Devil's Bargain rld-1

by Rachel Caine

  Simms said, very quietly, “Don’t be foolish. I knew where to find you, Jasmine. I knew where you would be when you didn’t know you were going there. I know things about you that even your closest friends don’t know. I can recite them to you, but I doubt you’d want Counselor Borden to be privy to—”

  She slapped the button again, rounded on him and leaned on the table to put her face close enough to the glass to fog it with her breath. “Save it, asshole, I’m not buying your sideshow crap. You had somebody follow me to the bar. Hell, for all I know, you had somebody switch envelopes on me just now at the police station. It’s all crap, all right? And you’re not going to convince me otherwise—”

  “At precisely ten-oh-two tonight,” Simms said, “Flight eight-oh-two, the plane you will be flying back to Kansas City, will suffer an engine failure. There will be two possible outcomes. One, the plane will rapidly lose altitude and crash into a row of suburban tract homes just short of the runway. There will be two survivors, a blond woman named Kelley Walters and a businessman, Lamar Qualls. Kelley will be traveling to visit her sister in Kansas City. Lamar will be visiting the city on business, to sign a contract for a grocery-store supply chain.”

  She froze, staring at him. His eyes looked pellucidly clear. Sky blue. If he was lying, he was the best liar she’d ever seen in her life. “Bullshit,” she said. But she wondered if it was. It was too specific, too definite. Liars liked to talk in generalities, not specifics that could be checked and disproved.

  “Two,” Simms continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “the pilot will be able to compensate for the loss of the engine and land the plane safely, without incident. There is an eighty-two percent chance that will be the case. I hope you find that comforting.”

  “So you’re giving me a doom-and-gloom prediction that won’t come true,” she said. “How convenient for you.”

  “I’d say it’s more convenient for you, actually,” he said, “considering that if I’m wrong, you won’t be one of the two survivors being carried out of the wreckage.” He shrugged. “I’m not a fortune-teller. When I tell you these things, I’m simply relaying what I know to be true based on my survey of possible futures. You can act on them, or not act. But altering the future is a delicate thing. If I send someone right now to the airport, for instance, and remove a certain mechanic from duty who is about to forget to tighten a bolt, then the engine problem doesn’t occur at all. However, that sends events down another path, and I can’t always see the consequences clearly from where I stand. Sometimes changing things makes them worse.”

  “What’s worse than a plane crash?” she asked.

  “I assure you, you don’t want to know,” he answered, and craned his neck. “Weren’t you leaving?”

  The buzzer shut down abruptly outside, and she felt a change in pressure and cool air on her back as a deputy yanked open the door behind her. It would be the easiest thing in the world to stalk out of here, leave Borden twisting in the wind.

  “Don’t you know what I’ll do?” she asked him.

  Simms smiled. “There are a very few people in this world who are blank slates to me,” he said. “Those people bring random action to the game. You are one, or rather, you are one now. I predicted your actions somewhat accurately up until the night Laskins sent Borden to you with the offer, but unfortunately, you have grown more opaque since then. Your decisions drive events, Jazz. Yours, and Lucia’s. That’s why we call you Leads.”

  “Why?” she flung at him. “Why us? We’re not important, are we? We’re just—”

  “Pawns?” Simms’s mouth stretched in a wider smile. A much more unpleasant one, to Jazz’s revulsion. “Pawns win games, you know. And I’d call you…knights. Perhaps one of you might even prove to be a queen, before this game is over.”

  She balled up her fists on the cold, cracked Formica of the counter. “If you’re playing a game, who are you playing? Why can’t you stay ahead?”

  “It should be obvious to you by now that I have an opponent,” he said. His eyes flicked to focus behind her. “I believe Officer Sanchez is waiting on you.”

  Behind her, the deputy said, “Yeah, I am. In or out, miss. I’ve got things to do.”

  She allowed herself to relax back into the chair, took a deep breath, and said, “I’ll stay. For a while.”

  She felt the guard’s shrug. “Not going anywhere,” he said, and the door clicked and locked again behind her.

