Street Magic

who'd loved Jack the moment she saw him sing. "No," Pete said, jerking the bag out of Jack's hands. "No, Jack, we're going to have a word."
    He snatched for it. "Give that back," he warned.
    "You want this?" Pete told him, holding his sharps and drugs just out of reach. "Then you talk with me."
    Jack swiped at her once more and then sat down hard, glaring. "Fuckin' hell. When did you become a raging bitch?"
    Pete straightened and crumpled the bag between her fists. "I don't know, Jack, but I think it was right around the time I watched you die."
    Jack threw an arm back across his face. "Did you come here merely to grasp at my balls, or was there something you wanted?"
    "Tell me how you knew about Bridget Killigan," said Pete. "Right now, I'm trying to believe you had nothing to do with snatching and blinding the poor girl, but it's becoming very hard, Jack."
    Jack grunted and Pete thumped him on the arm with her closed fist. "Tell me."
    He opened his eyes and met hers, and Pete was swept away again as quickly as she'd been at sixteen.
Damn you, Jack Winter
. She bit her lower lip to keep her face expressionless.
    "It's a simple thing, luv," said Jack. "Magic."
    And God, she wanted to believe him.
Would
have, before. Even pale and scraped as his face was now, he was still Jack. And he was still feeding her lies because he thought her stupid.
    "You're a bastard," she whispered, jerking her hand away. Didn't matter that she wanted him not to be taking the piss, to be telling what he at least thought was the truth.
    "Takes one to know one," said Jack shortly, rolling over on his side and facing away. Pete cocked her arm and flung the plastic bag. It burst, scattering the contents across the filmy floor.
    "Oi!" Jack shouted, scrambling after the needles as they clattered away.
    "The person who blinded that little girl is going to get away with it because you're a git. Go to hell," Pete hissed.
    Jack stood, crossing the space between them, his expression going hard quickly as a flick-knife appears. "Look around you, Pete," he grated, gripping her arm. "We're
in
. hell."
    A human-sized lump on the mattress next to Jack's stirred. "Shaddup. 'M trying to sleep."
    Pete bored into Jack, hoping her gaze scorched him. "Let go of me."
    His mouth twisted. "Did that a dozen years ago." He left her and went back to his mattress.
    Pete backed out of the room and half fell down the shadowed stairs to the front door, sucking in cold, clean outside air as she leaned against the Mini. She didn't know why Jack was angry, but it didn't matter, did it? He was still the same charlatan, still using smoke and tricks up his sleeves to avoid the realities of the world. Pete dug her knuckles into her eyes until her tears retreated.
    I will not think of him. I will not gift him my tears. I will not let Jack Winter touch me.

----
Chapter Seven

    Scotland Yard flowed around Pete, shuffling papers and ringing phones, inspectors each wrapped in a cocoon of worry and mystery, weighted by their unsolved cases.
    Pete sat at the double desk she shared with Ollie, hands pressed over her eyes. They felt of sandpaper, as if tiny grains made up the inside of her eyeballs.
    Fuck, she wanted a cigarette.
    "DCI Newell wants to see you." Ollie touched her shoulder, and Pete jerked. Every time she got close to Jack she came away jumpy and displaced.
    She wanted to believe him, that was the problem. He'd let the word roll so indolently out.
Magic
.
    The hiss of
knowing
pressed on Pete's mind, begging her to admit that it was as likely an explanation as any, but she wouldn't allow herself to think of it. Connor's voice, his strong hands gripping her shoulders.
You listen and you listen good, girl. There ain't no such thing as what you say Winter did
.
    There ain't no such thing as magic.
    "Thanks, Ollie." Pete sighed.
    "You look like shite, still," said Ollie bluntly, settling his comfortable bulk into his chair and rattling a used copy of the
Times
.
    "Love you, too, Ollie." Pete shoved her chair back. Chief Inspector Newell would have all manner of questions about the Killigan case, and Pete deflected them the only way she knew how—she came into Newell's office on the offensive.
    "No, I don't know how she got there or who took her. She hasn't spoken. For God's sake, Nigel, she's been blinded."
    Nigel Newell blinked twice at Pete. "Thank you for that succinct update, DI Caldecott. However, I called you in on another matter."
    Pete drew in a breath, wishing