prickle along her spine, and thought about reminding Jazz that Borden, regardless of how true his love, was also a card-carrying member of the Cross Society. But Jazz knew that. She never forgot it.
"Disappointments," McCarthy said. "They wanted me to stand by and let somebody get killed. I couldn't do it."
Shades of Jazz; she'd been asked to do the same thing, Lucia remembered. Asked to stand by and see an innocent man die. As had Borden. It had been a crisis of faith for him, knowing that his friend was marked for death by Eidolon, and the Cross Society had elected to do nothing about it. He'd turned to Jazz for help and almost gotten her killed for it, but together they'd managed to prevent the murder.
And what's to stop Eidolon from trying again? Lucia had wondered that for a while. Maybe things had changed. She didn't understand how it worked. She suspected nobody outside of the inner circles really did.
She hated the idea that all of this happened somewhere in secret, behind a curtain. Playing God. It reminded her why she'd left the government.
"Yeah?" Jazz challenged. She was still looking wounded and furious and betrayed, and in no mood to believe McCarthy. "Who did they want to kill?" She was demanding proof. Names and dates. Facts and figures she could check. Jazz was nothing if not thorough.
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."
"You did wait 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 comer 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