Devil's Bargain (Red Letter Days #1)

Devil's Bargain (Red Letter Days #1) Page 6

U pon returning from her run, Lucia informed Jazz of two things. One, she'd be camping out on Jazz's couch until her leasing agent found her a local apartment. Two, they had an appointment to shop for office space.

"We're shopping?"

"Shopping is a necessary part of life, Jazz, you should reconcile yourself to it. Unless you want me to make all the decisions." Lucia didn't sound averse to it. Jazz eyed her distrustfully.

"Fine," she said. "I'll take a look."

Lucia drove. All the way, Jazz kept an eye on the street, but traffic patterns looked random and safe, and she saw nobody following - either from in front or behind - for more than a couple of blocks. It was possible the faceless bad guys had enough manpower to do fast-rotating teams, but if so, they were screwed anyway, and all the eagle-eye vigilance in the world wouldn't help.

No white vans, no black cars with tinted windows, no electric blue sedans with out-of-date plates.

But when they pulled up in the parking lot of a five-story office building, she spotted someone she knew waiting, leaning against the granite-faced entrance with his long arms folded. Borden was back in casual mode, long leather jacket and blue jeans and an oatmeal-colored long-sleeved Henley underneath. Gelled hair again. He looked up as Jazz's car rattled to a stop, and straightened.

Jazz took her time getting out, partly so as not to run over and bash his head against the wall, partly because she didn't want to show any awkwardness or hesitation from the pain. Smooth and controlled. She was going to out-Lucia Lucia.

"Hey," Borden said, and took a couple of steps toward her. She shut the car door, put her hands in her jacket pockets and looked at him with what was probably not a polite smile.

He stopped.

"Let me guess, Counselor," she said, "you're in the real estate business, too."

"More or less. How are you - "

"Feeling?" She forced herself not to limp as she walked toward, then past him. "Great. You?"

In the shiny tinted glass of the building's double doors, she saw Borden toss Lucia a look. Lucia shook her head.

"You should have stayed in the hospital," he said, coming up next to her with a thick set of keys in his hand. He unlocked the door and pulled the right one open with a sigh of cool air. "And for the record? I'm not the landlord. I just helped Lucia find the place. Third floor. Take the elevator. You don't have to prove how tough you are by tackling the stairs."

She glared at him but walked inside the building. It was dark, except for some indirect spots illuminating empty alcoves and an equally empty reception desk. Still had that new-building smell, equal parts paint, drywall and fresh carpeting.

"Ready to move in?" Lucia asked.

Borden nodded. "If you sign the lease, you could be operational in a few days."

Lucia nodded and tucked her hair back behind her ear, sneaking a look at Jazz as she did so. Jazz watched the numbers flash on the floor counter overhead. When the right one arrived, she pushed through the still-opening doors...

Into a dream.

Dej�� vu, she thought, and fought the disorientation. She knew this place. Knew it. She knew what she'd see before she looked left, or right. She knew that there would be a big-ass boardroom behind the reception-desk half wall directly in front of her, and that the table in there would be a long black lacquer thing, and she could see someone sitting there, looking up at her.

Ben. Ben McCarthy. I remember Ben McCarthy being here, in these offices.

She told herself it was just a dream, but she couldn't make herself move. Her heart was hammering, her skin suddenly coated in sweat.

I know this place.

Borden went to the reception desk and did something behind the counter. Lights flipped on and marched left and right in fluorescent banks. The place took on light and color. It was champagne-and-blond woods and dull silver, very chic.

"It's fully furnished," he said. "The management fitted it out for an Internet firm that went belly-up before move-in. They've been trying to lease it out for months."

"Other tenants in the building?" Lucia asked.

"They've got a law firm moving in on five, and an investment firm coming in on the ground floor," Borden said. "It's pretty safe. Very corporate."

Jazz walked over to the reception desk and looked at the half wall behind the empty chair. It was begging for a name. She blinked and imagined the silvery lettering on it: Callender & Garza. She wasn't sure if that made her feel better or even more disoriented.

She went around the wall. Behind it sat a black lacquer table that seated at least a dozen, with black leather chairs pulled around it. A Zen-appropriate arrangement of dried flowers in the center of the table. Beyond it, tinted glass had a view of the K.C. skyline.

The sense of dej�� vu was fading. Maybe it had just been one of those things, a weird-ass chemical imbalance of a brain that had suffered too many shocks recently.

She heard Lucia say something about taking a look at the offices. She turned and followed.

There were two large offices to the right, sharing an administrative station. Jazz entered the one on the left, moving by instinct, and noticed Lucia moved to the right. She stood in the doorway and looked at the expanse of carpet, the empty bookshelves, the desk and chair.

Borden had moved behind her. She could feel him there, even though he was staying a prudent few steps away.

"You did a good job," he said, "with the assignment. The client was pleased."

"We didn't do anything." Jazz turned to face him. The indirect lighting did things to his face, made him look like a stranger. But then, he was a stranger, wasn't he? And she didn't really know a thing about him, except that he wasn't telling the truth.

"You did exactly what you were supposed to do," he said, and suddenly put out a hand to grab her by the forearm. "Jazz?"

She'd faltered, lost her balance, and only realized it after the fact. She leaned against a wall and sucked down deep breaths, clearing her head. "Paint fumes," she mumbled. She felt light-headed and more than a little sick. "You lied to me, Borden."

He could have moved his hand. He didn't. She felt his strong hold slacken a little, but he kept touching her.

"I didn't," he said, and moved closer. Too close. She felt smothered. "I wouldn't."

"You told us you don't do criminal cases." Like Manny, she thought. Manny won't do them, either.

Borden's sharp face went blank for a few seconds, then settled into an expression of resignation. "Yeah. I don't."

"I saw the pictures. You and Max Simms."

The name rocked him back, and she saw a startled flash in those big brown eyes, quickly concealed. "That's what I get for generalizing to a cop," he said. "I didn't try that case, I was second chair. Laskins was principal. It was my first, last and only criminal trial with the firm."

"Because of Simms?" she asked.

