Page 14 of Devil's Due

McCarthy hesitated for so long that Lucia thought he wouldn’t answer. He was studiously examining the carpeting, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. His hesitation seemed odd, considering the passion he’d already displayed. And then he said, slowly and in a much quieter tone, “Remember that hallway, three years ago? When the guy came out from under the stairs?”

Jazz went pale. Lucia watched her knuckles tighten on the back of the chair, her blue eyes narrow. Her mouth attempted two tries before she was able to ask the question. “Me?”

“Yeah. You.” He risked a look at his ex-partner, a startling flash of eyes. Lucia shivered at the expression in them. Pain and resignation.

If Jazz saw it, it didn’t make any impression. She was staring past him, stunned, seeing something miles away. “You knew? You knew that guy was there?”

“No. I knew something was going to happen, because they wanted me to wait in the car.”

“Youdidwait in the car.”

“For a while,” McCarthy said, his voice low and furious. “And then I came in and I shot the son of a bitch who was trying to kill you. Shot him in the back. Twice, if you remember.”

Silence. Lucia didn’t think even Borden was breathing. Jazz and McCarthy were staring each other down.

Links and circles. That officer-involved shooting had been McCarthy’s first and only. That put his service revolver’s ballistics information into the database, which had later linked him to murder.

Lucia turned on Borden. “Did you know this?” He mutely shook his head. “Borden.Did you know McCarthy worked for the Cross Society?”

“No!” he snarled, and got up off the couch to stalk to the far corner of the room. “Don’t you think I’d have told you if I’d known? Look, it’s not—it’s not like it’s an open book. I don’t think even Laskins knows everything. Some of it—maybe a lot of it—happens between Simms and his agents, and we’re just—”

“Just what?” Lucia asked. “Protective coloration? What is it the rest of you do for him that he can’t do for himself?”

“Maintain the network,” Borden said. “Deliver his messages when he needs it. Attend to the money and the business.”

Jazz had turned away from McCarthy, and now she was staring at Borden. “Did you know they’d put him in jail?” she asked. Whatever logical path Jazz had followed inside her head, there seemed to be no doubt in her now that McCarthy was telling the truth.

“No,” Borden said. He sounded suddenly weary. “I’d have told you.”

“We can talk about that later,” Lucia said, after a few seconds of painful silence. “McCarthy. The money you were taking, the payoffs. Were they payments from the Cross Society to you?”

He didn’t answer. Maybe that was answer enough.

“What were you,stupid?” Jazz yelled. “Didn’t you see how easily they could turn you? How deep they had their claws in you?”

“Not until I killed that guy,” McCarthy said. “And then it was too late. Simms already had me. The payments used to come through a bank, then they came through some friend of his, then they started making the drops at the Velvet. Then pretty soon it was handovers from Big Sal and his crew, and there was no point in fighting it anymore.”

“You could have walked away.”

He looked grim. “I tried.”

“Oh, so taking that last payoff on camera, that was, what—for the widows and orphans fund?” Jazz demanded. “Don’t bullshit me, Ben. Don’t you dare.”

He shook his head tiredly. “No point in doing that, either,” he said. “Look, you believe me or not. This is why I never even tried to explain any of it to you. How do you think this would have gone before you’d seen how it works for yourself?”

She wasn’t done yet, Lucia saw. “So what were they paying you to do, Ben? Compromise evidence? Get cases thrown out?”

“Fuck!Come on, Jazz! You can’t believe—”

“Idon’tbelieve!”

“I wouldn’t do that. I was a cop!”

“Yeah? You thought about letting me die, didn’t you?”

He swallowed, and some of the anger drained out of his expression. “No. I just thought—look, I didn’t know they were talking about killing you.”

“So it was okay if they just messed me up a little? Crippled me? Where’s the line, Ben? It’s okay for them to put a scare into me, not to touch me? Or okay to throw me a beating, so long as it doesn’t scar?”

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