a whiff of the loose stuff, I opted for the six capsules. It wasn’t that it smelled bad, but props to Kyle for having the foresight to get pills. I choked down the algae and three C’s with a full bottle of water, and in ten minutes the spongy rot on my face faded to a patch of odd discoloration that I could cover with makeup—or at least make it less OMG what the hell is that on your face? I checked the places on my side, arm and thigh as well and was enormously relieved to find all of them significantly less icky. Meanwhile, Philip had mixed the loose algae with water to create something resembling industrial sludge and slammed it down. Hardcore.

“You can barely see it,” Naomi reassured me after I peered in the mirror for the umpteenth time.

“Not fair,” I said, glancing past her to Philip and the matching blemish on his jaw. “It makes him look tougher.”

“No, it makes him look like he missed a patch shaving,” Naomi corrected with a grin.

“As long as he looks equally silly,” I said.

Philip gave a long-suffering sigh. “Are we done destroying the last shreds of my self-esteem?”

“For now.” I punched him lightly on the upper arm. “C’mon, let’s go see Jane.”