by Rachel Caine
She'd never been good at keeping promises when it came to Omar.
He picked up on the second ring. "Tell me you're not in trouble," he said, and she laughed, because it was just like Omar. "Okay, then tell me you hit the wrong number in your speed dial."
"No, querido, I'm calling you. And maybe I'm not in trouble—have you ever thought of that?"
"No," he said. "I heard you'd moved. Kansas City, right?"
"Right."
"Would it surprise you to know that I'm in the neighborhood?"
"Tremendously." It didn't. Stranger things had happened, every day before breakfast.
"Just finished up a job in Saint Louis. So. I'm sure you didn't call just to hear my voice, lovely as it may be…" And it was lovely, low and full of warmth. Just now, he was using his native accent, which was cultured and British, but he was equally at home with French, Spanish, American, German and a wide variety of Arab inflections. She'd even once—hilariously—heard him do a fabulously broad Scots.
"I adore your voice, which you very well know," she said, "but no. I was checking to see if you were available."
"Well, I'm not currently seeing anyone—"
"Professionally."
He became quickly serious. "Long term or short?"
"I don't know. We'd best say at minimum a month."
"Huh. Usual rates?"
"Have they gone up?"
"Cost of living, my love, cost of living. Or, at least, the cost of not-getting killed."
She sighed. Omar did not, of course, come cheap. "Fine. Your usual rates, plus expenses."
"Starting when?"
"How soon can you get here?"
He was silent for a few seconds. "Lucia, this sounds a bit more serious than your usual tangle. It's not—"
"Our mutual uncle?" Meaning Uncle Sam, of course. "No. Strictly private. And it's not serious…exactly. Just—uncertain."
"I'm peace of mind, then."
"I can think of no one better."
"But of course!" She could imagine his wide, charming grin. "I am reliably informed by the wonder of the Internet that there is a morning commuter flight leaving in forty minutes. Where do I go?"
She gave him the office address. "There's a parking garage, we're on the second level. I need you positioned there today."
"Hmm. Watching for what, exactly?"
"I don't know. Call me when you're in position."
'Two hours," he said. After a beat, he said, "Lucia? It's nice to hear from you."
"Likewise," she said. "Don't get arrested in the airport."
He laughed. It was something of a standing joke, but not a very funny one, all things considered. Before she could say anything else, he was gone.
She sighed, ordered her thoughts and got on with her part of the bargain with Ben McCarthy: shopping.
One of the first things she'd taken the trouble to do, when she'd moved her operations to Kansas City, was to find the premier clothiers in town, for both men and women. She had a personal interest, of course, but there were always professional considerations. Clients to dress. Undercover agents to outfit for special assignments…
And she always did like to buy quality.
She was choosing the right suit to flatter McCarthy's coloring and body type when she realized that she was being followed, and had been for some time.
She kept her movements slow and natural as she placed the suit back on the rack and turned to a display of French-cuffed shirts. White would make his prison-pale skin look even more translucent. She held up one the color of cream, studying it, and readjusted the focus of her eyes to the mirror a few feet away.
There was someone outside the store, looking in. He was in shadow, backlit by the morning sun, but she recognized the ill-cut suit. Detective Ken Stewart was dogging her. Why me? Why not McCarthy? Although the thought of Stewart infiltrating a day spa made her smile.
Stewart backed up and moved along, an easy stroll, as if he'd just been idly browsing. He was good at this. That was disturbing. She much preferred dealing with amateurs, and professionals who had inflated ideas of their skill levels. If she hadn't spotted him before… You weren't looking for a tail, she reminded herself. You had no reason to suspect anyone would follow you on something as mundane as this. Maybe not, but she'd been hyperaware with the valet. It bothered her that she'd missed Stewart.
After a few more seconds another man passed the glass, this one short, fat and dressed in a dirty blue jean jacket. Shaved head. He hesitated at the door, then opened it and came in. He looked nervous, but that might have been the natural tentativeness of a man ill-used to high-end suits coming in to browse.
No. It wasn't.
