In Pursuit Of Justice

In Pursuit of Justice

Detective Sergeant Rebecca Frye and Doctor Catherine Rawlings return in the sequel to Shield of Justice. Barely recovered from a near fatal injury, Rebecca insists on returning to duty even if it means temporary assignment to a Federal task force led by a Justice agent with an agenda which may be more than meets the eye. Joined by a troubled young rookie and an enigmatic computer consultant with secrets of her own, Rebecca’s obsession with finding her partner’s killer and her involvement in the multijurisdictional investigation of an international child pornography ring threaten both her life and her new relationship with Catherine. Even Catherine’s professional assistance and personal devotion may not be enough to save their love.

CHAPTER ONE

EVERYTHING HURT. HER jawed throbbed where he had struck her; her wrists chafed beneath the rough nylon cord that bound them tightly behind her back; and her breasts, exposed in the chill damp air, ached. The cavernous room was alive with shifting shadows, turning her fear to horror. His hands were rough on her body, holding her down, invading her, violating her. Helpless, she screamed silently, casting into the dark for salvation.

Please, please help me.

And then a voice—strong and certain and sure—calling her name. A woman, blazing with strength and purpose, stepped from a darkness deeper than night to light the corners of her terror.

She’s here. I prayed for her, and she heard me. She came.

With the cold circle of death pressed to her temple, she realized her mistake. Dread followed quickly on the heels of relief. Desperately, she shouted a warning that made no sound. She begged not for her own life, but for that of the woman she had summoned.

No, no! I didn’t mean it. Don’t come here. He’ll kill you. I’m sorry. Oh god, don’t do this.

A thundering explosion, deafening her. A searing trail of fire dazzling her vision, blinding her. A thick red wash against her cheek; all that remained of her tormentor was his blood on her face and the hole in her heart.

Not my heart, her heart—oh, my heart, don’t leave me like this.

Stumbling, falling, her breath tearing from her chest in slivers of pain, she forced herself to look upon her own soul dying. There on the floor in the flickering candlelight, all her hopes dissolved in a river of crimson, flowing past her hands with inexorable force. Relentless, pitiless, victorious death. The stakes had been set; the trade had been made-one life for another. She had been spared, and in the sparing, had lost everything. She would live, empty and forsaken. Guilt did not do justice to the agony of remorse she suffered for having called this one woman to her destruction.

On her knees, her neck arched as if pleading to be sacrificed, to be taken instead, to be freed from the torment, she screamed.

“Catherine.”

Cold, she was so cold. Drowning under the agony of loss and self-recrimination. So dark, no air… “No…”

“Catherine, it’s all right.”

“Oh my God.” Dr. Catherine Rawlings shot upright in bed-gasping, sweat soaked, and disoriented. Frantically, she turned to the woman beside her, her hands roaming over the naked figure, feeling the solid heat of her. Alive, she’s alive. Finding her voice, she whispered hoarsely, “I’m sorry.”

“No.” Rebecca Frye pulled the trembling woman into her arms, stroking the damp wisps of auburn hair back from her cheek. “Don’t apologize. Let me comfort you, just this once.”

“You do.”

“Not often enough.”

“Having you next to me is all the comfort I need.”

“Well, let me believe I’m slaying your dragons. It makes me feel important.”

“Oh, you are that.” Catherine shivered, the image of Rebecca lying in a pool of blood chiseled indelibly on the tablets of her memory. She didn’t need to be asleep to revisit that moment. Every time she looked at the tall, blond detective, she saw her seconds from death, having willingly sacrificed herself for Catherine. Those first few weeks after the shooting, she had shrugged off the swift rise of terror and dread that so often took her unawares-sometimes when she was awake, more often when she slept-and left her shaking. With Rebecca in the hospital, she’d had enough to occupy her thoughts that she managed to ignore her own sleepless nights and anxious days. But Rebecca had been out of the hospital for two weeks, and the episodes were getting more frequent, and more terrifying. Smoothing her hand down Rebecca’s chest, lingering for a heartbeat on the thick scar tissue above her left breast, she murmured, “You’re very important. Without you I’d never get that great table at DeCarlo’s.”

“We’ll go tomorrow then.”

“Rebecca-“

“It’ll be fine. It’s just dinner. Besides, I’m ready for a night out,” Rebecca murmured, running her hand along the curve of Catherine’s side until she cradled her breast in her palm. “I’m going stir crazy-for a lot of reasons.”

“I know, but it’s too…oh…” She caught her breath at the sharp point of pleasure that sparked from her nipple through her stomach as fingers closed hard on her breast. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Rebecca whispered, her mouth on Catherine’s neck, tasting the salt, reveling in the pulse of blood beneath her lips. “I’ve missed you this way.”

“You’re still recovering,” Catherine gasped. You’re not healed. You’re still too thin; you’re still so pale. Oh my god, don’t do that. I want you so much. I was so afraid.

Catherine’s hips lifted beneath her fingers, and Rebecca Frye smiled. “I’ll be very still-just let me touch you. It won’t hurt me.” Shifting lower, she found a nipple with her teeth. Biting lightly, she slid her hand between Catherine’s thighs, hovering a whisper above her, her palm warmed by her heat. “But I want you so much. Please.”

“Yes. Oh yes.” Catherine relented, because she needed so desperately to feel Rebecca, to know in her bones that she was safe, to extinguish the fear that consumed her with the flames of passion, of life. “Touch me, Rebecca, make me…”

She choked, unable to speak, as Rebecca’s fingers danced lightly over her straining flesh, stroking her fleetingly, dipping into the shimmering depths of her desire to spreading liquid fire over her painfully engorged tissues. Turning her cheek to her lover’s chest, she closed her eyes, struggling to contain the roar of release that thundered demandingly through her blood. Trembling, she filled her hands with Rebecca’s body, fingers digging into her arms, needing to be connected to her-everywhere. Only the tiny fragment of her mind still functioning kept her from pushing her hand between her lover’s thighs to claim her, too. But she resisted with the last fiber of her strength, rocking against the fingers that tormented her. Too soon…too soon…oh I’m coming too soon…

“Yess…” Rebecca held back as long as she could, listening to the cadence of Catherine’s breathing, feeling her heart hammering against her own chest, sensing the tightening of muscles deep inside. When the woman in her arms went rigid, a strangled cry escaping her throat, Rebecca slid into her, filling her completely in one swift sure motion. Muscles clenched, then spasmed and Catherine arched, shouting in surprise, before finally convulsing in sweet, sweet surrender. Rebecca Frye closed her eyes and, secure in her lover’s embrace, rode the crest of passion like a conquering hero. Never, never had she felt more alive.

“What time is it?”

Rebecca rolled over and peered at the digital clock. “Almost six-thirty.”

“Ugh,” Catherine groaned, pushing back the covers to get up. “Thank god it’s Friday. Ohh…I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Wait a minute,” Rebecca said quietly, pulling her back down. When Catherine moved against her with a sigh, she settled onto her back with her arms around the still drowsy woman. “So. Tell me about the nightmare.”

“It was nothing. Just a dream.”

“The third one this week?”

Catherine traced her fingers along Rebecca’s ribs, down her abdomen, remembering what it was like to make those muscles flicker with urgency when they made love. What if they never… She came back to herself with a start. “It’s a bit of stress. Nothing to worry about.”

“Because of me?” Rebecca insisted, tightening her hold. “Something I did?”

“No,” Catherine assured her quickly. It was hardly your fault…

“Is it Blake?”

Catherine’s stomach turned over. She should have realized that Rebecca was much too astute not to make the connection, although she doubted the detective realized exactly what about that night tormented her. For Rebecca, the idea of sacrificing herself in the line of duty was a simple reality of her life. “It scared me, almost losing you.” At least that part was true. So terribly, terribly true.

“Listen, I know you’ve had to take care of me the last couple of weeks, but I’m fine now. Everything is back to normal-at least it will be as soon as I pass the physical, qualify with my weapon again, and jump through hoops for the shrink…uh… Sorry. But you know what I mean.”

“Yes,” Catherine laughed finally, loving the certainty in her voice. “I know what you mean. And you should remember that I am a psychiatrist. So believe me when I tell you there’s nothing to worry about.”

Rebecca pushed up against the pillows until she was sitting and looked into her lover’s eyes. “I’m still going to worry until those circles under your eyes go away.”

“Well, then, just concentrate on getting well.”

“That’s exactly what I intend to do. Starting today.”

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“When you call me for a session, I know it’s important,” Hazel Holcomb replied, indicating the two overstuffed chairs flanking a low coffee table. The furniture was arranged upon a thick oriental in front of a stone fireplace; the walls on either side were lined with floor to ceiling bookcases and a large antique mahogany desk sat before bay windows that looked out on a well-tended flower garden. It was a functional but decidedly comfortable space. “Sit down. Do you want coffee or…let me see, I think I have some soda.”

“No, I’m fine. I’ve been drinking coffee all day.”

“You look tired, Catherine,” the chief of psychiatry said kindly, thinking to herself that the woman across from her looked more than tired. She’d lost weight, there were new stress lines around her green eyes, and a few more wisps of early gray in her hair. “Even considering the fact that it is Friday night, and with your clinical load, you have every right to be weary.”

“I am. That’s why I’m here, in part.”

“From the beginning, then,” Hazel urged, settling back and looking for all the world as if she had nothing better to do than to listen to her younger colleague indefinitely.

“I’m not sleeping.” They were in Hazel’s private home office, and the warm comfortable atmosphere was a welcome relief from the too bright, too impersonal spaces of the university clinic. Still, Catherine found it difficult to relax as she leaned forward, her clasped hands on her knees, her fingers intertwined to hide the faint tremor. “I think I have post-“

“Let’s wait before we worry about the diagnosis, shall we? Just tell me what’s happening.”

“Of course.” Catherine smiled ruefully and ran a hand through her collar-length auburn hair, then regarded her friend and mentor apologetically. At sixty Hazel was fit and vigorous, her quick blue eyes catching every nuance of expression, and allowing nothing of consequence to pass without comment. “Is there anything worse than a physician as a patient?”

“Not many I can think of right off hand.”

“This is hard…”

“Being a psychiatrist doesn’t make it any easier. That’s for television programs. Maybe I can help. This isn’t about work, I take it? You would have come to the cafeteria for that.”

Catherine smiled. When she needed a curbside consult, or just assurance that she was following the right clinical course in a difficult case, she sought out Hazel’s advice during her chief’s morning ritual of coffee and Danish in the hospital cafeteria. “No. It’s not work. It’s the shooting.”

“What about the shooting?”

“My…part in it.”

Hazel regarded her steadily. “What part was that?”

“I insisted on going to meet him,” Catherine said slowly, looking beyond Hazel’s face into the past. “Rebecca didn’t want me to go, practically begged me not to get involved. But I wanted to. I wanted to. I thought I could stop him.” She brought tormented eyes to meet Hazel’s. “My arrogance almost got her killed.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Hazel asked, choosing not to comment but to let her talk. She had known Catherine since the younger psychiatrist was a resident, and she considered them friends as well as colleagues. What Catherine needed was for her to listen, not to point out the obvious fallacy in her reasoning. Reason carried very little weight where the emotions were concerned.

“I dream,” Catherine replied, her voice choked. “I…feel him. He’s hurting me, and I want her to come. I want her to make him stop. I want her to kill him.”

“Go on.”

“She comes for me, and I’m so glad. And then he shoots, and she’s bleeding, there’s so much blood…oh god, there’s so much blood…”

Catherine pushed back in her chair, as if pushing away the images, breathing rapidly, struggling to erase the vivid memories. “It was my fault.”

“No, Catherine,” Hazel said firmly. “It was the fault of the man who pulled the trigger, and I suspect you know that. I’ll wager that’s not much help, though, is it?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“I know. We’re going to need more time than we have tonight to talk about why you feel that you’re to blame. What I’m more interested in right now is a quick fix so you can get some rest.”

Catherine smiled. “Such heresy.”

“Fortunately, no one will ever know,” she replied with a grin. “How do you feel about medication?”

“I’d rather hold off for now,” Catherine responded. “I was hoping it would be better when she was better. But it isn’t. It’s worse.”

“How is she?”

“Recovering well. Chomping at the bit to get back to work.”

“She intends to resume active duty?” Hazel asked noncommittally, watching Catherine carefully.

“Yes. The minute she’s able.”

“And there’s no possibility she would change her mind…if you asked?”

“No, and I couldn’t ask her. She loves being a cop. It’s more than a job; it’s who she is.”

“So, she’ll be on the streets again soon.”

“Yes.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

Catherine stared at her. Finally she admitted, “It terrifies me.”

“I should think it would. I don’t need to tell you about the fear that every partner of someone in a life-threatening occupation lives with on a daily basis. And you have not only that general anxiety to contend with, you have the actual experience of witnessing her almost die in the course of doing her job.” She shrugged. “You need to give yourself a break.”

“That’s it? That’s your medical opinion?” Despite herself, she was smiling.

“In a nutshell, yes. That and the fact that you need to see me on a regular schedule for the time being. If your detective intends to go back to work, I suspect there’ll be some things you need to sort out.”

“I know,” Catherine said quietly. If she and Rebecca were to have any future together, she would have to accept the fact that every time Rebecca walked out the door, it might be for the last time. She would have to learn to say goodbye, and she wasn’t at all sure that she could.

CHAPTER TWO

CATHERINE WATCHED REBECCA pack with a sense of loss. It had taken her by surprise when after breakfast that morning Rebecca had announced that it was time for her to move back to her own apartment, before “the super rents it out from under me.” That excuse was so thin Catherine could practically see it hanging in the air between them like a curtain of smoke. The news shouldn’t have been unanticipated, because in the last week the detective had improved dramatically; nevertheless, Catherine’s first response had been one of disappointment. It was an occupational hazard to ask herself why, especially when she was elated to see her recovering so quickly, and as she leaned against the dresser watching Rebecca carefully fold jeans and T-shirts into a duffle, she struggled for perspective.

Too many conflicting emotions, that’s all it is. Things will settle down in a week or two. As soon as I get used to the fact that she’s all right, I won’t feel as if my world is teetering on the brink of disaster . She jumped as the sound of the bag’s zipper rasping closed cut sharply through the silence, a knife severing ties with heartless finality. “I’ll miss you.”

Surprised, Rebecca looked up, a crease between her brows. “I’m not planning on going anywhere. But I can’t stay here any longer.”

Why not? But Catherine knew why not. Her heart might not, but her head did. Too soon. We’ve spent most of our time together in crisis mode, and that kind of intensity can push things too quickly. We need time to know one another better. There are far too many secrets still to tell .

“I don’t want us to end up practically living together by accident,” Rebecca continued, placing her bag by the bedroom door. You might discover you’ve made a mistake. You might decide I’m not relationship material, just like the others did when they spent enough time with me. She slipped on a dark gray blended silk blazer and automatically reached under the left side to adjust her shoulder holster. Of course it wasn’t there, and wouldn’t be until she was no longer on medical leave and had re-qualified on the range. Some rule from the City Council about preventing impaired police officers from having access to service weapons. Impaired. Its absence was a constant reminder that she was not herself. At least they hadn’t taken her shield. The weight of the slim leather case in the inner pocket was some comfort; small comfort perhaps, but a reassurance that she would be whole again. And soon. Today I start getting my life back. “Especially not because you were taking care of me.”

“I was hardly taking care of you. You barely tolerated me cooking dinner every night without trying to do the dishes before you could even stand upright. I don’t consider grocery shopping and a few loads of laundry a hardship. Skilled nursing it was not.” Smiling to herself, Catherine thought about the two weeks she had taken off to spend with Rebecca after her discharge form the hospital and realized that they were two of the most relaxing weeks she’d had in months. Vacations had become a rarity for her between trying to juggle private practice with her university teaching responsibilities. They’d watched a dozen movies on DVD, discovered that they shared a passion for screwball comedies, and managed to actually complete the Sunday Times crossword puzzle together—a first time for them both. Solitary and private by nature, she had never shared that much of her life with anyone before, other than her parents, and that had been far in the past. It had been surprisingly easy. “Besides, I liked it.”

“So did I,” Rebecca said softly, quickly crossing the bedroom to her side. She lifted Catherine’s chin in her palm, searching her eyes. “I like a whole lot of things about being with you—having dinner with you, unwinding with you, and especially being there when you wake up.” She blew out a breath, searching for the words to explain that she didn’t want to build a relationship on the foundation of her own weakness. Finally she said, “When things are back to normal, I’ll feel like I deserve you.”

“What makes you think you don’t already?” Catherine asked, knowing even as she spoke the words that Rebecca would only feel worthwhile if she were also a cop. “There isn’t some test you have to pass with me, Rebecca. You don’t have to qualify at anything to be cared about.”

“I’m no good to anyone like this,” Rebecca said in frustration. “I can barely carry my own suitcase!” Unconsciously, she’d taken a step back, putting distance between them. You’ve only seen me when I was hurting, or hurt. First Jeff’s death and then this. I need to be able to give you something. I want to feel like I deserve you, whether you think it matters or not.

“It hasn’t even been six weeks. You just need a little more time.”

“Yeah, well,” she said as she reached for her duffle, “it’s time for me to get back to doing what I should be doing.”

“Meaning what, Rebecca?” Catherine asked, her voice rising sharply. “Putting yourself in the line of fire before you’re even healed from the last gunshot wound?”

“What?” Rebecca stopped dead, staring at her, completely perplexed. “You don’t think what happened is normal, do you? It’s a one in a million thing. Most police officers never even have to draw their weapons in the line of duty their entire careers.”

“I don’t care if it’s one in a million when it’s you,” Catherine replied softly, unable to keep the tears from her voice. “You’re the only one I care about.”

Rebecca’s frustration at her own sense of helplessness disappeared in the face of Catherine’s clear distress. “Hey,” she said gently, walking quickly to her side and slipping her arms around her waist. “Are we fighting?”

“No,” Catherine sighed, leaning her cheek against Rebecca’s chest. “We’re obsessing.”

“Uh-uh…cops don’t obsess. We just act.” There was a playful tone in her voice, but on some very basic level she meant it. What she did, she did by instinct and reflex. Part of it was training and part of it was just her. When you stopped to think, you got yourself—or someone else—killed. Unfortunately, it probably wasn’t the best approach to relationships, but it had never mattered so much before. “Cops don’t go in too much for self-analysis. Nothing worse than second guessing yourself out on the street.”

Catherine snorted. “Don’t think I haven’t heard that before—from every cop I’ve ever talked to.”

“Well then, see? It must be true.”

“Detective?”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up.” And then Catherine kissed her, forgetting for the moment that her detective was still healing, and forgetting that she was worried about her safety, and even forgetting that she was angry, so angry, at her for risking her life with no thought to how Catherine would survive the loss. She kissed her hard, enjoying the feel of those familiar arms tightening around her, thighs pressing close, hands claiming flesh. She kissed her until her own breath fled and her trembling legs threatened to desert her. “Much better,” she finally murmured.

“Yeah. I’ll pick you up at seven for dinner,” Rebecca said, her voice low and throaty. Another minute of that and she could forget the gym, because she wouldn’t be able to walk.

