• Пожаловаться

Rachel Caine: Devil's Due

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Rachel Caine: Devil's Due» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. категория: Фэнтези / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

Rachel Caine Devil's Due

Devil's Due: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Devil's Due»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

The money Lucia and her new partner received to open their detective agency had come with strings: any assignment delivered via read envelope had to be top priority. No sweat. No one could make Lucia do something she didn't believe in-Right? Wrong. Lucia soon learned that every choice she made meant life or death for innocent people. No one could be trusted, not even the ex-cop she'd hired-and fallen for. In fact, Ben might be her fatal weakness, if the powers warring to control the future used him to control Lucia…

Rachel Caine: другие книги автора


Кто написал Devil's Due? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

Devil's Due — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Devil's Due», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

His face shut down even further, hiding emotion. Lids drifted lower to hood his expressive eyes. "Let's leave them out of it," he said. "I was a cop, and my buddies were all cops. Cops stay away, times like these, until they feel better about the facts. Stewart's not the only one who still, deep down, thinks I pulled the trigger on those people." McCarthy stared at his coffee and took another deep swallow. "My brother would have been here, but he's on a tuna boat this season. My parents—" He shook his head.

She took pity on him. "I doubt they could have made the trip," she said. "Your mother is ill, isn't she?"

"Old," he said. "Your folks still alive?"

She smiled noncommittally. "So I'll forgive you the low turnout among your admirers. Still, it does say something, doesn't it? To have more reporters than supporters?"

She got a thin slice of a smile. "Careful when you cut me like that. You'll have to buy me a new shirt. I'll bleed all over this one."

"I'm tempted to buy you a new one whether you bleed all over it or not."

"That's kindhearted of you."

"Call it fashion charity."

He was studying her again, with lazy interest. "I just can't picture you and Jazz as friends."

"Why?"

"She's just—one of the guys, you know? Not so…" He gestured vaguely, letting her finish the sentence with whatever adjective seemed best. Wise of him. "I was surprised how good she looked, last time I saw her. Your influence, or the counselor's?"

He knew about Borden, then. Yes, of course he did. Lucia shrugged. "Maybe both."

"She's not drinking so much."

"No."

"Not getting into fights."

"Well, we're working on that part."

"Good luck with that." He grinned, and caught the attention of a passing waiter to get a refill on his coffee. He drank it black as the devil's heart. "So, if you're not going to tell me anything, I'll just have to tell you three things about yourself, Miss Garza."

"Is this popular at parties?"

"A riot on cell block six."

"Then please, enlighten me."

"One, you manipulate people. Sometimes for their own good, but always to your advantage." He sopped a piece of toast in a remaining bit of peach jam and ate it, watching her reaction. She kept her face bland, but felt the barb sink unpleasantly deep. "Two, you use your looks as deception. You look warm and girlie and elegant, but I'll bet you can hand most guys their asses in a fight."

He was right again, of course. She didn't allow herself to blink. "And three?"

"How am I doing so far?"

"We'll see. And three?"

He shrugged. "You're lonely."

She laughed out loud. "Excuse me?"

"You heard."

"Hardly!"

"I didn't say you don't get attention. Every guy in here has checked you out at least once, and half the women, too. I said you were lonely. A woman as beautiful as you is nothing but lonely. Even when you're with somebody, you're wondering if they're into you or the glossy package, and sweetheart, just from the fifteen—no, make that sixteen—hours that we've been talking, I can tell you that you're high on the paranoid scale, anyway. So the point is, you don't let anybody close these days."

It hit hard, under the armor, right in a soft place she didn't know she had. Years of dealing with a string of men who'd professed love and delivered obsession. Years of mistrusting and holding back and staying cool.

For a second, she hated those blue-diamond eyes and their ability to see everything.

"You're wrong. I'm not lonely. Far from it."

He gave her a slow smile. "That tells me something else about you. You think you're a good liar. And hey, for most people, you are."

"Do you make a habit of insulting people who do you good turns?"

"Usually they want something. Speaking of that, what is it you want?"

Once again, he caught her off guard. "Me? I'm only here out of courtesy."

"Courtesy?"

"It has something to do with manners. Perhaps you've heard of those."

"Sorry, not exactly popular where I've been." She'd struck a nerve; she could see it in the subtle reactions of his face. "You just came in Jazz's place, is that it? Second string?"

Lucia took the insult without reaction. "I want her to be safe, yes."

"What about you? Aren't you in just as much danger, if the two of you are supposed to be partners?"

It was an excellent question, and one to which she didn't have an answer. They were working for the Cross Society, but she had only the vaguest hints as to who those people were and how they operated; for all she knew, the danger that Jazz had ran into head-on had come from someone inside the Cross organization.

She'd seen cutthroat competition in nonprofit groups, but if true, that might be a new low.

In any case, whether it was the Cross Society or—as their mysterious benefactors insisted—the rival Eidolon Corporation, they hadn't sent soldiers after Lucia specifically; she'd only been in the vicinity. Jazz was the target. Then again, the enemy didn't seem prone to doing gentlemanly things like firing warning shots.

Lucia wondered if McCarthy had deduced why she'd taken a table in a protected corner that had no direct view from the windows.

She'd also stayed vigilant for any hint of trouble. The only problem she'd identified so far was an overdose of cholesterol that was surely going to spell trouble for McCarthy's arteries in the future.

She let him see her confidence, embodied in a slow smile. "I think I'm safe enough," she said. "Why? Are you volunteering as a bodyguard?"

"Well," McCarthy said, "I do need a job. Prospects coming out of the big house aren't good, unless you're into loading trucks, making French fries or beating up people for a living." It was said lightly, but she heard the ring of truth. There was a certain grimness in his eyes, the set of his mouth, as he finished his coffee in a long sip. "Okay, the truth. I've got a hundred dollars in my pocket right now, my apartment's long gone and the KCPD wouldn't have me back even as a janitor. So yeah, I wouldn't kick a little work to the curb. Bodyguard, investigator, whatever. If you need it."

"Your job prospects aren't any worse than for anyone else walking out of jail."

"Since my job used to be a police officer, yeah, I think they kind of are. Look, I never deserved to be there in the first place. I lost two years of my life to this crap." He'd gone intense again, head inclined toward her, voice urgent. "I don't even know where I'm going after breakfast. You know how that feels?"

She did, but it didn't seem the time to tell him so. "You begin your life again. That's what people do, Mr. McCarthy. Start over. Reinvent themselves. Become someone new and, hopefully, better."

"Nothing wrong with who I am right now."

"Isn't there?" She raised her eyebrows slowly. "Are you sure?"

She accepted the leather folio containing the check from the waiter. McCarthy gestured for her to hand it over. "I already said I was paying," she said. "Remember?"

"That was before you pissed me off. Now I'm paying."

"Don't be ridiculous," she retorted, and pulled her wallet from her black leather purse. It was specially reinforced to hold her containers of Mace, clips for her gun, a six-inch collapsible truncheon, handcuffs, and—sometimes, but not today—a Taser. "You'll have a hard enough time without worrying about picking up the check for me."

"Then I'll owe you. And pay you back."

"Without a doubt. This isn't a date. And I'm not some prison groupie." Ouch. She really hadn't meant it to be so harsh.

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Devil's Due»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Devil's Due» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «Devil's Due»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Devil's Due» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.