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Devil's Bargain
Rachel Caine


Jazz Callender’s whole life just got turned upside down.Her friend Ben’s been convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and Jazz is determined to clear his name, even if it means enlisting the help of dark forces. Enter James, a stranger with a mysterious offer. If Jazz pledges to work for The Cross Society, a shadowy secret organisation, he’ll help her save Ben.But as she’s thrust into a world of psychic powers and dangerous magic, Jazz isn’t just bargaining for her friend’s freedom. She’s bargaining for her soul too. And how high a price is she willing to pay?"'Thrilling, sexy, and funny! These books are addictive. One of my very favourite vampire series.' – –Richelle Mead, author of the international bestselling Vampire Academy series on Black Dawn (Morganville Vampires)'A first class storyteller' – Charlaine Harris










Everything matters…

He came out of the dark, a dull shadow, grey, colourless. Too small a man to be making so much of a difference in the world.

He raised the gun, sighted it on her.

She remembered Simms saying, Everything you do matters.

She couldn’t breathe. Her whole body felt numbed, destroyed by the impact in her chest…

Something was very wrong. Everything was going dark.

Everything you do…

Her heart beat, a hard jerk in her chest. She raised her gun. She couldn’t feel her arm, couldn’t feel anything but disorientation and pain and fear, but then her gun was up and she was looking into his face as his eyes widened.

Everything you do matters.

I know that, she told Simms.

And she fired.




About the Author


RACHEL CAINE was born at the ultra-secure White Sands Missile Range—site of the first atomic bomb tests—and has kept that non-traditional attitude ever since. She’s been a professional musician, accountant, accident investigator, web designer and graphic artist…all at the same time. She currently works in corporate public relations and maintains a full schedule of writing, with her successful Weather Warden series from Roc entering its fourth book and nine other novels already in print. Visit her website at www.rachelcaine.com.


Devil’s

Bargain

Rachel Caine






www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


For all my kick-ass girls.

You know who you are.

Everything you do matters.




Chapter 1


Sol’s Tavern was a place for serious drinkers.

It had no elegant decor, no pretty people sipping layered liqueurs. Sol’s had a bar, some battered stools, a couple of slovenly waitresses, and a surly guy to pour drinks. There was a dartboard with Osama bin Laden’s face pasted on it behind the bar, and for a dollar a throw, you could try your luck; the proceeds went into a faded red-white-and-blue jar that promised—however doubtfully—to go to charity.

But the best thing about Sol’s, to Jazz Callender, was that it wasn’t a cop bar, and she wasn’t likely to run into anyone she’d ever known.

Jazz pulled up a bar stool and set about her business, which was to get so drunk she couldn’t remember where she’d been. She caught the bartender’s eye and nodded at the empty spot in front of her. Their conversation consisted of a one-word order from her, a grunt from him, and the exchange of cash. Sol’s wasn’t the kind of place where you ran a tab, either. Cash on the barrelhead, one drink at a time.

I could get to like this place, she thought. And knew it was a little sad.

As she leaned her elbows on the bar and picked up her Irish whiskey, Jazz scanned the bar’s patrons in the mirror. She didn’t actually care who was there, but old habits were hard to break, this one harder than most. The faces clicked into her memory, filed for later. A couple of unpleasant-looking truckers with bodybuilding hobbies; a fat guy with a mean face who looked as if he might be trouble after a few dozen drinks. He was drinking alone. There were two faded night-blooming women in low-cut blouses and dyed hair, years etched as if by acid at the corners of their eyes and mouths.

Jazz was still young—thirty-four was young, wasn’t it?—but she still felt infinitely older than the rest of them. Seen too much, done too much…she wasn’t going to attract a lot of attention, even from the bottom-feeders in here. Especially not dressed in blue jeans, a shapeless gray sweatshirt with an NYU logo, and clunky cop shoes left over from better days. Her hair needed cutting, and it kept falling in her eyes. When she looked across at herself in the mirror she saw a wreck: pale, raccoon-eyed, wheat-blond hair straggling like a mop.

Her eyes still looked green and sharp and haunted.

Sharp…that needed to change. Quickly.

She tossed back her first whiskey, clutched the edge of the bar tight against the burn, and made a silent again gesture at her glass. The bartender made a silent pay me first reply. She slid over a crumpled five, got a full shot glass of forgetfulness and slammed it back, too.

The door opened.

It was gray outside, turning into night, but even the glimmer of streetlights was blocked by the man coming in. Tall, not broad. Her first thought was, trouble, but then it turned ridiculous, because this guy wasn’t trouble, he was about to be in trouble. Over six feet and a little on the thin side, all sharp angles, which would have been okay if he hadn’t come dressed in some self-consciously tough leather getup that would have looked ridiculous on a Hell’s Angel. He didn’t have the face for it—lean and angular, yeah, but with large, gentle brown eyes that scanned the bar skittishly and looked alarmed by what they saw.

His badass-biker leathers were so new they creaked.

Jazz resisted the urge to snort a laugh and repeated her pantomime with the bartender. Behind her, she heard the squeak, squeak, squeak of the new guy’s leather as he walked up, and then he was climbing onto a bar stool next to her.

“Love that new-car smell,” she told the bartender as he poured her a third shot. He gave her a cynical half smile and took her five bucks. The fool did smell like a new car—also some kind of expensive aftershave that reminded her of cinnamon and butter—very nice. So maybe he did have some sense after all, biker leathers notwithstanding. Idiot. She imagined what kind of welcome he’d have gotten if he’d walked into a bar like, say, O’Shaugnessey’s, over on Fourteenth, where the cops congregated. They’d have probably directed him—with velocity—to the gay leather bar down the block.

Her comment hadn’t been any kind of invitation to talk, but the guy swiveled on his bar stool, held out a big, long-fingered hand, and said, “Hi.”

She looked at the hand, which was well manicured, then glanced up into his face. His soulful brown eyes widened just a little at the direct contact. Now that he was closer, she could see that he looked tired, and older than she’d thought, probably close to her own age, with fine lived-in lines at the corners of his eyelids. He had a nice, mobile mouth that looked as if it wanted to smile and didn’t actually dare to try under the force of her stare.

Normally, she might have thrown him a break. Not today. And not in that getup.

She turned back to her drink. The whiskey was setting up a nice nuclear fire in her guts; pretty soon, she’d start to feel relaxed, and after throwing a few more peat logs on, she’d start feeling positively good. That was why she was here, after all. It was a private kind of ritual. One that didn’t involve making new friends.

“I’m James Borden,” he said. “You’re Jasmine Callender, right?”

The hand was still out, holding steady. It occurred to her a half second later that he shouldn’t know her name. Especially not Jasmine. Nobody called her Jasmine. She felt tension start to form in a steel-hard cable along her back and shoulders.

“Says who?” she asked the mirror. No eye contact. He was staring at the side of her face, willing her to turn around.

For a second, she thought he was going to answer the question, and then he reverted to a lame-ass pickup line. “Can I buy you a drink?”

He shoots, he misses by a mile. “Got one.” She nudged her full glass with one long, blunt-nailed finger. “Blow, James Borden.”

He leaned closer, into her personal space, and she smelled that aftershave again. The urge to move into that warm, inviting scent was almost irresistible.

Almost.

“Jasmine—” he began.

She turned, stared him in the eyes, and said, “If you don’t want to get blood all over that nice new outfit, you’d better back your biker-boy wannabe ass off, and don’t call me Jasmine, jerk.”

He leaned back, fast. His expression was one of shock for a second, then it shut down completely. His eyelids dropped to half-staff, giving him a belligerent look. Good. He matched the leathers better that way.

She held his gaze and said, “If you have to call me anything, call me Jazz.”

“Jazz.” He nodded. “Got it. Right. Like the—okay. I was sent to deliver something to you.”

And the cable along her spine ratcheted tighter, tight enough to crack bone. God. She wasn’t carrying a gun, not even a pocketknife. Even her collapsible truncheon—a girl’s best friend—had been left on the hall table at home. Great. Of all the nights to tempt fate…

He must have read it in her face, because he smiled. Smiled. And the smile matched the eyes, dark and gentle and completely not right for a guy pretending to be a Hell’s Angel reject.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad,” he assured her. “In fact, I think you’ll find it pretty good. Not a subpoena or anything.”

He started to unzip a pocket on his leather jacket. The zipper was stiff. As he tugged at it, she asked, “How’d you find me?”

He didn’t look up. His head stayed down, but she saw tension accumulating in his shoulders for a change. “Sorry…?”

“How’d…you…find…me.” She kept her voice cold and flat. “You follow me from home? You watching my house?”

“Nothing like that,” Borden said. “I was told where to find you.”

She rejected that one out of hand. “I’ve never been here before, asshole. How could anybody tell you to come here to find me?”

He conquered the pocket’s zipper and wrestled out a red envelope. “Here,” he said. “I’ll wait until you read it.”

“Because?” She didn’t take the envelope.

“Because you’re going to have questions once you do.”

He gestured with the envelope again. Big, red, square, like a thousand Valentine cards she’d never gotten over the years, but it was long past Valentine’s Day and she was in a far-from-romantic mood.

She let him hang there for a good thirty seconds, watching his outstretched hand slowly sag with rejection, and thought, Well, what the hell, at least I can throw it back in his face if I actually take it.

She was reaching for it when Borden lowered the envelope and sat back, staring over her shoulder.

She felt alarms going off in the back of her head and risked a look. A shadow loomed behind her.

Two shadows, actually. Big ones.

The weight-lifting trucker twins had taken an interest.

“Ain’t that sweet?” one of them said in a high, girly voice. He was wearing Doc Martens boots, battered blue jeans and a faded T-shirt that read Kinnison’s Feed & Supply. A three-day growth of straggly beard. Watery eyes. “Faggot’s giving the lady a card.” He made wet kissy noises.

His buddy was a grimy Xerox copy, except his T-shirt read Highway to Hell and was ripped at the sleeves to show off massive biceps. Tattoos, of course. You could never have too many of those. His mostly involved thorns, blood drops and naked women. The AC/DC fan ambled around Jazz and followed up his buddy’s comment with a shove to Borden’s shoulder. Borden rode the motion and slid off the bar stool. He wasn’t a small guy, and he had good bones, but he wasn’t a fighter, Jazz could see that at a glance.

“Hey!” Jazz said sharply, standing up, as well. “Back off, guys. I don’t want any trouble.”

“You don’t,” Borden said under his breath. “Right. What was I thinking?”

“Yo, leather boy, shove your cute little Valentine card up your ass, you’re bothering the lady,” said the one whose T-shirt advertised Kinnison’s. He was the power of the two; Jazz knew that from a half-second glance. He had intelligence in those narrow light eyes, and a kind of lazy satisfaction. This was what he’d come here for, to find somebody to pound over a few drinks. She was just a convenient excuse. Lady. Yeah, right. She looked the part.

Borden’s voice had gone dangerously soft, his eyes closed and dark again. “Is that right? Am I bothering you, Jazz?”

“Woman like this don’t want no candy-ass butt boy,” Kinnison’s said over her shoulder to him. “Fine piece of ass like this, she needs some real companionship.” He was deliberately staying behind her, pressed close. His idea of courtship would be asking what kind of condom she’d like, flavored or ribbed. If he was even that considerate.

“Funny,” Jazz said, and downed the last glass of whiskey she’d ever drink in Sol’s. “I started out a lady and now I’m just a fine piece of ass, and you haven’t even bought me a drink yet.”

“Shut up, bitch, nobody’s talking to you,” AC/DC snarled, and put one hand the size of a canned ham on Borden’s chest and shoved. Borden, who must have been seduced by all that over-the-counter toughness he was wearing, shoved back.

Mistake.

