Lucia woke up in the hospital, with an IV in her arm and an oxygen mask on her face, and for a panicked moment she thought, I'm dying.
Didn't feel that way, though. In fact, she felt a lot better. Sore and weak, but better. Her mouth was dry as old paper. She cleared her throat and tried to sit up.
"Whoa!"
A face, looming over the bed. Jazz, looking delighted. Behind her was James Borden, all angles and smiles. His hair was creatively mussed, and his clothes looked lived-in. So did Jazz's, but that wasn't remarkable.
"Look who's awake," Jazz said, and reached for her hand, and the warm pressure of her fingers felt nice. Felt real. "How you feeling?"
Lucia nodded slightly and tried to talk. No good. Her voice wasn't even a hoarse croak. She gestured toward the pink pitcher of water on the stand next to the bed, and Borden hurried around to pour some for her.
Water, after such a long thirst, tasted like a revelation of the divine. Lucia whimpered with delight and swallowed until the cup was dry.
"Better?" Borden asked. He refilled it. "You've been out awhile. Couple of days." Some silent conversation between Borden and Jazz passed over her head. "You remember anything?"
"No." That was a word. A small one, and it sounded rough, but it was a recognizable word. Progress. "Pansy. All right?"
"Pansy's fine," Jazz said. "Never even got a sniffle or a fever. No infection at all. No other victims reported, either. Looks like you were the lucky one."
"What happened?"
"What do you remember?" Jazz asked.
"Going to sleep, after - after the hospital. Tired."
"Nothing else? You're sure?"
Lucia swallowed another ball of fire that seemed to be clinging to the back of her throat. "Dreams, maybe. Nightmares."
"But you don't remember leaving your apartment."
The fragile sense of well-being shattered. "I - left?"
Another look passed from Borden to Jazz, Jazz to Borden. Lucia was still fuzzy, the world still indistinct, but even so she didn't care for the way they were avoiding her questions.
"Yeah," Jazz said softly. "You left. At least, that's what the security logs say. You entered the code to disable the alarm, and you just - vanished. No sign of how you got out of the apartment."
This wasn't right. Couldn't be right. She hadn't I
well enough to leave. She remembered setting the alarm for instant alert and stumbling off to bed.
There was, of course, another way out of the apartment that wouldn't appear on the security logs - her own Manny-inspired precautions - but why would she run away? And why wouldn't she remember it? "Where did you find me?"
"We didn't," Borden said. "You were missing for four days. And on the fifth day, you were found sleeping in a supposedly unoccupied room at the Raphael."
"What?"
"Yeah," Jazz said grimly. "I'm not a woo-woo girl, but I'm not ruling out alien abduction."
That was impossible.
Lucia didn't remember anything from the moment she'd fallen asleep on her bed, fully clothed, to waking up here.
Nothing. Just dreams, and those were fading fast.
"Where was I?" she asked. Her voice was faint and weak, and Jazz looked at Borden again, this time for support.
"Honest to God, L. - I wish to hell I knew. The only good thing anybody can tell us is that you were being treated for what was wrong with you. IV antibiotics, just like they would have done here, apparently. You're weak now, but you're on the mend. Fever's gone, no sign of infection from the swabs they took, and you're not even going to want to know about any of that swabbing business, believe me." Jazz blew hair off of her forehead and grinned grimly. "Trust you to end up kidnapped by renegade doctors."
"Renegade doctors whose heads I'm going to mount on my trophy wall."
"Yes, bwana. I'll carry the elephant gun."
Four days. Four missing days. Six, if she'd been unconscious here since they'd found her. Almost a week of her life gone into a black hole.
"What about Susannah?" Omar, dead on the floor, hands open, throat cut. "Do the cops still have her?"
"No. They let her go. McCarthy's watching her," Jazz said. "Although believe me, it's been a challenge keeping him from being here twenty-four-seven. Look, I've been thinking...maybe the Cross Society decided they owed you one. Considering that it was their fake red letter that got you in trouble in the first place."
Eerily possible. Gregory Ivanovich had defeated her security once. He could have done it again. And carried me out? If he'd used her emergency exit, he could have done it?"
"I'll deal with that later," she whispered. "What about Susannah? You said they released her?"
"Forensic evidence proved out her story. Her husband's prints were on the knife, hers overlaid his. So she picked up the knife after he did. So yeah, KCPD released her." Jazz cleared her throat. "Problem is, she's already had one attempt on her life since they let her go. We had to step in again."
McCarthy. Omar's bloody corpse flashed in front of Lucia's eyes again. "Anyone - " McCarthy " - hurt?"
"No, the shooter tried for a sidewalk hit. McCarthy got her behind a car in time. No damage."
"No red envelopes?"
