Page 51 of Devil's Bargain

She went back to the article.

Wendy Blankenship, 42, was found dead in an alley near the bar where she worked. She was last seen yesterday evening at six o’clock by co-workers, who described it as a “normal day.” “She didn’t seem different or anything,” said Janelle Vincent, who covers alternate night shifts at Jaye’s Tavern. “She just clocked out and went home like usual. It’s terrible, you know? She was just getting her life back together. She was like a den mother around here, we’re going to miss her so much.”

Police have not released the details, but have confirmed that they believe Blankenship’s death is a homicide, and are searching for witnesses to put together a timeline of events leading up to her death.

There was no mention of time of death, but Jazz had a sick feeling that she would have been one of the last people to see Wendy Blankenship alive. She remembered Wendy checking her lipstick and walking down the street to the building. Buzzing the intercom.

Last one on the bottom left.

“You knew,” she said, and looked up at Borden. He paused in the act of raising his orange juice to his lips. “You knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Don’t give me that crap! Why else would you send me?”

He put the glass down carefully and extended his hand for the paper. She watched him read the entire article, face composed and emotions hidden, and when he was done he folded the paper again and set it on the table between them without meeting her eyes.

“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know why we sent you there.”

“Bullshit. Why didn’t you have me stop her? Save her? I wasright there!”

He looked up, then, and she saw the suffering in his eyes. “I don’t know, Jazz.”

She stared at him for a few long seconds, then reached over and picked up the cordless phone and dialed a number from memory. “Yeah,” she said to the woman who answered. “I need to speak to Detective Stewart. I have some information about a murder.”

“Don’t,” Borden said.

“It’s worse if I wait,” she said to him. “They’ll have surveillance footage, security-camera video, something. If Stewart thinks I’m hiding something …”

“You can’t do this.”

“Why didn’t you save her?” she screamed at him.

He looked back at her, stark and pale, and shook his head. “Because we can’t save everybody,” he said, and he sounded just as sick as she felt. “Because it isn’t possible. You know that, Jazz.”

“Where the hell does this stuff come from?” she demanded. “All this … this …bullshit!Go here, watch this, videotape this—? Who tells you where to send me? Who tells youwhy?”

She was so intent on his answer that the appearance of Lucia in the kitchen doorway made her flinch. Lucia, looking sleek and dark and dangerous, put down her black nylon bag and backpack, crossed her arms, and said, “I knocked. I guess you were too busy screaming at the top of your lungs to hear.” She transferred that fierce black look to Borden. “She asked you a question, Counselor.”

“You, too?” he murmured.

“Yes. Me, too. I’m just as tired as she is of the cloak-and-dagger, and I’d be willing to bet I’m just all-around more tired, period. Tell us, or get out and take your red envelopes with you.” Lucia couldn’t possibly have a clue what they were arguing about, but you’d never have known it from the self-possession she displayed—then again, hell, for all Jazz knew,Luciahad the apartment wired for sound and vision. Maybe she knew everything.

Maybe she always did.

Borden looked from one of them to the other, wordlessly, and Jazz didn’t blink. Neither, so far as she could tell, did Lucia.

“I need to make a phone call,” he said.

“Then dial,” Lucia said softly. “Before we pick up the phone and tell Detective Stewart everything we know about Gabriel, Pike & Laskins. You put my partner in a compromising position, Mr. Borden. I don’t think I like that very much. Make amends.”

He visibly swallowed. Jazz might have felt sorry for him, except the fierce gratitude and pride she was feeling for Lucia crowded all of that out.

He reached in his pocket and retrieved his cell phone, and dialed. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “It’s Borden. I need to take Callender and Garza to the next level.”

Silence. His eyes fixed on the newspaper lying folded on the table. The picture of Wendy Blankenship, who hadn’t survived the night that Jazz Callender barely remembered after the blur of drinks.

“Yes,” he said. “I understand.” He hung up and looked at each of them in turn, Jazz last. His eyes were asking her for something, but she couldn’t understand what it was, and she wasn’t in the mood to grant him any favors anyway. “We need to go downstairs,” he said. “Right now.”

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