Devil's Due

A giant glow-in-the-dark poster of a marijuana leaf decorated the wall over the sagging couch, and another of a long-dead singer looking the worse far wear. Heroin chic, the entire apartment.

McCarthy finished the last of the dead bolts and turned toward her. She met his eyes and smiled slightly. "Jazz said you were worried."

"Worried?" Something flashed in his eyes. "Worried doesn't quite cover it, Lucia. Where the hell were you?"

"I don't know." It hurt to say it, and a bubble of panic formed somewhere just below her stomach. "All I remember is going to sleep in my apartment and waking up in the hospital."

"Nothing else?" He took her arm and guided her to the couch. "You're sure?"

"Dreams," she said. "Impressions. Nothing—" She remembered a quick flash. Bright lights, a smothering feeling of panic, her limbs heavy with sedatives. Smeared voices.

Violations.

"I'll find out," she said flatly. "If it's the last thing I do, I’ll know what happened to me."

He helped her to the couch, assistance she didn't need but didn't resist. Unlike Jazz, she knew when to control her independent impulses. Instead, she reached up and covered his hand with her own—not to remove it, more a confirmation that she was really touching him. The heat of his skin against her palm, the caress of his fingers…the longing in his eyes.

The care with which he touched her made her shiver. "Jazz said wherever you were, you had medical care. The…"

"Anthrax," she supplied, with a flash of a smile. "You can say it. And it's gone. I don't think Dr. Kirkland would have allowed me out of bed if I hadn't been healthy."

Ben slid his hand from her arm, to fold her fingers in his. "Anything else?"

"What?"

"Did they find anything else?"

She frowned. Violations. "No. No, nothing."

He let out a slow breath. "Good." He smiled, heavy on the irony. "Good as it is to see you, I hope you didn't risk your life to come out here to visit me."

She had, mostly. But it wouldn't sound precisely smart to admit it. "I need to talk to Susa

He nodded and, without a word, turned around and walked into the bedroom.

Lucia got up from the couch and moved to sit on a battered wooden chair. It looked less likely to harbor fleas than the grimy plaid cushions. It took a few minutes, but McCarthy reappeared, bringing with him a sleep-creased woman whom Lucia barely recognized as Susa

The scared expression in her eyes had faded, too. She looked different now. Desperation had made her seem honest, but the truth was emerging, and it wasn't entirely reassuring.

"Susa

"All right," she answered, and slid into the chair opposite, across the battered kitchen table. She yawned and pushed her sleep-disordered hair back from her face. "I heard you were missing or something."

"Or something." Lucia let that sit for a few seconds to close the topic. "Someone tried to kill you, I hear."

Susa

"Maybe Leonard's business associates," Lucia said. "Right? You told us in the begi

She didn't reply. Her nervous picking continued. She'd had a good manicure once, but it had grown out, and the polish was halfway up her nails. Seashell-pink. When she'd had that manicure done—three weeks ago, at a guess— she'd also had a haircut. The shape was still there, even if she'd done nothing to style it. The clothes Susa

"Susa

Susa

"You need to tell someone," Lucia repeated softly. "Why not McCarthy?"

The woman gave a mute shake of her head. Lucia made an intuitive leap, and didn't like where it took her. McCarthy was in the other room, but she couldn't tell if he could hear. She had to assume he could. "Maybe you just don't like him," she said. "You wouldn't be the first."

Susa

"Will you tell me?"

Susa

"He—" Susa

Ah. "A meth lab," Lucia said.

Susa

The skin tightened on the back of Lucia's neck. "Were they opening an electroplating lab? Those are chemicals used—"

"Electroplating? You've got to be kidding! When I say I know what chemicals you use for a meth lab, how do you think I know that? I'm not a damn saint, and he wasn't opening any damn legitimate business. This was something else. Maybe the paperwork says electroplating, I don't know, but it's a lie. Can't you use that crap for something else, too?"

"Possibly." Noncommittal was the best strategy. If Susa

"In SubTropolis," Susa

Lucia frowned. "I don't—"

McCarthy, sure enough, was within earshot. He walked to the bedroom doorway, leaned against the frame and said, "Underground business complex. It's huge. You're going to need more than that. A business name, a unit number…"

"I don't know, okay? He didn't tell me anything. When I asked, he got mad." Susa

Lucia looked from her to Ben. "We could track suppliers. That could give us the unit number."

"Or we could just give the FBI the information." He nodded at Susa

"I can make the phone call, but without some proof, I don't think Agent Rawlins is going to be giving it much priority. He's overworked. He barely responded when we had anthrax in an envelope." She paused, thinking about it. "I know somebody to talk to, but he's undercover. I'll have to arrange a drive-by meeting. Shouldn't take long."

McCarthy didn't look happy about it.

"How are you going to get there?" he asked. "To your meeting? I cant leave her alone here.”

"That's the wonderful thing," Lucia said, and pulled the cell phone from her purse. "If you have a phone and a credit card, you can get just about anything delivered."

"Get pizza while you're at it."

She called FBI Special Agent Roger Cole ten minutes later. Cell phone, not office phone. Two minutes of idle chatting, a simple thirty-second request, and silence from him on the other end.