"Evidently, saving her life isn't important." The grim set of Jazz's face told Lucia what she thought about that. "I chewed Laskins a new asshole trying to get Simms to tell us what happened to you. No comment from the jailhouse psychic. He'll put himself out for strangers, not for his own. Bastards, all of them. I'm sick of this fucking circus."
Lucia smiled faintly. She could well imagine Jazz on the phone with Borden's boss, reading him the riot act. Laskins wouldn't have been pleased. For all she knew, Jazz might have hopped a plane to California, where Simms was jailed, to try the psychic in person.
Borden was looking elsewhere, deliberately taking himself out of the conversation. She wondered if Jazz had considered the ramifications of having him in the room, and then realized that Jazz nearly always considered the ramifications. That was part of the contradiction of the woman. She was impulsive and rash, and she also saw consequences coming a mile ahead. That didn't mean she allowed them to dictate her course of action.
Lucia cleared her throat again. "She's still with him? With McCarthy?"
"Yeah. He put me in charge of finding you." Jazz shrugged, eyes glittering. "Called him every night to tell him that I hadn't. And every night, he told me that I'd better find you, or it'd be my ass."
"You did find me."
Jazz nodded. "Yeah, tripped over you getting admitted to the hospital. World-class detective, I am. But on the bright side, guess I get to keep my ass."
Lucia drank more water. Borden raised the pitcher inquiringly; she shook her head. "I wish I knew what - what happened." Because anything could have. That was a disturbing void in her life. "When can I get out of here?"
"When you can gnaw through the straps," Jazz said. "I want you here until you can kick ass and take names."
That, Lucia thought, would take nothing more than a decent meal, a walk around the building and a fresh set of clothes.
Because she was so very, very ready to kick ass.
It took something more than an afternoon - a day and a half, to be exact - for the various doctors to present themselves and sign off on her release. She'd grimly demonstrated her ability to walk, eat, drink and pee in sufficient quantities to get everyone off her back.
Ben McCarthy didn't show. She kept expecting to turn around and see him walking through the door, kept expecting to feel his presence behind her. Didn't happen. But then, she reminded herself, he was working. Doing her job, in fact.
That didn't stop her from feeling irrationally annoyed about it.
She felt weak, but it was the kind of weakness that only movement and exercise would cure. She started off by scorning the wheelchair and taking the stairs, with Jazz and Borden clumping along behind her.
"Did you bring me a gun?" she asked Jazz before they hit the ground floor exit.
For answer, Jazz jumped down to the landing, reached in the inside pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out Lucia's P95 and shoulder holster. Lucia ran through the checklist on the gun, ratcheting the slide, examining the clip, ejecting the bullet in the chamber and reloading. Everything worked smooth as silk.
"She cleaned it for you," Borden said.
Jazz shrugged. "No big deal." Then she grinned and nudged him with her elbow. "Besides, nude girls cleaning guns turn him on."
"More than I needed to know. From both of you." Lucia removed her coat and put the holster on, settling the gun snugly against her ribs. While she was putting the coat on again, Jazz pushed past her to reach the door first.
Protecting her, Lucia realized. She blinked, smiled slightly and followed.
Once again, Manny had given up his Hummer to the cause; Lucia was starting to like the damn thing. It certainly gave one a feeling of security, riding high above traffic. It also presents a fine target, and it's easy to follow.
Jazz wanted to take her straight home, but Lucia wasn't having any of it. "Has Susannah said anything about her husband's business yet?"
"Not a word. Ben's been working on it, but she doesn't seem to trust anybody. Why? You want to take a run at her?"
"Absolutely." Mostly, she had to admit, she wanted to see McCarthy.
"And you don't think you should be, you know, resting...?"
"Apparently, I've been resting for almost a week. The last thing I need is more sleep. I need to think and I need to move. It's time to get into this thing, Jazz. I have a hunch that it's larger than we can see right now."
Jazz took the next right turn. "Far be it from me to get in the way of your hunches." She sounded amused, but not dismissive. Progress, of a sort. "I'm going to keep digging. Somebody had to see you being carried into the Raphael. You damn sure weren't walking on your own."
Borden said nothing. He had a laptop computer open, and he was typing away.
"Counselor," Lucia said. He looked back over his shoulder at her, eyebrows raised. "Shouldn't you be in New York?"
"Actually, GP&L is considering opening a branch office here," he said. "I'm fact-finding. We have seven corporate clients here, not to mention some other vested interests. And the air travel's getting old. They don't even feed you anymore on the plane."
"Tragic," she agreed, straight-faced. "Was this your idea, or your boss's?"
"Mine."
"Sure about that?"
He lost the friendly smile. "Meaning?"
"Meaning, are you sure that you're not doing the Cross Society's work instead of your firm's, setting up here?"
"They're not mutually exclusive."
"I'm not so certain."
He blinked and turned around even farther. The laptop was in danger of sliding to the floor. "So you think we're the villains now? Is that it?"
