Jazz though longingly of on-demand morphine.

“You should go,” Jazz said. “I’m sorry to have kept you hanging around. You’ve got a life to get back to.”

“Planes leave all the time.” Lucia shrugged. “I’m not going if it means you end up lying unprotected in a hospital bed and the cops aren’t going to put out any effort to find out who shot you. And shot at me, by the way. I take that kind of thing personally.”

The look in her eyes was usually accompanied by shooting back, Jazz figured. Or, at the very least, grievous bodily harm.

“So you’re sticking around,” Jazz said. A tight knot in the area of her chest eased a little.

“For a while. Until you get back on your feet, anyway. Also, I’m going to wake up some sources and see what they can find out for me. I don’t like the way any of this is playing out.”

She started to get up. Jazz stopped her with an outstretched hand. “Wait. Listen, you need to be careful, all right? You’re not from around here. If you disappear…”

Lucia gave her an uncomplicated smile. “If I disappear, chica, your cop friends are going to have a lot more trouble than they ever bargained for, because the kind of people who’ll come looking for me won’t take a shrug for an answer. And they don’t ask nicely.” She stood up, gazing down at her. “Also…I’m not that easy to make vanish.”

“I get that.” Jazz found herself smiling back. “Hey. Thank you.”

“That’s what partners are for,” Lucia said, and reached down to retrieve her sleek black oversize purse. She pulled out a large flat envelope and placed it gently on Jazz’s stomach. There was a pen clipped to it. “I signed,” she said. “It’s up to you whether or not you want to.”

Jazz stared at the envelope, frowning. “Why’d you change your mind?”

“Because I don’t think it matters anymore whether I sign it or not. We’re in this together. Whoever these guys are, they’re not going to back off because we go our separate ways, and I don’t know about you, but I’d like to have somebody I trust at my back.” Lucia’s dark eyes were level and clear. “And if somebody’s going to shoot at me, I’d rather get paid for it.”

Jazz laughed. It hurt. She caught her breath, slid the paperwork out and thumbed through it to the last page.

Lucia’s signature was flowing and bold over her typed name. Jazz set pen to paper, hesitated a second, and then scratched out her own messy, jerky autograph.

The check was attached to the partnership agreement with a clip. Jazz took it off, turned it over and endorsed it, then handed it all back to Lucia. “Maybe you’d better handle the bank stuff,” she said.

“Yeah,” Lucia agreed quietly. “I will.”

In the silence after she was gone, Jazz went over all the ways that she’d just totally screwed up her life. There were dozens. Hundreds. Disaster stretched out in the distance, as certain as the Titanic and the iceberg.

What if it works? That was the scariest thought of all, strangely. What if it works out, and I don’t need to be a cop anymore? Because that was secretly what she’d always thought would happen. McCarthy would be vindicated. They’re return in triumph, conquering heroes. Life would pick up where it left off.

What if nothing’s the same?

That filled her with a kind of fear that had nothing to do with bullet wounds and drive-by shooters and people attacking her in bathrooms. Those things she could deal with. External threats.

But this…this was different. She’d just done something that would change her future.

She fell asleep still thinking about that, and reaching no conclusions as to whether or not it was a good thing.

Chapter 5

W hen she woke up, it was morning, and she had a visitor. For a cold second she thought it was Stewart sitting in the shadows watching her, and how creepy would that have been, to have that vulture staring at her in her sleep, but no, this was a tall shadow, kind of lanky.

“Hey, you’re awake,” said a low, warm voice, and the shadow scooted forward into the soft dawn light.

Lawyer Borden. He looked tired, and a damn sight more informal than at the office; she got a quick impression of blue jeans and a black V-necked knit shirt before she focused on his smile. Luminous, that smile. Like morning.

“You’re not allowed to get shot,” he continued. “It’s against the rules, you know.”

“Rules?” she asked, and blinked. She was feeling slow and had a ridiculously strong desire to run into the bathroom, take a shower and brush her teeth before continuing this conversation. Not that she was going to be running anywhere right now. Her side felt as if she’d been sucker-punched by a giant. Bullet holes were no laughing matter, even if no organs got perforated.

“Yeah, rules,” he said. He stood up and loomed over her, and for some reason, that felt good. Safe. She let her gaze slide down him, and had an instant appreciation for the way the black knit shirt hugged him. She had a sense-memory of soft skin, hard abdominal muscles fluttering under her touch as she’d checked him for broken ribs. Okay, that’s enough. Back off, Callender. Must be the drugs.

She dragged her focus back up to his face. “Why didn’t you tell us about Max Simms?”

Borden blinked. “Simms?”

“Founder of your little society. Serial killer.”

“Laskins told me to.” He paused. “I just—I knew you’d walk away. And I didn’t want you to walk away.”

Her breath caught, but it wasn’t pain this time. “Who says I don’t walk away now?”

“I don’t think you can. Walk.” He held up a hand to stop her response. “You might, but at least you’ve had time to look into things, think about it. If you go now—there’s nothing I can do.”

“We signed the agreement,” she said, apropos of exactly zero. But Borden just nodded, unsurprised. “Lucia gave you the papers?”

“Yeah, they should be filed tomorrow.”

“Shouldn’t you be doing that, instead of flying off into the buckle of the Bible Belt to loom over me?” Not that she minded the looming. But she wasn’t about to let him know it.

As if she’d reprimanded him, he sank back into the chair, but he reached out and captured her IV-punctured hand in his. “I did everything I needed to do and sent it on to Pansy. Special courier. It’ll be in her hands in about—” he checked his watch “—two hours, give or take. By the way, I’ve been asked to say that Mr. Laskins sends his regards, and your hospital bills are being taken care of.”

“What?”

“The firm’s picking up the tab.”

“Bullshit, they are!”

“He feels responsible,” Borden said, and his warm thumb rubbed gently up and down her palm. “Not a big deal. It’s part of the partnership agreement, you know. The firm pays up any medical bills you incur in the line of duty for us. Technically, we aren’t liable because this happened before you signed, but…”

She yanked her hand back. “I pay my own bills.”

“With what?” he asked calmly. “The signing fee wasn’t that generous. Apply that toward leasing the office, getting the utilities set up, furniture, maybe hiring someone to run the place for you, and what do you have left? Enough to live on. Not enough for extravagances like painkillers and surgery.”

Not to mention she already owed Manny three grand. She opened her mouth to tell Borden to go to hell, then closed it again.

This was already starting to feel like a spiderweb, wrapping tightly around her. Holding her in place for a good sucking-dry. I should have talked to Ben first. Ben would have known what to do.

Oh, yes, that sarcastic part of her brain replied. Go running to the murderer for advice. Don’t you ever learn?

She swallowed and tasted dust. Her tongue felt as if it had grown fur. “Water?” she asked. Borden, eager to please, nearly fumbled pouring from the little pitcher on the nightstand, but got a cool glass of K.C.’s best, straight out of the tap. She gulped it down in long, breathless spasms until the cup ran dry, then held it out for a refill. The second dose she took slow, in sips. She could already feel the heavy weight of the water in her stomach, and the last thing she needed was nausea with a hole in her side.