Two Weeks' Notice E-Book

Rachel Caine

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Revivalist
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 461

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Making a living can be rough if you're already dead. After dying and being revived with the experimental drug Returné, Bryn Davis is theoretically free to live her unlife - with regular doses to keep her going. But Bryn knows that the government has every intention of keeping a tight lid on Pharmadene's life-altering discovery, no matter the cost. Thankfully, some things have changed for the better; her job at the rechristened Davis Funeral Home is keeping her busy and her fragile romance with Patrick McCallister is blossoming - thanks in part to their combined efforts in forming a support group for Returné addicts. But when some of the group members suddenly disappear, Bryn wonders if the government is methodically removing a threat to their security, or if some unknown enemy has decided to run the zombies into the ground...

Leseprobe

TWO WEEKS’ NOTICE

REVIVALIST SERIES

BOOK TWO

RACHEL CAINE

Allison & Busby Limited 13 Charlotte Mews London W1T 4EJ www.allisonandbusby.com

First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2012.

Copyright © 2012 by ROXANNE LONGSTREET CONRAD

The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978–0–7490–1232–8

Typeset in 11.5/16.25 pt Sabon by Allison & Busby Ltd.

The paper used for this Allison & Busby publication has been produced from trees that have been legally sourced from well-managed and credibly certified forests.

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

To my dear friend, and superhero, Rosemary Clement-Moore. Just because.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Track List

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By Rachel Caine

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

It was a perfect day for a funeral. Overcast, cool, no rain; sweaters, not coats. The wind was light and fresh, and although fall had arrived (as much as it ever did, in California) the grass remained a bright jewel green.

From a purely objective perspective, it couldn’t have been better … though, in truth, Bryn Davis, funeral director, didn’t much care for the cemetery itself. This was a modern-style interment facility, so instead of picturesque Gothic headstones or marble sculptures there were long expanses of lawn, spreading trees, and gently rolling hills – the impression of undisturbed nature, but oh so carefully created. Except for the recessed vases, some holding bright bouquets of flowers, it might have been a golf course. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see a cart roll over the hill and someone line up a difficult five-iron shot past the tent that covered the mourners and casket.

But then, she didn’t have to like this place, really; that was the family’s burden. She just had to give the impression of calm dignity as she stood with her hands folded. Until the ceremony was finished, her job was on hold – Mr Raines’ remains had been processed and prepped, dressed and finished; the coffin had been sealed and carefully polished (nothing worse than seeing sweaty fingerprints on the shiny surface); flowers and memorial handbooks had been delivered and arranged; hearses and limousines had been freshly washed, stocked with tissues, and neatly parked. The actual graveside ceremony was Bryn’s downtime; it was her opportunity to run through the checklist in her head, over and over, to be sure she hadn’t dropped any details.

Next to her, Joe Fideli, her second in command, leaned closer. ‘Red alert. Mistress at your four o’clock,’ he whispered, and she glanced in that direction without moving her head. He was, of course, absolutely right. The widow, dressed formally in black, sat ramrod-stiff in the front row beside the coffin, but they’d already been warned that she wasn’t the only woman in Mr Raines’ somewhat colorful life.

His mistress had gone with mourning color, at least. She’d chosen a Little Black Dress, more appropriate for clubbing than a funeral, and paired with heels that were too stiletto for the grass on which she was walking. Those shoes resulted in more of a stagger than a controlled stride. Lots of leg on display, and glossy, overdone hair.

She was headed for the funeral like a torpedo for a stationary ship, and Bryn could well imagine the spectacular bang that would make.

‘Let’s avoid the drama,’ Bryn whispered back, and Joe nodded. He was a big man, but he was light and quick, and besides, all eyes were on the priest. Joe faded back in slow, almost imperceptible movements, and put himself in the path of the other woman.

The priest finished his message and the prayer began. Most bent their heads, including Bryn, but she continued to watch through her lashes just in case. That was how she saw the mistress try to continue to move forward, and Joe smoothly block her, put a gentle hand on her shoulder, and bend to whisper something to her.

She burst into tears, which was a bit remarkable. She seemed to be the only one who was actually sorry to see the old man go; the dry-eyed wife certainly had never displayed a speck of feeling in all the time Bryn had spoken with her, and wasn’t showing any now. Neither were the children, both in their teens, who looked bored. At least they weren’t texting.

The prayer finished, the priest walked to offer his (probably unneeded) comfort to the wife and kids, and right on cue, the soft music that Bryn had arranged for began to play, signaling the end of the public gathering; she’d cautioned the cemetery employees that she wouldn’t tolerate any jumping of the gun, and she was pleased to see that they were still hanging well back, pretending to be gardeners until the time came for the actual burial. There was another tent erected across the way. She knew they were pressed on their schedule to get the next funeral ready, and she was sympathetic to their need to get things moving, but still. She was a great believer in respect.

Joe had engaged the mistress in tearful conversation, and was walking her away from the graveside. The woman might have been planning a dramatic flinging-herself-over-the-coffin moment, or at the very least, a shrieking catfight with the more legally bereaved. Mrs Raines was already heading for the limousine that would take her home; the mistress was too far away now for any effective dramatics. Deprived of any other possible entertainment, the assembled mourners – not that Mr Raines had many – were scattering fast.

Bryn caught up with Mrs Raines and offered her last condolences, which the widow accepted with a distant, frosty confidence. She was already basking in the soft, warm glow of being a rich woman of means, motive and opportunity.

Poor man. His mistress, for all her tears, probably wouldn’t mourn him much longer than it took to pawn whatever he’d bought her. Bryn’s mind wandered off into lurid pulp magazine plots of poisoning, evil widows, sinister mistresses, eager-to-inherit children, but truthfully, she had no reason to suspect any foul play. It was just something to do to pass the time, standing in the cool wind, watching the living depart and leave the place to the dead.

