Devil's Bargain rld-1

by Rachel Caine

  “Why?”

  “Why would I give you a heads-up?” He sounded mystified by that. She had to admit, it would have been a stupid question.

  “No, why is there not enough lead time? Don’t you know this stuff a couple of days ahead of time? Surely you don’t do this all at the last minute.”

  He looked at her for such a long, unblinking moment that she actually felt she’d said something wrong, but then he smiled and said, “I never said we were the most organized bunch of lawyers in the world.”

  She remembered getting off the plane in New York and finding a crisply pressed ex-Marine holding up a sign with names on it. His ability to organize was, so far as she’d been able to tell, pretty damn close to perfect. Like the explanation about the envelopes themselves, it didn’t sound right, but she could tell that she wasn’t going to get anything more from him. Not yet.

  Not now.

  “So you’re just here to deliver a letter and get back on a plane,” she said.

  “No. I’m here to deliver a letter, take you out to dinner, and get back on a plane,” he said. “You eat, right?”

  “Dinner,” she repeated, frowning. “You want to go to dinner.”

  “Early dinner, yeah. Say, six o’clock? That way we’ll be finished up before you have to get to work.” He nodded slightly at the envelope in her hand, and then looked a little disconcerted. “Unless you have plans.”

  “As if I have an actual life, you mean?” She snorted. “No. If Lucia was here, we might have a working dinner here, but no. No plans.”

  “Ah. Right. Lucia’s working?” He looked guilty, as if he had forgotten about Lucia. Which Jazz had a hard time imagining, because, well, Lucia. If there was going to be a Swimsuit Edition for Private Investigator Monthly, Lucia would be the centerfold.

  “She’s in Washington,” Jazz said. “Back tomorrow. But not to worry, Counselor, I can handle sitting in a car and following somebody all by myself. And dinner. I can handle dinner without backup.”

  He yawned hugely, traded looking guilty for looking shocked and embarrassed, and mumbled something about early-morning flights. She cocked an eyebrow at him, got off the couch and went back to her desk. He watched her go, mouth slightly open on a question that wasn’t able to quite fight its way free.

  “Stretch out,” she said. “You won’t bother me.”

  She went back to typing. She didn’t watch him, but after a while her peripheral vision reported that he’d followed her advice. By the time she thought it was safe to focus on him again, his eyes were shut, his limbs loose and relaxed, and he was breathing evenly and quietly.

  She stared at the rise and fall of his chest, then let her eyes wander over the rest of him. Long, sleek lines, especially in the blue jeans and boots. Did he wear cowboy boots because he was coming to Kansas City? Were they some kind of special costume, like the leathers? She hoped not. She liked the idea that he wore them because he enjoyed them, not because he needed them to fit in.

  Without any transition at all, she wondered how he’d look without the clothes and had to shock herself out of the vision to focus on the dry, quiet text of her report again. In her experience, the better she was able to visualize that kind of thing, the deeper she was in trouble, and that had been, well, vivid.

  Really, really vivid.

  She grimly tapped keys and forced herself to keep working as the hours slid past toward evening.

  For an out-of-towner, dinner in Kansas City required barbecue. Barbecue, in Jazz’s opinion, required Arthur Bryant’s, and by the time they were tucked into a booth around a Formica table, she was feeling pretty good about the choice. Not too romantic, barbecue. Not an inducement to imagine the other person naked. She didn’t even order beer, which was quite a sacrifice, and stuck to soft drinks with her ribs. After an initial reluctance, Borden dove into his dinner with abandon, smearing himself with sauce and grease and mumbling praises about the taste.

  She only imagined licking him clean a few times. I really need to get out more, she thought sternly, but she was only a little bit embarrassed. He had that kind of mouth. It just…begged to be licked, especially when there were beads of Arthur Bryant sauce clinging to it.

  She was feeling relaxed and confident and happy—happy! — when her cell phone rang.

  “Sorry,” she said, and wiped her sticky fingers clean enough to scramble for the call. She didn’t immediately recognize the number. “Hello, Jazz Callender.” She had to stop her other ear to hear over the dull roar of the restaurant.

