CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Angelique:
My legs trembled as I ran down the stairs, as the map rolled out in my head again, the same map Ia€?d seen that night in the car when Chaz handed me the marker. I could see the whole city of New Orleans laid out, street names, addresses. And a series of hot pocketsa€”warehouses, buildings, houses, all marked in red.
It was all preprogrammed information. Embedded.
Dizzy, I paused to lean against the wall, tried to figure out what the location tags meant. Maybe they were places I had been in a previous life. The City of the Dead was there too, the brightest of the bunch.
Somebody put this map in my head for a reason. But who and why?
Nausea forced me to buckle over again, to catch my breath.
Pete. It had to be him. He must have been the other undercover agent in Fresh Start. Must have been the one who resurrected me, who told Neville where I was, who made the marker in my hand.
A thunder of footsteps charging down the stairs roused me to attention. A few floors above me, sinister laughter. Gutterspeak. And one voice I recognized instantly. Like a jagged arrow, it ripped through my memories.
Neville.
He must have been waiting for my memories to resurfacea€”
But none of that mattered anymore.
Because right now Neville and his bad boys were tromping down the stairs in my direction. And this wasna€?t some serendipitous coincidence. I was a big part of the puzzle here.
They were after me.
I forced myself to a standing position and started running down the stairs. As fast as I could.