In the mirror, his eyes focused on her. Not in the way that a man normally examined her either—this was a pattern-recognition way, as if he'd been given her description. Or a photo.
She carefully put the shirt back on the table and positioned her hand close to her hip, a split second from going for the gun concealed by the tailored jacket she was wearing. She automatically swept the store for collateral victims. The clerk was positioned safely behind a counter; he'd surely duck if gunplay started. Odds were good he'd survive, unless her newcomer was carrying an Uzi, or was an incredibly poor shot. No other customers, unless they were in the dressing rooms. Nothing she could do to minimize the risks.
She balanced her weight lightly around her center, ready to shift at a moment's notice, ready for anything, as the man made his way closer. One hand in his jacket pocket…
She'd humiliated herself with the valet. She wouldn't make the same mistake twice. That meant waiting until a weapon was actually visible and identified, which would put her at a disadvantage, but…
She turned, and time slowed to a crawl. Tick, and his eyes were rounding in surprise. Tick, and her hand moved the small distance inside her own coat, her fingers touching the cool grip of her gun.
Tick, and his right hand emerged with nightmare slowness from his pocket…
…carrying a red envelope.
Time fell back into a normal rush of color and noise, and Lucia felt her heart hammering, knew there was heat flooding her cheeks. Adrenaline was an earthquake in her veins for the second time in an hour.
The courier held out the red envelope to her. "Here you go, lady. No signature required." He sounded spooked. She wondered how she had looked to him, in that instant when she was making the decision whether to kill him.
"Thank you," she said, and took it. Automatic courtesy; she certainly wasn't feeling grateful. He backed up and hurried out of the store fast enough to make the bell hung over the door clatter like a fire alarm.
She turned the envelope over in her hands, frowning down at it. The size and shape of a greeting card envelope. It felt like one sheet of paper inside. Her name was block printed on the outside; the courier had, no doubt, been told exactly when and where to find her, even though her choice of this store had been an impulse.
No point in delaying the inevitable. She reached in her purse and took out a slender little pocketknife, flipped it open and slit the side of the envelope, very carefully. Preserving what evidence there might be. She slid the paper out with a pair of tweezers from her purse and moved shirts to lay it flat on the table.
It didn't require much scrutiny. It read, ONE OF YOU HAS MADE A MISTAKE, and the letterhead said Eidolon Corporation—easy enough to fake, if someone went to the trouble of doing it. No signature. She held it up to the light. No watermark. No secret messages. No hints as to its meaning. "One of you"? Meaning her? Jazz? McCarthy? A member of the Cross Society? Impossible to tell. It was a meaningless taunt, a message designed to unnerve; showy, like the delivery by courier. Designed to prove that they could literally find her anywhere.
Just like the Cross Society. Presuming that someone in the Cross Society hadn't sent it in the first place.
Stewart had been following her. Was it possible he was Eidolon? Eminently, she decided. Cross Society? She hadn't exactl
y been provided with a full and forthright disclosure of their membership, but somehow she couldn't see Ken Stewart believing in the things that the Cross Society took for granted: things like premonitions, and psychics, and the ability to alter the future.
Then again, maybe that explained the erosion she sensed in him, the jittery nervousness. The world was fraying around him, and he was unraveling with it.
She could completely sympathize.
Jazz would probably have ditched the note and pelted down the street, collared Stewart and pummeled him until she got what she wanted to know…
Jazz.
Lucia's smile faded as she flipped open her cell phone and speed-dialed Borden's number. He picked up on the second ring, sounding lazy and sleep-soaked. He sobered up fast when she identified herself.
"Hey. Um, good morning. What time—crap. It's late. I overslept."
"Is Jazz with you?" she asked:
There was a short pause and then the tenor of the call changed; she heard the rustle of sheets, a sleepy murmur, the quiet closing of a door. He'd stepped into the bathroom, or the hall. "She's asleep," he said. "I don't want to wake her up if I don't have to. Do I? Have to wake her up?"
"Soon," Lucia said. "A courier just delivered a note to me in a red envelope. Did she get one?"
