Page 69 of Devil's Due

There were, by the last count she heard, enough chemicals in the warehouse to kill tens of thousands, and maybe more if delivered accurately. And she’d been right about the clean room. There was a neat little bottle of white powder. Anthrax. Enough for a dozen lethal mailings, at least. From the envelopes they’d found in the process of being addressed, they’d been intended for the local FBI offices, as well as other government buildings.

If Ken Stewart had contemplated killing her and Cole—and she had no doubt that he had—he lost his chance as the worker bees from KCPD took over. She and Cole were quickly whisked off to a local FBI establishment. It was an improvement over the police headquarters isolation room. The FBI facility came with fresh coffee and more comfortable chairs. She caught a glimpse of Susannah Davis being brought in, at one point, escorted by Ben McCarthy.

Lucia heard Jazz’s voice even through the soundproofing.

“—son of a bitch!” Jazz finished bellowing, just as the door opened again, and Agent Rawlins came in. His ears had turned red, though he was keeping a carefully blank expression. Jazz was right on his heels, as dynamic as he was controlled. She’d been messing with her hair, and it stuck out in unruly spikes. Her face was flushed and vividly animated. When she saw Lucia, she charged forward and dropped into the empty chair next to her.

“Hey,” she said, without looking.

“Hey,” Lucia replied. She felt a smile tugging at her lips and sternly exiled it back to its waiting room. “So. How’s it going?”

“So-so. You were supposed to take it easy, as I recall. Have a talk with Susannah. Lay low.”

“Change of plans.”

Jazz sat back and folded her arms. “You putanotherguy in the hospital, and that’s the best you can come up with?Change of plans?”

Lucia shrugged. “I shot in defense of the life of an agent of the FBI. Which I’m pretty certain is covered under selfdefense. Isn’t it, Agent Rawlins?”

He pulled up a chair, too, on the opposite side of the table. “Do you want legal counsel, Ms. Garza?”

“You’re kidding.”

“I don’t kid about things like that.”

“Am I being charged with something? Bringing a clue to the attention of the FBI, perhaps? Is that criminal these days?”

Rawlins was furious. “From anybody else, I could accept ignorance as an excuse, but you know better. You know better than to come to some agent off the books and put him in a dangerous situation.”

“Agent Cole was only trying to establish—”

“He was grandstanding, and you were helping him, and you both nearly got yourselves killed. Which in itself doesn’t distress me, but now I’ve got about twenty people to investigate, the clock’s running, and for all I know the major players have hopped a plane to Brazil. So you’ll forgive me if I’m not pleased with the outcome of this little fishing expedition.”

“Agent Cole,” Lucia repeated, “was only trying to independently establish the truth of what our witness was saying about the chemicals. And if you’ve got twenty people to check out, then why are you wasting time with me?”

Jazz didn’t bother to suppress a snort. “Wow. Gotcha, Agent Redhead:”

He glared at her.

“Rawlins,” she amended blandly. “Sorry. Pet name. I find red hair very sexy. It’s distracting.”

With a mighty effort, he ignored her. “So your information came solely from this witness, Susannah Davis. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Lucia said. “Cole verified that there had been shipments of chemicals to the SubTropolis address. He was just confirming that the operations weren’t really doing electroplating before bringing in a full team on the operation.”

“Cole can answer for himself. You shot a man.”

Lucia raised her eyebrows. “Agent Rawlins, I shot someone who was about to put your agent’s ribs through his lungs!”

The door opened again. Agent Rawlins frowned in irritation as a woman—FBI, by the well-scrubbed look of her—stuck her head cautiously inside.

“Attorney’s here,” she said. “He’s demanding to see her.”

Rawlins swiveled his eyes back toward Lucia. “I thought you didn’t want a lawyer.”

“I don’t think I ever actually said that.”

She expected Borden, but when the female agent disappeared, the door opened wider, and a silver-haired man in an expensive suit walked in. His briefcase cost more than an FBI agent’s monthly salary, Lucia felt sure. The suit was European, hand-tailored and impeccably elegant.

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