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Too late. The woman was walking away, parting the crowd with the sheer force of her personality. Jazz shoved her hands in her pockets, rocked back and forth on her heels for a second, and then took off at right angles, heading for the bathroom. Her peripheral vision found the two men—identical buzz cuts, one blond, one brown. Both had the fit look of guys who could run down a suspect without any trouble.
She walked right past them, but they didn’t follow. In fact, they didn’t follow Lucia, either. They stayed where they were.
She risked a glance back as she pushed open the restroom door. One of them was talking into his sleeve. Hidden microphone, very government-issue.
She fished her cell phone out of the cradle, hit Recall and found the number, then dialed.
“Yes?” Lucia’s cool voice.
“They’ve got radios. There are probably spotters on you out there. Watch yourself.”
“Did they follow you?”
“Not into the ladies’ room. Hang on.” Jazz uncoiled the earpiece and plugged it in, hooked the cell back in its cradle. “I want my hands free.”
“Good idea.” Lucia sounded amused. “I’m staying in plain sight. At least it’s difficult to start trouble in an airport these days.”
“Yeah, let’s hope. So. What’s the plan?”
“I don’t know that I have one, actually.”
“We can’t hang out here all day. When you think it’s safe, hail a cab and take it to my apartment.” She gave her the address. As she was telling her cross streets, the door to the restroom banged open; Jazz stopped talking and began washing her hands, staring into the mirror.
“Jazz?” Lucia’s voice buzzed in her ear. “Someone with you?”
The woman who walked around the corner looked sleek and businesslike, wearing a tailored black jacket and black jeans, but there was something in her eyes, something.
“Is something wrong?” Lucia asked.
Jazz reached for a towel. As she bent over, the woman angled toward her, moving fast.
“Might be,” Jazz said, and ducked.
The punch—intended for the back of her neck—sailed past to crash into glass. Jazz spun, still crouching, and drove the heel of her hand into the woman’s solar plexus, sending her flying and gasping for air. She moved for the door—
And it opened to admit the two crew cuts from baggage claim.
“Hey!” Jazz said loudly. “This is the ladies’ room, guys—”
One of them grabbed for her arm. She danced backward, almost tripped over the woman, who was coming to her feet with a brutal look on her face, and retreated to the empty narrow area between the stalls and the wall. Not a lot to work with, but at least it was defensible, they could only come at her one at a time, and, Jesus, how had she gotten into this mess, anyway? She’d been minding her own business, dammit, drinking her whiskey and drowning her sorrows, and now she was about to get the crap beaten out of her in a bathroom for a woman she’d barely met and a check she hadn’t even cashed.
Lucia Garza said in her ear, “I’m coming. Don’t do anything brave.”
“Don’t worry,” Jazz said out loud, and ducked a punch. “Brave is definitely not my style.”
The bathroom was just too narrow for a decent fight, but at least it meant they couldn’t use their numbers effectively, either. She backed up into the narrow aisle in front of the stalls until her back was against cold tile and snap-kicked toward the face of the man coming at her. It was a feint. When he flinched, she hooked her foot behind the bend of his left knee and pulled. His head hit the wall with a thick sound, and he went to one knee.
She put him down with a fist to the temple.
She looked up to see a blur coming at her and instinctively put up a parrying arm. The kick caught her on the forearm, and damn, it hurt; she gritted her teeth against the urge to yelp, wrapped her arm around the foot that had just come at her and yanked. Hard.
Girlfriend in the pantsuit slipped and nearly went down, caught herself and shifted her weight forward, slamming Jazz back against the wall, then breaking free with a twist of her hip.
Nobody had a gun, knife, or even a taser. That was good, Jazz thought. Any kind of weapon would have ended this quick and ugly. At least this way, she’d have a much slower defeat. Time for lots of things to happen, including miracles.
The second man shoved the woman out of the way and lunged to fasten his hands around Jazz’s throat. He ran into her fist with his Adam’s apple instead and fell back, gagging.
As if they’d gotten some secret signal, all three of her attackers suddenly stopped, backed off—even the one still shaking off her whack to his temple—and just looked at her.
It was weird.
No, it was creepy.
“Later,” the woman said, and moved to the door. The two men followed her. Single file, straight out into the airport.
Thirty seconds later, the door banged open, and Lucia Garza entered, looking ready for anything—hands up, weight balanced on the balls of her feet, which in those shoes was something of an accomplishment. She looked around in a lightning-fast analysis, then focused on Jazz and raised her eyebrows in an eloquent what the hell? motion.