He smiled sadly. "My firm doesn't like losing."

The office's waiting silence closed around them. He still hadn't taken his hand off her, and she hadn't insisted, by word or motion, that he do it. Her eyes met his, and she felt a jolt deep inside, something warm and frighteningly real.

"I wish you'd stayed in the hospital," he said, his voice low and hoarse. "You have a hole in your side, you know. Not a hangnail."

"Believe me, Counselor, I know."

He studied her for a long moment, and then suddenly let go of her arm and stepped back. Two feet back. Hands in his pockets, as if he didn't trust himself not to touch her again.

Lucia was coming out of the right-hand office, arms folded, looking at her shoes as if deciding whether or not the new fall line would be out soon. She glanced from Borden to Jazz and back, dark eyes glittering, and said, "Reached any conclusions?"

"Looks good to me," Borden said. He didn't take his eyes off Jazz.

"It seems like it will work," Lucia replied. "I want wireless broadband installed, and we're going to need lots of storage space. But yes, I like it. Jazz?"

Callender & Garza.

Ben McCarthy, sitting at that black table, looking up at her with a tiny little smile.

Jazz sucked in a deep breath and surprised herself by saying, "Yeah. I can live with this."

That, apparently, was all it took to change the course of a life.

The cases came slowly at first. Welton Brown, who'd always been a friend, directed a couple of noncriminal cases Jazz's way, and as the weeks passed, as office supplies got delivered and put away and lights turned on and Internet connections tested - as the lettering turned from dream to permanence on the reception-area wall and the building officially opened - things slowly began to change.

Jazz healed.

It was more than the bullet wound, although that closed up nicely without complications. It was more about something inside that had been broken and bleeding for much longer than that. Since she'd seen Stewart throw McCarthy up against a wall and snap handcuffs around his wrist and sneer out words she still heard in her nightmares. Under arrest for murder...

She'd been lost for a while, since then, and as she began to learn the routine of driving to the office, checking her perimeters before leaving the car, walking into the offices and being greeted by Christine Sparrow, Lucia's choice for receptionist...it began to feel real.

Lucia had moved without fanfare. She'd just stopped commuting from D.C. about a week into things and handed Jazz a slip of paper with an address on it. Her new home was in one of the nicer, secured apartment buildings.

Every day, they met in the elevator, or in the coffee room, or in the administrative area - still empty - between their two offices. And every day, there was something more to talk about. Something important.

Lucia brought cases with her from Washington. One of them required travel, which Jazz wasn't up for, given her physical limitations, and she found she missed Lucia's light conversation while she was gone, the quiet competence she brought into the office, like the scent of her perfume. Jazz took a job doing background checks on a prospective executive for Hudson Industrials out of Boston - another Welton Brown referral, however oblique - and turned up drug-possession charges and proof of current cocaine purchases, provided via a subcontractor in Boston proper. The company liked their thoroughness so much that they sent over their corporate business.

Jazz discovered she really did need an assistant. Badly. She made another phone call.

Turned out that Pansy was tired of getting coffee after all.

Three weeks later, their office staff had doubled its size, the business was running at a steady, if unexceptional, clip, and Jazz was starting to feel that little bull's eye on her back flicker and fade. Neither she nor Lucia had seen anything like a tail or a suspicious vehicle in weeks.

She was just starting to feel really good and pretty well healed when Chris Sparrow rang the intercom in the middle of her transcription of the notes for the latest executive background review to announce a visitor.

James Borden.

Jazz hesitated for a second, staring at her lit computer screen, fingers poised on the keys, and then wheeled her chair back. Lucia was gone, still, on one of her nonlocal cases. There really wasn't much of an alternative, except to tell Chris to send him on back.

Through the open door, she witnessed the priceless moment when Pansy, coming out of the coffee room, encountered her ex-boss on his way in. They blinked at each other, and then Pansy, without a tremor, offered Borden the cup of coffee in her hand.

And he, without a tremor, accepted it, toasted her with it, and continued into Jazz's office, where he took a seat on the couch, sipped coffee and sprawled as if he was sitting in his own living room.

"Make yourself at home," she said, and got up to close the door on Pansy's curious smile. "I'd ask what brings you here, but I'm thinking I already know."

Without comment, Borden - who had just had a haircut, and it suited him - reached inside his trenchcoat and took out a red envelope. She walked over, took it from his hand and sat down next to him to rip it open.

"Why red?" she asked absently.

He finished sipping his coffee before saying, "What?"

"Red envelopes. Seems like a pretty obvious way of delivering a message. Why red?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Okay, that goes without saying, but humor me." She unfolded the paper inside. More Gabriel, Pike & Laskins letterhead, the same businesslike printing.

Proceed at 11:00 p.m. local time tonight to the 1400 block of Legacy Drive. Park on the left side of the street and wait for a black Toyota Celica to arrive and park on the opposite side of the street. Follow the woman in the Celica from her car until she enters the building at 1428 Legacy Drive.

"That's it?" Jazz checked the back of the letter. Apparently, it was. "No pictures, no video, no nothing? Just park, follow, leave?"

"Yes," Borden said. "I told you, they wouldn't all be exciting stuff."

She flapped the envelope. "Why red?"

"Are we back to that again?" He'd not only cut his hair, he was freshly shaved. And if she wasn't mistaken, that was a fresh application of cologne, too. She scooted a little closer, just to confirm her suspicions. "It's so we won't get them mixed up with other correspondence. There's a lot of it in our offices, in case you haven't noticed. Lawyers. We do paperwork."

"Bullshit."

"Excuse me?" He put the coffee cup aside on the side table and turned toward her, resting an elbow on the back of the tufted leather couch. "By the way, I like your hair."

She blushed. She didn't mean to, and she was furious at herself for doing it, but she instantly felt the burn climb from her neck into her cheeks, and saw the immediate lazy amusement in his eyes. She'd let Lucia talk her into a new hairdresser, and as a result, she barely recognized herself in the mirror. Her hair was still in a shag, but no longer reminded her of sheepdogs or thatched roofs; it looked cute, perky and fluffable. It even felt soft, thanks to some expensive conditioners she wasn't sure she could afford, or had enough training to use. But it seemed to work. Lucia had pronounced her fit for boardroom meetings, anyway.