She didn’t except herself from that description. In truth, Bryn was just as dead as Mr Raines. She just wore it a whole lot better.

Bryn finally nodded to the cemetery staffers, who with quick, efficient movements stripped off the flower covering on the casket, and began the less-than-photogenic process of the actual burial. They dropped the sides of the tent for the mechanics of it. A third uniformed worker began folding up the chairs and picking up fallen programs from the AstroTurf that had been laid down around the tent. While she was watching that happen, Joe Fideli came back across the carefully manicured lawn. There was still something a little intimidating about him, no matter how much tailoring might have gone into his very nice suit; maybe it was the shaved head, or the way he moved, but he had a hell of a lot of presence.

Made a pretty good funeral director, though. And an even better bodyguard.

‘Thanks for that,’ she said to Joe, and he nodded.

‘She looked like she was powering up for a full-on drama explosion,’ he said. ‘So. That’s lunch, then.’

The death business, Bryn thought, was so strange. It was all about emotion and pain and stage management, and then suddenly … lunch. ‘You know,’ she said as she and Joe walked toward the Davis Funeral Home sedans, ‘it occurs to me that what we do is pretty much like being wedding planners … just with a much unhappier ending.’

He smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Depends on the wedding,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen some that might have been better off as funerals. You think people are capable of mayhem here, you should see what they get up to with a little champagne under their belts.’

Joe had a unique perspective on mayhem, Bryn thought; he might work for her as a funeral director, and he was a good one, but that was hardly his main vocation … she’d never met anyone who was quite so comfortable with violence. And considering she herself had been in the army, that was saying something. She strongly suspected he had a background in special forces – Rangers, SEALs, something secretive and highly trained. For all that, he was a nice guy. Just very, very deadly.

And he was her very own private security. She knew, in fact, that he was armed with at least one weapon, possibly two; he usually doubled up when they went out in public, mostly because she hadn’t been able to find a side arm that was easily concealable under her tailored jackets. He’d made her drill on the procedures of what to do in the event that he ever had to go for those concealed weapons: one, get behind him; two, be ready when he pitched her the second gun. Three, fall back to cover while he laid down fire.

Most funeral directors, Bryn thought, never needed to think about those kinds of contingency plans. Lucky them.

Her watch alarm went off with a tiny vibration, just at the time Joe checked his cell phone and said, ‘Time for meds, boss.’

‘I know,’ she said. It came out a little sharp, and she shot him an apologetic glance. ‘Sorry. I don’t think I’ll ever stop hating the needles.’

‘More than the alternative?’

That didn’t deserve an answer. ‘I thought Manny was working on some kind of pill form.’

‘You know Manny,’ Joe shrugged.

‘Well, not really. Do you?’

He snorted and let that one go, because the fact was, she had a point. None of them really knew her chemist, Manny Glickman, and since her life depended on the man to a great extent these days, that bothered Bryn more than she liked to admit.

‘Anyway,’ Joe said. ‘No arguments. Time for the booster.’

‘I thought I was the boss.’

‘You are,’ he agreed. ‘You sign the checks and everything. Don’t mean that you can make me ignore the schedule, since that’s definitely part of what you pay me for, right?’

Right. It wasn’t that Bryn necessarily needed a reminder for this, but having one made her feel less … vulnerable. In oh so many ways. ‘Meds,’ she agreed. ‘As soon as we get back to the office.’

For answer, he slid a syringe out of his coat pocket, held it up, and said, ‘No need to wait. We can take care of this in the car.’

Bryn glanced around. Nobody was watching them. ‘Easier out in the open,’ she said, and unbuttoned and removed her suit jacket. Under it, she wore a light blue silk top, sleeveless – the better for shot access, unfortunately. She took a deep breath and presented her shoulder to him, and Joe uncapped the syringe, plunged it home with a quick flick of his hand, and pressed the plunger, fast.

The contents spread into her system in a slow, steady burn that traveled through muscle, entered her bloodstream, and suddenly bolted like fiery acid through her entire body. She was familiar with pain, intimately; fortunately, so was Joe, and he put a supporting hand under her elbow in case her knees gave way. They didn’t this time, but it was a close thing. The fire began to cool, and she kept the scream locked down, pressed tight into a faint moan.

‘So,’ Joe said, in a neutral tone, ‘any better?’

She took a couple of deep breaths before even trying to answer. ‘If you mean does it still feel like I’m being flayed, the answer is yes,’ she said, but by the time she finished saying it, the pain had rolled through her and vanished, except for a few last whispers haunting her joints. ‘Maybe a little less painful than last week’s formula, but this one has a worse aftertaste.’ She wanted to scrub it off her tongue with a wire brush. Manny changed the formula about once a week, trying to fine-tune and improve it, but that didn’t mean it was a joy to experience. Especially when she had to endure it every day.

‘Don’t suppose that aftertaste would be, say, chocolate?’

‘More like bleach and sewage,’ she said, and couldn’t help the gag reflex. He held on to her until this, too, passed, and silently handed over a tin of Altoids mints. She chewed two of them, and the relief of getting that awful taste out of her mouth was worth the intense peppermint burn. ‘Wow, that was not pretty.’ She pulled her jacket on again as Joe stepped back, assessing her with a professional kind of analysis that made her feel less like a woman and more like a machine in need of maintenance. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Manny said to watch out for tremors and signs of decomp. He’s still working out the kinks on the combo formula. This one should suppress the Protocols better, but there may be some side effects. Could also burn off faster. Hard to know.’