“Party’s over,” Jazz said breathlessly. She was shaking, buzzing all over. Strangely ecstatic. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, looking for blood, and remembered that they hadn’t actually laid a hand on her. Well, girlfriend in the pantsuit had kicked like a mule…Jazz skinned up her shirtsleeve and looked at the impact mark. Yep, that was going to bruise like a son of a bitch.
“What the hell happened?” Lucia asked.
“You tell me, you’re the superspy. When people attack me, it’s usually during the commission of a felony, not just because I took the wrong sink in the ladies’ room.” Jazz pushed away from the support of the tile wall and walked to the mirror.
Her face was vivid and flushed, her eyes fever-bright. Even her hair looked better.
Damn, she enjoyed this stuff. That was probably sick.
“You,” Lucia said, as if she’d read her mind, “need a hobby. Something nonviolent. Maybe macramé.” She sounded amused, though. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Jazz agreed. “Probably a good idea.”
Walking with Lucia wasn’t like walking alone. For one thing, Jazz was used to blending in, slumping, avoiding people’s eyes. McCarthy had always laughed about it, called her a chameleon; he’d had the traditional cop presence and radiated an implicit threat even when sitting and reading the newspaper. But then, McCarthy hadn’t worked undercover. She had.
Lucia Garza’s aura was more like a runway model’s. She drew stares as she stalked through the baggage-claim area, lean and elegant in her designer clothes. Jazz still felt invisible, but not in a good way. Next to Lucia Garza, most women would fade into wallpaper.
“Which way?” Lucia asked, sliding on sunglasses as they exited the building. Jazz nodded toward the distant parking lot. She wished she’d thought to pack some shades, but then, hers would have been clunky blue-blockers from a flea market. Lucia’s had the sleek, finished look of sculpture and probably cost more than a car. Not that she was comparing or anything.
Lucia’s bag went into the trunk, and Jazz scanned the area for signs of her restroom visitors. Nobody in sight. She had a prickling on the back of her neck, though, and wasn’t surprised when Lucia, opening the passenger side, said, “They’re watching us.”
“Where?” Jazz ducked inside. They slammed doors at the same moment. Lucia jerked her chin a bare quarter inch in the direction of a white panel van sitting on the garage roof about five hundred yards away. As Jazz looked at it, it silently backed out of sight. “Son of a bitch. Okay, I give up. What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you know more than I do!”
Lucia brushed long, dark hair back with a distracted air, and frowned. “I picked up a tail at the hotel in Dallas,” she said. “Nothing obvious, but it was there. Professionals, like the guys in the airport just now. I don’t know who they’re working for. Although I have no idea why professionals would try to take you out in such a risky public setting.”
“Maybe it isn’t about me at all. Maybe it was related to your case. Whatever it is you’re working.” She didn’t ask, but she left the door open in case Lucia wanted to share.
She should have known better. “No. It’s not germane,” Lucia said. “That was all done when these people showed up. And they arrived within an hour of the letter arriving at my hotel. Those things have to be connected, especially if they’re here, following you, as well.”
Jazz started the car and backed out of the parking space.
“Where are we going?” Lucia asked.
“I don’t know about you,” Jazz replied, “but I’m already tired of being the one who doesn’t know anything. I intend to change that.”
She drove downtown, to the business district, then off into a less Fortune 500, more industrial neighborhood. Office buildings went from sky-piercing steel and glass to squat, square, converted warehouses. She pulled in at the grimy curb next to one and picked up her cell phone. As Lucia watched silently, she paged through numbers until she found the one she wanted and connected.
“Yeah?” A cautious voice on the other end.
“Manny, open up,” she said. “It’s Jazz. I need an opinion.”
“Drive-through’s closed.”
“Give me a break.”
“You didn’t pay me for the last opinion.”
“I thought that was a freebie!”
“Jazz, Jazz…I don’t give freebies and you know it.”
“Fine, I’ll pay you this time. Double.”
Silence. He hung up. Jazz waited for a few seconds, and smiled as the grimy garage door a few yards down the street began rattling slowly up.
As soon as her car passed under it, the door reversed course and began jerking and clattering back down again. Manny didn’t like open doors. “Who’s Manny?” Lucia asked. She didn’t sound bothered, for which Jazz had to give her points. If the situation had been reversed, Jazz was pretty sure she’d have been firing off questions every ten seconds and jumping at every noise.
