by Rachel Caine
He shouldered the backpack.
They joined the rush downstairs.
* * *
Lucia sold the van for cash at a sleazy-looking, no-questions-asked lot on the outskirts of town, and used the money to buy them plane tickets. They shipped the guns and bulletproof vests to a dead drop that Manny had set up in Kansas; they could retrieve them later. The journey back to Kansas City was short and uneventful, and Lucia managed to sleep most of the way.
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 doctor now. 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.
Which she finally had.
It wasn't about Lucia herself. Susannah had had plenty of chances to kill her, but she'd never had a clear run at Jazz. Until now.
"Stay!" Lucia snapped, when Jazz started to move Manny away from her lap. "Jazz, don't you move!" Because Jazz was the target. "Susannah, listen to me. You got paid to kill Jazz, am I right? You and Leonard? But things went wrong. You had to improvise. You've been out of touch. It's over. There's nobody left to pay you off. Quit while you're ahead. Don't make us kill you."
"You're not going to kill me." She stretched Pansy higher with a tug of her hair. "At least, not before this one bleeds."
"There's no way out of this for you."
"Trust me. There is." Susannah looked utterly cool and calm about it, and very, very serious, and Manny was bleeding internally, and they didn't have time. "I'm going to start shooting Pansy now. Take off an ear, some fingers—"
Manny made a tortured sound and tried to move. Jazz held on to him, grim-faced. As angry as Lucia had ever seen her.
Lucia risked another look around the pillar. The situation was still the same, except that there was a flicker of movement somewhere in the back.
Borden.
He looked pale and scared half to death, but he was moving. He had his hands clasped in front of him, and for a second Lucia didn't remember why. And then she did, with a vengeance.
Careful, oh God, careful…
Jesus, his hands—he was still handcuffed. Surely Manny had let him loose…or Jazz, before she left… No, maybe Manny had followed orders a little too well, after all.
"Susannah," Lucia said again. "Susannah, don't hurt her. Listen, tell me what you want, okay? How much is it going to take to buy you off on this? A million dollars? I can get it for you."
"My reputation's worth more than a million," Susannah spat. "And I don't believe I'm not getting paid, so you can shove your bribery. Stand up, Jazz. Let me see you or I swear to God, I'll put bullets into Manny's little girlfriend until you do."
Borden was two steps away, right behind her.
"No?" Susannah asked. "Fine. Manny first." And she switched the gun from Pansy's head to aim at Manny's defenseless body again.
Borden looped his handcuff chain across her throat and yanked. She let go of Pansy and the gun to instinctively grab for the chokehold, and Borden yanked up and back, pulling her into him.
Lucia charged forward, shoved Pansy out of the way to safety, and got there just as Susannah's right hand rumbled for something in her left sleeve.
Lucia grabbed hold of Susannah's arm as the knife plunged toward Borden's groin. She twisted Susannah's wrist, and smashed the heel of her right hand up into the woman's nose. Borden, shocked, staggered backward. Susannah flexed her knees and slipped out of the noose of his handcuffs.
The knife was still in her hand, and from the way she held it, she knew how to use it.
"Back!" Lucia yelled at Borden, and he retreated. He hustled Pansy to the doorway, where she collapsed to her knees beside Manny, holding him.
Jazz came running toward Susannah, and so did McCarthy.
But Jazz got there first.
Susannah was unprepared, even though she was as quick and dirty a fighter as Lucia had ever seen. Jazz slammed her forehead into Susannah's bloody nose, grabbed her knife hand and almost effortlessly flipped her around. It was like dancing; Susannah began the turn off balance, ended on one foot, kicking for Jazz's face
. Jazz floated backward, grabbed her leg and torqued it sideways. They both went down. Susannah twisted and yelled, and the knife flashed—
And Jazz jerked out of the way at the last possible second, a move Lucia would never have attempted. She didn't have the strength or the speed…
Susannah missed, couldn't check her own momentum, and a flick of Jazz's wrist buried the blade in Susannah's side, hilt-deep.
"Oh, shit." Susannah yelped, surprised, and pulled it out.
A jet of bright arterial blood arced as high as a fountain.
"Shit," she repeated, and laughed. "That just sucks. Somebody call me an ambulance." She jammed fingers into the wound, suddenly clammy and gray-faced. Wobbling.
Lucia picked up the fallen gun, watching her. Jazz deliberately turned her back to go for the phone.
Susannah flipped the knife, and prepared to throw it at Jazz's exposed back.
Lucia fired.
Jazz didn't even turn around as she dialed 911.
Epilogue
It was, the doctors informed them at the hospital, a serious but not life-threatening wound. Some bowel resection, and he'd be uncomfortable for a while, but Manny was going to live.
And so would Susannah Davis, who'd been absolutely livid that Lucia had wounded, not killed her. The FBI had been happy to take her back, after all; Agent Rawlins had even seemed smug about it. Lucia had suspicions that they'd been used, again.
She intended it to be the very last time.
Their offices had been open again for six weeks when she went to the doctor for an examination. McCarthy went with her. There was an ultrasound, and for the first time, she saw the tiny gestational sac, with a flickering heartbeat of life.
She couldn't reconcile that miracle with the cold invasiveness of what had been done to her, but she couldn't not love her child, in that moment.
"Beautiful," she whispered, and caressed her still-flat stomach. "Oh, God, Ben. So beautiful."
He touched the screen, tracing the outline of what would become their baby. He didn't speak, but she could see the love in his face. In that moment, he was luminous.
And when he got her home, McCarthy made slow love to her in ways that told her without words how deep the emotions went in him. To the bone. To the soul.
The next day, Pansy came into her office with an opened FedEx envelope. She was trying to be offhand, but it was obviously a struggle. Lucia, in the middle of a client meeting, immediately asked for a recess and stepped outside, shutting the door behind her. Jazz, sensing trouble, was already there.
"What?" Lucia asked. Pansy mutely tilted the envelope so that they could see inside.
A red envelope.
"The good news is, there's no powder," Pansy said. "The bad news is, it ain't Valentine's Day."
Lucia sucked in a deep breath and took the envelope out. It had JAZZ CALLENDER AND LUCIA GARZA block printed on it. The FedEx label came from a firm she'd never heard of: Black & Foxworth, Attorneys At Law.
"No," Jazz said. Simple and definite.
"No," Pansy confirmed, with a decisive shake of her head. "Not that I get a vote, but…no."
They both looked at Lucia, whose vote did count. She looked at it. Turned it over and studied the invitingly open flap, the cream-colored sheet of paper showing like a tease.
"Shredder," she said.
Pansy dragged the device out from behind her desk.
Lucia dropped the envelope in the teeth of the machine, and it chewed it into ribbons in five seconds flat.
"We make our own choices," Lucia said. "deal?"
"Deal," Jazz said, and they shook on it.
They were walking away when Pansy said, "Um…I think there was a check in there."
And Lucia began to laugh, and Jazz joined in, and just for a moment, there was brightness all around them.
"Well," Jazz gasped, "that was hell of a choice."
"Shut up, Jazz."
"Ooh, touchy. Love you too."
"Go earn us some money."
"Somebody's got to, if you're going to shred all our income…" Jazz grinned and went back to her office.
Lucia sat down at her desk, smiled and resumed work.
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