“Stay out of it,” Jazz said, brisk and succinct, to Borden. She needn’t have bothered; Kinnison’s stepped around her and landed a fat punch to Borden’s jaw.

Ouch. She heard the crack of bone on bone, and Borden staggered back, off balance.

“Hey!” she snapped. “Give the bitch some attention, why don’t you?”

Kinnison’s, pulling back for another punch, hesitated and turned back around to face her. Grinning with unholy glee, he said, “Yeah, okay, baby, let’s play.”

He shot a sideways look at AC/DC, who went after Borden. No doubt in Jazz’s mind that he was thinking he’d backhand her and put her in her place, then get on with the serious beat-down of his only real opponent—the man.

She smiled. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Let’s play.”

She spun on the bar stool, clocked him with an elbow hard to his nose and felt the sharp crack of bone and cartilage. She didn’t stop to let the pain register; she straightened her arm and muscled into a spin as her feet hit the floor. Kinnison’s twisted away from her in a corkscrewing spiral, off balance, and as he came around roaring, she sidestepped his rush, grabbed a handful of greasy hair and slammed his forehead into the tough oak bar. Twice.

When she let go, he slithered limply down to the floor. It had taken all of about two seconds, and he was bloody and utterly unconscious.

Borden was just now gaining his balance, shaking off the punch and staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. Tactical error, because it gave AC/DC the opportunity to pound a fist straight into his gut, double him over and send him flying at the far wall, hard. AC/DC followed him, wading in with lethally steel-toed Doc Martens to the ribs.

Jazz, blood already pounding red-hot, didn’t hesitate. She left Kinnison’s limp body and leaped over a fallen chair, landed flat-footed as a cat in front of AC/DC. He yelled something obscene in her face; she didn’t even note the words, just the reek of bad breath, bad teeth and alcohol.

Watch him. Watch…

He rushed her like a charging bear. She swept out of his way and left him to trip over the fallen chair, but he was fast, faster than she’d thought and not nearly as drunk as she’d hoped. He swerved. Before she could turn she was engulfed by his brutally strong arms, rippling with thorn tats and overendowed girls.

Borden, down on the floor, coughed out a mouthful of blood and tried to get up.

“Stay down,” she said. Weird, how calm her voice could sound at times like these. She might have been asking him to pass the salt. “I’ll be done in a second.”

AC/DC’s breath pistoned her ear, and she felt the suggestive grind of his hips against her.

“In your dreams, asshole,” she said, and simply let her knees go, dragging him over. When his center of gravity was higher than hers she flowed forward, then quickly reversed, whipping his own momentum against him into a shoulder roll. He grabbed a handful of her hair on the way over, and she ended up on his back. He flailed and bucked, trying to throw her off, but she had her arm around his neck and she applied pressure, cutting off blood flow until his body went slack.

And then she kept on holding the pressure, fury mounting. Stop it, you’ll kill him, something told her, but it was a small voice, and she wasn’t really in the mood to listen anyway.

She kept choking him until a baseball bat slammed splinters out of the wood floor right next to her.

She looked up to see the bartender/owner—Sol himself?—his face purple with fury, pull back for a straight-for-the-bleachers swing at her head. She let go and held up her hands. He didn’t lower the bat as she got to her feet.

“Cops are on the way,” he said, which was the longest speech she’d heard from him yet. “Take your boyfriend and get the hell out. Don’t come back.”

Jazz fought off an adrenaline-hot wave of dizziness and went to where Borden sat crumpled against the wall. He was probing his bleeding mouth and looking dazed. She grabbed a leather-clad elbow and dragged him to his feet.

“Let’s go,” she said, and guided him toward the door. He yanked free after a couple of steps and staggered back for something.

The red envelope, lying on the floor.

He tucked it into his jacket and followed her out, stumbling over the two prone bodies.

Outside, the night was cool and quiet, stars shining in a cloudless sky. A blurry bass beat thumped from a dance club down the street, and the sidewalk was thick with teenagers trying to look sullen while they waited their turn at the red velvet rope. Jazz turned left, heading uptown. Borden caught up with her in a couple of long-legged, stumbling steps. He was wiping blood from his face with a clean white handkerchief.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your lip…”

“It’s nothing,” Jazz said, and tasted blood. She dabbed at the cut on her lip and couldn’t remember when she’d picked it up. “How about you? No broken bones?”

“Bruised ego. Among other things.”

“You know, the tough-guy act? Really not all that convincing.” She stepped out to wave down a cab, but it sped up and passed her by. Maybe the problem was the ad for Armor All lurking next to her. He really did look like he’d been whomped pretty good. She muttered a curse and took the handkerchief away from his face to inspect him with merciless authority. “You’ll live. You’ll have a nice shiner, though. And you should see a dentist, he popped you in the mouth pretty good. What about the ribs?”

He winced when she probed them, but they didn’t feel broken. Just bruised, probably. She pulled up his shirt to see bruises forming across smooth, trembling lines of muscle. His skin felt flushed and velvet soft.

“Hey!” He smacked her hands away. “I’m all right.”

“You were lucky,” she said, unapologetic. “If you’ve got a perforated lung, fine, go aspirate blood in peace. And don’t bother me anymore. Thanks for ruining my night. I was starting to like that bar.”

She hailed another cab, but it passed her by. Probably a bad block. She decided to keep walking, put some more distance between herself and Sol’s. Any cop with half a brain would be able to pick Borden out of a crowd from a description, wearing that stupid Harley ensemble.

Speaking of which, Borden wasn’t going away. As she started walking again, he fell in behind her, her own personal black-leather shadow.

“Stop following me.”

“I can’t.”

“Trust me, you can. Just quit putting one foot in front of the other.”

He kept following. She walked faster. That wasn’t an issue for him, considering the length of his legs. She rounded on him after another half a block, fists clenched, knuckles wincing at the pressure. “Are you deaf? Get lost, idiot! I know you speak English!”

His nose was still bleeding, but only a trickle. He wiped it absently and held out the envelope. “Take it.”

“Oh, Jesus!” she yelled, out of patience, then grabbed it and waved him off. “Fine, whatever.”

He didn’t move.

“Oh, for God’s sake—look, you’ve done your duty, I’ve got it, whatever the hell it is, now would you please just—”

“Open it,” he said again, and this time he sounded like he meant it. “I’m not going anywhere until you do.”

She eyed him for a few seconds. His gel-spiked hair really was stupid, but the leather might have looked halfway decent on somebody it suited; he’d probably bought it because he’d been spooked at the prospect of coming to the bad side of town and trolling tough streets. Leather had probably seemed like a smart choice. And hell, it had probably kept his ribs from breaking, so maybe he’d been right after all.

“Lose the jacket,” she said, and turned and walked away. She heard the sound of metal zippers and jingling chains, and glanced over her shoulder to see that he’d taken off the jacket and had it draped over one shoulder. A black stretch shirt, black leather pants…yeah, that was all right. Maybe the leather pants were little more than just all right, not that she’d ever admit it.

“I mean it,” she said. “Lose the jacket. Dump it, unless you want us both to get picked up for assault.”

She pointed at an alley, where a homeless guy lay rolled up in newspaper.

Borden stared at her. “You’re not serious.”

“You want to talk to me, get rid of the thing. The cops will be all over us if you drag it around.”

“Do you know how much this thing cost?”

“Don’t care.” She resorted to flattery. “You look better without it.”

He hesitated, then walked over and handed it to the homeless guy, who clutched it in utter shock and hurried off into the shadows, probably intent on selling it, because he knew he’d never be able to hang on to it on the streets. Jazz wished him the best deal, a warm bed and the rest of the Irish whiskey she knew she wouldn’t get to drink, at least tonight.

She wished Borden would move closer so that she could lose herself in that smell again, warm and cinnamon-soft. The tide of adrenaline was dropping, and it left her feeling weak and shaky.

The paper felt stiff and warm in her hand.

Borden silently trailed her as she took a right turn at the corner, up Commerce, and headed for a Starbucks half a block up. He’d look all right in a Starbucks, she wouldn’t look wrong, and nobody looked for fugitives among the latte-and-mocha set.

The place was packed, full of chatting couples and groups of friends and a few dedicated, lonely laptop users looking pale and focused in the glow of their screens. She pointed Borden to a side table, near the corner, and ordered two plain coffees from the barista. He’d probably prefer a soy half-caff mocha-something, but that wasn’t her problem, and she wasn’t that committed to the conversation. Even the regular coffee cost an arm and a leg, and she hardly had a lot of money to burn, considering her state of unemployment didn’t look likely to end soon.

Besides, since she couldn’t go back to Sol’s, she’d have to save her booze allowance for a more expensive bar.

Settled at the table, drinking hot strong coffee and feeling the whiskey start to retreat from the field, she turned the envelope over and over in her hands. Plain block printing on the outside read “Jasmine Callender.” She didn’t recognize the hand, and held it up to Borden. “You write this?”

He shook his head.

“You know what’s in here?”

“Nothing that will blow up or infect you,” he said. He sounded tired. Adrenaline fading. She knew the feeling. “Hey, by the way, thank you. But I could’ve—”

“Taken care of them? Yeah, I know.” Male ego stroking. She was an expert on the subject, after years with McCarthy…no, she wasn’t going to think about McCarthy. She didn’t take her eyes off the envelope. If she’d still been on the Job, she’d have bagged it and dusted it for prints, but there was no point. She no longer had access to those kinds of toys. “Who gave this to you?”

“My boss.”

“Who is…?”

Borden sighed and sipped his coffee. He made a face—she’d been dead right about his preferences—and watched her without replying.

Just get it over with. She slid a fingernail under the envelope flap. Tugged experimentally. It was only lightly sealed, and came open with a crisp pop. Despite his assurances, she lifted the flap carefully.

No booby traps. There was a thick parchment sheet of paper inside, folded to fit the envelope. She extracted it, using her fingernails, and put the envelope aside. Wish I had chopsticks, she thought as she made do with a couple of coffee stirrers to hold down the edges and smooth it out.

“What are you doing?” Borden asked. He sounded annoyed but interested. The table creaked as he leaned his weight on his elbows, craning for a look.

“Not getting my fingerprints all over it,” she said. “Just in case.”

The letterhead was Gabriel, Pike & Laskins, LLP, with an address in New York City, on Central Park West. Nice, old-fashioned raised printing, none of that inkjet stuff. The cream-colored paper had thickness and texture.

It read:

Dear Ms. Callender:

Our firm has been engaged by a nonprofit foundation to offer you a business opportunity. Our research has shown that you have made inquiries with lending institutions toward opening a private investigation agency, which inquiries have been denied. The nonprofit agency wishes to make funding available to you, under the condition that you accept a partnership agreement with another qualified individual.

The terms of this agreement will be discussed in a separate communication should you indicate a desire to proceed. As a good-faith gesture, the firm has provided the name and vitae of the individual our client requires you to accept as a partner in this start-up business, as well as a check made out in both of your names in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars (U.S.), which should be used to defray expenses related to establishment of the partnership, including but not limited to rent, office equipage, and hiring of staff, as well as an advance against salary.

Please communicate your reply via the individual who has been entrusted to deliver this communication. We thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

Milo Laskins, Partner

Gabriel, Pike & Laskins, LLP

Jazz read it again. Then again.

And slowly tented the envelope to look in it again.

“It’s there,” Borden said. “The check, I mean.”

“How do you know?”

“I put it in myself.”

She reached in and pulled out…a business check. Thick, official stock, emblazoned with the Gabriel, Pike & Laskins, LLP, name and address. Private bankers. Printed with a neat, computerized “one hundred thousand and no/100.”

Made out to Jasmine Callender and Lucia Garza.