Bryn had long ago accepted that her status in this world was going to be lab rat, but that didn’t make it any easier to take pronouncements like that. ‘So I should watch out for tremors first, or decomp?’

‘Both,’ Joe said. ‘But stay calm while you’re doing it.’

Yeah, that was her life. Keep calm, and watch for decomposition. She got a shot, every day; they were still trying out new formulas to counter different nasty things built into the nanites that rushed through her bloodstream, acting as her life-support system and keeping her … well, if not alive, then a very convincing copy. She never knew what the day’s shot would bring. Every day was a new surprise, and most of them were unpleasant.

Her cell buzzed for attention, and she checked the screen. ‘We should be getting back,’ she said.

‘Uh-huh. Trouble?’ She sent Joe a long look, eyebrows raised. ‘Never mind. Stupid question.’

Joe took the driver position; she wasn’t allowed in the front, or to sit directly behind him. On his insistence, she always sat in the sweet spot where she would – theoretically – be the safest in the event of a gunfight. Bryn thought it was bullshit, because in the event of a gunfight, she could hold her own, and besides, she was relatively damage-resistant. Thanks to the nanites, the curse that kept on giving.

She’d never intended this to be her life. She’d just taken a job, a regular job as a funeral director, and discovered her boss was reviving the dead for profit in the basement. That had ended badly for her, with a plastic bag over her head and a one-way retirement.

Except that Joe and his boss Patrick McCallister had brought her back to find out what had happened, and now she was stuck here, taking shots to stay on her eternal treadmill between life and death.

Because getting off that treadmill meant having to die all over again, and not nearly as neatly and quickly.

It meant rotting alive.

While Joe drove back to Davis Funeral Home – once Fairview Mortuary, but recently renamed since she’d taken it over – Bryn checked her emails.

‘Crap,’ she sighed. Joe sent her a look in the rear-view mirror. ‘My mom’s emailing. She wants to know if I’ve heard anything from Annalie.’ Her sister’s disappearance hadn’t caused too much of a stir yet … Mom was accustomed to Annie taking off for weeks at a time, gadding about on sailboats or backpacking trips or affairs with boyfriends that never quite worked out. So she was just casually asking right now, with a tiny flavor of concern.

But that would change, soon, and the problem was that Bryn did know what had happened to Annie. She just couldn’t tell her family.

Joe nodded. ‘Does she still think Annie’s on vacation?’

‘Yeah. But I can’t keep this up much longer. It’s been too long, and sending Mom the occasional text from Annie’s phone number isn’t cutting it anymore. She’s going to want to see her daughter. Soon.’

Not that Bryn could do anything about it. Annie was missing. Waiting for information was the worst part … and while she waited, there wasn’t anything else she could do except test out new shots, hope for some new intel, and hope for the best. Wait for the government, who now solely owned the raw formula of the drug Returné that Manny worked from, to decide what to do with her, and all the others addicted to this drug. She’d signed papers. Papers that meant, essentially, that she was trading cooperation with them – ill-defined as that was – for continued life. Apparently, the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness wasn’t guaranteed after you’d actually died.

She met Joe’s gaze in the mirror for a second before he focused back on driving. ‘If we find her, do you think this formula will work for Annie?’ Because her sister, like her, was dead in every way that didn’t show. Dead, and addicted to the drug that had Revived her.

‘We can give it a try,’ he said. ‘But she’s been on the Pharmadene formula for a long time now, with all the Protocols activated. We’d have to detox her, and frankly, Manny hasn’t had enough test subjects to know if there are some people who might be resistant to the new mix. But try to be patient, okay?’

She wasn’t patient at all, and he knew that. But first they had to find Annie, then worry about the detox period, so patience was all she had right now. Patience, and running the business of caring for the dead.

Her cell phone rang before she could tell Joe what she thought about being patient. When she thumbed it on and answered, ‘Davis Funeral Home, Bryn Davis speaking,’ she knew she sounded less than her usual soothing self, so she added, in a deliberately warmed-up voice, ‘How may I assist you?’

‘Funny you should ask that. I have a job for you,’ said the voice on the other end. A familiar one – brisk, female, businesslike. The caller ID was blank. ‘Assuming you’re not in the middle of some corpse you can’t put aside.’

‘Hello, Riley Block,’ Bryn said aloud, for Joe’s benefit. She saw his eyebrows rise a little as he glanced in the rear-view mirror at her. ‘How goes the FBI’s dirty work?’

‘Tolerably well,’ Riley said, with just a cool trace of amusement. ‘How goes the death business?’

‘Never a dull moment,’ Bryn said. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’ll be at your office in thirty minutes, we can discuss it then.’ Meaning, of course, that Riley Block, professional paranoid, wasn’t going to talk about it over the airwaves.

‘Fine,’ Bryn said, and hung up. She liked Riley, despite all the reasons she shouldn’t; the FBI agent had started out working undercover in the funeral home, and had almost gotten her killed, but hell, half her friends had that last particular honor. Not to mention at least one relative.

‘So,’ Joe said. ‘Riley. Great. Are we going to her, or is she coming to us?’

‘She’s coming to us.’

‘Want me to shoot her, or bake her cookies?’

‘I’ll let you know,’ Bryn sighed. She felt tired and achy, but that was a side effect of the shot. It was a little more painful this week than last. She wished that Manny would finalize his formula once and for all; she was tired of not knowing how she’d feel, what the side effects would be. They seemed to be getting worse, not better. And that was worrying. It wasn’t as if this process had been tested and FDA approved. ‘Jesus, I’m in a bad mood. Tell me something good, Joe.’

