Devil's Bargain

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 co

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 ru

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 a

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.”