Devil's Bargain

“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 gri

“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. Ski

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 ru

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 ma

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.”