‘Well, the profits are up, I think the sun’s coming out tomorrow, and your six-month anniversary as boss of this flaky outfit is coming up. I’m thinking I’ll get you some flowers.’

She shuddered. ‘Please. Don’t.’ Flowers were one thing they both saw way too much in this business, and besides, he knew perfectly well that the six-month anniversary also tokened something else, something grim: the anniversary of her death.

The anniversary of her murder.

Bryn had been Revived for information, and hadn’t been able to offer much in exchange for her daily infusions of life-support nanites. She’d been lucky to survive at all, she knew that; every extra day of her life – such as it was – had to be looked on as a gift.

But that didn’t mean she had to celebrate it, either.

Joe was quiet for a while, navigating the turns, and finally said, in a totally different voice, ‘Bryn. Don’t do that.’

‘Do what?’

‘Drift,’ he said. ‘It’s a long way back to shore when you do that. And I’m not sure you’re that good a swimmer yet.’

Maybe not, she thought. But one thing was sure: she had plenty of lifeguards.

She shook her head, and went back to checking her email.

CHAPTER TWO

Davis Funeral Home had some of the nicest hillside real estate outside of San Diego … which made it expensive to maintain, but restful and lovely, and as Joe Fideli took the turn up the drive, past the bus stop where Bryn had once had to wait for her transportation, Bryn looked up to enjoy the view. Down the hill was the winding road, leading down toward the spill of pastel houses toward the sparkling bay. Today, the ocean was a dull lead-gray, and the colors were muted, but it was still breathtaking.

The funeral home itself had been built in the twenties, solidly art deco lines and beautiful gardens. It really was gorgeous in its own right, and she still got a mingled thrill and jolt of alarm seeing her own last name on the sign. The old Fairview Mortuary sign had been original to the building, but she’d tried to match the style as best she could. She felt a certain kinship with the old place … after all, she’d come into it a new, eager employee, and died on day one. Like her, the building was a bit of a Frankenstein monster, repaired and brought back to life.

There were two cars parked in the VISITOR spaces. Joe dropped her off at the door and went off to park, and she put her phone away, straightened her jacket, and walked into the lobby.

No Riley Block yet, but there was a whole crowd of people waiting in the chairs near Lucy, the office administrator’s, desk. Lucy was utterly warm and professional, with years of experience in the business; nothing much rattled her.

So when Bryn caught sight of the tight expression on Lucy’s perfectly made-up face, she had plenty of warning for what was to come.

She hadn’t even shut the front door before one of the people who’d been sitting shot to his feet and charged at her, red in the face. ‘You bitch!’

That was a mistake. Bryn wasn’t inclined to let people grab her; she slipped sideways, evading his attempt to seize her arm, and heard Lucy take in a deep, startled breath. Options presented themselves in fast flashes – she could drop him in three moves, even as big as he was; she could get out the door and let Fideli take care of it, which would be efficient and not too kind to the attacker; she could have Lucy call the cops, because as angry as this man was, they might well need them.

But she rejected all that, in rapid succession. There were people watching, and she couldn’t afford to look weak or out of control – or less than understanding. She needed to handle it, quickly and quietly. So instead of decking him, Bryn stepped closer, grabbed his arm just above the elbow, at the nerve cluster, and squeezed. The man – over six feet, and built like he worked out – hadn’t expected that burst of pain, and it threw him off balance … especially when she took his hand in hers and shook it firmly, while still maintaining that painful grip on his arm. ‘Sir,’ she said, quietly. ‘I understand you must be very upset, but this isn’t the place to discuss things. Please, come with me.’

She’d taken the wind out of his sails. Her office was only a few steps away, and she ushered him in, shut the door, and let go of his arm at the same time. He rubbed it reflexively as he scowled at her. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Sit down. Can I get you anything?’

He was still struggling to figure out what had just happened – not the brightest bulb in the box, she saw, but there was no doubting his anger. ‘You can give me back fifty thousand dollars,’ he shot back. ‘Right now. Or I go to the cops, you greedy bitch!’

That made her pause, just for a few seconds, but she got it together and sat down on the sofa at the far end of the office. He glared at her resentfully; she mutely gestured to the couch facing her on the opposite side of the low coffee table. After a few agitated seconds of pacing, he finally took a seat, leaned forward, and continued glaring as if he intended to do it all day.

‘Let’s start over,’ Bryn said. ‘I’m Bryn Davis. I don’t believe we’ve met, sir.’

‘Don’t give me that crap,’ he snapped. ‘Where’s Fairview?’

‘He’s deceased, sir,’ she said. ‘I inherited the funeral home about six months ago. He was my uncle.’ Thankfully, that wasn’t true; she didn’t think there was enough mind-bleach in the world to imagine Lincoln Fairview polluting her family tree. It had been a cover to allow her to continue to operate the funeral home. Fiction, pure and simple. ‘And I still don’t know your name.’

‘Tanner. George Tanner,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘My brother David came here to bury his wife Margaret.’

‘I see,’ Bryn said, in her calmest, quietest voice. ‘How long ago was this?’

‘About a year ago, I guess, I don’t know. I was out of the country. Just got back and found out that my brother paid this rip-off artist Fairview fifty thousand dollars for a funeral! You can’t tell me that’s legit. No way.’

It wasn’t. Bryn recognized the Tanner name; he was right, David Tanner had been a Fairview customer, but the fifty grand hadn’t been to simply bury his wife in style. Most of that had been blackmail money. Fairview’s racket had been simple, but effective – revive the dead with Returné, the drug stolen from Pharmadene Pharmaceuticals’ top-secret trials, then charge exorbitant rates for each additional shot to keep the deceased ‘alive’ … as alive as Bryn was now. At thirty-five hundred a week for the shots, Tanner had hung in there quite a while before running out of resources. But eventually, he’d gone broke, just like the other unfortunates … and his wife had gone back to her natural state – dead.

