Rachel Caine - Red Letter Days 1 - Devils Bargain

Dear Reader,

What’s in your beach bag this season? August is heating up, and here at Bombshell we’ve got four

must-read stories to make your summer special.

Rising-star Rachel Caine brings you the first book in her RED LETTER DAYS miniseries, Devil’s

Bargain. An ex-cop makes a deal with an anonymous benefactor to start her own detective agency, but

there’s a catch—any case that arrives via red envelope must take priority. If it doesn’t, bad things

happen.…

Summer heats up in Africa when a park ranger intent on stopping poachers runs into a suspicious Texan

with an attitude to match her own, in Rare Breed by Connie Hall. Wynne Sperling wants to protect the

animals under her watch—will teaming up with this secretive stranger help her, or play into the hands of

her enemies?

A hunt for missing oil assets puts crime-fighting CPA Whitney “Pink” Pearl in the line of fire when the

money trail leads to a top secret CIA case, in She’s on the Money by Stephanie Feagan. With an

assassin on her tail and two men vying for her attention, Pink had better get her accounts in order.…

It takes true grit to make it in the elite world of FBI criminal profilers, and Angie David has what it takes.

But with her mentor looking over her shoulder and a serial killer intent on luring her to the dark side,

she’ll need a little something extra to make her case. Don’t miss The Profiler by Lori A. May!

Please send your comments to me c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY

10279.

Best wishes,

Natashya Wilson

Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Bombshell

Devil's Bargin

Rachel CAINE

Published by Silhouette Books

America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance

SILHOUETTE BOOKS

ISBN 1-55254-346-3

DEVIL’S BARGAIN

part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or here after invented,

including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is

forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New

York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation

whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any

individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ®

are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and

in other countries.

www.SilhouetteBombshell.com

RACHEL CAINE

was born at the ultrasecure White Sands Missile Range—site of the first atomic bomb tests—and has

kept that nontraditional attitude ever since. She’s been a professional musician, accountant, accident

investigator, Web designer and graphic artist…all at the same time. She currently works in corporate

public relations and maintains a full schedule of writing, with her successful Weather Warden series from

Roc entering its fourth book and nine other novels already in print. Visit her Web site at

www.rachelcaine.com.

For all my kick-ass girls.

You know who you are.

Everything you do matters.

Contents

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

COMING NEXT MONTH

Chapter 1

S ol’s Tavern was a place for serious drinkers.

It had no elegant decor, no pretty people sipping layered liqueurs. Sol’s had a bar, some battered stools,

a couple of slovenly waitresses, and a surly guy to pour drinks. There was a dartboard with Osama bin

Laden’s face pasted on it behind the bar, and for a dollar a throw, you could try your luck; the proceeds

went into a faded red-white-and-blue jar that promised—however doubtfully—to go to charity.

But the best thing about Sol’s, to Jazz Callender, was that it wasn’t a cop bar, and she wasn’t likely to

run into anyone she’d ever known.

Jazz pulled up a bar stool and set about her business, which was to get so drunk she couldn’t remember

where she’d been. She caught the bartender’s eye and nodded at the empty spot in front of her. Their

conversation consisted of a one-word order from her, a grunt from him, and the exchange of cash. Sol’s

wasn’t the kind of place where you ran a tab, either. Cash on the barrelhead, one drink at a time.

I could get to like this place, she thought. And knew it was a little sad.

As she leaned her elbows on the bar and picked up her Irish whiskey, Jazz scanned the bar’s patrons in

the mirror. She didn’t actually care who was there, but old habits were hard to break, this one harder

than most. The faces clicked into her memory, filed for later. A couple of unpleasant-looking truckers

with bodybuilding hobbies; a fat guy with a mean face who looked as if he might be trouble after a few

dozen drinks. He was drinking alone. There were two faded night-blooming women in low-cut blouses

and dyed hair, years etched as if by acid at the corners of their eyes and mouths.

Jazz was still young—thirty-four was young, wasn’t it?—but she still felt infinitely older than the rest of

them. Seen too much, done too much…she wasn’t going to attract a lot of attention, even from the

bottom-feeders in here. Especially not dressed in blue jeans, a shapeless gray sweatshirt with an NYU

logo, and clunky cop shoes left over from better days. Her hair needed cutting, and it kept falling in her

eyes. When she looked across at herself in the mirror she saw a wreck: pale, raccoon-eyed,

wheat-blond hair straggling like a mop.

Her eyes still looked green and sharp and haunted.

