Page 45 of Devil's Bargain

She’d faltered, lost her balance, and only realized it after the fact. She leaned against a wall and sucked down deep breaths, clearing her head. “Paint fumes,” she mumbled. She felt light-headed and more than a little sick. “You lied to me, Borden.”

He could have moved his hand. He didn’t. She felt his strong hold slacken a little, but he kept touching her.

“I didn’t,” he said, and moved closer. Too close. She felt smothered. “I wouldn’t.”

“You told us you don’t do criminal cases.”Like Manny,she thought.Manny won’t do them, either.

Borden’s sharp face went blank for a few seconds, then settled into an expression of resignation. “Yeah. I don’t.”

“I saw the pictures. You and Max Simms.”

The name rocked him back, and she saw a startled flash in those big brown eyes, quickly concealed. “That’s what I get for generalizing to a cop,” he said. “I didn’t try that case, I was second chair. Laskins was principal. It was my first, last and only criminal trial with the firm.”

“Because of Simms?” she asked.

He smiled sadly. “My firm doesn’t like losing.”

The office’s waiting silence closed around them. He still hadn’t taken his hand off her, and she hadn’t insisted, by word or motion, that he do it. Her eyes met his, and she felt a jolt deep inside, something warm and frighteningly real.

“I wish you’d stayed in the hospital,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “You have a hole in your side, you know. Not a hangnail.”

“Believe me, Counselor, I know.”

He studied her for a long moment, and then suddenly let go of her arm and stepped back. Two feet back. Hands in his pockets, as if he didn’t trust himself not to touch her again.

Lucia was coming out of the right-hand office, arms folded, looking at her shoes as if deciding whether or not the new fall line would be out soon. She glanced from Borden to Jazz and back, dark eyes glittering, and said, “Reached any conclusions?”

“Looks good to me,” Borden said. He didn’t take his eyes off Jazz.

“It seems like it will work,” Lucia replied. “I want wireless broadband installed, and we’re going to need lots of storage space. But yes, I like it. Jazz?”

Callender & Garza.

Ben McCarthy, sitting at that black table, looking up at her with a tiny little smile.

Jazz sucked in a deep breath and surprised herself by saying, “Yeah. I can live with this.”

That, apparently, was all it took to change the course of a life.

The cases came slowly at first. Welton Brown, who’d always been a friend, directed a couple of noncriminal cases Jazz’s way, and as the weeks passed, as office supplies got delivered and put away and lights turned on and Internet connections tested—as the lettering turned from dream to permanence on the reception-area wall and the building officially opened—things slowly began to change.

Jazz healed.

It was more than the bullet wound, although that closed up nicely without complications. It was more about something inside that had been broken and bleeding for much longer than that. Since she’d seen Stewart throw McCarthy up against a wall and snap handcuffs around his wrist and sneer out words she still heard in her nightmares.Under arrest for murder …

She’d been lost for a while, since then, and as she began to learn the routine of driving to the office, checking her perimeters before leaving the car, walking into the offices and being greeted by Christine Sparrow, Lucia’s choice for receptionist … it began to feel real.

Lucia had moved without fanfare. She’d just stopped commuting from D.C. about a week into things and handed Jazz a slip of paper with an address on it. Her new home was in one of the nicer, secured apartment buildings.

Every day, they met in the elevator, or in the coffee room, or in the administrative area—still empty—between their two offices. And every day, there was something more to talk about. Somethingimportant.

Lucia brought cases with her from Washington. One of them required travel, which Jazz wasn’t up for, given her physical limitations, and she found she missed Lucia’s light conversation while she was gone, the quiet competence she brought into the office, like the scent of her perfume. Jazz took a job doing background checks on a prospective executive for Hudson Industrials out of Boston—another Welton Brown referral, however oblique—and turned up drug-possession charges and proof of current cocaine purchases, provided via a subcontractor in Boston proper. The company liked their thoroughness so much that they sent over their corporate business.

Jazz discovered she really did need an assistant. Badly. She made another phone call.

Turned out that Pansy was tired of getting coffee after all.

Three weeks later, their office staff had doubled its size, the business was running at a steady, if unexceptional, clip, and Jazz was starting to feel that little bull’s eye on her back flicker and fade. Neither she nor Lucia had seen anything like a tail or a suspicious vehicle in weeks.

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