Not before gruesomely decomposing. But she couldn’t tell Mr Tanner any of this.

Bryn cleared her throat and said, ‘Have you spoken to your brother about this?’

‘David’s dead,’ George Tanner said. ‘Blew his brains out months ago. And I can promise you, I didn’t have him sent here.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said, still calm. She couldn’t afford to get angry, not now. ‘Sir, there were some accounting improprieties that happened under Mr Fairview’s administration, there’s no denying that fact. I can certainly refund you thirty-five thousand dollars right now. Will that do?’

This was, sadly, not her first angry-relative rodeo. She’d been cleaning up after Fairview’s messes for six long months, and she’d learned fast – offering all the money back made people even more suspicious. But offering to return most of it and keeping a reasonable fee seemed to mollify them, weirdly enough. They felt that was more honest.

And just like that, it worked again, because George Tanner frowned at her for a moment, then blinked. ‘Thirty-five thousand back?’

‘Yes sir. If there are expenses greater than fifteen thousand owed for her burial I will happily take that cost. Is that acceptable to you? I can write you a check right now.’

He hadn’t expected that. He’d come prepared to do hand-to-hand combat, and instead she was offering him cash money. After a long moment, he said, ‘Okay. But don’t think I’m forgetting about this. You’re a bunch of crooks, you people.’

‘These accounting issues are exactly why I changed the name and hired new staff. Sir, I must apologize for all that you and your family suffered, and I completely understand your anger and frustration. Please accept my personal apologies.’ She kept on with it, talking softly and calmly until she could see the tension had gone out of him.

Then she wrote him a check and sent him on his way.

So much for turning a profit, she thought, as she shook his hand; Joe Fideli was standing, apparently at ease, not far from her door in the hallway. He sent her a questioning look, and she shook her head to stand him down as Mr Tanner left the building.

‘Lucy let me know you had a hot one,’ Fideli said. ‘Figured you might need a hand, but I see you’re doing fine.’

‘Not so fine for our financial health,’ Bryn said, ‘but it had to be done. Fairview not only robbed his family blind, his brother probably committed suicide over it.’

It wasn’t the first time. When Fairview’s victims stopped coming up with the money, Fairview had stopped giving the shots; it took a horrifying toll. Bryn had been forced to help one of those victims out of her agony, and it haunted her every night in her dreams. She hated to think how many family members had been given that same awful choice.

Fideli said nothing to that, just nodded; he was a good man, but all this was business to him. He wasn’t one of the Revived; he didn’t face the same terrifying dissolution she did if (when) the shots failed her. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Just to make your day more fun, Riley’s waiting outside.’

‘What about the other family that was waiting?’

‘I’m on it. They’re looking over brochures right now. Want me to show her in?’

Not really, Bryn thought, but she nodded. There was no avoiding it, after all. Fideli nodded back and left, and in a few seconds he was holding the door open for FBI Agent Riley Block. She’d changed her hair to a looser, more tousled style around her sharp face; with Riley’s English-rose coloring, it suited her, made her look less severe.

‘You’re not wearing a patch,’ Bryn said, and indicated the guest side of the sofa. ‘I assume your eye’s better?’

‘Much,’ Riley said. ‘Only a few scars from our last little outing together, thanks for asking.’ She sat back and crossed her legs, looking casual and fiercely competent in her blocky pantsuit. ‘I’m back on active duty again. I see you’re looking well.’

Oh, aren’t we cordial today? Bryn thought. She gave Riley a calm professional smile that revealed nothing of how betrayed she still felt; Riley had come to work at Fairview Mortuary under false pretenses, spying on her, working against her, and she’d almost succeeded in destroying Bryn’s life, such as it was.

Just the job, Riley would have said. And she’d be right, that was the maddening thing.

‘So, what exactly do you want, Riley?’

Riley smiled back, just as professionally. ‘I thought the script called for offering me some kind of refreshment before you dive in.’

‘We’re not on a script.’

‘I’d love some coffee.’

‘And there are plenty of Starbucks stores in town. Just get to it.’

Riley considered her for a few seconds, and said, ‘You’ve changed.’

Bryn couldn’t keep a hollow laugh from escaping. ‘You think? All things considered?’

‘Not the physical changes from the nanites,’ Riley said. ‘You used to be less … bitter.’

‘You mean back in the days when I was still in a state of shock and fighting for my life? I’ve had time to reflect. And I’ve taken control. If that seems bitter to you, well, I’ll try to contain my grief. Why are you stalling?’

‘I’m not.’ Riley shrugged. ‘I’m assessing, that’s all. To see if you still seem capable of carrying out what I’m going to ask you to do. “Bitter” sometimes means “tough”.’ She studied Bryn with her head cocked to the side for a long moment. ‘And sometimes it just means fragile. I can’t really afford fragile.’

‘Are you giving me a job or not?’

‘That’s the deal you made with me,’ Riley said. ‘And Uncle Sam. You work for us, doing anything we need you to do. So yes. I have a job for you.’ She reached in the briefcase she’d rested at her feet and unsnapped it to withdraw a thick folder. ‘Sign the paper clipped to the front before you break the seals.’

It was a contractor agreement in wordy legalese, and what it boiled down to was that Bryn was not an employee of the FBI, nor bound by its codes of conduct, but that by breaking the file seals she accepted the penalties for violating secrecy. The penalties weren’t specific. She assumed they included death. Everything in her life did, these days.