“Yes.”

As the door closed behind her, Catherine listened to her footsteps fade to silence. A silence so deep she thought she might drown in it.

“Well, well, well—will you just look at what’s arrived to brighten the mornin’,” a voice bearing a hint of Ireland crooned in her ear. “And lookin’ mighty fine as ever.”

Rebecca finished the upward motion of her arms, deposited the barbell on the cleats, and turned her head on the slant board to eye the redhead kneeling by her side. Sparkling sea foam eyes, faintly frizzy shoulder-length hair pulled back in a haphazard pony-tail, a dusting of freckles across pale skin. And a smile to light the darkest night. “Flanagan know you’re loose?”

“Oh, no,” Maggie Collins, the senior crime scene technician whispered conspiratorially. “The general is mighty busy combing through a raccoon coat with a magnifying glass lookin’ for dandruff and what not. She didn’t see me sneakin’ away on my lunch break.”

“She gives you a lunch break now?” Rebecca asked, sitting up on the end of the weight bench and toweling off. Her navy blue T-shirt with the police logo on the left chest was soaked through as were her sweatpants, and she’d only been working out for fifteen minutes.

“Aye. Something about human rights requirements in the workplace.”

“Huh. Amazing. What’s she trying to find—DNA from the shed scalp skin?”

“That or from a hair follicle that isn’t too desiccated to type.” Maggie offered the detective her unopened plastic bottle of water. Frye was shaking, and she looked like she’d dropped twenty pounds off a frame that had always been lean. Her blue eyes were still the same, though—sparkling chips of ice, hard and penetrating. If anything she looked more austerely handsome than before her injury, but Maggie sensed she was hurting. “Here—it won’t be doin’ you any good to get dehydrated before you’ve had a decent workout.”

“Thanks.” Rebecca took a long pull before asking, “What’s new in the Body Shop?” She was referring to the Crime Scene Investigations unit, or CSI, which was headed by Dee Flanagan, Maggie’s lover. It was actually more than just the morgue, which, strictly speaking, was the purview of the medical examiner, but rather an extensive evidence analysis lab that examined all physical material collected from a crime scene and the bodies involved. What Flanagan and her techs turned up was often instrumental in pointing the detectives in the right direction to solve a crime and virtually essential for proving a case in court.

“Oh, every day it’s a surprise. People keep inventin’ new and different ways to kill themselves and others. We’ve been missin’ your company, though.”

“Oh, I’ll bet.” Rebecca laughed. Dee Flanagan made it no secret that she didn’t like cops in her lab—“bothering her techs and messing with evidence,” so she scathingly remarked, and she suffered their presence with very little patience.

“No,” Maggie said softly, smiling a fond smile that Rebecca had seen before when Dee was the topic of conversation. “You she’s been missin’.”

“I’ll stop down in a day or two. As soon as I get back to work.”

“You’re comin’ back soon, then?” Maggie tried to hide her surprise. Many officers injured a lot less severely than Rebecca took advantage of the disability premiums for as long as possible. But then she should have known that Frye wouldn’t be one to sit at home. Goin’ crazy, probably.

“I’m seeing Captain Henry first thing Monday morning.”

“Well then, you’d best get back to pumpin’ that iron. You need a spot?”

“No. I’m not pushing. Just easing back in.” In truth, she’d been about to quit when Maggie’d come along. Her chest was on fire and even though she’d reduced her usual weights by half, she’d been struggling. What worried her the most, though, was how short of breath she got after ten minutes on the treadmill. Although the doctor’s had assured her that her lung, collapsed by the bullet that had entered between her third and fourth ribs an inch above her heart, had not sustained any permanent damage, it felt like something wasn’t working right. If she couldn’t run, she couldn’t work. “I’m doing okay.”

“Right,” Maggie agreed. “Good to see you back, Rebecca.”

Yes. It will be good to get back. All the way back . When she went into the locker room to shower, despite the pain and the fatigue, she felt more like herself than she had since the moment she’d come to in a sea of agony to find Catherine bending over her, terror in her eyes. All she needed now was to convince everyone else that she was fit for duty. She had a lot of unfinished business to attend to, and she couldn’t begin to take care of it until she had reclaimed her place in the world.

CHAPTER THREE

“IS SOMETHING WRONG?” Rebecca asked quietly. They were seated at a small candlelit table in the nook formed by floor to ceiling bay windows in DeCarlo’s, a very exclusive restaurant that occupied the ground floor of a century old mansion. A bottle of imported champagne sat chilling in a silver ice bucket beside them and the appetizers—grilled figs and sweet sausages—had just been placed in the center of the linen draped table. Despite the elegant décor and the intimate atmosphere, she had a feeling that her dinner companion was absorbed in something other than the fine meal and her own stellar company.

“Hmm? Oh, no.” Catherine reached for her hand, smiling apologetically. “I’m sorry. I drifted away there for a minute. Work.”

“I know the feeling. Even been guilty of it a few times myself. Anything you can talk about?”

“No, not really.”

Rebecca shrugged. “If there’s something you can say, I’m here.”

“Thanks.” Fortunately, Rebecca had appreciated from the first that Catherine’s work was something that she could only allude to in the most general of terms, for obvious reasons of patient confidentiality. It had been just that conflict that had brought them so explosively together just a few short months before. It was one thing, however, to have the barrier exist professionally and quite another to have it crop up in their personal dealings. Because she’d never had a relationship that had been so central to her life before, Catherine had never had to contend with the fact that she couldn’t discuss some of the ramifications of her work with the person closest to her. She was still learning how to navigate those murky waters, and, fortunately, Rebecca, who was used to compartmentalizing her life, didn’t push. It helped diffuse the awkwardness, but there were times, like tonight, when Catherine wished she could talk.

“Let’s get the paperwork out of the way first, okay?”

“Sure.”

“No significant medical, surgical or psychiatric conditions in the past?”

“That’s right.”

“Never been hospitalized for any reason?”

“No.”

She’d wait to ask about the obvious bruise under the left eye and what looked like finger marks on the neck. “No drug allergies or current medications?”

“No.”

“Recreational drug use?”

“I drink now and then. Nothing else.”

“Do you smoke?”

“When I drink.” Faint laughter.

Catherine smiled. She had found that with new patients it was best to start with something basic and unthreatening such as reviewing the data the patient provided on a standard medical questionnaire. It established a bit of rapport, although the young woman in her office didn’t seem particularly nervous. Upright posture, no apparent tics or nervous habits. Her button-down collar pale blue cotton shirt and dark tan chinos were pressed, her oxfords polished and shined, her thick wavy hair cut short, no make-up. If anything, the clear-eyed brunette with the sharp blue gaze was watching her with just a hint of suspicion—or was it something else? Intense curiosity? Not unusual from patients, but it usually developed later in the course of treatment—that need to know the therapist as a person and not as someone who merely existed for fifty minutes once or twice a week and to whom you exposed your most intimate secrets. But about whom you knew almost nothing.

“My secretary Joyce made a notation we’ll be billing insurance,” Catherine remarked, checking the intake form. It was Saturday, and she didn’t usually see patients, but after Rebecca had left, the apartment had seemed so empty—almost lifeless—that when she’d picked up her messages and found one about a request for a semi-urgent appointment, she’d decided she might as well work. “I see you have a good plan that doesn’t cap the number of visits, so that will be simple.”

“I don’t think I’ll be coming long enough for that to be an issue.”

Her tone level and matter-of-fact, no hint of aggression or combativeness. Just a statement.

“And that brings me to the next question,” Catherine responded just as evenly. “It says your reasons for coming are work-related. Can you tell me about that?”

“I’ve been ordered to see a therapist and to obtain a written statement that I am fit for duty.”

“Ordered? I’m sorry,” Catherine said, glancing down at the form, confused. Joyce had left a message that a new patient had called asking for an appointment as soon as possible, but there had been no indication that it had been any kind of official consultation. She often performed evaluations of city employees—mostly work-related disability claims, and occasionally confirmatory profiles on detainees, but someone from the appropriate city department usually called ahead to set up the meeting. “What do you—“

“I’m a police officer.”

“I see.” Catherine pushed the folder aside, leaned back in her chair, and met the young woman’s eyes. Now it was time for them to talk. “I didn’t get any referral papers. Usually someone sends me a summary of the incident.”

“It’s probably in transit—I’ll call them on Monday.”

“No need—we’ll take care of it. How did you get to me? Isn’t there an in-house psychologist who signs off on an officer’s duty status?”

“There is, but the department has to provide alternate choices for reasons of impartiality. You’re on the short list.”

The lesser of two evils? Actually, she hadn’t even realized she was on any kind of list, and the only reason she minded was that had she known, she would have asked Joyce to screen new patient calls differently and to prioritize calls from police officers. Her already busy private patient schedule could only accommodate so many therapy sessions per week, but she always made time for emergencies.

“Is there some reason that you didn’t want to see…is it still Rand Whitaker doing the psych evals for the department?”

“Yes.”

She shrugged, a move that reminded Catherine of Rebecca’s dismissive gesture when she considered something unworthy of her attention. Lord, do they stamp them out of some mold somewhere, these silent women with suspicious eyes?

“I’m asking why you went outside channels because I need to know if there was a conflict or problem within the department that will affect how you and I communicate, or that we need to discuss.”

“No problem. I just want my private business to stay private. And…”

For the first time she looked the slightest bit uncertain.

“And…? Catherine asked gently.

“And I wanted to talk to a woman.”

“Fair enough. Let me tell you a little bit about how I do this, so that we’re on the same page. It helps to avoid confusion if you have an idea of how long this might take.”

A curt nod, an attentive expression despite a faint frown line between dark brows. Catherine sensed her ambivalence—she had come because she had been ordered to, but she was also cooperating. Perhaps, on some level, she wants to be here.

“As I said, the department will send a summary of why you’re being referred, but I want you to tell me in your own words. Then I’d like to spend some time getting to know you. General background kinds of things. When I feel that I can make some determination about this event within the context of your professional life, I’ll file my report.”

“How much of what we talk about will be in it?”

Two references in less than five minutes to issues of privacy and confidentiality. She’s worried about keeping something in her personal life a secret.

“You may see my report. I will not discuss your case with anyone without informing you and obtaining your consent. You understand that I will need to include some details of our meetings to substantiate my findings, and that this will become part of your personnel record?”

“Yes.”

A bit of anger there. She feels violated. Betrayed by her superiors, by the system that sent her here?

“Do you want to proceed? You could still see Rand Whitaker.”

“No. How long will this take?”

“I don’t know. Have you been suspended?”

“No. But they’ve got me riding a desk.”

Stiff shoulders, condescending tone of voice, one quick, frustrated fist clench. She’s chafing at the restrictions.

“More than a few sessions, most likely. I’ll see you on an accelerated schedule, but that’s as definite as I can be.”

Several beats of silence.

“Okay.”

“So. Tell me what happened.”

“I was daydreaming about something that happened in a session today—something that brought up more than I realized, apparently. Rather like a waking version of what Freud said about dreams. He called them day residue, things we are still trying to process that we didn’t finish before sleep.”

“He said a lot more than that about dreams, didn’t he?” Rebecca commented dryly.

Laughing, Catherine nodded agreement. “Yes, quite a bit of which I take issue with.” Linking her fingers through Rebecca’s, she continued, “Nevertheless, even if I could talk about it, I certainly wouldn’t want to take up our time together tonight with business. After all, this is a date, right?”

They’d made love, spoken of love, but they’d never had the time to fall in love. As much as she missed Rebecca’s subtle presence in her apartment—the extra clothes in the closet, two coffee cups in the sink, her keys and wallet on the dresser, she liked this new distance. It was a distance heavy with promise and hope, a kind of charged separation she’d never experienced before. It was the very opposite of lonely, because Rebecca was with her.

“Well,” Rebecca mused, feigning thought, her thumb playing over Catherine’s palm, “I got all spruced up in my best suit and I washed the Vette. I’m trying to impress you with the dinner and the wine.”

She’d missed her that afternoon when she’d opened the door of her apartment to be greeted by the musty scent of abandonment. Out of years of habit, she’d dropped the duffle inside the door and walked directly across the rugless living room to the single window, pushed it up, and leaned out to breathe the aroma of car exhaust and Saturday dinners. Home. As familiar as a favorite bar, and as lonely as the tail end of the night with only a bottle for company. She leaned closer across the table, her gaze claiming Catherine with the intensity of a caress. When she was with her, the places inside that always ached stopped hurting. “I was hoping that you chose that dark green blouse with me in mind, because it reflects in your eyes—like shadows in a forest, calling my…”

“Rebecca,” Catherine murmured, her heart hammering, “we’re in a restaurant.”

Undeterred, she continued in a low, husky tone, “And I’ve been thinking all afternoon about the way my skin burns when…”

“We are going to sit here and consume this very fine food, or Anthony will be so offended he’ll never recover.” Her voice cracked and she had to swallow. She had never been the focus of such undiminished attention in her life. It was a heady feeling and she suddenly understood how people made fools of themselves for love. “Is this how you seduce women?”

“Only you.”

“It’s working.”

“Good.”

Reluctantly, they sat back in their seats, breathing a little erratically, fingertips just barely touching on the fine linen. The first time they’d been to DeCarlo’s they’d just met. They’d been strangers, uncertain, wary, but drawn to one another nevertheless. In the weeks since, they’d shared fear and passion and near death, but, in so many ways, they were strangers still.

“There is something wrong with the appetizers?” Anthony DeCarlo asked anxiously from beside them.

“No,” Catherine answered, smiling quickly at him before glancing back at Rebecca, whose eyes had never left her face. “They’re perfect.”

CHAPTER FOUR

REBECCA ROLLED OVER and opened her eyes. She smiled when she found Catherine, arms wrapped around her pillow, lying close beside her and watching her with a tender expression in her soft green eyes.

“I fell asleep last night, didn’t I?” Rebecca asked.

“Uh huh. Actually, you fell asleep several times last night.” Catherine ran her fingers through Rebecca’s thick, tousled blond hair, finally resting her fingers in the curve of her neck. “Let’s see. First you fell asleep in the car. I was very glad that I didn’t drink more of Anthony’s wonderful champagne, because I wouldn’t have been able to drive us home, and you were literally out on your feet by the time we got to the Vette.”

“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said, completely chagrined. She’d had very different plans for the Saturday evening, none of which had included falling asleep at nine o’clock.

“Don’t be. You obviously needed to rest, and I am very fond of sleeping next to you.”

“Well, I’d like you to be fond of a few other things before the sleeping part,” Rebecca murmured, shifting closer until their bodies touched along their entire length. Instinctively, effortlessly, their limbs entwined and they pressed even nearer until their lips were only a breath apart. “It was supposed to be a hot date, remember?”

“Oh, I remember that very well.” She didn’t seem to have any control over what happened to her body when Rebecca was against her like this. The feel of Rebecca’s skin hot against her own, a heat so much more consuming than any fever, set her blood on fire. It was hard to think, it was hard to remember that she meant to go slowly and carefully this first time. She hadn’t made love to Rebecca in almost two months and her hands were already shaking with the need to touch her. Valiantly, she tried to distract herself with conversation, because she was a heartbeat away from forgetting her good intentions.

“When we got home,” Catherine continued, “you managed to make it up the stairs with just a little help from me, but by the time I had my shoes off, you were asleep again.” She ran her fingers down the center of Rebecca’s chest, pausing to brush her fingertips over a taut pink nipple. The swift intake of breath and automatic surge of Rebecca’s hips were exactly the reward she had been seeking. Moving her lips along the edge of Rebecca’s jaw, she finally reached her ear and whispered, “I had a really good time taking your clothes off, though.”

Rebecca couldn’t help but laugh. “I am thoroughly humiliated. What a putz.”

“Oh, you are so far from that,” Catherine replied, laughing, too.

“Well, I’ve had smoother moments. I guess the workout tired me out a little more than I realized.”

“How are you feeling?” Catherine asked, suddenly serious, her hand stilling on Rebecca’s skin. She’d seen Rebecca work for days at a time with no sleep, but she’d never seen her as physically depleted as she’d been the previous night. Even knowing that it was a perfectly natural occurrence at this stage in her recovery didn’t eliminate the quick rush of fear.

“I’m feeling way better than fine,” Rebecca replied soundly, claiming Catherine’s mouth for a kiss.

“Ah…” she sighed when she could find her voice, “I can tell.”

Rebecca kissed her again, and it was the warmth of her tongue that was Catherine’s undoing, or perhaps it was the way Rebecca pressed her fingers into the shallow depression at the base of her spine, or the way she—

“Rebecca,” she gasped, “I can’t possibly wait another minute.”

“Then don’t.”

Rebecca shifted her weight until they were reclining, Catherine beneath her. Bracing her arms on either side of Catherine’s shoulders, she fit her hips between Catherine’s thighs and rocked into her, the rhythmic pressure making them both hard in a matter of seconds.

Sighing, Catherine ran her hands up and down Rebecca’s back, cupping her buttocks, squeezing the tight muscles as she thrust, forcing them together even harder. Watching Rebecca through eyes dim with need, she found the reflection of her desire mirrored in Rebecca’s intense expression. Even as she felt Rebecca’s strong shoulders and arms beneath her fingers and the insistent pressure of her hips working between her own thighs, she couldn’t help but see the irregular, bright red scars on her chest.

“How do you…feel?” she asked, her words punctuated by short gasps as she found it increasingly harder to catch her breath.

“I’m…perfect,” Rebecca assured her, but all she could really feel was the growing heaviness in her stomach and the slowly rising tension between her legs. Her arms were trembling with the effort of supporting her upper body, but she didn’t care. It had been so long, too long, and she needed this more than she needed air to breathe.

“This is torture,” Catherine gasped, linking her fingers behind Rebecca’s neck and pulling her head down, bruising her mouth with a kiss. Their tongues trysted with the same seeking need as their hips thrust, until the tempo of blood pounding and muscles clenching and lips searching echoed the pulsing beat deep inside. “I need to taste you. It’s been so long. I feel like I’m starving”.

“I won’t last if you do,” Rebecca groaned. It had been a very long time for her too, and she was already crazy to come.

“I don’t care.” Gently but insistently, Catherine placed her palms on Rebecca’s chest and pressed until she relented and rolled over onto her back. Following in one smooth motion, Catherine settled between the taller woman’s thighs, her breasts resting for a moment in the moist heat between Rebecca’s legs. Then she caught the rim of skin edging Rebecca’s navel and tugged it between her teeth, drawing a deep groan from Rebecca that made her head swim. Following the insistent pressure of Rebecca’s palms against her face, she inched lower until her lips brushed the fine hair between Rebecca’s legs. The scent and heat of her was like being welcomed home, and with a grateful sigh, she rested her cheek against the soft smooth skin of her lover’s inner thigh and slowly, reveling in the first sweet taste, took her between her lips. She had intended to go slowly, had meant to savor every sensation, but Rebecca’s sharp cry at the first touch of her mouth and the tightening of the muscles in Rebecca’s thighs told her how very she close was. Suddenly, all Catherine wanted to do was lose herself in Rebecca’s pleasure.