"Thanks," she mumbled. "Yours, too."

He shrugged. No blush, damn him. "How's the side?"

"Fixed."

"But you're taking it easy."

"No, I'm going to sign up for the Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match later today. Yes, of course I'm taking it easy. The toughest thing I've had to do so far is walk fast." She smiled, just a bit, as the blush started to fade to a distant prickle. "Bet I can still kick your ass, though, Counselor."

"No bets," he said. She wondered if he was humoring her.

"Regular rates on this?" She waved the envelope between them, which should have formed some kind of barrier and instead just wafted more of his warm cologne toward her.

"Regular rates," he agreed. Was he leaning closer? She thought he was.

"Are you going to keep doing this? Being the GPL Postal Service?"

"GPL?"

"Gabriel, Pike...?"

"Oh." He raised one shoulder in a very tiny shrug. "Lead time's usually not long enough to trust this stuff to the mail. Even overnight. Though sometimes I might not be available, and you might have to check FedEx, but I'll give you a heads-up first."

"Why?"

"Why would I give you a heads-up?" He sounded mystified by that. She had to admit, it would have been a stupid question.

"No, why is there not enough lead time? Don't you know this stuff a couple of days ahead of time? Surely you don't do this all at the last minute."

He looked at her for such a long, unblinking moment that she actually felt she'd said something wrong, but then he smiled and said, "I never said we were the most organized bunch of lawyers in the world."

She remembered getting off the plane in New York and finding a crisply pressed ex-Marine holding up a sign with names on it. His ability to organize was, so far as she'd been able to tell, pretty damn close to perfect. Like the explanation about the envelopes themselves, it didn't sound right, but she could tell that she wasn't going to get anything more from him. Not yet.

Not now.

"So you're just here to deliver a letter and get back on a plane," she said.

"No. I'm here to deliver a letter, take you out to dinner, and get back on a plane," he said. "You eat, right?"

"Dinner," she repeated, frowning. "You want to go to dinner."

"Early dinner, yeah. Say, six o'clock? That way we'll be finished up before you have to get to work." He nodded slightly at the envelope in her hand, and then looked a little disconcerted. "Unless you have plans."

"As if I have an actual life, you mean?" She snorted. "No. If Lucia was here, we might have a working dinner here, but no. No plans."

"Ah. Right. Lucia's working?" He looked guilty, as if he had forgotten about Lucia. Which Jazz had a hard time imagining, because, well, Lucia. If there was going to be a Swimsuit Edition for Private Investigator Monthly, Lucia would be the centerfold.

"She's in Washington," Jazz said. "Back tomorrow. But not to worry, Counselor, I can handle sitting in a car and following somebody all by myself. And dinner. I can handle dinner without backup."

He yawned hugely, traded looking guilty for looking shocked and embarrassed, and mumbled something about early-morning flights. She cocked an eyebrow at him, got off the couch and went back to her desk. He watched her go, mouth slightly open on a question that wasn't able to quite fight its way free.

"Stretch out," she said. "You won't bother me."

She went back to typing. She didn't watch him, but after a while her peripheral vision reported that he'd followed her advice. By the time she thought it was safe to focus on him again, his eyes were shut, his limbs loose and relaxed, and he was breathing evenly and quietly.

She stared at the rise and fall of his chest, then let her eyes wander over the rest of him. Long, sleek lines, especially in the blue jeans and boots. Did he wear cowboy boots because he was coming to Kansas City? Were they some kind of special costume, like the leathers? She hoped not. She liked the idea that he wore them because he enjoyed them, not because he needed them to fit in.

Without any transition at all, she wondered how he'd look without the clothes and had to shock herself out of the vision to focus on the dry, quiet text of her report again. In her experience, the better she was able to visualize that kind of thing, the deeper she was in trouble, and that had been, well, vivid.

Really, really vivid.

She grimly tapped keys and forced herself to keep working as the hours slid past toward evening.

For an out-of-towner, dinner in Kansas City required barbecue. Barbecue, in Jazz's opinion, required Arthur Bryant's, and by the time they were tucked into a booth around a Formica table, she was feeling pretty good about the choice. Not too romantic, barbecue. Not an inducement to imagine the other person naked. She didn't even order beer, which was quite a sacrifice, and stuck to soft drinks with her ribs. After an initial reluctance, Borden dove into his dinner with abandon, smearing himself with sauce and grease and mumbling praises about the taste.

She only imagined licking him clean a few times. I really need to get out more, she thought sternly, but she was only a little bit embarrassed. He had that kind of mouth. It just...begged to be licked, especially when there were beads of Arthur Bryant sauce clinging to it.

She was feeling relaxed and confident and happy - happy!  -  when her cell phone rang.

"Sorry," she said, and wiped her sticky fingers clean enough to scramble for the call. She didn't immediately recognize the number. "Hello, Jazz Callender." She had to stop her other ear to hear over the dull roar of the restaurant.

"Yeah, Callender?" An unfamiliar male voice, brisk and businesslike. "You're listed on the notify sheet. There's been an incident at Ellsworth. Inmate Benjamin McCarthy's been the victim of a beating, and he's going to be in the hospital wing for a couple of days. No immediate life-threatening injuries."

She felt all of the happiness drain out of her, as if a plug had been pulled from the bottom of her soul. "What happened?" Her tone had changed, and her body language; she saw Borden straighten up and watch her, leaning forward.

"Unclear at the present time, ma'am." In other words, they didn't want to say. "We're looking into it."

She shut her eyes tight enough to see white stars. "Injuries?" She sounded just as businesslike as he did. "Be straight with me, sir. I'm his ex-partner. You know he used to be a cop."

"Yes, ma'am, I know." No emotion in his voice. "He has some busted ribs, a broken arm and a cracked collarbone."

"Anything else?"

A long hesitation. "Not to my knowledge, ma'am."

