It took five seconds. Five seconds of precise, well-coordinated action. Jazz looked up, and her blue eyes were blazing, her face glowing with excitement.
All that changed in one split second.
Lucia didn't hear the shot, only felt the hot burn along her arm, the kinetic force rocking her to the side. She saw the spark of a bullet hitting the metal grille of a car fifteen feet beyond.
And then Jazz was moving, moving fast, and Lucia's body was following suit while her mind was still processing data. She hit the pavement and rolled into the thin cover of another car. Angles…the bullet had come right past her, hit the grille of the car at a flat angle. Someone on the ground.
A second shooter.
All that information passed through her mind in a little under a second as she slid beneath the car and twisted to get her gun out in front. With both hands around the grip, she scanned the street. A few people were starting to react to the single shot, but most had probably assumed it was a backfire, somebody dropping something…
A pair of feet started walking toward the man lying handcuffed on the asphalt. There was something about the body language, which was way too deliberate…predatory. He didn't seem to be in any hurry.
Lucia smelled blood. It hit her in a strange wave, that slightly acrid smell. Had somebody been hit? Jazz? No, Jazz had been well wide of the path of the bullet…
Damn. There was blood dripping steadily from Lucia's right arm, and a hot sensation starting to tingle along her biceps. It wasn't that bad, certainly not an arterial hit. The fact that she could feel it so soon after the strike meant it probably wasn't anything more than a graze, and the associated shock was minor.
She had no doubt that the man prowling between the cars, moving so purposefully, was the second shooter. What the hell was he doing? She didn't dare move to try to get a better look. Either he knew where she was, in which case she'd see him bend down to take the shot, or he didn't, and she'd rather keep it that way. He stopped circling and advanced to the handcuffed man, who turned over on his side, panting, staring up…
And his head jerked as the bullet smashed through his forehead and exited behind, into the asphalt, with a good portion of his brain, and most certainly his life.
And then the shooter's knees bent smoothly, she saw his body tilt sideways, and he was looking right at her, his finger tightening on the trigger…
She fired, but she knew even as she did so, even as her weakened right arm trembled and threw the shot wide, that she'd missed, and she was a dead woman.
Someone hit his blind side, coming over the hood of a car, and she could have been forgiven for naturally assuming that it was Jazz. Because it would be Jazz, wouldn't it?
Only the legs were too long, the body too angular, and in the second heartbeat she realized it was Borden, unarmed, who'd jumped the shooter.
Borden wasn't a fighter. Oh, Christ, no…
She could almost sense Jazz moving. Lucia shoved with her toes and slid out from under cover, rolled on her side, and saw the shooter throwing Borden to the ground, turning to aim his gun at him at point-blank range—
And Jazz fired. Two fast shots to the chest, dead center. Blood misted the air for a second longer than it took him to collapse to his knees, and Lucia squirmed out the rest of the way and kicked his handgun aside as he fell.
Borden was silent, panting. He was lying on the ground on his back, looking stunned and pale, and there was blood spattered in small dots on his skin and shirt. She silently offered him a hand—her left—and pulled him up to his feet.
This time, nobody had mistaken the gunfire for backfires; people were running, screaming and dialing 911. But where Lucia and Jazz and Borden were standing, staring down at the bodies of two completely nondescript gunmen, without a clue in the world as to what they'd been doing here, now, it seemed eerily silent.
Jazz moved to Borden's side and embraced him, hard and fast, her face pale and her breath racing. He couldn't seem to take his eyes from the dead man at his feet. Eventually, she let go, stepped back and tried for a bitter smile. "This," she said, "is a cluster f—"
"Don't say it," Lucia interrupted wearily.
"Well, it is."
Lucia sighed and holstered her gun, or tried to; her right arm didn't seem willing to cooperate at the moment. Jazz looked up and spotted the blood, and her face blanched. "Oh Christ, L., you're hit."
"Grazed," she said. "Not even bleeding much. Don't worry about it." Sirens in the distance. They were going to have considerable explaining to do. "Maybe we should work on a system by which the Cross Society tells us a few more details," she said. She felt unnaturally calm right now, but knew it would pass. "What do you think?"
Borden looked sick. Sick and scared and anxious, and he gazed from one of them to the other with so much emotion that it seemed to make up for the lack of it in the two of them.
"I didn't know," he said. "I didn't know. They didn't…"
"Tell you?" Jazz finished dryly. "No, really? Wake up, James, they don't tell anybody anything. Not even you."
Lucia took the gun from her right hand and awkwardly holstered it. "Let's get our stories straight."
"You think anyone's going to believe us?"
"Well, at least we have a lawyer present."
Somewhat surprisingly, nobody in the police department seemed inclined to blame them for the shootout. Then again, Lucia noted, Detective Ken Stewart was nowhere to be seen, either. She nursed her soft drink carefully, after downing another aspirin to bring down her again-spiking fever, and wondered what Dr. Kirkland would think of her rest schedule. He wouldn't approve, she imagined.
She, Jazz and Borden were alone in a more upscale interrogation room…one not designed to resemble those on television. This room came equipped with a relatively comfortable sofa in dull green, a television set silently playing CNN, a water cooler, and reinforced safety glass windows and doors. There'd be surveillance, but it would be subtle.
Paramedics had touched up her arm; the passing bullet had ripped a furrow through about a quarter inch of flesh and a bit of muscle. Now that the adrenaline had left, taking its soothing blanket away, Lucia felt cold and exhausted, and she wanted, badly, to sleep.
Jazz poked Borden in the ribs. They were sitting on the couch, but she got his attention and they both moved. Borden wandered over to get a cup of water. Jazz gazed down at Lucia. "Come here and lie down," she said. Lucia was sitting upright in one of the wooden chairs. "On the couch, L. Now."
"I'm—"
"Swear to God, if you say you're fine one more time, I'm going to beat you with a copy of Martyrdom for Dummies."
Lucia mutely went over and sat on the couch, glared at Jazz for a second and then let herself go horizontal with a shameful rush of relief. Borden pulled up another chair, and he and Jazz sat; Borden worked on a palmtop computer and Jazz steadfastly stared at the television screen, watching the news scroll.
Lucia was almost asleep when Jazz announced, "Potential mass murder in Kansas City foiled by private citizens, police say."
"What?"
"It's on CNN." Jazz looked around for a remote control, didn't see one, and got up to change the channel. It didn't change. Only one station. "Great. Sons of bitches have it locked down."
"That's so we don't have people surfing the porn channels," said a new voice. "The cops, I mean. We did that after you left the department, Jazz. Hey, I brought in a friend-that all right?"
Lucia opened her eyes and saw that a big, gray-haired plainclothes detective had entered the room. Ben McCarthy was right behind him. McCarthy crossed the room, trailed his fingers over Jazz's shoulder and exchanged a quick look with her, and then crouched down next to the couch as Lucia struggled to sit up. "No," he murmured, and those fingers moved lightly over the thick bandages wrapping her arm, then up to skim over her hair. "Stay down, okay? Nothing to get up for right now."