Devil's Bargain

“Okay,” she said at last, “let’s say I let you guys pay for the medical stuff. This time.”

“There’s going to be a next time?” Borden said, as he replaced the pitcher.

“Could be.” She smiled wolfishly. “I tend to get into trouble, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Hasn’t escaped me,” he agreed. “Jazz…” He leaned forward, and clearly didn’t know what to do with his hands. He ended up dangling them between his knees, looking lost. “You baffle me. You’re all edges and angles and whup-ass, but…”

“But?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I hate seeing you like this. I feel like I got you into it, and I don’t like it.”

“Counselor, don’t strain a muscle shouldering the blame. Besides, wasn’t this the point? Didn’t you want us in this thing, me and Lucia? Well, you got your wish. We’re in.”

He looked briefly grim, tired, and older than his age in the soft morning light. This time, he knew what to do with his hands. He ran them through his hair. “That’s not what I wanted,” he said. “It’s what the firm wanted. I’m not the firm.”

“Are you telling me—”

“No. I’m telling you that objectively, it’s good you took the deal. But personally, I’d rather not see you laid up with tubes in you. That’s all.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Not that I know you. I just—think you’re kind of cool.”

“Really.” She kept any hint of encouragement out of her voice, although her pulse jumped and the monitor beeped out a betrayal. “Cool.” Her dismissive tone painted a slight flush along his sharp cheekbones. “Thanks. Don’t let me keep you.”

He stood up, and looking down at her, there was no sense of protectiveness this time. Just height and distance.

“I just wanted to make sure that my client stayed alive long enough for the ink to dry on the legal agreements. I’ll catch the noon flight back.”

“Hope you have a use for all these frequent-flyer miles.”

“Vacation,” he said shortly. “With my girlfriend.”

He left. Jazz waited long enough to make sure he was gone for good, then buzzed the nurse and told her to get the tubes out, because she was leaving.

Lucia was, predictably, not happy with her, what with the checking out against medical advice, the bleeding into the bandages, and the shortness of breath, but Jazz wasn’t one to worry about things like that. She dry-swallowed some of the painkillers the doctor had pressed on her, fed Mooch the Cat and listened to Lucia’s cool, unemotional account of the day.

“I suppose it won’t do any good to tell you to go to bed, so I won’t bother,” Lucia said, and that was the end of the lecture, to Jazz’s satisfaction. Lucia dug in her purse and came up with a folder crammed with papers. She began laying them methodically on the kitchen table. Bank stuff. Jazz signed until it was done and then sat back, watching Lucia stuff it all into her bag.

This was moving too fast. Jazz felt massively tired. She swigged orange juice and focused on the cat happily chowing down in the corner of the kitchen. “It’s real, isn’t it?”

“Real enough,” Lucia agreed. “By next week, we’re going to have an office, a phone, Internet access…and hopefully, we’ll both still be alive to enjoy it.”

“We’ll also have our first case,” Jazz said. She picked up her orange juice, limped out of the kitchen into the living room and, with her toe, nudged the four file cartons stacked in the corner. “You may want to start reading up.”

Every box was labeled McCarthy, Benjamin, with the case number and box ID. Wasn’t legal for her to have them, either, but since they were all duplicates she didn’t figure anybody but Stewart and his crowd would care much. An ex-boyfriend in Records had done her the favor—and it had been a big one, but then she’d been real grateful—and she’d been poring over them obsessively for months now. The answer was in there. She just knew it was in there.

Lucia, who was carrying some kind of odd-looking sports drink, took a sip and raised her eyebrows. “Who’s paying us to work on your partner’s case?” she asked bluntly. Jazz just looked at her. “Ah. That’s what I thought. I don’t suppose we can count on friendly local cops sending business our way, either, can we?”

Jazz shrugged. “I’ve got a few buddies left.”

It didn’t sound convincing, even to her own ears. She wondered if Borden had gotten on his noon flight. She wondered if he really had a girlfriend, and if he did, if he was really going to fly her off to Jamaica soon and spend a week making love on white beaches with surf foaming over their feet. Probably. She’d been an idiot to think—

The doorbell rang.

Lucia, in the act of flipping open the first McCarthy carton, paused and looked at Jazz, then set down her drink. “No, I’ll get it,” she said when Jazz turned toward the door. “Sit.”

Jazz sank down in the straight-backed desk chair with a tiny sigh of relief, and watched Lucia move toward the door. Not, she noticed, coming at it in a straight line; Lucia hugged the hinge side of the door and slid a gun out of the holster at her back. She held it down at her side, leaned over and covered the peephole with one finger for a few seconds.

Nothing happened. No bullets came flying through the door.

“Who is it?” Lucia asked.

“Borden.” Definitely his voice. Jazz nodded. Lucia holstered the gun and undid the two dead bolts with sharp clicks.

Borden still looked casual and rumpled and tired, but he’d thrown on a leather jacket over the black knit shirt. Not the aggressively biker-wa

“Hey,” he said, and came in. Lucia shut the door behind him, locks and all. “I went by the hospital.”

“She’s out,” Lucia said simply.

“So I heard. The words against medical advice came up—” He spotted Jazz sitting at the table, and stopped dead in his conversational tracks.

“Counselor,” she said. “Nice of you to drop by. What, no flowers?”

“No, I brought a card,” he said. He reached into his jacket and came out with a red envelope, exactly the size and shape of a holiday card. Maybe not Valentine’s Day after all. Maybe something left over from Christmas instead.

He handed it to Lucia.

“What’s this?” she asked. She knew, though. She’d gotten a red envelope before.

“Your first case,” he said. “Nothing too demanding, considering Jazz has a thirty-two-caliber disability. But something to start you off. Listen, I’d stay to chat, but my flight’s leaving soon. Try not to get yourselves killed before we can get your paperwork finished, okay?”

He moved to the door, threw back the dead bolts, and didn’t look at Jazz directly at all.

“Borden,” Jazz said. He froze but didn’t turn to look at her. “Sorry. Listen, you’re being careful, right?”

“Always,” he said neutrally. “You should try it sometime. Might cut down on the scarring.”

He opened the door and left. Lucia relocked the bolts before saying, eyebrows raised, “Forgive me for noticing, but we’ve barely started and you’re already having a problem with our benefactors.”

“No,” Jazz sighed. “I’m having a problem with lawyers. Specifically, that one.”

Lucia sounded amused. “Are you really? Because that’s not how it looks from over here.”

“Shut up, will you? And open that thing, if you’re going to do it.”

Lucia took an elegant-looking pocketknife out and zipped it through paper with a hiss to open the envelope. She shook out two things: a Polaroid photograph and a folded sheet of paper. She looked at the picture for a few seconds, then passed it over to Jazz.

It was a photo of a young woman, maybe twenty-five. Blond, tall, walking with a load of books in her arms. Mod-looking glasses and a blunt haircut. Rounded shoulders. That, and the fluffy pink cardigan, screamed librarian. The camera had caught her frowning, looking three-quarters toward the lens, as if a sound had startled her. It had been taken on the street, in full sunlight. Going to work, maybe? The outfit didn’t look like casual wear, although it wasn’t a business suit, either.