Devil's Due (10 page)

He reached down and peeled it off and mutely turned it to show her. The red line had reached a marker that read 100.2 degrees.

“No?” he asked.

Her reflex was to snap back
I’m fine
, but that was stupid, and it was rooted in fear. She swallowed, closed her eyes for a few seconds and considered. She felt hot, but not really sick. Tired. Had a slight ache in the back of her throat.

“All right,” she said calmly. “I have a fever. Some muscle aches. I could sleep for a week. But Manny, those aren’t necessarily symptoms of anthrax. They’re just as likely to be reactions to stress.”

He nodded, dropped the thermometer in the trash and returned to the safety of his chair. He leaned back, still watching her.

“You need to rest,” he said. “Let the antibiotics work. And go see your doctor, today.”

“You have the results of the tests?”

“The culture’s still cooking.”

“If it’s anthrax, what are my chances?”

“Excellent. You got on antibiotics right away. You just need to take care of yourself.”

She took in a slow breath. “Does Pansy have a fever?”

He shook his head, and the tension gathering in her stomach lessened a little.

“No symptoms at all?”

“Nothing. I’m watching over her,” he said, and went quiet again for a few seconds. “I want to talk to you about Ben McCarthy.”

Of course. Manny knew Ben; in fact, he had more loyalty to Ben than anyone except Jazz. “Go ahead.”

“You can’t trust him.”

She sat back, surprised. It clearly cost him to say that; his expression was deeply unhappy.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he added quickly. “Ben…Ben means a lot to me. I mean, he’s—I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Ben. I wouldn’t be anywhere. But—” She watched him struggle for words, with no impulse to help him along. “He manipulates people. Women.”

She smiled slowly. “Manny, you’ve just described ninety-five percent of the men I’ve ever met, if you insert the words
tries to
.”

“No, I mean…” He ran his hand through his curling dark hair and left it looking just a bit mad-scientist. “I don’t think he’s telling us everything. There’s something wrong here, Lucia. Jazz doesn’t think so, but I do. You should watch out.”

“It’s all right if you just don’t like him,” Lucia said. “You don’t have to, you know. You can owe him your life and still not like him.”

Something flickered over Manny’s face.

“I died,” he said quietly, and curled his hands into loose fists on the wooden top of his desk, as if he wanted to keep them from doing anything foolish. “Seemed like I died, anyway. I was down there in the dark, all that dirt on top of me, running out of air. Screaming until I couldn’t scream anymore, with that tape running, the one of his last victim. He tied me up so I couldn’t breathe much. So that every move I made pulled the rope tighter around my neck. I had a choice—I could lie there quietly and suffocate, or I could try to get loose and strangle.”

“Oh, no, Manny,” she whispered. She hadn’t known.

“Over forty hours. You know what it’s like to run out of air? You get a headache. It just gets worse until it kills you, until you can’t breathe, until you’re nothing but a gagging animal. And when I tried to struggle, the rope was like his hands, like his hands around my throat.” He swallowed hard and wiped his forehead. “All my life I thought I was smart, but he showed me that when you’re down in that hole, smart doesn’t mean shit. You need someone else. Someone else. Anyone else.”

“Manny—”

“Ben dug with his bare hands, you know. With his bare hands, while the other cop went to get shovels. I was dead. He gave me mouth-to-mouth to bring me back. I’m alive because he dug me up and made me live.” Manny raised his eyes and fixed them on hers, fierce and angry. “Ben’s the hand of God to me. You know how much it costs me to tell you not to trust him? You think I don’t
like
him? How do you not like someone after that? I love him, and screw your smug attitude!”

He was angry. She’d never really seen him angry before—scared, sure, but this was different. He stood up, and she did, too, feeling a little worried. But he stalked over to the door and jerked it open. Made a jerky after-you gesture, head bent. She went to the stairs and walked down them, aware of his bulk behind her. There were no code panels on this side of the barriers. Manny could always get out.

She opened the last door and stepped into the cool dimness of the parking garage, then turned around. Manny stood right behind her, one hand on the knob, watching her.

“I didn’t mean to discount what he did for you,” she said. “And if you think I should be careful, then I’ll be careful. Thank you.”

He nodded once and slammed the door. The code panel’s red lights lit up.

No getting back inside.

She went to the SUV, where Omar lounged against the side, smoking, and Susannah waited in the passenger seat.

