Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum 24)

“I gave the leftovers to Ethel.”

“The snake? How’s she doing?”

“She’s doing okay.”

Diesel looked in the cupboard and found a bag of pretzels. He helped himself to a beer and ate the pretzels.

“I

like the pool table in the dining room,” he said. “Nice touch.”

“Where have you been?”

“Working. Looking for a guy.”

“All day and night?”

“Whatever it takes,” Diesel said, offering the pretzels to me.

I took a handful and got myself a beer. “Were you looking for him in the Morley Street cemetery?”

“Yeah. No luck.”

“Don’t suppose you want to tell me about it?”

“Not much to tell,” Diesel said. “He’s sort of a new age zombie.”

“For real?”

Diesel shrugged. “As real as a zombie could get.”

“The police have a video of you in the cemetery. It was taken by one of my FTAs. Zero Slick.”

“Little guy? Brown ponytail?”

“Yes. He’s disappeared.”

“How’d they get the video if he disappeared?”

“He left his GoPro behind. Don’t suppose you know where I can find him?”

“No. Maybe he’s hanging with the zombies.”

“Do you believe in zombies?”

“Honey pie, I believe in almost everything. Simplifies a lot of shit.”

“You were there when the zombies attacked Slick,” I said. “Why didn’t you stop them?”

“They didn’t attack him when I was there. I was tracking my target, and I passed a couple locals, but I didn’t see any zombies.”

“Their eyes were glowing in the video.”

“Almost all eyes glow in infrared. There was probably a time lapse between frames that you didn’t notice.”

I grabbed another handful of pretzels. It was possible. Maybe.

“I thought you were supposed to be this super tracker,” I said. “Why can’t you find your guy?”