She shivered all over. She felt sick, hot, disoriented, and the smell of good food and the sound of casual conversation was too much. "Visitation?" she asked.

"I've been instructed to tell you that he can have visitors for one hour tomorrow, from noon until one o'clock."

"Fine. I'll be there."

She hung up and dropped the phone back in her coat pocket. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that Borden was leaning back in his chair, motioning for the waitress.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Getting the check," he said. "Doesn't look like you're in the mood for this right now."

She felt a hot, hard surge of gratitude that made her eyes sting with tears. He was careful not to look at her, and she was grateful for that, too.

"Your partner? McCarthy?" he asked. She nodded. "He okay?"

"No." She pulled in a damp, shaking breath. "It was just a matter of time. Could have been worse, I guess. They'll let me see him tomorrow."

Borden finally focused on her face, then turned to smile at the waitress and do the mechanical duty of paying the check and boxing up the rest of the food to go. "You're crazy if you think I'm leaving any of this on the table," he said. "Besides, I'll need something for breakfast in the morning."

"Breakfast?" she blinked.

"I'm interested," Borden said. "I'd like to meet the guy you're so sure is innocent. If you don't mind having a lawyer escort you to the prison."

Her throat closed up. She wasn't sure what it was she was feeling - a dizzying, hot, disorienting mix of fear, anger, pain, guilt, relief...just that it nearly undid her.

Borden reached over and took her hand. Sticky fingers. She gripped them with desperate intensity.

"Thanks," she whispered. "But I thought you had to fly back."

"Vacation day," he said.

She offered her couch for the night, but Borden, with impeccable instincts, took a cab to a four-star hotel instead. No kiss, nothing like a romantic goodbye unless you counted a skimming touch of his fresh-washed fingers over the back of her neck and a reminder to be careful.

She put her hands in her pockets, watching the cab pull away, and felt the crackle of paper. She checked her watch and found she still had an hour to get to the address on the envelope.

She'd never wanted to do anything less in her life, but driving to Ellsworth right now wouldn't do her any good. They wouldn't let her see him, and Ben wouldn't thank her for any female hysteria anyway. No, she needed to focus on something else. Get calm. Get cold.

She went to work.

Legacy Drive was near a lot of clubs, and the late hour made parking tough. She circled the block for several minutes before she caught a break with a Cadillac pulling away from the curb on the left-hand side of the street of the correct block. Quickly she parallel parked between an SUV and a dusty pickup. A muffled rhythmic bass thump from the country bar down the block shivered through metal and skin as she killed the engine, slightly out of tempo with the headache throbbing in her temples. Focus. She checked the car's clock and found that she had fifteen minutes to spare before eleven. She turned off the dome light and made sure everything she needed was ready, including the digital camera, though Borden had told her she wouldn't need it.

Then, because she had nothing else to occupy her head, she thought about what might have happened to land Ben McCarthy in the prison hospital, and what that significant pause on the other end of the phone had meant when she'd asked about any other injuries.

This was her fault. Her fault for letting him down, for not pushing his case to the top of the list. For not turning down these crazy assignments. Watch a woman park and walk to her building? What the hell was that about? They could've gotten anyone for that. They didn't need her. And she'd let other things get in the way, too. What right did she have to be out talking and laughing and eating Arthur Bryant's barbecue when her best friend, her partner, was getting the hell beat out of him and...

She shut her eyes, sucked in a hard, hurting breath, and deliberately let it go.

At just before eleven - minutes before - she saw a couple walk out of the cowboy bar down the block and stagger to a truck parked across from her on the right side of the street. They managed to get doors unlocked with a minimum of giggling and groping, and wove off down the road, hopefully to a destiny that involved flashing lights and DUI citations. She was considering phoning in a tip when headlights turned the corner behind her, and she saw a car coming, moving slowly.

It slowed even further as the driver spotted the empty space and executed a smooth parallel-parking maneuver.

Black Toyota Celica, furred with a light coating of road dust. As Jazz watched, the driver opened up a vanity mirror, and as the light bathed her face, Jazz saw an attractive middle-aged woman with dark, shoulder-length hair checking her lipstick. That didn't take long. The driver opened her door and stepped out of the car.

Jazz let her get a few steps away before noiselessly opening her own car door and crossing the street, keeping out of the harsh pools of light near the corner. The woman was wearing a dress, and her high heels tapped concrete as she walked up the street. She had a notebook in her hand, and a penlight, evidently consulting an address. As Jazz hung back in the shadow of a large truck, the woman scanned building numbers, spotted the one she was looking for, and headed decisively in that direction.

Jazz checked for anyone watching or following, but the night was quiet and the street was clear. She was the only tail in sight.

She moved carefully as the woman jogged up the steps to 1428 Legacy Drive and pressed buttons. Jazz got close enough to see which one was pressed - bottom left.

The access gate buzzed. The woman entered.

Well, that's it, Jazz thought, and watched the door snap shut again behind her. Whatever they thought would happen, didn't. Obviously.

She watched for a while longer, waiting to see if anything interesting would come along, but apart from a few more amorous couples exiting the dance club, nothing popped.

She went back to her car and checked the time.

Eleven-fifteen.

"Five thousand dollars," she said aloud as she backed out of the parking space and headed home. "You people are totally insane."

She stopped off at a bar on the way back, and after a few shots, she no longer felt the raw ripping edges of fear over what she was going to see at Ellsworth in the morning.

It was worse than she'd thought, and better than she'd hoped. Ben looked different, lying in a hospital bed with tubes in his arms and splints and bandages all over him, but not that much different. His smile was the same, even through puffy, bruised lips. Cool blue eyes, brush-cut medium-brown hair that looked longer than she remembered. Some gray in it, maybe a bit more than the last time she'd been by.

"Jazz," he said. His voice sounded muffled and indistinct. She could hear him breathing. "Sorry about the mess. Slipped in the shower."

She sat down in the chair next to his bed, suddenly unable to find anything to say. McCarthy didn't give her much of a chance. He skipped his attention away from her to lock on to Borden, who was standing behind her.

"You're new," he said. "Let me guess. Lawyer?"