“Is he going to help?” Susannah asked anxiously.

Lucia climbed in the back when Omar opened the door for her. “No,” she said.

Omar flicked a look at her as he started up the truck. She shook her head. She didn’t know how to begin to tell him what had just happened, and she wasn’t sure she should.

As the big steel door cranked up to let them exit to the street, another car pulled in to block the way from outside.

James Borden got out of the sedan.

He evidently realized it was too late to wave at Manny for admittance, and he sure as hell must have thought it was important, because instead of stopping like any sane person as that massive door rattled down, he dashed forward.

Three feet left. Two and a half…

Borden dived through the gap, elbow banging on the steel door, and came to his feet in a not-quite-clumsy roll. He didn’t have the animal grace of, say, Jazz, but then again, he had a lot of arms and legs to work with.

“Manny!” he yelled. “You asshole!”

An intercom came on. “Next time call first.” That seemed to be that, so far as Manny was concerned. He
really
wasn’t feeling hospitable.

Borden brushed imaginary dust from his suit—he was nicely done up today; hopelessly off-the-rack, but he cleaned up well, considering. His hair had the unyielding, gravity-defying gel look that Jazz found so funny.

Lucia got out and walked toward him. “Looking for Jazz?” she asked. It was pretty much a given.

“No,” he said. “I was looking for you.”

And it hardly came as a surprise when he pulled a red envelope from inside his jacket. It was a little creased from his acrobatics.

“Let me guess,” she said, and didn’t move to take it. “You were told where I’d be.”

The tips of his ears turned red. “Don’t make this hard. I’m just a messenger.”

“Just following orders?”

“Don’t—hey, who’s she?” Borden’s eyes suddenly shifted to look over Lucia’s shoulder. He was staring at the bruised and abused faced of Susannah, visible through the van’s front window.

“Nobody you need to know, unless you’re taking on pro bono criminal cases,” she said. “Forgive me for being a little cautious, but the last one of those I got came with a toy prize.”

“I talked to Laskins,” Borden said, and came a step closer. Just a step, because Omar was watching him with that closed expression that meant trouble. “This one comes directly from the Society. Nobody’s touched it but me and him. Do you want me to open it?”

She’d feel like an idiot. And a coward. She took the envelope, ripped it open and drew out the single sheet of paper inside.

It said, GET MS. CALLENDER. GO WITH MR. BORDEN. PARK IN THE LOT ON THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF PARALLEL PARKWAY AND 10TH AT 5:16 P.M. TODAY. LOOK FOR A MAROON CHEVY VAN. WE TRUST YOU WILL KNOW WHAT TO DO.

“Hang on,” Borden said, and handed her something
else. It was a tiny flashlight, and when she tried it, the light emerged a cool, faint blue. “UV,” he said. “Shine it on the paper.”

When she did, a sprawling signature appeared. Milo Laskins.

“From now on,” Borden stated, “everything we send you comes marked both on the envelope and on the paper inside. Deal?”

“Deal.” She stowed the flashlight in the zip case in her purse, which included keys to her house and car, secondary ID and a thousand dollars in cash. The bare necessities of a life that might require running at a moment’s notice. “Do you know what it says?”

“No.”

She handed it over. Borden read it, rubbed his forehead as if he wanted to scrub his frontal lobe, and handed it back. “Fine,” he said. “Why me?”

“I think only your boss can answer that one.” She turned away from him, toward a corner where she knew a camera was watching, and raised her voice. “Manny! I need to talk to Jazz!” She held up the paper.

After ten seconds of silence, the steel door in the shadows clicked and sighed open.

“Just you.” Manny’s voice rang over the concrete. Then, after a delay: “And, uh, Borden.”

Borden grinned. “Hey, Jazz.”

Jazz’s magnified voice said, “Hey, Counselor. Get your fine ass up here.”

Lucia looked over at Omar, who shrugged and got back into the SUV. “I have DVD built in,” he said, and looked at Susannah, who had leaned back with her eyes closed. “You like Russell Crowe?”

“I just want to sleep.”

“Concussion,” Omar said. “No sleeping. Or I take you straight to the hospital.”

Susannah opened one eye. The other was swollen to a slit. “You got
Gladiator?
”

“A woman of taste.” Omar gestured for Lucia to go.

She shut the door, and heard the
chunk
of locks as he secured it into a minitank.