"We?"
That wasn't Lucia speaking. It was Jazz. Borden looked at her, stricken. "I mean..."
"Yeah," she said. "I get what you mean. Your loyalty's still with the Society. We means people who aren't in this car."
"Jazz - "
It was a lost cause, and Borden knew it. He turned to face the road.
It occurred to her that he'd be updating Laskins about what they were doing, and through Laskins, the Society and Simms. But she couldn't tell Jazz to turf him; she could see how important he was to her, and truthfully, she liked Borden. She liked his off-center smile, his quick intelligence, his wit, the passion in his eyes when he looked at her partner.
But she didn't like what he represented, at the moment. And she wasn't sure she liked him knowing where Susannah Davis was hidden.
They pulled into an apartment complex parking lot-not a complex Lucia was familiar with, more of a cheap, run-down establishment. The paint was peeling, and even the spring flowers in their landscaped beds looked cheap and struggling. It was the sort of place drug dealers rented, and hookers, and people who couldn't afford better. The sort of place where people averted their eyes from their neighbors and hoped that the noise in the apartment next door wasn't a felony being committed.
But Jazz's instincts were, as always, sound. It was also a place where women with bruised faces weren't necessarily worth comment.
"Number 317. Some distant cousin's apartment," Jazz said. "He's in jail. I told you before, my family tree has some funky branches."
"How'd you get the keys?"
"It's a cheap apartment." She shrugged. "Keys aren't all that relevant."
When Jazz and Borden started to exit the Hummer, Lucia reached over the seat and grabbed both of them by the shoulders. "No," she said quietly. "Listen. I want to talk to Susannah alone. I don't want an entourage. I appreciate everything you've done for me, but you have to let me do my job now. And Jazz - you're not supposed to be running around like this, it isn't safe. Borden, you're supposed to be keeping her out of trouble, not getting her deeper into it. Right?"
"No way," Jazz said instantly. "I go with you to the door, at least. Don't start, okay? You get escorted. We protect each other. Hell, it's worked so far."
Before she could form a coherent objection, Jazz was out of the truck. Lucia scrambled to follow. Jazz wasn't wasting time; she moved fast and sure, heading for building three. Lucia fell into step with her. "I let you out of my sight," Jazz said softly, "and you were gone. You seriously think I'm going to let that happen again? Four days. Four fucking days, Lucia, and I thought I was looking for a corpse. Not again. Understand?"
They followed the cracked sidewalk in long, no-nonsense strides. The grass was sparse and dry, the bushes more branches than leaves. Some of the residents were making an effort - cheerful lawn furniture on the patios, wind chimes, bird feeders - but most had abandoned hope and lived with closed, sagging curtains, minding their own business.
The apartment was at the top of two flights of stairs that creaked as Lucia and Jazz jogged up. Even had they wanted to be stealthy, it wouldn't have been possible.
They slowed as they got to the landing, and Jazz unceremoniously pushed Lucia behind her and pulled her gun as she stepped forward. Two apartments, both with closed curtains. There was a faded welcome mat in front of 318, nothing but dried leaves in front of the other.
Jazz raised her hand to knock, but the door swung open, and Ben McCarthy was there. He opened his mouth to speak, and then his eyes focused past Jazz, on Lucia.
The look stopped her breath. His lips shaped a word-not her name. It took her a second to realize that it was God, A prayer, of a kind.
"Delivered to the door. Want me to wait in the car?" Jazz asked.
Ben tore his gaze away from Lucia to her. "No," he said. "I'll get her home. I don't want you hanging out in a goddamn Hummer in this parking lot. Kind of draws attention."
"Ah, hell, half a dozen guys in this complex drive Hummers."
"Drag dealers."
"Exactly."
McCarthy stilled her with a hand on her arm. "Jazz. I'll get her home safe. Count on it."
She shut up and looked at him for long seconds, then nodded.
"Now get the damn truck out of here. Go."
Jazz glanced at Lucia as she turned toward the stairs. "I'll kill you if you up and die on me," she said, and descended quickly, two steps at a time.
"Inside," McCarthy said, and tugged Lucia over the threshold before she could react. He stayed at the door for a long moment, and she watched him, reading the tension in his body. He had his gun out, ready at his side, and she could tell the precise moment when Jazz was safely in the Hummer, because he let out a held breath and shut the door. The place smelled faintly of old cats and stale cigarettes. She blinked, and her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Except for the welcome sight of McCarthy, she wished they hadn't. The furniture was garage sale, most of it broken, and the carpet was an unattractive green shag that she thought at first was stained, but then decided must have been meant to have a mottled effect. Plain white walls had plenty of damage to give the place that special designer touch.
A giant glow-in-the-dark poster of a marijuana leaf decorated the wall over the sagging couch, and another of a long-dead singer looking the worse far wear. Heroin chic, the entire apartment.