“Oh no,” Rebecca moaned, her voice tight and choked. “You’re going to make me come right away.”

It was enough to make Catherine’s heart shatter. She loved having her like this, feeling the two disparate elements of Rebecca’s being fuse at the moment of final release—strength and surrender, power and need, wariness and trust—all of her trembling, quivering on the edge of dissolving. So, so unbelievably beautiful.

“It’s not enough,” Rebecca whispered hoarsely when her body finally stopped shuddering. “I want you somewhere…somewhere inside…”

“I know.”

The first time had been fast, furious—a wild, frantic reclaiming of body and soul after the threat of separation far greater than time or distance. The next time, and the next, followed on a swell of arousal that was no more possible to quell then it would have been to stop the revolutions of the earth. It was a force beyond volition and just as natural. They’d met in the midst of crisis, and during those few hectic weeks, they’d made love in moments of need, and in moments of gratitude, and in moments of nearly desperate passion. But they’d had very little time for happiness, let alone elation. On this particular Sunday morning in early September, with sunlight painting their skin in shades of gold, they made love for the sheer joy of being alive—and being together.

“Pizza or Chinese?”

“Chinese,” Catherine answered drowsily, trailing her fingers along the crest of Rebecca’s hip. “More green vegetables.”

“Oh yeah. I guess I need to preserve my strength if we’re going to keep this up.” Rebecca shifted, moving the arm which she just realized was numb. In fact, now that she thought about it, a lot of her seemed to be pleasantly enervated. “We are going to keep it up, right?”

“Tell me you still need more.”

“Well, not right this very minute,” Rebecca conceded, wondering if she’d ever walk again, “but soon.”

Catherine leaned up on an elbow, pushing strands of damp hair back from her face, and stared at her. “Are you serious?”

Rebecca grinned. “Okay, maybe not until the morning.”

“Thank god, because I am exhausted.” She settled back in the crook of Rebecca’s arm and drew one leg up over her lover’s thigh. The room was dim, afternoon somehow having slipped into dusk, and the day held that timeless quality that only late Sundays in waning summer could. It reminded her of the naïve innocence of childhood when life seemed to be nothing more than an endless stretch of warm, lazy afternoons. Bicycles and baseball and a favorite book under the shade of a tree—no conception of disappointment or loss. Even then, and certainly never as an adult, could she ever remember having been so satisfied or so completely content. She couldn’t think of a single thing to worry about. Somewhere in the back of her pheromone-saturated mind that fact rang danger bells, but she couldn’t bear to break the spell by probing for the source. “I’d rather be here with you like this than do anything else in the world.”

For a second, Rebecca’s heart stopped, and she could hear the blood stilling in her veins. The idea of being that important to this one incredible, remarkable woman was terrifying and exhilarating and like nothing she’d ever experienced. Nothing in her life had ever struck her with the power of that single sentence, not even getting her shield. Not even the bullet. “Why?” Why me, of all the women you could chose?

“You remind me of what’s important.”

Rebecca turned on her side so she could see Catherine’s eyes. “What things are those?”

“That’s the funny thing about love,” Catherine mused, tracing the side of Rebecca’s neck with the fingers of one hand. “They’re different things for all of us, but being in love makes us feel them just the same.”

“You know what’s really scary?” Rebecca said quietly, wondering if she’d ever be able to take a full breath again. Her chest was so tight, and it had nothing to do with getting shot.

“What?”

“I know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes,” Catherine whispered, her voice thick with so many feelings, and her skin still raw with the aftermath of passion, “I know that you do.”

“How hungry are you?” Rebecca asked, gathering Catherine’s breast into her palm, rolling the nipple under her thumb.

“Starving,” Catherine replied, tilting her head to catch a full lower lip between her teeth. And I never even knew it.

“Are you going to eat that?”

Catherine studied the last shrimp in Szechwan sauce. It looked inviting. “I want it, but I think I’m full.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Rebecca commented as she quickly captured it with her chopsticks. “There’s no time to waste then.”

They were sitting naked on the bed, the Times stacked at the foot and open containers of food, paper plates and napkins between them. It was dark outside Catherine’s bedroom windows, and they’d turned on the shaded bedside reading lamp.

Catherine watched Rebecca deftly manipulating the slim slivers of wood, remembering the way those fingers had felt on her skin. “You’re going in tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Does your Captain know you’re coming?”

“Not yet.” Rebecca’s smile was thin. “He’d probably refuse to see me until after I did the thing with Whitaker.”

“The department psychologist.”

“Uh huh.”

“But you are going to, right?”

“No choice. There’s been a lot of bad press the last few years—reports of excessive use of force, vigilantism, escalating suicide rates among the ranks, and a million other things. So now, anything involving an officer, whether it’s a complaint or an officer-involved shooting or even sometimes just drawing your weapon, can land you in counseling.”

“But with you there’s reason,” Catherine offered gently, knowing that no officer wanted to be reminded of their vulnerability or of the fact that emotions were one thing outside their control.

“Maybe.” The silence grew heavy between them, and finally Rebecca asked, “What is it?”

“I’m worried about you,” Catherine confessed.

“Don’t be. I feel fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Good.” Her fears would make little sense to Rebecca, for whom life was so much more black and white. Cops like her did not fear possibilities, because only the facts mattered. Reality for her detective was defined by events, not eventualities. “Just—be careful.”

What an inadequate request. Don’t get hurt. Don’t get killed. Don’t leave me now, not after touching me like this.

“I’ll do everything by the book. I promise.” She’d seen the uncertainty in Catherine’s eyes, and it killed her to know she’d put it there. She’d keep her word, too. As much as she could, and still do what she had to do.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT HAD BEEN more than two months since Catherine had last watched Rebecca’s transformation from the woman she had held through the night into the cop. Oh, the cop was always there, whether on duty or not—surfacing for an instant in the sharp appraisal of a stranger who approached on the street or evident in the fleeting shadows that marred her clear gaze when some memory momentarily escaped her ironclad control—but never so much as when Detective Sergeant Rebecca Frye began the morning routine of pulling on a crisp, starched shirt and creased tailored trousers, shrugged into the fitted leather shoulder holster, and slid the case that held the gold shield into the breast pocket of her blazer. As she assembled the symbols of her identity, Rebecca’s expression became more remote, her carriage more guarded, and her eyes more distant. It was a frightening thing to witness when what you needed most were the things she hid away.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Rebecca remarked, watching Catherine gather her briefcase, beeper, and cell phone from the small table just inside the front foyer. They’d showered separately, and when she’d joined Catherine in the kitchen, they’d barely had time for a cup of coffee and toast. Nevertheless, there was a discomfiture in Catherine’s face that wasn’t usually there.

“Am I?” Catherine smiled, realizing that she had indeed been preoccupied. “I suppose I am. You would make a good psychiatrist, Detective.”

“And you’re doing that shrink thing again—avoid and divert. Ask a question, change the subject.” Her tone was teasing, but she watched the woman in the understatedly elegant jade suit assiduously. “That’s a cop’s trick.”

They were only two feet apart, but the air between them was thick enough to walk on. It was a distance that if left unbreached would grow, and Rebecca had reached out. Catherine dropped her briefcase and stepped across the gulf, sliding her arms around the tall blond’s waist.

“I’m trying to get used to the fact that things will be different now.”

Rebecca put her hands on Catherine’s hips, under the edge of her jacket, and kissed her softly. A moment later, she said firmly, “No. They won’t.”

“Call me later?”

“Count on it.”

At 7:10 she walked into the squad room and sensed the ever-present knot of uncertainty and unease in her stomach begin to loosen. Everything looked, and smelled, the same. Same shabby mismatched desks fronting each other in randomly placed pairs, same sickly institutional green paint on the walls, same worn gray tiles on the floor. The odor of stale smoke, old coffee grounds, and honest sweat permeated the air. She couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief when she saw that her desk was exactly as she had left it. Her mug was there in the middle of a stained blotter, a pile of dog-eared file folders balanced precariously in one corner, and the phone was angled precisely the way she always placed it when she was working. Even the rumpled hulk of a man seated at the desk opposite hers looked exactly the same. Fiftyish, gray haired and balding, forty pounds over his fighting weight—stereotypical flat foot right out of Ed McBain.

“Is that your only suit, Watts?” she asked as she shed her jacket to the back of her chair.

William Watts looked up at the sound of the deep, cutting voice, his expression impassive but his eyes quick and sharp as they took her in. Thin, still pale, and edgy. Not too bad, considering. He smiled, but it didn’t show on his face. Not much did. “What, did I miss the memo about the dress code?”

“Yeah, the one that recommends the laundry every few months.”

He grunted, watching her slide open the bottom left hand drawer of her desk and place the empty holster carefully inside. She didn’t look right without it, but she still looked damn good to him. He was relieved to find that he could look at her and not see the river of blood spreading over her chest. For a few weeks he’d been afraid he’d never stop seeing it. “How come the Cap didn’t say anything about you coming back?”

“Because he doesn’t know it yet.”

Her smile was thin and there was a new hardness in her eyes. He’d thought her tough before; now she was stone. Maybe that’s what it took to come back after what she’d been through. He didn’t really want to know. “Well, if it will get me off these goddamned cold cases, I’ll go in with you.”

She studied him, a big part of her wanting to dislike him still. Mostly because he was sitting in Jeff’s chair, and Jeff was dead. He had just offered to back her up. He’d done that once before, when it really counted. When it had been the only thing that mattered more to her than the job. When it had been Catherine. “I can handle it.”

“Right,” he replied, reaching for another file on another old case that hadn’t been solved and never would be.

“Thanks, Watts.”

When he glanced up in surprise, all he got was her back, but he smiled anyhow.

“Come in.”

“Morning, Captain.”

Captain John Henry looked up from the stack of departmental reports he’d been perusing as the door to his small office closed and he registered the identity of the unmistakable voice he hadn’t heard for several months. “Frye.”

They eyed one another for a moment, taking stock. They’d worked together for six years, they respected one another, and they took nothing for granted. She stood in front of his desk as relaxed as she ever got, which was to say, hands loose at her sides but muscles coiled and set to spring. He leaned back in the leather chair, his one concession to comfort, with his summer-weight blended gabardine jacket on, tie tightly knotted beneath a snowy white collar, his handsome mahogany features inscrutable. He placed his pen on the desktop.

“I take you have something to say?”

“Yes, sir. I’m ready to work.”

He sighed. “Sit down, Sergeant.”

She did, crossing one calf over the opposite knee, her hands motionless on the armrest. The last time she’d sat in this room, she’d come perilously close to insubordination and had nearly torpedoed her career. Catherine had been sitting beside her, and Henry had asked the psychiatrist to put her own life in danger. Rebecca had disagreed—vocally and repeatedly. She still didn’t know why he hadn’t slapped her down that day, but had put her in charge of the operation instead. The one time she’d seen him since had been in the hospital, when she’d awakened to find him sitting nearby. She vaguely remembered him saying that she’d done the department proud.

“I don’t suppose you remember that there are protocols for this situation.” Frye was his best detective, but she didn’t always play by the rules, at least not the bureaucratic ones. Most effective cops didn’t. But there were some rules he couldn’t bend.

“I know that,” she replied. “I was just hoping to speed up the process.” She waited a beat, then added, “And I wanted to check out the lay of the land.”

“Spit it out, Sergeant. I’ve got a busy day.”

“My desk is still out there. I want to make sure my job is, too.”

Henry got up and walked to a small side table where a Mr. Coffee machine that wasn’t even made any longer stood warming a half-filled pot. He poured a mug full and answered with his back turned, “If things hadn’t turned out the way they did, you could have been suspended for ignoring any number of basic rules of procedure. You didn’t call for back up; you endangered yourself and a fellow officer, not to even mention putting a civilian at risk. Jesus—what a field day the press could have had with that if she’d been hurt. You were lucky.”

The scar on her chest picked that moment to start itching. When it did that, she wanted to tear through the hard red flesh until it bled. Calmly, she said, “Yes, sir.”

“No one cares about that, now. You’re a hero.” He settled a hip against the counter and sipped the coffee. His wife bought the blend for him. He was grateful she’d consented to marry him for more reasons than he could count, and every time he poured a cup, he remembered it. Smart woman. “You’ll have to ride a desk until I have every piece of paper authorizing your return signed and in my hands.”

“I’m going to the range this morning. There’s nothing wrong with my shooting arm. I’ll qualify and get my weapon back, so I should be okay for street duty after that.”

“Nice try, Frye. Not until the shrink signs off, and you know how slow they are.” He held up a hand when he saw the fire jump in her eyes. “But, we can work around it.” He walked back behind his desk, took a thick blue folder off a pile by his right hand, and opened it in front of him. “This just came in. The brass want us to be part of a task force the feds are setting up—“

“Uh-uh. No way. Not a combined jurisdictional deal. That’s a dead-end job. Making nice with assho—“

“Sergeant.”

She clamped her jaws closed so hard she was certain Henry could hear them snap. She’d expected some kind of repercussions after what had happened with Blake. The press might have made her out to be a hero, but that didn’t make it true. Henry had every right to be pissed off about the way she’d skirted the chain of command, but she didn’t figure he’d bury her in some back room pushing paper with the feds. “Captain, please…”

“Hear me out, Frye.” His tone was surprisingly conciliatory. Continuing to scan the memo, he read, “Justice, Customs and the Philadelphia PD are to set up a multi-level task force aimed at identifying and apprehending those individuals and organizations responsible for the production and distribution of child pornography, including the procurement of subjects.”

Rebecca blinked. “What does that mean? Some kind of sting operation?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Henry admitted. “The thing is in the formative stages from what I can see. But it’s been blue-lined—top priority. Since Special Crimes has the best working knowledge of the street side of things—child prostitution, kiddie porn, the whole ugly mess—we’ve been fingered to provide the local manpower.”

“For how long?” Rebecca asked suspiciously. It might be an entrée back to the streets, at least she could parlay it into one, but she didn’t want to be stuck in bureaucratic limbo indefinitely. There might be another important perk involved, too. If she worked the kiddie porn angle, she’d eventually get up close and personal with the mob guys running the street side of all of it, and one of them, she was certain, had contracted to kill two cops. Bad mistake. “Weeks, months?”

“Don’t know.” He shrugged. “I can’t imagine it will move all that quickly, but who knows. For the time being, it’s the closest thing to street duty you’re going to see.”

He closed the folder and fixed her with a steady stare. “You’ve got a few choices, Sergeant. The Commissioner would love to promote you—they like good press. Accept the Lieutenant’s bars, make the department look good, and you could probably transfer to some nice administrative position.”

“Behind a desk.”

“Yes.”

“Or?” Rebecca queried, although she already knew the answer.

“Go through channels and get your psych clearance, take this assignment, and when I think you’re ready, we’ll move you back to catching active cases.”

There wasn’t much to think about. She stood, her expression nearly blank. “Who do I liaise with?”

He opened the folder, jotted down a name and number, and handed it to her. “Avery Clark, US Department of Justice. That’s the local number. You can have one of our people for legwork and we’ll pull a uniform to handle the paperwork from our end. Organized Crime has at least one detective undercover working the prostitution angle. You’ll have to figure out how to make contact there. I don’t have to tell you that whenever we’ve got people in that position, any move that might expose them can be risky.”

She thought about Jimmy Hogan and Jeff Cruz. Two dead cops, one of them a partner she had lost. “No, sir. You don’t.”

“And this is an administrative position, Frye. You need street Intel, you get someone else to get it. Am I clear?”

“Perfectly, Captain.”

CHAPTER SIX

AT 7:35 AM CATHERINE opened the door that separated her office from the patient waiting area. Joyce had not arrived yet, but her first patient had. This morning, she was in uniform. Creased navy blue trousers, pale blue shirt with placket pockets over each breast, a narrow black tie, small bits of silver on collar and cuffs shined to a high polish. She was standing, her hat beneath her arm, her blue eyes nearly gray. Thunderclouds, hiding a storm of feelings.

“Come in, please, Officer.”

“Thanks for seeing me so early.”

“That’s all right. It works out better this way for my schedule, too.” Catherine gestured to the leather chairs in front of her desk as she walked behind it. “I take it you’re on your way to work?”

“If you can call it that,” the young woman said with a grimace as she sat down and planted her feet squarely on the floor in front of her, her back not even touching the chair. “I’m supposed to find out from the duty Sergeant this morning exactly what my assignment is going to be while we get this all sorted out.”

“Desk duty, you said?”

A scowl and a curt nod was all she got in response.

“What’s your regular assignment?”

“Most of the time I’m walking a beat. Sometimes I patrol in a cruiser.”

“Alone?”

The young cop hesitated briefly. “I’m usually by myself, yes.”

“Is that normal? Don’t officers usually have a—partner?” Catherine couldn’t help but notice her patient’s reluctance to confide specific details about her job. That was obviously going to pose a problem, since it was a job-related issue that had brought the officer to her. Nevertheless, she was content to let the young woman tell her story at her own pace. She was just as interested in what she wasn’t saying.

“Some cops work in pairs. It depends on how the assignments shake out.”

“I see,” although she didn’t really. She knew that Rebecca usually worked with a partner, but perhaps it was different for uniform officers. It was a point she would have to come back to in the future. “I still don’t have your paperwork, so I need you to tell me the details of why you’re here—in your own words. Assume I know nothing.” She smiled. “In this case, it’s true.”

“I’ve been taken off street duty because a complaint of excessive force was lodged against me.”

The delivery was flat and unemotional. Catherine’s tone remained conversational. “Is that the same thing as being suspended?”

“Not exactly—I still get paid, and it doesn’t go down in my file as a disciplinary action—yet. But, for all intents and purposes…”

“Yes?”

“It’s still a black mark. It’s going to hurt me. I wanted to make detective, but now…”

Her voice was bitter, and it wasn’t difficult for Catherine to imagine how devastating something like this could be for someone who was so obviously committed to her job. “What happened?”

“In the process of apprehending a suspect, I used bodily force to subdue him. His attorney is claiming police brutality.”

“Is this the same altercation which led to those contusions on your face and neck?” Catherine asked quietly. She rarely took notes during a session. In this instance, she wouldn’t need to because the look in the young woman’s eyes was unforgettable. Although the information was delivered in a detached, clinical tone and cloaked in the dry vocabulary so typical of police jargon, the officer’s eyes betrayed her. Whatever had happened had left its mark on her, and it was something far more indelible than the bruises that still marred her fresh clear features. “Did he do that?”

“He got—physical. Yes.”

“And you protected yourself?”

“I hit him with the butt of my revolver. Twice.”

“Can you tell me all of it, from the very beginning, just as it happened?” This was the moment. The trust would come now, or never. Some leap of faith, some need to believe that someone was listening—if they were to have any connection that would make a difference, it would begin here.

“It will be in the report.”

“I know. But will you tell me?”

“It was five nights ago. Just after midnight. I was working the night shift like usual, in the tenderloin—that’s my regular sector.” She stopped without realizing it, thinking back to that night. It had been raining and it was a cold miserable rain. She was wearing a slicker and her cap was covered with a protective plastic case. Her hands were cold. She wasn’t wearing gloves. Every minute seemed like an hour. She been over it so many times in her mind…what she should’ve done, what she did, what she wanted to do.

