Rachel Caine - Devil's Bargain

“They must have known there was a chance you’d do this. I think—” He paused, licked his lips and looked very, very sick. “I think the Society knew, too. They…”

“Let me guess,” she said. “You heard Santoro was on the hit list. They decided to let him get taken out for strategic reasons, and you decided to act on your own. You didn’t fly out to deliver an assignment from Laskins. That’s you. You decided to produce the paperwork and bring it to me in a red envelope, just like the rest of them. And they told you not to do it.”

He didn’t answer. He was pale to the lips.

“Did they fire you?”

“Not yet,” he said, and she saw some of the stiffness leave his shoulders. He slumped against the window and closed his eyes. “Santoro—he’s a good guy. He does good things. His wife and kids—”

“So we saved him,” she said. “I’m not upset about that, believe me. I don’t believe all this fortune-telling horse-shit anyway.”

He reached out and touched the unfolded Eidolon Corporation letter still in her hand. “No? Then why does that have your name on it, when you took it off a guy you’d never met who was trying to kill you?”

“People try to kill me all the time,” she said. “Not like it’s new.”

He hit an intercom switch and said, “Let’s go,” and the limo glided into motion. “There’s somebody I need you to meet.”

She groaned. “Not more of this crap. Look, Borden, just let me go home, okay? I have things to do.” The photos. McCarthy, waiting for freedom. Every day he sat behind bars now was another day that she couldn’t take back, and could only regret. If anything happened to him…

“If I let you go home, you’re dead,” Borden said. “I realize that might not mean much to you, because you think you can win any fight, but I’m not as brave. Not with your life.”

He looked tired. As well he should, she realized; he’d come all the way from New York, and for all she knew he’d done it on little or no sleep.

“Borden,” she said. He opened his eyes, which had drifted nearly shut. She wasn’t sure if he was even aware of it. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said, and there was a gray leaden weight to his words. “I did this. I made the decisions. I changed the rules, and now you’re a target. I need—I need to find out how to fix it.”

“So we are going to see somebody from the Cross Society.”

“Not exactly.” He turned away and looked out of the smoked-glass window. “Not exactly.”

She realized, belatedly, that he hadn’t even asked if she was okay. That pissed her off to an unreasonable extent. She glared at him and read the letter again, silently. It was dated for today. She’d pulled the envelope out of Surfer Killer’s jacket herself, and had hardly let it out of her sight since. It was dimly possible— dimly —that one of the cops might have switched it while they’d been holding it, but she didn’t think so.

She rubbed her aching forehead, folded up the letter and jammed it back into the envelope. Too late to worry about fingerprints or any other useful forensics.

It has my name on it.

That was a whole new level of creepy. The Cross Society was way creepy enough for her tastes; she felt out of her depth in dealing with them. This was…

This was crazy.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Borden didn’t answer. After a few seconds, she looked over and saw that his eyes were shut, his breathing light and even. He couldn’t be asleep, could he? No, he was just trying to piss her off.

He was succeeding brilliantly.

It was a long, long drive, and L.A. traffic was everything everyone had always said it would be. Being in a limo made it palatable but boring. Jazz stared out at the unmoving traffic. People in other cars were checking out the limousine’s tinted windows, trying to imagine what celebrity was hiding within. She’d have been right there with them, imagining George Clooney or Meryl Streep.

Borden actually was asleep. Ridiculous as that seemed. She’d been on the verge of shaking him awake to shout questions at him, but the truth was, she didn’t think it would do any good, and she had an odd little soft spot for watching him this way. He had a lock of hair falling over his forehead, and her fingers itched to do something with it. Yank it by the roots, maybe. Or move it gently aside, light as a feather. The jury was still out and deadlocked.

She was off balance, leaning forward to see what was available in the minibar—because, what the hell, how often was she actually going to be in a limousine and have unrestricted access? — when the limo moved forward, then jerked to a sudden stop. She ended up being pitched forward across Borden’s knees.

Well, that was embarrassing.

She slowly straightened up without looking at him, although she could feel the sudden tension in the legs under her hands, which meant he was wide-awake.

“Something you wanted?” he asked neutrally. His voice sounded rough and tight.

“Yeah,” she said. “Soft drink.” She straightened up without actually looking at his face.

They negotiated over brand names. He clinked ice into a crystal glass better suited to holding Scotch or bourbon and poured her a short little can of cola. He handed it over without comment. She drank, grateful for the syrupy rush, the liquid on her dry throat, and for something to do with her mouth other than get herself in even more trouble.

Borden, awake, was much less readable than Borden, asleep. He looked at her from time to time as she drank, and stared out the windows. They hit smooth sailing after about fifteen more minutes, and Jazz made her drink last as long as possible before passing him the empty glass and last few melting cubes. He stowed it away without comment.

“It’s not your fault,” she said to him.

“No?” He sounded so damn neutral. “How do you figure that?”

“If somebody above me had said, no, you need to lay back and let your friend get horribly murdered? Guess what. I would’ve been forging documents and persuading you to help me, too. And I don’t think you were wrong to do it. It’s never wrong to save a life.”

“No?” he repeated. “You’d pull, say, John Wayne Gacy out of a river and start chest compressions.”

“It’d be easier if I didn’t know he was a crazy murdering bastard, but yeah, that’s pretty much the size of it.”

“You’d do it even if you knew. Even if you knew he was killing people.”

“If I knew that, I’d revive him and slap handcuffs on him before he could figure out what I was doing,” she said. “I’m—I was a cop, Borden. I never tried to make myself judge, jury and executioner. That’s a responsibility I don’t want, and nobody should have unless they have checks and balances. That’s what scares me about your dear friends in the Society. How do you know what they’re doing is right? How can you really tell? Save that guy, let that guy die—” She shook her head. “I don’t care what they think they know, I can’t really believe they’re ready to play God.”

He shook his head. “I’m not feeling guilty about saving Lowell,” he said finally. “I’m angry at myself that you had to put yourself in danger to do it, and I’m scared that this saving one life is going to cost me another, and I–I’m not ready to play God, either, Jazz. And if you die because of what I’ve done—”

“Hey,” she murmured, and reached over to rest her hand on top of his. His fingers twitched, but didn’t move to caress hers like they had in the car on the way to the airport in Kansas City. She missed it. “I’m a big girl. Even if I’d known it would paint a target on my butt, I’d have done it. You understand that, right?”