McCarthy finished the last of the dead bolts and turned toward her. She met his eyes and smiled slightly. "Jazz said you were worried."
"Worried?" Something flashed in his eyes. "Worried doesn't quite cover it, Lucia. Where the hell were you?"
"I don't know." It hurt to say it, and a bubble of panic formed somewhere just below her stomach. "All I remember is going to sleep in my apartment and waking up in the hospital."
"Nothing else?" He took her arm and guided her to the couch. "You're sure?"
"Dreams," she said. "Impressions. Nothing - " She remembered a quick flash. Bright lights, a smothering feeling of panic, her limbs heavy with sedatives. Smeared voices.
Violations.
"I'll find out," she said flatly. "If it's the last thing I do, I'll know what happened to me."
He helped her to the couch, assistance she didn't need but didn't resist. Unlike Jazz, she knew when to control her independent impulses. Instead, she reached up and covered his hand with her own - not to remove it, more a confirmation that she was really touching him. The heat of his skin against her palm, the caress of his fingers...the longing in his eyes.
The care with which he touched her made her shiver. "Jazz said wherever you were, you had medical care. The..."
"Anthrax," she supplied, with a flash of a smile. "You can say it. And it's gone. I don't think Dr. Kirkland would have allowed me out of bed if I hadn't been healthy."
Ben slid his hand from her arm, to fold her fingers in his. "Anything else?"
"What?"
"Did they find anything else?"
She frowned. Violations. "No. No, nothing."
He let out a slow breath. "Good." He smiled, heavy on the irony. "Good as it is to see you, I hope you didn't risk your life to come out here to visit me."
She had, mostly. But it wouldn't sound precisely smart to admit it. "I need to talk to Susannah," she said.
He nodded and, without a word, turned around and walked into the bedroom.
Lucia got up from the couch and moved to sit on a battered wooden chair. It looked less likely to harbor fleas than the grimy plaid cushions. It took a few minutes, but McCarthy reappeared, bringing with him a sleep-creased woman whom Lucia barely recognized as Susannah Davis. She looked considerably better. The swelling in her face had gone down, and the bruises were fading to blotches. She'd be pretty when she recovered, if not beautiful.
The scared expression in her eyes had faded, too. She looked different now. Desperation had made her seem honest, but the truth was emerging, and it wasn't entirely reassuring.
"Susannah," Lucia said. "How have you been?"
"All right," she answered, and slid into the chair opposite, across the battered kitchen table. She yawned and pushed her sleep-disordered hair back from her face. "I heard you were missing or something."
"Or something." Lucia let that sit for a few seconds to close the topic. "Someone tried to kill you, I hear."
Susannah looked down at her hands. She was picking at her cuticles. "Well, it damn sure wasn't Leonard." Cold, Lucia thought. Very cold.
"Maybe Leonard's business associates," Lucia said. "Right? You told us in the beginning that you knew things about his business dealings. Maybe they don't want you telling anyone what you know?"
She didn't reply. Her nervous picking continued. She'd had a good manicure once, but it had grown out, and the polish was halfway up her nails. Seashell-pink. When she'd had that manicure done - three weeks ago, at a guess - she'd also had a haircut. The shape was still there, even if she'd done nothing to style it. The clothes Susannah had on weren't her own, but the shoes were, and they were good ones. Not a woman who did her shopping at discount stores, but one who'd taken pride in herself, up until recently.
"Susannah," Lucia said, and drew her eyes in a direct gaze. "You know something. You knew Leonard would come after you, and you were afraid he'd kill you. He or his associates."
Susannah nodded and looked down again, picking furiously at the offending cuticle. She tore off a strip of skin. A bright bead of red appeared in the corner, next to the nail bed.
"You need to tell someone," Lucia repeated softly. "Why not McCarthy?"
The woman gave a mute shake of her head. Lucia made an intuitive leap, and didn't like where it took her. McCarthy was in the other room, but she couldn't tell if he could hear. She had to assume he could. "Maybe you just don't like him," she said. "You wouldn't be the first."
Susannah's head shake this time was almost a shiver. She knew something about McCarthy. Nothing that would require her to scream bloody murder over being left alone with him, but something. Maybe she'd picked it up at KCPD; plenty of cops might have said things there. A detective willing to take bribes might be the last person she could trust.
"Will you tell me?"
Susannah's fingers stopped moving. Lucia didn't speak; she knew Susannah was arguing with herself, and adding her voice would only hurt.
"He - " Susannah's voice failed, briefly, then came back stronger. "Leonard was working for these people. They had some kind of plan or something - I don't know what it was all about. But he would get these messages, and he would do things for them. The last one...he bought a lot of chemicals. A lot. He rented a building somewhere. He said he was starting up a lab."
Ah. "A meth lab," Lucia said.