Sharp…that needed to change. Quickly.

She tossed back her first whiskey, clutched the edge of the bar tight against the burn, and made a silent

again gesture at her glass. The bartender made a silent pay me first reply. She slid over a crumpled five,

got a full shot glass of forgetfulness and slammed it back, too.

The door opened.

It was gray outside, turning into night, but even the glimmer of streetlights was blocked by the man

coming in. Tall, not broad. Her first thought was, trouble, but then it turned ridiculous, because this guy

wasn’t trouble, he was about to be in trouble. Over six feet and a little on the thin side, all sharp angles,

which would have been okay if he hadn’t come dressed in some self-consciously tough leather getup that

would have looked ridiculous on a Hell’s Angel. He didn’t have the face for it—lean and angular, yeah,

but with large, gentle brown eyes that scanned the bar skittishly and looked alarmed by what they saw.

His badass-biker leathers were so new they creaked.

Jazz resisted the urge to snort a laugh and repeated her pantomime with the bartender. Behind her, she

heard the squeak, squeak, squeak of the new guy’s leather as he walked up, and then he was climbing

onto a bar stool next to her.

“Love that new-car smell,” she told the bartender as he poured her a third shot. He gave her a cynical

half smile and took her five bucks. The fool did smell like a new car—also some kind of expensive

aftershave that reminded her of cinnamon and butter—very nice. So maybe he did have some sense after

all, biker leathers notwithstanding. Idiot. She imagined what kind of welcome he’d have gotten if he’d

walked into a bar like, say, O’Shaugnessey’s, over on Fourteenth, where the cops congregated. They’d

have probably directed him—with velocity—to the gay leather bar down the block.

Her comment hadn’t been any kind of invitation to talk, but the guy swiveled on his bar stool, held out a

big, long-fingered hand, and said, “Hi.”

She looked at the hand, which was well manicured, then glanced up into his face. His soulful brown eyes

widened just a little at the direct contact. Now that he was closer, she could see that he looked tired, and

older than she’d thought, probably close to her own age, with fine lived-in lines at the corners of his

eyelids. He had a nice, mobile mouth that looked as if it wanted to smile and didn’t actually dare to try

under the force of her stare.

Normally, she might have thrown him a break. Not today. And not in that getup.

She turned back to her drink. The whiskey was setting up a nice nuclear fire in her guts; pretty soon,

she’d start to feel relaxed, and after throwing a few more peat logs on, she’d start feeling positively good.

That was why she was here, after all. It was a private kind of ritual. One that didn’t involve making new

friends.

“I’m James Borden,” he said. “You’re Jasmine Callender, right?”

The hand was still out, holding steady. It occurred to her a half second later that he shouldn’t know her

name. Especially not Jasmine. Nobody called her Jasmine. She felt tension start to form in a steel-hard

cable along her back and shoulders.

“Says who?” she asked the mirror. No eye contact. He was staring at the side of her face, willing her to

turn around.

For a second, she thought he was going to answer the question, and then he reverted to a lame-ass

pickup line. “Can I buy you a drink?”

He shoots, he misses by a mile. “Got one.” She nudged her full glass with one long, blunt-nailed finger.

“Blow, James Borden.”

He leaned closer, into her personal space, and she smelled that aftershave again. The urge to move into

that warm, inviting scent was almost irresistible.

Almost.

“Jasmine—” he began.

She turned, stared him in the eyes, and said, “If you don’t want to get blood all over that nice new outfit,

you’d better back your biker-boy wannabe ass off, and don’t call me Jasmine, jerk.”

He leaned back, fast. His expression was one of shock for a second, then it shut down completely. His

eyelids dropped to half-staff, giving him a belligerent look. Good. He matched the leathers better that

way.

She held his gaze and said, “If you have to call me anything, call me Jazz.”

“Jazz.” He nodded. “Got it. Right. Like the—okay. I was sent to deliver something to you.”

And the cable along her spine ratcheted tighter, tight enough to crack bone. God. She wasn’t carrying a

gun, not even a pocketknife. Even her collapsible truncheon—a girl’s best friend—had been left on the

hall table at home. Great. Of all the nights to tempt fate…

He must have read it in her face, because he smiled. Smiled. And the smile matched the eyes, dark and

gentle and completely not right for a guy pretending to be a Hell’s Angel reject.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad,” he assured her. “In fact, I think you’ll find it pretty good. Not a

subpoena or anything.”

He started to unzip a pocket on his leather jacket. The zipper was stiff. As he tugged at it, she asked,

“How’d you find me?”