“Here,” Borden said, and slid over another envelope—slightly bent from the beating he’d taken, but bloodstain-free—that when opened proved to have some kind of résumé with the name Lucia Garza in bold at the top. She didn’t read it.

Her eyes went back to read the check again.

One hundred thousand and no/100.

Borden was still coming up with things, like a magician without a top hat…a business card, this time, in cream-colored stock that matched the letterhead and the check. Gabriel, Pike & Laskins, LLP. Under that, in smaller letters, James D. Borden, Attorney-at-law.

Jazz couldn’t help it. The whole thing was so absurd, so downright idiotic, that she started laughing, and once she had, she couldn’t stop. She clutched Borden’s card and laughed until her sides hurt and her eyes watered, with his frown grooving deeper every second.

“You’re—” She finally managed to gasp it out. “You’re a lawyer?”

He folded his arms and sat back. He looked tougher in the black knit shirt than in all that load of leather and zippers; he actually had some biceps to flex, though nothing like the trucker twins back at Sol’s. She remembered the washboard-tight abs, and thought he was probably more of a boxer or a runner than a weightlifter. Some strength in him, though. Not that the trucker twins wouldn’t have kicked his ass until it fell off, but…

He derailed her train of thought by saying, in an aggrieved tone, “Yes, I’m a lawyer. What’s so funny about it?”

Which set her off again, gulping down giggles, wiping tears from her eyes. His vanity hadn’t just been wounded, it was on life support, but she couldn’t help it. The idea that a lawyer had come all the way from New York City, dressed in Harley make-believe, to deliver some ridiculous, asinine joke was…

“Was it Brown?” she finally asked, once she was sober enough to get through the question. “Welton Brown? Big guy, snappy dresser, terrible sense of humor?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m asking who put you up to it. Was it Brown? I knew he’d go to extremes for a prank, but…”

James Borden, attorney-at-law, wasn’t just looking wounded now, he was starting to look pissed off. She preferred that, actually. Vulnerability was something she always found disturbing. Aggression, that was right up her alley.

“Lady, were you in the room back there when I was getting my ribs kicked in? Would I do that for a practical joke?” Borden skidded his chair back from the table and stood up, leaning over with both hands flat on the wood. “All right. Look, I’ve just about had it. I caught the crying-baby express flight from New York. I’ve been insulted, hit, kicked, lost a jacket I spent a thousand dollars on…”

She swallowed another giggle. “Seriously? A thousand? Damn. Why’d you go and listen to me, then?”

“… and all to hand you the chance of a lifetime. If you don’t want it, fine. I’ll just go home and tell my boss you’re not interested.” Borden grabbed for the check. She slapped her hand down hard on it.

“Don’t get cranky, Counselor,” she said, and nodded at the chair. “Sit.”

He stared at her, leaning close, for long enough that she thought she might have pushed him too far, but then his elbows unlocked and he lowered himself down to the seat again. All was not forgiven, but he was willing to give her another chance.

Which she promptly screwed up by saying, “So who’s Lucia Garza? Some scumbag client of yours that you suddenly need to move out of town, set up with a new identity, and find a place to launder her drug money?”

He actually blinked. “Are you always this unpleasant with people trying to do you a favor?”

“Only when they’re lawyers.”

Borden stared at her for a long, long moment, then stood up again. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said. “I’m going to the hospital to get my ribs taped now. If you don’t want the check, fine, tear it up. If you don’t cash it, we’ll assume you’re not interested. If you do, Miss Callender, please be advised that we consider cashing the check a binding good-faith contract, and believe me, we have the resources to enforce it. Call the number on the card and talk to Mr. Laskins before you do anything stupid, since you obviously don’t think I can advise you.” He pushed the chair in, neat and courteous. “And hey. Have a nice day.”

He was walking away when she said, “Hey. James Borden. Get back here.”

And for once, somebody didn’t follow her orders.

She stared, bemused, as he walked up to the door. He actually opened it.

He was going to just…leave.

She fidgeted with his card, drummed her fingers on the down-turned check—one hundred thousand and no/100—and made a split-second decision.

“Borden,” she called again. “Hey, Counselor. Come back. Please.”

He was already going. He really was leaving. She couldn’t believe it.

She got up and went after him, caught his arm and dragged him to a stop just outside the door. “Seriously,” she said, and let go of him when she caught sight of his face. “I’m sorry, okay? Can we talk?”

“You going to insult me again?”

“Maybe,” she said. When he gave her a disbelieving look, she shrugged. “What, you want me to lie to you?”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Yeah, well, so’s this whole situation, if you don’t mind me pointing it out. Look, come on back, we’ll talk it over. Okay? Besides, you barely touched your coffee.”

“I hate black coffee.”

“Fine. Get whatever you want.”

She watched in bemusement as he ordered a half-caff caramel macchiato, but restrained herself from making any jokes about it. Barely. He walked back over to the table with her, carrying his cup, but he didn’t sit. He said, “This isn’t going to work if you don’t take me seriously, Jazz. I need you to do that. Can you?”

He sounded deadly earnest. She looked up into his eyes and saw somebody looking back with a surprising amount of will and dignity.

“Can you?” he repeated. “Because I’m one taxi ride away from being out of here for good.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Sorry. I’m a little freaked out.”

“Me, too,” he admitted. “It’s been a long day. Even without getting rescued by—” he stepped on what he’d been about to say, which proved he had some brains, and substituted “—by a client.”

She was just about certain he’d been going to say by a girl, and he wouldn’t be the first. McCarthy had been furious, the first, oh, ten times it had happened. It had taken him a while to get over the hurt macho feelings, but then he’d realized what kind of a weapon his partner could be, when pointed in the right direction, and they’d worked together like a finely tuned machine.

Until everything had broken beyond repair.

Stop thinking about McCarthy. Just stop.

Borden sat down in the chair on the other side of the table. His body language was still tense and guarded, but they’d reached détente again. She read the letter again, then slid the sheet of paper out that had the name of Lucia Garza at the top of the page.

Experience

Former Special Agent, Office of Special Investigations, USAF. Accomplished over 800 criminal investigations with a primary focus on drug enforcement.

Former USAF Security Police Officer, Law Enforcement Supervisor. Duties involved military law enforcement, traffic investigation, crime-scene processing, and a member of several Special Weapons & Tactics Units.

Former Security Manager, Helios Aircraft—Special Projects Division. Security oversight of 300 scientists and engineers working on “Black” Top Secret Projects.

USAF OSI Academy, Washington, D.C.

FBI Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), Ft. Riley, KS

Federal Polygraph School, Ft. McClellan, AL

Texas State Police Certification, Ft. Worth, TX

Federal Undercover Agents Course, Washington, D.C.

Antiterrorism and Defensive-Driving Course, Summit Point, WV

“Damn,” Jazz murmured. “If you made this up, you’ve got some balls, James Borden. These are serious credentials. I think they stick you in prison for even thinking about making this stuff up.”

“She’s good,” Borden agreed, blowing on his pseudocoffee. “You should talk to her.”

“Assuming she’s not made of—” Jazz waved the résumé “—paper.”

This time, he refused to take the bait, and just smiled. Slightly. “From everything I’ve read about you, you’re supposed to be one hell of a detective. Call her up. Judge for yourself.”

“I’d rather talk to her face-to-face.” Always a better read off of people, looking in their eyes, seeing their body language. She realized that by saying it, she’d admitted she was interested, felt a bolt of anger at herself, and watched Borden take a noncommittal sip. “Unless that’s a problem.” Her voice had taken on that mutinous edge again. She didn’t like being manipulated.

He didn’t seem to care. “You’d need to work that out with Lucia. Look, my flight back’s in about three hours, and you know what security’s like these days. I need to clean up, get my ribs checked, change out of this—” he gestured at the outfit, which really, now that she’d gotten used to it, wasn’t half-bad “—and get to the airport. So, Jazz, in or out, please. Laskins is going to want an answer when I hit the ground at JFK.”

“I’ll call you.”

“Seriously. The minute I touch down, my boss will be bugging me for an answer.”

She flicked the card with her fingernail. “Your cell phone’s on here?”

“Yeah. But…”

“I have to check it out and think about it.”

“Can I at least tell him—”

“You can tell Mr. Laskins that I think he’s probably full of crap, but I’ll check the information out,” she said. “And if anything—anything—doesn’t smell right about this, I’ll shred this check, send you the remains, and come to do the same to the both of you. How’s that?”

She saw a genuine spark of humor flare in his eyes and liked him a lot, in that second.

“It sounds like a threat,” Borden said. “And I take it seriously. I saw you put those guys down. That took, what, ten seconds? Maybe fifteen?”

She took a big gulp of coffee to sober up from the wattage in his smile. “The whiskey slowed me down.”




Chapter 2


Borden left, heading for the airport or the hospital or maybe going to shake down the homeless guy for his thousand-dollar leather jacket; she was actually sorry to see him go. Maybe. A little.

She caught herself taking deep breaths, soaking up the remaining few hints of his aftershave, and mentally kicked herself. You don’t need this, she told herself. Really. Your life is way too complicated as it is.

And it wasn’t like she didn’t have other things to think about, for God’s sake. A sister she hadn’t talked to in six months after their last fight. A father puttering around on the family farm, still vital but growing old. A brother in the Navy who deserved a few more letters at the very least. She had a life.

Come on, Jazz. Having a family doesn’t mean you have a life. Only relatives.

She eyed the letter again, fingered the check, reread the résumé. Folded everything together and stuck it back into the red envelope, then tucked it in her waistband, under the sweatshirt. She worked her knuckles experimentally and found that the bruising was pretty minimal—funny, she didn’t even remember throwing a punch, but that was how fights worked—and the abraded skin would be okay after a day or two. All in all, not the worst bar fight she’d ever had.

Kinda fun, actually. She wondered if that made her dangerous, or just masochistic.

She fished her cell phone out of its cradle on her belt, hesitated, and then dialed the number on the rГ©sumГ©.

Two rings on the other end. Three. And then a brisk, contralto voice said, “Diga-me.”

“Lucia Garza?”

“Yes. Who’s this?” The tone was courteous but not welcoming.

If I hang up now…hell, she’ll still have my number. Jazz took in a breath and said, as professionally as possible, “My name is Jazz Callender. I got a letter from—”

“Gabriel, Pike & Laskins?” Lucia finished. “Yeah, me, too. It said you’d be calling. Something about a partnership agreement.”

Jazz went still and felt her eyes half close as she thought it through. “You must have gotten my résumé, then. I got yours.”

“I did.” Nothing in the voice at all, and certainly no approval or offers of friendship. Lucia liked to keep her feelings to herself. “I apologize, but this is very strange for me. I’m uncomfortable with talking to a stranger on the phone about—”

“You’re uncomfortable? Join the club. I just had my evening interrupted by some lawyer with a cock-and-bull story and a nice-looking—” she edited her usually street-worthy vocabulary with a conscious switch “—presentation. How do you know these people? You owe them money, or what?”

She didn’t mean to lash out, exactly, but Lucia’s careful, measured voice had pissed her off.

“I don’t,” Lucia replied. The voice was still level and calm, but there was a floor of steel underneath. “And I don’t know them any more than I know you, Detective.”

“Former detective,” Jazz shot back. “Which you’d know, if you’d read the damn résumé.”

There was a brief, dark silence, and then Lucia’s cool voice. “A word of advice, Former Detective, there’s no need to take your anger out on me.”

“What?”

“You’re obviously angry at being manipulated, and—”

“Great. A fucking psychologist, you are.”

“Don’t interrupt me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Apparently no one’s ever explained that it’s rude,” Lucia said. “Like your general attitude.”

“Are you done? Because I don’t want to interrupt your apology, which I’m sure is coming any second now.”

“This isn’t going to work for me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like you.”