  “Yeah, Callender?” An unfamiliar male voice, brisk and businesslike. “You’re listed on the notify sheet. There’s been an incident at Ellsworth. Inmate Benjamin McCarthy’s been the victim of a beating, and he’s going to be in the hospital wing for a couple of days. No immediate life-threatening injuries.”

  She felt all of the happiness drain out of her, as if a plug had been pulled from the bottom of her soul. “What happened?” Her tone had changed, and her body language; she saw Borden straighten up and watch her, leaning forward.

  “Unclear at the present time, ma’am.” In other words, they didn’t want to say. “We’re looking into it.”

  She shut her eyes tight enough to see white stars. “Injuries?” She sounded just as businesslike as he did. “Be straight with me, sir. I’m his ex-partner. You know he used to be a cop.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I know.” No emotion in his voice. “He has some busted ribs, a broken arm and a cracked collarbone.”

  “Anything else?”

  A long hesitation. “Not to my knowledge, ma’am.”

  She shivered all over. She felt sick, hot, disoriented, and the smell of good food and the sound of casual conversation was too much. “Visitation?” she asked.

  “I’ve been instructed to tell you that he can have visitors for one hour tomorrow, from noon until one o’clock.”

  “Fine. I’ll be there.”

  She hung up and dropped the phone back in her coat pocket. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that Borden was leaning back in his chair, motioning for the waitress.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Getting the check,” he said. “Doesn’t look like you’re in the mood for this right now.”

  She felt a hot, hard surge of gratitude that made her eyes sting with tears. He was careful not to look at her, and she was grateful for that, too.

  “Your partner? McCarthy?” he asked. She nodded. “He okay?”

  “No.” She pulled in a damp, shaking breath. “It was just a matter of time. Could have been worse, I guess. They’ll let me see him tomorrow.”

  Borden finally focused on her face, then turned to smile at the waitress and do the mechanical duty of paying the check and boxing up the rest of the food to go. “You’re crazy if you think I’m leaving any of this on the table,” he said. “Besides, I’ll need something for breakfast in the morning.”

  “Breakfast?” she blinked.

  “I’m interested,” Borden said. “I’d like to meet the guy you’re so sure is innocent. If you don’t mind having a lawyer escort you to the prison.”

  Her throat closed up. She wasn’t sure what it was she was feeling—a dizzying, hot, disorienting mix of fear, anger, pain, guilt, relief…just that it nearly undid her.

  Borden reached over and took her hand. Sticky fingers. She gripped them with desperate intensity.

  “Thanks,” she whispered. “But I thought you had to fly back.”

  “Vacation day,” he said.

  She offered her couch for the night, but Borden, with impeccable instincts, took a cab to a four-star hotel instead. No kiss, nothing like a romantic goodbye unless you counted a skimming touch of his fresh-washed fingers over the back of her neck and a reminder to be careful.

  She put her hands in her pockets, watching the cab pull away, and felt the crackle of paper. She checked her watch and found she still had an hour to get to the address on the envelope.

  She’d never wanted
to do anything less in her life, but driving to Ellsworth right now wouldn’t do her any good. They wouldn’t let her see him, and Ben wouldn’t thank her for any female hysteria anyway. No, she needed to focus on something else. Get calm. Get cold.

  She went to work.

  Legacy Drive was near a lot of clubs, and the late hour made parking tough. She circled the block for several minutes before she caught a break with a Cadillac pulling away from the curb on the left-hand side of the street of the correct block. Quickly she parallel parked between an SUV and a dusty pickup. A muffled rhythmic bass thump from the country bar down the block shivered through metal and skin as she killed the engine, slightly out of tempo with the headache throbbing in her temples. Focus. She checked the car’s clock and found that she had fifteen minutes to spare before eleven. She turned off the dome light and made sure everything she needed was ready, including the digital camera, though Borden had told her she wouldn’t need it.

  Then, because she had nothing else to occupy her head, she thought about what might have happened to land Ben McCarthy in the prison hospital, and what that significant pause on the other end of the phone had meant when she’d asked about any other injuries.

