Devil's Bargain rld-1

by Rachel Caine

  The kitschy gold sunburst clock on the wall said that morning was rolling on. She washed up the mug and coffeepot, shuffled off to the bathroom and attempted a sponge bath, with limited results. Her hair was a disaster, and she wasn’t up to washing it. Bending over wasn’t really in the cards. She settled for giving it a punky spiked look with gel—thank you, Liar Borden—and climbed into fresh underwear and sweatpants and T-shirt.

  Then she collapsed back on the bed, spots dancing in front of her eyes. Painkillers beckoned seductively from her bedside table, but no way was she doing that, not today. Too much to do. Too much at stake.

  She got out her cell phone and dialed.

  “Gabriel, Pike & Laskins,” said a crisp female voice, all business. “How may I direct your call?”

  “James Borden,” she said, and eased herself to a sitting position against the headboard. She didn’t want to be lying down for this.

  “One moment, I’ll see if he’s available.”

  Thirty seconds, a fluttering click, and Pansy’s cheerful voice said, “James Borden’s office, how may I—”

  “Let me speak to the lying rat,” Jazz interrupted. “Tell him it’s Jasmine Callender.”

  There was a second’s puzzled pause, and then Pansy said, “Ms. Callender, I’m sorry, but the lying rat isn’t here. He flew out yesterday. I understood he was coming to see you. Incidentally, how are you feeling?”

  “Good enough to kick his legal briefs,” Jazz snapped, and heard Pansy choke on what might have been a laugh. “He flew back last night. He’s not there?”

  “Not at the office. He called to say that he’d be out of town a couple of days at least. Do you want me to try his cell phone?”

  “No, I’ll do it.” Jazz was suddenly struck by an evil inspiration. “Do you like your job, Pansy?”

  “Sure.”

  “Like New York?”

  “It’s okay,” Pansy said. Jazz could almost see the shrug. “I’m from Kansas, originally. New York takes some getting used to.”

  “If you’re homesick, do you want to come to work in K.C. for me?”

  “I couldn’t do that,” Pansy said cheerfully. “But thanks for the offer.”

  “Suit yourself. But I can promise you that I’ll never, ever make you get coffee.”

  There was a long, long pause, and then Pansy said, “Kansas City, huh?”

  Jazz grinned. Take that, Lawyer Borden.

  Chapter 6

  U pon returning from her run, Lucia informed Jazz of two things. One, she’d be camping out on Jazz’s couch until her leasing agent found her a local apartment. Two, they had an appointment to shop for office space.

  “We’re shopping?”

  “Shopping is a necessary part of life, Jazz, you should reconcile yourself to it. Unless you want me to make all the decisions.” Lucia didn’t sound averse to it. Jazz eyed her distrustfully.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll take a look.”

  Lucia drove. All the way, Jazz kept an eye on the street, but traffic patterns looked random and safe, and she saw nobody following—either from in front or behind—for more than a couple of blocks. It was possible the faceless bad guys had enough manpower to do fast-rotating teams, but if so, they were screwed anyway, and all the eagle-eye vigilance in the world wouldn’t help.

  No white vans, no black cars with tinted windows, no electric blue sedans with out-of-date plates.

  But when they pulled up in the parking lot of a five-story office building, she spotted someone she knew waiting, leaning against the granite-faced entrance with his long arms folded. Borden was back in casual mode, long leather jacket and blue jeans and an oatmeal-colored long-sleeved Henley underneath. Gelled hair again. He looked up as Jazz’s car rattled to a stop, and straightened.

  Jazz took her time getting out, partly so as not to run over and bash his head against the wall, partly because she didn’t want to show any awkwardness or hesitation from the pain. Smooth and controlled. She was going to out-Lucia Lucia.

  “Hey,” Borden said, and took a couple of steps toward her. She shut the car door, put her hands in her jacket pockets and looked at him with what was probably not a polite smile.

  He stopped.

  “Let me guess, Counselor,” she said, “you’re in the real estate business, too.”