“Officer?” Catherine’s voice was calm and gentle. The woman seated across from her gave a small start of surprise and then smiled in embarrassment.

“Sorry.”

“No. That’s all right.”

“I had just come out of the diner. I’d stopped for coffee. It was so damn cold. I heard noises coming from an alley, one of the blind ones with nothing but dumpsters and derelicts in them. The streetlights were all broken and it was dark. I couldn’t see a damn thing. I started down it as quietly as I could. I didn’t want to turn on my mag light, because I was afraid that would make me a target. I wasn’t even certain that I’d heard anything at all. I remember thinking it was probably going to be a big rat. I’d almost convinced myself that it was my imagination when I heard someone scream—or what I thought was a scream. It was just a short sharp sound and then it was quiet again.”

She looked at Catherine, and her eyes were bleak. “The facts are in the report.”

“Yes, I know.” Catherine leaned forward, her hands in front of her on the desk, her fingers loosely clasped, never taking her eyes off the young woman’s face. “It sounds very frightening.”

“I didn’t feel it then.”

“And now?”

“I remember.”

Catherine shivered, although she knew it didn’t show. It was a finger of ice trailing down her spine. She acknowledged it; then ignored it. This wasn’t about her, and in this room for these fifty minutes, her feelings didn’t matter. But unlike the young officer who struggled so valiantly to separate her feelings from her experience, Catherine’s work required that she let the emotion in, even if it stirred her own pain. She knew what it was to remember fear. It was a subtle enemy; it returned in the dark of night or when one was weary, to remind one of one’s weakness and vulnerability. Focusing, listening to the words beneath the silence, she asked, “But you kept going? You walked down the alley?”

“Yes.” Her voice was stronger now. “I could hear sounds of a struggle more clearly by then. I radioed for backup, and I drew my weapon. I was in the narrow space between two apartment buildings, and there was light from one of the windows high up. The fourth floor I think. Enough so I could see a little. I could make out a man and a smaller figure, a woman, I thought. He was holding her against the side of the buildings, and she was fighting him.”

“A robbery?”

“I didn’t know. It could have been anything—a domestic dispute, a robbery, a rape.”

It was hard to imagine anyone, man or woman, facing such uncertainty and danger on a daily basis. No amount of training or experience could possibly prepare one for that. What did it take, and what did it cost, to face that everyday? “You were still alone?”

Again, the hesitation, and this time she averted her gaze. “Yes. I hadn’t heard any response to my call for backup, so I assumed that no one was coming.”

“Is that usual?”

Her hands were fisted tightly around the ends of the leather chair arms. Her pupils were dilated, but she maintained her rigid posture. “It can happen. On a busy night, there might not be anyone in the immediate vicinity. Depending on the nature of the call, something like that might be low down on the list of priorities.”

Might be ? Catherine knew there had to be more to it, but this was not the time to explore that. Right now, this was about one young woman alone in the dark. “I see. So you confronted him by yourself?”

“Yes. By myself.”

“You back in the saddle?” Watts asked, looking over Rebecca’s shoulder as she poured a cup of coffee at the long narrow table in the rear of the squad room. “Sarge?”

“What are you doing, Watts?”

“What. You mean now?”

“Yeah.”

“Shuffling folders. Why?”

She sipped the coffee. Terrible. Bitter, thick, and suspiciously filmy. She sighed contentedly as another piece of her life slipped back into place. “Let’s go to the range.”

“And shoot?” His surprise showed in the sudden rise of his voice.

“Yes, Watts. To shoot. Jesus.”

As usual, she didn’t wait, and he found himself hurrying to keep up. Just like old times.

“What did the Cap say?” he ventured to ask as he lowered his butt into the contoured front seat of the Vette. Man, he’d missed that car. She was silent for so long, he risked a sidelong glance in her direction. “What did—”

“I heard you.” She spun the wheel, pressed hard on the peddle, and rocketed onto the on-ramp of the expressway that ran through the center of the city. The firing range was at the police training academy, which was now housed at One Police Plaza, a newly built complex of administrative offices and classrooms. Although it was inconvenient for working cops to drive there for their semi-annual qualification exercises, no one complained. It was worth the twenty minutes to have the brass tucked away in some out of the way place where they couldn’t interfere too much with the real work of policing. “He assigned me to a task force the feds are setting up to chase down kiddie porn peddlers and chicken hawks.”

“Huh.” Watts shifted in his seat and tried to find someplace to stick his knees. He didn’t see how the Sarge managed to fit behind the wheel, her being so tall. “What’s that mean?”

“Nothing good.”

“What about me?”

Slowly, she turned her head and looked at him.

He stared back. “Us being partners and all.”

“We’re not…” She stopped herself, remembering that something in the man, something that rarely showed but that she sensed nonetheless, had made her trust Catherine’s life to him. He would never be Jeff, and it would never be the same. But then, what was? “I’m supposed to be the desk jockey. I’ll need legs.”

“Yeah sure. I can think of worse things than driving around talking to whores and pimps and perverts.” He fumbled in the inside pocket of his shapeless sport jacket for his cigarettes, then caught himself. She wouldn’t let him smoke in her ride. Shit.

“Look—I can get a uniform. I wouldn’t want you to actually have to work—“

“No way. I’m getting a hard-on just thinking about it.”

Rebecca’s hands tightened on the wheel, as she suddenly recalled all the reasons she couldn’t stand him. “Just forget it.”

“Hey,” Watts said quickly. “Joke. That was a joke. It takes a lot more than that to give—“

“I don’t need to know about that, Watts,” she assured him as she pulled into the lot behind One Police Plaza. “I’ll fill you in when I’ve met with the suits from DC. If there’s something I can use you on, I’ll let you know.”

“Good enough.” He sat back, glad to be out of the squad room, happy to contemplate some real work. Even if it was with a bunch of bureaucratic assholes who didn’t know dick about police work. The Sarge could handle them. He’d give her a week before she was back on the street. Frye a desk jockey. Sure. And I’ve got a ten-inch pecker.

Staring straight ahead through the windshield, she added, “I never thanked you for that night we nailed Blake. I counted on you to save Catherine’s life. You came through for me. I owe you.”

“Nah, you don’t. We both hit him.” He shrugged. “Besides, I couldn’t let him waste the doc. Guess I got a soft spot for dames. But you know, Sarge, you can’t let yourself take ‘em too seriously. You’re finished if you do.”

Rebecca smiled to herself, deciding not to be offended. “Catherine is special.”

“Oh, man,” Watts moaned, shaking his head in mock sadness. “You’re already a goner.” He cleared his throat. “But I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t make yourself a target like that too often. The investigation after that went down really busted my balls.”

She turned her head and regarded him unblinkingly. “You’re breaking my heart, Watts.”

Then she ignored him for the rest of the trip as she piloted the sleek car through the streets. He just sat grinning happily to himself. Frye was back. Things were looking up.

CHAPTER SEVEN

REBECCA SAT WITH the Vette idling at the curb, surveying the address that the anonymous female voice had given her when she’d called the office of Avery Clark, US Department of Justice, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. CCIPS.

Alphabet soup—Initials and Acronyms. Frigging feds just love them .

The four story, brick fronted warehouse looked nothing like a government building. Rebecca was certain it wasn’t. What she wasn’t sure of was what it was, and why the task force was going to be run out of there instead of One Police Plaza or the Federal Building at 6th and Walnut. This looked private. But that couldn’t be. There just wasn’t any precedent for a public/private coalition on an active investigation, and certainly not when the feds were involved.

She shut off the engine. She wouldn’t find out what was going on in there by sitting in the street waiting for a clue. Besides, as bad as this was going to be, there was the possibility that it could lead her places. Places she wasn’t going to have easy access to any other way. Like organized crime’s undercover ops. The same ops that had had lead to her partner’s death.

The wide reinforced door to the first floor was locked and she pushed the bell next to an intercom. A disembodied genderless voice requested, “ID.”

Slowly, she opened the fold-over leather case displaying her badge on one side and a police photo ID opposite and held it up to a small camera mounted in the corner of a narrow recess above the entrance. The door lock clicked open and she pushed through into a surprisingly well-lit garage that occupied the entire first floor. A sleek black Porsche Carrera convertible sat in the center of the large room. At the rear, she could make out a freight elevator with yet another intercom and no visible controls. Probably remote controlled.

“Third floor,” a voice instructed as she approached the lift, and several more cameras swiveled to follow her progress across the room. The whole set up made her skin itch, but she never even twitched. She did, however, unbutton her blazer as she stepped into the doublewide elevator car to give her access to her weapon. That at least was something that had gone well. An hour on the range with Watts to get her groove back, and then she’d nailed every one of the recertification targets. She had her badge and her gun. She was back.

The elevator moved soundlessly upwards and opened onto another huge space, this one lit by sunlight from the floor to ceiling windows on the wall opposite her as well as rows of overhead tracks. Through the windows she had an unimpeded view of the waterfront and the river beyond. Prime Old City real estate. Definitely not city property.

Rebecca took her time getting her bearings. Lots of computers, lots of assorted electronic paraphernalia, and lots of communication equipment. It looked like a government operation from the scope and probable cost of the hardware. The government always went big on the technical stuff and skimped on the manpower.

“Detective Sergeant Frye?”

Rebecca turned slightly to her left and surveyed the woman who approached across the highly polished wood floor. Five-ten, one forty, muscular build. Black hair, eyes deep—violet, about thirty. White T-shirt, leather blazer, jeans. Heavy platinum band on the left hand ring finger.

“That’s right,” Rebecca replied, taking the outstretched hand. The grip was cool and firm but not over-powering. Confidant, like the stance and the voice.

“J.T. Sloan.” She indicated a slender blond man who looked like he might have been a Ralph Lauren model seated at one of the computer consoles. “My associate, Jason McBride.”

Nodding to him, Rebecca said, “I was supposed to meet Clark from Justice.”

“He called,” Sloan said, her expression carefully neutral. “Said he’d been detained at the Federal building. There’s a meeting set for seven-thirty tomorrow here.”

Rebecca frowned. It was starting already. The inevitable meetings and lousy communications that usually ended up wasting more time than anything else. “With who?”

“Him, someone from Customs, you, and us.”

“What department are you with?” Rebecca asked, feeling the beginnings of an enormous headache gathering behind her eyes. She was tired, and that added to her annoyance. Christ, she’d only been on her feet half a day. She shouldn’t be tired.

“We’re private.”

The words came as a surprise, although they shouldn’t have. Rebecca looked around the state of the art room and thought about Jeff the last morning she’d seen him alive, two-finger typing out a report on an ancient Smith Corona. It was too elaborate for the police department, and somehow too sleekly efficient for the feds. “Your place?”

Sloan nodded, watching the detective who had slipped both hands into the pockets of her trousers, hands which Sloan was pretty certain were clenched into fists. This is one unhappy cop. Wonder whose shit list she got on to pull this assignment.

“There’s supposed to be a uniform assigned here,” Rebecca remarked, trying to decide whether she should ask about the operation or wait for the guy from Justice. She had no idea what these two were doing on the task force, and she didn’t want to advertise her own ignorance of the situation. “Our department’s paper chaser.”

“Haven’t seen anyone,” Sloan observed noncommittally.

Jason had turned on his swivel chair and was watching the two of them, his head moving imperceptibly back and forth with the stops and starts of the staccato conversation. The two women regarded each other steadily in the loud silence—Sloan, darkly good-looking and unconcernedly casual, Frye starkly handsome and tautly reserved. Lots of room for fireworks here.

Sloan considered the upcoming operation and assessed the complexity of alliances and allegiances likely to be a factor. The past was much further from her mind than it had been a year ago, but some memories never fade completely, despite apologies and retractions and concessions. Avery Clark had never been an enemy, but neither was he a friend. He’d called her because he needed her, and she didn’t owe him anything except her expertise. She owed this detective, who was most likely going to end up with the dirty part of the job, even less. “Why don’t we grab some coffee and I’ll fill you in on what I know.”

Rebecca glanced at her wristwatch, a functional unadorned timepiece with a broad leather band and solid gold face. She wore it every day, just as her father had until the day he’d died. Four fifty-nine. She stretched her long frame in the uncomfortable straight-backed chair in the small, windowless room and thought about the spacious waiting room outside Catherine’s office. Thick Oriental rug, shaded floor lamps, a coffee table with up to date magazines. Professional, but human. Warm and welcoming. Like Catherine. She remembered that first night—her own impatience, the pressure of a horrendous case, Catherine’s calm, firm resistance to being questioned. A stalemate that had eventually led to something far different. Just a few months ago, two very dissimilar women finding…

“Sergeant?” a male voice asked as the door across the tiny anteroom opened with a creak. The plain entrance to the inner office carried no identifying label or occupant name.

“Yes.” She stood, her face carefully blank.

A middle-aged man with thick unruly brown hair and a linebacker’s build dressed in a plain white shirt and dark trousers, sleeves rolled to mid-forearm, extended his hand and stepped toward her. “Rand Whitaker.”

She shook his hand and followed him into another bland room crammed with an institutional appearing desk, a wall of mismatched bookcases, and two generic arm chairs as he said, “Come on in.” Fluorescent lights in a drop ceiling and wall-to-wall dark gray carpet completed the impersonal space.

“Have you done this before?” he asked as he settled behind the desk in a swivel chair that squeaked in protest.

“No.” She eyed the plain fronted manila folder that sat closed in front of him. The label was obscured, but she knew what it was. Her jacket. Everything the department had accumulated on her in her twelve years of service. There were no reprimands, no inquiries, no investigative reports in that file—at least not to her knowledge. There were two citations.

“You understand this is routine after an officer involved shooting or a serious injury to an officer in the line of duty. In your case…” He regarded her intently, then continued, “It’s both.”

I understand I won’t be able to get back to work until you say I can. I understand that you’re supposed to be here to help the rank and file, but you’re not one of us. And I understand that cops aren’t allowed to have problems, at least not the kind of problems that you deal with . She met his gaze directly. “Yes, I understand.”

“Okay. Good.” He leaned back in his chair, seemingly undisturbed by the ominous sounds that any movement produced. “You’re Special Crimes, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Like it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s my job.”

He smiled. “Have you ever been shot at before, Sergeant?”

“Yes, once.” She knew it must be in the file—it had been a domestic dispute, like the one that her father had been killed in. Like him, she’d responded to a call from a concerned neighbor who had heard screams from the apartment next door, and as with him, when she and her partner had announced themselves as police officers, the husband had opened fire. Unlike her father, she had been lucky.

“You weren’t hit that first time, were you?”

“No.”

“Did it frighten you?”

“Not really,” Rebecca replied, wondering where he was going. “It happened quickly, and then it was over. We fired over his head, he threw out the gun, and we were on him in a second. There was nothing to be afraid of.”

“Did you think about it later? Dream about it?”

“No.”

“What about this time?”

It had been different the second time. She’d known it was coming. She’d been prepared for it from the second that she’d stepped into the dark, cavernous room. She’d been looking right at Raymond Blake while he held a gun to Catherine’s temple. He’d been twitchy, raving, and she knew there wasn’t much time. She wanted him to focus on her; he had to be angry at her; he had to move the weapon from Catherine’s head and put it on her. She knew exactly what would happen as she goaded and taunted him into turning the automatic on her.

“What do you remember about it?”

“Not much,” she answered, sitting relaxed in the chair, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee. “It was only a minute or two.”

He opened the file, shuffled a few papers, glanced down for a few seconds as if reading, then regarded her neutrally. “The report from Detective Watts says that you and the suspect—Blake—exchanged words, but your partner stated that he couldn’t hear what you said.”

Rebecca waited. He hadn’t asked a question.

“What did the two of you talk about?”

“I identified myself as a police office and ordered him to drop the weapon.”

“That’s all?”

“There wasn’t time for anything else.”

“You were alone at the time?”

“No,” Rebecca replied evenly. “Detective Watts was behind me.”

“Outside the building.”

“Yes—with a clear sight line to the subject.”

The psychologist was silent for another few seconds. “I’m not IAD.”

She waited again. He might not be Internal Affairs, but she didn’t doubt that her confidential psych eval would be available to them for the asking.

“I’m not inquiring because I’m faulting your procedures, Detective,” he continued. “I’m wondering why a seasoned detective would walk into a situation where the risk was so high.”

“I felt that the hostage was in immediate danger of execution.”

“Dr. Rawlings.”

“Yes.” Catherine. The bastard had struck her, torn her blouse open, bound her hands. He hadn’t had enough time yet to do anything else to her, but I knew what he intended to do. I remembered his voice on the tape, describing it in detail, and I wanted to kill him then. I can still hear his voice. Sitting there, recalling his smooth, intimate tone as he’d talked about fucking her lover, she had to concentrate not to clench her fists.

“Detective,” Rand Whitaker asked softly, “did you walk into that room intending to trade yourself for the hostage?”

Rebecca met his eyes, her cool blue eyes unwavering. Very clearly she replied, “No.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

AT NINE-FORTY, Catherine stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of a building that had once been a gracious four story Victorian before it had had been purchased by the University and converted to offices. It was dark, the night was cool; summer was dying. A shadow moved from beneath a tree nearby, and she stiffened.

“It’s me. I’m sorry.”

“Rebecca,” Catherine said with a soft sigh. She held out her hand. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long—fifteen minutes, maybe. Joyce said that you had an eight-thirty so I figured you’d be done about now.” She linked the fingers of her left hand through Catherine’s. She was right-handed and needed to keep her gun hand free on the street.

“You could have waited inside.”

“I didn’t want to run into a patient. Besides, it’s nice out here.” They began to walk. “Drive you home?”

“Mmm, yes. My car’s in the parking garage. I can leave it if you bring me in tomorrow. Can you stay tonight?” It was hard needing to ask, but this was new territory for both of them. She didn’t want to make assumptions.

“I’ll need to go early. There’s a meeting in the morning.”

“Ah—you’ve seen your Captain.” She’d known it would be soon, but did it have to be this fast? Of course, there were some things that the police always did quickly. They worked nonstop when a case was new and the blood was still fresh; they interrogated people before the tears had dried and they were emotionally the most vulnerable; they buried their dead and moved on before the ground was cold. At least they tried to, until something inside them broke or turned to stone. She thought about her new patient, the young officer who was trying so hard not to acknowledge the pain and terror and abandonment she must have felt walking down that dark alley with no one at her back. Her heart twisted, but her voice was even. “You’re working again?”

Rebecca leaned down to unlock the Vette. “Not quite. He put me on a desk. Have you eaten?”

“Uh—lunch.” She was relieved at the idea of a desk assignment and then reminded herself that the reprieve was temporary at best. “Doing what?”

“Feel like Thai?” Rebecca pulled away from the curb and reached for her cell phone at Catherine’s affirming nod. “There’s a menu in the door. Just call out what you want,” she added, punching in numbers from memory. She relayed the order, then drove in silence a few blocks, watching the traffic, the people on the sidewalks, the city teeming with life. Finally, she said grimly, her jaw tight, “I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to be doing. I’ll find out in the morning. It’s a task force to ferret out the important players in an interstate porn ring. Maybe even an international one, apparently. I don’t have the details yet. It’s need to know bullshit, which means that probably no one knows anything.”