Susannah gave her an irritated look. "No, it wasn't a meth lab. I know the chemicals for a meth lab, and this wasn't - look, it was different. There were two things they were delivering there. Sodium cyanide and hydrochloric acid."
The skin tightened on the back of Lucia's neck. "Were they opening an electroplating lab? Those are chemicals used - "
"Electroplating? You've got to be kidding! When I say I know what chemicals you use for a meth lab, how do you think I know that? I'm not a damn saint, and he wasn't opening any damn legitimate business. This was something else. Maybe the paperwork says electroplating, I don't know, but it's a lie. Can't you use that crap for something else, too?"
"Possibly." Noncommittal was the best strategy. If Susannah got frightened - more frightened - there was no telling what she might do. "I can check it out if you want. Where's the lab?"
"In SubTropolis," Susannah said.
Lucia frowned. "I don't - "
McCarthy, sure enough, was within earshot. He walked to the bedroom doorway, leaned against the frame and said, "Underground business complex. It's huge. You're going to need more than that. A business name, a unit number..."
"I don't know, okay? He didn't tell me anything. When I asked, he got mad." Susannah pointed at her face. "I didn't ask any more questions."
Lucia looked from her to Ben. "We could track suppliers. That could give us the unit number."
"Or we could just give the FBI the information." He nodded at Susannah. "And her."
"I can make the phone call, but without some proof, I don't think Agent Rawlins is going to be giving it much priority. He's overworked. He barely responded when we had anthrax in an envelope." She paused, thinking about it. "I know somebody to talk to, but he's undercover. I'll have to arrange a drive-by meeting. Shouldn't take long."
McCarthy didn't look happy about it.
"How are you going to get there?" he asked. "To your meeting? I cant leave her alone here."
"That's the wonderful thing," Lucia said, and pulled the cell phone from her purse. "If you have a phone and a credit card, you can get just about anything delivered."
"Get pizza while you're at it."
She called FBI Special Agent Roger Cole ten minutes later. Cell phone, not office phone. Two minutes of idle chatting, a simple thirty-second request, and silence from him on the other end.
"Is this going to bite me in the ass?" he asked her. He was in his car. The road noise nearly overwhelmed his voice. "Because I'd like to know how, so I can get my will ready."
"It might make your day, Roger. If I'm right."
"Then you should give me everything you have so I can get to work on it. Or better yet, somebody else can. I'm a little busy. Maybe you've heard, somebody's been playing with funny little white powder in envelopes."
"I've heard," she said blandly; he knew perfectly well who'd gotten the envelope. "This could be connected." A lie, but a nebulous one.
"Yeah?" The road noise lessened; he was pulling over.
"Okay, give. What do you have, and why aren't you talking to your red-haired boy?"
"My red-haired boy isn't exactly jumping through hoops for me at the moment."
"Don't be that way. He had four guys on the street looking for you, you know. He was distressed."
"So distressed he hasn't bothered to make a phone call to say hello and interrogate me about what I know? He's got bigger and juicier fish to catch just now. Look, all you have to do is track the shipments of chemicals to a specific address in SubTropolis, and I'll do the rest. If it checks out, it's yours. You get to be the hero." She read out the names of the specific chemicals as Susannah had given them. "Sound like anything to you?"
"Electroplating," he said. "And gas chambers. Fuck. You've done it again, haven't you?"
"Are you going to get me the information?" His sigh rattled in the speaker. "No. I'll get the info, but I go with you."
"I don't want a full team for reconnaissance."
"Relax. I'll make some calls, pick you up in..." he paused to check the time "...about an hour, okay?"
"Thank you."
The pizza arrived in forty-five minutes, and the driver looked nervous when Lucia met him at the door to hand him cash. She didn't doubt the apartment complex had a bad rep among deliverymen. She added on a considerable tip for his trouble, and hoped he wasn't mugged on his way back to his car.
Two slices later, her cell phone rang. Cole had a unit number in SubTropolis, including an entrance address. He'd even secured a Bureau van labeled as an electrical contractor; it would draw less attention in the SubTropolis tunnels than a private vehicle, especially since so much of the place was fitted out for industrial use.
"Where should I meet you?"
"You shouldn't," he said, amused. "I'll pick you up. Curb service and all that crap. Address?" She gave it. "Right, I'm close. Five minutes. I'll honk twice."
As she hung up, she realized that both McCarthy and Susannah were staring at her. "He's a decorated FBI special agent," she said. "I can vouch for him. He's the last person you need to worry about."
"Lucia, I don't like this, McCarthy said. He leaned back in his chair, frowning. "You just got out of the hospital, for Christ's sake. Let Jazz check it out."
"Jazz is looking into where I was taken while I was unconscious. That's not something I can put on the back burner. I need to know."
