Devil's Bargain

There was a passion behind the words that surprised Jazz. A frustration carefully hidden behind Lucia’s glossy, composed surface. She met the other woman’s dark eyes and saw an absolute fury there, quickly damped down.

“Lucia, we either do this thing or we don’t. I don’t have a lot of time to burn.” She was thinking about Ben, sitting in a cell, waiting. When she’d seen him last, he’d been quiet and guarded, but she’d seen the bruises. A cop in general population. He was a target, and there was no question that his enemies would get him. Ben was tough, but he wasn’t a superman, and even the tough had to sleep. “I need this.”

Lucia took a breath deep enough to stretch the pin-striped tailored jacket she was wearing. “I’m sorry.” There was a cold, hard light in her eyes. “I know you do. But I’ve been thinking about it, and it just doesn’t feel right. I did some checking on the Cross Society. You know who first established it? Max Simms.”

“Simms? The serial killer?”

“When he was the head of Eidolon Corporation, he formed the Cross Society as a nonprofit. He was head of it for a year before they started digging up bodies in his basement. The only thing that saved the society from going down the toilet was that he kept his involvement with them strictly low-profile, and somebody else stepped in to run it when he was shipped off to prison. Although my informant says that Simms was mostly a figurehead, anyway. The Cross Society was just a way to fu

Jazz looked her right in the eyes. “Then this isn’t going to happen,” she said.

“No,” Lucia agreed. “It isn’t going to happen. I’m sorry. I know you wanted it. I wanted it, too. But not if it tangles us up with people like Max Simms.”

Jazz felt it all turn to ash, all the hope she hadn’t even realized she’d been nursing. She’d schooled herself not to feel, not to care, and she’d been suckered in this time, and it damn well hurt. She stared mutely at Lucia, who stood up, retrieved her designer purse, and said, “Can you take me to the airport?”

Jazz nodded silently. She gathered up the partnership agreement, rolled it up and stuffed it into her coat pocket.

That was it. Game over.

Borden was going to be very disappointed.

Jazz kept her head down, thinking, all the way down in the elevator to the parking level. Lucia didn’t speak, either. There was an awkward silence between them, and they couldn’t meet each other’s eyes.

It was a relief when the bell dinged to a

“I’m sorry, Jazz. I like you. I’d like to work with you someday,” Lucia said. It was quiet, almost lost in the squeal of tires of a car pulling out of its space down the row. Headlights washed over them, turning Lucia’s rich golden skin pale, pulling diamond glints from her earrings, and since Jazz was watching her, she saw the other woman’s eyes suddenly shift to focus behind her.

She knew that look. She felt it in a swift, hot prickle down her spine, and she was diving forward even before Lucia yelled “Gun!” and lunged for the cover of a pillar. Jazz hit the ground hard and rolled, feeling the bite of rough concrete on exposed skin; she banged up hard against the massive tire of an oversize SUV and rolled on her side, fumbling for her gun.

A spray of noise, and sparks off the concrete next to her. She yelped, twisted and aimed for muzzle flashes. They were coming from the window of a slow-moving car, a black Lincoln with tinted windows. Everything was moving in snapshots, freeze-frames divided by the rapid gasps of her breath. More muzzle flashes, and bullets peppered the ground and the cars and the pillar behind which Lucia had taken shelter. Four rapid sharp pops, and she saw gray-rimmed holes appear in the passenger-side door. Lucia was firing. Jazz steadied her hand and squeezed off six shots. Every one of them went through the open window. She couldn’t tell if she hit anyone.

The gun—a Mac 10—disappeared back inside the window, and the car became a blur as it accelerated away. She focused on the license plate, but it was smeared, too, oddly indistinct. Tape? Some kind of disguise. They’d probably stop and peel it off later.

And then it rounded the corner with a screech, struck sparks as it hit the ramp going up, and was gone.

Smoke hung heavy in the air, acrid, burning Jazz’s eyes as she blinked and coughed. Well, it’s certainly one of the fastest firefights I’ve ever been in.

She focused on the glittering cascade of castoff on the ground. There must have been fifty shells, maybe more. Some were still rolling. The whole garage reverberated with the sounds of war.

“Shit!” Lucia was suddenly beside her, pale and furious, black eyes wide. She was staring at the ramp, and the gun was still in her hand. Tiny little thing. Ladylike.

“You need a bigger gun,” Jazz said, and laughed. It didn’t sound right. Lucia looked down at her, and stopped breathing. “What?”

Lucia went down on one knee, never mind the expensive pantsuit, and put the gun on the ground to flip Jazz over on her back. “Hey!” Jazz protested, but everything felt odd, didn’t it? Strange and liquid and…

Lucia pressed both hands to her side, pushing so hard Jazz couldn’t breathe.

“You’re going to be all right,” Lucia said. “Jazz. You’re going to be all right.”

Oh, shit, Jazz thought numbly, and saw the blood flooding over Lucia’s hands.

She fumbled in her coat pocket, got her cell phone, and dialed 911 to report her own shooting.

Lucia was right, although Jazz didn’t think it had been an actual diagnosis. Sometimes optimism worked out. The bullet had passed through her side and caught a few minor blood vessels, missed her liver and kidneys, and come out the other side. The doctor—way too young to be a surgeon, in Jazz’s painkiller-altered opinion—was cheerful about it. “Seen lots worse,” he told her, patting her hand. “I have three guys downstairs who had an argument in a bar who wish they were you, I promise.”

“How long am I going to be stuck here?” she asked. She hated hospitals. Hated the stiff, starchy sheets, the smell of disinfectant, the clean doctors. Hated the idea that she was lying in a bed that had probably seen more dead people than that kid in The Sixth Sense. Emergency rooms always smelled like blood and vomit, no matter how carefully they were scrubbed. “If I’m all stitched up…” She eased a leg over the side of the bed. And almost passed out. Ow. He grabbed it and moved it back.

“You’re here overnight,” he said. “And there are some police who want to talk to you. They’re already talking to your friend.”

Jazz had figured that. She could safely guess that what Lucia was saying was the truth, just not the whole truth. The two of them had been to the lawyers’ offices to consult about a partnership agreement. They’d been jumped by persons unknown. Case closed. Jazz figured she could leverage being shot to keep her statement short and sweet. If she had any luck at all, maybe she wouldn’t know the cops, and this would be…

Behind the doctor, the big wood door eased open, and a slightly built guy in a cheap suit looked in. He had rough-cut spiked hair and cold dark blue eyes and a rubbery mouth that looked as if it might smile or smirk or scream at a moment’s notice.

He looked at her as if she might be a corpse ready for autopsy, nothing but clinical interest.

Apparently, luck was not on her side. God, she really didn’t feel well enough for this.

“Stewart,” she said with a noticeable lack of warmth. He blinked at her. “You going to skulk or come in?”

“Skulk,” he said. “How you doin’, Jazz?” He had a Bronx accent, usually stressed for effect, and she felt a familiar weary surge of dislike. Poser. She’d known him for nearly five years, and she’d never liked him one minute of that time.