“Old friend,” Jazz said, which didn’t really answer anything, and killed the engine. She kept the headlights running, bathing the big concrete room in white light. The few spotlights were feeble and far between. Manny also wasn’t big on paying electric bills.
She got out of the car, leaned against the cool metal and waited with her arms folded. The car shifted as Lucia got out on the other side.
“What now?”
“We wait,” Jazz said. “Oh, and keep your hands where he can see them. He’s a little twitchy.”
“Twitchy?” Lucia echoed grimly. “Wonderful. I already like your friend.”
“Trust me. When someone’s out to get you, the best friend you can have is a paranoid nutcase with skills.”
“Amen to that,” said a dry, raspy voice out of the shadows. “You know the rules, Jazz. Weapons on the ground.”
She spread her jacket. “No weapons.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Not.”
“Then who are you and what have you done with Jazz Callender?” He sounded amused for a second, and then his raspy voice turned serious. “I mean it. Knives, batons, tasers—everything on the ground, or I turn around and walk.”
“Manny, I got nothing. We came from the airport, for God’s sake. You don’t run around armed there, in case you missed the events of the last few years.”
Manny edged out of the shadows. He was a big man, not very clean, with a greasy tangle of black hair that he kept cut above too-large ears. Muddy green eyes that with a little polish would have knocked a girl dead, but when combined with his unattractive personal grooming habits, a perpetual slump to his broad shoulders, and a habit of flinching from loud noises…no, Manny wasn’t exactly prime date material.
Not that Jazz was in the market.
Manny was watching Lucia. “What about her?” he asked, and pointed. Jazz wasn’t exactly a makeover fan, but even she winced from the state of his cuticles. “She armed?”
“She,” Lucia said with absolute precision as she took off her sunglasses, “is always armed. So you can just assume that and move on.”
Manny was already shaking his head, violently. “No, no, no, Jazz, you know I don’t do—I don’t let—no, no, no—”
“Hold on.” She shot Lucia a look. Lucia tilted her head and gave her one right back, and this one clearly said I’m not giving it up for your paranoid weirdo friend. Jazz lowered her voice and walked around to talk to her. “Manny’s a little freaky, but he’s a good guy. Plus, this building has the best security in the city. He built it himself. He’s really good at it. But he’s got quirks, okay? You need to cut him a little slack.”
“Why do we need him?”
“Because I say we do,” Jazz said. Simple. “You can either trust me about this, or we can get in the car, drive out, and go our separate ways. Your choice.”
Lucia’s dark eyes studied her for several long seconds, and then those elegantly outlined lips curved into a smile. “All right,” she said, and reached to her back with one hand.
Gun. Damn, Lucia had a gun. It was a small one, a .22 automatic, combat black. “How the hell did you get that through airport security?”
“I didn’t,” she replied, and put the weight of it into Jazz’s hand. “I sent it ahead to a courier and had him bring it. I palmed it on the way out of baggage claim from the man with the briefcase.”
Jazz hadn’t even noticed a man with a briefcase, except as part of the general wallpaper. There must have been a hundred fitting that description. She blinked, the weight of the gun heavy and warm in her palm, and then nodded as if she’d known that all along. Not that Lucia appeared fooled, considering her smile. “Uh-huh. Anything else?”
“Search me,” Lucia invited, and spread her arms.
“Oh, this isn’t going to be that kind of relationship, believe me.” Jazz bent over and put the gun on the ground, then held up both hands in the air and raised her voice for Manny. “Yo! Gun on the ground! We’re cool now, right?”
Manny was dithering, half in shadow, half in the whitewash of the car headlights. Clearly spooked. “I don’t know, Jazz…you know I don’t like it when you bring strangers…”
“She’s not a stranger,” she lied. “Look, Manny, you do this for me and you get a free lunch. Plus the usual fee.”
He stared at her for a long, long moment. “I don’t do criminal. You know that.”
“It’s not a criminal case, Manny.”
“No murders. No rapes. No violent crimes.”
“It’s maybe fraud, and that’s a maybe.” She was seriously stretching the truth, and saw Lucia watching her with slightly raised eyebrows. “You won’t need to do anything but give me results. No depositions. No trials.”
He swallowed, wiped his sweaty face with his grimy sleeve and nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed. “But only because it’s you, all right? Follow me, ladies.”
Lucia started to pick up the gun. Jazz kicked it under the car with a skitter of metal on concrete, then reached through the window to shut off the headlights. Darkness closed in around them.
“You don’t want to do that,” she said. “Really. You don’t. Manny may look like some squirrelly little pushover. He isn’t.”
