Devil s Bargin Page 0,97

felt heat in her face, felt like an outsider, and hated it.

"Meaning," she forced herself to say, "it was probably somebody from the force who doesn't want to be identified as helping you out. Somebody Stewart might go after out of sheer revenge."

McCarthy nodded. "Yeah, there are still a few guys who'd step up and do that, at least anonymously. Hell, I don't care who did it. So long as the judge admits the evidence, I'll just be grateful."

"You know this won't mean you get reinstated," Jazz said. "The payoffs - "

"Yeah, my lawyer talked about it. There's a deal on the table, if the evidence gets admitted. I get time served on the extortion. Community service, and I lose my pension, but Jazz, I deserve that. We both know it." McCarthy shrugged. "I should've been better than I was. I will be, from now on. If I can't be a cop anymore, that's okay. I'll find another way. The important thing is that I'm not stuck in here anymore. That I can have a life again."

His eyes flicked to Lucia, then away. Not quite an admission of interest, but...

Jazz swallowed, forced a smile, and said, "Yeah. That's great."

On Sunday, Jazz woke to the sound of gunfire, and came bolt upright in bed. Mooch shot off the comforter with a growl and stalked away. She rolled over, grabbed her pistol from the nightstand and shrugged on a robe over her white T-shirt and sweatpants before easing open the bedroom door.

The door read, Jazz's Room, in shiny black letters, along with Authorized Personnel Only. Inside the room, things looked like a normal bedroom - like her old bedroom, in fact, down to the curtains and the battered furniture - but outside, it was still disorienting to see that it was a freestanding cubicle sitting in the middle of a concrete warehouse floor.

Not that the place was empty. Over to the right was the freestanding kitchen, to the left was the curtained-off entertainment room, and beyond that was Manny's private space where even she didn't dare go.

The lab, however, was directly in front of her, and as she looked in that direction, she saw Manny pull off a pair of safety goggles and make safe an automatic pistol. He spotted her standing in the doorway, and waved, then looked awkward.

"Um - did I wake you up?"

"With the gunfire?" She gestured at the pistol he'd just put down, and the ballistic tank of water he'd fired into. "Oh, no. Had to get up anyway."

"Sorry. It's just that - "

"Never mind, Manny. Really. I'm awake." She stretched, realized she was still armed and dangerous, and went back to replace the pistol in its drawer next to her bed. When she came back, Manny was in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee. He handed it to her and leaned on the counter, staring at her with one of his puppy-dog expressions.

"Manny, why are you test-firing a gun? Since you don't do violent-crime work?"

"Yeah, well..." He shrugged. "I've been thinking of getting back into it. A little. This is nothing, though. The insurance company wants to prove that the owner of the gun shot up his own house and then claimed it was a drive-by. Oh, here. Message." He reached over for a pad of paper and slid it across to her. Written in Manny's neat calligraphy was Call Borden cell phone. "He didn't want to wake you up."

She yawned and nodded. "What time is it?"

"Six o'clock."

She froze, blinking. "In the evening?"

"Yeah," he said apologetically. "I thought you - the doctor said you should sleep as much as - "

"Manny, I was supposed to go to the office!"

"Yeah, well, you really don't need to go until - "

"Manny!"

"Sorry." He held up his hands and turned away, shoulders hunched. She glared at him for a second, then shook her head and grabbed the cordless phone from the counter as she headed for the bathroom.

It was impossible to stay mad at Manny, especially in the bathroom, which was very possibly the most heavenly place she'd ever seen. Marble, massaging jets of water, a tub big enough to hold three or four...it was hard to hold a grudge. She still thought of it as Manny's bathroom, but really, it was hers now, too. For the time being.

Weird.

As she toweled her hair dry with one hand, she dialed Borden's cell phone one-handed. He answered on the second ring.

"Are you in town?" she asked.

"Well, across it," he said. "Meeting with