“Why a task force?”

Rebecca shrugged. “To make the job twice as complicated and three times slower. The feds are involved, but they can’t really operate effectively on a local level. They’re bureaucrats—they don’t have any street contacts.”

“But you do,” Catherine said slowly. No wonder she’s not more upset.

“Yes.” Rebecca smiled for the first time. “I do.”

“How come I get the feeling that this isn’t such a desk job after all?”

Rebecca pulled to the curb and turned on the seat, stretching her arm behind Catherine’s shoulders, her fingertips resting on the bare skin at the base of her neck. “It’s the fastest way for me to get back to work. I don’t have much choice. And I do know this territory. Four months ago, Jeff and I busted two prostitution houses that were dealing children. We bagged a handful of low-level organized crime members, but we knew at the time it was just the tip of the iceberg. We were never able to figure a way inside the network, and then the Blake thing sidetracked us. Maybe this internet angle will give us a break.”

Catherine listened to her talk about her partner Jeff Cruz as if he were still alive. Of course, he had only been dead a few days before Rebecca herself had been shot, and the two intervening months had an aura of unreality about it. Time and events had been suspended while the detective struggled to survive and then heal. It was no wonder that Rebecca hadn’t really assimilated the hard truth of his death. What in god’s name was the police psychologist thinking to let her work? “What internet angle?” Catherine asked, trying unsuccessfully to quell her anger. She couldn’t believe that Rebecca’s superiors didn’t know that this was a tacit approval for her to go back to street duty.

“The feds brought a couple of civilian computer hotshots on board, at least that’s what I think they are. They’re going to try to contact some of these characters on the Internet.”

“Why civilians? That seems unusual.”

“It would be if it were any other kind of case, but we sure don’t have anyone with the technical know how.” She thought about the conversation she’d had with the computer consultant, Sloan, earlier that afternoon. It had shed a little light on the situation, but she knew damn well there was more that the woman hadn’t told her. “Apparently there are so many problems on the national level with corporate and even military breakins by hackers that the feds are stretched thin enough to see through. They’re recruiting college kids to fill in the gaps.”

Rebecca pushed open the car door and caught her breath as a sharp twinge knifed down her left arm. “Let me run in and get dinner.” Carefully, she slid the rest of the way out and straightened up. The pain was gone.

Catherine watched her cross the sidewalk, wondering if the detective really thought she hadn’t noticed her quickly suppressed grimace of pain. When Rebecca returned, by unspoken agreement they avoided further talk of her new assignment, letting casual conversation and easy silences dissipate the vestiges of tension.

“I’ll get plates,” Catherine said as she dropped her briefcase by the door, and Rebecca carried the take out toward the coffee table in front of the sofa. Walking into the kitchen she called, “Want soda?”

“Just water is fine,” Rebecca answered, settling wearily on the couch. She glanced at her watch, amazed to see that it was only ten-twenty. Leaning back, she closed her eyes and absently rubbed the ache in her chest.

A minute later Catherine returned, balancing plates, silverware and napkins. She stopped a few feet from the sofa and quietly set the items on the table. Carefully, she lifted a light throw she kept on the back of the nearby chair and spread it out over the slumbering woman. She could wake her, but Rebecca was already deeply asleep. If she awakened before dawn, she would come to the bed. If she didn’t, Catherine would sleep well knowing that for tonight at least, she was safe. That thought comforted her, but there was a dull ache of loneliness in her heart as turned off the light and made her way by the dim light of the moon through the quiet apartment toward the bedroom.

JT Sloan leaned against the window’s edge in the large darkened loft, staring into a night only faintly illuminated by the glow from ships moving slowly on the wide expanse of river a few hundred yards below. Off to the left, the huge steel bridge arced over the water, its towering arches outlined with rows of small blue lights. She’d stood in the same spot countless times before, but the melancholy that had been her companion then was gone. The muted sounds of the elevator ascending in the background brought a smile to her lips. She walked to the long bar-like counter that separated the loft living space from a sleek, efficient modern kitchen, turned on a few recessed track lights, and poured from a bottle of Merlot she had opened earlier to allow it to breathe. On her way to the door, she set the wine glasses and a cutting board with crackers and cheese on the low stone coffee table that fronted a leather sofa in the sitting area. She slid the heavy double door back on soundless tracks just as the blond in the hallway outside approached.

“Hello,” Michael said, her full mouth curving into a soft smile.

“Hey.” Stepping forward, Sloan slid her arm around the slender woman’s waist and pulled her close to kiss her. She’d only intended to say hello, but the touch of her, the faint hint of her perfume, settled the lingering uneasiness in her stomach that had been plaguing her all afternoon, and she brought her other hand under the hair at the back of Michael’s neck, caressing the smooth skin while she explored her mouth. Finally she lifted her lips a whisper and murmured, “Welcome home.”

“Yes,” Michael said softly. “It certainly is.” She leaned back in Sloan’s arms and studied her intently. “Are you all right?”

Sloan smiled ruefully. “Just missing you.”

“Uh huh. And as smooth as ever.” Michael reached for her hand and gave it a tug. “Come on, let’s take this inside.”

Sloan grabbed one of the suitcases and followed. Inside the door, Michael kicked off her heels, shed her suit jacket to the back of a chrome and leather Breuer chair, and pulled her silk blouse from the waistband of her skirt.

“Tired?” Sloan asked, resting her palm against the small of Michael’s back, under the fabric, on her skin. It was always like this when she’d been gone. She had to keep touching her, just to be sure. That she was back, that she wasn’t a dream.

“Yes,” Michel replied. She found Sloan’s hand again and drew her around to the sofa. When they were settled, she reached for the wine. “This is wonderful. Just one of the many reasons that I love you.”

“How was Detroit?”

Michael groaned. “Hot and smoky. Four days felt like a month.”

“And the meetings?”

“They went well.” Michael sipped the full-bodied red wine and sighed. “A decade ago, the catch word was image. Image was everything. Now, thank god, innovation is everything. Daimler-Chrysler has a new team of design consultants and I have a lot of work to do.”

“Congratulations.”

Michael smiled. “Thanks.”

“Are you going to have to go back?” Sloan tried to keep her tone casual, but she hated it when Michael traveled, which as head of her own company, Innova Design Consultants, she did frequently. She just plain old missed her. Nothing felt quite right, no matter how busy her days might be, when at the end of the night Michael wasn’t beside her in bed.

“Not often,” Michael answered, glancing at Sloan quickly. She lifted a hand, ran her fingers lightly along the edge of her jaw. “Danny will do that. He likes to travel. I don’t.” Michael hooked her fingers under the collar of Sloan’s T-shirt and pulled until the other woman was leaning toward her, then kissed her. “I don’t like being away from you either.”

“I know that. Sorry.”

Then, patting her lap with her free hand, Michael said, “Stretch out, put your head down here, and tell me what’s going on.”

Sloan considered protesting, but she knew it would do no good. Michael read her too well. Besides, she wanted to talk. She just hadn’t quite gotten used to doing it, even after a year of never being disappointed. With a grateful sigh, she turned and laid her head in Michael’s lap and closed her eyes.

“So,” Michael asked, running strands of thick dark hair through her fingers, “talk. You’re edgy and something is not right.”

“I took that job with Justice.”

Michael stiffened, her hand stilling on Sloan’s cheek. “When?”

“Two day ago.” Sloan opened her eyes, reached into the back pocket of her jeans, and removed a thin black leather case. She held it up, allowing it to fall open. “I’m an official civilian consultant, ID badge and all.”

“What about Jason?”

“Him, too.”

Michael considered the night she’d sat on this couch for the first time, a little over a year before, and listened to Sloan’s tale of Justice and the injustices done in the name of patriotism and honor and national security. She remembered every anguished word, and every tremor of pain in Sloan’s body, and now her own anger at the memory threatened to make her voice harsh. Tenderly, still stroking her lover’s face, she took a deep breath and asked quietly, “What about everything that happened before?”

“They made nice; all is forgiven.” She said it lightly, but her shoulders were tight against Michael’s thigh.

“I don’t care about them. I care about you. Are you all right to work with them again?”

Sloan turned her face and pressed her cheek against Michael’s breast, brushing her lips over the swell of flesh beneath the sheer fabric. “I’m okay with it. Clark is a straight shooter, and I don’t have any history with him. It feels a little weird right now, but it’s just another job.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“No.” Sloan laughed. “I’ll just be doing some net trolling, looking for sites that are clearing houses for the hard core porn sites and trying to find any that are actually making the stuff. Especially the videos. Jason is going to play net bait and see if he can make contact with anyone that way. The police will be doing the search and seizure part of it—if we ever get that far.”

“You’re sure?” Michael leaned over, kissed her again, and this time her kiss was hungry. “I don’t want you hurt.”

Raising one hand and encircling Michael’s neck, Sloan pulled her down, shifting on the couch until they were lying side by side. As she slid her hand beneath the edge of Michael’s skirt, finding warm soft skin awaiting her, she whispered huskily, “Don’t worry. I’m a cybersleuth. Safest job in the world.”

Michael worked a hand between them, deftly opening the buttons on the denim fly. Moving her hand inside, swiftly rewarded by Sloan’s soft groan and the subtle lift of her hips, she brought her lips to Sloan’s ear. “It had better be. Your services are required right here at home, and I need you all in one piece.”

Sloan meant to answer with something clever, but Michael’s fingers found her and she was lost. It was nearly dawn before she caught her breath again.

CHAPTER NINE

AT 7:24 AM, REBECCA held up her identification to the impersonal eye of the video surveillance camera again and motioned to Watts to do the same.

“What is this, Mission Impossible?” he grumbled. Looking over his shoulder, he added, “Uh oh. Looks like we have a babysitting assignment on top of everything else.”

“That’s not we,” Rebecca reminded him, turning her back to the camera as she followed his gaze. Lowering her voice to avoid being overheard by the audio she felt sure was connected to the camera, she whispered, “You’re just here as an invited guest, remember? Try not to say anything when we get upstairs. If I know the feds, it will all be taped.”

“Hey!” He tried to look offended, but he was aware that Frye was stepping outside of channels to bring him in on this, and he was grateful. He wasn’t foolish enough to think it was because she felt any special friendship for him, but just the fact that she let him ride along was enough for him.

A young uniformed officer approached, her smooth unlined face set in a determined expression. She looked as if she were about to salute when she came to a smart stop in front of them. “Detective Sergeant Frye?” At Rebecca’s nod, she continued, “I’m Dellon Mitchell from the one eight. The duty Sergeant told me I was to report to you here.”

“Did he say why?” Rebecca asked, trying not to allow her annoyance to show. She absolutely did not have time to keep an eye out for a rookie, even though the uniform looked a little older than the usual recent academy graduate. In fact, something about the younger woman looked familiar.

“He just said…” Mitchell hesitated, looking uncomfortable for the first time. Then she squared her shoulders and continued, “He said you would need a clerk, ma’am.”

“Ouch—sounds like you’ve been sat down,” Watts observed with a chuckle. “What did you do, kid? Forget to shine your shoes?”

“No, sir. I –”

“Never mind that, Mitchell,” Rebecca interrupted curtly. “If this is where you’ve been assigned, that’s good enough for now.”

She turned back to the video camera and said in a firm tone, “Philadelphia PD. Three to come up.”

Without the slightest hint of crackle or electronic interference, a male voice said from the invisible speaker, “Good morning, Sergeant. Please come ahead, and welcome aboard.”

They were silent on the ride up, although Watts snorted derisively at the elaborate security measures throughout the building, muttering colorfully about spy games and cop wanna-bes as he peered about. When they exited the elevator directly into a brightly lit, wide-open room that was sectioned off by partial walls of glass and steel and filled with surveillance equipment and computers, he said, “What the hell is this place?”

From their left a man said, “This is the tech center for Sloan Security Services.” Nodding to the group, and giving no sign that he was perplexed by the unexpected presence of Watts, he stretched out a hand toward Rebecca. “Avery Clark. Justice.”

“Rebecca Frye,” she replied, assessing him quickly. Standard government issue—somewhere between thirty-five and forty, brown hair, dark steel-framed glasses, conservative hair cut, well-tailored but conventional suit, dark tie, white shirt. Wedding ring, hip holster, sharp eyes. And he’d been briefed. He didn’t make the mistake of thinking that Watts was in charge, but had addressed himself to Rebecca. She gestured to the others with her. “Detective Watts and Officer Mitchell.”

“Detective, Officer,” he added as he shook both their hands, then turned, saying, “The briefing’s down the hall. Coffee and such there, too.”

“Very fancy,” Watts observed dryly.

Rebecca said nothing. It was Clark’s show.

The conference room was in the corner of the third floor, walled on two sides in floor to ceiling glass and outfitted with sleek Bauhaus furniture. The occupants who awaited them looked right at home in the high-tech, urban surroundings. Rebecca nodded to the civilians she’d met the day before. As previously, Sloan appeared deceptively casual at first glance, in jeans again, this time with a white oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up, and ankle-high leather boots. But her eyes were lasers, scanning everything, on high alert. The amazingly handsome man at her side gave off a lazy aura of insouciance, but Rebecca had no doubt that he was just as sharp. Interesting pair. Watts gave them both a suspicious nod when introduced, and then they all filed past a counter in the corner for drinks and food and eventually migrated to seats around the granite-topped table.

Clark walked to the head of the table and set a cup of coffee on the smooth surface. Smiling, he looked at the group. “Everybody get coffee, something to eat?”

There were a few grunts and one clear, Yes, sir. Watts gave Mitchell a look that suggested she needn’t be so polite.

“So.” He sipped his coffee. Suddenly his smile disappeared. “This is what we know. Six weeks ago an international web-monitoring group called the Action Coalition Against the Exploitation of Children, whose members surf the Internet looking for child pornography activity of any kind, alerted us to a number of references concerning a real-time child sex ring operating, and apparently broadcasting, from this area.”

“How’d the watch-dog group pick up on it?” Sloan asked.

“Chat rooms. Unfortunately, nothing too specific—just enough for them to realize there was a live feed somewhere in the Northeast. As you may know, most of the organized distribution of sex material on the internet occurs through private bulletin boards, and they’re all carefully screened, password controlled, and often encrypted. If you aren’t a member, you don’t have access.”

“Whoa—” Watts interrupted, ignoring the swift look from Rebecca implying that he shut up. “You want to translate that? I still can’t figure out how to put the paper in the fax machine.”

Clark regarded him expressionlessly. He’d had plenty of experience dealing with local law enforcement, and he was used to the obstacles, resistance and outright obstructionism that was almost ritual. This guy had the look of old-school hard ass written all over him. “There are two kinds of internet pornography activity. The most wide spread is the kind of stuff that anyone can find easily—chat rooms, mostly. People meet there, try to connect for sex, and even try to set up f-to-f—“

“Huh?” Watts asked, looking dazed. This time it wasn’t an act.

“Face to face,” Jason remarked quietly. “In person.”

“Right—sorry,” Clark added. “Real life assignations—dates for sex. Nothing wrong with that, unless it happens to be an adult looking to hook up with a minor. That’s where we come in.” He glanced at the expressions of the individuals seated around the table. Everyone was alert, watching him, waiting with more than a hint of reservation. He was used to being viewed with suspicion by the locals—hell, not even the locals always—sometimes by other federal agents. Unperturbed, he continued, “At any rate, those kinds of open channels usually prevent file trading, so guys who want pics, and most serious pedophiles do, usually trade privately after they initially connect in a chat room. Until the last ten years, kiddie porn was pretty much limited to still pics and homemade videos. Distribution was via the good old US Mail, and it was geographically restricted to interstate distribution as opposed to internationally. Getting tapes through Customs is tricky, although a lot easier in Europe than here.”

“I thought we were expecting someone from Customs,” Rebecca asked quietly when he paused. The young officer, Mitchell, who was sitting to her right, was taking notes on one of a stack of pads that had been scattered over the wide stone surface. Sloan and McBride looked quietly intent, but she had a feeling that none of this was news to them. It shouldn’t be, if the Internet was their street and they were any good at what they did.

“I told them we’d keep them informed if it looked like we were going to move into their territory,” Clark replied casually. “They’ve got their hands full with the terrorists.”

Politics , Rebecca thought, but she merely nodded.

“Anyhow,” the Justice agent went on, “with new digital technology, the game has changed. High quality images can be uploaded and transmitted anywhere almost instantaneously. That’s the venue of the other form of trafficking in child pornography—image production and procurement. It’s a much more covert, highly organized, and sophisticated operation. There are bulletin boards that screen members, authenticate identities—or at least aliases, which most subjects use—and limit access to those with passwords or electronic keys. This is where most of the image exchange occurs. And this is where we’ll find a way to break into this network. The Internet is a superhighway running directly right from one bedroom to the next.” He looked pointedly at Sloan. “Internet law enforcement is way behind the perps in terms of expertise. The private sector has a head start on us in terms of the ability to find and infiltrate these sites, but if anyone repeats that, I’ll deny I ever said it.”

Sloan, Rebecca noticed, smiled, but her blue eyes were dark with something unrequited. Old scores, still unsettled? Rebecca’d run a check on both the security consultant and her associate, McBride, the previous afternoon because she was certain that the Justice department hadn’t hired them without cause. Interestingly, she’d drawn blanks on most of her inquiries. Not blanks, exactly. Gaps. Erasures. Missing data. Sloan Security Consultants had filed taxes for the last four years; Sloan and McBride were registered to vote; their credit records were clean; their driver’s licenses unbesmirched; and their pasts a complete cipher. They might have been born four years ago. That had the smell of ex-Agency all over it. If she had to guess, she’d guess Justice. Because both of them looked like the kind of whiz kids the government hired right out of college to do the kinds of things the old guard wasn’t equipped to do. Just like what they were doing now. Rebecca was curious—because she was a cop, because she would be working with them, and because she needed to know who she could trust. Sloan had given her some Intel the day before, and she hadn’t had to. That was a point for her, but it was too soon to tell how far that cooperation would extend. Traditionally, local and federal officers didn’t mesh well. And now Sloan was technically neither. Rebecca flicked her gaze back to Clark.

“Why involve us at this stage?” she asked. “It could take months before you get a solid lead.” Unless there’s something you’re not telling us. And there always is.

Clark nodded. “Because we want to cover every contingency. I don’t need to tell you that child prostitution and child pornography go hand in hand. Once someone has access to kids for sale, they usually take the next step toward photographing the sex and selling that, too. You busted up a couple of kiddie rackets not long ago, didn’t you?”

“Small time houses—no big connections. At least none that we could find then.”

“We’re betting that they’re there. It’s another place to look. With those cases and the info from the watch dog groups that I’ll be giving to Sloan and McBride, we’ve already narrowed the search and cut out weeks of web trawling. If you dig around in the background of the guys you busted; talk to your contacts—” he stopped, grinned disarmingly. “Sorry. You know what to do without me spelling it out.”

“Sure,” Rebecca replied dryly while across from her Watts huffed. She shot him another look.

