Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [116]
His gaze locked with mine as he fumbled in his pocket for his cell. “This’ll just take a second.” He flipped open the phone and said, “Lopez.”
I leaned against him and slid my arms around him, feeling his naked skin under my palms and the warmth of his bare chest seeping through my cotton dress. I also felt him stiffen with surprise as he listened to his caller, his dazed, heavy-lidded expression suddenly growing alert.
“When?” he said. “And you’re sure it’s him? Uh-huh. Okay.” Looking at me with obvious regret, he said, “Yeah, I’m on my way.”
I sighed with disappointment as he hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Police business?”
“I’m sorry,” Lopez whispered. He pressed his forehead against mine, his hands caressing my arms. “I’ve got to go.”
I made an involuntary sound of protest and kissed him. He kissed me back.
“No, really, I’ve got to go,” he breathed against my mouth, starting to sound dazed again. “They didn’t even want to call me.”
“Hmm?” I inhaled scent of his skin, still tinged with rum, and nuzzled his neck.
He tilted his head back and tightened his hold on me. “If I don’t go, they’ll use it as an excuse to . . . to lock me out of . . . Mmm.”
“Out of?” I breathed into his ear.
“What? Oh.” His hands were on my back, searching for the zipper of my dress. “Out of the case.”
“It’s on the side.” Our lips met again as I tugged on his hand to show him where to unfasten my dress.
Lopez started kissing my neck—then he coughed a little. He gave up on my zipper and raised both hands to the back of my neck to untie the thin brown string that held my gris-gris pouch in place. “Okay, the bag of peppered frog toes has to go. How can you wear this thing?”
“No, leave it.” I reached up to move one of his hands back to my zipper.
“Esther . . .”
I kissed him again, getting things back on track. He made a sound low in his throat and got serious about what we were doing.
Until he sneezed. Then he gave a resigned sigh, still holding me tightly, and whispered, “I have to go.”
“What case is so important?” I grumbled as I pushed his shirt aside and nibbled on his shoulder.
“What?” he said faintly, his hands moving to my bottom.
I brushed his lips with mine. “The case.”
“I don’t . . . Oh! The case. Right. No. Esther, no. Stop that. Stop right now!” Breathing hard and laughing, he was simultaneously kissing me and trying to push me away. “I’ll be dropped off the case like a bag of cement if I don’t show up now that they’ve found one of the bodies.”
“Bodies?” Startled, I pulled away to look at him.
“Oops. Sorry.” He smiled wryly and touched my cheek. “I guess I’m not so good at pillow talk, huh?”
“What bodies?” I had a feeling I knew.
“Those four bodies that disappeared from the same cemetery where Darius Phelps was buried,” he said, smoothing my hair away from my face. “One of them just turned up.”
20
“Whoa! They found a body?” I asked, stunned by this news.
“Yeah.”
“How could they have found a body?”
“It washed up in Queens.” He was watching me intently now. “They figure the body snatcher dumped it in the river.”
I couldn’t understand what this meant. Why wasn’t the dead guy a zombie? How could he just be an ordinary corpse? Had something gone wrong? Had the bokor lost control of the reanimated slave? Or was Max’s theory wrong?
If so, then . . . “Where are the others?”
“We haven’t found them yet.” Lopez prodded, “Esther? Is there something you ought to tell me?”
“Which one did you find?” I asked.
“The guy with the head injury. Why?”
“Was it the head injury?” I wondered. Had it made him unsuitable zombie material?
“Was what the head injury?” Lopez asked.
But why would the injury matter? Presumably all the corpses were damaged in some way, after all. Darius had died of a ruptured intestine, and that hadn’t prevented the bokor from turning him into a zombie.
“Maybe I’m looking at this wrong,” I realized.
“Oh?” Lopez’s hands were on his hips, and he was studying me with dark suspicion.
“Did this person