She looked back at him. Borden's smile remained cool and tightly controlled. "I'm a friend," he said. "Why? Do you need a lawyer?"

"Lawyers got me where I am today," McCarthy said. "Pull up a chair. I hate people looking down at me. Then again, you're so tall you'll probably look down on me anyway...so. Jazz. What's up?"

She was speechless, again. He looked at her, clearly waiting, and she felt an insane urge to laugh. This was pure McCarthy. Lying here hooked up to tubes, bubbling blood in a punctured lung, with broken bones and a morphine drip, demanding to know how her life was going.

"Who was it?" she heard herself ask him. McCarthy's blue eyes suddenly went shadowed, twilight cold, half-hidden by lowered lids.

"Not your problem," he said. "It's like Vegas inside Ellsworth, sweetheart. What happens here stays here."

She had things to ask him, but there was no way she could put it into words, no way that she could imagine him letting down his guard in any way. Especially not with Borden here. She'd seen the shields go all the way to full strength the second he'd seen Borden at her back.

"I want to know," she said. "I want to know what happened."

His smile flashed again, but it didn't reach the rest of his face. "No, you don't," he said. "No reason for that. Look, it happened, it wasn't fun, it's over. I'll take care of what needs to be taken care of, yeah? But I need you to do something for me."

She nodded wordlessly, watching him. His hand suddenly shot out and wrapped around hers, tight and warm. McCarthy had always been the kind to touch, to put a hand on her shoulder, an arm around her shoulders. A celebratory kiss on her temple when things went well. Nothing sexual about it, just...family. As close as could ever matter.

His blue eyes were intense and dark with emotion.

"I need you to stop coming here," he said. "I need to forget what it's like out there if you want me to survive in here."

"No!" She held on to his hand when he tried to pull it away. "No, dammit, Ben, I'm not giving up. I'll find a way to get you out."

"Drop it, Jazz. I mean it. Stewart's trying to bury you, too, and if you give him an excuse he'll do it. Forget me. Move on." His eyes flicked suddenly from her to Borden, then back. "I hear you're working freelance these days."

"Who told you that?"

"You don't think Stewart comes to see me? Keeps me up-to-date on all the gossip? I hear you've got a P.I. license. He can get it pulled, he hears you doing anything you shouldn't be into. Be careful." He studied her through those bruised, wary eyes. "What are you handling? Routine stuff?"

"Yeah," she said. It was partially true, anyway. "I have - " She was about to tell him, I have a partner, but the words stuck in her throat. She wasn't sure if saying it would be a reassurance, or a betrayal. "Lighten up, Ben, it's not like I can't take care of myself."

"Yeah," he agreed. His thumb skimmed gently over her bruised, abraded knuckles. He had big, square hands, disfigured now with bruises and cuts where he'd defended himself. They looked like they'd been in the same fight. "Wild woman."

She found herself grinning, suddenly. "Saved your ass a few times."

"More than a few, yeah. But you need to pick your battles. Can't make war against the world." He looked somber, as if what he was saying applied to himself as much as her. "You do what I said last time?"

She didn't answer, because she didn't want to out-and-out lie to him. The last time she'd been to Ellsworth - the day she'd met James Borden, she realized with a shock, had it really been that long ago?  -  Ben had told her in no uncertain terms to box up the files she was keeping on his case and send them to his attorney. Not that his attorney had ever done him a damn bit of good that she remembered. Skinny little kid, looked more like an actor than a real lawyer...

She found herself glancing over her shoulder at Borden. He was chatting with a nurse, head bent, smiling.

He didn't look like a real lawyer, either.

"I'm going to get you out of here," she said aloud, not quite looking at Ben because it was easier than facing those eyes, that silent whisper of things done and endured she didn't want to know. "Swear to God, I will."

"God put me here," McCarthy said, and shrugged. He put on a false Irish comic-opera lilt. "It'll take the devil himself to get me out."

She jerked her attention back to his face. "Then I'll deal with the devil."

McCarthy sent that unreadable look again, to Borden, who was still talking to the nurse and well out of earshot. "Believe it or not, sweetheart, I think you already did."

By the time she left the prison, Jazz felt exhausted, shaky and desperately in need of a nap. She let Borden have the wheel heading back, and fell asleep to the rhythmic hiss of tires on asphalt and the soft wail of the radio. If she dreamed, it was probably unpleasant, but she didn't remember.

They rolled back into Kansas City in time for rush hour, which Borden negotiated with ease - he would, she supposed, being from the Big Apple - and she realized by the time they'd pulled into her apartment parking lot that she had barely said a word to him since entering the prison.

As he pulled the brake, she looked over at him and said, "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For...not trying to make me believe he's guilty."

Borden shrugged. "I don't know if he's guilty. And what I think doesn't matter, it's what you think. You took on the job to have the resources to find out, right? You should use them."

"I intend to."

"Even though he told you not to try?"

She smiled slightly, and tasted bitterness. "Especially since he said that."

Borden finished the business of unbuckling himself from the seat, turning off the engine, and handing her the keys before he asked, "Are you going to see him again? Even though he told you not to go back?"

"I don't do everything I'm told," she shot back, and got out of the car.

She could have sworn he muttered, "I think you mean anything," but when she checked, his face was polite and bland, and he had the good sense not to smirk about having the last word.

Out of habit, she grabbed a paper from the dispenser near the mailboxes, then collected the daily mail carrier's allotment of bills and circulars. Took the stairs. She had started taking the stairs again as soon as she was sure the sutures wouldn't tear loose, and now she was nearly back up to strength, able to trot up the six flights at a good clip without elevating her heart rate more than a few beats a minute. Borden loped next to her without breathing hard, too. Like Lucia, he was a runner. She wondered if he was a swimmer, too.

She put the vision of Borden in a Speedo out of her head with a heroic effort.

Inside the apartment she dumped the mail on the kitchen table as she poured herself a tall glass of orange juice, then another for Borden when she remembered her manners. She sorted through things one-handed, absentmindedly, thinking over how McCarthy had looked, how he'd acted...