  This was her fault. Her fault for letting him down, for not pushing his case to the top of the list. For not turning down these crazy assignments. Watch a woman park and walk to her building? What the hell was that about? They could’ve gotten anyone for that. They didn’t need her. And she’d let other things get in the way, too. What right did she have to be out talking and laughing and eating Arthur Bryant’s barbecue when her best friend, her partner, was getting the hell beat out of him and…

  She shut her eyes, sucked in a hard, hurting breath, and deliberately let it go.

  At just before eleven—minutes before—she saw a couple walk out of the cowboy bar down the block and stagger to a truck parked across from her on the right side of the street. They managed to get doors unlocked with a minimum of giggling and groping, and wove off down the road, hopefully to a destiny that involved flashing lights and DUI citations. She was considering phoning in a tip when headlights turned the corner behind her, and she saw a car coming, moving slowly.

  It slowed even further as the driver spotted the empty space and executed a smooth parallel-parking maneuver.

  Black Toyota Celica, furred with a light coating of road dust. As Jazz watched, the driver opened up a vanity mirror, and as the light bathed her face, Jazz saw an attractive middle-aged woman with dark, shoulder-length hair checking her lipstick. That didn’t take long. The driver opened her door and stepped out of the car.

  Jazz let her get a few steps away before noiselessly opening her own car door and crossing the street, keeping out of the harsh pools of light near the corner. The woman was wearing a dress, and her high heels tapped concrete as she walked up the street. She had a notebook in her hand, and a penlight, evidently consulting an address. As Jazz hung back in the shadow of a large truck, the woman scanned building numbers, spotted the one she was looking for, and headed decisively in that direction.

  Jazz checked for anyone watching or following, but the night was quiet and the street was clear. She was the only tail in sight.

  She moved carefully as the woman jogged up the steps to 1428 Legacy Drive and pressed buttons. Jazz got close enough to see which one was pressed—bottom left.

  The access gate buzzed. The woman entered.

  Well, that’s it, Jazz thought, and watched the door snap shut again behind her. Whatever they thought would happen, didn’t. Obviously.

  She watched for a while longer, waiting to see if anything interesting would come along, but apart from a few more amorous couples exiting the dance club, nothing popped.

  She went back to her car and checked the time.

  Eleven-fifteen.

  “Five thousand dollars,” she said aloud as she backed out of the parking space and headed home. “You people are totally insane.”

  She stopped off at a bar on the way back, and after a few shots, she no longer felt the raw ripping edges of fear over what she was going to see at Ellsworth in the morning.

  It was worse than she’d thought, and better than she’d hoped. Ben looked different, lying in a hospital bed with tubes in his arms and splints and bandages all over him, but not that much different. His smile was the same, even through puffy, bruised lips. Cool blue eyes, brush-cut medium-brown hair that looked longer than she remembered. Some gray in it, maybe a bit more than the last time she’d been by.

  “Jazz,” he said. His voice sounded muffled and indistinct. She could hear him breathing. “Sorry about the mess. Slipped in the shower.”

  She sat down in the chair next to his bed, suddenly unable to find anything to say. McCarthy didn’t give her much of a chance. He skipped his attention away from her to lock on to Borden, who was standing behind her.

  “You’re new,” he said. “Let me guess. Lawyer?”

  She looked back at him. Borden’s smile remained cool and tightly controlled. “I’m a friend,” he said. “Why? Do you need a lawyer?”

  “Lawyers got me where I am today,” McCarthy said. “Pull up a chair. I hate people looking down at me. Then again, you’re so tall you’ll probably look down on me anyway…so. Jazz. What’s up?”

  She was speechless, again. He looked at her, clearly waiting, and she felt an insane urge to laugh. This was pure McCarthy. Lying here hooked up to tubes, bubbling blood in a punctured lung, with broken bones and a morphine drip, demanding to know how her life was going.

  “Who was it?” she heard herself ask him. McCarthy’s blue eyes suddenly went shadowed, twilight cold, half-hidden by lowered lids.

