Page 59 of Devil's Bargain

She felt a short-circuit shock of recognition and adrenaline like a fist to the temple. She put both hands on the desk and stood up, staring down at the picture, which showed her ex-partner, Ben McCarthy, staring almost full-face at the camera. She even knew the clothes—a long black trench coat, dress shirt, black slacks. No tie. Ben had never worn a tie, except at trials.

He was sliding the package into the pocket of his trench coat.

She stared at him for a long few seconds, trying to slow down the beating of her heart, and then focused on the date and time.

“Son of a bitch,” she whispered, and sank back in her chair.

That’s what had been nagging at her about the previous photos. Date and time.

The same date and time that Ben McCarthy had supposedly been on the other side of Kansas City cold-bloodedly putting bullets in the heads of two unarmed men and a woman.

The pictures clearly showed that he’d been behind the Velvet Palace, taking a payoff.

“You son of a bitch,” she amended, in a lost whisper, and dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. “You lied. Youlied.”

He hadn’t lied about being innocent—he hadn’t been guilty of the killings—but he hadn’t produced this alibi, either. Probably because it was nearly as bad, and would have unearthed more than just this one incident. Maybe he was protecting himself. Maybe he’d just plain believed that he could beat this thing, and then it had been too late to change his story.

Besides, two criminals and a payoff in an alley behind a strip club was probably not the world’s most believable alibi.

He hadn’t known about the pictures.

She stared down at them. The date and time. The faces of the men with him.

She’d been looking for evidence of Ben’s innocence all this time, but she hadn’t expected this. She also had no idea who had given it to Manny, or why. Why now?

Authenticate,she warned herself.This is crap without provenance. Without testimony from the guy who took them.

First step would be to find subjects number one and two in the photos.

She put the photos back in the box and carried them out to Pansy’s desk. Pansy, on the phone, looked up, saw her expression, and apologized to whoever was on the other end of the line before she hung up.

“Boss,” she said. That was all, but it was enough. Jazz set the box down on the corner of her desk.

“I need these scanned,” she said. “Evidence rules. I’m going to need some copies to take with me, too.”

Pansy nodded and reached in her desk drawer for latex gloves. “Did Manny already do the printing?”

“Believe me, Manny would have done everything it was possible to do to these photos, short of burning them and sorting through the ashes.” She cleared her throat. Something felt tight in there. “Pansy.”

“Boss?”

“It’s important.”

Pansy nodded solemnly. “I can tell that.”

“Soon as you have them done—”

“I’ll let you know,” she said. “You want me to talk to Lucia?”

“No, I’ll do it.” Because Lucia had contacts at the federal databases, who might or might not, depending on the political climate, be willing to run the faces against their records. But for now, Jazz was burning to do it the old-fashioned way: pounding pavement. “Soon as you can, all right?”

“Doing it right now,” Pansy said, and fired up the scanner. Jazz didn’t wait. She was already on her way back to the office to gear up.

When the knock came on the door, she figured it was Pansy, returning the pictures, but instead it was James Borden bearing gifts.

To be exact, a fruit basket in his right hand that would have looked perfectly at home on Carmen Miranda’s head, and in his right hand, a red envelope.

She blinked at the fruit basket, holstered the gun that she had just loaded and transferred her stare to his face.

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