He didn’t look up. His head stayed down, but she saw tension accumulating in his shoulders for a

change. “Sorry…?”

“How’d…you…find…me.” She kept her voice cold and flat. “You follow me from home? You watching

my house?”

“Nothing like that,” Borden said. “I was told where to find you.”

She rejected that one out of hand. “I’ve never been here before, asshole. How could anybody tell you to

come here to find me?”

He conquered the pocket’s zipper and wrestled out a red envelope. “Here,” he said. “I’ll wait until you

read it.”

“Because?” She didn’t take the envelope.

“Because you’re going to have questions once you do.”

He gestured with the envelope again. Big, red, square, like a thousand Valentine cards she’d never gotten

over the years, but it was long past Valentine’s Day and she was in a far-from-romantic mood.

She let him hang there for a good thirty seconds, watching his outstretched hand slowly sag with

rejection, and thought, Well, what the hell, at least I can throw it back in his face if I actually take it.

She was reaching for it when Borden lowered the envelope and sat back, staring over her shoulder.

She felt alarms going off in the back of her head and risked a look. A shadow loomed behind her.

Two shadows, actually. Big ones.

The weight-lifting trucker twins had taken an interest.

“Ain’t that sweet?” one of them said in a high, girly voice. He was wearing Doc Martens boots, battered

blue jeans and a faded T-shirt that read Kinnison’s Feed & Supply. A three-day growth of straggly

beard. Watery eyes. “Faggot’s giving the lady a card.” He made wet kissy noises.

His buddy was a grimy Xerox copy, except his T-shirt read Highway to Hell and was ripped at the

sleeves to show off massive biceps. Tattoos, of course. You could never have too many of those. His

mostly involved thorns, blood drops and naked women. The AC/DC fan ambled around Jazz and

followed up his buddy’s comment with a shove to Borden’s shoulder. Borden rode the motion and slid

off the bar stool. He wasn’t a small guy, and he had good bones, but he wasn’t a fighter, Jazz could see

that at a glance.

“Hey!” Jazz said sharply, standing up, as well. “Back off, guys. I don’t want any trouble.”

“You don’t,” Borden said under his breath. “Right. What was I thinking?”

“Yo, leather boy, shove your cute little Valentine card up your ass, you’re bothering the lady,” said the

one whose T-shirt advertised Kinnison’s. He was the power of the two; Jazz knew that from a

half-second glance. He had intelligence in those narrow light eyes, and a kind of lazy satisfaction. This

was what he’d come here for, to find somebody to pound over a few drinks. She was just a convenient

excuse. Lady. Yeah, right. She looked the part.

Borden’s voice had gone dangerously soft, his eyes closed and dark again. “Is that right? Am I bothering

you, Jazz?”

“Woman like this don’t want no candy-ass butt boy,” Kinnison’s said over her shoulder to him. “Fine

piece of ass like this, she needs some real companionship.” He was deliberately staying behind her,

pressed close. His idea of courtship would be asking what kind of condom she’d like, flavored or ribbed.

If he was even that considerate.

“Funny,” Jazz said, and downed the last glass of whiskey she’d ever drink in Sol’s. “I started out a lady

and now I’m just a fine piece of ass, and you haven’t even bought me a drink yet.”

“Shut up, bitch, nobody’s talking to you,” AC/DC snarled, and put one hand the size of a canned ham on

Borden’s chest and shoved. Borden, who must have been seduced by all that over-the-counter

toughness he was wearing, shoved back.

Mistake.

“Stay out of it,” Jazz said, brisk and succinct, to Borden. She needn’t have bothered; Kinnison’s stepped

around her and landed a fat punch to Borden’s jaw.

Ouch. She heard the crack of bone on bone, and Borden staggered back, off balance.

“Hey!” she snapped. “Give the bitch some attention, why don’t you?”

Kinnison’s, pulling back for another punch, hesitated and turned back around to face her. Grinning with

unholy glee, he said, “Yeah, okay, baby, let’s play.”

He shot a sideways look at AC/DC, who went after Borden. No doubt in Jazz’s mind that he was

thinking he’d backhand her and put her in her place, then get on with the serious beat-down of his only

real opponent—the man.

She smiled. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Let’s play.”

She spun on the bar stool, clocked him with an elbow hard to his nose and felt the sharp crack of bone

and cartilage. She didn’t stop to let the pain register; she straightened her arm and muscled into a spin as

her feet hit the floor. Kinnison’s twisted away from her in a corkscrewing spiral, off balance, and as he

came around roaring, she sidestepped his rush, grabbed a handful of greasy hair and slammed his

forehead into the tough oak bar. Twice.

