Rachel Caine - Devil's Bargain

“Nope, it’s all mine. However, in self-defense, I did have to match the carpet. This was the best I could manage.”

“Plus,” Lucia said thoughtfully, “it makes people think you have no sophistication. Which is all part of your persona, isn’t it?”

That came as a shock. Not a pleasant one. “What?”

“You, Jazz, are a lie. A subtle one. It probably works very well for you. Under all that ragged hair and frumpy clothes, you’re good-looking. You could make this place look sophisticated—you deliberately choose not to. I think you like having people underestimate you.”

Jazz blinked, nonplussed. “That’s a load of crap.”

“Yeah?” Lucia’s carefully shaped eyebrows rose and fell. “My specialty is in controlling perceptions. I do it consciously. I have to take command in a psychological way when I enter a situation. I have to make people believe that I’m capable of anything and everything to avoid a fight.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind to avoid a fight.”

“My point exactly,” Lucia said, and smiled. “I’m not nearly as strong as you are, Jazz. It’s better for me if I can avoid the fight instead of taking things head-on. Not that I can’t win if I’m pushed, but I can’t do it fairly, like you can. I fight dirty, and I try not to fight at all. Like most women, actually.”

Jazz cocked her head, trying to get all that through her head; she knew, intellectually, what Lucia was saying, but she’d grown up fighting just as hard as her brother, and the idea that most women weren’t wired that way…it had always thrown her off. She’d blamed it on wussy girl attitudes about not mussing their hair or breaking a nail, but she had to admit, there was nothing wussy about Lucia. And she didn’t strike Jazz as somebody who admitted to shortcomings just for the hell of it, either.

“Okay.” Jazz shrugged. “So maybe I like to sucker people in. You like to intimidate them into avoiding a fight. We can agree to disagree.”

“Actually,” Lucia said, and picked up a particularly hideous ceramic bull getting ready to gore a gaudily gilded matador, “looking at this, for the first time, I believe we have something we can use to form a solid partnership.”

“Because of my amazingly bad taste?”

“Strengths and weaknesses,” Lucia said, and put the bull back in its place. “We complement each other. Also, I like your sense of humor.”

“How do you know I have one?”

“The bull.” Lucia smiled. “It’s anatomically correct.”

“You should see the matador in the bedroom.”

“It’ll be twenty-four hours before Manny gets back to us,” Jazz said about a half hour later. “You want to stay?”

Lucia, who was sipping coffee from a plain black mug and watching low-playing CNN on the TV, said, “Why?”

“Why not? I’d say you might have cats to feed back home, but women like you don’t have cats,” Jazz said, and made kissy noises at Mooch, who was peeking around the corner of the bedroom door. He froze, slitted green eyes wide in his smushed-in fluffy face, and darted back out of sight. “Women like you have, oh, fish. Colorful ones.”

“I might be a dog person.”

“The only animal you’d keep on a leash is a boyfriend.”

Lucia laughed. It had a nice sound, easy and unselfconscious, and Jazz found herself smiling in return. “ Mira, have you been through my closet? I thought I’d put all the leather away where nobody else could find it.”

“Am I right?”

“About the boyfriend?” Lucia still sounded on the verge of laughter.

“About the pets.”

She nodded. “Too much trouble. I travel.”

“So, you can stay another day.”

“Actually, I was thinking that the two of us might want to use the waiting time productively,” Lucia said, and finished her coffee in three gulps. “How do you feel about taking a flight this afternoon to New York?”

“To see Borden.”

“Yes.”

She had to admit, she felt a little tug in her guts at the thought. Good tug? Bad? Not sure. But then she felt a wave of frustration roll over her. “Not possible.”

“Why not?”

God, she was going to hate admitting this. “I’m tapped. I’ve got no cash, and I’m already on the hook with Manny for three grand. I’d better not. You can go on, if you want to, and let me know what you think of the setup.”

“I have half a million frequent-flyer miles in my account,” Lucia said.

Jazz, openmouthed, just stared at her for so long that she was sure she was starting to look like the hick Lucia made her feel. “Oh,” she finally said. “Right. And you’d buy me a ticket with—”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

Lucia rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t mean it. Of course I’m sure. Also, the three thousand for Manny? If this works out, you can pay it from the hundred thousand. If not, I’ll cover it. Call it an investigative expense. Believe me, I won’t miss it.”

Mooch abruptly left the shelter of the doorway and stalked over the carpet to stand directly in front of Lucia, tail high, back arched. Staring.

She stared back.

Mooch let out a velvet-soft purr and rubbed his head against her black pant leg, leaving a trail of gray.

“I think he likes you,” Jazz said, and grinned at Lucia’s expression. “All right. I’ll go with you to New York.”

Lucia sighed. “First, find me a lint brush.”

Lucia left her .22 in the gun safe, along with Jazz’s nine-millimeter, and Jazz took about ten minutes to pack. She spent three minutes of that in the bathroom, staring at her reflection, frowning. Maybe Lucia was right. Maybe she’d been deliberately cultivating this unkempt look instead of just failing to spend time and money on something she’d always considered frivolous. And maybe Lucia was right, that it would serve the two of them well to be mismatched.

Maybe.

But she had a sudden impulse to clean herself up a little, for Lawyer Borden. Stupid. He’s not a date, he’s a …a what? A witness? A suspect? Suspected of what, exactly?

It was too complicated and cloudy to work through. She shoved essentials into a ditty bag, hesitated, and fumbled in the surplus-stuff drawer for perfume. People were always giving her perfume, most of it sickly sweet and horrible, and she’d always made a point of keeping herself fragrance-free on assignments. Bad guys had noses, too. You couldn’t exactly get away with playing a homeless woman if you reeked of Obsession.

She compromised with two tiny dabs of some red variant of Poison given to her two Christmases ago by Ben…it had a warm feeling to it. Made her feel, well, feminine. She tossed the bottle into the ditty bag and zipped it closed, then added that to the small carry-on bag that held exactly two changes of clothes, both casual. One more than she’d need, but she liked being prepared.

Lucia was examining her CD collection when she came back, ready to depart. She held up one for inspection and said, “I never would have thought you liked Beethoven.”

“Hey, I’m down with Metallica, too,” Jazz said. “I’ve got layers. Let’s move. We’ve got two hours before the flight.”

Nobody followed them. Nobody Jazz could spot, anyway. Without discussion, Lucia kept scanning crowds once they’d reached the airport, even while giving rote answers to the security questions and submitting to a wand scan and bag search. Jazz was passed through without a second glance. She waited, checking her watch, as Lucia patiently underwent the security process and finally ducked through the crowd to join her. They took off at a jog for the far end of the terminal.

“What was that about?” Jazz asked. Lucia looked at her, unsmiling. There was a glitter in her dark eyes.