  Bad decision, she thought instantly, and wondered from Simms’s crazy point of view what kind of futures had just imploded or expanded. What factors had shifted.

  Which was just…nuts, wasn’t it? To believe in a thing like that?

  “You think you’re playing Eidolon Corporation. Right?”

  Simms glanced at Borden, who leaned elbows on the narrow table beside her and said, “When Simms started trying to change the course of futures that he thought were dangerous, some people at Eidolon disagreed. Some of them for idealistic reasons, some for practical economic reasons. Eidolon is an inside-trader’s dream. When you know the course of events, imagine how much profit there is to be made…but Simms didn’t agree. So when push came to shove, Eidolon needed to lose Simms but decided that Simms’s abilities were too valuable to let go. They found somebody as backup. Somebody with similar, ah, abilities.”

  “His name is Gilbert Kavanaugh,” Simms said. “Gil for short. You’d like him, he’s actually very amusing, for a psychopath.”

  “And let me get this straight. You claim to be able to see the future, and you didn’t see it coming when he, what, framed you for murder?”

  Simms nodded, a neat, economical motion.

  “I told you. Certain people—”

  “Yeah, blank slates, yadda, yadda. You can’t read his future?”

  “No.”

  “Or your own, I’m guessing.”

  Simms’s smile was thin and discomforting. “No.”

  “Or mine.”

  “Not at present. There are times yours is clear, and at others, not. Like Mr. Borden’s. Like Lucia Garza’s.”

  “Explain to me why you want to hire people whose actions you can’t predict. Assuming this isn’t a giant steaming pile of crap, of course.”

  “Of course. Because,” Simms said very calmly, “the ones I can predict cannot change anything. Their fates are set, for better or worse, unless one of the random pieces acts. I have gone to considerable trouble to hire all that I can, but of course Eidolon has deep pockets, as well.”

  “You’re delusional.”

  “No.” Simms shrugged. “But I do think it is a wonder I’m not insane, don’t you?”

  “Five bodies buried in your backyard say different.”

  Simms stared at her for a long, long moment, and she had that sensation again, as if a floodlight had swept over her and illuminated every cell in her body, every dark thought, every secret. It made her dangerously angry.

  “Take her home, Counselor Borden,” Simms said. He sounded suddenly tired, and not at all happy. “I’ve had quite enough excitement for one day, and I believe Gil is going to attempt another clever move before bedtime. I will need all my concentration to undo the mistakes of today.”

  Borden reached across Jazz and punched the button. She knocked his arm away, rose to her feet and leaned both palms flat on the table, staring at Simms’s small, pale face. “I think you’re full of crap,” she said. “We make our own choices, and you’re just a con man and a murderer.”

  Simms didn’t smile this time. He looked thoroughly exhausted, as if the life was draining out of him. “Part of that is always true some of the time,” he said. “And part of it is true all of the time. I leave it to you to decide how to divide the statement. It’s been lovely to meet you, Jasmine.”

  “It’s not mutual,” she said, and turned toward the door as it opened behind her. Moving into the larger room with its harsh fluorescent glare and empty ringing silence felt like escape, as if she’d been under some threat she hadn
’t identified.

  She looked back. Borden was still standing there, speaking softly to Simms. As she watched, Simms nodded, stood up and shuffled away with a deputy at his side.

  Borden looked grim and angry, and he didn’t say a word as they followed their own deputy back past empty cells and through sally ports. They both spoke in monosyllables as they signed papers and collected their belongings again, then were escorted back into the harsh desert sunshine. The car was still waiting, idling in the falling darkness.

  When they were back on the road, Borden clicked open his briefcase, rooted around in it for a second, and then handed her a plane ticket. Flight 802. Los Angeles to Kansas City.

  “He didn’t know,” Borden said. “I didn’t tell him we were flying back tonight, and there’s no way he could have known which flight we were on. Think about that.”

  She gave him a long, considering look, and said, “And if I were a half-decent con man, I might know how many flights there were to K.C. from LAX in a day, if my mark was heading there. I might make a pretty educated guess as to which one she’d be on, given the time of day. Looks like magic. Smells like crap, Counselor. Sorry. No sale.”

