Page 28 of Devil's Bargain

“Am I in favor?” Jazz asked. Lucia inclined her head. “Honestly? I don’t know. But, presuming it checks out…”

“And if your friend Manny doesn’t turn up anything unusual …”

“Then I’d say maybe we should seriously consider it.” The money. The thought of that crisp, cashable check in her wallet made Jazz’s mouth go dry.

Lucia closed the partnership agreement and stared down at the cover, which was embossed with the logo of Gabriel, Pike & Laskins, LLP. She rubbed a finger over it, silently, and then nodded. Just a bare inch of agreement. “Maybe,” she said. “Where would we have the office?”

“What?”

“The office,” Lucia repeated. “Garza & Callender Investigations. Where do we hang the shingle?”

Against all reason, Jazz found herself grinning. “K.C.’s a nice town,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s not bad.”

“But it’d be Callender & Garza. Alphabetical order.”

“Age before beauty.”

“Pearls before—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t if I were you.” Lucia took a sip of her water. The flight attendant arrived with a small plastic cup of fizzing Sprite on the rocks, and passed it across to Jazz.

They looked at each other mutely for a few seconds, and then Jazz held up the Sprite. Lucia held up the sparkling water.

They clinked plastic.

“Deal,” Lucia said.

“Ifthere’s nothing hinky that turns up.”

“Obviously. Goes without saying.”

The Sprite tasted cool and refreshing, like champagne.That’s it,Jazz thought with a sudden surge of mingled dread and euphoria, as the plane started its descent for Kansas City.Something just changed.

She hoped it was for the better.

Two independent attorneys had reviewed and signed off on the partnership agreement—and one of them called it a “work of art”—by the time Manny got back to them with the forensic results. “I was thorough,” he explained to Jazz on the cell phone. “I got nothing off the letter.”

“Nothing?” she repeated, startled. She was standing in the lobby of the second law firm, one selected at random from the phone book, and Lucia was in the restroom. The partnership agreement, well thumbed, was lying in front of her on the coffee table, decorated with grubby yellow sticky notes. “What do you mean, nothing?”

“Well, I mean that the paper’s consistent with the official letterhead of Gabriel, Pike & Laskins—I had their nice receptionist courier me some pieces—and the fingerprints on the paper are yours, one James R. Borden, and a woman named Pansy Taylor, who is his—”

“Assistant, yeah, I’ve met her.”

“She’s really named Pansy?”

“Apparently. What else?”

Manny shuffled papers noisily on the other end of the phone. She checked the number he was calling from, and saw a caller-ID-blocked message. He was probably phoning from the lab, but with Manny, you could never tell. Even with all of the delicate equipment and lush lifestyle, he’d been known to pull up stakes and move in less than a day.All it takes is money,he’d told her once, with a shrug. She supposed that was true.

“The blood on the note? A positive. Not your type.”

I don’t know about that, she thought, and suppressed it. “Borden’s,” she said. “Did you do a DNA test?”

“You said the full ride, Jazz. Yes. DNA profile. I don’t know what good it will do you, but it’s here. You’ll be pleased to know he’s not your long-lost brother or anything.”

She was, actually. “So there’s nothing you can tell me about this letter? Nothing hinky?”

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