“Let me wrap this up then,” Clark added smoothly, ignoring Watts. “A few big busts have been made in the last five years. Two international clubs—the Wonderland Club and the Orchid Club—each with network members in the United States, Australia, Canada and Europe, were infiltrated by members of various police agencies. There were several hundred arrests and thousands of images and videos confiscated. The problem with this approach is that it’s hit or miss, and even when you make an arrest, it’s only hitting the bottom of the food chain. Pedophiles watching porn in the safety of their own homes. If it weren’t for the fact that the material featured kids, it probably wouldn’t even be illegal.” His expression became starkly predatory, and for the first time, his charming mask slipped. “We’re not after the guy looking at dirty pictures in his bathroom. We’re after the businessmen who are sitting around a boardroom just like this one right now planning on how to make even more money off the sale of children. What want to know who’s behind it, how they’re getting the kids, and where they’re broadcasting their real time images from.”

Business men. A nice word for organized crime , Rebecca thought. So why am I here and not someone from the OC division? This doesn’t add up. She knew, however, that that was not the kind of question you asked. Like a lawyer who was taught never to ask a question they didn’t know the answer to, a cop knew never to let on that there was something they didn’t know.

“Technically any information which leads to an arrest needs to be documented and a chain of evidence recorded. The detectives should make out contact reports recording any Intel from informants, per usual. Officer Mitchell can take care of organizing that. In addition, a log of all internet activity, any leads generated by that route, and any street follow-up instituted needs to be charted.”

Jason spoke up. “That’s not really possible.” And definitely not even desirable. “Some avenues of investigation are too…uh…fluid to document.”

Sloan smiled. Fluid. Only Jason could come up with that term to describe the fact that in a few hours they’d be hacking their brains out, breaking into anything and everything they could, including government databases and private systems.

“I’m sure you’ll give her the salient details,” Clark concluded easily.

Sure , Sloan thought. And we’ll take the heat for anything construed later as illegal. Which explains why Justice isn’t using their own people, even if they do have someone who could do the job. Surprise . So nice to know the Agency hasn’t changed . Disavow all knowledge…and on and on and on.

“Since this is a joint venture with the Philadelphia PD and our department, I’ll leave the day to day decisions up to Detective Sergeant Frye. Keep me informed of any major developments. We’ll brief every few days. More often if things start rolling.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got another appointment. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” Watts replied. “I missed what you said about what you’ll be doing in this operation.”

“If the trail leads across state lines it becomes federal, so it seemed prudent for us to be in on the investigation from the start.”

Rebecca met Watts’ gaze for the first time. His expression was blank but his eyes spoke for him. He knew as well as she did that Clark knew much more than he was saying.

CHAPTER TEN

THE FIVE OF them left at the table when Clark walked out remained in silence for a moment. Clark had implied that Rebecca was in charge of the nuts and bolts aspects of the operation, yet there they all sat in the middle of Sloan’s territory. Rebecca and Sloan looked at one another across the expanse of smooth black stone. Watts and Jason watched them. Officer Mitchell stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed somewhere over the Delaware River.

“What’s your plan?” Rebecca asked finally. There was no point in drawing lines in the sand over false issues. She and Watts couldn’t do what Sloan and McBride could. Chances were they’d never even get to the point of arresting anyone. Clark was after something with this fishing expedition, she had no doubt of that, but there was more smoke in the room now than before the briefing.

“This kind of Internet surveillance op isn’t new,” Sloan said with a shrug. “And like Clark said, it usually involves a huge number of man hours for something that often produces short-lived results.”

“Like busting hookers,” Watts remarked. “No percentage in it.”

“Exactly.”

“So why hasn’t he given you a dozen people to sit here and surf the internet—flood the system and maximize his returns?” Rebecca persisted.

“Can’t say. It’s costly, there aren’t that many computer savvy agents readily available, or…” she considered her words carefully, because she didn’t know the blond cop at all. She was bothered by that fact as well, had been since the first phone call had come from Washington asking her to head up the computer side of the investigation. “He wants to limit the number of people exposed to the operation.”

Rebecca nodded. That played with her sense that there was a hidden agenda beneath the stated objectives of the investigation. And there was nothing to do but do the job and keep her eyes open. “Did he give you anything specific to work with?”

“Actually, yes,” Sloan affirmed. “There are probably 100,000 sites that supply child sex images world wide. Many of them link to credit-card transaction and on-line billing sites that take Visa, MasterCard, and AmEx. When you trace them through their domain registry, they turn out to be in the Balkans or Bali or some other even more remote locale.”

“Untouchable,” Jason commented.

“Right,” Sloan agreed. “A more profitable place to search is the web-hosting companies. Most porn sites are explicit about their content when they register with a server—you know, clever names like underagenymphos.net and lolitaland.com. Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section has given us a prescreened list of potential US-based companies that specialize in porn sites. I’ll start there, looking for intersecting references to anything in the Northeast corridor as points of origin. If there is a big supplier, particularly a live feed line somewhere local, we’ll get a whiff of it eventually.”

“Sounds simple,” Watts commented dryly. “What’s the catch?”

“There’s an international network of Web resellers who buy and sell space on hosting frames. They can cloak the site content so it’s not so conspicuous to broad searches.”

“And that’s what we’re looking for, right?” Rebecca asked. “A central clearing house.”

Sloan nodded, an appreciative glint in her eye at Rebecca’s quick assessment. “Yes. That’s very high up on our list of desirable Intel. While I do the broad sweeps, Jason will try for individual contacts.”

Watts regarded the only other man in the room sympathetically, feeling an instant kinship with him based on that fact alone. “Jeez, you’re gonna pretend to be a perv?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” Jason replied flatly. “The rest of the time I’m going to pretend to be a girl.”

“We’re going to go at this from every angle we can,” Sloan affirmed, shooting Jason a bemused smile that no one else noticed.

Rebecca stood. “Is there someplace here where Mitchell can set up shop for us?” She didn’t add that she wanted a place where she could discuss the street side of things with Watts privately, but she didn’t imagine she needed to. Sloan was too sharp not to know that no one shares everything, ever.

“I’ll show you,” Jason offered. “There’s another meeting room you can have at the other end of the floor. It’s small, but the coffee machine works.”

“It’ll be fine,” Rebecca acknowledged. “Thanks.” She glanced at Sloan. “The first time you get a hint of anything that even vaguely connects to here, let me know.”

“No problem.”

When Jason left them in a conference room that made anything at the one-eight look like a slum, Rebecca said, “Mitchell, take ten. We’ll discuss your assignment when you get back.”

“Yes ma’am. I’ll be back in ten. Bring you anything?”

“No thanks. How many open cases do you have?” Rebecca asked Watts when the uniform left. “Because officially, you aren’t even on this case.”

“Nothing pressing. A few follow-up interviews, two coming to trial, and those cold files I’ve been slugging through.” He hiked a hip up unto the corner of another sleek tabletop, the fabric of his shiny brown suit stretching over his ample middle. “I thought we…uh…you were just supposed to be the contact person when these eggheads find something. If they find something.”

“That’s what Henry said,” Rebecca agreed. “I think we’re all going fishing for Avery Clark, and I don’t like that too much. Let’s poke around and see if we can find out what he really wants us to catch.”

“You think it’s Zamora?” Watts asked flatly, watching her carefully. Nicholas Zamora was the head of the local organized crime syndicate, and he had been amazingly successful at avoiding prosecution. So successful that most cops believed he had friends in high places.

“I don’t think anything,” Rebecca replied steadily.

“Wouldn’t it be a bite in the ass if Zamora goes down for selling dirty pictures after all the times we’ve tried to nail him for drugs and racketeering. Justice is a funny thing sometimes.” His expression was one of happy expectation.

“Don’t jump to conclusions, and don’t talk this up at the squad,” she warned sharply. I don’t want another…partner…winding up dead.

“Wouldn’t think of it,” he replied. “Especially if chasing around for you keeps me from hunting down weenie waggers in the park. Can you get me some slack with the Cap?”

She considered her options, and they were slim. Officially this was a desk job for her. Talking to the feds, coordinating with the computer cops, and sitting on her ass until something happened. Which might be never. “I could probably justify some time for you on this by telling him I need you to run down the guys Jeff and I put away in that kiddie prostitution bust last spring. Find out if any of them are out of jail yet. Shake them down for some names. Go through the paperwork—you might even dig something up that would give us a lead.”

“Good enough for me,” Watts said. “I don’t suppose whatever we’re going to be doing is going into the rookie’s log book.”

She just looked at him.

“Right. I’m ready,” he said more seriously. “Just give me the word.”

“Go ahead and start on it,” she said as a discreet cough from the doorway to the conference room announced the uniform’s return. “I’ll call you later.”

“What’re you gonna be doing?” he asked as he ambled toward the door.

She didn’t answer. He hadn’t expected her to. It would be a long time—maybe never—before she confided in him. Some cops never accepted another partner after one was killed. Didn’t want to take the risk of losing another, or as in her case, most likely, they could only form that kind of attachment once in a lifetime. He put his hands in his pockets, walked to the elevator, and tried not to be bothered by her secrets.

“Come in, Mitchell,” Rebecca said as she slid open a drawer under the counter that held an automatic coffee machine and discovered prepackaged coffee packets of a better than average brand. She didn’t speak again until she had poured water into the coffee pot from the cooler in the corner of the room. Then she turned to face the officer who was standing just inside the room, shoulders back, hands straight down at her sides. It was a posture most young officers assumed when dealing with superiors, but on her it looked a lot more natural.

“What did you do before you were a cop?” Rebecca asked, walking to the windows and glancing at the view. Breathtaking. For an instant she thought of Catherine, and wondered what she was doing at that moment. She looked away from the pristine sky and glistening water.

“I was in the Army, ma’am.”

“Enlisted?”

“No, ma’am. Second Lieutenant.”

“West Point?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Serve long?”

A tightening of the muscles along her jaw which might have gone unnoticed, but Rebecca was looking for it. “No, ma’am. Just over a year.”

Rebecca studied her, noting the faint bruise on her left cheek that was more obvious in the sunlight coming through the windows than it had been previously.

“How long have you been on the force?”

“Eight months.”

Allowing for her time in the academy, she was probably in her mid-twenties, which was about how old she looked. Rebecca poured herself a cup of coffee. “Have some coffee, Mitchell.”

Mitchell glanced at her, surprised. “Thank you, ma—”

“And you can relax. Save the sirs and all for the brass. They like it. The rest of us are just cops, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So. Want to tell me what your situation is?” She could find out, and eventually she’d take a look at the kid’s file, but she wanted to hear it from her. You could tell a lot about a person by the way they explained their problems.

“I’ve been taken off street duty while the review board investigates a complaint against me,” Mitchell answered immediately.

Which probably means someone in the department is covering their ass instead of supporting one of our own. If Mitchell has done anything even remotely prosecutable, they’d have suspended her, not just reassigned her . “Justifiable?”

“I subdued a suspect with force. He’s complaining.”

Well, that explains the bruise. Very smart answer, too. She isn’t excusing herself, and she isn’t admitting guilt. If she survives this inquiry, she’s got a future in the department . Rebecca sipped her coffee. “Okay. This assignment will probably be deadly boring, but it’s what you’ve drawn. For the moment, you’ll be based here. If Sloan or McBride need you to do anything for them, go ahead. You can run backgrounds for them at the one-eight if there’s something they can’t find out for themselves.”

“I doubt they’ll need that,” Mitchell remarked. “They’re hackers.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured, too. But just the same, if they need something that could later be construed as chain of evidence, try to make it look official. Go through channels and keep some kind of log so we know what the hell we have to work with if we ever need to get a warrant.”

“Roger.”

“I’ll be in and out. Page me if something comes up.”

“Yes, ma’am” For the first time Mitchell looked uneasy. “I have to report for my psych eval three times a week until I’m cleared. I’ll advise you of—”

“Just go, Mitchell,” Rebecca said brusquely. I know all about it. With any luck we won’t run into each other in Whitaker’s waiting room.

Mitchell stiffened at the change in the detective’s tone. “Yes, ma’am. Understood.”

“Hopefully, we’ll all be off this duty in a week or so. Be here at seven-thirty tomorrow.” She tossed her cup in the trash and walked out, leaving Mitchell to stare after her. She had three hours to kill before her appointment with the psychologist. It was too early in the day to find the people she wanted to talk to, and she admitted to herself as she rode swiftly down on the silent elevator that the only person she really wanted to see at the moment had nothing to do with the investigation.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CATHERINE RAWLINGS STEPPED away from the group of residents and looked at the readout on her pager, then walked to a wall phone and dialed the number.

“This is Doctor Rawlings.”

“Any chance you’re free for lunch?”

Smiling, she turned her back to the hallway and lowered her voice. “Where are you?”

“In the lobby.”

She was aware of her heart beating faster and a faint stirring within, and the fact that the mere sound of Rebecca’s voice could do that to her was astounding. And a little frightening, too. The newness of anyone affecting her quite so much would take some getting used to. “Damn. I can’t. I scheduled an extra patient session right before I have to go to the outpatient clinic. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. I was just in the neighborhood,” Rebecca replied quickly. She glanced around the lobby and rolled her shoulders, trying to shake out some of the tension. The frustration she’d felt upon awakening that morning on Catherine’s couch just as dawn had begun to cast the room in a gray pall lingered still. She’d opened her eyes, struggled to remember where she was and how she’d gotten there, and finally realized that yet again she had fallen asleep, leaving Catherine hanging. By the time she’d stumbled, still stiff and groggy to the bedroom, Catherine’s alarm was going off and they’d barely had time to say good morning before rushing to shower, dress and head off to work. She missed her, and worse, she had the uneasy feeling she was letting down her end of…things. Again. Fuck.

“Dinner?” Catherine asked into the silence. She wanted to ask her if she was working, and what she was doing, and how she was feeling, but she resisted, not wanting to burden this spontaneous moment with her own uncertainty and unease.

“Sure. Page me when you’re finished tonight.”

“I have patients, and then an appointment. Is nine too late?”

“It’s fine.” The detective hesitated, then added, “About last night—I won’t make a habit of crashing before the appetizers—”

“No, really,” Catherine interjected, glancing at her watch. “It’s all right. Hell, I have to go—”

“Right. I’ll see you later then.”

“Yes.”

Five floors apart, they each stood still for a moment, holding a phone with only a dial tone, considering the things they had left unsaid.

CSI Chief Dee Flanagan didn’t look up at the sound of footsteps approaching across the tile floor of her lab. Carefully, she pipetted an aliquot of fluid containing an emulsion of the material scraped off the bottom of a murder suspect’s shoe into a centrifuge tube. If she were right, there’d be trace amounts of a very specific high-grade motor oil in the supernatant that would match the composition of the brand in the victim’s Ferrari. Because the murderer stepped in the oil puddle when he’d crossed the garage on his way to crushing in the back of the victim’s skull with a tire iron. Not a very inventive means of dispatching his neighbor—a fellow who was apparently spending the afternoons in bed with his wife—but then murder was so rarely clever. The gas chromatography analysis would confirm the match, placing the suspect at the scene. Not enough for an arrest in and of itself, but another link in the chain. Another piece in the puzzle fit neatly into place. Dropping the tube into the centrifuge cradle, still without turning toward the intruder, she said into the quiet room, “I don’t have anything for you yet, and I won’t for another two hours. If you keep bugging me, it’s going to be tomorrow. And don’t touch anything.”

“I haven’t been gone that long,” Rebecca remarked dryly, standing as she always did when in Flanagan’s lab—with her hands safely in her pockets. “I know the drill.”

Flanagan, the forty-year old forensic chief, small and wiry and a head shorter than Rebecca, known to be notoriously short-tempered, turned toward her visitor with undisguised delight. “I’ll be damned. Frye.” She held out her hand. “Maggie said she saw you at the gym. You back in the saddle?”

Rebecca took her hand, grinning. “Looks like.”

“Good. Maybe those monkeys in your division will get some cases solved for a change.”

“Thanks—I think.”

Flanagan gestured toward a small cubicle adjoing the sparkling, equipment-filled room. “Come on into the office—I know you didn’t drop by just to be sociable.”

Rebecca followed her. “I need to catch up on a few things. I figured you’d be the one to ask.”

Flanagan gave her a wary glance as she settled behind her surprisingly messy desk. In sharp contrast to the rest of her domain, which was obsessively organized, her private office was apparent chaos. However, she knew precisely where every piece of paper, dental model and crime scene mock-up resided, and woe to the unwary cleaning person who dared move anything a micrometer. “You’re going to start poking around in things again, aren’t you?”

“Just getting up to speed,” Rebecca replied neutrally, eying the one chair piled with copies of the Journal of Forensic Pathology and concluding it would be safest to remain standing.

“In the two months you’ve been gone, Frye, I haven’t gotten senile. And the only open case I can think of that you might be interested in is a double homicide that someone would like to see forgotten.”

“Two dead cops,” Rebecca said softly, her expression darkening. “Jimmy Hogan and Jeff Cruz. I have to ask myself, why hasn’t the department been turning the city upside down to find out who killed them? Every day while I lay up there in that hospital bed I waited for someone to come and talk to me about it. One of the Homicide dicks to question me, to fill me in, or to ask me about Jeff’s cases. Nothing.”

Flanagan nodded as she leaned back in her chair and regarded the tall cop steadily. “I know that Cruz was your partner, but maybe you didn’t know him as well as you think.”

“Don’t play games with me, Flanagan. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out,” Rebecca said, her tone lethally cold. She respected the CSI chief, and over the years had grown to like her, but Jeff Cruz had been her partner. No one came before him in her allegiance; no one except Catherine.

“I’m not the enemy here, Frye,” Flanagan pointed out in what was for her a reasonable tone. “You may not realize it, but those homicides are open cases on my books, too. Even if they weren’t cops, I’d want to find the perp.” When Rebecca didn’t reply, but merely regarded her with a flat opaque gaze, she exhaled slowly and continued. “There’s been some not so quiet speculation that Jimmy Hogan was dirty. He’d been working underground in the Zamora organization a long time. He had no family, no real friends, and even his bosses didn’t always know what he was doing. His files are so thin you can see through them.”

“Yeah. He was a perfect undercover agent. For that he gets this from us in return?” Rebecca commented bitterly, expecting no reply. Where is the famous solidarity of the Thin Blue Line now? Bastards.

“But he did call Jeff Cruz. More than once.”

“They were training partners when they got out of the academy. Then Jimmy went to Narco and Jeff to Vice. But they had history.”

“That may be it, Frye. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard.”

“So what’s the theory?” Rebecca asked tiredly. “That Jimmy went bad, enticed Jeff with—what? Money? Jeff and Shelly lived in a starter home, for Christ’s sake. He drove a ten year old Mustang.”

“Did you get anything solid from Hogan’s Intel?” Flanagan asked, ignoring the questions no one could answer.

“Not much,” Rebecca admitted. “Supposedly, he had gotten on to something involving the chicken trade. He was going to feed us some names. He never got the chance.”

“Or there wasn’t anything there to report, and Jeff’s meetings with him were a front.”

“If that were the case, why would Jeff have even bothered to tell me he was meeting Hogan?” Rebecca countered. “He could have done it all under the table.”