When she let go, he slithered limply down to the floor. It had taken all of about two seconds, and he was

bloody and utterly unconscious.

Borden was just now gaining his balance, shaking off the punch and staring at her as if he’d never seen

her before. Tactical error, because it gave AC/DC the opportunity to pound a fist straight into his gut,

double him over and send him flying at the far wall, hard. AC/DC followed him, wading in with lethally

steel-toed Doc Martens to the ribs.

Jazz, blood already pounding red-hot, didn’t hesitate. She left Kinnison’s limp body and leaped over a

fallen chair, landed flat-footed as a cat in front of AC/DC. He yelled something obscene in her face; she

didn’t even note the words, just the reek of bad breath, bad teeth and alcohol.

Watch him. Watch…

He rushed her like a charging bear. She swept out of his way and left him to trip over the fallen chair, but

he was fast, faster than she’d thought and not nearly as drunk as she’d hoped. He swerved. Before she

could turn she was engulfed by his brutally strong arms, rippling with thorn tats and overendowed girls.

Borden, down on the floor, coughed out a mouthful of blood and tried to get up.

“Stay down,” she said. Weird, how calm her voice could sound at times like these. She might have been

asking him to pass the salt. “I’ll be done in a second.”

AC/DC’s breath pistoned her ear, and she felt the suggestive grind of his hips against her.

“In your dreams, asshole,” she said, and simply let her knees go, dragging him over. When his center of

gravity was higher than hers she flowed forward, then quickly reversed, whipping his own momentum

against him into a shoulder roll. He grabbed a handful of her hair on the way over, and she ended up on

his back. He flailed and bucked, trying to throw her off, but she had her arm around his neck and she

applied pressure, cutting off blood flow until his body went slack.

And then she kept on holding the pressure, fury mounting. Stop it, you’ll kill him, something told her, but

it was a small voice, and she wasn’t really in the mood to listen anyway.

She kept choking him until a baseball bat slammed splinters out of the wood floor right next to her.

She looked up to see the bartender/owner—Sol himself?—his face purple with fury, pull back for a

straight-for-the-bleachers swing at her head. She let go and held up her hands. He didn’t lower the bat as

she got to her feet.

“Cops are on the way,” he said, which was the longest speech she’d heard from him yet. “Take your

boyfriend and get the hell out. Don’t come back.”

Jazz fought off an adrenaline-hot wave of dizziness and went to where Borden sat crumpled against the

wall. He was probing his bleeding mouth and looking dazed. She grabbed a leather-clad elbow and

dragged him to his feet.

“Let’s go,” she said, and guided him toward the door. He yanked free after a couple of steps and

staggered back for something.

The red envelope, lying on the floor.

He tucked it into his jacket and followed her out, stumbling over the two prone bodies.

Outside, the night was cool and quiet, stars shining in a cloudless sky. A blurry bass beat thumped from a

dance club down the street, and the sidewalk was thick with teenagers trying to look sullen while they

waited their turn at the red velvet rope. Jazz turned left, heading uptown. Borden caught up with her in a

couple of long-legged, stumbling steps. He was wiping blood from his face with a clean white

handkerchief.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your lip…”

“It’s nothing,” Jazz said, and tasted blood. She dabbed at the cut on her lip and couldn’t remember when

she’d picked it up. “How about you? No broken bones?”

“Bruised ego. Among other things.”

“You know, the tough-guy act? Really not all that convincing.” She stepped out to wave down a cab, but

it sped up and passed her by. Maybe the problem was the ad for Armor All lurking next to her. He really

did look like he’d been whomped pretty good. She muttered a curse and took the handkerchief away

from his face to inspect him with merciless authority. “You’ll live. You’ll have a nice shiner, though. And

you should see a dentist, he popped you in the mouth pretty good. What about the ribs?”

He winced when she probed them, but they didn’t feel broken. Just bruised, probably. She pulled up his

shirt to see bruises forming across smooth, trembling lines of muscle. His skin felt flushed and velvet soft.

“Hey!” He smacked her hands away. “I’m all right.”

“You were lucky,” she said, unapologetic. “If you’ve got a perforated lung, fine, go aspirate blood in

peace. And don’t bother me anymore. Thanks for ruining my night. I was starting to like that bar.”