  “More or less. How are you—”

  “Feeling?” She forced herself not to limp as she walked toward, then past him. “Great. You?”

  In the shiny tinted glass of the building’s double doors, she saw Borden toss Lucia a look. Lucia shook her head.

  “You should have stayed in the hospital,” he said, coming up next to her with a thick set of keys in his hand. He unlocked the door and pulled the right one open with a sigh of cool air. “And for the record? I’m not the landlord. I just helped Lucia find the place. Third floor. Take the elevator. You don’t have to prove how tough you are by tackling the stairs.”

  She glared at him but walked inside the building. It was dark, except for some indirect spots illuminating empty alcoves and an equally empty reception desk. Still had that new-building smell, equal parts paint, drywall and fresh carpeting.

  “Ready to move in?” Lucia asked.

  Borden nodded. “If you sign the lease, you could be operational in a few days.”

  Lucia nodded and tucked her hair back behind her ear, sneaking a look at Jazz as she did so. Jazz watched the numbers flash on the floor counter overhead. When the right one arrived, she pushed through the still-opening doors…

  Into a dream.

  Déjà vu, she thought, and fought the disorientation. She knew this place. Knew it. She knew what she’d see before she looked left, or right. She knew that there would be a big-ass boardroom behind the reception-desk half wall directly in front of her, and that the table in there would be a long black lacquer thing, and she could see someone sitting there, looking up at her.

  Ben. Ben McCarthy. I remember Ben McCarthy being here, in these offices.

  She told herself it was just a dream, but she couldn’t make herself move. Her heart was hammering, her skin suddenly coated in sweat.

  I know this place.

  Borden went to the reception desk and did something behind the counter. Lights flipped on and marched left and right in fluorescent banks. The place took on light and color. It was champagne-and-blond woods and dull silver, very chic.

  “It’s fully furnished,” he said. “The management fitted it out for an Internet firm that went belly-up before move-in. They’ve been trying to lease it out for months.”

  “Other tenants in the building?” Lucia asked.

  “They’ve got a law firm moving in on five, and an investment firm coming in on the ground floor,” Borden said. “It’s pretty safe. Very corporate.”

  Jazz walked over to the reception desk and looked at the half wall behind the empty chair. It was begging for a name. She blinked and imagined the silvery lettering on it: Callender & Garza. She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or even more disoriented.

  She went around the wall. Behind it sat a black lacquer table that seated at least a dozen, with black leather chairs pulled around it. A Zen-appropriate arrangement of dried flowers in the center of the table. Beyond it, tinted glass had a view of the K.C. skyline.

  The sense of déjà vu was fading. Maybe it had just been one of those things, a weird-ass chemical imbalance of a brain that had suffered too many shocks recently.

  She heard Lucia say something about taking a look at the offices. She turned and followed.

  There were two large offices to the right, sharing an administrative station. Jazz entered the one on the left, moving by instinct, and noticed Lucia moved to the right. She stood in the doorway and looked at the expanse of carpet, the empty bookshelves, the desk and chair.

  Borden had moved behind her. She could feel him there, even though he was staying a prudent few steps away.

  “You did a good job,” he said, “with the assignm
ent. The client was pleased.”

  “We didn’t do anything.” Jazz turned to face him. The indirect lighting did things to his face, made him look like a stranger. But then, he was a stranger, wasn’t he? And she didn’t really know a thing about him, except that he wasn’t telling the truth.

  “You did exactly what you were supposed to do,” he said, and suddenly put out a hand to grab her by the forearm. “Jazz?”

  She’d faltered, lost her balance, and only realized it after the fact. She leaned against a wall and sucked down deep breaths, clearing her head. “Paint fumes,” she mumbled. She felt light-headed and more than a little sick. “You lied to me, Borden.”

  He could have moved his hand. He didn’t. She felt his strong hold slacken a little, but he kept touching her.

  “I didn’t,” he said, and moved closer. Too close. She felt smothered. “I wouldn’t.”