“Well, I don’t find you a bowl of cherries, either, Lucy!”

She was talking to dead air. Lucia Garza had hung up on her.

Shit.

Jazz angrily slapped the cell phone back on her belt, tossed the coffee cups and headed home. It was a six-block walk, and night had well and truly fallen; overhead, stars struggled to outshine the blank glare of streetlights. Kansas City wasn’t much of a walking town in this part of the city; it was a mostly industrial area, and while there were plenty of cars, she was the only one on the sidewalk.

That was all right, she was probably better off on her own just now. She walked faster, burning off adrenaline and anger, feeling the red envelope hot against her stomach.

Just as well, she told herself. This was a total waste of time, anyway. Why the hell would a lawyer from New York fly all the way out to the sticks to hand-deliver something like this? And get the hell beat out of him in the process? What had he really been after? She hadn’t given him anything, except a promise to think it over and call him.

A nonprofit organization? What the hell was she, some kind of charity case? What did they want?

He’d been told where to find her. How was that even remotely possible? He had to have followed her…but if she’d failed to notice a guy in that outfit following her on a deserted street, she was worse off than she’d thought. The jingle of chains alone should have given him away. He sounded like Santa Claus’s sleigh.

But if he hadn’t followed her, then how had they known where to find her? She’d never been to Sol’s. They—whoever they were—couldn’t have just sent him there, it was impossible. No, he must have followed her, she decided. Either he was a lot better than she thought, or she’d been preoccupied with her own distress and had just plain dropped the ball.

Mystery solved.

Well, not quite. What had all that drama achieved, exactly? Why would they have put on the whole dog-and-pony show in the first place?

To get me to call Lucia Garza.

She stopped walking, frozen in her tracks as her mind raced. Maybe that was all they’d wanted. If Garza was dirty, she’d just had a minutes-long conversation that was on her cell phone records, and dammit, this could have been a setup, couldn’t it? The cops who’d put away McCarthy were still on her ass, looking for any reason to pull her in for questioning. She’d had the fight in the bar. Borden—if his name was really Borden—would be tough to find, if all this was just an elaborate scheme. Maybe the paper and the check weren’t genuine. Shit, for all she knew, they’d had them printed up under her own name.

Paranoia, she told herself, and forced herself to start breathing again. You just saw McCarthy today. That makes you paranoid, and you know it.

Ben McCarthy had told her to watch her back. She should’ve listened to him. Yeah, listen to the convicted murderer. Good plan.

She wished the sarcastic monitor in her head would shut the hell up. McCarthy was no murderer. The case had been a crock of shit, and in time, they’d figure it out, have him exonerated and released from that hellhole. McCarthy had been a good partner and a hell of a cop, and he wasn’t guilty. Couldn’t be guilty, because if he was, that meant she was a poor enough judge of character not to have realized that her own partner, her friend, had calmly pulled the trigger on three people and then walked away, covered it up, and lied for nearly a year. And used her to do it.

Stop thinking about Ben. That was why she’d gone to Sol’s. It was a kind of punishment she meted out to herself for making the trip to Ellsworth. She always felt safer and stronger there, talking to him; he could always make her believe that the world was wrong and the two of them were right.

It was only after she got out into that wrong world again that she began to doubt, and the darkness started to creep in, and she felt the guilt and shame and horror again.

And went in search of something to drown it in.

Even if McCarthy was right, that didn’t improve things for her, because if they could get to him, they could get to anyone. She wished she could call him. If his enemies had set this up, then she needed McCarthy’s clarity of mind to tell her what it meant.

Right now, it was just a heap of fragmented facts looking for context. McCarthy had always been the logical one, the one to meticulously pick through the pile and fit pieces together until the picture started forming….

Her cell phone rang. She grabbed for it, startled, and checked the number before thumbing it on.

Lucia Garza was calling her back.

“Yeah?” she asked cautiously.

“Look, I’m sorry. It’s Jazz, right?”

“Yeah,” Jazz said, and started walking again.

“I got out of line, and I apologize. It is strange, though, don’t you agree?”

“I do.” She struggled with it for a few seconds, and admitted, “I was out of line, too.”

Another brief silence. “You think you’re being played?”

“Probably.”

“Yeah, me, too.” The sound of papers rustling. “I don’t like this phone thing. It’s a paper trail. They can interpret it however they want.”

“They, who?” Jazz asked.

“They anybody.”

“You’re not paranoid—”

“If they’re really out to get you,” Lucia finished. “Sorry for interrupting.”

“Hey, that’s your freak, not mine. Me, I hate being lied to.”

This time, she did hear an emotion in the voice. “We have something in common after all.”

“So.” Sol’s was ahead. Jazz quickened her pace to get past it faster. “You want to do this thing? Talk face-to-face?”

There was a long, silent pause, and then, “I don’t know. Yes. I think so. Otherwise—”

“There’s a check,” Jazz said. “I have it, it’s made out to us both. For a hundred grand.”

“For a what?”

“One…hundred…thousand…dollars.”

“I didn’t think you meant cents,” Lucia said. “Is it good?”

“I’ll check it tomorrow, but yeah, I’m kind of leaning toward the idea it is.”

“Why?”

She couldn’t really say, until she tried to put it into words. “The guy they sent. He was…credible.”

“Really,” Lucia said doubtfully. “If we’re thinking about any of this, I will insist on seeing the law firm. In New York. And talking to this lawyer you met, face-to-face.”

Something lightened in Jazz’s guts, because those were the exact same steps she would have taken, in Lucia’s position. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Sounds good.”

“But first, we need to meet. In person.”

“When?”

There was a pause, and then Lucia said, with a hint of a laugh in that smooth, professional voice, “What’re you doing tomorrow?”

“Wait…you’re in Washington, right?”

“I travel,” she said. “Happens that I’m in transit right now after a case in Dallas. I can reroute through K.C. Can you meet me at the airport?”

“Sure.” This was moving a little fast, but hell, Jazz’s schedule for tomorrow had mostly been devoted to sobering up from tonight. “Call me with the flight number.”

“Jazz,” Lucia said. “You hate Jasmine, right?”

“Wouldn’t you? Fucking Disney movies.”

Lucia laughed and hung up without saying goodbye.

Jazz clipped the cell phone back on her belt and walked the rest of the way to her apartment in silence, thinking.

Then she wrote her brother a letter.

Just in case.

The call came at seven-thirty the next morning. Jazz was already up, showered and dressed, making her shaggy hair look a little less like a mop and more like an actual style. In honor of Lawyer Borden, she’d used hair gel. She’d chosen a plain brown shirt, blue jeans, and her ubiquitous cop shoes, deliberately unimpressive but clean and neat. ID and the red envelope in her purse, along with paperwork that showed she’d been a decorated Kansas City police detective, until six months ago.

She’d included the paperwork about the retirement, too, but she figured that if Garza was anything like she sounded, she’d already have the full story from three credible sources.

At the first chirp of the cell phone, Jazz picked it up and said, “Garza?”

“Holá,” the other woman responded. She didn’t sound awake. “It’s early.”

“And here I figured you for a morning person.”

“Not even close. Look, my plane’s landing at ten-thirty. Meet you at baggage claim, right?”

“Flight number?” Jazz wrote it down, clicked the on-off switch on the pen nervously, and then said, “How will I recognize you?”

“I’ll be the one standing on one leg, singing �The Star Spangled Banner,’“ Lucia said grumpily. “We’re cops, right? We’ve got to have a sign?”

True enough.

Jazz put out food for Mooch the Cat, petted her on the way out the door, and went to bail the car out of the parking prison where she stored it.

The drive out to Kansas City International was about fifteen miles, but it took longer, of course; traffic on Broadway, then on I-29. Jazz hated driving. Other drivers made her crazy. McCarthy had always gotten behind the wheel when they’d gone on calls, picked her up at her apartment, navigated the streets with casual ease and no sign at all of irritation. When she’d been forced to do it, she’d been a snarling bundle of nerves, arrived at crime scenes angry and wired. It had been a job for McCarthy to calm her down….

She flicked the thought of Ben out of her head, hit the turn signal, and exited for MCI. Parking was a nightmare, of course. She hated that, too. And parking garages. She ended up taking a distant spot, because she damn sure wasn’t cruising the lot for anything closer. The walk would help her calm down, anyway; she didn’t want to meet Lucia Garza looking sweaty and wild-eyed.

She checked her watch. Ten-thirty on the dot. A couple of jets were coming in for landings; unless there had been a miracle and the plane was early, she should be right on time.

Jazz followed the signs to baggage claim. She arrived at ten-forty, just as the flight number flashed on the screen and one of the carousels began to clunk out luggage to a growing crowd of travelers.

She scanned the group without focusing on anyone in particular. Nobody stood out.

No. Someone did. Jazz fixed on a woman who was standing very still, watching luggage bump its way around the segmented track. Her arms were crossed, and she was leaning against a pillar. There was a single black laptop bag over her shoulder and a black ripstop nylon backpack between her feet.

Jazz’s cop brain relentlessly photographed her, chronicling long dark hair, glossy and straight; a model’s golden, flawless skin. She was tall, long-legged, and dressed in what looked like a designer black pantsuit with a close-fitting white shirt under the coat.

As Jazz watched her, the woman’s head turned, and her dark eyes fastened on Jazz. The same merciless evaluation, fast and accurate. Jazz wondered what the final catalog entry had been, but then Lucia pushed off and walked confidently through the crowd.

They both stopped, regarded each other for a few seconds, and then Lucia extended her hand. No rings on her fingers. Short, well-maintained French-manicured fingernails with plain gloss polish. Jazz felt like a clumsy lump of dough next to her, but she held eye contact as she shook, feeling strength in the grip but no challenge.

“Hey,” Lucia said simply.

“Hey,” she replied. They both stepped back and considered each other for moment, and then Lucia smiled. It was a cop’s smile—cynical, secretly amused, as familiar to Jazz as breathing.

“Nice to meet you,” Lucia said. “Let’s find a place to talk.”

They settled in some bright orange battered preformed chairs at the rear of baggage claim, out of the way of the loitering travelers. Lucia crossed her legs, rested an arm on the back of an empty seat and kept scanning the crowd. She looked casual and elegant, and very alert.

“Good flight?” Jazz asked. Lucia made a so-so gesture. “Nice weather?”

“Fair skies.”

“Good. Now that we’ve got the small talk out of the way…” Jazz pulled the envelope from her pocket, handed over the letter and the check, and watched Lucia read them. Lucia, immediately absorbed, dug a similar red envelope from her bag and handed it absently on, as well. Jazz scanned it. Apart from the fact that this one had been mailed from New York, had a different home address, and didn’t include a check, it was pretty much the same song and dance.

Lucia’s carefully manicured fingernail flicked the check.

“It’s genuine,” Jazz said. “I called the bank this morning.”

“Shit.”

“No kidding.”

Lucia shuffled the pages to her rГ©sumГ©. Her dark eyes widened, and she shot Jazz a look.

“What?” Jazz asked.

She held up the paper. “This isn’t the public résumé. This one’s what I give to enforcement agencies. It’s got confidential information on it.”

“So how did these guys get hold of it?”

Lucia shook her head. “Last place I sent this résumé to was the FBI.”

Jazz raised her eyebrows. “They turned you down?”

“Not yet.” She shrugged. “But I’m not so sure I want to go back into government service right now. I’d like to do something with a few less rules. So, you said this guy seemed credible to you? How so?”

Jazz thought about Borden, his geeky leathers, his soft, sharply intelligent eyes. Maybe the getup hadn’t been clueless, after all. Maybe he’d been deliberately concealing just how smart he was.

“Just a feeling,” she said. “But then, I’m not always the best judge of character.”