  He shook his head and avoided her eyes. She licked her lips and suddenly—shockingly—remembered the warm pressure of his mouth, and felt something in her plummet again, lost and liking it. It’s a long ride back to L.A., some part of her whispered. She tracked it down and throttled it into silence.

  Borden said something under his breath that sounded like, “He said you’d be like this,” and they spent the entire ride back in silence.

  Not touching.

  To Jazz’s well-concealed disappointment.

  Chapter 9

  J azz had done such a good job of putting Simms out of her mind that it wasn’t until she was queuing up to the ticket line behind a petite blond woman dressed in a fuzzy pink scarf and heard the ticket agent say “Ms. Walters? May I see your ID please?” that the whole thing came rushing back, like ice through her veins. Simms’s cool, precise voice whispered in her head. There will be two survivors, a blond woman named Kelley Walters and a businessman, Lamar Qualls. Kelley will be traveling to visit her sister in Kansas City.

  The blond woman moved off. Jazz stared after her for a few seconds, then moved up and handed over ticket and ID. Borden was right behind her. No hitches. They breezed through security and took seats at the gate with twenty minutes before boarding.

  If Borden had heard the woman’s name, he didn’t give any indication. He’d stopped along the way to buy a copy of the New York Times and was deep into the business section. He’d stopped looking at her at all. Jazz, for her part, felt ancient and creaky, thanks to the day’s exertions. Her muscles were telling her they badly wanted a rest, and she was pretty sure she looked like she’d gone a few rounds as a punching bag. She told her various aches and pains to shut up, and strolled over to the restroom when she saw the blond woman get up and head that way.

  It’s crap, Jazz told herself. She did her business in the stall and came out to find Ms. Walters—Kelley, no doubt—washing her hands. She was a lovely pink rose of a woman, neat and friendly, flashing an immediate smile when Jazz took the sink next to her.

  “Late flight,” Jazz said, and yawned as she yanked paper towels from the dispenser. The other woman nodded.

  “At least we get to sleep,” she said. “And there’s no traffic at the terminal when you get there. But there’s something really eerie about looking for a cab in the middle of the night, you know?”

  “Nobody meeting you?”

  Kelley shook her head, causing blunt-cut blond hair to brush her cheeks. “I’m visiting my sister and her family. No sense in getting them out of bed at oh-my-God in the morning. I’ll just take a cab and get a hotel. I was supposed to be on the six-o’clock flight, but I got bumped. What a pain flying is these days.”

  Jazz was good at reading people, good at sensing setups and deceptions, and she felt nothing. Heard no false notes.

  If Kelley Walters was a plant, working as part of the larger con orchestrated by Max Simms, she was the best damn liar Jazz had ever seen.

  Jazz went back to her seat. Borden had finished the business section and moved on to sports. She picked up the paper and scanned it without really reading, watching the other passengers who were getting ready to board. Not a huge crowd, this time of night—maybe thirty, altogether. A few college-age kids, with the ubiquitous backpacks. A gaggle of businesspeople who must have all worked for the same firm—they had the look of people who’d traveled together so often they no longer had to make conversation. One middle-aged man, overweight and prematurely gray, sat slumped in his chair reading a mystery novel. His battered, much-traveled carry-on roller case had a large tag that read Qualls.

  Jazz felt a sense of unreality close around her. Walters, she could dismiss as a deliberate setup. Qualls, being part of a group, wasn’t so easy. Still, Simms and the Cross Society could have gotten hold of the passenger list….

  Flight 802. She stared at the number and found it suddenly hard to swallow.

  “Borden,” she said, and stopped. He looked up. His brown eyes were tired and bleary.

  “What?”

  “Maybe we should—”

  He folded his newspaper. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  The boarding call went out for business class. Qualls and the rest of the flock of suits headed for the ramp. Jazz checked her ticket. She and Borden were in business, as well. She shouldered her bag and followed his long-limbed stride past the checkpoint, through the hollow booming tunnel, up to the accordion end pressed against the smooth skin of the airplane…

  She stopped. Just…stopped.