"Jazz hasn't slept in a week," he said softly. "You know that, right? She's catnapped a couple of times, when she fell down from exhaustion, but she's been living on coffee and Vivarin. Give her a break. Hell, give both of you a break."
"Hydrochloric acid and sodium cyanide?" Lucia asked, and raised her eyebrows. "What if they release it on a bus, Ben? In a shopping mall? You remember the Tokyo subway attack, right?
He said nothing, just shook his head.
"I'm going," she stated. "We're just going to check it out. If it's a legitimate operation, then no harm done. If not, the FBI will have a leg up. It's the best way to handle it. If it does turn out to be hinky, Susannah, you'll be in witness protection so fast the carpet will smoke on your way out the door."
She didn't look happy. "I don't like it here. Wouldn't it be better if I was someplace safer now? Someplace more - I don't know - fortified?"
"You've been fine here for days. You'll be fine another few hours."
Lucia got up and washed her hands in the kitchen sink, wincing at the state of the hygiene. McCarthy was going for drug-dealer authenticity. She hoped he'd changed the sheets, at least.
"Hey." He was behind her, close and warm, his voice low in her ear. She turned to face him. Behind him, the TV flipped on. Susannah was surfing listlessly through the channels, her face lit by the flickering glow.
"I know I don't have to say it, but for God's sake, would you be careful?" he asked. "You and Jazz, you're killing me. I was better off in prison. At least I didn't have friends to worry about."
She met his eyes. "Friends," she repeated softly. The sound from the TV was covering their conversation. "Is that what you want?"
"Of course not. Fresh out of prison, remember? But wanting more isn't all that smart between us right now. You're not - " He sucked in a breath and inclined his head, hiding his expression. His voice went very low in his throat. "You're not some cheap lay, okay? And I'm not going to use you that way. Or let you use me."
Oh, God. That was - powerful. She pressed back against the counter to keep from wrapping herself around him.
He raised his head and met her eyes.
"Do we understand each other?" he asked. "No matter what, I'm not going to use you."
She nodded. She wasn't sure she could actually speak at the moment.
"Okay. Then don't get yourself killed, or I'll be very disappointed," he said, and moved out of the way. She didn't go. She reached out, took hold of the scooped neck of his wifebeater, and pulled him toward her.
It was a long, slow kiss this time. He moaned, low in his throat, and put his hands on her, sliding them warmly up her shoulders, her neck, burying his fingers in her hair. She was glad she'd let it out of the ponytail.
Two honks sounded in the parking lot. His lips looked damp and hungry, and she brushed hers against them one more time. "I have to go," she whispered. He nodded. "I'll be back soon."
He stepped away and let her leave the kitchen, then stopped her with an outstretched hand at the apartment door and checked through the peephole before flipping the locks and swinging it open. When she looked back, the door was closed and locked, the peephole dark.
He was watching her go.
She followed Jazz's excellent example, taking the steps fast, and saw the electrician's van idling in the parking lot twenty feet from the sidewalk. She crossed to it without incident, she checked for Cole's familiar face before opening the passenger door.
Cole was a medium guy - medium height, medium weight, medium complexion. He'd disappear into a crowd of two. He'd chosen the vehicle well; the paint on the exterior was sun-faded and the contractor's logo and information were chipped. Cole himself was wearing a denim shirt, blue jeans and a tool belt that had just the right wear on the leather.
She wouldn't have given him a second glance, and Lucia knew herself to be more paranoid than most.
He put the van in gear without any words being spoken, and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.
"Sorry," she said, and indicated what she was wearing, which wasn't exactly appropriate to the occasion. "I haven't been home."
"Yeah, I heard you were in the hospital." He gave her a long look. "How are you?"
"I'm fine. Any word on the origin of the anthrax strain?"
"Came out of a lab in California, and believe me, somebody's ass is cooking on a grill right now. Rawlins is pissed. He really doesn't like terrorists."
She grinned. "And you do?"
"I spend a lot more time rubbing shoulders with them. Hard to get a real hate going when you've met their wives and kids. You know you have to do it, but sometimes it gets hard."
"Probably the same for them."
"Yeah. It is." He glanced out the back windows of the van. "You armed?"
"Always."
"Good. Not that I figure we'll need it, but I don't want to get caught with my tool belt down, if you know what I mean. Your source was right, by the way. These guys are ordering in big amounts of sodium cyanide, and their next-door neighbors are shipping in hydrochloric acid. I can see why you're not fond of the combination. It'd make a hell of a nice hydrogen cyanide cloud. In an enclosed space, it could kill hundreds, maybe thousands. Arrowhead Stadium's right down the street. The volume of gas we're talking about, you set it off in a place like that, you could count on major results."
"God," she whispered reverently. "How easy would it be - ?"