  “Not your problem,” he said. “It’s like Vegas inside Ellsworth, sweetheart. What happens here stays here.”

  She had things to ask him, but there was no way she could put it into words, no way that she could imagine him letting down his guard in any way. Especially not with Borden here. She’d seen the shields go all the way to full strength the second he’d seen Borden at her back.

  “I want to know,” she said. “I want to know what happened.”

  His smile flashed again, but it didn’t reach the rest of his face. “No, you don’t,” he said. “No reason for that. Look, it happened, it wasn’t fun, it’s over. I’ll take care of what needs to be taken care of, yeah? But I need you to do something for me.”

  She nodded wordlessly, watching him. His hand suddenly shot out and wrapped around hers, tight and warm. McCarthy had always been the kind to touch, to put a hand on her shoulder, an arm around her shoulders. A celebratory kiss on her temple when things went well. Nothing sexual about it, just…family. As close as could ever matter.

  His blue eyes were intense and dark with emotion.

  “I need you to stop coming here,” he said. “I need to forget what it’s like out there if you want me to survive in here.”

  “No!” She held on to his hand when he tried to pull it away. “No, dammit, Ben, I’m not giving up. I’ll find a way to get you out.”

  “Drop it, Jazz. I mean it. Stewart’s trying to bury you, too, and if you give him an excuse he’ll do it. Forget me. Move on.” His eyes flicked suddenly from her to Borden, then back. “I hear you’re working freelance these days.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “You don’t think Stewart comes to see me? Keeps me up-to-date on all the gossip? I hear you’ve got a P.I. license. He can get it pulled, he hears you doing anything you shouldn’t be into. Be careful.” He studied her through those bruised, wary eyes. “What are you handling? Routine stuff?”

  “Yeah,” she said. It was partially true, anyway. “I have—” She was about to tell him, I have a partner, but the words stuck in her throat. She wasn’t sure if saying it would be a reassurance, or a betrayal. “Lighten up, Ben, it’s not like I can’t take care of myself.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. His thumb skimmed gently over her bruised, abraded knuckles. He had big, sq
uare hands, disfigured now with bruises and cuts where he’d defended himself. They looked like they’d been in the same fight. “Wild woman.”

  She found herself grinning, suddenly. “Saved your ass a few times.”

  “More than a few, yeah. But you need to pick your battles. Can’t make war against the world.” He looked somber, as if what he was saying applied to himself as much as her. “You do what I said last time?”

  She didn’t answer, because she didn’t want to out-and-out lie to him. The last time she’d been to Ellsworth—the day she’d met James Borden, she realized with a shock, had it really been that long ago? — Ben had told her in no uncertain terms to box up the files she was keeping on his case and send them to his attorney. Not that his attorney had ever done him a damn bit of good that she remembered. Skinny little kid, looked more like an actor than a real lawyer…

  She found herself glancing over her shoulder at Borden. He was chatting with a nurse, head bent, smiling.

  He didn’t look like a real lawyer, either.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” she said aloud, not quite looking at Ben because it was easier than facing those eyes, that silent whisper of things done and endured she didn’t want to know. “Swear to God, I will.”

  “God put me here,” McCarthy said, and shrugged. He put on a false Irish comic-opera lilt. “It’ll take the devil himself to get me out.”

  She jerked her attention back to his face. “Then I’ll deal with the devil.”

  McCarthy sent that unreadable look again, to Borden, who was still talking to the nurse and well out of earshot. “Believe it or not, sweetheart, I think you already did.”

  By the time she left the prison, Jazz felt exhausted, shaky and desperately in need of a nap. She let Borden have the wheel heading back, and fell asleep to the rhythmic hiss of tires on asphalt and the soft wail of the radio. If she dreamed, it was probably unpleasant, but she didn’t remember.

  They rolled back into Kansas City in time for rush hour, which Borden negotiated with ease—he would, she supposed, being from the Big Apple—and she realized by the time they’d pulled into her apartment parking lot that she had barely said a word to him since entering the prison.