She hailed another cab, but it passed her by. Probably a bad block. She decided to keep walking, put

some more distance between herself and Sol’s. Any cop with half a brain would be able to pick Borden

out of a crowd from a description, wearing that stupid Harley ensemble.

Speaking of which, Borden wasn’t going away. As she started walking again, he fell in behind her, her

own personal black-leather shadow.

“Stop following me.”

“I can’t.”

“Trust me, you can. Just quit putting one foot in front of the other.”

He kept following. She walked faster. That wasn’t an issue for him, considering the length of his legs. She

rounded on him after another half a block, fists clenched, knuckles wincing at the pressure. “Are you

deaf? Get lost, idiot! I know you speak English!”

His nose was still bleeding, but only a trickle. He wiped it absently and held out the envelope. “Take it.”

“Oh, Jesus!” she yelled, out of patience, then grabbed it and waved him off. “Fine, whatever.”

He didn’t move.

“Oh, for God’s sake—look, you’ve done your duty, I’ve got it, whatever the hell it is, now would you

please just—”

“Open it,” he said again, and this time he sounded like he meant it. “I’m not going anywhere until you

do.”

She eyed him for a few seconds. His gel-spiked hair really was stupid, but the leather might have looked

halfway decent on somebody it suited; he’d probably bought it because he’d been spooked at the

prospect of coming to the bad side of town and trolling tough streets. Leather had probably seemed like

a smart choice. And hell, it had probably kept his ribs from breaking, so maybe he’d been right after all.

“Lose the jacket,” she said, and turned and walked away. She heard the sound of metal zippers and

jingling chains, and glanced over her shoulder to see that he’d taken off the jacket and had it draped over

one shoulder. A black stretch shirt, black leather pants…yeah, that was all right. Maybe the leather pants

were little more than just all right, not that she’d ever admit it.

“I mean it,” she said. “Lose the jacket. Dump it, unless you want us both to get picked up for assault.”

She pointed at an alley, where a homeless guy lay rolled up in newspaper.

Borden stared at her. “You’re not serious.”

“You want to talk to me, get rid of the thing. The cops will be all over us if you drag it around.”

“Do you know how much this thing cost?”

“Don’t care.” She resorted to flattery. “You look better without it.”

He hesitated, then walked over and handed it to the homeless guy, who clutched it in utter shock and

hurried off into the shadows, probably intent on selling it, because he knew he’d never be able to hang on

to it on the streets. Jazz wished him the best deal, a warm bed and the rest of the Irish whiskey she knew

she wouldn’t get to drink, at least tonight.

She wished Borden would move closer so that she could lose herself in that smell again, warm and

cinnamon-soft. The tide of adrenaline was dropping, and it left her feeling weak and shaky.

The paper felt stiff and warm in her hand.

Borden silently trailed her as she took a right turn at the corner, up Commerce, and headed for a

Starbucks half a block up. He’d look all right in a Starbucks, she wouldn’t look wrong, and nobody

looked for fugitives among the latte-and-mocha set.

The place was packed, full of chatting couples and groups of friends and a few dedicated, lonely laptop

users looking pale and focused in the glow of their screens. She pointed Borden to a side table, near the

corner, and ordered two plain coffees from the barista. He’d probably prefer a soy half-caff

mocha-something, but that wasn’t her problem, and she wasn’t that committed to the conversation. Even

the regular coffee cost an arm and a leg, and she hardly had a lot of money to burn, considering her state

of unemployment didn’t look likely to end soon.

Besides, since she couldn’t go back to Sol’s, she’d have to save her booze allowance for a more

expensive bar.

Settled at the table, drinking hot strong coffee and feeling the whiskey start to retreat from the field, she

turned the envelope over and over in her hands. Plain block printing on the outside read “Jasmine

Callender.” She didn’t recognize the hand, and held it up to Borden. “You write this?”

He shook his head.

“You know what’s in here?”

“Nothing that will blow up or infect you,” he said. He sounded tired. Adrenaline fading. She knew the

feeling. “Hey, by the way, thank you. But I could’ve—”

“Taken care of them? Yeah, I know.” Male ego stroking. She was an expert on the subject, after years

with McCarthy…no, she wasn’t going to think about McCarthy. She didn’t take her eyes off the

envelope. If she’d still been on the Job, she’d have bagged it and dusted it for prints, but there was no

point. She no longer had access to those kinds of toys. “Who gave this to you?”

“My boss.”

“Who is…?”

Borden sighed and sipped his coffee. He made a face—she’d been dead right about his

Rachel Caine - Red Letter Days 1 - Devils Bargain

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