Bryn signed, pulled the form off, and handed it to Riley, who filed it back in her briefcase. Then Bryn broke the seals and opened the folder. There was only one page in it, and it was short. She read for a moment, then looked up at the other woman and said, ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘We generally don’t kid at this stage of the process, after the paperwork.’

‘You want me to work with Pharmadene?’ The company still featured in her nightmares in a starring role … especially the clean, white room where they’d left her to rot. The whole idea of going back there made her guts knot up. ‘Are you kidding me?’

‘It’s not the company you knew,’ Riley said. ‘You never have to see the lab area again. Just meet with the CEO in his office. He’s one of ours.’

‘Ours? What, are we a team now?’

‘One of the FBI’s agents,’ Riley clarified without a flicker. ‘He’s in the process of dismantling the company and disposing of the assets, shutting down production lines. More of an accountant than a field agent, really. He’s discovered something in the books that needs some investigation – large payments made to an outside firm that don’t make any sense with how they’re coded.’

‘Don’t you have people to ask questions? I thought that came with the shield and ID card and was, you know, kind of your whole purpose.’

‘There are reasons we can’t approach these people. You’re not FBI, and you’re … uniquely suited to the task.’

As in, if this organization got suspicious and decided to put a bullet in her head, it wouldn’t matter; she’d wake up. Lovely. Bryn flipped pages, not finding anything that made the deal more palatable, and said, ‘Can I refuse?’

That met with silence. She looked up and found Riley watching her with an indefinable chill in her expression. ‘I’d really rather you didn’t,’ Riley said. ‘The consequences would be difficult.’

‘For you, or for me?’

‘Both.’

‘You don’t control my meds, not anymore,’ Bryn said. ‘I don’t need Pharmadene, and I don’t need you.’ It was bravado. Manny was supplying her daily shots, but he lacked the resources to stockpile the nanites; he took the allotments from Pharmadene and modified them, created his own variations. She still needed them, and Riley knew it.

But she was nice enough to ignore that part. ‘You do need Manny Glickman, your little tinkerer,’ Riley said. ‘Like it or not, he’s a point of vulnerability, and if we have to cut you off from him, we will.’

That was unexpected, and sent a cold rush of alarm through Bryn’s body. ‘You wouldn’t. Manny’s one of yours.’

‘Manny is ex-FBI, and frankly he needs meds and professional care, we both know that. But I’m not threatening him. I’m just saying that there are ways we can prevent you from reaching him, and if that happens for long, you know what the consequences would be.’

Bryn knew, all too well. She’d felt it before, in that white room at Pharmadene … the exhaustion setting in, the bruising and discoloration when she slept, the damp skin, the dissolution … it hadn’t gone so far she couldn’t come back, but it stalked her, always, just a step behind. Death in real, waiting form.

Consequences. ‘You’re a real bitch, Riley.’

Riley shrugged. ‘Yes or no, Bryn? All I’m asking you to do is meet with one person at Pharmadene, then do a little fact-finding investigation and report back. It isn’t that complicated. Or that dangerous.’

Bryn closed the folder. ‘Fine.’ She didn’t bother to point out how little choice she had; Riley knew all that. ‘If you threaten Manny again—’

‘I didn’t,’ Riley said. ‘And I wouldn’t. I like Manny, and I respect him. But you know that all I need to do is warn him he’s in danger, and next thing you know he’s moved and left no forwarding address, and you’re roadkill. I’m serious, Bryn. He’s a failure point for you. You need to be careful how much faith you put in him.’

That almost was an expression of … concern. Which seemed very strange, coming from Agent Block. Bryn nodded, and felt the tension in her neck relax, just a little. She crossed to her desk and locked up the file as Riley gathered her briefcase.

‘So,’ she said. ‘I guess I’ll get on script after all. Coffee, Riley?’

Riley smiled, and seemed relieved. ‘Thought you’d never ask.’

When she told her boyfriend, it didn’t go well.

‘Have you gone completely off the ledge?’ Patrick McCallister asked. He didn’t yell it, didn’t even sound angry, but there was a tension in his shoulders that warned Bryn he was very unhappy. ‘You can’t do this for them, Bryn. It’s blackmail – oh, come on, dog, that’s the third time you’ve watered the same spot. Move on.’

He was talking to Mr French, her bulldog, whose leash he held; Mr French’s start-and-stop progress was worse today than usual, and whatever scent he was trying to eradicate by peeing on it was clearly pretty stubborn. Mr French ignored McCallister, nosed the grass, let out an explosive sneeze, and peed again on the same spot. Then he licked his chops, circled the perimeter, and must have decided he’d done his job, because he trotted on. For a few steps, anyway, before snuffling the bark of the next tree.

It was, Bryn reflected, a real test of a good boyfriend that he’d come out in the rain and put up with this. She was carrying the umbrella as the evening shower pattered down; Mr French didn’t much care, but he would later, when she had to towel him off to take him into Patrick’s huge, fancy house. No, mansion.

McCallister gave her a straight-on look, and she read the worry in it. He was a good-looking man, although not drop-dead gorgeous … it was more subtle than that with him. He was usually guarded, but not now, and not with her; she could see his concern, and all that went with it.

Bryn took hold of his right hand – he was holding Mr French’s leash with his left – and leaned forward to brush her lips over his cheek. ‘Blackmail or not, it’s not worth it to test their patience just now,’ she said. ‘Riley was right. Manny’s fragile, and he’d bolt at a real scare. Think about where that would leave us.’

She realized, when he cast her another look, and a devastating smile, that she’d said us and not just me. Not that McCallister shared her … condition, but he was invested in her safety, both financially and personally. Without McCallister, she’d be dead several times over … but that was also true of Joe Fideli, and even Riley Block. The difference was that when she got near McCallister, her whole body came alive and warm. She wasn’t quite prepared to call it love, at least not out loud. They’d started out as adversaries, then allies, then … something else.

