by Rachel Caine
"Yes." Lucia met and held the stare. "I'm ready, Jazz. I've got your back."
Whatever Jazz saw, it seemed to satisfy her. She reached into her black leather jacket, took out her gun and checked the clip—an automatic reaction for her, like breathing.
Lucia bent over to put on her shoe; Jazz raised an eyebrow. "That's what you're wearing? You know, I always think practical when I'm planning for some kind of fight."
Lucia nodded and reached down to zip the sides of the low boots. "These are practical. Flat heels, ankle support and steel toes. And yet stylish."
"Huh. I need to take you shoe shopping." Jazz glanced down at her Doc Martens, which looked exactly like the work boots they were. Lucia gave her a full smile and checked the position of her.38 in the holster at the small of her back, then took out the nine millimeter resting in the shoulder holster. Jazz mimed a desire to see it. Lucia handed it over.
"Wow," she said, and turned it right, then left. "Ruger P95? This new?"
"Absolutely." Lucia reached out and took it from Jazz's hand, then slotted it securely in her holster. "You know, you're amazingly easy to distract with things that can hurt people." She donned her leather jacket—brown, not black; she hated to match her partner—and picked up her purse. "After you, Jazz."
"You're sure you—"
"We've been through this." Lucia met her eyes levelly. "I put Omar there, and I didn't think to warn him. Consider how that feels."
Jazz didn't blink, and for seconds, Lucia thought she'd failed. She knew she wasn't likely to be able to take Jazz in a straight fight—Jazz had a gift—but she'd been hoping that she wouldn't have to try.
"Fine," Jazz abruptly said. "But one cough out of you, and you're at the hospital. In restraints. And I tell them you need a colonoscopy, too."
"Deal."
It was inevitable, Lucia realized, that after a pronouncement like that, she'd fight the urge to cough the entire way down in the elevator.
Chapter Eleven
Jazz—through some sort of divine intervention, Lucia assumed—had persuaded Manny to loan her his enormous black vehicle. The Hummer wasn't just a gigantic SUV, of course, it was customized to Manny's particular paranoid standards. Lucia knew it had bullet-resistant glass, and no doubt Kevlar in the frame; she wouldn't be surprised if it featured a rocket launcher somewhere in the accessory package.
It also had a staggering arsenal in the back. For a totally nonviolent individual, Manny believed in preparation more than many Boy Scouts.
Jazz drove, of course. Lucia was just as happy to let her; she couldn't imagine piloting the thing around without scraping off a few bumpers from the tiny-looking cars around them. It was a little like steering a cruise ship through a sailboat regatta.
Lucia kept busy watching the street around them, alert for any sign that Eidolon, the Cross Society or anyone else might be intent on following or intercepting, but she didn't spot anything that tripped an alarm. Of course, if it was Gregory, or someone as skilled, then she probably wouldn't know until the bullets began flying.
Jazz slowed as they passed the Raphael's main entrance, and took the next turn. Service entrance and non valet parking. She parked the Hummer carefully and finally asked, "Ready?"
"Of course."
"Watch your ass."
Before Lucia could reply, Jazz was already out the door, climbing down to the parking lot. Lucia hurried to catch up, and scanned the lot as they moved to the back dock. The door was propped open, and a chef was smoking a cigarette outside; he was a big fellow in his white uniform, made taller by the trademark hat. Jazz nodded pleasantly to him, and he nodded back. He didn't try to stop them.
The service elevators—like service elevators everywhere—were a great deal more lived-in than the fancy ones used by the guests, and were big enough to move grand pianos without feeling cramped. Jazz pushed the button for five, then six.
"You take the fifth floor," she said. "Come in through the stairwell. I'll go straight in."
"No," Lucia said instantly, and had to think fast to come up with a reason. "Susannah knows me, she's never seen you. It'll be less confusing if I make the direct approach. Right?"
"Fine." They watched numbers crawl. "How do you feel?"
"Do you want me to manufacture a cough?"
"Heh. No."
"Then let's just get this done so I can go to the hospital."
At the fifth floor, Jazz stepped off, heading for the stairs. Lucia pulled her P95 and held it at her side, and edged back into the far corner of the elevator as it dinged arrival.