"No deliveries—shit. Hang on." The phone rattled, set down on a counter, she guessed. He was back in less than ten seconds. "Yeah. Somebody slid it under the door. Is it a job?"
"Don't you usually compose the messages?"
"Sometimes," he said cautiously. Borden was Cross Society, in it up to his neck; Lucia liked him a great deal, but at times like these, she was bitterly aware that trust might be a separate issue. "Look, I can't go into the way it works, not on the phone."
"Yes, I get your point. Open it."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
There was a rattle, a pause… "It says, 'One of you has made a mistake.' On Eidolon Corporation letterhead. Holy shit." She heard his breathing go faster. "They know where we are. I have to get Jazz up, right now."
"Wait. Have you ever seen one from Eidolon before?" Lucia realized that she was pacing, a habit when she was nervous. The store clerk was watching her. Not, she was relieved to see, in any way that implied he was a conspirator; no, this was the plain, unvarnished interest she was used to attracting. She gave him a small smile and he found something to be busy with that took him out of her line of sight.
"Lucia, they know where we are. She's not safe here. Hell, I'm not safe—"
"Have they ever sent you a message before?" she asked again, with strained patience.
His composure broke completely. "Look, I don't get messages from anybody. I'm not a goddamn Lead!"
She felt a hot flare of irritation. Leads. According to the Cross Society, she and Jazz were Leads, carrying major roles in the chaotic, enormous play of life and death on Planet Earth. "Actors" influenced certain events at crucial moments, but—again, according to the Cross Society's rather esoteric theory—Leads operated at a kind of nexus point. Jazz had told her, in a quiet voice that meant she had come to believe it, that the Cross Society psychic, Max Simms, had summed it up: Everything you do matters.
It was a frightening thought. It didn't get any less frightening the longer it stuck around.
She kept doggedly on the subject. "Have you ever heard of Eidolon contacting anyone in the Cross Society directly?"
He sucked in an angry breath. "No. If you're done—"
"Almost. Who knew where you were taking her?"
"Nobody."
"You didn't make the call from—"
"I booked the reservations at an Internet kiosk using a one-time-only card. Fake name. Believe me, nobody knew we were coming here."
There were ways, nevertheless, if the opposition was strong enough. And if Eidolon Corporation was what Max Simms had claimed, a major technological entity with ties to the federal government, then retasking a satellite and painting Borden's car with a laser tag wouldn't have been very difficult.
If, if, if.
Borden suddenly said, "It's us. Me and Jazz—maybe it has to do with us."
"You think being in love with her is the mistake they're referring to?"
"I never said—" He gave up on the reflexive male denial, to his credit. "No, I don't."
"Then it's entirely possible it might be referring to the events of this morning. To my helping McCarthy get released."
"Then why not just send it to you? Why send it to you and Jazz?"
"McCarthy's connected to both of us now. I think the better question is, why would Eidolon warn us? Wouldn't they want us to be making mistakes?"
"I have no idea what Eidolon wants," Borden growled. "Look, I barely know what my boss wants half the time. So as far as figuring out motives, good luck. Screw this, I'm waking her up and getting her out of here. Now."
"Yes, you'd better get her back to Manny's." If there was any such thing as a safe place, given what they'd learned about the world and the Cross Society and Eidolon, it would be in Manny's Fortress of Solitude. Wherever it currently resided, since he moved house as often as banks took holidays.
"You're talking like a cop," Borden said. "If Eidolon wants us, they can find us. Well, they can find me, anyway. You and Jazz, it's tougher, since you're Leads. They can only predict you through the effects you have, not your exact location."
"Then how did they just deliver me a note? How did the Cross Society deliver one to Jazz that first night?"
He gave a rattling sigh. "It's too freaking early for philosophy and physics, Lucia. But Leads blip on and off the radar. You're a blur most of the time, but sometimes they can see you clearly. It's like somebody who usually drives really fast having car trouble. But on the more mundane level, have you considered that somebody could have been following you?"
Stewart, again. And if she accepted the idea that the note was legitimately from Eidolon, the Cross Society's adversary in this war of premonitions, then…it changed things. Not for the better. "All right. We'll need to have a strategy meeting later at the office—one o'clock? Bring Jazz through the garage entrance—it's the most defensible. I'll have someone meet you."
