Page 96 of Devil's Due

Before they landed, she pulled out the red envelope she’d retrieved from the roof and read the words that Max Simms had left them as a legacy.

EVERYTHING YOU DO MATTERS. PROTECT YOUR CHILD.

And, scrawled apparently in haste, P.S.—TRUST BORDEN.

She showed it to Jazz, and saw some inner tension finally relax. That had been hard on her, not trusting Borden.

Manny picked them up at the airport in his new red Hummer. It was so outrageously attention-seeking that Lucia had to laugh, wearily, at the sight of it. She curled unconsciously into McCarthy’s warmth on the way to the warehouse, and the weight of his arm around her shoulders felt like the best safety she had ever known.

“We need to get you to a doctor,” McCarthy said softly, just for her ears. “Have you checked out.”

“I’m fine.”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean. I’ll go and let them do the poking and prodding, but everything’s okay.”

Talking in code. That would have to stop soon; they’d have to tell everybody the news of her pregnancy. Probably not the details, but the fact, at least.Uncle Manny. Aunt Jazz.The kid would, at least, have a colorful childhood.

They were pulling into the armored ground-floor garage when Manny suddenly said, “What do you want to do about the guest?”

“Guest?” Jazz looked blank for a second, then chagrined. “Oh, shit, I forgot. Susannah, right? She’s still here?”

“She’s upstairs. What do you want to do with her?”

Jazz sighed long-sufferingly. “I guess I’ll take her for the night. Tomorrow we can figure out a long-term solution. New identity, new life—”

“Let’s just get through the rest of the day without anybody else dropping dead,” Lucia said.

“Sounds like a good plan.”

They trooped wearily up the stairs, pausing for the obligatory code entries, and as he opened the top door, Manny said, “Pansy, we’re—”

And Susannah Davis shot him.

The sound of the hot crack echoed off of concrete and steel. Manny staggered back into Jazz, who caught him reflexively, yelling something Lucia couldn’t catch because she was already moving past Jazz and Manny, cutting behind a concrete pillar.

Susannah Davis had a gun, and she had Pansy as a shield. She was holding Pansy’s silky black hair in one hand, pulling her onto her tiptoes to keep her in place. Pansy appeared terrified, eyes round in horror. Susannah jerked her backward, moving fast, trying to keep the killing angle.

Lucia instinctively went for her gun.

Empty holster. They’d shipped their guns back.Damnation.There would be a small arsenal in the Hummer, but there wasn’t time to fetch it. Manny had been hit in the stomach, and he needed a doctornow.He was propped up against Jazz in the doorway, holding his hands over the wound, staring at Pansy and Susannah. God, there was a lot of blood.

“Don’t you dare,” he whispered. “Don’t you dare hurt her.”

“I don’t want her,” Susannah said. “Callender. Garza. Out here, now. I’ll let her go if you step out.”

Lucia exchanged a quick look with Jazz. There was desperation in Jazz’s eyes.Think of something. Anything.

McCarthy was even more helpless, trapped behind Jazz on the stairwell. Unarmed.

Lucia didn’t see any way out of it.

“Seriously,” Susannah said. “I’ll blow her head off. I swear.” She sounded so very different from the beaten woman Lucia had rescued in the parking garage, and the scared one who’d talked about her abusive husband. Even from the manipulative fragile one who’d talked about the SubTropolis conspiracy.

Games, and games, and games. She’d even confessed to something, though Lucia hadn’t realized it at the time. Omar.I let him in, she’d said, talking about Leonard. And she undoubtedly had. They’d been in it together, from the beginning. Playing the abused and abusive spouse, maneuvering to get things right where they wanted them. Omar had been a complication. Maybe Leonard had killed him, and maybe it had been Susannah, after all.No defensive wounds.Omar would have let her close enough.

Then she’d killed her own partner in crime to get a better chance at them.

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