She stopped in the act of shoving the newspaper aside and pulled it slowly toward her, then unfolded the front page.

"What?" Borden asked.

She held up a finger for silence, reading, and then turned the front page toward him and pointed to the black-and-white photo of a woman on the front. "Her," she said. "I recognize her."

"What?"

"I followed her last night."

She went back to the article.

Wendy Blankenship, 42, was found dead in an alley near the bar where she worked. She was last seen yesterday evening at six o'clock by co-workers, who described it as a "normal day." "She didn't seem different or anything," said Janelle Vincent, who covers alternate night shifts at Jaye's Tavern. "She just clocked out and went home like usual. It's terrible, you know? She was just getting her life back together. She was like a den mother around here, we're going to miss her so much."

Police have not released the details, but have confirmed that they believe Blankenship's death is a homicide, and are searching for witnesses to put together a timeline of events leading up to her death.

There was no mention of time of death, but Jazz had a sick feeling that she would have been one of the last people to see Wendy Blankenship alive. She remembered Wendy checking her lipstick and walking down the street to the building. Buzzing the intercom.

Last one on the bottom left.

"You knew," she said, and looked up at Borden. He paused in the act of raising his orange juice to his lips. "You knew."

"Knew what?"

"Don't give me that crap! Why else would you send me?"

He put the glass down carefully and extended his hand for the paper. She watched him read the entire article, face composed and emotions hidden, and when he was done he folded the paper again and set it on the table between them without meeting her eyes.

"I don't know," he said hoarsely. "I don't know why we sent you there."

"Bullshit. Why didn't you have me stop her? Save her? I was right there!"

He looked up, then, and she saw the suffering in his eyes. "I don't know, Jazz."

She stared at him for a few long seconds, then reached over and picked up the cordless phone and dialed a number from memory. "Yeah," she said to the woman who answered. "I need to speak to Detective Stewart. I have some information about a murder."

"Don't," Borden said.

"It's worse if I wait," she said to him. "They'll have surveillance footage, security-camera video, something. If Stewart thinks I'm hiding something..."

"You can't do this."

"Why didn't you save her?" she screamed at him.

He looked back at her, stark and pale, and shook his head. "Because we can't save everybody," he said, and he sounded just as sick as she felt. "Because it isn't possible. You know that, Jazz."

"Where the hell does this stuff come from?" she demanded. "All this...this...bullshit! Go here, watch this, videotape this - ? Who tells you where to send me? Who tells you why?"

She was so intent on his answer that the appearance of Lucia in the kitchen doorway made her flinch. Lucia, looking sleek and dark and dangerous, put down her black nylon bag and backpack, crossed her arms, and said, "I knocked. I guess you were too busy screaming at the top of your lungs to hear." She transferred that fierce black look to Borden. "She asked you a question, Counselor."

"You, too?" he murmured.

"Yes. Me, too. I'm just as tired as she is of the cloak-and-dagger, and I'd be willing to bet I'm just all-around more tired, period. Tell us, or get out and take your red envelopes with you." Lucia couldn't possibly have a clue what they were arguing about, but you'd never have known it from the self-possession she displayed - then again, hell, for all Jazz knew, Lucia had the apartment wired for sound and vision. Maybe she knew everything.

Maybe she always did.

Borden looked from one of them to the other, wordlessly, and Jazz didn't blink. Neither, so far as she could tell, did Lucia.

"I need to make a phone call," he said.

"Then dial," Lucia said softly. "Before we pick up the phone and tell Detective Stewart everything we know about Gabriel, Pike & Laskins. You put my partner in a compromising position, Mr. Borden. I don't think I like that very much. Make amends."

He visibly swallowed. Jazz might have felt sorry for him, except the fierce gratitude and pride she was feeling for Lucia crowded all of that out.

He reached in his pocket and retrieved his cell phone, and dialed. "Yeah," he said slowly. "It's Borden. I need to take Callender and Garza to the next level."

Silence. His eyes fixed on the newspaper lying folded on the table. The picture of Wendy Blankenship, who hadn't survived the night that Jazz Callender barely remembered after the blur of drinks.

"Yes," he said. "I understand." He hung up and looked at each of them in turn, Jazz last. His eyes were asking her for something, but she couldn't understand what it was, and she wasn't in the mood to grant him any favors anyway. "We need to go downstairs," he said. "Right now."

"I just got off a plane," Lucia said. "Mind if I change clothes first?"

"Actually, I do," he said. "There's a car waiting."

"What?" For the first time, Jazz actually saw Lucia thrown off her stride. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Borden didn't answer. Jazz, after a few unmoving seconds, answered for him.

"They knew," she said. "They had to know all of this before it happened. Why else would they have a car here, now?"

"That's insane," Lucia said flatly.

"Yes," she agreed. "Like hiring two people who don't know each other. Like paying them to set up a detective agency and carry out assignments that don't have any purpose. That's insane, too. Remember?"

Lucia stared at her, a frown grooved over her eyebrows, a light in her eyes that Jazz hadn't seen before. Wary. Mistrustful.

"It's crazy," she repeated slowly.

"Yeah," Jazz agreed. "My point exactly." She turned to Borden. "Let's go see the wizard, Tin Man."

It wasn't just a car downstairs, it was a limousine. A big, black stretch limo, with tinted windows and a uniformed chauffeur who looked vaguely familiar. Jazz blinked at the sight of him - it was odd, seeing a stretch limo and a liveried driver on the streets of Kansas City - but it was Lucia who said, "We've met you before."

The driver doffed his cap and nodded with military precision. "Yes, ma'am," he said, and Jazz remembered. Same driver from New York City, from the visit to the Gabriel, Pike & Laskins offices, only more formally dressed and captaining a bigger land yacht. He opened the back door and handed Lucia inside, then reached for Jazz, who avoided him and climbed in on her own.

Milo Laskins, Borden's boss, was the sole occupant of the car. He was dressed in another natty suit, this one charcoal-gray, with a navy tie and a diamond stickpin.

"Ms. Garza. Ms. Callender." Laskins offered them a gentlemanly nod. "I understand you have questions. That's perfectly reasonable. I'm authorized to answer them."