“Maybe Jeff was hedging his bets and covering all the bases. Maybe he figured if things went south with Hogan, he could always claim he was working Hogan for information, and just pretended to be rolling over.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Yeah. I agree with you.” Flanagan had the uneasy feeling that Frye was about to fold. Her face was unusually pale, even considering her normally light Nordic coloring, there were faint beads of sweat on her forehead, and her breathing was a bit jerky. In fact, she looked like hell. The criminalist got up and moved around to the front of her desk where she might have a prayer of catching the detective if she dropped. Suggesting that the cop sit down wasn’t an option. You didn’t tell Frye to take it easy. “Look, Frye. All I’m saying is that’s there’s a lot going on around their deaths that none of us understand. As far as I can tell, Homicide has backed way off it, and the brass aren’t going to be real happy about anyone stirring it up. So—be careful who you talk to, and don’t trust anyone.”

Rebecca leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, wondering if it had suddenly gotten warmer in the small space. A river of sweat ran between her shoulder blades and she had to blink several times to clear her vision. “I want to see the autopsy reports and your crime scene files.”

“I can’t give them to you.”

“Damn it, Dee.” She pushed away from the wall so quickly, Flanagan actually held out a hand to ward off a blow.

“Jesus,” Flanagan breathed when Rebecca halted a few inches from her. “I don’t have them. The whole file was pulled.”

“Who has it?”

Flanagan shrugged. “It says Homicide. I suspect it’s IAD. You know they’d be looking into any officer related death. That’s SOP.”

“You gave them your file?” Her tone was incredulous. No one got a hand on Flanagan’s files. Impatiently, she swiped moisture from her forehead and considered taking off her jacket. She moved back a step, putting distance between them, searching for some air.

“Fuck, no,” Flanagan said, her composure cracking at last. “The bastards raided my files. I don’t know how, but the data are gone.”

“Don’t you—keep copies, or something?”

“My reports are all computerized, Frye. Supposedly the system backs up automatically. Except it didn’t, or someone is lying to me. All I know is that I can’t find them, and the idiots who are supposed to know something about this can’t tell me jack shit.”

Rebecca looked around the office. Motioning with her head toward a computer nearly buried by stacks of folders and reports, she asked, “Is that where you input all your final data?”

“There and substations in the various lab divisions. Serology, Toxicology, Prints—they all enter their findings under the case file number and it gets stored that way.”

“But one way or another, it’s all generated down here in your section?”

“Yes.” Flanagan could see the wheels turning. “Why? You any good with this kind of thing? I tried but nothing worked.”

“Not me.” Rebecca said with a short mirthless laugh. “But I might know someone. I’ll let you know.”

“There wasn’t much in the file anyhow. There was precious little evidence from the scene. I’ve got a few of my hand written notes from the first walk through. You’re welcome to see them, and I’ll tell you anything I can.”

“Why get involved?” Rebecca asked, her tone not critical, merely curious.

“Because it’s my job.”

Their eyes met in a moment of perfect understanding, and for the first time Rebecca smiled. “Thanks, Flanagan.”

“Don’t mention it. Oh, and Frye?”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Watch your back.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

CATHERINE UNLOCKED THE door that opened into her office from a hallway off the main corridor and crossed the room to her desk. Normally, her patients exited through this door so that they did not have to go out through the main waiting room and running to other patients who were waiting. It also allowed her to come and go without seeing her patients before or after the session. She glanced at the clock on the opposite wall and saw that it was 5:28 pm. Sighing tiredly, she settled into the high backed leather chair behind her desk and picked up the phone. Dialing the extension for her secretary , she closed her eyes briefly.

“Yes?” Joyce asked.

“Is my 5:30 here yet?”

“Yes,” Joyce answered. Right on time and looking like she’s about to face a firing squad. She smiled faintly at the serious-faced young woman sitting across from her and was rewarded by a brief lift of her surprisingly full lips in return.

“Good. Give me a minute, and then tell her to come in.”

“Anything I can get you? I put fresh coffee on.”

“No, thanks. I’ll grab a cup between this one and the last one.”

“Very well.”

A moment later, Catherine’s door from her waiting room opened and her 5:30 appointment walked in. “Good evening, Officer.”

“Hi.” Mitchell settled into her customary spot, the right hand leather chair of the pair that faced the psychiatrist’s desk. As she sat, she plucked at the thighs of her sharply creased trousers to minimize the wrinkling. Her back did not touch the upright portion of the chair.

“I see you’re in uniform, so you are still working, I take it?”

“More or less,” Mitchell acknowledged. “I’m getting paid. No street duty though. It’s a desk job, more or less. “

“And I assume you find that frustrating?”

“Well, until this morning I would have said so, yes.”

Catherine raised a surprised eyebrow. “Really? I got the impression you considered anything other than a street assignment almost a disciplinary action.”

Mitchell smiled. “Most cops like to think of themselves as street cops. After all, that’s where the action is. That’s where you make your stripes. The only ones who don’t want street duty are the ones who come to law enforcement with the intent to be administrators. They’re the MBAs who want to be commissioner someday and the lawyers who can’t find jobs, and hope that a year or two of police were will give them a step up into the prosecutor’s office. They only put in enough street time to fulfill their basic requirements before angling for something that will get them an administrative position.”

“So most officers would find your present duty undesirable?”

“Well…” she still wasn’t entirely certain how much you should reveal to the psychiatrist. She felt a lot safer talking to her then she would have to the departmental shrink, but there was no telling how much of what they discussed would make its way back to her division commander or into her personal file. Still, it felt good to be able to talk to someone. Carefully, she continued. “The duty Sergeant gave me an assignment that I’m sure he thought would just take me off the streets and put me somewhere where everyone could forget about me. Usually when they want to bury someone they move them to the property room, which is an assignment that most people get when they’ve been disciplined but can’t be fired or older uniformed officers who are approaching retirement and want something easy to do. He probably figured if he did that it would have been a little obvious. Then if I complained to my union rep it would have made things touchy. So he posted me to what he thought would be a dead-end duty, but I think he figured wrong.”

Catherine laughed. “You’re going to have to do some translating for me here, Officer. The intricacies of police politics escape me.”

Laughing, Mitchell relaxed enough to lean back in her seat. “Me too, although I’m learning quickly. He put me on this new task force that’s just getting underway, probably figuring it would be nothing but a bureaucratic nightmare and all I would be doing is filing paperwork. Probably all I will be doing is filing paperwork, but I’m working with someone who almost anyone in uniform would give an arm or a leg to work with.”

“I think I see,” Catherine remarked. “So you think that might be an advantage to this assignment that no one appreciated, is that it?”

“Maybe. First of all, it’s an interesting assignment. Plus, several federal agencies are involved, so there’s a chance it could turn into something really big. If I can contribute something, maybe I can show that I’m not a screw up.”

Catherine didn’t reply, and her face did not show her consternation. There couldn’t possibly be two task forces like this at one time. Rebecca’s assignment. Attempting to redirect the conversation away from the specifics in hopes of avoiding any discussion of her lover, she asked, “So you’re not displeased with your current work situation?”

“No, not at all. The fastest way for someone to get promoted out of the ranks into the detective division is by assisting a detective with their case. And the detective in charge of the PD end of things is Rebecca Frye. You know her, of course, because you were involved with her during the Harker thing. If I can manage to make any kind of impression on her, it could actually end up helping my career.”

“Yes. Of course.” Catherine had known that her involvement in the serial murderer/rape case might come up with any of her patients. Unfortunately, it had been heavily publicized, and the dramatic ending had also been covered by the news and print media. Despite her attempts to downplay her involvement, her photograph had been displayed on television and in local newspapers and magazines. Nevertheless, anticipating that it would come up in session and actually having it presented to her were two different things. Still careful to keep her expression neutral, she continued, “I’m glad this new assignment hasn’t turned out to be a punishment.”

“Are you kidding? As soon as I get a better idea of how she’s going to run the street end of things, I’m hoping I can make myself useful. I’ve been working the Tenderloin for more than half a year. It could be I know some people who might give us some leads. But no matter how it turns out, any uniformed officer would pay money to work with her.”

I don’t doubt it. Except this is supposed to be desk duty for her. But I can’t very well bring that up, can I? Mentally turning that thought aside, the psychiatrist concentrated on her new patient. Mitchell’s entire demeanor had changed from one of quiet resignation to enthusiasm. It was clear how important her work was to her emotional state. And it was time to get back to that. “Our last session ended before you were able to tell me what happened in the alley that night. We need to go through it, and talk about what happened after, before I can sign off on my evaluation.”

“I know.” Mitchell’s expression became serious as she met Catherine’s eyes. She was ready to get it over with. Perfunctorily, she stated flatly, “There isn’t very much more to tell. I went down the alley—”

“Wait,” Catherine interrupted softly. She didn’t want a recitation; she wanted the remembrances. “It was dark, and you were alone, and your backup hadn’t arrived. There were sounds of a struggle, and you went to investigate, correct?”

Mitchell’s eyes darkened as Catherine’s quiet voice brought her back to the moment that was still as clear in her memory as the instant it had happened.

“I had my weapon out and my heart was beating so fast it was like a drum beating in my ears. I pressed my back flat against the brick wall and I could feel the uneven surface of the stones catching on the back of my shirt as I eased my way down the alley. I didn’t want him to know I was coming until I was close enough to subdue him, because I didn’t know if he had a weapon. It’s impossible to subdue a suspect hand to hand if you’re not within arm’s reach. If he has a gun and you can’t physically reach him, you’re dead. It was hard not to stumble over bits of trash and broken glass and rocks. I was certain I was announcing my presence with every step I took. The gun barrel was angled up—I was holding it beside my face in a two-handed grip, and I was looking past it towards the shapes that were just shadows moving in the little bit of light that filtered down from the windows high up above me. As I got closer I could hear him grunting, and she was…” Mitchell swallowed, trying not to remember the sound of a skull being slammed hard against a stone wall and the soft moan of pain.

“She had been screaming before, shouting, I think, for him to stop. Now she was…whimpering. I was afraid he was going to kill her.”

Without realizing it, she had clutched the arms of the chair, her hands white-knuckled with the force of her grip. “I could see them more clearly now. He was big—linebacker kind of big. He had one hand around her throat and the other under her skirt. Her thighs were bare, pale, ghostly in the moonlight. I saw her face for the first time then. There was blood on her face…”

From across the desk, Catherine could see the sweat bead on the young woman’s forehead and knew that although her eyes were open, she wasn’t seeing anything except those moments replaying as real as if they were happening now. She didn’t have to imagine the feeling. She knew the feeling. “Go on,” she said very gently.

Mitchell jerked slightly at the sound of the voice that seemed to be coming from very far away. “I announced myself…I think I yelled ‘Police! Put your hands up where I can see them.’ God, he was fast. It was almost as if he knew I was coming, or at least he wasn’t surprised to find me there. He let her go and she slumped to the ground. My eyes followed her for just a second, but it was enough time for him to swing around with his hands locked together and catch me in the side of face. Stupid move on my part. I went down on my knees and he followed up the punch with a kick. At least I saw it coming and managed to roll away from most of that. His foot connected with my hip but it wasn’t that bad. I was still between him and the street and the alley wasn’t that wide. I knew I had I had to get up or he would just jump over me and be gone. As I got to my feet, he grabbed my shirt and punched me low, below the bottom of my vest. And that’s when I hit him with the butt of my service revolver.”

“He hurt you.” It was a statement, because the facts spoke for themselves. “Do you remember hitting him?”

Mitchell blinked as if awakening from a dream. She could still smell his sweat, and the coppery odor of blood, and the acrid stench of her own fear. She felt the ache between her thighs where his fist had landed, and she saw with perfect clarity the battered face of the woman lying on the ground.

She stared at Catherine for so long that Catherine began to wonder if she would answer. Finally, the psychiatrist asked, “Officer, do you remember striking him?”

Mitchell wasn’t certain what she should say. She didn’t know how her words would be used against her. She met the warm green eyes that held such tenderness, an acceptance that eased some part of the terrible pain, and she answered hoarsely, “No.”

“Sorry I’m late. Traffic.”

“That’s all right. How are you? I haven’t seen you at all the last few days except at conferences.” Hazel Holcomb settled into her chair and regarded her young colleague with a speculative expression.

Catherine shrugged wearily as she dropped her briefcase by the sofa, then smiled deprecatingly. “I could plead workload, but…I think I’ve been avoiding you.”

“Ah ha.” Hazel sipped her coffee and pulled an ottoman over in front of her chair with her toe. Propping both feet up, she raised her cup slightly. “Coffee?”

“Tonight, I think I’ll take you up on it.” Catherine walked to the antique credenza against one wall in Hazel’s home office/study and poured the aromatic brew into a delicate china cup. “I’m surprised that you even use these except for special occasions,” she remarked absently as she sat down across from Hazel. “They’re so beautiful.”

“Too lovely to keep behind glass. Now, let’s get back to that therapeutically laden statement about avoiding me.”

“You said I should see you regularly, and I didn’t want you to remind me about that.”

“Why not?”

“Probably because there’s something I don’t want to talk about.”

“Only one thing?” Hazel asked in mock seriousness. “How fortunate. We should be able to clear that up tonight then.”

Catherine laughed. “All right. Several things.”

“And yet you called me for the appointment this afternoon.”

“Yes,” Catherine admitted. “I know enough to recognize avoidance, and I know that’s not the answer. So, here I am.”

“How are you sleeping?”

“Better.”

“And the dreams?”

Catherine shook her head. “Not for the last couple of nights.”

“Good.” She didn’t need to add that it might be temporary. The younger psychiatrist knew that, of course. “Then what’s troubling you?”

“I suddenly realized that I don’t know very much about being in a relationship.”

“Interesting, isn’t it, how we never appreciate that until we’re actually faced with it,” the older woman mused. “What’s happened to make you think that now?”

“Rebecca has gone back to work, and I don’t know how to…react to it.”

Hazel emptied her cup and leaned over to place it on the end table next to her chair. “Reactions aren’t something you think about, they’re something you feel. How do you feel, Catherine?”

“A little insecure. I’m not certain where I fit in her life any more.” She hesitated, then added, “Or where she fits in mine.”

“Do you love her?”

“Yes.” That was something she didn’t even need to think about.

“And her? Does she love you?”

“Ah,” Catherine said softly. “How do you do that?”

“What?” Hazel asked quietly.

“Ask the right question?”

“Part of it is practice, as you very well know. And part of it is knowing you. And part of it is knowing what we all fear—that our love will not be returned. So…why are you insecure?”

“She’s so damn self-sufficient,” Catherine replied, surprised at the anger she heard in her own voice.

“And?” Hazel prompted.

“I’m afraid that all she really needs is her work.”

“Some people would say that about me. Or you.”

“Yes,” Catherine countered, her tone still sharp. “But my work won’t get me killed…”

“And hers might,” Hazel finished softly.

Catherine leaned back into the cushions and closed her eyes. Finally she said, “I’m supposed to meet her for dinner after this.” She opened her eyes and sat forward. “Would you mind very much if we cut this session short? I just need to see her.”

“It’s your time, Catherine. I’m certain you know how best to use it. Go see her and let her remind you of what it was that first touched you about her.”

“Thank you.”

“And Catherine,” Hazel added as her colleague gathered her things to leave. “Give yourself a little time. She wasn’t the only one struck by that bullet.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CATHERINE WAITED UNTIL she reached the expressway before calling Rebecca. She drove with one eye on the traffic, preparing herself for disappointment as she half expected that the detective would not be home. When the phone was answered on the second ring, she realized she’d been holding her breath. Hurriedly, she said, “Hi. I’m done early and I was wondering—”

“Terrific. Would you like to go out or—”

“No,” Catherine said quickly, “let’s stay in. We can watch a movie. I can cook—”

“I’ll take care of that,” Rebecca said swiftly, then broke into laughter. “Maybe if we stop interrupting each other, we’ll be able to figure out what we’re doing. Is thirty minutes all right?”

“Anytime,” Catherine said, her voice suddenly husky. God, she’d never thought she could miss someone so much after just a day.

“I’ll be right there,” Rebecca replied in a tone filled with promise.

In fact, by the time Catherine found a parking place and walked the half block to her brownstone, Rebecca had arrived and was waiting for her on her front steps.

“Have you been waiting long?” the psychiatrist asked as she hurried up the stairs, searching in her briefcase with one hand for her keys.

“Only a minute.”

The four marble stairs bracketed by wrought iron railings that led to Catherine’s front door were not very wide, and as she reached past the taller woman to fit her key into the lock, their bodies brushed lightly together. Absurdly, her hands began to shake. It was moments like this that made her wonder how she had ever believed that she understood anything about life, or human relationships—when she had never experienced anything like this before. Of course, there was no understanding it because it made absolutely no sense that the mere presence of this woman could reduce her to nothing more than raw nerve endings and mindless desire.

“Are you all right?” Rebecca murmured.

“No,” Catherine said as she pushed the door open and entered.

Rebecca followed with a paper bag filled with groceries tucked under her right arm. She set it down on the telephone table just inside the door and stood still, regarding Catherine as she dropped her briefcase. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

“No. Everything is fine.” She hesitated, wondering how much to say and then, at a loss for logic, simply said, “It’s just that…these last few weeks, I was so used to coming home and you would be here. We’d have dinner; we’d talk; we’d sleep together. I miss you.”

For an instant, Rebecca was stunned. She still wasn’t used to the fact that someone like Catherine, someone so accomplished and intelligent and…so damn wonderful, could even want to spend any time with her, let alone miss her when they were apart. It was fantastic and terrifying and she expected at any moment for it all to disappear. But there Catherine stood, three feet away, looking at her with something close to sadness in her eyes, and the thought of Catherine hurting in any way tore through Rebecca more sharply than any bullet ever could. She crossed the distance between them and pulled the other woman close, whispering fervently, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about last night. I wanted to be with you.”

Threading her arms around Rebecca’s neck, Catherine pressed tightly against her, content for the moment to forego words and simply feel. Besides, there were no words to describe the sensation of everything suddenly being made right by a simple embrace. She didn’t understand it, but the veracity of it was undeniable. Rebecca’s hands moving softly over her back felt more essential to her being then the air she was breathing. “I love you.”

Rebecca closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against the silky softness of Catherine’s hair. “I love you.”

“Is there food in that bag?” Catherine asked after her breathing had steadied, leaning back slightly in the circle of Rebecca’s arms and letting her eyes play over the blond’s face.

“There is,” Rebecca replied, but it wasn’t food that she hungered for. Deftly, she lifted the blouse from beneath the band of Catherine’s slacks and slid her hand onto the warm skin at the base of Catherine’s spine. Circling her fingers over the hollows just above her lover’s hips, she pressed her own hips forward, drawing a gasp from the woman in her arms. “But it will keep.”

Their lips met, and for a time they merely swayed together in the midst of the gathering darkness, hands claiming flesh and lips making promises with kisses that grew more abandoned with each passing second. Catherine finally pulled back when she thought she was in danger of falling, her legs shook so badly. Gasping, she asked, “Does this go away? This feeling of never being able to get close enough?”