And now he was walking her dog. In the rain. And worrying about her. She wasn’t sure what it meant, long term, but it felt so, so good to have him here.

‘Manny’s fine,’ he said. ‘And he’s tougher than he seems, trust me. He can’t be stampeded quite that easily, though they’d like to believe it. They’ve already tried scaring him off a few times.’

‘They did?’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Manny was expecting it. The government would very much like to have total and utter control of the drug, but he’s not about to part with his own formulas.’

‘They’ve got Pharmadene’s. They don’t need his, do they?’

‘They want it all, of course, but their biggest problem is that Pharmadene encrypted the formula and all the developmental records, and the FBI scientists aren’t having much success at cracking it. They’ve got a refrigerated warehouse of the stuff to try to backwards engineer, but it’s getting used up fast. They need Manny’s formulas, and he’s not sharing.’

‘I’m surprised he doesn’t trade it to them and run.’ Manny Glickman was a bone-deep paranoid, but he still held some residual loyalty to the FBI who’d trained him; if he was going to give up the formula to anyone, it’d be Riley Block and her team.

‘He’s not that keen on them right now.’

‘I’m just worried that he could get spooked and leave us.’

‘He’s already moved three times in six months,’ McCallister said. ‘But he always lets me know where he touches down. Don’t worry about him. I’m busy worrying about you. You don’t have to play in the FBI’s snakepit, you know. You don’t really owe them.’

‘I know,’ she said, and squeezed his hand. It was a nice sentiment, for all that it was completely unrealistic. She took in a deep breath; the air was cool and heavy with moisture, and it tasted clean and sweet. They paused beneath another tree as Mr French investigated the area, then finally decided to do his solid-waste business. Raindrops splashed heavily on the umbrella she held over the two of them, and Bryn leaned in closer. McCallister freed his hand and put his arm around her shoulders to pull her closer. They were much of a height, and she could feel the solid muscle of his body beneath the clothes; it woke all kinds of things inside her – hunger, pleasure, memories, longings. Living things. In his presence, at these times, she could forget, a little. ‘Will you promise to keep an eye on me, though?’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he said. He let go of her as Mr French finished up, and fished in his pocket for the plastic bag, which he snapped open with a flourish of his wrist and handed to her.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘I thought you were walking him.’

‘I am doing the manly part of holding the leash,’ he said. ‘But he’s your dog, and I have to draw the line somewhere. This seems like a good place.’

She grinned, kissed him on the lips, and bent to clean up after her dog, who chose that precise moment to shake himself, shedding mud and rain like a sprinkler. Lovely. ‘I don’t know why I put up with either one of you,’ she told Mr French, severely, as she scooped the poop. ‘It’s way too much trouble.’

‘Obviously, because we’re adorable,’ McCallister said, on behalf of Mr French, who barked sharply to support the statement. Or maybe just to indicate his desire to get in out of the rain.

Bryn disposed of the bag in the first bin they passed on the way back to the house, and then stopped to look back. ‘Pat?’

‘Yes?’

‘Since when are there garbage cans on the lawn?’ If you could call the enormous, sprawling, carefully manicured parkland around the McCallister estate something so prosaic as a lawn.

‘They’re for the gardeners,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t have them put in just for you.’

‘Liar,’ she said.

‘If it makes you feel better, garbage day is Thursday. You can roll all the bins to the curb.’

That summed up why she liked him so much, she decided: when he was relaxed, and the armor was off him, he was oddly unaffected by all … this. The sumptuous multimillion-dollar estate. Most people of his particular social status probably wouldn’t have known what day the garbage was taken out any more than they could locate the laundry room – but Patrick McCallister was one of the most practical people she’d ever met. It helped that he didn’t actually own this place; his family had left everything in a trust, and his income was relatively modest, given the lush surroundings. He was more like a caretaker than the lord of the manor – or at least, that was how he felt about it; the odd thing was that he was happier that way. Too much money makes people callous, he’d told her once. I don’t want to take that chance. I’ve seen what can happen.

They walked in companionable silence, Mr French tugging at the lead, and stopped in the mud room to make themselves, and the dog, fit for entry into the house. He didn’t like it, but the simple, physical effort of toweling him off was kind of bracing.

So was the kiss McCallister gave her, warm and sweet, before they went into the more formal areas. McCallister headed towards the library, which was his favorite evening spot; Bryn was following when Liam came down the stairs with a telephone in his hand.

Liam insisted he wasn’t a butler, but Bryn couldn’t help but think of him that way. He was silver-haired, dignified, and even though he didn’t wear butler-ish clothes, he definitely had the manners. And the grace. She’d felt clumsy and glaringly out of her league when she’d first come here, but he’d never made her feel anything but welcome.

Tonight, he gave her a smile and said, ‘I have a phone call for you from someone who doesn’t wish to give a name. Do you want me to decline?’

That call could have been from anyone, but Bryn had a sudden, painful conviction – irrational as it was – that it would be her sister Annalie. The metallic taste of adrenaline filled her mouth. No one had seen or heard of Annie, or her kidnapper Mercer, for more than a month; there were no reports coming in through Pat McCallister’s contacts, or through Joe Fideli’s.

They’d simply dropped out of sight.

