Rachel Caine: Devil's Bargain

She watched in bemusement as he ordered a half-caff caramel macchiato , but restrained herself from making any jokes about it. Barely. He walked back over to the table with her, carrying his cup, but he didn’t sit. He said, “This isn’t going to work if you don’t take me seriously, Jazz. I need you to do that. Can you?”

He sounded deadly earnest. She looked up into his eyes and saw somebody looking back with a surprising amount of will and dignity.

“Can you?” he repeated. “Because I’m one taxi ride away from being out of here for good.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Sorry. I’m a little freaked out.”

“Me, too,” he admitted. “It’s been a long day. Even without getting rescued by—” he stepped on what he’d been about to say, which proved he had some brains, and substituted “—by a client.”

She was just about certain he’d been going to say by a girl, and he wouldn’t be the first. McCarthy had been furious, the first, oh, ten times it had happened. It had taken him a while to get over the hurt macho feelings, but then he’d realized what kind of a weapon his partner could be, when pointed in the right direction, and they’d worked together like a finely tuned machine.

Until everything had broken beyond repair.

Stop thinking about McCarthy. Just stop.

Borden sat down in the chair on the other side of the table. His body language was still tense and guarded, but they’d reached détente again. She read the letter again, then slid the sheet of paper out that had the name of Lucia Garza at the top of the page.

Experience

Former Special Agent, Office of Special Investigations, USAF. Accomplished over 800 criminal investigations with a primary focus on drug enforcement.

Former USAF Security Police Officer, Law Enforcement Supervisor. Duties involved military law enforcement, traffic investigation, crime-scene processing, and a member of several Special Weapons & Tactics Units.

Former Security Manager, Helios Aircraft—Special Projects Division. Security oversight of 300 scientists and engineers working on “Black” Top Secret Projects.

USAF OSI Academy, Washington, D.C.

FBI Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), Ft. Riley, KS

Federal Polygraph School, Ft. McClellan, AL

Texas State Police Certification, Ft. Worth, TX

Federal Undercover Agents Course, Washington, D.C.

Antiterrorism and Defensive-Driving Course, Summit Point, WV

“Damn,” Jazz murmured. “If you made this up, you’ve got some balls, James Borden. These are serious credentials. I think they stick you in prison for even thinking about making this stuff up.”

“She’s good,” Borden agreed, blowing on his pseudo-coffee. “You should talk to her.”

“Assuming she’s not made of—” Jazz waved the résumé “—paper.”

This time, he refused to take the bait, and just smiled. Slightly. “From everything I’ve read about you, you’re supposed to be one hell of a detective. Call her up. Judge for yourself.”

“I’d rather talk to her face-to-face.” Always a better read off of people, looking in their eyes, seeing their body language. She realized that by saying it, she’d admitted she was interested, felt a bolt of anger at herself, and watched Borden take a noncommittal sip. “Unless that’s a problem. ” Her voice had taken on that mutinous edge again. She didn’t like being manipulated.

He didn’t seem to care. “You’d need to work that out with Lucia. Look, my flight back’s in about three hours, and you know what security’s like these days. I need to clean up, get my ribs checked, change out of this—” he gestured at the outfit, which really, now that she’d gotten used to it, wasn’t half-bad “—and get to the airport. So, Jazz, in or out, please. Laskins is going to want an answer when I hit the ground at JFK.”

“I’ll call you.”

“Seriously. The minute I touch down, my boss will be bugging me for an answer.”

She flicked the card with her fingernail. “Your cell phone’s on here?”

“Yeah. But…”

“I have to check it out and think about it.”

“Can I at least tell him—”

“You can tell Mr. Laskins that I think he’s probably full of crap, but I’ll check the information out,” she said. “And if anything— anything —doesn’t smell right about this, I’ll shred this check, send you the remains, and come to do the same to the both of you. How’s that?”

She saw a genuine spark of humor flare in his eyes and liked him a lot, in that second.

“It sounds like a threat,” Borden said. “And I take it seriously. I saw you put those guys down. That took, what, ten seconds? Maybe fifteen?”

She took a big gulp of coffee to sober up from the wattage in his smile. “The whiskey slowed me down.”

Borden left, heading for the airport or the hospital or maybe going to shake down the homeless guy for his thousand-dollar leather jacket; she was actually sorry to see him go. Maybe. A little.

She caught herself taking deep breaths, soaking up the remaining few hints of his aftershave, and mentally kicked herself. You don’t need this, she told herself. Really. Your life is way too complicated as it is.

And it wasn’t like she didn’t have other things to think about, for God’s sake. A sister she hadn’t talked to in six months after their last fight. A father puttering around on the family farm, still vital but growing old. A brother in the Navy who deserved a few more letters at the very least. She had a life.

Come on, Jazz. Having a family doesn’t mean you have a life. Only relatives.

She eyed the letter again, fingered the check, reread the résumé. Folded everything together and stuck it back into the red envelope, then tucked it in her waistband, under the sweatshirt. She worked her knuckles experimentally and found that the bruising was pretty minimal—funny, she didn’t even remember throwing a punch, but that was how fights worked—and the abraded skin would be okay after a day or two. All in all, not the worst bar fight she’d ever had.

Kinda fun, actually. She wondered if that made her dangerous, or just masochistic.

She fished her cell phone out of its cradle on her belt, hesitated, and then dialed the number on the résumé.

Two rings on the other end. Three. And then a brisk, contralto voice said, “Diga-me.”

“Lucia Garza?”

“Yes. Who’s this?” The tone was courteous but not welcoming.

If I hang up now…hell, she’ll still have my number. Jazz took in a breath and said, as professionally as possible, “My name is Jazz Callender. I got a letter from—”

“Gabriel, Pike & Laskins?” Lucia finished. “Yeah, me, too. It said you’d be calling. Something about a partnership agreement.”

Jazz went still and felt her eyes half close as she thought it through. “You must have gotten my résumé, then. I got yours.”

“I did.” Nothing in the voice at all, and certainly no approval or offers of friendship. Lucia liked to keep her feelings to herself. “I apologize, but this is very strange for me. I’m uncomfortable with talking to a stranger on the phone about—”

“You’re uncomfortable? Join the club. I just had my evening interrupted by some lawyer with a cock-and-bull story and a nice-looking—” she edited her usually street-worthy vocabulary with a conscious switch “—presentation. How do you know these people? You owe them money, or what?”

She didn’t mean to lash out, exactly, but Lucia’s careful, measured voice had pissed her off.

“I don’t,” Lucia replied. The voice was still level and calm, but there was a floor of steel underneath. “And I don’t know them any more than I know you, Detective.”