"The stadium? Not very. I mean, we're talking about a lot of chemicals here, very high profile, and chemicals are bulky to move around. But you look at some of the high-rise buildings in the city? Pump some of this into the air handlers, and you're talking big numbers of bodies." Cole considered it, his light brown eyes distant as he rubbed his chin. "Unless they're making a hell of a lot of gold chains and pimping up the hubcaps of half of the country, I can't see how they could be using everything they've ordered."
"So we take a look."
"Wrong," he said. "I take a look. You watch my ride. Looking like you do, I don't think anybody's going to believe you're apprenticing as a cable puller, so you'd better keep out of sight."
He wasn't being judgmental, just practical. She nodded and settled herself in the grimy seat. It occurred to her that she should call Jazz, but truthfully, she didn't want to. She knew she was pushing her luck. Fresh from the hospital and already taking risks? Jazz wouldn't approve. Loudly. At length.
As if she'd conjured up a connection telepathically, her cell phone rang. She exchanged a quick glance with Cole as he turned the van down Eldon Road, heading toward the railroad tracks. The entrance to SubTropolis was just ahead. Lucia pulled her phone out and flipped it open, and winced as static blasted her eardrum.
Wind noise.
No, jet noise. Someone was calling her from a plane. "Hello?" She couldn't hear a damn thing. The connection was terrible, and the van she was in was rattling as well. She blocked her other ear and concentrated. "Hello? Anyone there?"
The answer, if there was one, was lost in the dull thump of the van's tires going over railroad tracks. There was a line of vehicles passing through the SubTropolis gates, most of them 18-wheelers. Cole slowed the van to a crawl.
She listened for another few seconds, but the connection cut out.
"Anything important?" he asked.
"Couldn't tell," she said. She checked the caller ID, but as she'd expected, it was an air phone. "I hope not."
They edged forward slowly. When they got to the guard station, Cole presented ID that Lucia didn't doubt was absolutely authentic. The guard waved him on, and they passed into a tunnel.
She'd expected it to be dark, but SubTropolis was surprisingly bright. The tunnel was huge and well-lit, the limestone it was carved from reflecting the brilliance.
"These guys have got some balls, setting up something down here. This place has everything. Post offices, restaurants, hell, they keep film reels somewhere. A few billion in inventory stored down here, at least. Not exactly low-profile."
"Maybe that's the point," she said. "Hiding in plain sight." She leaned over to look past the front seat at the empty, seemingly endless stretch of tunnel. "How far do we have to go?" It was too late to realize that she didn't like this kind of place, with the weight of so much rock over her head as they descended. Her palms were getting damp. The ceiling, high as it was, seemed oppressively heavy.
"Long ways," Cole said, which was not reassuring. "We make a right up ahead at Huspuckney Road, then a left on 8800."
She was starting to seriously regret suggesting this, not so much for the potential danger ahead but for the uncomfortable feeling of claustrophobia that she was battling. Stupid. She was in a van, which should have been much more claustrophobic than the spacious tunnel they were traversing. But she could get out of the van. There were only two ways out of the tunnel: forward and back.
"You okay?" Cole was watching her. She nodded and forced a smile. "You'll let me know if you plan to freak out, okay?"
"Remember who you're talking to," she said. "I don't have a reputation for freaking out."
"Yeah. Those are the ones you have to worry about." Mercifully, he left her alone. She found that closing her eyes didn't help, so she finally resorted to clinging tight-lipped to the seat, fingernails digging in to the bending point. They slowed. "All right. It's up ahead. Here's the drill. I'm going to get out and scout around, you stay in the van and monitor. I'll keep my walkie channel open. I get into trouble, you wait until I give the code phrase, which is 'electrical short. Okay?"
"Yes," she muttered. "Fine. Absolutely." He gave her one last assessing look as he pulled into a parking spot off the road, next to a rough-textured limestone pillar, and jammed the van into Park. "We good?"
"Fine," she repeated. "I'll be okay. You go." He shook his head, clearly not believing her - smart man - and climbed out of the passenger seat and into the murky dimness of the windowless back, where even someone staring in the window would have trouble spotting her. He nodded, locked up and sauntered toward a big industrial building that looked oddly lost in the cavernous open spaces. This was just so weird. She caught herself breathing too fast, and deliberately slowed down. Biofeedback. She'd survived traumas and tortures; she could survive a short visit underground.
Cole even walked like a working man - as if tired, in no particular hurry. He picked something overhead and traced it with a stare as he walked, clearly intent on his own business. She could hear the crunch of his work boots on rock as he walked to the back dock of the warehouse. It was labeled J&J Electroplating - Warehouse and Distribution Center. No trucks were lined up just now. Cole climbed the steps and opened an unmarked door. It closed behind him.
"Hey!" Not Cole's voice, someone else's. It came from the walkie-talkie she was holding. He'd already been challenged. "What are you doing in here?"
"You guys having trouble with the plugs?" Cole asked. "We have a fault report."
