It was like babysitting Einstein. A more than slightly clumsy, trouble-attracting, trouble-seeking Einstein. A genius who was too stupid to realize that he wasn't invincible. And somebody higher up had apparently decided that she was capable of keeping him that invincible.

She was convinced someone had it in for Rachel Young, and as each case evolved, it became more and more evident.

But at least the man annoyed her less than he had before. That was one good thing, at least. And if she was completely honest with herself, she did admire him and what he'd accomplished.

So there she lay, in another hotel room in a rinky-dink town, with Dr. Jacob Hood snoring on the other side of the wall. Man was always loud enough to wake the dead. And at least this town had a pretty decent hotel—a resort and casino, actually. Pretty swanky place.

Still, and this was the question that had Rachel wide awake at three in the morning after a grueling day of questioning hotel employees—just how the hell were the bodies going from freshly dug graves to the hotel and resort four miles away?

That's what she and Hood had been called in to determine.

According to Einstein—her private nickname for the good doctor—the bodies were showing signs of being alive after they'd been determined to be death. Rachel didn't believe in the walking dead, but this case was almost enough to convince her of them. Almost.

Rachel prided herself on the belief that there was always a logical explanation for things. As an FBI agent, she'd been trained in the logical. Point A, to point B, leading directly to point C. It wasn't scientific—but it was logical. Rachel needed logical. The walking dead simply wasn't logical.

Rachel jerked, her body going on hyper-vigilance in the blink of an eye. She rolled off the mattress instinctively: her feet were in her shoes, one hand grabbing her gun, the other grabbing her badge within four seconds of her realization.

Hood had stopped snoring, and that could mean only one thing—he'd soon be out finding trouble. Trouble he'd not be able to get out of on his own. When it came down to basic self-preservation, this particular Einstein could be pretty damned stupid.