Devil's Bargain

“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 scanning the crowd. She looked casual and elegant, and very alert.

“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 scanned it. Apart from the fact that this one had been mailed from New York, had a different home address, and didn’t include a check, it was pretty much the same song and dance.

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 Ann Taylor for your suits, I can’t afford to. I need the money. And I need to set up shop with decent resources so I can find out what happened to McCarthy, and maybe keep it from happening to me.” Jazz glared at her, daring her to find fault. “I need the money. That’s it.”

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.

“Did you bring backup?”

“What? Hell, no. Who would I bring?” She wasn’t exactly rolling in allies at the moment.

“Two men have been watching us since we met,” Lucia said. “Were you followed?”

“What is this, I Spy? I don’t know. I don’t usually look for tails when I go on perfectly innocent meetings.”

“If it was perfectly innocent,” Lucia said patiently, “your lawyer friend wouldn’t have gone through this cloak-and-dagger routine to put us together, now, would he? Disgraced former detective and a national security risk?”

“Excuse me?” Her hackles came up at the disgraced part. She thought about the second part of Lucia’s question a second later, with a blink of surprise. “National security what?”

“Let’s just say that there are things I know that the government would rather I didn’t. Being watched is nothing new for me.”

“Then maybe these guys are your problem, not mine.”

“Except they followed you into baggage claim.” Lucia’s body language hadn’t altered at all—still languid and relaxed. “Let’s try something. You get up and walk away. Go to the bathroom. Don’t look back. I’m going to head outside to the taxi stand. Let’s see who they tag.”

Jazz frowned. “I thought we were going to talk about this deal.”

“And we will. Later.” Lucia uncoiled herself from the chair and held out her hand. Jazz, rising, automatically took it. “Watch your back.”

“But—”