She risked a quick glimpse down the hallway. Clear. It was a long way to the room, exposed all the way. No help for it.
She left the elevator and started walking, constantly scanning the closed hotel room doors. Nothing stirred. She heard televisions from one, a hair dryer from another. Voices, muffled and indistinct.
The room they'd been given was in the discreetly secured section, beyond a manned concierge desk and behind a key-carded door.
The concierge's desk was empty.
The door clicked open. Beyond, the hallway was wider, and more opulently appointed, with antique hall tables and original artwork on the walls. And the lights were lower.
No sign of the concierge here, either.
She paused at the stairwell and opened the door. Jazz stepped out. "Any trouble?" she asked.
"None. You?"
"There's a few blood drops on the stairs. Could be anything—a kid having a nosebleed. Or could be something. No way to tell." Jazz, Lucia noticed, also had her gun out and ready. "Which one?"
Lucia mutely nodded at the right door. They moved into position on either side, communicating silently, and Lucia knocked twice and said, "Omar? Open up."
No response. She held up the key card. Jazz nodded, all business, and shifted her weight to be ready to move.
The card clicked in the lock, and the door opened at a touch, swinging back with silent ease. Lucia beat Jazz to entry by a split second, taking the low line, unable to see much for the shadows. The curtains were drawn.
"Lights," Jazz said, and hit the switch with her shoulder.
In the blaze, the blood looked very, very bright.
Omar lay on the floor, sprawled and lifeless, next to an overturned armchair.
His throat had been cut. Lucia gasped in a breath, felt her body constrict with the shock. A wave of unreality swept over her.
"Focus," Jazz said softly. "Stay with me, L."
Omar was dead. The cut was deep, one slice, right to left. The standard for a right-handed killer facing him. She wanted to reach over, press her fingers to his neck, even though she knew it was illogical to feel for a pulse. This had been done at least a couple of hours ago. Omar's lovely dark eyes were open, and dry. Gregory? It could have been, but even Gregory might find it in bad taste to come visiting a few minutes before killing her friend. No, she didn't think so. Gregory wouldn't have made this much of a mess.
"Lucia!"
She blinked and focused on Jazz's stark, pale, set face. "I'm here," she said. "Take the next room." Her voice sounded far away, but normal.
Jazz nodded and went into the bedroom. Lucia averted her eyes from Omar's body and scanned the closets, the bathroom, under the furniture. She was almost convinced Susannah was gone, dead in a ditch, when she heard a stealthy hiss of breathing, quickly muffled.
"Susannah?" She turned and looked at the far end of the room again. Nothing there. An elegant Queen Anne desk and chair, a big-screen plasma TV, the sweep of long maroon velvet curtains…
It couldn't be that easy. She couldn't be hiding behind the curtains. Not even kids did that anymore, did they?
And then she spotted it. It was tough to see, and designed to be that way, no doubt. A privacy screen of the same material as the wallpaper, blending seamlessly into the fabric of the wall.
Lucia moved around, giving it a wide berth, and came face-to-face with Susannah Davis, huddled against the wall, trembling.
Bruised face averted.
"Got her!" she called, and reached out to touch Susannah on the shoulder.
She had just enough reflexes to jump back out of range as the knife slashed wildly at her. Don't shoot her, some part of Lucia's mind screamed, in time to stop her finger from tightening on the trigger. She danced backward, holstered the gun as she went, and executed a perfect roundhouse kick that sent the knife flying out of Susannah's hand to thud against the velvet drapes. The knife was bloody. Omar's blood. Lucia lunged forward, batted aside Susannah's flailing hands, and wrenched one arm up behind her back. Susannah cried out. She felt hot and damp with sweat against Lucia's chest, and Lucia was overcome with a wave of disgust and anger that made her want to pull that arm up until it snapped.
Instead, she kicked the backs of Susannah's knees and got her down flat on her stomach on the carpet.
"Jazz!" she yelled, and snapped handcuffs around one of Susannah's wrists, then the other. "I've got her!"
Jazz reappeared at the door, gazed down at Susannah coolly, and said, "I think you'd better take a look in here."
