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“Gabriel, Pike…?”

“Oh.” He raised one shoulder in a very tiny shrug. “Lead time’s usually not long enough to trust this stuff to the mail. Even overnight. Though sometimes I might not be available, and you might have to check FedEx, but I’ll give you a heads-up first.”

“Why?”

“Why would I give you a heads-up?” He sounded mystified by that. She had to admit, it would have been a stupid question.

“No, why is there not enough lead time? Don’t you know this stuff a couple of days ahead of time? Surely you don’t do this all at the last minute.”

He looked at her for such a long, unblinking moment that she actually felt she’d said something wrong, but then he smiled and said, “I never said we were the most organized bunch of lawyers in the world.”

She remembered getting off the plane in New York and finding a crisply pressed ex-Marine holding up a sign with names on it. His ability to organize was, so far as she’d been able to tell, pretty damn close to perfect. Like the explanation about the envelopes themselves, it didn’t sound right, but she could tell that she wasn’t going to get anything more from him. Not yet.

Not now.

“So you’re just here to deliver a letter and get back on a plane,” she said.

“No. I’m here to deliver a letter, take you out to dinner, and get back on a plane,” he said. “You eat, right?”

“Dinner,” she repeated, frowning. “You want to go to dinner.”

“Early dinner, yeah. Say, six o’clock? That way we’ll be finished up before you have to get to work.” He nodded slightly at the envelope in her hand, and then looked a little disconcerted. “Unless you have plans.”

“As if I have an actual life, you mean?” She snorted. “No. If Lucia was here, we might have a working dinner here, but no. No plans.”

“Ah. Right. Lucia’s working?” He looked guilty, as if he had forgotten about Lucia. Which Jazz had a hard time imagining, because, well,Lucia.If there was going to be a Swimsuit Edition forPrivate Investigator Monthly,Lucia would be the centerfold.

“She’s in Washington,” Jazz said. “Back tomorrow. But not to worry, Counselor, I can handle sitting in a car and following somebody all by myself. And dinner. I can handle dinner without backup.”

He yawned hugely, traded looking guilty for looking shocked and embarrassed, and mumbled something about early-morning flights. She cocked an eyebrow at him, got off the couch and went back to her desk. He watched her go, mouth slightly open on a question that wasn’t able to quite fight its way free.

“Stretch out,” she said. “You won’t bother me.”

She went back to typing. She didn’t watch him, but after a while her peripheral vision reported that he’d followed her advice. By the time she thought it was safe to focus on him again, his eyes were shut, his limbs loose and relaxed, and he was breathing evenly and quietly.

She stared at the rise and fall of his chest, then let her eyes wander over the rest of him. Long, sleek lines, especially in the blue jeans and boots. Did he wear cowboy boots because he was coming to Kansas City? Were they some kind of special costume, like the leathers? She hoped not. She liked the idea that he wore them because he enjoyed them, not because he needed them to fit in.

Without any transition at all, she wondered how he’d look without the clothes and had to shock herself out of the vision to focus on the dry, quiet text of her report again. In her experience, the better she was able to visualize that kind of thing, the deeper she was in trouble, and that had been, well, vivid.

Really, really vivid.

She grimly tapped keys and forced herself to keep working as the hours slid past toward evening.

For an out-of-towner, dinner in Kansas City required barbecue. Barbecue, in Jazz’s opinion, required Arthur Bryant’s, and by the time they were tucked into a booth around a Formica table, she was feeling pretty good about the choice. Not too romantic, barbecue. Not an inducement to imagine the other person naked. She didn’t even order beer, which was quite a sacrifice, and stuck to soft drinks with her ribs. After an initial reluctance, Borden dove into his dinner with abandon, smearing himself with sauce and grease and mumbling praises about the taste.

She only imagined licking him clean a few times.I really need to get out more,she thought sternly, but she was only a little bit embarrassed. He had that kind of mouth. It just … begged to be licked, especially when there were beads of Arthur Bryant sauce clinging to it.

She was feeling relaxed and confident and happy—happy!—when her cell phone rang.

“Sorry,” she said, and wiped her sticky fingers clean enough to scramble for the call. She didn’t immediately recognize the number. “Hello, Jazz Callender.” She had to stop her other ear to hear over the dull roar of the restaurant.

“Yeah, Callender?” An unfamiliar male voice, brisk and businesslike. “You’re listed on the notify sheet. There’s been an incident at Ellsworth. Inmate Benjamin McCarthy’s been the victim of a beating, and he’s going to be in the hospital wing for a couple of days. No immediate life-threatening injuries.”

She felt all of the happiness drain out of her, as if a plug had been pulled from the bottom of her soul. “What happened?” Her tone had changed, and her body language; she saw Borden straighten up and watch her, leaning forward.

“Unclear at the present time, ma’am.” In other words, they didn’t want to say. “We’re looking into it.”

She shut her eyes tight enough to see white stars. “Injuries?” She sounded just as businesslike as he did. “Be straight with me, sir. I’m his ex-partner. You know he used to be a cop.”