A letter to each of you, offering to put up the money to open a detective agency. Some kind of nonprofit agency. I get why Jazz took the deal. Why did you?”
“I didn’t,” she said, and speared a slice of electric-green honeydew. “I turned it down.” She enjoyed the look on his face as he assimilated that. “I was leaving when Jazz got shot in a drive-by attack—you know about that?”
He nodded shortly, face set.
“I had my doubts about her as a partner,” Lucia continued. “But I don’t like people shooting at me, and I don’t like people shooting my friends. Even new ones. So I decided that it might be a good idea to stick around. One thing led to another, cases came up, we solved them. And here we are.”
She nibbled the fruit. He watched her, concentrating on her mouth, and she felt a surge of self-consciousness that surprised her. Something about McCarthy threw her off stride. He made her hyperaware of how her clothes fit, of the tiny imperfections in the way the sleeves hugged her arms, the way the lapels didn’t quite lay straight.
The way her skin shivered into gooseflesh when he stared at her.
McCarthy tilted his head. “Jazz is a walking disaster, but somehow, she does okay. She’s also a pretty good judge of character. Me notwithstanding.” He continued to watch as Lucia chewed and swallowed. “I know what you mean about sticking around her, though. I wasn’t going to be her partner—I was just saddled with her for a week. But she grows on you. You want to protect her from herself. Doesn’t generally work, though. She ends up saving your ass more than you save hers, and before too long you’re joined at the hip. And then you realize that’s not a bad thing.”
“Regarding ass-saving, I believe the score’s just about even between us now,” Lucia replied.
“That tells me something about you.”
“What?”
He surprised her with a wicked grin. “You’re damn good at what you do. Whatever it is.”
“Obviously, I’m a private investigator.”
“And I’m your maiden aunt Sally,” he snorted. “I’ve known a lot of P.I.s over the years, and none of them ever came looking or sounding like you. You avoided the question. What’s your story?”
“I’m avoiding the question because I don’t want to answer it.”
“Because …?”
“Because it’s none of your business, Mr. McCarthy,” she said evenly, and took another bite. Pineapple, fresh and sweet and pulpy. She savored the juice on her tongue and the look of surprise on his face. “I helped Jazz get you out of prison, that’s all. I don’t owe you any information, any conversation, or anything else.”
“Yeah? So what’s this?”
“I said I don’t owe it. I can still give it of my own free will.”
He’d demolished the omelet, and now he set his fork on the plate with a clink and took a drag of coffee from the heavy white cup. Around them, the well-groomed breakfast crowd in their expensive suits and trendy casual wear chatted and smiled. We’re both out of place here, Lucia thought, even though she seemed to fit seamlessly into the crowd. There was something different about McCarthy that spoke to the wildness at her core. It wasn’t his prison-roughened image.
McCarthy smiled at her. “Okay, so you don’t owe me. I was hoping you liked me enough to want to answer, anyway.”
“I don’t like anybody that well.”
“Harsh.”
“Pragmatic,” she countered. “I hardly know you, except that you might not be guilty of murder, but you’re surely guilty of other things. Add that to the fact that your friends and relatives were hardly crowding the gallery today—”
His face shut down even further, hiding emotion. Lids drifted lower to hood his expressive eyes. “Let’s leave them out of it,” he said. “I was a cop, and my buddies were all cops. Cops stay away, times like these, until they feel better about the facts. Stewart’s not the only one who still, deep down, thinks I pulled the trigger on those people.” McCarthy stared at his coffee and took another deep swallow. “My brother would have been here, but he’s on a tuna boat this season. My parents—” He shook his head.
She took pity on him. “I doubt they could have made the trip,” she said. “Your mother is ill, isn’t she?”
“Old,” he said. “Your folks still alive?”
She smiled noncommittally. “So I’ll forgive you the low turnout among your admirers. Still, it does say something, doesn’t it? To have more reporters than supporters?”
She got a thin slice of a smile. “Careful when you cut me like that. You’ll have to buy me a new shirt. I’ll bleed all over this one.”
“I’m tempted to buy you a new one whether you bleed all over it or not.”
“That’s kindhearted of you.”
“Call it fashion charity.”
He was studying her again, with lazy interest. “I just can’t picture you and Jazz as friends.”
“Why?”
“She’s just—one of the guys, you know? Not so …” He gestured vaguely, letting her finish the sentence with whatever adjective seemed best. Wise of him. “I was surprised how good she looked, last time I saw her. Your influence, or the counselor’s?”
He knew about Borden, then. Yes, of course he did. Lucia shrugged. “Maybe both.”
“She’s not drinking so much.”
“No.”
“Not getting into fights.”
“Well, we’re working on that part.”
“Good luck with that.” He grinned, and caught the attention of a passing waiter to get a refill on his coffee. He drank it black as the devil’s heart. “So, if you’re not going to tell me anything, I’ll just have to tell you three things about yourself, Miss Garza.”
“Is this popular at parties?”
“A riot on cell block six.”
“Then please, enlighten me.”
“One, you manipulate people. Sometimes for their own good, but always to your advantage.” He sopped a piece of toast in a remaining bit of peach jam and ate it, watching her reaction. She kept her face bland, but felt the barb sink unpleasantly deep. “Two, you use your looks as deception. You look warm and girlie and elegant, but I’ll bet you can hand most guys their asses in a fight.”
He was right again, of course. She didn’t allow herself to blink. “And three?”
“How am I doing so far?”
“We’ll see. And three?”
He