"No, we don't have trouble. Try someplace else."
"You sure you don't want me to check it out? You got a faulty plug, you could get a fire." Cole knew just how to work it, she thought; he sounded conscientious but not concerned. The subtext was his body language - he'd be ready to move to the door, convincing the subject that he wasn't at all eager to be on their property. "Hey, your call. I can write up the report, but buddy, your insurance company could nail your ass to the wall, you don't check out a fault report."
"Where you gotta go?"
"In there." Cole might be choosing at random, or he might have seen something. "Line goes right in, see? Up there?" He'd be pointing at something nobody could possibly see or understand. She suppressed a grin. Beautiful. "Wait here."
Footsteps faded away. Cole didn't say anything, but she heard him moving around. It seemed like a long time, but as she watched the sweep of the second hand on her watch, she realized that he'd been inside only two minutes, going on three. Probably not enough time to - "Hey, I told you to wait!" The voice was startlingly loud.
"I've got to get through twelve buildings. You know how big this place is."
"We checked it out. Everything's fine."
"Okay then. I'll write it up. Anything goes wrong, though, you - "
"Yeah, insurance, whatever. We're closing up."
"Have a good one."
Cole was on the move, heading for the door.
"Hang on a second," said the other voice. "What's your name?"
Lucia slid her gun from its holster and put her hand on the door handle.
"Frank. Frank Scarabelli. Here - here's my ID, okay? I don't want no trouble or nothing. I'm just - "
"Doing your job, yeah, we heard. Listen, hang out a second, okay? I'm gonna make a phone call."
"Okay," Cole said. He sounded thoroughly disgusted. "You guys get an electrical short, it's no skin off my - "
She was out of the van, gun at her side, before he finished the sentence. Her knees felt weak, her whole body not quite in tune, but it served to get her across the exposed parking lot and behind one of the massive white limestone pillars. She sucked in two deep breaths, then finished the run to the warehouse dock. Up the six concrete steps to the flat staging area. The walk-in door was closed again. All but one of the garage doors were down. The one on the end was clanking shut.
I won't make it, some part of her thought, but she didn't allow that to stop her. It wasn't a matter for thinking. She kicked off her shoes and crossed the distance in long runner's strides, moving as silently as she could.
The door was clattering down. There were two feet of clearance left.
Lucia hit the concrete and rolled, tucking elbows and knees, and she felt hard steel and rubber grab her for a heart-stopping second. But then momentum won and she was inside. The door rattled irritably shut with a boom just an inch behind her.
She was panting and shaking, but there was no time for fear now. She was exposed. There were three men at the end of the hall, one smaller, two larger. Cole was the smaller. This end of the dock was in relative shadow, which was in her favor.
Should have called for backup, she thought, but she doubted that wireless signals would make it through the solid limestone roof. She'd need a land line, and by that time... by that time, she'd have gotten another friend killed.
She rolled up to her knee, gun trained steadily on the group at the far end of the hall, and then to her bare feet. The concrete felt ice-cold. She gained the concealment of a big industrial trash bin and risked another look to assess the situation. She was close enough to see faces now, and catch fragments of words.
Cole still looked bland and harassed. "Guys, this is stupid. Look, let me get the hell out, you call whoever you want to fix the damn electrical - "
The biggest one hit him. One quick pop, not telegraphed, and it took Cole full in the face. Blood spattered. He went down, and the man was already moving his right foot in a bone-breaking kick.
She couldn't afford caution. Caution would get Cole disabled or dead, and she couldn't take these men playing by FBI rules. This would have to be done Jazz-style.
Lucia stood, braced her shoulder against the wall and kicked the big rubber trash can at its wheeled base. It screeched indignantly and rolled at an angle across the exposed space to slam into one of the metal doors, then tipped and crashed onto its side.
Both of the suspects spun to look. Both drew guns.
Lucia braced her right hand with her left and sighted.
"Freeze!" she yelled. They moved fast, too fast, and a bullet exploded part of the concrete next to her arm.
She pulled the trigger twice without flinching, and the first shooter sank down on his knees, swaying. The gun slipped from his hand and spun across the concrete. Cole, his face a mask of blood, scrambled after it and kicked the man's side to dump him on his face. The other man dropped his gun and voluntarily went down, hands on the back of his head.
"Dammit!" Cole screamed. "Are you hurt? Lucia?"
"No," she said calmly, and walked forward. "If you call an ambulance, you can probably save this one. I think I missed his heart."
Cole - normally so cool and insouciant - looked shocked. She raised her eyes to his, and saw him flinch a little. Seasoned FBI, and he flinched. But then, he didn't know her, did he?
Nobody did.
"Better call it in," she said. "I'll check the rest of the building. These can't be the only bad guys in the place."
"I'm going to hell for this."
"Yeah," she said grimly. "I'll save you a seat."