  “You told us you don’t do criminal cases.” Like Manny, she thought. Manny won’t do them, either.

  Borden’s sharp face went blank for a few seconds, then settled into an expression of resignation. “Yeah. I don’t.”

  “I saw the pictures. You and Max Simms.”

  The name rocked him back, and she saw a startled flash in those big brown eyes, quickly concealed. “That’s what I get for generalizing to a cop,” he said. “I didn’t try that case, I was second chair. Laskins was principal. It was my first, last and only criminal trial with the firm.”

  “Because of Simms?” she asked.

  He smiled sadly. “My firm doesn’t like losing.”

  The office’s waiting silence closed around them. He still hadn’t taken his hand off her, and she hadn’t insisted, by word or motion, that he do it. Her eyes met his, and she felt a jolt deep inside, something warm and frighteningly real.

  “I wish you’d stayed in the hospital,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “You have a hole in your side, you know. Not a hangnail.”

  “Believe me, Counselor, I know.”

  He studied her for a long moment, and then suddenly let go of her arm and stepped back. Two feet back. Hands in his pockets, as if he didn’t trust himself not to touch her again.

  Lucia was coming out of the right-hand office, arms folded, looking at her shoes as if deciding whether or not the new fall line would be out soon. She glanced from Borden to Jazz and back, dark eyes glittering, and said, “Reached any conclusions?”

  “Looks good to me,” Borden said. He didn’t take his eyes off Jazz.

  “It seems like it will work,” Lucia replied. “I want wireless broadband installed, and we’re going to need lots of storage space. But yes, I like it. Jazz?”

  Callender & Garza.

  Ben McCarthy, sitting at that black table, looking up at her with a tiny little smile.

  Jazz sucked in a deep breath and surprised herself by saying, “Yeah. I can live with this.”

  That, apparently, was all it took to change the course of a life.

  The cases came slowly at first. Welton Brown, who’d always been a friend, directed a couple of noncriminal cases Jazz’s way, and as the weeks passed, as office supplies got delivered and put away and lights turned on and Internet connections tested—as the lettering turned from dream to permanence on the reception-area wall and the building officially opened—things slowly began to change.

  Jazz healed.

  It was more than the bullet wound, although that closed up nicely without complications. It was more about something inside that had been broken and bleeding for much longer than that. Since she’d seen Stewart throw McCarthy up against a wall and snap handcuffs around his wrist and sneer out words she still heard in her nightmares. Under arrest for murder…

  She’d been lost for a while, since then, and as she began to learn the routine of driving to the office, checking her perimeters before leaving the car, walking into the offices and being greeted by Christine Sparrow, Lucia’s choice for receptionist…it began to feel real.

  Lucia had moved without fanfare. She’d just stopped commuting from D.C. about a week into things and handed Jazz a slip of paper with an address on it. Her new home was in one of the nicer, secured apartment buildings.

  Every day, they met in the elevator, or in the coffee room, or in the administrative area—still empty—between their two offices. And every day, there was something more to talk about. Something important.

  Lucia brought cases with her from Washington. One of them required travel, which Jazz wasn’t up for, given her physical limitations, and she found she missed Lucia’s light conversation while she was gone, the quiet competence she brought into the office, like the scent of her perfume. Jazz took a job doing background checks on a prospective executive for Hudson Industrials out of Boston—another Welton Brown referral, however oblique—and turned up drug-possession charges and proof of current cocaine purchases, provided via a subcontractor in Boston proper. The company liked their thoroughness so much that they sent over their corporate business.

  Jazz discovered she really did need an assistant. Badly. She made another phone call.

  Turned out that Pansy was tired of getting coffee after all.

  Three weeks later, their office staff had doubled its size, the business was running at a steady, if unexceptional, clip, and Jazz was starting to feel that little bull’s eye on her back flicker and fade. Neither she nor Lucia had seen anything like a tail or a suspicious vehicle in weeks.

  She was just starting to feel really good and pretty well healed when Chris Sparrow rang the intercom in the middle of her transcription of the notes for the latest executive background review to announce a visitor.