"Someone who? You're not giving Manny a gun, are you?"
She laughed. "Not that Manny would need one of mine. But no. I've hired a friend to help us out. His name is Omar. He'll meet you in the garage."
"We'll be there."
There was hope for Borden yet, Lucia thought as she folded the phone and slipped it back in her purse; he had said we without a trace of self-consciousness.
If only they could get Jazz to do the same, a relationship might truly be on the horizon.
"Madam?" The clerk was watching her again, this time with a trace of a frown. "Is everything all right?"
"Fine," she said, and retrieved the blue suit she'd been studying. Much as she hated off-the-rack on men, no doubt McCarthy would resist the idea of tailoring even more than day-spa grooming. She added the ivory shirt and handed the items to the clerk, who blinked at the price tags, then smiled. By the time she'd added the glossy, sleek Magnanni shoes, he was very happy.
She asked him to help her carry her packages to the car, tipped him and slid behind the wheel. As she slammed the door and clicked the lock shut, Ken Stewart rounded the far corner, his hands in his pants pockets, doing his best to look jaunty.
She cruised slowly past him, watching.
He pulled an empty hand from his pocket, pointed it at her windshield and cocked back a thumb. Bang, he mouthed, as he let the imaginary hammer fall. You're dead.
She braked the car, rolled down the driver's side window and leaned over. Her smile must have been disingenuous enough to lure in even a bitter, cynical specimen like Stewart, because he shuffled a few feet toward her.
"One of us would be," she said softly, and let him see that her hand was on the gun in the passenger seat beside her. "And before you ask, yes, I do have a permit to carry it, Det
ective."
He bared his teeth at her in a crazy grin. A rottweiler raised by wolves. She felt a cold touch at the back of her neck, but allowed only an ironic tilt of her eyebrows as he leveled both hands at her—two imaginary guns, like a kid playing cowboys and Indians—and peppered her with imaginary rounds.
Then he mimed blowing smoke from his fingertips, and those fiercely cold, slightly insane eyes bored into hers. He said, "You be careful, Ms. Garza. It's a dangerous town if you make the wrong enemies."
"Are there ever any right enemies?" she asked, and drove away at a calm and leisurely pace, showing no signs of temper or nerves.
Four blocks later, she stopped at a red light and wiped her damp, shaking hands on her pants.
Chapter Three
At five minutes to one, Lucia's desk phone rang in her office. She picked it up and said, "Omar?"
"Yo, girl," he said. Omar had a sly, amused tone, as usual. He found everything a source of humor, from The Simpsons to the evening news. He claimed it had something to do with Buddhism, and seeing the world for the illusion it was. That might have been true. Omar was famous—infamous, really—for having done a seven-year stretch in Folsom as part of one of the most grueling covers in the history of law enforcement. After the takedown of one of the most vicious criminal enterprises on the East Coast, he'd declared himself out of the cop business.
But he did favors from time to time, and Lucia was on his list. Omar was about the most reliable, calm and effective man she'd ever worked with.
He was also one hell of a friend, and once upon a time, he'd been more. Not much more, though. Omar's Zen outlook precluded more serious entanglements.
"Good morning," she said. "Having a fabulous time down there?"
"Unbelievable. Your friends are here. I'm sending them up. Don't shoot 'em."
"Thanks. Keep sharp." Not that she needed to remind him. Omar, for all of his built-in serenity, was rarely caught off guard.
As she hung up, she focused on McCarthy, who was sitting on the sofa at the far end of the room, looking out the tinted windows. The view warped a little; the glass was bullet-resistant, replaced after Jazz's office had been targeted by a sniper. All of their security procedures were considerably upgraded these days. But the offices themselves remained elegantly appointed—not that she and Jazz had put much effort into it. In some ways, the region's economic downturns had favored start-up businesses. They'd inherited this space fully equipped, including desks, lamps, chairs and decor. She'd added touches of her own, but it hadn't taken much.