Devil's Due

"If I send you home, I want you to rest this time, all right? Your partner told me you've been working. This is not optional, Ms. Garza. Rest, sleep and take your medications. Are we clear?"

"Crystal." She swallowed and forced a smile. "How bad is it?"

He stared at her for a long few seconds before he said, "It could be very bad. But with rest and medications, you can beat it in about a week. You didn't have a massive exposure, and your immune system is strong."

Jazz looked as if she was holding back an "I told you so" with all her strength.

"I'll drive you home," she said, and walked Lucia out to the parking lot. The Hummer looked gigantic, like the Queen Mary in a pool of paddleboats, and Lucia couldn't imagine how she was going to summon the energy to climb up into the cab.

She paused, one hand on the door, because she someone watching her.

There was a boxy blue sedan sitting a few parking spaces down the row, and someone was standing next to it. For a tired, disorienting second she thought it was Omar, and then her mind and her eyes cleared. Ben McCarthy. He didn't move, and he didn't approach them. He'd either done some shopping or located some of his clothes in storage; he was wearing a knee-length coat against the night's chilly breeze, something in a warm amber that glowed in a passing car's headlights.

Lucia nodded toward him. Jazz turned to look, and walked over to join him. Lucia checked the parking lot. You could never be sure anything was completely safe.

McCarthy was listening to Jazz recount the scene inside the hotel room when she joined them, and the look he threw toward Lucia was unreadable. When Jazz stopped— she had a cop's terse delivery, nothing but the bare facts— he said, "Omar didn't strike me as the kind of guy to go down without a fight."

Lucia felt something clench hard inside. She'd been avoiding thinking about Omar. "It had to have been fast. Very fast."

"Son of a bitch. I liked the guy." She felt the guilt like a lead ball in her throat. She kept swallowing, but it didn't go down. Metallic taste in her mouth. She felt sick and hot and utterly undone. "So the cops are keeping the widow Davis for a while?"

"A few more hours, anyway," Jazz said. "They'll decide whether or not to charge her, depending on her story. But my guess? This Leonard guy, he was a cold-blooded killer. Cold-blooded enough to cut Omar's throat and decide to rape her afterward. Probably would have done the same for her when he was done. Seemed to me like he had practice at that kind of thing."

McCarthy folded his arms. He was watching Jazz, but Lucia could feel part of his attention fixed on her, warm as a spotlight. "You guys okay?"

"I need to make arrangements for Omar," Lucia said dully. "He's got family back East. I need to call—"

"Let me," Jazz said. "How many times do I have to tell you? Rest. Take your pills and rest. That's your job now. You give me the numbers. I do the calls." Lucia nodded.

"Yeah," she murmured. "I should go home."

"I'll take her," McCarthy said. With no particular emphasis, just simple words. He and Jazz exchanged a look, another one that Lucia couldn't read, whether it was complicated partner-language or just a malfunction of her own normally competent abilities—and he opened the passenger door of his car. "You get home, too, Jazz."

"Been a busy couple of days for a guy straight out of prison," she observed.

"Yeah, you two should talk. You make Navy SEALs look boring."

The upholstery of McCarthy's old car felt luxurious, soft as down to her tired body; Lucia struggled for a while to stay awake, but minutes disappeared, and she had no memory at all of the drive. Just the warm sensation of McCarthy's fingers stroking her cheek, and his voice in her ear saying, "Let's get you upstairs."

Her knees gave out as she was leaning against the wall in the elevator. McCarthy caught her without a word and picked her up. She wasn't heavy, but she knew she wasn't that light either; she murmured a protest, but there was something so seductive about being cradled against his body, her arms around his neck, her head on his shoulder. He carried her the short distance to her door and let her slide back to her feet.

Close together. Breathing the same air.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips gently to her forehead. A kiss of peace, not passion, although there was that, too, in the tense set of his body, in the light in his eyes. "Get inside," he murmured against her skin. "Take care of yourself. I'll check on you tomorrow."

He started to pull away. She grabbed his collar to hold him in place. "Promise me something first. Promise me that—if something happens to me—you'll look after things. After Jazz. After—even after that bitch who got Omar killed."

Something Susa

"Nothing's going to happen to you."

"Anthrax," she said flatly. "Something's already happened to me. The stuff can be deadly. I could be dead—"

His fingers touched her lips. Light, but unmistakably a hush. "Don't say that."

"Just promise, okay?"

"I promise."

She thought he'd kiss her. She could see he wanted to, could feel it, but he stepped back as she opened the door, and let her go inside.

"Rest," he said. "That's what you need right now."

When she looked back, he was already walking away, elegant in his tawny coat, hands in the pockets. She wanted to call him back. Wanted to sleep in his arms, stretched against his warmth. Wanted the sheer animal comfort to keep the fears and the memories at bay.

Instead, she shut the door, locked it and set the intrusion alarms for instant alert.

She managed to strip off her guns before she fell on the bed and sank into a sleep so deep it seemed eternal.

She couldn't wake up. Couldn't. She tried, because she knew she should; she felt the danger, but her whole body was sluggish and unresponsive. Inert, heavy flesh, weighing her down.

Dreams. Terrible dreams, full of twisted, screaming bodies, and blood, and friends—old friends dying. She wanted to cry out, wanted to scream, wanted to stop this, but there was nothing she could do, nothing but witness and grieve. Endless dark mazes and corridors and cells and run for your life and the shots ringing out over her head…

Gregory Ivanovich, please, help me… I'll make it worth your while.

Flashes of light.

Smeared voices, nightmarishly slow. She didn't understand them. Was this the past? Was it Prague? Had she never really run, her bare feet sliding over cold concrete blocks and leaving footprints of sweat and blood…oh Dios, was she still there? Were they asking…?

She felt the white-hot burn of drugs in her veins. Slow fire, screaming through her body.

Nothing. Sleep. Dreams.

A feeling of cold on her skin. Her body being lifted, moved. More nightmares, hands on her, moving her legs up and out. A sense of cold invasion that made her flinch and want to weep.

More drugs.

Darkness.