Then she followed Borden back upstairs.

This time Manny guided them by voice, releasing locks remotely. They entered on a different floor, into living quarters. Pansy was lying on the luxurious suede sofa in the middle of the loft, watching a big-screen plasma television. She had a DVD on as well, and Lucia experienced a moment of envy. Pansy looked rosy, clean and relaxed, and was wearing a fluffy white robe.
If only I could do the same
…

Pansy scrambled to her feet and brushed her dark bangs out of her eyes when Borden and Lucia passed, as if they’d caught her doing something illegal or immoral…like resting. Lucia couldn’t hold back a smile. “As you were, soldier,” she said. “Believe me, if I could, I’d pull up a couch next to you, robe and all. And we’d share a gallon of ice cream.”

“You feeling all right?” Pansy asked anxiously.

“I’m fine. Manny says you’re well…?”

“No symptoms.” Pansy’s pageboy hairdo bobbed vigorously when she nodded. “Um—shouldn’t
you
be resting?”

“I will be,” she said, “as soon as we take care of some things.”

“Uh-huh.” Pansy didn’t sound convinced. “What can I do?”

“You,” Manny said, coming around a low cubicle wall
that Lucia assumed separated off the surveillance equipment, “can sit down and relax. Right, Lucia?”

“Right.” She threw them both a quick smile. “This won’t take long.” She knew Jazz was going to say, in typical fashion, “Screw it,” and toss the message in the shredder.

Only, of course, Jazz surprised her. First, she was dressed, and well dressed—no badly fitting jeans and floppy sweatshirts today. She’d chosen another pantsuit, this one in dark red, and a tight-fitting white knit shirt. Cute. The shoes were still more or less a disaster; Jazz was never going to give up her flats when there was any chance of having to pursue a bad guy. Then again, she had enough height to pull it off.

“Going somewhere?” Borden asked, and crossed to kiss her. It was an open, intimate kiss, and brought instant bright color to Jazz’s cheeks. “Or just dressing up for Manny? Should I be jealous?”

“Shut the hell up.”

Manny’s living space held a series of temporary partitions in the open warehouse—some low translucent walls, some higher and more private. Lucia let her eyes roam over the entire floor, hunting for something she’d never noticed before—ah, there it was, a door set flush in the wall, with one of those red-lit key code panels. There was another door to his office, from this floor. She’d been wondering. But it made sense, really; Manny would want multiple access points, all under his control.

Despite the almost Japanese simplicity of the place, Manny’s build-outs, where they existed, were luxurious. The kitchen where Jazz sat could have been lifted from a model home, with wood cabinets and glossy appliances, double steel sinks, and a spacious bar area with high-backed stools.

Jazz was at the bar, Borden close beside her. Lucia
hopped up on a stool next to her. “Are we finished with the love talk?” she asked. “If so, there’s work to be done.”

Jazz rolled her eyes and gestured for the red letter, which Borden handed to her. She read it quickly. “We sure it’s genuine?”

“He says so.” Lucia demonstrated the new UV toy.

“Who’s downstairs?” Jazz tucked a stray lock of blond hair behind her ear, and read the note again. “In the truck?”

“Omar and a new client.”

“The wife.”

“Yes.”

“No sign of the husband?”

“Omar lost him.”

Jazz glanced up at Manny. “Better have. You wouldn’t believe how he gets if he thinks—”

“Omar lost him,” Lucia said firmly. “I’m going to find a place to stash her, and put Omar on bodyguard duty until we can get her in touch with the FBI. She claims she’s got incriminating information about her husband, but she doesn’t want to deal with the local cops. Not even Welton Brown could convince her. The way she talks, it’s probably organized crime. I expect Agent Rawlins will do us another favor, so long as it also looks good on his résumé.”

Jazz snorted. “That’s Rawlins, all over. Okay, so this thing. Another typical piece of Cross Society bullshit. Go here, wait here, blah blah.
You’ll know what to do?
What the hell does that mean?”

“I hope it doesn’t involve shooting someone. Again.”

“Pros and cons,” Jazz said, and tapped the black marble counter with blunt fingernails. “Pro, we make a quick five grand for doing whatever this is, and more than likely, it doesn’t even involve us lifting a finger. Most of these don’t, right? We just change events by being there on time.
We force other people to make different choices. Like a couple of boulders dumped into a stream.”