She flung it out there to see if Lucia would react, and she did, looking up and locking eyes with her for a few deep seconds before turning her attention back to the paper.

“I assume you’re referring to your partner,” Lucia said quietly. “Yes. I know he was convicted.”

Sitting in that airless courtroom, watching the jury shuffle and fidget in their chairs, watching them avoiding McCarthy’s eyes, Jazz had known before the forewoman read out the verdict. She’d known, and Ben had known, too. Twenty-five years in prison. He’d be an old man when he got out. If he ever did. Cops were hunted in there, and Ben had always needed somebody to guard his back.

“He’s not guilty,” Jazz said, mostly just to hear herself say it, to hear how it sounded out loud after all these months.

Lucia didn’t look up. “You’re sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“The evidence looked pretty damning on paper.”

“Lots of guys on death row with paper evidence,” Jazz shot back, feeling something tighten in her guts. “McCarthy didn’t kill anybody. I’d have—”

Known. That was the mantra that rocked her to sleep at night. I’d have known. All those nights, sitting together, talking, pouring out our lives to each other, I’d have known if he was capable of cold-blooded murder.

Lucia didn’t comment again. She finally looked up and said, “What do you think about all this?”

Jazz shrugged. “I think it’s worth a conversation.”

“Because?” Those elegantly shaped dark eyebrows rose just a little.

“Because even though you shop at Ann Taylor for your suits, I can’t afford to. I need the money. And I need to set up shop with decent resources so I can find out what happened to McCarthy, and maybe keep it from happening to me.” Jazz glared at her, daring her to find fault. “I need the money. That’s it.”

Lucia’s lips curved into a smile. “That’s it? You’re not curious?”

“About?”

“How someone came to learn so much about us. About how they had my home address, which is not something just anyone can learn, believe me. I guard my privacy closely. About how they knew you needed the money, and I needed the challenge.”

Unwillingly, Jazz thought about the tinkle of the bell at Sol’s, and James Borden arriving in his un-apropos leather with a message addressed to her. “And how they knew where I’d be,” she said. “They know a hell of a lot.”

“More than I think either of us is comfortable with,” Lucia finished. “At least until we know just how they got their information, and why.”

It was like talking to a mirror, Jazz thought. A mirror in which she was better-looking, taller, had better clothes, and knew how to apply lipstick.

Lucia was smiling at her, eyes shining with something that might have been similar feeling, but then her eyes wandered past Jazz, focused on something behind her. Jazz resisted the urge to turn as the woman’s smile shut down and left her face blank and watchful.

“Did you bring backup?”

“What? Hell, no. Who would I bring?” She wasn’t exactly rolling in allies at the moment.

“Two men have been watching us since we met,” Lucia said. “Were you followed?”

“What is this, I Spy? I don’t know. I don’t usually look for tails when I go on perfectly innocent meetings.”

“If it was perfectly innocent,” Lucia said patiently, “your lawyer friend wouldn’t have gone through this cloak-and-dagger routine to put us together, now, would he? Disgraced former detective and a national security risk?”

“Excuse me?” Her hackles came up at the disgraced part. She thought about the second part of Lucia’s question a second later, with a blink of surprise. “National security what?”

“Let’s just say that there are things I know that the government would rather I didn’t. Being watched is nothing new for me.”

“Then maybe these guys are your problem, not mine.”

“Except they followed you into baggage claim.” Lucia’s body language hadn’t altered at all—still languid and relaxed. “Let’s try something. You get up and walk away. Go to the bathroom. Don’t look back. I’m going to head outside to the taxi stand. Let’s see who they tag.”

Jazz frowned. “I thought we were going to talk about this deal.”

“And we will. Later.” Lucia uncoiled herself from the chair and held out her hand. Jazz, rising, automatically took it. “Watch your back.”

“But—”

Too late. The woman was walking away, parting the crowd with the sheer force of her personality. Jazz shoved her hands in her pockets, rocked back and forth on her heels for a second, and then took off at right angles, heading for the bathroom. Her peripheral vision found the two men—identical buzz cuts, one blond, one brown. Both had the fit look of guys who could run down a suspect without any trouble.

She walked right past them, but they didn’t follow. In fact, they didn’t follow Lucia, either. They stayed where they were.

She risked a glance back as she pushed open the restroom door. One of them was talking into his sleeve. Hidden microphone, very government-issue.

She fished her cell phone out of the cradle, hit Recall and found the number, then dialed.

“Yes?” Lucia’s cool voice.

“They’ve got radios. There are probably spotters on you out there. Watch yourself.”

“Did they follow you?”

“Not into the ladies’ room. Hang on.” Jazz uncoiled the earpiece and plugged it in, hooked the cell back in its cradle. “I want my hands free.”

“Good idea.” Lucia sounded amused. “I’m staying in plain sight. At least it’s difficult to start trouble in an airport these days.”

“Yeah, let’s hope. So. What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know that I have one, actually.”

“We can’t hang out here all day. When you think it’s safe, hail a cab and take it to my apartment.” She gave her the address. As she was telling her cross streets, the door to the restroom banged open; Jazz stopped talking and began washing her hands, staring into the mirror.

“Jazz?” Lucia’s voice buzzed in her ear. “Someone with you?”

The woman who walked around the corner looked sleek and businesslike, wearing a tailored black jacket and black jeans, but there was something in her eyes, something.

“Is something wrong?” Lucia asked.

Jazz reached for a towel. As she bent over, the woman angled toward her, moving fast.

“Might be,” Jazz said, and ducked.

The punch—intended for the back of her neck—sailed past to crash into glass. Jazz spun, still crouching, and drove the heel of her hand into the woman’s solar plexus, sending her flying and gasping for air. She moved for the door—

And it opened to admit the two crew cuts from baggage claim.

“Hey!” Jazz said loudly. “This is the ladies’ room, guys—”

One of them grabbed for her arm. She danced backward, almost tripped over the woman, who was coming to her feet with a brutal look on her face, and retreated to the empty narrow area between the stalls and the wall. Not a lot to work with, but at least it was defensible, they could only come at her one at a time, and, Jesus, how had she gotten into this mess, anyway? She’d been minding her own business, dammit, drinking her whiskey and drowning her sorrows, and now she was about to get the crap beaten out of her in a bathroom for a woman she’d barely met and a check she hadn’t even cashed.

Lucia Garza said in her ear, “I’m coming. Don’t do anything brave.”

“Don’t worry,” Jazz said out loud, and ducked a punch. “Brave is definitely not my style.”

The bathroom was just too narrow for a decent fight, but at least it meant they couldn’t use their numbers effectively, either. She backed up into the narrow aisle in front of the stalls until her back was against cold tile and snap-kicked toward the face of the man coming at her. It was a feint. When he flinched, she hooked her foot behind the bend of his left knee and pulled. His head hit the wall with a thick sound, and he went to one knee.

She put him down with a fist to the temple.

She looked up to see a blur coming at her and instinctively put up a parrying arm. The kick caught her on the forearm, and damn, it hurt; she gritted her teeth against the urge to yelp, wrapped her arm around the foot that had just come at her and yanked. Hard.

Girlfriend in the pantsuit slipped and nearly went down, caught herself and shifted her weight forward, slamming Jazz back against the wall, then breaking free with a twist of her hip.

Nobody had a gun, knife, or even a taser. That was good, Jazz thought. Any kind of weapon would have ended this quick and ugly. At least this way, she’d have a much slower defeat. Time for lots of things to happen, including miracles.

The second man shoved the woman out of the way and lunged to fasten his hands around Jazz’s throat. He ran into her fist with his Adam’s apple instead and fell back, gagging.

As if they’d gotten some secret signal, all three of her attackers suddenly stopped, backed off—even the one still shaking off her whack to his temple—and just looked at her.

It was weird.

No, it was creepy.

“Later,” the woman said, and moved to the door. The two men followed her. Single file, straight out into the airport.

Thirty seconds later, the door banged open, and Lucia Garza entered, looking ready for anything—hands up, weight balanced on the balls of her feet, which in those shoes was something of an accomplishment. She looked around in a lightning-fast analysis, then focused on Jazz and raised her eyebrows in an eloquent what the hell? motion.

“Party’s over,” Jazz said breathlessly. She was shaking, buzzing all over. Strangely ecstatic. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, looking for blood, and remembered that they hadn’t actually laid a hand on her. Well, girlfriend in the pantsuit had kicked like a mule…Jazz skinned up her shirtsleeve and looked at the impact mark. Yep, that was going to bruise like a son of a bitch.

“What the hell happened?” Lucia asked.

“You tell me, you’re the superspy. When people attack me, it’s usually during the commission of a felony, not just because I took the wrong sink in the ladies’ room.” Jazz pushed away from the support of the tile wall and walked to the mirror.

Her face was vivid and flushed, her eyes fever-bright. Even her hair looked better.

Damn, she enjoyed this stuff. That was probably sick.

“You,” Lucia said, as if she’d read her mind, “need a hobby. Something nonviolent. Maybe macramé.” She sounded amused, though. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah,” Jazz agreed. “Probably a good idea.”

Walking with Lucia wasn’t like walking alone. For one thing, Jazz was used to blending in, slumping, avoiding people’s eyes. McCarthy had always laughed about it, called her a chameleon; he’d had the traditional cop presence and radiated an implicit threat even when sitting and reading the newspaper. But then, McCarthy hadn’t worked undercover. She had.

Lucia Garza’s aura was more like a runway model’s. She drew stares as she stalked through the baggage-claim area, lean and elegant in her designer clothes. Jazz still felt invisible, but not in a good way. Next to Lucia Garza, most women would fade into wallpaper.

“Which way?” Lucia asked, sliding on sunglasses as they exited the building. Jazz nodded toward the distant parking lot. She wished she’d thought to pack some shades, but then, hers would have been clunky blue-blockers from a flea market. Lucia’s had the sleek, finished look of sculpture and probably cost more than a car. Not that she was comparing or anything.

Lucia’s bag went into the trunk, and Jazz scanned the area for signs of her restroom visitors. Nobody in sight. She had a prickling on the back of her neck, though, and wasn’t surprised when Lucia, opening the passenger side, said, “They’re watching us.”

“Where?” Jazz ducked inside. They slammed doors at the same moment. Lucia jerked her chin a bare quarter inch in the direction of a white panel van sitting on the garage roof about five hundred yards away. As Jazz looked at it, it silently backed out of sight. “Son of a bitch. Okay, I give up. What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you know more than I do!”

Lucia brushed long, dark hair back with a distracted air, and frowned. “I picked up a tail at the hotel in Dallas,” she said. “Nothing obvious, but it was there. Professionals, like the guys in the airport just now. I don’t know who they’re working for. Although I have no idea why professionals would try to take you out in such a risky public setting.”

“Maybe it isn’t about me at all. Maybe it was related to your case. Whatever it is you’re working.” She didn’t ask, but she left the door open in case Lucia wanted to share.

She should have known better. “No. It’s not germane,” Lucia said. “That was all done when these people showed up. And they arrived within an hour of the letter arriving at my hotel. Those things have to be connected, especially if they’re here, following you, as well.”

Jazz started the car and backed out of the parking space.

“Where are we going?” Lucia asked.

“I don’t know about you,” Jazz replied, “but I’m already tired of being the one who doesn’t know anything. I intend to change that.”

She drove downtown, to the business district, then off into a less Fortune 500, more industrial neighborhood. Office buildings went from sky-piercing steel and glass to squat, square, converted warehouses. She pulled in at the grimy curb next to one and picked up her cell phone. As Lucia watched silently, she paged through numbers until she found the one she wanted and connected.

“Yeah?” A cautious voice on the other end.

“Manny, open up,” she said. “It’s Jazz. I need an opinion.”

