Diana Rowland - How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

It only took a few minutes to get me into the dress, but it was almost half an hour before I could walk comfortably and confidently in the dress-and-heels combo without looking as if I was, indeed, a kid playing dress up. At long last, Naomi seemed satisfied with my appearance, demeanor, and my overall attitude. She handed me a little purse that contained my phone and the usual crap women carried in little purses like this.

“The car is waiting downstairs,” she told me. “It’ll take you right to the Norrington Plaza Hotel, but you need to stop outside as if you’re waiting for someone. We’ll be less than a block away and will bring you an invitation to get inside.”

I clutched the purse and allowed myself to be bundled into the sleek black sedan. Once there I remembered to let the driver open the door and help me out, then couldn’t help but gawk a bit. The hotel dominated the corner, marble and glass, and dizzyingly tall when I craned my neck to look up. On the main street, beautifully dressed people exited vehicles and flowed toward the doors, or paused in clumps of three or four to talk and laugh. I casually wandered toward the small sidestreet that ran beside the hotel and did my “looking for my date” act. A Road Closed barricade stood at the entrance to the sidestreet, and a battered sawhorse and orange plastic fencing marked a night-quiet worksite about a half a block down. A chilly breeze funneled down the street, and I pulled my beaded angora wrap close, glad Naomi had pressed it into my hands at the last minute.

“Look bored and a little annoyed,” Naomi said from a few feet away, startling me. I hadn’t even noticed her there. She was tapping away at her phone and looking like a hipster chick with plenty of disdain for the gowned crowd.

Bored and annoyed. I could do that. Easy enough to turn my nervous jitters into annoyed foot-tapping.

“I’m up,” Naomi murmured, then stuck earbuds into her ears, turned, and walked toward the arriving guests. I tried hard not to be obvious about watching her, but I couldn’t resist. If I hadn’t been paying fairly close attention I’d have never seen it. Naomi, with her eyes on her phone, bumped into a tall blond woman in a skintight dress. Surprise and apologies, and as Naomi backed away she bumped into a man, then turned and stumbled into the woman again. More apologies, followed by Naomi continuing on her way down the street headed away from me.

The whole incident took barely five seconds. The man she’d bumped into continued my way in an unhurried pace. Kyle, I abruptly realized. When he reached me he slipped a stiff postcard-sized piece of embossed paper into my hand.

“Hurry and get inside before Miss Chastity Turner discovers she has a menu for Chinese takeout in her purse,” he murmured and continued walking as if he hadn’t paused at all.

I quickly headed to the entrance then followed other guests across the lobby and to a set of double doors. Once there, I gave the security guard who checked my invitation a smile that I hoped didn’t look too manic, passed through the metal detector, then slipped into the crowd even as I heard a woman’s strident voice behind me, insisting that she was Chastity Turner, and she shouldn’t even have to show an invitation because didn’t the guard know who she was?

Couldn’t be all that special since I had no idea who she was.

Hundreds of people milled and chatted in a gold-wallpapered room about the size of a basketball court while servers in starched white shirts and black ties passed through the crowd with trays of weird-looking bite-sized things and tall, skinny glasses of champagne. I took some champagne and pretended to sip as I mingled and searched. Soft classical music flowed over the crowd and through the hum of polite conversation. Huge posters covered with images of missing children lined the wall near the entrance to the main ballroom, and a sign with “Child Find League” in gold letters hung over the door. It wouldn’t be long until the guests abandoned the reception area and headed into the ballroom to eat and listen to boring speeches, and once that happened any chance I had to pull Jane aside and get her out of there would be gone.

I kept a smile on my face and my mouth shut as I clutched my champagne glass and wound my way through the crowd. The last thing I wanted to do was draw attention to myself by saying or doing the totally wrong thing, and I had no doubt my accent would stick out like a sore thumb.

Finally, I spied her listening to a stick-thin man with untidy grey hair, an interested look on her face as he intently explained something that must have mattered a great deal to him, judging by his intense and excited expression. She looked fantastic as usual, in an elegant sleeveless black gown with a subtle drape of fabric on the right hip. Fighting the urge to bull right on over and drag her out by brute force, I instead did my best oh-so-casual saunter to get behind her conversation partner and into her line of sight. Once there, I gave a small wave to get her attention. She flicked a glance my way, smiled politely and then returned her attention to the man. Crap. She didn’t recognize me now that I looked like a respectable human being.

I edged forward a bit more, then gave a bright smile. “Dr. Pennington!” I chirped, focusing hard on not sounding as if I’d just left the farm. “It’s so good to see you again!”

This time her head snapped around. Her eyes widened in shocked recognition, but she recovered quickly and looked back to the thin man “Would you excuse me for a moment?” Without waiting for a response, she disengaged from him then took my arm to steer me away. “My goodness, I didn’t expect to see you here!”

“Yeah, well, I kind of had no choice,” I replied. Shifting my body to block the view of anyone looking our way, I pulled my phone from my purse and brought up the picture of the invitation with her name on it. “Don’t ask me how I got this, please, but there’s a lot of shit going on, and I’m really worried about you.”

Her forehead creased as she looked down at the picture. “But why would any of it put me in danger? Angel, why on earth are you in New York? And have you been in a fight? It looks as if your jaw is bruised.”

My hand flew to my face. No no no . Shit! It wasn’t a bruise. I clearly felt the weird and spongy texture of pre-rot. On my face. I pushed down my horror as much as possible. “No, I slipped on some stairs, that’s all,” I said, then bulled ahead to get her attention off my jaw. “Have you tried to get in touch with Pietro in the past couple of days?”

“Yes,” she said, apparently accepting my lie, at least for the moment. “His assistant told me he was tied up with an unexpected business trip to Italy.”

I shook my head. “No, he’s in trouble, and this,” I tapped the image on my phone, “makes me think you might be as well.”

Alarm flashed through her eyes, but she quickly masked it. “What kind of trouble? Where is he?”

“It’s really hard to explain,” I said, all too aware how weak that sounded, “but it’s why I’m in New York.” I took a deep breath and set my mouth in a stubborn line. “Look, I’m not going to budge from your side until I make sure you get out of here safely with your own security guy.”

She tried to hide her worry, but it showed in the creasing of her forehead. “Victor is right over there,” she said with a slight nod to her left. I glanced over to see a broad-shouldered man in a dark suit looming silently not far away, his eyes hard upon me. “I need to meet with the Sabers, and then I can leave,” she continued. “I can excuse myself with a migraine.”

I shot a hand out to grip her arm. “No, don’t meet with the Sabers!” Victor took a step forward, and I quickly released her. “Or if you do, don’t go anywhere private with them.”