"Now?"
"Now. Bring her."
Lucia removed her knee from the center of Susannah's back and hauled her upright; the woman's battered face was spattered with blood, pale where it wasn't stained or abraded. Her eyes looked dim and shocked.
The lights were on in the bedroom, and there was more blood. Not Susannah's, obviously; not Omar's, who'd unquestionably died in the next room. No, this was…
Leonard Davis, Susannah's abusive husband. He was facedown next to the bed. Hard to tell how he'd died, but Lucia bet it had been from the blade of some knife. Whatever wounds he had must be in the front; his back looked untouched, except for the fact that his pants were halfway down his pale butt.
"What happened?" she asked, and looked at Susannah, who was staring at Leonard as if he might rise from the dead at any moment.
"I don't know how he got into the room," Jazz said, "but I can walk you through forensics. He got the drop on Omar, probably by threatening to kill Susannah. I'm betting he had a knife at her throat."
She looked at Susannah, who didn't even seem to know Jazz was talking.
"Omar misjudged him, got too close—maybe he was trying to get her out of the way. One fast slash, straight through both carotid arteries. From the arterial spray in there, I'd guess Omar was standing when he was cut. He must have gone down immediately, and was dead in about thirty seconds. Meanwhile, Leonard dragged Susannah into the bedroom." She indicated the scuffs on the carpet, clear drag marks from the doorway to the bed. "Then I guess he figured he'd get some last fun in before he killed her, too." Susannah shuddered in a deep breath. "I let him in," she said. "Omar was in the bathroom. I let him in by accident. It wasn't Omar's fault."
They both stared at her in silence for a few seconds, and then Jazz cast a pointed look down at Leonard's body. "He took Omar out, but not you? How's that work?"
"He put the knife down when he was unzipping his pants," she said. "He didn't think I had the guts. I never have before."
Lucia raised her eyebrows in silent question to Jazz.
"Yeah," Jazz answered quietly. "That's more or less the way I read it. Omar died first. There's a trail of blood drops from the other room into here. Hubby died with his pants unzipped. There's a void in the blood spray on the bed. That's where she was, on the bed. Which confirms the story, pretty much."
Lucia swallowed hard and resisted an urge to kick Leonard Davis's unresisting corpse.
"Better call Welton Brown," she said to Jazz. "We're going to be here for a while."
"So much for our low profile." Jazz sighed. "Susannah stays in cuffs until the cops say otherwise," she said. "I mean, I told you how I read it, but Brown may see it differently. Better keep him happy. We're already in deep shit."
Lucia nodded, led Susannah to a chair and sat her down, facing away from her husband's body. Jazz got on her cell phone.
It was going to be another long day, no doubt about it, and the hospital was—once again—going to have to wait.
The police took Susannah into custody for questioning, and kept Jazz and Lucia in interrogation for the better part of four hours. The only good thing about it, from Lucia's point of view, was that the clock safely ticked over well past noon, and the deadline, so far as Gregory had described it, had passed.
And if it had been Ben and Jazz going into that room? Jazz would have been the one to find Susannah. And that knife would have gone across her throat just as easily as Omar's.
Lucia's eyes felt grainy and sore, and her whole body ached. Hard to tell whether it was due to the infection, the antibiotics fighting it, or plain, garden-variety exhaustion.
Welton Brown had not been happy to find two murders in his lap after having pointed Susannah Davis in their direction. That really wasn't good, since Brown was one of the few detectives with whom Jazz had stayed on good terms. A private investigation firm needed the cooperation of local police.
But Lucia was too sick and too tired to do any fence-mending, and when Brown dismissed them, Lucia was only too glad to go.
"You're going straight to the hospital," Jazz said, once the police car had dropped them off in the parking lot of the Raphael. This, Lucia thought mournfully, was one hotel that she wouldn't get any cooperation from in the future. A pity. She really liked the ambience, and the sense of history.
The hospital visit was exactly what Lucia had anticipated. She had a fever—no surprise—and an elevated white count. They gave her a course of IV antibiotics, which took the better part of two hours.