“Drive-through’s closed.”

“Give me a break.”

“You didn’t pay me for the last opinion.”

“I thought that was a freebie!”

“Jazz, Jazz…I don’t give freebies and you know it.”

“Fine, I’ll pay you this time. Double.”

Silence. He hung up. Jazz waited for a few seconds, and smiled as the grimy garage door a few yards down the street began rattling slowly up.

As soon as her car passed under it, the door reversed course and began jerking and clattering back down again. Manny didn’t like open doors. “Who’s Manny?” Lucia asked. She didn’t sound bothered, for which Jazz had to give her points. If the situation had been reversed, Jazz was pretty sure she’d have been firing off questions every ten seconds and jumping at every noise.

“Old friend,” Jazz said, which didn’t really answer anything, and killed the engine. She kept the headlights running, bathing the big concrete room in white light. The few spotlights were feeble and far between. Manny also wasn’t big on paying electric bills.

She got out of the car, leaned against the cool metal and waited with her arms folded. The car shifted as Lucia got out on the other side.

“What now?”

“We wait,” Jazz said. “Oh, and keep your hands where he can see them. He’s a little twitchy.”

“Twitchy?” Lucia echoed grimly. “Wonderful. I already like your friend.”

“Trust me. When someone’s out to get you, the best friend you can have is a paranoid nutcase with skills.”

“Amen to that,” said a dry, raspy voice out of the shadows. “You know the rules, Jazz. Weapons on the ground.”

She spread her jacket. “No weapons.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Not.”

“Then who are you and what have you done with Jazz Callender?” He sounded amused for a second, and then his raspy voice turned serious. “I mean it. Knives, batons, tasers—everything on the ground, or I turn around and walk.”

“Manny, I got nothing. We came from the airport, for God’s sake. You don’t run around armed there, in case you missed the events of the last few years.”

Manny edged out of the shadows. He was a big man, not very clean, with a greasy tangle of black hair that he kept cut above too-large ears. Muddy green eyes that with a little polish would have knocked a girl dead, but when combined with his unattractive personal grooming habits, a perpetual slump to his broad shoulders, and a habit of flinching from loud noises…no, Manny wasn’t exactly prime date material.

Not that Jazz was in the market.

Manny was watching Lucia. “What about her?” he asked, and pointed. Jazz wasn’t exactly a makeover fan, but even she winced from the state of his cuticles. “She armed?”

“She,” Lucia said with absolute precision as she took off her sunglasses, “is always armed. So you can just assume that and move on.”

Manny was already shaking his head, violently. “No, no, no, Jazz, you know I don’t do—I don’t let—no, no, no—”

“Hold on.” She shot Lucia a look. Lucia tilted her head and gave her one right back, and this one clearly said I’m not giving it up for your paranoid weirdo friend. Jazz lowered her voice and walked around to talk to her. “Manny’s a little freaky, but he’s a good guy. Plus, this building has the best security in the city. He built it himself. He’s really good at it. But he’s got quirks, okay? You need to cut him a little slack.”

“Why do we need him?”

“Because I say we do,” Jazz said. Simple. “You can either trust me about this, or we can get in the car, drive out, and go our separate ways. Your choice.”

Lucia’s dark eyes studied her for several long seconds, and then those elegantly outlined lips curved into a smile. “All right,” she said, and reached to her back with one hand.

Gun. Damn, Lucia had a gun. It was a small one, a .22 automatic, combat black. “How the hell did you get that through airport security?”

“I didn’t,” she replied, and put the weight of it into Jazz’s hand. “I sent it ahead to a courier and had him bring it. I palmed it on the way out of baggage claim from the man with the briefcase.”

Jazz hadn’t even noticed a man with a briefcase, except as part of the general wallpaper. There must have been a hundred fitting that description. She blinked, the weight of the gun heavy and warm in her palm, and then nodded as if she’d known that all along. Not that Lucia appeared fooled, considering her smile. “Uh-huh. Anything else?”

“Search me,” Lucia invited, and spread her arms.

“Oh, this isn’t going to be that kind of relationship, believe me.” Jazz bent over and put the gun on the ground, then held up both hands in the air and raised her voice for Manny. “Yo! Gun on the ground! We’re cool now, right?”

Manny was dithering, half in shadow, half in the whitewash of the car headlights. Clearly spooked. “I don’t know, Jazz…you know I don’t like it when you bring strangers…”

“She’s not a stranger,” she lied. “Look, Manny, you do this for me and you get a free lunch. Plus the usual fee.”

He stared at her for a long, long moment. “I don’t do criminal. You know that.”

“It’s not a criminal case, Manny.”

“No murders. No rapes. No violent crimes.”

“It’s maybe fraud, and that’s a maybe.” She was seriously stretching the truth, and saw Lucia watching her with slightly raised eyebrows. “You won’t need to do anything but give me results. No depositions. No trials.”

He swallowed, wiped his sweaty face with his grimy sleeve and nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed. “But only because it’s you, all right? Follow me, ladies.”

Lucia started to pick up the gun. Jazz kicked it under the car with a skitter of metal on concrete, then reached through the window to shut off the headlights. Darkness closed in around them.

“You don’t want to do that,” she said. “Really. You don’t. Manny may look like some squirrelly little pushover. He isn’t.”

They followed Manny to the stairs.

Upstairs was a different world. This didn’t come as a shock to Jazz, but she saw it register on Lucia as Manny keyed a code into a lock and opened the door at the top of the stairs.

Because beyond was a state-of-the-art science lab, segmented by movable clear glass partitions. Beyond that was a thick leather couch and widescreen HDTV that doubled as Manny’s living area. Green hospital curtains hung on suspended rods hid the open-forum bathroom—which, Jazz had cause to know, was an interior designer’s wet dream of gleaming marble, Jacuzzi tub and spa shower—and the bedroom, which she’d only glimpsed but looked good enough that if she lived here, she’d never get out of bed. Manny shooed them away from the lab part of the room and toward the living room. He combed fingers through his disordered hair and avoided their eyes.

“Um, yeah, sorry, I don’t get a lot of—visitors—sit. Sit down.” He moved newspapers and piled them on a glass side table, then picked up the remote control and clicked the TV to some high-definition channel doing a travelogue of China. No sound. “So. Um, tell me what you want. Oh, and hi, by the way. I’m Manny.”

That last went to Lucia, who was standing, staring in bemusement. Jazz patted the couch. Lucia sank down gracefully, hands in her lap. Studying Manny like a new and alien life-form.

“This is Lucia,” Jazz said. “I’ve got two documents for you, plus envelopes. I want the full ride. Everything you can give me.”

Manny couldn’t seem to tear his attention away from Lucia. Apparently, his hormones weren’t dead. “Takes time,” Manny said.

“I know it does.”

“Also, the full ride doesn’t come cheap. And hey, I’m only saying that because, you know, I’ve got to pay for upkeep around here, supplies, stuff…”

Jazz winced inside, but smiled and nodded. “How much?”

“Two documents? Three grand. That includes my time and materials, by the way. Plus, you get to, um, stay here if you want. Wait on the results.”

Hotel Manny. He did have a nice place—scrupulously clean—but she could see Lucia was starting to wish she’d crawled under the car to retrieve the gun. “That’s a nice gesture, but how about if we come back later? You call me when you’re ready with the results?”

“Um…sure.” Manny stared at her with his slightly off-kilter eyes. “Jazz?”

“Yeah?”

“Is this about Mac?”

“No. It’s not about Mac.”

“�Cause you know I’d do it for free if—”

“It’s not about Mac. But I’ll tell him.” Ben McCarthy, she knew, would shake his head and roll his eyes, but he’d appreciate it somewhere deep down. Manny was a twitch, but he was an honest one. In some ways, he was also the bravest guy she’d ever met.

She took the plastic bag out of her jacket and handed over her letter; Lucia did the same. Manny raised the evidence bags, thick eyebrows going up, and stared at Jazz through the plastic. “You’re sure it isn’t murder or something? �Cause I’m getting a weird vibe.”

“I’m not a cop anymore, you know that.”

“Yeah, well…still. It looks hinky, Jazz. There’s blood.”

“That falls under the heading of bar mayhem, not murder. Two guys tried to start something with me. They’ll live.”

“But you want DNA profile on the blood, right?”

“I want every scrap of information you can pull off of either one of those, right? Everything.”

Manny nodded. “Okay. Everything.”

“Got any idea how long…?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“You’re not outsourcing, right?”

“Everything gets done here,” he said, and gave her an almost charming grin. “Jeez, grow up. Who would I trust?”

It was a really good point. “Call me.”




Chapter 3


Lucia kept silent all the way back down the steps. Without being asked, Jazz got on her hands and knees and fished the gun out from under the car.

“Thanks,” Lucia said, and returned it to the pancake holster behind her back.

“Yeah, well, you’re wearing a nice suit.” Jazz shrugged. “I don’t figure my jeans will suffer from a little contact with the concrete.”

Once they were in the sedan again, the metal door cranked up like a castle gate, allowing them to exit into the bright morning air.

“So what,” Lucia asked with absolutely precision, “the hell was that?”

“That is Manny Glickman.” Jazz pretended to concentrate on the flow of commuter traffic, which wasn’t too much of a stretch—K.C., like most semilarge cities, was hell in the morning rush hour. She was trying to decide what to share. “Used to be the go-to guy at Quantico for the big cases after the shakeup of the lab, you remember the scandal over the evidence problems—”

Lucia nodded, eyes fixed on the cars around them. Sweeping the street for surveillance.

“Anyway, he went through a bad patch. Started private practice a couple of years ago, after he got out of the hospital. Most of the P.I.s and lawyers use him, or try to, but he won’t do any cases with violent crime elements.”

“Sounds like he’s limiting his business pretty severely.”

“Yeah. But he’s got money, and he doesn’t want to go back into that world.” Jazz shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. He’ll get us what we need. Manny’s hell on wheels when it comes to evidence.”

Lucia thought about that for a few seconds, and then turned her head to look straight at her. Sunlight flashed between the buildings and painted her skin in strobing flashes of gold. “What happened to him? Really?”

“Really?” Jazz made up her mind in a split second. There were few people she told about Manny—the real story—out of respect for his privacy, but she couldn’t start out with lying, not to Lucia. She’d know. “He was buried for almost forty-two hours in a black box eight feet under the ground, with nothing but some oxygen tanks to keep him alive, and a continuous loop recording playing the sound of the killer’s previous victim being tortured. That kind of thing will take all the fizz out of a person.”

Lucia understood immediately, it was all over her face. A deep, sad appreciation for everything Jazz didn’t say about that ordeal. “Did you find him?”

“No,” Jazz said softly. “No, I was across town, interrogating the suspect. My partner found the spot. He and two FBI agents dug Manny up.”

“My God,” Lucia murmured. “Did you know him?”

“Not then. He was a case file shipped down to us. I met him when he woke up in the hospital.” She’d never forget that bloodied, dirt-caked figure. Shaking. Weeping. The FBI agents turning away while Ben McCarthy pulled up a chair and took one of those filthy hands, nodding for her to hold the other. Holding Manny in the world.

“It was related to an investigation.” Lucia didn’t make it a question. “Something Manny was working on.”

“Serial killer,” Jazz agreed. “Just our blind luck he decided to dump Manny in Kansas City. He was a coast-to-coast, equal-opportunity son of a bitch. We all got lucky. Me, Manny, Ben…”

Lucia didn’t ask about Ben. No doubt she knew everything there was to know on that subject already, had made up her mind as to Ben’s guilt or innocence.

“Anyway…now Manny’s a friend,” Jazz finished awkwardly. “And if he’s twitchy, well, hell, you’d be twitchy too after that. But he does his best. He gets by.”

