Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum 24)

“‘They’?”

“My handlers.”

I stared at him. “Who are you?”

“Diesel,” he said. “Just Diesel.”

“And that’s another thing. Don’t you have a last name?”

“It’s Diesel, so you see the problem.”

“You’re Diesel Diesel?”

“My parents had a sense of humor not shared by the rest of the family. On the bright side, I have a cousin named Gerewulf Grimoire, so I suppose I should be happy.”

He put his hand on the small of my back and moved me forward. I slid into the Ferrari and buckled up.

“Where would you like to go first?” he asked, settling behind the wheel.

Slick’s parents were a long shot, and Morelli was most likely still in the vicinity of Morley Street, so I went with Diggery’s woods.

Diesel drove down the single-lane road without looking side to side. He said it distracted from his radar. If anyone else said this I’d roll my eyes, but this was Diesel and what the heck, maybe he really had radar.

We parked in Diggery’s yard at the end of the road and got out of the car. We stood very still and listened.

“Well?” I asked Diesel.

“It’s quiet here. It’s like it’s not even Trenton. Wouldn’t be half bad if it had some palm trees and a beach.”

“There are a bunch of abandoned shelters tucked away in the woods. Cars, storage sheds, houses, tents. We could do a search of the area and see if any of these places are being used by . . . um, you-know-whats.”

“Zombies?”

“Yes.”

I wouldn’t search the woods on my own. I’m not that brave, and I know my limitations. Even with Diesel I wasn’t entirely comfortable snooping around. I’d been chased by dogs, and my car had been attacked by a zombie in Diggery’s woods. And to make matters worse, I was operating without a pack of wieners.

“The road isn’t that long,” Diesel said. “A couple miles. We can walk down it and check out possible zombie dens.”

“What will we do if we find zombies?”

“We’ll ask them if they’ve seen Slick.”

TWENTY

IT TOOK US an hour to reach the end of Diggery’s road. Most of the houses had people living in them. The people didn’t look all that great, but none of them looked like zombies. The dilapidated tents and yurts and sheds were also zombie free. We were almost back to Diggery’s double-wide, and I realized we were at the bend in the road where I ran into the zombie. There were no houses here. It was heavily wooded on both sides, but now that I was on foot, I could see a path threading between the trees.

“I suppose we should see where that leads,” I said to Diesel. “This is where I bounced the zombie off my right front quarter panel.”

Diesel looked at me and grinned. “You ran over a zombie?”

“I didn’t exactly run over him. He was in the middle of the road, and I kind of punted him to one side. By the time I got out of the car, he was gone.”

“Honey, it’s not good to piss off a zombie.”

“That’s what Lula said.”

Diesel hugged me to him and kissed me on the top of the head. “This is getting to be fun.”