Devil's Bargain

“I’ll be the one standing on one leg, singing ‘The Star Spangled Ba

True enough.

Jazz put out food for Mooch the Cat, petted her on the way out the door, and went to bail the car out of the parking prison where she stored it.

The drive out to Kansas City International was about fifteen miles, but it took longer, of course; traffic on Broadway, then on I-29. Jazz hated driving. Other drivers made her crazy. McCarthy had always gotten behind the wheel when they’d gone on calls, picked her up at her apartment, navigated the streets with casual ease and no sign at all of irritation. When she’d been forced to do it, she’d been a snarling bundle of nerves, arrived at crime scenes angry and wired. It had been a job for McCarthy to calm her down….

She flicked the thought of Ben out of her head, hit the turn signal, and exited for MCI. Parking was a nightmare, of course. She hated that, too. And parking garages. She ended up taking a distant spot, because she damn sure wasn’t cruising the lot for anything closer. The walk would help her calm down, anyway; she didn’t want to meet Lucia Garza looking sweaty and wild-eyed.

She checked her watch. Ten-thirty on the dot. A couple of jets were coming in for landings; unless there had been a miracle and the plane was early, she should be right on time.

Jazz followed the signs to baggage claim. She arrived at ten-forty, just as the flight number flashed on the screen and one of the carousels began to clunk out luggage to a growing crowd of travelers.

She sca

No. Someone did. Jazz fixed on a woman who was standing very still, watching luggage bump its way around the segmented track. Her arms were crossed, and she was leaning against a pillar. There was a single black laptop bag over her shoulder and a black ripstop nylon backpack between her feet.

Jazz’s cop brain relentlessly photographed her, chronicling long dark hair, glossy and straight; a model’s golden, flawless skin. She was tall, long-legged, and dressed in what looked like a designer black pantsuit with a close-fitting white shirt under the coat.

As Jazz watched her, the woman’s head turned, and her dark eyes fastened on Jazz. The same merciless evaluation, fast and accurate. Jazz wondered what the final catalog entry had been, but then Lucia pushed off and walked confidently through the crowd.

They both stopped, regarded each other for a few seconds, and then Lucia extended her hand. No rings on her fingers. Short, well-maintained French-manicured fingernails with plain gloss polish. Jazz felt like a clumsy lump of dough next to her, but she held eye contact as she shook, feeling strength in the grip but no challenge.

“Hey,” Lucia said simply.

“Hey,” she replied. They both stepped back and considered each other for a moment, and then Lucia smiled. It was a cop’s smile—cynical, secretly amused, as familiar to Jazz as breathing.

“Nice to meet you,” Lucia said. “Let’s find a place to talk.”

They settled in some bright orange battered preformed chairs at the rear of baggage claim, out of the way of the loitering travelers. Lucia crossed her legs, rested an arm on the back of an empty seat and kept sca

“Good flight?” Jazz asked. Lucia made a so-so gesture. “Nice weather?”

“Fair skies.”

“Good. Now that we’ve got the small talk out of the way…” Jazz pulled the envelope from her pocket, handed over the letter and the check, and watched Lucia read them. Lucia, immediately absorbed, dug a similar red envelope from her bag and handed it absently on, as well. Jazz sca

Lucia’s carefully manicured fingernail flicked the check.

“It’s genuine,” Jazz said. “I called the bank this morning.”

“Shit.”

“No kidding.”

Lucia shuffled the pages to her résumé. Her dark eyes widened, and she shot Jazz a look.

“What?” Jazz asked.

She held up the paper. “This isn’t the public résumé. This one’s what I give to enforcement agencies. It’s got confidential information on it.”

“So how did these guys get hold of it?”

Lucia shook her head. “Last place I sent this résumé to was the FBI.”

Jazz raised her eyebrows. “They turned you down?”

“Not yet.” She shrugged. “But I’m not so sure I want to go back into government service right now. I’d like to do something with a few less rules. So, you said this guy seemed credible to you? How so?”

Jazz thought about Borden, his geeky leathers, his soft, sharply intelligent eyes. Maybe the getup hadn’t been clueless, after all. Maybe he’d been deliberately concealing just how smart he was.

“Just a feeling,” she said. “But then, I’m not always the best judge of character.”

She flung it out there to see if Lucia would react, and she did, looking up and locking eyes with her for a few deep seconds before turning her attention back to the paper.

“I assume you’re referring to your partner,” Lucia said quietly. “Yes. I know he was convicted.”

Sitting in that airless courtroom, watching the jury shuffle and fidget in their chairs, watching them avoiding McCarthy’s eyes, Jazz had known before the forewoman read out the verdict. She’d known, and Ben had known, too. Twenty-five years in prison. He’d be an old man when he got out. If he ever did. Cops were hunted in there, and Ben had always needed somebody to guard his back.

“He’s not guilty,” Jazz said, mostly just to hear herself say it, to hear how it sounded out loud after all these months.

Lucia didn’t look up. “You’re sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“The evidence looked pretty damning on paper.”

“Lots of guys on death row with paper evidence,” Jazz shot back, feeling something tighten in her guts. “McCarthy didn’t kill anybody. I’d have—”

Known. That was the mantra that rocked her to sleep at night. I’d have known. All those nights, sitting together, talking, pouring out our lives to each other, I’d have known if he was capable of cold-blooded murder.

Lucia didn’t comment again. She finally looked up and said, “What do you think about all this?”

Jazz shrugged. “I think it’s worth a conversation.”

“Because?” Those elegantly shaped dark eyebrows rose just a little.

“Because even though you shop at A

Lucia’s lips curved into a smile. “That’s it? You’re not curious?”

“About?”

“How someone came to learn so much about us. About how they had my home address, which is not something just anyone can learn, believe me. I guard my privacy closely. About how they knew you needed the money, and I needed the challenge.”

Unwillingly, Jazz thought about the tinkle of the bell at Sol’s, and James Borden arriving in his un-apropos leather with a message addressed to her. “And how they knew where I’d be,” she said. “They know a hell of a lot.”

“More than I think either of us is comfortable with,” Lucia finished. “At least until we know just how they got their information, and why.”

It was like talking to a mirror, Jazz thought. A mirror in which she was better-looking, taller, had better clothes, and knew how to apply lipstick.

Lucia was smiling at her, eyes shining with something that might have been similar feeling, but then her eyes wandered past Jazz, focused on something behind her. Jazz resisted the urge to turn as the woman’s smile shut down and left her face blank and watchful.