Page 32 of Devil's Bargain

One attempted firebombing of her apartment, which had failed when the glass bottle full of gasoline hadn’t shattered on impact, and she’d been able to scramble over and drag the burning rag out of the mouth of it. She could still smell the bitter tang of the gas, the smoky, oily cloth. No prints on the bottle, according to police forensics. She still wished she’d taken it to Manny. She was pretty sure he’d have come up with something to trace it back to Stewart.

She’d also been jumped coming out of a bar downtown. Two guys with knives. If she hadn’t been drunk, she’d have had them, but even so, she’d managed to put them on the run. No good description, though. She’d always wondered if the small one had been Stewart himself.

“I hear that you were just minding your own business and this car rolled up on you. You fired six shots back, your friend fired four, and the car took off. That correct?”

“Don’t know. Count the shells.”

“Oh, we will.” He nodded. “And Jazz? If I catch you in a lie, you’re mine.”

He squeezed this time. Hard. Fingers digging into her stitched-up side.

She couldn’t keep from gasping, but she didn’t just lie there for it, which was what he must have expected. She came straight up in bed and stiff-armed the heel of her hand into his nose.

Pop.

Stewart’s head snapped back, and he fell off his chair, rolled to his knees and staggered back to his feet. He caught himself with a hand on an IV stand, which rolled, and for a happy second she thought he might go down again. No such luck. He felt his nose with his other hand, sniffed, and glared at her.

No blood. Too bad. She’d been hoping for a broken nose, at least.

“Sorry,” she said. “Reflex.”

He didn’t say anything, just stared at her for a burning second, then turned and walked out of the room. The door slammed hard behind him.

Jazzlet out a long breath and closed her eyes. Her forehead felt damp, and now that the crisis was over, she was shaking. And sick to her stomach. She pushed the button for on-demand morophine.

Just what she didn’t need. A bullet in her side, no partnership agreement, and a closer acquaintance with Kenneth Stewart.

Lucia came back twenty minutes later, looking not exactly grim but definitely tense. She took the chair that Stewart had dragged close, gave Jazz a long look, and said, “I don’t like this.”

“Hospitals? Hey, I’m not a fan of them, either. And I think I have more reason to bitch about it.”

“No, I don’t like that they knew where to find us.” She wasn’t talking about the hospitals, or even Stewart. “I’ve been watching for tails. So have you.”

“So we missed one. Or they’ve got some high-tech tracking bug on us.” She remembered Borden, walking into Sol’s Bar without any reason to be there. That still bothered her.

“No, I’ve swept us and the car for bugs,” Lucia said, and combed sleek silky hair back from her face in a distracted motion. “Nothing. There’s no way they’ve retasked a satellite just to follow us around, so if they’re not doing line-of-sight surveillance, then they shouldn’t know where we are. And if they were doing line-of-sight, we should have spotted them.”

“Unless they’re good.”

“More than just good.I’mgood.” Lucia definitely looked stressed, as if she felt responsible for Jazz lying here, leaking fluids. “Those cops—I take it not friends of yours?—aren’t investigating, they’re filling out paperwork.”

“It’s Stewart,” Jazz said, and stared up at the ceiling. It was blank, white, and noninspirational. “He helped put McCarthy away. He’s been gunning for me ever since. No, actually, I take that back. He’s never liked me. He’s just actively started hating me since the whole thing with Ben.”

Lucia paused in the act of tying her hair back with a businesslike black elastic band. No scrunchies or decorations for her. She looked different with her hair back. Harder. Jazz approved. “About McCarthy …” Lucia began.

“No.”

“You don’t think we should discuss that?”

“No, we’re not talking about Ben, or his case, or whether or not he’s guilty, or what he has to do with this because I guarantee you, he’s gotnothingto do with it. He’s in prison, Lucia. Let’s leave him out of this.”

Lucia didn’t answer that, just finished wrapping her hair in the elastic with a snap; “I called your sister, told her you’d been in an accident.”

“Oh, no.” Jazz sighed. “What did Molly say?”

Lucia avoided her eyes. “She was concerned. She said she’d tell your dad.”

“I bet. I’ll expect a cheap floral arrangement delivered to the wrong address next week.”

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