“And three thousand dollars? You’ve got that amount of money lying around to pay him?” Lucia wasn’t being insulting, just matter-of-fact. She’d done her research, Jazz knew that. Lucia knew her finances, down to the penny that was breathing its last gasp in Jazz’s bank account.

“No,” Jazz said. “But I’ll get it.” She sounded confident.

Lucia threw her an interested look but didn’t ask.

If there was a tail on them, it was good enough that neither Jazz nor Lucia spotted it. Just in case, Jazz did some acrobatics on the freeway, taking I-435, then I-70 toward St. Louis through Independence before looping back home. “You know, they have to know where you live,” Lucia pointed out. “Don’t you think this cloak-and-dagger business is a little over the top?”

“No,” Jazz said shortly, and felt a blush high in her cheeks. Dammit. Lucia made her feel like some unschooled hick, which she wasn’t. She’d been one of the youngest, most highly decorated detectives ever in KCPD. She’d trained with the FBI at Quantico. She wasn’t an idiot. Okay, maybe she wasn’t up on international terrorism and proper spy etiquette, but dammit, she was trying.

Lucia let it go. “Your gas to burn.” She shrugged and tapped her fingernails on the window glass. “If your lawyer was sincere, and if these letters mean what they say, what does that tell us? What are we going to do, in that case?” Lucia’s dark eyes turned toward her. Jazz didn’t take her attention off the road. “Are you tempted to accept?”

“Hell, yes, I’m tempted. That’s a hundred grand you’re talking about, not to mention the time and resources to devote to clearing my partner’s name. And an actual job would be a good thing, for the sake of my apartment rent, not to mention the gas-burning you’re so concerned about.” Jazz blew out her breath in an irritated sigh. “But you’re probably not into this thing, are you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, come on. You fly in from some supersecret mission looking like you dressed out of a Bond girl’s closet. You’re so hooked up that you can score a gun without leaving the airport, for God’s sake. Why would you tie yourself down with a partner? Particularly one that isn’t, you know, all spy-worthy?”

Lucia blinked slowly. “When you put it that way,” she murmured, “it’s a very good question.”

“Yeah. Well.” Somehow, this didn’t feel like a victory.

“You don’t know anything about me,” the other woman said. “Yes, I have a job. I have a decent wardrobe. I have resources. That doesn’t mean—” She shook her head, frowning. “That doesn’t mean I’m not trapped, Jazz. Or that I don’t want out of the place I’m in.”

She didn’t say anything else. Unsure how to take it, Jazz didn’t push things.

She rolled up to her apartment building, cruising at a normal speed, and said, “See anything interesting?”

“No.”

“Yeah, me neither. Don’t you think that’s interesting, in itself?”

No sounds or movement, all the way to her apartment. Jazz motioned Lucia away and took the lock-and-handle side of the door. She slotted the key into the dead bolt at arm’s length, staying well out of range if anybody decided to put a bullet through the door itself.

Nothing. Lucia watched as the door swung open, then snapped her gun up into an effortlessly graceful firing position and flowed forward, shouldering the door flat against the wall with a soft bump. The speed with which she checked and dismissed blind corners was incredible. Jazz shut the door and dead-bolted it again, then went to the gun safe in the corner and keyed it open.

The familiar weight of her H & K nine-millimeter pistol felt cool and heavy, weighing her down, grounding her against that feeling of having been blown off course by the day’s events.

Lucia stopped appraising the room from a tactical point of view long enough to say, “I like your taste in colors.”

“You’d be the only one, then,” Jazz smiled. The rug was olive green, the furniture a throwback to the worst of the seventies—dull oranges and duller golds, a truly obnoxious plaid that somehow captured all three colors plus a muddy brown for variety. She’d finished it off with a kitschy velvet painting of a matador and a print of one of Dali’s lesser works from his conquistador period.

“I was being polite,” Lucia said, and ran her fingers over the gold armchair’s back. “Possibly even sarcastic. Tell me the place came furnished.”

“Nope, it’s all mine. However, in self-defense, I did have to match the carpet. This was the best I could manage.”

“Plus,” Lucia said thoughtfully, “it makes people think you have no sophistication. Which is all part of your persona, isn’t it?”

That came as a shock. Not a pleasant one. “What?”

“You, Jazz, are a lie. A subtle one. It probably works very well for you. Under all that ragged hair and frumpy clothes, you’re good-looking. You could make this place look sophisticated—you deliberately choose not to. I think you like having people underestimate you.”

Jazz blinked, nonplussed. “That’s a load of crap.”

“Yeah?” Lucia’s carefully shaped eyebrows rose and fell. “My specialty is in controlling perceptions. I do it consciously. I have to take command in a psychological way when I enter a situation. I have to make people believe that I’m capable of anything and everything to avoid a fight.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind to avoid a fight.”

“My point exactly,” Lucia said, and smiled. “I’m not nearly as strong as you are, Jazz. It’s better for me if I can avoid the fight instead of taking things head-on. Not that I can’t win if I’m pushed, but I can’t do it fairly, like you can. I fight dirty, and I try not to fight at all. Like most women, actually.”

Jazz cocked her head, trying to get all that through her head; she knew, intellectually, what Lucia was saying, but she’d grown up fighting just as hard as her brother, and the idea that most women weren’t wired that way…it had always thrown her off. She’d blamed it on wussy girl attitudes about not mussing their hair or breaking a nail, but she had to admit, there was nothing wussy about Lucia. And she didn’t strike Jazz as somebody who admitted to shortcomings just for the hell of it, either.

“Okay.” Jazz shrugged. “So maybe I like to sucker people in. You like to intimidate them into avoiding a fight. We can agree to disagree.”

“Actually,” Lucia said, and picked up a particularly hideous ceramic bull getting ready to gore a gaudily gilded matador, “looking at this, for the first time, I believe we have something we can use to form a solid partnership.”

“Because of my amazingly bad taste?”

“Strengths and weaknesses,” Lucia said, and put the bull back in its place. “We complement each other. Also, I like your sense of humor.”

“How do you know I have one?”

“The bull.” Lucia smiled. “It’s anatomically correct.”

“You should see the matador in the bedroom.”

“It’ll be twenty-four hours before Manny gets back to us,” Jazz said about a half hour later. “You want to stay?”

Lucia, who was sipping coffee from a plain black mug and watching low-playing CNN on the TV, said, “Why?”

“Why not? I’d say you might have cats to feed back home, but women like you don’t have cats,” Jazz said, and made kissy noises at Mooch, who was peeking around the corner of the bedroom door. He froze, slitted green eyes wide in his smushed-in fluffy face, and darted back out of sight. “Women like you have, oh, fish. Colorful ones.”

“I might be a dog person.”

“The only animal you’d keep on a leash is a boyfriend.”

Lucia laughed. It had a nice sound, easy and unselfconscious, and Jazz found herself smiling in return. “Mira, have you been through my closet? I thought I’d put all the leather away where nobody else could find it.”

“Am I right?”

“About the boyfriend?” Lucia still sounded on the verge of laughter.

“About the pets.”

She nodded. “Too much trouble. I travel.”

“So, you can stay another day.”

“Actually, I was thinking that the two of us might want to use the waiting time productively,” Lucia said, and finished her coffee in three gulps. “How do you feel about taking a flight this afternoon to New York?”

“To see Borden.”

“Yes.”

She had to admit, she felt a little tug in her guts at the thought. Good tug? Bad? Not sure. But then she felt a wave of frustration roll over her. “Not possible.”

“Why not?”

God, she was going to hate admitting this. “I’m tapped. I’ve got no cash, and I’m already on the hook with Manny for three grand. I’d better not. You can go on, if you want to, and let me know what you think of the setup.”

“I have half a million frequent-flyer miles in my account,” Lucia said.

Jazz, openmouthed, just stared at her for so long that she was sure she was starting to look like the hick Lucia made her feel. “Oh,” she finally said. “Right. And you’d buy me a ticket with—”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

Lucia rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t mean it. Of course I’m sure. Also, the three thousand for Manny? If this works out, you can pay it from the hundred thousand. If not, I’ll cover it. Call it an investigative expense. Believe me, I won’t miss it.”

Mooch abruptly left the shelter of the doorway and stalked over the carpet to stand directly in front of Lucia, tail high, back arched. Staring.

She stared back.

Mooch let out a velvet-soft purr and rubbed his head against her black pant leg, leaving a trail of gray.

“I think he likes you,” Jazz said, and grinned at Lucia’s expression. “All right. I’ll go with you to New York.”

Lucia sighed. “First, find me a lint brush.”

Lucia left her .22 in the gun safe, along with Jazz’s nine-millimeter, and Jazz took about ten minutes to pack. She spent three minutes of that in the bathroom, staring at her reflection, frowning. Maybe Lucia was right. Maybe she’d been deliberately cultivating this unkempt look instead of just failing to spend time and money on something she’d always considered frivolous. And maybe Lucia was right, that it would serve the two of them well to be mismatched.

Maybe.

But she had a sudden impulse to clean herself up a little, for Lawyer Borden. Stupid. He’s not a date, he’s a… a what? A witness? A suspect? Suspected of what, exactly?

It was too complicated and cloudy to work through. She shoved essentials into a ditty bag, hesitated, and fumbled in the surplus-stuff drawer for perfume. People were always giving her perfume, most of it sickly sweet and horrible, and she’d always made a point of keeping herself fragrance-free on assignments. Bad guys had noses, too. You couldn’t exactly get away with playing a homeless woman if you reeked of Obsession.

She compromised with two tiny dabs of some red variant of Poison given to her two Christmases ago by Ben…it had a warm feeling to it. Made her feel, well, feminine. She tossed the bottle into the ditty bag and zipped it closed, then added that to the small carry-on bag that held exactly two changes of clothes, both casual. One more than she’d need, but she liked being prepared.

Lucia was examining her CD collection when she came back, ready to depart. She held up one for inspection and said, “I never would have thought you liked Beethoven.”

“Hey, I’m down with Metallica, too,” Jazz said. “I’ve got layers. Let’s move. We’ve got two hours before the flight.”

Nobody followed them. Nobody Jazz could spot, anyway. Without discussion, Lucia kept scanning crowds once they’d reached the airport, even while giving rote answers to the security questions and submitting to a wand scan and bag search. Jazz was passed through without a second glance. She waited, checking her watch, as Lucia patiently underwent the security process and finally ducked through the crowd to join her. They took off at a jog for the far end of the terminal.

“What was that about?” Jazz asked. Lucia looked at her, unsmiling. There was a glitter in her dark eyes.

“Think about it,” she said. “You’re blond and pink. I’m not.”

“Racial profiling’s—”

“Illegal, yes, but you’d be amazed how many random searches I turn up on,” Lucia replied. Her voice sounded tight. “I’m lucky I’ve got federal credentials. As much as I travel, this could get to be a real problem.”

The flight was full. The vast majority of travelers were sour-faced businesspeople with more bags under their eyes than in the overhead compartments. She and Lucia had wing seats, midcabin, next to an emergency exit. Jazz didn’t think it was luck. Lucia seemed to think about these kinds of things.

They chatted about light stuff during the inevitable delay and the bumpy takeoff…family, to start. Lucia had none to speak of beyond an aunt in Spain who didn’t approve of her. They moved on to favorite movies and bad dates. Jazz didn’t have a lot to offer on the dating story front, although she was hell on wheels with the movies. She was content to listen to Lucia spinning stories, after a while.

“Chefs are the worst,” Lucia was saying, as the plane leveled out its climb for the relatively short arc to New York City. “Never marry a chef.”

This was a novel sort of idea. “You’re kidding, right? Don’t marry a guy who can actually cook?”