  James Borden.

  Jazz hesitated for a second, staring at her lit computer screen, fingers poised on the keys, and then wheeled her chair back. Lucia was gone, still, on one of her nonlocal cases. There really wasn’t much of an alternative, except to tell Chris to send him on back.

  Through the open door, she witnessed the priceless moment when Pansy, coming out of the coffee room, encountered her ex-boss on his way in. They blinked at each other, and then Pansy, without a tremor, offered Borden the cup of coffee in her hand.

  And he, without a tremor, accepted it, toasted her with it, and continued into Jazz’s office, where he took a seat on the couch, sipped coffee and sprawled as if he was sitting in his own living room.

  “Make yourself at home,” she said, and got up to close the door on Pansy’s curious smile. “I’d ask what brings you here, but I’m thinking I already know.”

  Without comment, Borden—who had just had a haircut, and it suited him—reached inside his trenchcoat and took out a red envelope. She walked over, took it from his hand and sat down next to him to rip it open.

  “Why red?” she asked absently.

  He finished sipping his coffee before saying, “What?”

  “Red envelopes. Seems like a pretty obvious way of delivering a message. Why red?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Okay, that goes without saying, but humor me.” She unfolded the paper inside. More Gabriel, Pike & Laskins letterhead, the same businesslike printing.

  Proceed at 11:00 p.m. local time tonight to the 1400 block of Legacy Drive. Park on the left side of the street and wait for a black Toyota Celica to arrive and park on the opposite side of the street. Follow the woman in the Celica from her car until she enters the building at 1428 Legacy Drive.

  “That’s it?” Jazz checked the back of the letter. Apparently, it was. “No pictures, no video, no nothing? Just park, follow, leave?”

  “Yes,” Borden said. “I told you, they wouldn’t all be exciting stuff.”

  She flapped the envelope. “Why red?”

  “Are we back to that again?” He’d not only cut his hair, he was freshly shaved. And if she wasn’t mistaken, that was a fresh application of cologne, too. She scooted a little closer, just to confirm her suspicions. “It’s so we won’t get them mixed up with other corresponden
ce. There’s a lot of it in our offices, in case you haven’t noticed. Lawyers. We do paperwork.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Excuse me?” He put the coffee cup aside on the side table and turned toward her, resting an elbow on the back of the tufted leather couch. “By the way, I like your hair.”

  She blushed. She didn’t mean to, and she was furious at herself for doing it, but she instantly felt the burn climb from her neck into her cheeks, and saw the immediate lazy amusement in his eyes. She’d let Lucia talk her into a new hairdresser, and as a result, she barely recognized herself in the mirror. Her hair was still in a shag, but no longer reminded her of sheepdogs or thatched roofs; it looked cute, perky and fluffable. It even felt soft, thanks to some expensive conditioners she wasn’t sure she could afford, or had enough training to use. But it seemed to work. Lucia had pronounced her fit for boardroom meetings, anyway.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled. “Yours, too.”

  He shrugged. No blush, damn him. “How’s the side?”

  “Fixed.”

  “But you’re taking it easy.”

  “No, I’m going to sign up for the Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match later today. Yes, of course I’m taking it easy. The toughest thing I’ve had to do so far is walk fast.” She smiled, just a bit, as the blush started to fade to a distant prickle. “Bet I can still kick your ass, though, Counselor.”

  “No bets,” he said. She wondered if he was humoring her.

  “Regular rates on this?” She waved the envelope between them, which should have formed some kind of barrier and instead just wafted more of his warm cologne toward her.

  “Regular rates,” he agreed. Was he leaning closer? She thought he was.

  “Are you going to keep doing this? Being the GPL Postal Service?”

  “GPL?”

  “Gabriel, Pike…?”

  “Oh.” He raised one shoulder in a very tiny shrug. “Lead time’s usually not long enough to trust this stuff to the mail. Even overnight. Though sometimes I might not be available, and you might have to check FedEx, but I’ll give you a heads-up first.”