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McCarthy went still, arm still flexed, fist clenched. She heard tendons crack, but his face had gone expressionless, his eyes hidden and dark. “Yeah?” he asked neutrally. “Dropped off hearts and flowers?”
“Not exactly. He said you might not make it to the hearing on Tuesday,” she replied. “You’re going to watch your back, right? Night and day?”
“Jazz, no way I’m letting them get to me now. Too much to hope for.” He looked at Lucia again, a little longer this time. “What about the pictures? Any leads on who sent them to Ma
“No, but we authenticated them,” Lucia said. “The photographer’s name is Harrison Rohrman, he’s a private investigator out of Michigan. He got the pictures by accident, actually. He was photographing everybody who came out the back door because he was waiting for a husband to duck out with one of the strippers. Divorce case. He had no idea the pictures were important.”
“But somebody knew,” Jazz said. “Somebody who recognized you in them and dropped them to Ma
“Meaning?” McCarthy’s hands stretched out flat on the table. Jazz thought about reaching for them, but before she could, Lucia’s hand moved and stroked lightly over his knuckles, then retreated.
As if she couldn’t help herself.
McCarthy’s hands moved after hers, then stopped.
Neither of them willing to commit, not in front of Jazz. She felt heat in her face, felt like an outsider, and hated it.
“Meaning,” she forced herself to say, “it was probably somebody from the force who doesn’t want to be identified as helping you out. Somebody Stewart might go after out of sheer revenge.”
McCarthy nodded. “Yeah, there are still a few guys who’d step up and do that, at least anonymously. Hell, I don’t care who did it. So long as the judge admits the evidence, I’ll just be grateful.”
“You know this won’t mean you get reinstated,” Jazz said. “The payoffs—”
“Yeah, my lawyer talked about it. There’s a deal on the table, if the evidence gets admitted. I get time served on the extortion. Community service, and I lose my pension, but Jazz, I deserve that. We both know it.” McCarthy shrugged. “I should’ve been better than I was. I will be, from now on. If I can’t be a cop anymore, that’s okay. I’ll find another way. The important thing is that I’m not stuck in here anymore. That I can have a life again.”
His eyes flicked to Lucia, then away. Not quite an admission of interest, but…
Jazz swallowed, forced a smile, and said, “Yeah. That’s great.”
On Sunday, Jazz woke to the sound of gunfire, and came bolt upright in bed. Mooch shot off the comforter with a growl and stalked away. She rolled over, grabbed her pistol from the nightstand and shrugged on a robe over her white T-shirt and sweatpants before easing open the bedroom door.
The door read, Jazz’s Room, in shiny black letters, along with Authorized Perso
Not that the place was empty. Over to the right was the freestanding kitchen, to the left was the curtained-off entertainment room, and beyond that was Ma
The lab, however, was directly in front of her, and as she looked in that direction, she saw Ma
“Um—did I wake you up?”
“With the gunfire?” She gestured at the pistol he’d just put down, and the ballistic tank of water he’d fired into. “Oh, no. Had to get up anyway.”
“Sorry. It’s just that—”
“Never mind, Ma
“Ma
“Yeah, well…” He shrugged. “I’ve been thinking of getting back into it. A little. This is nothing, though. The insurance company wants to prove that the owner of the gun shot up his own house and then claimed it was a drive-by. Oh, here. Message.” He reached over for a pad of paper and slid it across to her. Written in Ma
She yawned and nodded. “What time is it?”
“Six o’clock.”
She froze, blinking. “In the evening?”
“Yeah,” he said apologetically. “I thought you—the doctor said you should sleep as much as—”
“Ma
“Yeah, well, you really don’t need to go until—”
“Ma
“Sorry.” He held up his hands and turned away, shoulders hunched. She glared at him for a second, then shook her head and grabbed the cordless phone from the counter as she headed for the bathroom.
It was impossible to stay mad at Ma
Weird.
As she toweled her hair dry with one hand, she dialed Borden’s cell phone one-handed. He answered on the second ring.
“Are you in town?” she asked.
“Well, across it,” he said. “Meeting with some corporate clients. Just finished.”
“I was pla
“That’s his job now?”
“Shut up.”
“Who’s a grumpy late riser?”
“I’m starving. And I want di
“When the company’s agreeable,” Borden said. “I’ll be there in—twenty minutes. Tell your boyfriend not to shoot me on the way in, okay?”
She smiled and hung up on him, but he had a point about Ma
She put extra time in at the mirror, experimenting with makeup and blush and eyeliner, and when she was finished, she decided it wasn’t too humiliating. She still looked like Jasmine Callender. Just not the one who got drunk and beat up truckers.
After some thought, she chose a black pantsuit with a plain white French-cuffed shirt—Lucia’s shopping influence—and some mid-heeled shoes. By the time she was slipping them on, Borden’s rental car appeared on the security monitor, and she had to race to tell Ma
She met Borden downstairs, in the garage, and found him leaning against his sedan, looking tall and lawyerly. Very legitimate.
His eyes widened at the sight of her, and he straightened up. She deliberately slowed down, enjoying the effect.
“Counselor,” she said, and gave him a long, measuring look. “Something wrong?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m pretty sure there are some laws being broken, I’m just not clear on which ones.”
He walked around and opened the door for her. Handed her in, fingers warm around hers.
She didn’t let go. She tugged hard on his hand, tipping him off balance and down to her seated level.
Grabbed his tie and kissed him.
Warm, slow slide of lips, just as hot and sweet as she remembered from that strange, dizzying day at Simms’s prison. His lips parted, and she plunged her tongue into the opening, tasting coffee and caramel. His tongue scraped hers, teased, stroked. She moaned, deep in her throat, and grabbed a handful of his hair to try to get him deeper into her. It was unbelievable, really, how much she wanted this.