"I'd like to keep you here for the next few days. We need to keep an eye on that fever," Dr. Kirkland informed her earnestly, as they unhooked her from the IV.
"I'll do it myself."
"If I send you home, I want you to rest this time, all right? Your partner told me you've been working. This is not optional, Ms. Garza. Rest, sleep and take your medications. Are we clear?"
"Crystal." She swallowed and forced a smile. "How bad is it?"
He stared at her for a long few seconds before he said, "It could be very bad. But with rest and medications, you can beat it in about a week. You didn't have a massive exposure, and your immune system is strong."
Jazz looked as if she was holding back an "I told you so" with all her strength.
"I'll drive you home," she said, and walked Lucia out to the parking lot. The Hummer looked gigantic, like the Queen Mary in a pool of paddleboats, and Lucia couldn't imagine how she was going to summon the energy to climb up into the cab.
She paused, one hand on the door, because she someone watching her.
There was a boxy blue sedan sitting a few parking spaces down the row, and someone was standing next to it. For a tired, disorienting second she thought it was Omar, and then her mind and her eyes cleared. Ben McCarthy. He didn't move, and he didn't approach them. He'd either done some shopping or located some of his clothes in storage; he was wearing a knee-length coat against the night's chilly breeze, something in a warm amber that glowed in a passing car's headlights.
Lucia nodded toward him. Jazz turned to look, and walked over to join him. Lucia checked the parking lot. You could never be sure anything was completely safe.
McCarthy was listening to Jazz recount the scene inside the hotel room when she joined them, and the look he threw toward Lucia was unreadable. When Jazz stopped— she had a cop's terse delivery, nothing but the bare facts— he said, "Omar didn't strike me as the kind of guy to go down without a fight."
Lucia felt something clench hard inside. She'd been avoiding thinking about Omar. "It had to have been fast. Very fast."
"Son of a bitch. I liked the guy." She felt the guilt like a lead ball in her throat. She kept swallowing, but it didn't go down. Metallic taste in her mouth. She felt sick and hot and utterly undone. "So the cops are keeping the widow Davis for a while?"
"A few more hours, anyway," Jazz said. "They'll decide whether or not
to charge her, depending on her story. But my guess? This Leonard guy, he was a cold-blooded killer. Cold-blooded enough to cut Omar's throat and decide to rape her afterward. Probably would have done the same for her when he was done. Seemed to me like he had practice at that kind of thing."
McCarthy folded his arms. He was watching Jazz, but Lucia could feel part of his attention fixed on her, warm as a spotlight. "You guys okay?"
"I need to make arrangements for Omar," Lucia said dully. "He's got family back East. I need to call—"
"Let me," Jazz said. "How many times do I have to tell you? Rest. Take your pills and rest. That's your job now. You give me the numbers. I do the calls." Lucia nodded.
"Yeah," she murmured. "I should go home."
"I'll take her," McCarthy said. With no particular emphasis, just simple words. He and Jazz exchanged a look, another one that Lucia couldn't read, whether it was complicated partner-language or just a malfunction of her own normally competent abilities—and he opened the passenger door of his car. "You get home, too, Jazz."
"Been a busy couple of days for a guy straight out of prison," she observed.
"Yeah, you two should talk. You make Navy SEALs look boring."
The upholstery of McCarthy's old car felt luxurious, soft as down to her tired body; Lucia struggled for a while to stay awake, but minutes disappeared, and she had no memory at all of the drive. Just the warm sensation of McCarthy's fingers stroking her cheek, and his voice in her ear saying, "Let's get you upstairs."
Her knees gave out as she was leaning against the wall in the elevator. McCarthy caught her without a word and picked her up. She wasn't heavy, but she knew she wasn't that light either; she murmured a protest, but there was something so seductive about being cradled against his body, her arms around his neck, her head on his shoulder. He carried her the short distance to her door and let her slide back to her feet.
Close together. Breathing the same air.
He leaned forward and pressed his lips gently to her forehead. A kiss of peace, not passion, although there was that, too, in the tense set of his body, in the light in his eyes. "Get inside," he murmured against her skin. "Take care of yourself. I'll check on you tomorrow."
