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What?Lucia mouthed. Her gun was out, fast as a magic trick. Jazz fumbled her own out, but didn’t like the way her hand was shaking.I’ll probably shoot myself. Again.

Jazz pointed at the doorknob.Locked,she mouthed.Shouldn’t be.

Lucia nodded in understanding. Jazz habitually shot dead bolts, but never bothered with the relatively nuisance-value lock on the knob. They could be overcome by a bright ten-year-old with a hairpin, much less anybody serious about breaking and entering. Lucia held out her free hand. Jazz tossed the keys underhand to her, watched as she neatly—and nearly silently—fielded them, and then stepped up to slot the key neatly into the last lock.

No hail of gunfire. Jazz held her breath as the door swung wider onto darkness. Something moved inside, and her heart lurched, but it was only a bushy gray ghost of a cat stepping cautiously over the threshold.Mooch.She resisted the urge to dive over and grab him, and let him prance his slow way past her and down the stairs. He gave her a curious look and a rumble of a purr as he passed, but he was embarked on serious business.

Lucia moved fast and low, and entered the apartment. Jazz waited. She’d be crap as backup right now, and she knew it. Plus, crouching was pretty much out of the question.

Silent moments passed, and then lights blazed on in the hallway and spilled out in a golden syrupy glow over the concrete and Jazz’s shoes. Lucia appeared at the door as she reholstered her gun at her back.

“Come on,” she said, and checked the outside again one more time before she locked the door. “You’ve had company, all right, but they’re gone now.”

“Crap,” Jazz sighed. She stared mournfully at the mess left behind. Mounds of crumpled papers. Drawers pulled open and contents strewn all over the place. Pictures askew on the wall, although truthfully none of that would matter even if they’d slashed every one of them to bits.

The boxes of files, the ones she’d wanted Lucia to look through … they were gone.

She froze, staring at the empty corner. There was an impression in the cheap, ugly carpet where the weight of the stack had rested, but unless the damn boxes had turned invisible, they were gone.

She kicked disconsolately at the papers on the floor, trying to see if they’d left anything behind, but what was abandoned looked like her regular household stuff, correspondence, bills, nothing important.

“What?” Lucia asked, and followed her stare to the empty corner. “Oh, God. They took your case files, right?”

“Right,” Jazz murmured. “All the work I did since Ben’s arrest. All the notes, all the leads. Everything.”

“Anyone in particular come to mind?”

“Besides that asshole Stewart?” She shook her head. Too sick, too tired, too numbed. She sank into a chait and heard papers crackle under her ass, but she didn’t care. “I don’t know. Ask me in the morning.”x

Lucia stared at her for a few seconds, then turned’, and walked into the kitchen. Whatever disaster was there, she returned with a glass of water and a handful of pills. “Take them,” she said. “I mean it.”

And for once, Jasmine Callender did as she was told. She meekly swallowed the pills and sat watching Lucia straighten up papers, making stacks, clearing the floor. Then straightening up fallen chairs, putting drawers back in place, closing open cabinet doors.

Rehanging those god-awful pictures.

Jazz’s eyelids got heavy without warning. She woke up with a start when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and somehow made it on numbed feet back to the bedroom.

Lights out.

She didn’t even have time to worry about why somebody who’d broken in and trashed her house had taken the trouble to lock all of her dead bolts.

Or how.

She’d had better mornings after four-day benders.

Jazz woke up sick, aching, slightly feverish, and wishing she were dead for the first full minute before remembering that it was good to be alive. Mostly. Part of the reason that kicked in was the smell of fresh-brewed coffee wafting through the apartment. Unless Mooch had learned how to program the coffeemaker, she still had company.

Jazz groaned, tried to sit up and stayed flat for a few more minutes, gathering strength. Yep, it hurt. A lot. It hurt like the morning after indulging in some insane exercise orgy and doing a thousand sit-ups. Only worse. She wasn’t, sure she could force her abdominal muscles to do even the simple work of getting her out of bed.

Suck it up, Callender,she ordered herself, and somehow managed to get up. After she’d swung her legs over the bed, she discovered that Lucia had taken off her shoes but left her wearing the loose sweatpants and T-shirt. Beneath, the bandages felt stiff. She tried not to think of what that might mean.

Getting to her feet was an adventure, but she managed. She ran fingers through her hair, felt unruly tangles and shuffled, on athletic-sock feet, into the living room.

Which looked like someone else’s apartment.

She blinked, cocked her head and tried to remember if she’d suffered a head injury, in and around the general insanity of yesterday. No, she was pretty sure not.

Maybe it was the same room, it just looked … better. Cleaner, at least. And neater. Weirdlynother home.