Devil's Due

Gregory Ivanovich was nowhere in sight. A chair sat empty where he'd been. No signs of struggle.

Simms led them toward the elevators. As they passed the conference room, Lucia slowed and looked in.

Empty chairs, pushed back unevenly from the table. A handprint on the glass, smudging the sunlight. An overturned cup, with coffee dripping from the edge of the table onto the floor.

There were drag marks on the carpet.

She heard the steady chop of a helicopter—no, helicopters. She dashed forward to look out of the window just as three large black aircraft gained the sky and headed for the far horizon.

Where had they come from?

"Eidolon," she whispered. Her breath fogged the plastic of the gas mask. "Son of a bitch. You're working with them."

Simms took her by the elbow and silently walked her from the conference room out to the lobby. He hit the button for the elevator and stood with his hands behind his back, bouncing on his toes as if he had energy to burn. He hadn't taken off the mask. Lucia felt sweat trickling down the sides of her face and itched to rip the thing away, but she didn't dare. What the hell had just happened? How had Eidolon pulled that off? Not without help, that much was sure…

McCarthy's hand touched hers and twined around it, holding fast. She looked at him, but he was staring straight ahead, face unreadable under the gas mask. She shook free.

Once they were in the elevator and the doors had shut, Simms stripped off his gas mask. Jazz was yelling even before hers hit the floor. "What in the hell was that, you asshole? What the hell is going on?"

"I just saved your lives," Simms said. "Well, Jazz, yours and Ben's. Lucia's survival has always been assured."

"Excuse me?" Lucia tossed her gas mask in a pile with the others. The elevator continued down to the parking level, dinged and disgorged them into the empty structure. No sign of the limousine that had delivered them. Simms looked momentarily nonplussed, and then smiled as a shadow rumbled at the top of the ramp and started down.

Ma

James Borden was in the passenger seat. He jumped out as the vehicle squealed to a stop, and threw open all the doors.

"In the car," Simms said. "This isn't safe."

That, Lucia thought, was the understatement of the century.

"You're in on this?" Jazz asked Ma

Ma

"The Cross Society crap. Whatever crack dream conspiracy this is!"

"What?"

Jazz got control of herself, or at least enough to take in a couple of deep breaths. "Why did you show up?"

"Borden said you needed a ride. Jazz, you know I don't like strangers in my car. Who is he?"

Jazz looked over her shoulder at Borden, then at Simms. She turned around and started to answer, but Borden cut her off. "We can talk about this at the warehouse."

"No freakin' way am I taking a stranger to my house," Ma

Simms looked away and said, as if he were talking to thin air, "Ben, how did you locate the unmarked spot where Mr. Glickman had been buried alive?"

Ma

"Answer the question, Ben," Simms said gently.

"I followed the leads. I worked the case. So did Jazz."

"Yes, but you had something Jazz didn't, isn't that true?"

"Don't."

"You had luck."

"Not everything is your goddamn psychic powers at work, Simms."

"Not everything," Simms agreed. "And you would have found Ma

Silence. McCarthy was staring intently out the window. Ma

"Mr. Glickman, I'm not a stranger to you," Simms said. "I wish I could have helped you before you experienced— what you experienced. It is not a perfect world, and what I do is even more imperfect than that. But I need you now. I need your help. And I'm asking you to give it even though I know that it's against your nature."

"Did he—" Ma

McCarthy closed his eyes. "I knew where to find you. He told me exactly where to dig. Without that—it would have been another hour, probably."

Ma

He did flinch. But not as badly as he might have.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Ma

He nodded convulsively, gulped in a breath and hit the gas when the light turned green.

Simms settled back, content, smiling.

She hated him, in that bright and completely lucid second.

"You know," Jazz said, as Ma

"You couldn't afford the rent," Ma

"Kidding."

"Yeah, well, I'm not in the mood, Jazz." Ma

He came up with a pistol. A.38, Lucia thought. He pointed it directly at Max Simms, who didn't—of course— look remotely worried or surprised.

"Hey!" Jazz yelped. "Ma

"Speaking of serial killers," Ma

“Prison wouldn't be kind to you, Ma

"That's it? That's your reason?"

"The only reason I know. Hey, go ahead. Kill the son of a bitch, as far as I'm concerned. None of this crap matters to me anymore."

"Well, it matters to me," Jazz said. "Ma

"Yeah? Like he helped me?"

"He did help you, Ma

"He could have done it earlier! " Ma

He went to the far door at the end of the room, punched in numbers and went through. The door—at least three inches of' solid metal—sealed with a solid thunk behind him, and the lights on the panel turned blood-red.

"What happened back there?" That was Borden, who was looking furious and ruffled and belligerent. His hair was spiked again, not so much from over-application of product but from ru

Simms, for answer, checked his watch. He was still looking down at it when he said quietly, "By this time? Nearly all of them are dead. The rest are ru

Borden's mouth opened and closed, and he leaned on the makeshift conference table and let his head drop forward. Struggling for control. "Laskins?" he asked.