Jazz had been prepared to argue, but his easy, courteous manner threw her off stride. Not so Lucia, who stepped in to say, "Fine. Who are you?"

"That's simpler than you might think," Laskins said, and raised thick eyebrows. "I'm just like you. I'm an Actor."

Jazz heard the capital A. Didn't understand what it meant, but she heard the emphasis.

He tapped the thick, tinted divider behind him. The limo pulled into traffic, smooth as silk. Jazz fisted her hands. She felt helpless, moving out of control.

"Which means what, exactly?" Lucia asked. "Conspiracy theory dinner theater on the weekends?"

"I will give you a very simple overview of what we - or, more properly, the Cross Society - now know about the world, Ms. Garza. There are two kinds of people in it."

"Only two?" Lucia murmured, sounding amused.

"For our purposes, yes. There are Actors and Chorus. At any given time on this planet, out of the billions of human lives being lived, only a handful - about ten thousand, all together - are doing anything that really matters on a larger scale. These are people we term Actors. Everyone else..." Laskins made a languid, elegant motion with one hand. "Chorus. Extras, if you will. It isn't the same ten thousand from moment to moment, understand. Almost every life on Earth will experience at least one decision, one event in their life that has large ripples of consequence - almost everyone moves from Chorus to Actor once in their lives. But it turns out, rather unexpectedly, that once you begin to analyze the world in this manner you find that it doesn't look as random as you would expect."

"I don't understand," Lucia said. She did sound interested, though Jazz had ceased to have any investment somewhere around the Actor/Chorus explanation, which was a load of horseshit; she was waiting for Laskins to stop spinning fairy tales and get to the point.

Unexpectedly, Laskins focused his gaze on her.

"Do you?"

"Afraid not," she said, and shrugged. He sighed.

"Have you ever heard the old adage, nothing succeeds like success? Or, it takes money to make money? They share a common theme. The more you have of one thing, the natural tendency is that similar things attract."

"I have no idea what the hell you're saying," Jazz said. "Can we move on to the part where you tell me why you had me let a woman die last night? Because that's the part I'm really fascinated about."

Laskins's smile vanished. He looked tired and old and, suddenly, unhappy. "I wish I could explain it to you in a way that made sense. I can't, not really, but I'll try.

"Certain people are never Chorus in this life, Jasmine. They are, quite simply, always Actors. Everything they do ripples and has consequences, even the smallest thing. They are rare, these...Leads. We have identified perhaps a hundred of them. The woman that you were asked to follow was a Lead, and you were there to counter a move by the opposition. It was the right move, but it simply failed."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"We put you in place to save her life."

The limo made a right turn. Jazz glanced out the windows, half-claustrophobic, and saw that they were on the back side of the office building.

Circling the block.

She took a deep breath. "Hate to break it to you, but it didn't work."

"Yes," Laskins said quietly. "I'd like to tell you that it was a foolproof system. It doesn't always work out."

"Doesn't always work out?" Jazz repeated hotly. "She's dead! If she's so damn important and you knew she was in danger, why didn't you use one of those - those Actors or Leads or whatever to protect her?"

Laskins leaned forward, fixed her with a look, and said, very softly, "We did."

Borden sucked in a breath. Jazz looked sharply at him, but he didn't say anything. He avoided her eyes.

"Are you telling me that I'm a - whatever?"

"Yes. A Lead. Both of you are. That's why we chose you. That's why we've financed you, and we've put you in a position to do things on our behalf. Because you can. Because you must."

"Then I guess the fact that Wendy's dead in the morgue is proof that you're all insane," Jazz said grimly. Lucia, next to her, was oddly quiet, watching Laskins. "If we're so important, why the hell haven't we made any difference? You know what? This is useless. You're all crazy, and I'm out of here."

She shoved on Borden, trying to get him to move, but he was more solid than he looked, and she was hampered by the close confines of the car. He didn't look at her.

"You have made a difference," Borden said. "Jazz, listen to me. I know what we're saying sounds crazy - "

"Let me out!" Jazz was half-standing now, furious, reaching over Borden for the door handle. He grabbed her hand and held it, trying to get her to look at him; she flatly refused. She was shaking all over. "Dammit, I'm done, do you hear me? Let me the hell out now!"

But it wasn't Borden who stopped her from getting out, it was Lucia. Lucia's quiet voice, unnaturally calm. "The woman loading boxes in the van," she said. "The first job we did for you. She was going to be killed?"

"If you hadn't been there, yes. At least, we think so."

"So we put the chaos in chaos theory," Lucia said, leaning forward, hands clasped between her knees. "It's like chess, isn't it. You move us like pieces on a board. We're pawns, protecting your bishops and knights and castles."

"Don't sell yourself short," Laskins grunted in reply. "Pawns don't rate this explanation. And although Wendy Blankenship had the potential to become important, she wasn't a castle."

"If you're any good at chess," Lucia continued, "then you know there are a limited number of outcomes when you have three pieces interacting - especially if the point is to take one of the pieces off the board. Why didn't you warn Jazz and let her save Wendy?"

"None of this is an exact science, Ms. Garza. Every action, by any of the Actors at the moment, can turn events. We can't warn against specifics, because we only are sure of generalities. We knew Ms. Blankenship was marked for death, and indeed, we couldn't find an outcome in which she didn't die. But we chose the moment most likely to make a difference. If events had gone a bit differently, if their Actor had made an error, Jazz would have saved her. But sometimes it isn't possible." To his credit, Laskins sounded almost as if he gave a damn. "Chess is my specialty. And the focus is not upon pieces that will inevitably be lost, but on making that sacrifice meaningful."

"You used Jazz to take out the killer, after the fact."

"We put her in a position where she could provide the police with a vital lead, yes, without placing her in danger. She's already taken far too many risks."

Jazz parted her lips to fire off a response, but nothing came to mind.

