Free Devil's Bargain by Rachel Caine Page B

I know it’s drawn on your corporate account. I also know that no law firm in the world fronts money for its clients without a damn good reason. You specialize in tax cases, right? Trying to hide some money the feds want to confiscate? This is all some bullshit designed to get the two of us to take the heat as accessories. Somebody wants us brought down.”
    Lucia flicked her an unreadable look. Borden let out a slow, aggrieved breath. “Look, I’m not saying nobody’s out to get you. I’m sure that between the two of you, you might have charmed your way into a few…trouble spots. But this is a legitimate deal, offered legitimately. I’m an attorney. Believe it or not, I take my fiduciary responsibilities seriously.”
    Lucia’s mock surprise was really too funny. “An honest lawyer? Now you really are making me suspicious, Mr. Borden.”
    He looked from one of them to the other, brown eyes bright. “You two really were separated at birth, did you know that?” Borden reached into the drawer, pulled out a thick manila folder and slid it across the highly polished surface. He had lovely long fingers, Jazz noticed against her will. Well manicured. No wedding ring, and no sign there’d ever been one.
    “I’ll leave you to look it over,” he said. “I’ve got a meeting down the hall. Back in about thirty minutes. Oh, don’t try to walk out with any loose change or files or anything, Pansy’s tougher than she looks.”
    He left them without a backward glance. Jazz knew her eyebrows were soaring, and her lips compressed against a laugh. She caught the same glitter in Lucia’s eyes.
    “Well,” Lucia said in the silence after the door had clicked shut, “he’s not what I expected.”
    “Taller?”
    “Smarter.” She edged her chair closer to the desk and reached for the folder. “Oddly, that does not make me feel better about this.”
    The folder contained loads of legal paperwork about the partnership. Jazz blurred out after a couple of pages, but she was pretty expert in shaking wheat from chaff, when it came to legal papers, and flipped through the thick sheaf until she found what she was looking for.
    “Looks like the money’s coming from a nonprofit organization called the Cross Society,” she said, and scooted over to give Lucia a lean-in on it.
    “A religious thing?” Lucia hooked silky black hair back over her ear.
    “Um…no idea, actually. Why. Are you a zealot?”
    “I’m religious, I’m not actually militant.” Lucia shrugged. “You?”
    “Define religious.”
    Lucia gave her a warm, quick smile. “And that answers my question. So, what do we know about them?”
    “Not a damn thing.” Jazz flipped through the rest of the paperwork. “Address is care of the law firm. I don’t see anything else to go on.”
    “Ah.” Lucia nodded, and went around Borden’s desk to test the drawers. Locked. She reached into her neat little designer purse, came out with lock picks in a zippered leather case, and set to work. It took her about ten seconds flat to open up the file drawer and start flipping through. “Hmm, he works for some interesting people—do you want to know about Donald Trump?—never mind, here it is. The Cross Society.”
    She pulled out a fairly massive-looking folder and spread it open on the blotter, on top of the partnership paperwork. Jazz came around to take a look as Lucia’s elegant fingers fluttered pages.
    “Here. Not religious, apparently. The Cross Society is a nonprofit organization established seven years ago with a mandate to research time, physics and causality.”
    “What the hell is causality?” Jazz asked.
    “I was hoping you’d tell me. They seem to have given out quite a load of grants and loans over the past couple of years. Take a look at the list. Anything look familiar to you?”
    “Nope, but I’ll bet if we did an Internet search, we’d turn up with science stuff.”
    “Not all of them,” Lucia murmured, and ran her finger down the list to