How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back (White Trash Zombie 4)

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.