  This is stupid, she told herself. Move. Get on the damn plane.

  Borden had heard the same things she had. He wasn’t hesitating.

  She took a deep breath and edged past the tired smiles of the flight attendants to her seat. Borden eased in next to her with a sigh and buckled in tight.

  “Borden,” she said again. “Listen, what he said—”

  “About the crash?” He sounded utterly calm. “You weren’t listening, Jazz. There’s an eighty-two-percent chance it won’t happen. Believe me, the longer you’re around Simms, the more you’ll trust his odds.”

  “But—” There’s a woman named Kelley Walters back there. And that guy over there, he’s named Qualls.

  Borden went back to the sports section. “Just stay buckled in,” he said. “Trust me. You’ll either believe soon, or you won’t. And there’s an eighty-two-percent chance it’ll actually still matter in the end.”

  The engine blew out, by Jazz’s watch, at 10:03 p.m., California time. She was next to the window and had a view of the sudden flare of fire. She hadn’t gone to sleep, though the plane was nearly silent and most of her fellow passengers—including Borden—had nodded off.

  They all woke up fast when the loud bang shuddered through the aircraft, and the plane lurched sharply to starboard. Jazz gasped and punched fingernails into the armrests, wishing the damn plane came with crash harnesses instead of ridiculously inadequate lap belts; next to her, Borden snapped awake and grabbed for support, too. “Hold on,” he said.

  She stared out the window at the whipping fire and smoke pouring from the ruined engine. The plane hit rough air and tilted again, waking screams from the back cabin. The engines growled, shaking the airframe, and Jazz felt her ears pop.

  She grabbed for Borden’s hand.

  “Eighty-two percent,” he said. It sounded like a prayer, or a chant. “Eighty-two percent. We’ll be okay.”

  It didn’t feel like that. It felt like her stomach had dropped somewhere out of the cargo bay and was falling, weightless, to earth. About to crash into a row of sleeping suburban houses. He didn’t say how many of them it would kill, she thought, how many more innocent victims. Maybe, to Simms, nobody was innocent.

  She felt her fingers twine tight with Borden’s. His wer
e shaking. A whine built up at the back of her throat, and she felt the plane falling, falling, tilting…

  And then, suddenly, there was a surge of power, and it leveled out. They were saved.

  She let out a startled gasp and heard the cries behind her fade out. Borden was still holding her hand, but he wasn’t crushing it anymore, and she could hear him breathing again. Deep, deliberately slow breaths.

  “See?” he said. His voice sounded an octave higher than normal. “Eighty-two percent. We’re going to be fine.”

  She turned toward him in the dimness as the Fasten Seat Belts sign flashed on with a belated ding, and the captain announced in a businesslike voice that no, they were not going to die.

  “He’s not bullshit, is he?” she asked. “Simms. He really can do these things.”

  “Well,” Borden answered, “the alternative is that he has enough power sitting in a maximum-security prison to have arranged for a commercial airliner to be sabotaged just to convince you. Which one would you rather believe?”

  She managed a pale, shaky smile. His fingers wrapped around hers, warm and comforting, and she let them stay there all the way to the terminal.

  It was nearly five in the morning by the time Jazz flipped on the lights in her office and dropped bonelessly onto the couch. She let her head drift back against the cushions and stared at the ceiling, blank and drained, and saw Borden’s long, sharp-chinned face bend over her.

  “Okay?” he asked. He hadn’t ever put his tie back on, she realized. His suit jacket was off and tossed over the arm of a chair, drooping just the way she felt, and his once finely pressed shirt was a mass of wrinkles. Unbuttoned about one too many fastenings to qualify as businesslike.

  “Yeah,” she said. “For somebody whose head exploded several hours ago.”

  “Believe me, I understand.” He sank down on the couch next to her. “Remember the night I walked into the bar with your letter?”

  She wasn’t likely to forget it. “You looked like an idiot.”