"As I said," Laskins continued, "chess is my specialty. And while this isn't the outcome we'd hoped for, it's far from a lost cause. Jazz can safely come forward with her information, and we achieve our goal in a different way. We stopped a serial killer, who will shortly leave the chess-board himself, and we did it with only inevitable losses. It isn't always about bullets and bombs, you know, Ms. Garza. Or lying."

There must have been a hidden message in that. Jazz saw a flicker in Lucia's eyes, a downright flinch in her body language. "If you're playing chess," Lucia asked, "who do you play against? And don't tell me God. I don't believe you're quite that good."

The privacy screen between them and the driver suddenly eased down with a whir, and their ex-Marine chauffeur turned to look back at them. "Excuse me," he said, "but you wanted to know when the other car left. It's leaving now."

"Thank you, Charles," Laskins said, and checked his expensive watch. "Right on time. I'm sorry, Ms. Garza, but we'll have to cut this meeting short. Some things simply won't be postponed, as I'm sure you can appreciate."

"Answer my question first," she said.

"No." Laskins nodded toward the door. "Charles, if you please - "

Lucia, without seeming to be in a big hurry or doing anything important, reached around and pulled out her gun. She pointed it directly at Laskins. "Nothing personal," she said, with a hint of a smile, "but I'd really like an answer to my question first. And Charles, don't do anything foolish, please, because two of us shooting in here really won't help the situation."

Laskins threw out a warning hand to the Marine. "Interesting. There was only a very small chance that you would do that, you know."

"Unless you're wearing bulletproof armor under that Hugo Boss suit, I don't think that means much," Lucia replied. They exchanged cool little smiles. "How is it done?"

"How is what done?"

Jazz jumped in. "The fortune-telling. What do you have? Tarot cards? A crystal ball? Twelve thousand monkeys with calculators?" She knew she sounded sarcastic, and didn't give a damn. This was scary. The fact that Lucia was buying it downright terrified her.

Laskins gave her a narrow, sour smile. "No. We have a few people who do these things - freaks of nature, if you will. But the rest of us apply science, not superstition. It might surprise you to know there are solid, scientific methods that can be applied to the problem of alternative realities. String theory, for instance."

"You have a psychic," Lucia cut in. "Right?"

"Yes. You could say that."

"Then why all the chess?"

"This is what happens," Laskins said irritably, "when you have two psychics who both want to win."

Lucia glanced aside at Jazz, who hadn't quite figured out a move, either. At least, nothing that wouldn't compromise Lucia's. "You believing anything he's told us?" she asked.

"I believe that I'm going to report seeing Wendy Blankenship buzz herself into that apartment," Jazz said. "I would have done that, anyway."

"You'll need a cover story. Some reason you were on the street and saw her," Lucia replied. "I can handle that part, back-engineer an assignment you were on. It'll check out." She transferred attention back to the two facing them - not, Jazz suspected, that it had ever really wandered. "Mr. Laskins, you have ten seconds to answer me before my partner and I exit this vehicle and your plans, forever. If you know anything at all about me, you know that I mean what I'm saying."

"Yes," Laskins said sourly. "I know you mean it, Garza. But use your common sense. The Cross Society is giving you information, and you're acting upon it. Do you really think you can just walk away?"

"Oh, yes, I think I can. And should."

"From the moment our psychic - "

"Max Simms?" Jazz asked. Laskins cut his steely Paul Newman stare her way.

"Yes, fine, Max Simms. From the moment you appeared in his visions, you became important. We got to you first. That made you targets - low-priority, at present - for the opposition. You will be targets for as long as you continue to be Actors."

"How do we quit?"

It was a perfectly good question, but Laskins's smile got wider. "You can't, Ms. Callender. Not of your own accord. For as long as the greater forces of the universe - God, the devil, or chance - deem you an Actor, you will remain one. But don't worry. Eventually, it will be over."

"Yeah," Jazz snapped. "Eventually we all die."

Laskins didn't bother to deny it.

Laskins said, "We've reached a hard stop, Ms. Garza. You can either shoot me, which would have a less than pleasant outcome for both you and your partner, or you can exit the limousine and refuse to take any further support or information from us. But if you do that, you cut yourselves off. You've been marked as Leads, both of you. What you do matters. Everything you do matters, one way or another. You're targets, as surely as Wendy Blankenship, and you'll end up just the same if we don't help you."

"I don't like threats." Lucia almost purred it.

"That isn't a threat," he said. "It doesn't need to be. You've become part of what we are. Our enemies know that."

Lucia smiled and looked at Jazz. It was crazy, weird, exhilarating, the way the two of them communicated. The way things hummed at moments like this.

"Well," Jazz said, "I suck at chess, but I love contact sports."

On some unseen signal, Charles pulled the limo in at the curb again. Lucia reached over and opened her door. "The thing about hiring what you call Leads? We aren't going to always do what you tell us."

"If you don't, people will die," Laskins said.

"I did what you asked. Blankenship's still dead," Jazz said. Lucia slid smoothly out of the limousine. She scooted over to follow. "Don't call us. Oh, and those red letters? Stuff them."

She looked back, one last time, at James Borden. He was staring at her as if he was trying to memorize everything about her in the last second.

"See you, Counselor," she said, and shut the door.

The limo pulled away, accelerating fast.

She and Lucia stood on the empty street in front of the apartment building, staring after it. Lucia absently holstered her gun.

"Well," she said. "That was...unusual."

"Which is so unusual for us, these days," Jazz agreed blandly. She didn't feel bland. She felt wired, juiced, jittery, more alive than she had in months. As if she'd finally found...

What?

Something.

Lucia turned toward her. "Do you want to stop?"

"Stop?"

"Quit. Dissolve the partnership. Go separate ways." Lucia nodded after the limo's taillights. "Clearly, these people are insane. It's probably far better that we get out now, before the damage is permanent."

"Yeah," Jazz agreed softly. "They're crazy."

"Then you want to quit?"

Silence. There were cars coming. Jazz glanced at the distant oncoming headlights, then met Lucia's eyes and held them. "No," she said. "I don't want to quit. Not the partnership, anyway."

Lucia's smile was warm, wicked and utterly crazy. "Neither do I. This is just about to get...interesting."