Page 33 of Devil's Bargain

“She’s not that bad.”

“Bullshit.”

“Manny wanted to visit, but—”

“He’s got a thing about hospitals. Manny has a thing about everything.”

“He did some good work for us, looking into the Cross Society.”

“And?”

Lucia shrugged. “On paper, it’s legit. He came up with a few flags—not so much red lights as yellow. Max Simms, for one. He may be in prison, but it’s likely he’s still got some influence.” She fell silent. The moment stretched, long and awkward.

Jazz though longingly of on-demand morphine.

“You should go,” Jazz said. “I’m sorry to have kept you hanging around. You’ve got a life to get back to.”

“Planes leave all the time.” Lucia shrugged. “I’m not going if it means you end up lying unprotected in a hospital bed and the cops aren’t going to put out any effort to find out who shot you. And shot at me, by the way. I take that kind of thing personally.”

The look in her eyes was usually accompanied by shooting back, Jazz figured. Or, at the very least, grievous bodily harm.

“So you’re sticking around,” Jazz said. A tight knot in the area of her chest eased a little.

“For a while. Until you get back on your feet, anyway. Also, I’m going to wake up some sources and see what they can find out for me. I don’t like the way any of this is playing out.”

She started to get up. Jazz stopped her with an outstretched hand. “Wait. Listen, you need to be careful, all right? You’re not from around here. If you disappear …”

Lucia gave her an uncomplicated smile. “If I disappear,chica,your cop friends are going to have a lot more trouble than they ever bargained for, because the kind of people who’ll come looking for me won’t take a shrug for an answer. And they don’t ask nicely.” She stood up, gazing down at her. “Also … I’m not that easy to make vanish.”

“I get that.” Jazz found herself smiling back. “Hey. Thank you.”

“That’s what partners are for,” Lucia said, and reached down to retrieve her sleek black oversize purse. She pulled out a large flat envelope and placed it gently on Jazz’s stomach. There was a pen clipped to it. “I signed,” she said. “It’s up to you whether or not you want to.”

Jazz stared at the envelope, frowning. “Why’d you change your mind?”

“Because I don’t think it matters anymore whether I sign it or not. We’re in this together. Whoever these guys are, they’re not going to back off because we go our separate ways, and I don’t know about you, but I’d like to have somebody I trust at my back.” Lucia’s dark eyes were level and clear. “And if somebody’s going to shoot at me, I’d rather get paid for it.”

Jazz laughed. It hurt. She caught her breath, slid the paperwork out and thumbed through it to the last page.

Lucia’s signature was flowing and bold over her typed name. Jazz set pen to paper, hesitated a second, and then scratched out her own messy, jerky autograph.

The check was attached to the partnership agreement with a clip. Jazz took it off, turned it over and endorsed it, then handed it all back to Lucia. “Maybe you’d better handle the bank stuff,” she said.

“Yeah,” Lucia agreed quietly. “I will.”

In the silence after she was gone, Jazz went over all the ways that she’d just totally screwed up her life. There were dozens. Hundreds. Disaster stretched out in the distance, as certain as the Titanic and the iceberg.

What if it works?That was the scariest thought of all, strangely.What if it works out, and I don’t need to be a cop anymore?Because that was secretly what she’d always thought would happen. McCarthy would be vindicated. They’re return in triumph, conquering heroes. Life would pick up where it left off.

What if nothing’s the same?

That filled her with a kind of fear that had nothing to do with bullet wounds and drive-by shooters and people attacking her in bathrooms. Those things she could deal with. External threats.

But this … this was different. She’d just done something that would change her future.

She fell asleep still thinking about that, and reaching no conclusions as to whether or not it was a good thing.

Chapter 5

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