Devil s Due Page 0,31

you? Have some coffee. Call me back."

Click. Jazz and her smooth social skills. Lucia groaned and considered rolling over in the cocoon of pillows, but she knew it wouldn't do any good.

Shower. She needed a hot, cleansing shower.

On her third cup of coffee, Lucia called Jazz back and rescheduled the Santos meeting for the client's offices, on the condition that Jazz stay strictly at home.

"You're joking," Jazz retorted. "You think I'm letting you roam around by yourself? Somebody tried to poison you. Don't you get it?"

"I get it," she said, and checked the headlines on the papers that had been left at her door. "But mail poisoning isn't exactly the world's most intimate crime. It's a leap to go from that to - "

"Excuse me, but these same people - "

"How do we know it's the same people?"

"These some people put a high-powered-rifle bullet through my office window and nearly killed me! That's pretty intimate, not to mention direct! Unless you're wearing Dolce & Gabbana's spring bulletproof line - "

"Oh, Jazz, I'm so proud. A year ago you would have thought Dolce & Gabbana made chocolate bars."

"Would you let me finish?"

"No. And I'll tell you why. I'm going to the meeting, and I'm taking Omar with me. You've met him. Is he enough of a bodyguard for you?"

Jazz made some halfhearted protests, but it was mainly from being left out, which she hated. But Lucia meant what she said: until Max Simms or the Cross Society sent word that Eidolon's attention had moved on, and Jazz was no longer a target, Jazz would stay safe in Manny's home. Bunker. Whatever it was.

"Jazz," Lucia said, just when she sensed her partner was about to put down the phone. "Listen - when Manny gets the results - "

"You're the first call," Jazz said. "FBI second. Pansy's still here, by the way, and feeling fine. You?"

Lucia swallowed another mouthful of coffee and willed the aches in her muscles to go away. "Fine," she said. "I feel fine."

Omar showed up downstairs at promptly 9:00 a.m., looking big and mysterious and sexy as hell in his black slacks, black shirt and designer sunglasses, his glossy black hair carelessly curling almost to his shoulders. "Boss," he said in greeting, and uncoiled from his lounging position at the guard station, where he'd been shooting the breeze with Messrs. Tarrant and Valencia, the day shift guards. He slid the glasses up to take a good look at her. "I leave you alone for a few hours, and you go and get yourself infected."

"Yes, Omar, you could have bravely thrown yourself on the FedEx package and prevented all of this." She moved past him to the parking garage elevators. "Cheer up. Maybe you can take a bullet for me today instead."

"Don't get my hopes up," he said.

Downstairs, his gleaming black SUV was parked next to her Lexus. Illegally. "I suppose we're taking your car," she said.

"You hired me for my vast array of skills," Omar said. "Of which guarding parking garages is only one."

"Shut up and get me there."

"Testy! Not enough coffee?"

There wasn't enough coffee in the world right now to banish the headache that was pounding in her temples. She dug two aspirins out of her purse and swallowed them with a mouthful of bottled water, taken from the built-in cooler between the seats. Omar's SUV had all the comforts of first class. She was reasonably sure that should she ask for a hot meal, he'd be able to provide it out of the contents of the secret compartments.

"Headache?" he asked.

"Not enough sleep. And yes, I have antibiotics, and they don't even know what it was in the envelope yet. I'm fine." Speaking of that, she dug the antibiotics out and swallowed the next dose. It tasted bitter. She followed it with plenty of water.

He kept silent, wisely. She closed her eyes as the truck weaved through morning traffic to Overland Park. The sun seemed too bright. She checked the air vents and turned the air conditioning up.

Omar refrained from comment.

The meeting was so dull and ordinary that she coasted through it on autopilot. She smiled at appropriate places and delivered the appropriate endorsements of the ability of the private investigative firm of Callender & Garza to find their security leak. Santos was a small company. The leak wouldn't turn out to be some hard-ass spy; more likely, he or she would be a disgruntled midlevel employee, dissatisfied with his or her prospects and pay.

"The truth is," she