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the root and a clump of congealed, black blood filled the dental vacancy. Nixon put the tooth in a plastic container and continued removing the others in turn. He smiled as he worked, looked smugly satisfied as if he’d gotten some kind of payback. “Looks like blended food for you from now on.”
    It never occurred to Zach that the infected had to eat. Cannibals, that’s what Nixon had called them. Bile rose up the back of his throat. “What do you feed them?”
    “This is a hospital, Zach, with no shortage of available flesh.”
     “You’re feeding them patients?” Zach tried not to look appalled.
    “Not whole patients, usually, unless they’ve signed their bodies over for research, and not live ones. Never live ones. They need warm flesh to live or at least they prefer it to be warm.” He tossed another tooth in the bin. “We amputate for medical reasons, replace organs etcetera, and we feed them the old parts, heated and treated with a kind of vitamin that tricks them into thinking its live tissue. So far, they haven’t caught on and it keeps them going so, no harm no foul.” He sealed the container of teeth and dropped them in a biohazard bag before putting them in his lab coat pocket.
    No harm.
    Nixon said it with such conviction there was no way he didn’t believe it.
     

 
     
    7 .
     
    The morning breeze blew through the screen door. The Strandville mountain air was fresher than it ever was in the city. Miranda tucked the cuffs of her blue uniform pants into her boots, laced up, and startled when Iris knocked.
    It only took her one day to re-learn the stairs she hadn’t been up in years.
    “Good morning.” Coffee splashed from the mug in her shaking hand.
    Coffee. As of 4 a.m. when Miranda woke up to work out, the coffee pot was her most missed convenience. She opened the door and helped the elderly landlady inside.
    “I didn’t wake you up going out for my run this morning, did I?” Running was an old habit she was easing back into. Five miles a day—rain, snow, or shine.
    “No, dear. Insomnia. ” Iris whispered it like a confession and handed Miranda the mug. “I wasn’t sure if you took cream or sugar.”
    “Neither, thank you.” The coffee smelled bitter, but was hot and strong. And probably the reason Iris couldn’t sleep. The first sip turned Miranda’s tongue into fleshy sandpaper. She sucked in air to cool off her mouth and grabbed her uniform shirt off the back of the kitchen chair.
    Iris’s expression changed the minute she put it on.
    A woman working a security detail was surely against her antiquated way of thinking.
    “It’s my first day of work,” Miranda said, breaking the ice. “Nixon Center Security.” The stiff embroidered badge scratching her chest through her tee shirt probably already told Iris that.
    “The job you came for?”
    An awkward silence filled the space between them and Iris stared ahead, despondent.
    “I hate to be rude, Iris and I really appreciate the coffee, but I need to get going. I’m due in at 7:30.”
    Iris started to say something, but stopped as if keeping some terrible secret. She wiped a tear from her eye and sighed. “Is there anything I can say that would change your mind?”
     
    * * * * *
     
    A couple of hours earlier, Zach would have believed that no one could be worse to spend time with than Nixon. He would have been wrong.
    Max Reid was every ex-convict stereotype Zach’s mind could conjure. His close-cropped hair did nothing to conceal the black ink tattoo of a pistol and a silencer extending from behind his ear to the base of his skull. One of dozens of homemade-looking tattoos supporting the assumption that the guy was a criminal. Ropes of toned muscle strained the fabric of his short-sleeved uniform shirt and at six feet, four inches tall, a good eight inches taller than Zach, Reid’s formidable presence intimidated.
    Ex-military. Ex-convict. Nixon covered his bases.
    “Hey, Keller, you know the difference between a