Page 40 of Devil's Bargain

She flipped open her cell phone and hit the fourth speed dial on the list. She got an answer on the second ring, as always.

“Hey, Gaz,” she said. “Run a plate for an old friend?”

“Don’t think so,” he replied. Gary Gailbraith was an old friend, and he’d never answered that way before. He sounded guarded. “Things are kind of busy right now. Can’t really talk.”

Oh, crap. “Has Stewart been on your ass?”

“Positively up it,” Gaz said. He was an older cop, white haired, with a broad face and a whiskey-drinker’s blush across his nose and cheeks. He always seemed vacant to most of the other detectives, but that was a deliberate cultivation on his part. He was sharp as a tack, was Gaz, just not in any obvious ways. He never competed. And he didn’t play politics, more than he had to in order to get the job done. “I think I need a proctologist.”

She grinned. “Okay. Call me when the heat’s off, right?”

“Right,” he replied. “Take care.”

“You, too.” She hung up. Lucia raised eyebrows at her. “You got any local contacts to do a plate check?”

“Local? No. The sources I have work at, ah, higher levels. And using them might raise a red flag.”

“Kind of what I figured,” Jazz nodded. “Okay, we do it the hard way.”

“Meaning?”

Lucia started the car. She reached down, retrieved the fallen digital camera and handed it to Jazz, who thumbed quickly through the pictures. Too bad they hadn’t gotten a shot of the blue car, but Jazz had a pretty vivid mental image, and she was sure Lucia did, too.

“Meaning,” Jazz said, staring at Pink Cardigan’s picture, “we go see Manny again.”

Lucia groaned softly, and put the car in gear.

Convincing Manny to track a plate for her was just about the toughest thing Jazz had ever done, considering she was doing it with a leaking bullet wound in her side, a massive throbbing headache, and an adrenaline-rush aftermath that made her feel like roadkill. Manny eventually figured out that she wasn’t operating at her usual levels and decided to take it easy on her, having exacted only a few dozen promises that he wouldn’t be put on any hit lists or have shape-changing aliens showing up at his door.

“I swear,” Jazz groaned as she flipped the cell phone closed, “I’m personally going over there to set up parental controls to keep him from ever watchingThe X-Filesagain.”

“Probably wouldn’t do any good,” Lucia said, poker-faced. “I think I spotted DVD collections.”

“Crap.”

Lucia pulled the car into a space near the apartment stairs, killed the low beams, and reached up to flip the overhead dome light off. When Jazz reached for the door handle, Lucia stopped her. “Wait,” she said.

“For?”

“My eyes to adjust,” Lucia said calmly. “I want to be able to see the shadows before you decide to present another target.”

“You know, I think you and Manny might be a match made in heaven.”

“Another crack like that, and I catch the next puddle jumper out of here.”

Still, Lucia was right; Jazz would have thought of it herself, been more cautious if she hadn’t been so tired and hurting. She sat in silence, watching the shadows as her eyes adjusted; nothing she could see waiting out there. Parked cars were always a worry, but there wasn’t much she could do about them.

“Okay.” Lucia finally nodded. “No deviations. Straight up the stairs, fast as you can. I’ll be behind you.”

Jazz didn’t waste breath on agreeing, just ducked out, kept her head down and took the steps as quickly as possible. Which was agonizingly slowly, actually, given the crappy state of her body. She was gasping and feeling a little sick by the time she achieved the top landing. Behind her, Lucia, lingering down at the bottom, watching the parking lot, turned and soundlessly came up, three steps at a bound.

Jazz felt tired just watching her.

She slipped her key into the first dead bolt, then the second, and reached for the doorknob.

It didn’t turn in her hands.

Jazz backed up, fast, breath short again. She planted her back squarely against the wall, eyes wide, and nodded Lucia silently back to the far side, out of the line of fire.

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