“That’s their day job. Sure, they can cook. And while they’re trying to impress you and charm you into bed, it’s crème anglaise and shrimp soufflé, but after that, it’s all too much work for them. You’ll never get anything right, and you can’t go out to dinner with them, either. Everything’s a review. The soup’s too thin, the meat’s too tough, the dessert’s not served hot enough.” She shook her head and flipped pages in the Cosmo she’d retrieved from the magazine rack. “And God forbid you shouldn’t ever care for something they create. There’s less drama on HBO.”

“Did you marry him?” Jazz asked.

“Hmm?” Lucia lifted her eyes from contemplation of the Fall Fashion Lineup. “Michel? Oh, no. He would have been a disaster as a husband. He never met a hostess he didn’t greet, if you know what I mean.” Those dark eyes appraised her for a cop’s hard second. “How about you?”

“Hey, I can promise you I never greeted Michel. Hell, I don’t even know any man French enough to be named Michel.”

“I mean—”

“I’m clear on your meaning,” Jazz said. “You’re trying to find out if I’m gay.”

Lucia blinked. “No…I was actually wondering if you and Ben McCarthy…?”

Sore subject. Jazz swallowed and fixed her gaze on the beverage cart slowly trundling its way down the narrow aisle toward them. She felt like a drink, early morning or not. Maybe she could get away with something disguised as healthy, like a mimosa. “None of your business,” she said. It sounded hard and cold.

Lucia stared at her for a long second, then went back to her magazine.

Sex, and Ben McCarthy. Jazz sighed, leaned her head against the backrest and closed her eyes.

Maybe, with the help of the mimosa, she could sleep the rest of the way to the city, without dreams.

JFK felt crowded, breathless and a little grubby. Lucia led Jazz past baggage claim and toward the outside, where New York was having a fabulously—probably unexpectedly—golden day.

She slowed in her stride before they reached the doors.

“What?” Jazz asked. She was already alert, but Lucia’s change in body language elevated it a sharp notch to outright paranoia.

Lucia jerked her chin sharply. “Look.”

A uniformed chauffeur, cap under his arm, was holding up an erasable board on which were written in block letters the names MS. GARZA/MS. CALLENDER. He was a tall guy, long in the torso and wide in the shoulders, probably pumped under the well-tailored coat. A burr haircut, light blond heading toward gray. Eyes to match. Ex-Marine, Jazz would have said, straight out of Central Casting.

“My ID,” he said, and produced a picture ID card with watermarking and some kind of fancy holography on it, with the bold logo of Gabriel, Pike & Laskins, LLP under the lamination. “Can’t be too careful these days. May I see yours, please?” He held out his hand. Lucia wordlessly produced her ID. Jazz fumbled hers out a second later, watched him scrutinize the postage-stamp picture and then turn those laser-beam eyes on her. She revised her estimate of his rank upward to drill sergeant. “Nice flight?”

“Fabulous,” Lucia said. “I didn’t arrange for ground transportation.”

The Marine settled the cap back on his head, adjusted it to his exacting specifications and nodded. “No, ma’am. The firm arranged for it.” He reached out and took their bags with the proprietary air of a man who never expected to be refused. Jazz let him do it, though her impulse was to stiff-arm him and snarl Back off in her most intimidating voice. She restrained it mainly because she knew picking a fight with this man wasn’t just stupid, it was damn near suicidal, and besides, he hadn’t done anything.

Yet.

She looked over at Lucia, who had a rueful half smile on her face. “I made an appointment,” she said, “with Borden. Apparently, he’s a thoughtful guy.”

“Apparently,” Jazz agreed. They fell in behind the Marine, who marched them through the doors and to a black Town Car idling at the curb with a cop standing guard. The Marine nodded to him as he stowed the bags in the copious trunk, and the cop nodded back, and then they were on the way.

The Marine drove along a scenic route, but Jazz couldn’t follow it; she’d never been to New York City before, and the scale of it overwhelmed her. Pictures didn’t do it justice, really. Buildings loomed impossibly tall, not just one or two, but dozens, all jammed together. The patch of sky overhead looked pale and on the verge of disappearing altogether.

Lucia had out some kind of computerized personal organizer and was making notes, ignoring the scenery. Jazz doubted it was her first trip to the city. She could probably give the Marine helpful tips on shortcuts.

Three traffic jams and one near-crash later, they pulled in at the curb, and the Marine unpacked their gear onto the sidewalk. He touched the brim of his cap and refused Lucia’s offer of a tip. “The firm pays me very well,” he said, and handed them each a bag. “Forty-fifth floor. Mr. Borden is expecting you.”

Jazz craned her head back as the car whispered away from the curb, back into traffic. The building soared in stacked tiers, each one smaller than the last, like some very angular wedding cake. The polished brass number over the revolving doors read 6716, but she had no idea what street they were on.

Lucia was already on the move, shouldering through the rotating glass. Jazz followed.

Beyond, the lobby was small and chilly, with some leather armchairs and throw rugs near one corner and a reception desk all in marble at the other, near a massive elevator bank. Three people were behind the desk. The woman gave them a warm smile. The two security men gave them blank, appraising stares.

“Here to see James Borden at Gabriel, Pike & Laskins,” Lucia said. “We have an appointment.”

They had to produce ID again, but it was fairly painless, and one of the security guys detailed himself to escort them up. Floor forty-five required a key card. He used his and stood in silence, hands at his sides, watching as the floor count moved in red dots on the readout. Around the thirtieth floor Jazz had to pop her ears. That was the only excitement.

The elevator doors opened onto what surely must have been a lawyerly version of Shangri-la. They stepped out onto a massive marble deck facing a huge bank of floor-to-ceiling windows with a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline.

“May I help you?”

The voice was, somewhat to Jazz’s surprise, a honeyed Southern drawl. Once her eyes got past the shock of the view outside, she focused on the reception desk located over to the side, next to a black wall of stone with a near-silent curtain of water wavering over it. Another perfectly made-up woman, this one deserving the cover of Elle at the very least. Brunette, brown eyes, a smile that looked collagen enhanced even if it wasn’t.

If Lucia was intimidated by the competition for the I’m-the-Most-Beautiful-Girl-in-the-Room award, she didn’t show it; she gave Reception Goddess a warm smile and produced ID for the third time in an hour. Jazz followed suit. “James Borden’s expecting us,” Jazz added, before Lucia could blurt it out. It felt good to take charge, even in this petty little area.

“Ah,” the woman said, and touched buttons on some hidden console behind the marble counter. “He’s on his way. Please have a seat.”

Jazz eyed the chairs, which looked modern, uncomfortable to sit in and impossible to get out of, and decided to disobey. She paced restlessly, examining bromeliads and exotic flowers. This was the kind of place that had fresh arrangements delivered every day, just for the effect. Lucia settled on a hard-looking couch, looking poised and deadly.

“Jazz?”

She turned at the familiar sound of James Borden’s voice, and paused, blinking. If it hadn’t been for the voice, and the warmth he put into the sound of her name, she wouldn’t have even known him. He was wearing a flawlessly tailored double-breasted blue suit, something with just enough of a sheen to the fabric to make it look rich instead of cheap. A turquoise-blue tie with subtle dark gold flecks. A crisp, blindly white shirt. A single gold stud in his ear, which these days she supposed qualified as corporately daring.

His dark hair was combed down, no longer gelled into spikes, and looked…conservative. A little too long, maybe, but good.

She focused on his dark brown eyes and got a flash of deep-seated warmth, then remembered her manners and stepped forward to take his hand in a firm shake. “Counselor,” she said. “Nice suit.”

He grimaced. “Yeah, the judges seem to like it. You all right?” He was looking at her too closely, holding her hand a little too long. She didn’t know whether it was flattering or insulting.

“Fine,” she said, and pulled away. “This is—”

“Lucia Garza,” he finished, and did the handshake thing again. Lucia was tall enough to look him in the eye, and her smile was at least twice as winsome as it needed to be. But maybe she was just overpowered by the suit, which Jazz had to admit was pretty damn fine. “I’m glad to meet you.”

“We have questions,” Lucia said, still with that winsome smile, and no softness at all in her eyes.

“Yes,” Borden said, and glanced from her to Jazz. “I figured you might. Please, follow me.”

He led them down a shallow flight of stairs through what looked like a meditation garden, with stone benches and mannered vegetation and a Zen sand pool in the center.

They walked along a dark wood corridor, with spotlit portraits of old men and a few old women who must have been former partners of the firm. At about the halfway point, Borden opened up a door with one of those sliding name-plates that read James Borden, Esq. Inside, a perky young woman in a short red suit was bustling around a hissing espresso machine. She had pixie-cut dark hair and a gap in her two front teeth, which made her look like a cheerful urchin for all her polish and gloss.

“Pansy…”

“Coffee, boss, yeah, I’m all over it,” she said, and waved a hand at the machine. He gave her a thumbs-up and opened the inner office door.

Standard lawyer office, straight off of a movie set. A massive dark desk, a green-shaded banker’s lamp, executive pen-and-pencil set, framed diplomas on the wall. Law books, ranked according to color and size. Two visitor chairs, big and leather in a manly dark green. Jazz sat at Borden’s gesture and noted that Lucia settled comfortably, legs crossed, chin down as she watched Borden move around the room. Jazz, as usual, was antsy. She wanted to pace, but she controlled the impulse to a light tap of her fingers against her leg.

Borden perched on the corner of the desk, not behind it. “Sorry you came all this way,” he said. “There’s nothing I couldn’t tell you over the phone just as easily.”

“I like to do my deals face-to-face. Less chance of…misunderstandings,” Lucia said pleasantly, as if she hadn’t just implied, oh, a world of things. “Nice offices. Criminal practice?”

“Not really. We have two criminal attorneys on staff, and one’s a full partner, but we specialize in tax and corporate law,” Borden said. “I’ve never taken on a criminal case in my life.” He made it sound like a failing. “Not really cut out for it.”

“No?” Lucia let her head fall to one side, watching him. “Why not?”

“If you want to practice criminal law, you end up spending a lot of time with criminals,” Borden said, and shrugged.

“Not really my thing.”

“I’m sure associating with corporate polluters and tax dodgers is much better,” Lucia agreed. “How did you get my résumé, Mr. Borden?”

“James,” he said, and flicked his eyes toward the door as it opened. “Coffee?”

The assistant—Pansy? Did anybody really name girls Pansy anymore?—entered burdened by a black lacquer tray, and passed out delicate little cups of espresso. Jazz sipped and thought her veins would explode. The stuff was like black oil. She knew she was making bitter-coffee face and set the saucer and cup aside on a small octagonal table. Borden didn’t even try to drink his.

“I repeat the question,” Lucia said once Pansy had withdrawn. “My résumé. How did you get it?”

“It was provided to me,” Borden said, and held up a hand to stop her from going on. “I can’t tell you, Ms. Garza. I’m sorry. If I had to guess, I’d say that it was passed along from within the FBI, but that’s just a guess.”

“You use information without knowing its source?”

Borden sent Jazz a look. Not quite a plea, more of an assessment, trying to see where she stood in all this. “I trust the source. He’s very reliable.”

Lucia’s eyebrows indicated sarcastic doubt. Jazz drummed her fingers on leather, and said, “Yeah, okay, fine. You got the résumé from a file clerk at Quantico. Let’s talk about this deal you’re offering.”

Borden straightened up and met her eyes again. “It’s simple enough. The initial funding, plus we pay five thousand per case you take for us. Do you want to review the partnership agreement?”

“No, I want you to explain to me whose money is funding this,” she said. “Or there’s no deal.”

Borden let several dry ticks of his mantel clock go by, then slid off the edge of his desk and went behind it to open a drawer. “You know the check is valid,” he said. “You verified that with the bank.”




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