Micah   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Rose stepped forward, a little slow, a little uncertain, as if he looked more alive than he felt. "Me, a pedophile? You bastard. You knew that George's son was a fucking child molester. You knew, and you helped cover for him. You helped get him his kiddies, until he got too rough and killed that last one."

"You've done something to his mind, Marshal. He's babbling."

"No, Mr. Salvia, the dead don't lie. They tell the absolute truth as they know it."

Micah came to stand beside me, holding his wounded arm up and pressing on it. He seemed as fascinated with the walking dead man as the rest of them. He might never have seen a zombie before, but then he wasn't really seeing one now, not the kind most people call from the grave anyway.

Rose had come to the edge of the circle. "The moment you had Jimmy put the boy in my car, I was dead, Arthur. You might as well have put a bullet in me." He tried to take another step toward Salvia. The circle held, but I felt him push against it. That shouldn't have been possible. No matter how good the zombie, the circle should have been sacrosanct, inviolate. Something was wrong.

I called out, "Fox, your report said he died of natural causes."

Fox came to stand a little closer to the circle but not closer to Rose, as if he found the dead man a little unnerving. "He did. Heart attack. Not poison, or anything like that. A heart attack."

"You swear it," I said.

"I swear," he said.

"Why put Georgie's last victim in my car, Arthur?" Rose continued. "What the fuck did I ever do to you? I had a wife and kids, and you took me away from them the moment that body went in my car."

"Oh, shit," I whispered.

"What's wrong?" Micah asked.

"He blames Salvia for his death. Not the pedophile that hurt the kid." My stomach clenched tight, and I started to pray, Please don't let this go bad .

Fox said, "You'd think he'd blame the guy who put the body in his car."

"He blames Salvia because that's who ordered it done," I said.

"You're scared," Micah said softly. "Why?"

I spoke to Fox, trying to keep my voice low and not attract the zombie's attention. "A murdered zombie always does one thing first and foremost: it kills its murderer. Until its murderer is dead, no one can control it. Not even me."

Fox gave me wide eyes on the other side of the circle. Franklin had moved well back from the circle, from the zombie, from me. Fox whispered, "Rose wasn't murdered. He died of a heart attack."

"I'm not sure he sees it that way," I whispered back.