She needed to know that Annie was all right, so without a word, she held out her hand, and Liam put the phone into it, then walked away to give her privacy. She headed off in a different direction, Mr French at her heels, and said, ‘Hello?’ Her voice shook a little, more from eagerness than fear. Annie, please let it be you. Please. She’d let her sister down in a huge and awful way; she’d allowed Annalie to come into her life knowing things were dangerous. She’d done it because, in the aftermath of her death and Revival, she’d been feeling so alone, so vulnerable. It was Annie who’d paid the price for that.

Annie too had joined the ranks of the Revived, against her will. And she now depended on Mercer – the original creator of the drug – and his slimy henchman Freddy for daily shots to keep her alive.

Please, Annie, help me find you.

It wasn’t her. In fact, it was a voice Bryn didn’t recognize at all. ‘Bryn Davis?’ A man’s voice, medium register, not much of an accent she could detect.

‘Yes.’

‘I-I’m sorry for calling out of the blue, but I was given your name by a friend. A Pharmadene employee. Like me. Her name is Chandra.’

She turned her back to the doorway, unconsciously shielding the phone from any accidental eavesdropping by Liam or Patrick. ‘I’m listening.’

‘My friend said you run a kind of … counseling service. Support group.’ The man pulled in a deep breath, then let it out again. ‘For those of us who are, you know … addicts.’

‘You mean, you need your hit every day, or you get very sick?’

‘Yes.’

‘Uh-huh.’ There was a desk in the corner of the room, largely ornamental, but it held some writing paper and a pen, and Bryn quickly jotted down the number on the caller ID and said, ‘Do you want to meet somewhere and talk things over?’

‘Yes.’ He sounded relieved. ‘Yes, I need to talk. Please.’

‘Anyplace you feel comfortable that you can get to tomorrow?’

He named a coffee shop she knew, and she wrote it down. ‘I’ll be reading a book,’ he said. ‘Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time.’

‘What’s your first name?’

‘Carl,’ he said. ‘Carl—’

‘I don’t need your last name, Carl, that’s fine. How about 10 a.m.?’

‘Fine. Thanks. I just need – I need to deal with this, and I haven’t been doing a real good job lately. It’s my family. My wife. It just seems …’

‘Overwhelming,’ she said. ‘I know. It gets better when you talk to someone else who can really understand.’

Carl was one of those the government had saved, and kept saving, every day that they provided him with a shot. He probably had the same question Bryn did: how long would that last? Not long, Bryn thought. She wouldn’t tell him that, but she knew the ruthless truth: the government didn’t need these people, other than a key few; they were just excess baggage, and sooner or later, they’d get dumped as the stockpiled supplies of Returné dried up.

These were victims, innocent victims – Pharmadene employees who’d been designated as mission-critical. They’d been ‘converted’ – corporate-speak for killed, then Revived. And now the government was stuck with a bunch of people they couldn’t allow to run around loose and unsupervised, because of their undead status … but there were too many to simply, conveniently, disappear.

Bryn didn’t fool herself into thinking there was any genuine moral or ethical dilemma involved. Just expedience, risk, and reward.

Word was starting to get out, and Carl wasn’t the first Pharmadene employee to cold-call, looking for answers. Bryn didn’t know how many Revived there were out there under the government’s control, and Riley Block wasn’t going to tell her … but this, in a small way, was making a difference.

Though absolutely nobody wanted her to do it. Particularly not Pat McCallister. He thought there were risks – and he was right. She just couldn’t not do it … she felt responsible, somehow, to all these luckless bastards who had (like her) never asked for this sinister gift of pseudo-life, who had lives and families and who had to live a lie now.

Her lies, at least, were less personal.

She finished the call and hung up, and turned to find – no surprise – that Pat was standing there silently watching her. She shook her head. ‘Don’t start.’

‘I won’t,’ he said, but she could tell by the stillness in him that he wanted to. ‘Come on. Dinner. Liam won’t be happy if you let his beef Wellington get cold.’

It was so odd that she lived in a house where beef Wellington was what was for dinner. And it wasn’t even that exceptional.

‘I need to change,’ she said, and kissed him quickly on the way out the door. ‘Be down in a minute.’

Her room still didn’t feel like hers, exactly, although all her stuff was here, or as much as she’d wanted to bring with her … she hadn’t wanted the old, cheap pressboard dresser, the second-hand couch or bed, but she’d brought the old armchair she’d always preferred, and her pictures, mementoes, books, music and movies were all neatly ordered on shelves. The room had come with a television, a vast, flat-screen thing that probably also made coffee, as high-tech as it was, but she was a little scared of it. It had its own curtains to conceal it, so as not to upset the soothing autumnal glory of the furniture and fabrics; they wouldn’t have been out of place a hundred years ago, in this very house.

Her clothes were not great, but they were better than they had been, mainly because she had some grasp now of how to dress for her job. She’d come straight out of the military to her first funeral home job, and wearing a uniform hadn’t prepared her for the challenge of buying suits. She’d gotten some advice from Lucy, the funeral home’s formidable administrator, who’d surely trained with some kind of fashion-related Zen Master.

Bryn stripped off her doggy-mudded jeans and shirt and put on what was casual evening dress here in the mansion – a dress, which was a little sexy, like a first date at an upscale restaurant. She added a necklace that she’d been given by her mom, years ago, and then picked up the nice watch that Annie had given her as her ‘first job’ present.

I wish—

Bryn stopped the thought, held the watch in her hand for a moment, and then put it on with sure, quick snaps of her fingers.

I’ll find you, she promised the absent ghost of her sister. I will. I swear.

But she had nowhere to look, and nothing to go on. If her sister was still out there, still alive, still waiting, Bryn was letting her down with every moment she didn’t find her. Worse, she was letting down her whole family, who didn’t even know Annie was in trouble.

After a deep breath, Bryn went downstairs for a dinner for which she had, suddenly, very little appetite.