Game

CHAPTER 7

“Well,” Co

Jazz’s expression didn’t change. Co

“You’re not going with me,” he said very calmly, with the slightest hint of a smile. That smile… was it to catch her off guard? Was it a slip on his part? Did he want her to think it was a slip? Or was it—

“You’re such a pain sometimes,” she a

“I’m not trying to manipulate you. But you can’t come to New York with me. For one thing, your dad would go ballistic, and I don’t need that noise in my life.”

Co

“I can handle my dad,” she said confidently. They were at the Hideout, Jazz’s secret sanctum in the woods outside Lobo’s Nod. It was an old moonshining shack that he’d repaired and outfitted with the bare essentials as a getaway from the rest of the world. Co

“No one can handle your dad. Besides, I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, and you shouldn’t miss school. And besides besides, what are you going to do while I’m off with the cops?”

“Golly,” she chirped in her very best sorority girl impression, “maybe I’ll go shopping and buy shoes and kicky skirts and makeup! Dumbass,” she said, punching him in the shoulder and dropping her voice. “I’ll be helping you. You think I’m going to see the sights?”

“I hear they have really tall buildings.”

“And subways.”

“And museums.”

“And more than a dozen black people, too. It’s truly a land of wonder.”

“A miracle of our modern age,” Jazz agreed, and kissed the back of her neck.

“Oh, don’t do that,” she admonished in a tone of voice that didn’t convince even herself. “You’re trying to distract me.”

He kissed where her neck met her shoulder. “Mea culpa.”

Co

But that wasn’t it. Co

A sexy, brooding boyfriend who didn’t realize exactly how sexy and brooding he was? God save her! It was all she could do sometimes not to jump him, but she knew that he wasn’t ready for that, no matter how ready he acted and felt. They’d never discussed it, but it was clear to her. And she understood. Just reading about Billy Dent’s crimes had freaked her out; growing up with a dad whose version of “the talk” included binding techniques and torture tactics would be even worse.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking,” she managed to say, “that if you keep doing that thing with your tongue on my shoulder, I’m going to force myself on you.”

He nipped her shoulder playfully and then disentangled from her, rising to adjust the space heater. “We’re ru

Co

He sighed that very special sigh, the one that said he was exasperated that she couldn’t just be manipulated and stay manipulated like his Dear Old Dad had promised him people would. “Hughes already has my ticket. We’re flying out tonight.”

“Believe it or not, there are other ways of flying out that don’t rely on Detective Louis L. Hughes. If that’s really who he is.”

Jazz grunted. “The middle initial? Stands for Lincoln. How do I know? I called his precinct commander to make sure he was an actual cop. I’m not getting Fultoned again.”

They both fell silent. The Impressionist had suckered Jazz early and easily, claiming to be Jeff Fulton, the father of one of Billy Dent’s victims. Jazz had taken the man at his word and never bothered to check up on him. No one would ever know for sure, but Jazz was convinced that if he’d done some background snooping on Jeff Fulton, Gi

“You can’t go on your own.”

“Why not?” he asked with infuriating aplomb, as though the question had already occurred to him and he was just letting her get it out of her system.

“You’ve never been in a town bigger than the Nod in your life. I’ve been to New York three times and grew up near Charlotte before we moved here.”

Jazz snorted and helped her up from the beanbag. “I’ll be with an NYPD detective. Somehow I think I’ll manage to avoid getting lost in the subway system. And even if I do get lost…” He dug into his pocket and proudly held up his new cell phone. After the disaster of the Impressionist, Co

“Shows what you know, smart guy: Cell phones don’t work in the subway. Are you taking Howie with you instead of me? Is that it? Two guys out in the big city?”

“Ha! Yeah, right. Are you kidding? After he got stabbed, his mother won’t let him outside of a ten-mile radius without a bodyguard and a Kevlar vest. I’d have to kidnap him to get him to New York….” Jazz drifted off, stroking his jaw. “Hmm… kidnap him…”

Coming from anyone else, it would be fu

“Really?” Jazz blinked. “That wasn’t fu

“It’s all in the delivery. And you don’t have what it takes to pull off that kind of joke.” She pecked him on the lips, not wanting to tell him that for a moment there she’d actually been in fear for Howie’s life. “Come on, let’s get going. It’s already freezing in here.”

“Does this mean you’ve given up trying to convince me you’re coming with me?”

Co

But, she knew, that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going.

That night, Co