Page 91 of Devil's Bargain

The KCPD detective leaned against the closed door for a couple of seconds, staring at her, and crossed his arms. “You don’t look so bad,” he said. “Heard you took one in the chest.”

She tapped her breastbone lightly. “Flak vest.”

“Heard you damn near shot the face off a baby-raper.”

She didn’t answer that one. She wasn’t happy with that memory, even knowing who the man had been, what he’d done. Even knowing that firing that shot had allowed a beautiful little girl to return safe to her mother.

There was no way to avoid seeing it, over and over again, in her nightmares.

“Bet you think you’re the golden girl, don’t you?” Stewart asked, raising his eyebrows. He looked pale and doughy and unpleasantly shiny, as if he’d been jogging. His eyes were open wide, his pupils too small. She’d always wondered if he took drugs. He never quite looked right in the head to her.

“Is there a point you’re going to get to, or are you just here to kiss my ass?” she asked. She wished she had a gun, because Stewart made her feel the lack, but of course that wasn’t possible in the hospital. Though she strongly suspected Lucia was always packing.

Stewart pushed away from the door and came toward her. “What’s the crap I’m hearing about photos that show McCarthy across town at the time of the murders?”

“It’s not crap,” she said, and folded up a black hoodie before stuffing it in her canvas bag. “They’ve passed every test. My partner also found one of the guys in the pictures. He’s willing to testify to their authenticity.”

“It’s crap,” Stewart repeated. He was closer now. She could smell a sharp, metallic scent coming off him, like gun oil and sweat. “I know exactly where he was. Pumping rounds into the backs of the heads of three people.”

“Pictures say different.”

He was way too close. In her space, trying to get her to react, and boy, she wanted to. She wanted to slam her fist into his face, but she knew better, knew he was waiting for it and besides, she’d promised the doctor she’d be good.

“The pictures are fakes,” he said softly. “I’m going to prove it. McCarthy’s not getting off on this one. Not ever.”

She gave him a slow, liquid smile. “Evidence is going before the court next Tuesday,” she said. “It’s exculpatory. The conviction’s going to be vacated.”

Stewart’s eyes flared heat, then narrowed. “Maybe he doesn’t make it to Tuesday.”

Shealmosthit him. Almost reached for his throat.

She said nothing.

Behind him, the door opened, and Jazz looked over his shoulder to see Lucia standing there, tense and ready. “Jazz?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Detective Stewart was just dropping off—what was it you were dropping off?”

“Congratulations,” he snapped, and turned and walked away, brushing past Lucia as if she wasn’t even there.

Jazz let out a slow breath, tilted her head and got a similar wide-eyed look from her partner.

“Well?” Lucia asked.

“I think we’d better go warn Ben,” Jazz said. “Just in case.”

Jazz hadn’t given it much thought, really, about how much time Lucia had spent in and around Ellsworth during the investigation. How many times she must have dropped in to talk to McCarthy.

But when they sat down at the table in the visitor’s area—no claustrophobic booths here, it was just open plain tables with preformed benches, much more accessible—and McCarthy walked in from the prisoner’s door, the first one of them he smiled at was Lucia, and that look …

That was a look Jazz had never seen in his eyes before.

She glanced sideways at Lucia, who was staring back, and caught the same glint.

Well,she thought blankly.Huh.That’s…interesting.She couldn’t decide if it was interesting-bad or interesting-good. McCarthy had always been her territory, more or less … not in a romantic sort of way, but in a proprietary sense, anyway. He’d been her partner. Her friend.

She cut her eyes toward Lucia again as McCarthy walked over and slid onto the bench across from them. Yes, that was the look. A hungry look. Something open and—odd, for Lucia—vulnerable.

“Hey.” McCarthy nodded at Lucia, and then—with reluctance, it seemed to Jazz—transferred his smile to her. “Jazz. You look good. How you healing up?”

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