glass display case and tapped its top, indicating a piece a couple
of trays along from the first.
Jazz placed the second necklace back on the tray with her right hand.
For a second the woman looked away, eyes flitting across Terence's athletic form, then down to the
tray he was pointing to.
Jazz lifted her right hand to her face, scratching an imaginary itch on the side of her nose. The
movement caught the woman's attention, Jazz smiled at her and rolled her eyes again, and with the index
and middle fingers of her left hand she lifted another necklace from the first tray.
"Now this is the one, Lucy. This is definitely the one."
Jazz moved to Terence's side, pocketing the necklace and then clasping her hands in front of her
chest, all in the same movement.
"That one?" she said. "Yeah... s'pose..."
The assistant hurriedly locked the first tray away and moved along to them, standing primly while
"Steve" and "Lucy" played out their act.
They looked at several more necklaces, and when Terence saw another couple waiting to be served
he shrugged, held Jazz's arms, and looked at her as though she were an unruly child. "What am I going to
do with you?" he asked.
What indeed? Jazz thought, and for a beat he actually scared her again.
"I'm sorry," Terence said. "If I could have persuaded her to follow your taste..." He pointed at the
assistant's neck again, bringing out more of her flush. "But perhaps next time."
"I certainly hope so," the woman said.
Jazz was already walking away, completing the act by leaving first, unfulfilled and petulant. When
she glanced back, the woman had moved on to the next couple, standing by while they perused a display of
outlandishly priced bracelets.
As Terence approached Jazz, the woman took a long, frank look at his ass. She glanced up and
caught Jazz's eyes, looking away quickly. But there'd been no shame in her ex-pression. She thinks I'm a
spoiled little tramp, Jazz thought. Well, fuck her.
They left through the candy shop and bakery, Terence pausing only to buy some floured bread rolls.
Sleight of hand, Jazz thought. I magicked it away. She remembered that vision she had seen
several times in the Underground, the Victorian magician who seemed to be looking more intently at her
every time she saw him. Sleight of hand, that's how the greatest tricks were done. Misdirection, skill,
confidence. None of the other ghosts paid her any attention at all. None of the others saw her.
Maybe next time, Jazz could show him a thing or two.
At the security desk, Terence picked up Jazz's shoulder bag with a brief but polite thanks. He turned
and handed it to Jazz, waiting while she shrugged it back on. Then he in-vited her to link arms as they exited
into the busy streets of London.
A black BMW stopped at the curb. Jazz barely flinched. A tall young woman climbed out, followed
by a scruffy man dressed in jeans and T-shirt. He seemed drunk.
Right then, Jazz felt invincible.
"Dinner?" Terence said.
"Of course." She walked with him, this mysterious stranger who seemed so keen to help change her
life. And she realized with a jolt that a sense of invincibility was the surest way to fail his test.
But she could not shed the buzz, nor temper her excite-ment.
"Are you dangerous?" she asked, relishing the risk in-herent in such a question.
He looked at her sidelong. "Deadly."
"Yeah," Jazz said. "Pussycat."
Terence said nothing else all the way home.
Chapter Fifteen
lessons in art
Terence's home was not what Jazz had expected. She'd been thinking of an apartment in the
Docklands, a posh flat in Chelsea, or a maisonette in Kensington. Or if not that, then perhaps a big pad
somewhere in the country, an easy com-mute into London but remote enough to be set within a dozen
acres, with its own private woodland and lake and a keeper's house rented out to one of the locals. The
country-squire look wouldn't suit him, but Jazz knew there would be much more to his choice of home than
style and location. He had his profession to think about. Wherever he lived would be a big part of his
cover.
When they got off the Tube in Tooting and began weav-ing through a maze of streets, Jazz thought
perhaps he was teasing her. Maybe he'd just left his car here (a Porsche? No, too tacky. Mercedes,
perhaps). They passed the police station, turned left, and Terence approached a paint-peeled front door.
"Welcome to my humble abode," he said, slipping in his key and opening the door. An alarm buzzed
inside, and he fumbled in his pocket, switching it off with some remote device.
Jazz looked either way along the street. At
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