“I don’t know,” Rebecca answered desperately, her chest heaving. “I’ve never felt it before.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Catherine murmured almost to herself as she began to work the buttons free on Rebecca’s shirt, pulling it from her trousers as she did. She pushed the constraining fabric aside and slid her palms over firm muscles, capturing the soft swell of breasts in her palms. “It’s beyond my control.”

“Good…don’t stop then…” Rebecca groaned, her knees nearly buckling as pinpoints of pleasure streaked from beneath Catherine’s fingers. Arching her back, she closed her eyes and tried to steady herself with her hands on Catherine’s shoulders. She’d never had a woman take her this way, and she’d never even known before how much she’d wanted it. But she did. The feeling of surrendering to Catherine’s passion was more freeing that anything she had ever experienced.

“Can’t,” Catherine moaned, her head throbbing and her vision nearly gone. Some small working part of her mind reminded her that they were standing in the middle of her living room, and she grasped Rebecca’s hand and pulled her urgently toward the sofa. “Sit down,” she commanded as she yanked down the zipper on Rebecca’s trousers.

The backs of Rebecca’s knees hit the edge of the sofa and she had no choice but to comply, feeling the clothes stripped from her body as she went down. She found herself nearly naked, Catherine in her lap, their mouths dancing over one another’s skin again. When fingers slid between her thighs, all she could do was drop her head against the back of the couch and moan. It had been like this that first night, her need rising so fast she’d never had a chance to contain it, but this time she didn’t resist. She welcomed the fire that burned through her blood, purging the wounds far deeper than flesh. “Please,” she begged.

Catherine slipped to her knees between Rebecca’s legs, and then leaned forward to take her with tender hands and demanding lips. No thought, no insecurity now. This—this splendor, this wonder, this indescribable beauty—this was hers for the taking, and take her she did. With certainty of touch and surety of heart, she lifted her lover on the wings of her own breathless desire to a place beyond knowing.

Rebecca sifted strands of thick auburn hair through her nearly lifeless fingers, unable to muster enough strength to lift her head from the cushions of the couch. Her thighs still trembled, and her stomach rippled with aftershocks. “Catherine?” she asked hoarsely.

“Mm…”

“I’m wasted.”

“Me too.”

“If you help me up, we can probably make it into the bedroom. You must be uncomfortable.” With effort, she slipped her palm beneath Catherine’s chin, raising her lover’s head from where it rested against her own inner thigh, and managed to focus on the deep green eyes. “If you give me a few minutes, I might be able to reciprocate, too.”

“I’m fine.” Catherine smiled. “Making love to you seems to set me off.”

“Still, I have plans for you.” She was tired, and her chest ached, and the lassitude that lingered after her release had nearly lulled her into sleep, but she needed Catherine to know how much she wanted her. She needed to show her, and there wasn’t much time.

“Hold that thought,” Catherine said warmly as she pushed herself upright and extended one hand to Rebecca. “Let’s have dinner first. We both need to eat.”

“All right. Food first, but don’t think I’m forgetting.”

“Oh, believe me, I won’t let you forget.”

As it turned out, time slipped away and it was close to midnight by the time Rebecca had stir fried the vegetables and noodles she’d picked up earlier in the evening, and even later by the time they’d finished eating and piled the dishes into the dishwasher.

“Come on,” Catherine announced, grasping Rebecca’s shirttail and tugging her away from the sink. “Bed. I’m fading and…”

“I need to go out later.”

Catherine stopped moving abruptly, letting the material fall from her fingers. “What?”

Rebecca turned and rested her hips against the counter. She didn’t want to see what was in Catherine’s eyes—she was afraid it would be that combination of hurt and resentment that had so often been in Jill’s—but she forced herself to meet the other woman’s gaze. There were questions in the depths of those green eyes, and confusion, but they hadn’t grown cold. Not yet. Drawing a deep breath, she steeled herself for the pain that was sure to come when Catherine turned from her in anger. “I’ve been away from the job a long time. I need to get a leg up on this new case, and there are some people I need to see.”

Catherine stared at her, struggling to absorb the words and place them into some context she could deal with. There wasn’t any. “Tonight? In the middle of the night—alone?”

It was Rebecca’s turn to be confused. “Catherine, I’m a cop.”

“Of course, I know that, Rebecca,” Catherine snapped, rubbing the bridge of her nose and pacing the length of the kitchen. “I thought this was desk duty. A paper chase.”

“It is—well, it is and it isn’t. It’s a real investigation, and a lot of it will be done through computer searches and whatever the hell else it is that those eggheads are going to do, but there’s real police work to be done, too.”

“What about Watts? I thought he was going to do the street work?” She forced herself to slow down. Screaming would not help, and the very fact that she wanted to scream was upsetting enough.

“He is,” Rebecca affirmed. She took a chance and walked the few feet to her, tentatively taking her hand. The slight contact eased some of the tension in her stomach, although Catherine’s response was guarded. “But he can’t talk to my contacts. It took me years to cultivate them, and they don’t talk to just anyone. I’ll just be talking. I swear.”

Catherine took a step away, but she kept her hand in the detective’s. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier? When you got here—or on the phone when I called you from the car?”

The cop was silent.

“Rebecca?”

“I was…” she ran a hand through her hair, shrugged her tight shoulders. “I thought you’d be angry. I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”

“Angry,” Catherine said softly. “Did you think that I might be worried? That I might be concerned that you’ve barely been out of bed a week and you’re already working fifteen hour days? God, Rebecca—”

She walked over and sat down at the small kitchen table, motioning to the adjoining chair with one hand. “Sit down. You look tired.”

Rebecca sat. “I meant to tell you, but when we got here—”

“I didn’t give you much chance to talk then, did I?” Catherine filled in, a faint smile relaxing her troubled expression.

“I wanted you, too. Badly.” Rebecca took her hand again, and this time Catherine’s fingers laced comfortingly between hers. “When you touch me, everything just…falls into place. Everything makes sense.”

“I know.” She brushed her fingers over the detective’s cheek. “For me, too. Our non-verbal skills are just fine. Outstanding, as a matter of fact. But we need to do a little better on the verbal parts.”

“I’m bad at it,” Rebecca said honestly. “Around my house, the job came first. My father never explained; my mother never complained. But I know there were a lot of nights he never came home. And then—well, then he never came home.”

Catherine’s heart thudded painfully, but she just nodded. Rebecca’s expression was distant, and she doubted that the detective really saw her.

“I grew up with silence. That’s the way most cops are.” The blue eyes she lifted to Catherine’s swirled with anguish. “I’ve never even said these things out loud before.”

“And that’s exactly why I love you,” Catherine whispered. “Because you’re saying them now.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IN THE HOURS after midnight, the streets in Catherine’s sedate neighborhood were eerily quiet, but as Rebecca approached the Tenderloin in the heart of the downtown area, foot and vehicular activity picked up. Here on the neon-lit sidewalks and in innumerable rundown bars, strip joints, and cheap hotels, life teemed with restless energy. She pulled to the curb not far from an all night diner that was a local hangout for the area’s denizens—mostly prostitutes taking a break between johns, panhandlers who had been lucky enough to scrounge the price of a cup of coffee, and bar goers who hadn’t been lucky enough to find company for the late lonely hours. Stepping from the Vette into the night for the first time in nearly two months, Rebecca felt another piece of her life slip back into place. On these streets, she knew exactly who she was, and exactly what was expected of her. A strange comfort, but a familiar one. Her blood hummed with the faint stirring of anticipation that being out here, hunting, always produced. She wasn’t hunting a person, not tonight, but the information she gathered—the odd comment, the offhand observation, the bit of gossip bandied about—might someday lead her to her prey. She’d almost reached the brightly lit spot on the sidewalk in front of the diner when she caught sight of a familiar figure push through the revolving door on the way out. Quickly, she stepped into the darkened overhang of a boarded up video store and waited for the person to pass. She only had a fleeting glimpse of the leather jacketed, blue-jeaned form as the woman strode quickly by, but the sharp, clear features beneath midnight black hair were impossible to mistake. Dellon Mitchell was out very late in a very dicey part of town.

Rebecca decided to wait a few minutes before checking out the diner. The minute she walked in, she’d be obvious to everyone. Those who didn’t know her would still be able to tell she was a cop. Even in jeans and a tee-shirt, a light windbreaker covering her holster, her eyes screamed cop. Usually, she didn’t mind. Visibility could be a form of power, especially if it intimidated informants into to telling her what she needed to know quickly with a minimum of pressure. But she didn’t know who might be inside, and Mitchell’s presence here, for no reason that Rebecca could imagine, worried her. Maybe it was coincidence, but any cop could tell you that there was no such thing. Ignoring the smell of urine and rotting wood, she leaned against the moldy wall of the tiny dank alcove and watched the diner.

She didn’t have to wait long. Less than five minutes later, three young women came out and headed her way, walking close together as they laughed and talked. It didn’t require a detective’s skills to determine their occupation. Their too-short skirts and body-hugging, scooped neck tops, along with too much make-up and cheap accessories, spelled hooker. Rebecca fell into step next to a thin blond with spiked hair who might have been anywhere from twelve to twenty.

“Hiya, Sandy,” she said quietly.

“Christ!” the young woman exclaimed. Glancing quickly at her companions, who were staring at her curiously, she grabbed Rebecca’s arm and pulled her into the shadows under an awning. “Go ahead, you guys. I’ll catch up.” When they’d moved away, she hissed, “Goddamn it, Frye. When are you going to leave me alone?”

“I did. Two whole months.”

“Well, it seems like yesterday. What do you want?”

“Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” Rebecca offered. She knew that being seen with her could be a problem for the young prostitute, although she didn’t care if she ruined her business for the night. She did care if she put her in physical danger. Anyone in that part of town appearing too friendly with the police could make enemies quickly. “I want to catch up on old times. Have you eaten? I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“It’s four a.m.”

“Okay—dinner then.”

Sandy snorted in disgust. “Fine. Chen’s. Come on.”

They moved quickly through back streets that were so narrow they might have been alleys except for the historic townhouses lining them. The residents of Society Hill, as the area was called, issued constant complaints to City Hall regarding the Tenderloin and its undesirable activity. Unfortunately, the seedy par of town bordered some of the most expensive real estate in Center City. Every six months the police swept the area nightly for a week or two trying to reduce the nightlife, but it always returned.

Rebecca kept a careful eye out for anyone following them or lurking in the shadows as they hurriedly along. Ten minutes later they emerged on South Street, another pocket of late night activity, although here the crowd was younger and the excitement centered more on alcohol and drugs than sex. Chen’s House of Jade was a hole in the wall restaurant that looked like a Board of Health citation waiting to be served, but the food was good and the proprietor discreet.

Rebecca and Sandy took a booth in the back beneath flickering fluorescents, and a smiling waitress materialized with a pot of steaming tea and a bowl of crisp noodles before their butts had hit the cracked vinyl seats. She began to hand them menus, but Rebecca shook her head and Sandy said, “Moo shu pork with extra pancakes. And a Tsing Tao.”

Then they were alone, staring at each other across the stained Formica surface. Automatically, Rebecca took inventory, her eyes flickering over the blond’s face and then down to her bare arms. The pretty young woman’s eyes were clear and her arms bore no track marks. The detective was glad. She liked the spunky kid.

“What happened to your head?” Rebecca asked.

Sandy shrugged and lightly traced the fresh red scar on her forehead. The suture marks still showed along the edges of the cut. “I fell.”

“Did someone help you fall?” Rebecca asked casually, plucking a twisted, crispy fried noodle from the bowl. There were a dozen reasons why a woman in Sandy’s position could end up dead—turf issues from veteran prostitutes who didn’t want her moving in on their corners; angry pimps who didn’t think the nightly returns were high enough; a trick gone bad. But Sandy was Rebecca’s informant, and the cop protected her own. It was one reason why Sandy helped her, although unwillingly sometimes, with street Intel.

“I already said. Accident.” She studied the cop, noting the shadows under her eyes. Her normal leanness bordered on gaunt. “I didn’t think you’d be back.”

Rebecca was silent.

“I heard—well, everyone heard, about what happened to you the day after Anna Marie got—killed.” The last time Sandy and the tall cop had seen one another, Sandy’d been crying on Frye’s shoulder and her best friend had been lying upstairs in a rat-hole hotel dead. She could still feel the safe, solid feel of the cop’s arms around her. Shaking her head to dispel the memory, she added, “I’m glad you blew that fucker away.”

“So am I.”

Sandy looked at her in surprise, her skin prickling at the cold hard flatness of the cop’s voice. She was starting to wonder if she hadn’t been wrong about a lot of things about cops. Frye wasn’t like those prick bastards who hassled her and her friends for sex in exchange for not running them in on prostitution charges that they all knew wouldn’t stick past night court. Frye was different; she cared, just like— The waitress interrupted her musings as she deposited an enormous platter of steaming moo shu on the table between them along with pancakes and sauce.

“More beer?” the waitress asked Sandy, who shook her head no. Looking at Rebecca, she asked, “How about you?” The word detective hung in the air.

“No—I’m good.”

As Rebecca watched her companion pile food on her plate, she remarked, “I’m looking for somebody selling young stuff.”

“Everybody sells young stuff. That’s what sells. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“I’m talking about the real thing, not the eighteen year olds pretending to be thirteen.”

“Don’t know anything about it.” Sandy rolled another pancake and sipped her beer, keeping her eyes on her plate.

“This is probably a big, well-run operation, not some pimp selling chickens out of an apartment in the slums,” Rebecca continued unperturbed. “Maybe a well-organized operation.”

Sandy raised her gaze to Rebecca’s. Their blue eyes met, but try as she might, she knew that she couldn’t match the hard stillness of the cop’s cold stare. Sandy blinked, then said softly, “Are you fucking nuts? I don’t know anything about that, and I don’t want to know anything about it. If this is organized , then asking about it gets you dead. Look at what happened to your cop friends last spring.”

Rebecca’s expression became granite. “What did you hear?”

“Just that they were poking around where they shouldn’t have been poking—in somebody important’s business. And that somebody shut them up.”

“You get this important person’s name?”

Sandy shook her head. “Uh uh.”

“Who did you hear this from?”

“Can’t recall.”

“Try.”

“Are you looking to get offed, too?” Sandy hissed, leaning forward across the small tabletop. “What is it with you?”

For some reason, Rebecca answered. “One of them was my partner.”

“Well, now he’s dead. End of story.”

“No,” Rebecca said quietly as she pulled her wallet from her back pocket. “Not yet.” She laid four twenties on the table. “Ask around. Be careful, though.”

“Yeah, right. Thanks.” Her tone was not grateful. “Listen,” she said quickly as Rebecca slid across the seat and stood up.

“What?”

“A friend of mine is in a jam. An undercover guy busted her tonight—not before she finished the hand job I might add, although of course he denies that—and I know she doesn’t have the bail. She’s been picked up before. She could go away for this.”

“What’s her name?” Rebecca asked, glancing at her watch. “If the paperwork’s not processed yet, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Rita. Rita Balducci.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Can’t wait,” Sandy grumbled, watching the cop walk quickly through the narrow aisle between the rickety tables and out into the night. Some part of her felt better knowing Frye was back on the streets.

“Oh God, I need a shower. I need two showers.” Jason McBride pushed away from the computer terminal and rubbed his face with both hands. “I always heard it, but I never really knew how many sickos there were out there.”

Sloan swiveled in her chair and faced him from the console where she had been working. The clock on the far wall said 4:42 a.m. The last time she could remember seeing the time it had been eight-thirty the previous evening. Jason’s hair was uncharacteristically disheveled, and his shirt actually appeared to have been untucked. Intentionally. That was highly unusual for her fastidious friend. It was the hollow-eyed expression on his face that caught her attention, though. It wasn’t fatigue—they’d worked forty hours or more without stopping when they’d had major system failures to repair or massive viral infestations to cleanse. This was something else. “I guess you’ve been successful?”

He winced. “If you can call almost having sex with a dozen perverts successful, then yes—wildly so.”

“Who are you tonight?”

“QtGrl13. She was a big hit.”

“Where have you been trolling?”

“The Hot4U message boards. As soon as I showed up and announced that I was a new girl in town, I had three offers to move off to a private room to get acquainted. I was in an out of the chat rooms all night after that.”

“Anything look promising?”

He shrugged, then sighed. “Too soon to tell. The patter is pretty sophisticated for the most part—except for the high school boys who are the same the world over whether it’s cyber space or the junior prom. They just want to get laid and they’re not too subtle about it. But I have a feeling that the real pedophiles are being very careful not to expose themselves. They’re probably pretending to be kids until they feel safe enough in a relationship to cop to their real age. There were one or two who sounded like they might be angling for more than a quickie, but I’ll have to go back on again a few more times to see. If I move too fast it will spook them.”

“All right. As soon as you have a possible, let me know and we’ll start a back door trace. And we need to narrow down geographic locations. There are literally thousands of people using these boards, and we have to search for a local hit.”

“Got it.”

“Try to bring the conversations around to pics, especially current ones or anything with videos.”

“I’m doing that when I go on as BigMac10—that’s where I’ve just been. Swimming with the scum who are looking to trade files. I’m posing as a guy who’s interested in 12 or 13-year-old girls. But I haven’t been real specific yet. These guys aren’t stupid, and the people we’re looking for are going to be very savvy. I can’t just ask to see some guy’s etchings.” He sighed and stood. “I’m going home. Sarah got in from that alternative medicine conference in Sante Fe tonight. Last night—whatever. Somehow, being with her always makes me feel normal.”

“Yeah, she has that effect on me, to.”

“That’s a stretch,” he said good-naturedly.

Sloan just laughed. “Say hi for me—and tell her she owes me a workout.”

“Will do. You should quit for the night, too. Michael home?”

“Yes.”

“Then go.”

She glanced at the screen, considering the credit card clearing houses she still needed to trace, then thought of the woman upstairs asleep. The case was already getting ugly, and it was likely to go on for a long time, and get even uglier. She stood and stretched. “Excellent advice. I’m gone.”

She locked the office doors as Jason descended in the silent elevator, then walked the length of the dimly lit hall to the rear stairwell and climbed the one flight to her fourth floor loft apartment. As quietly as possible, she fitted her key into the lock and slid the large double doors apart, closing and bolting them behind her. Making her way through the darkened space by memory, she shed her clothes along the way and crossed to the bathroom on the far side of the partitioned sleeping area. She left the light off so as not to awaken Michael, but as she reached into the shower to turn the water on, she heard a soft sound behind her. Turning, she was startled as a warm body pressed into her arms.

Nuzzling Sloan’s neck, Michael murmured sleepily, “Is it morning?”

“Not yet.” She kissed her gently, then added, “Go back to bed. I’ll be in as soon as I shower.”

“Mmm. Want company?”

“Now that is by far the best offer I’ve had all night.”

“Oh?” Michael asked, sounding much more awake. “And have you had many offers this evening?”

“None worth mentioning,” Sloan said reassuringly. Unfortunately, she had a feeling that was a circumstance that was about to change, given their current undertaking. Pushing aside thoughts of predators and innocent victims, she drew her lover into the shower and let the warm water and Michael’s embrace wash the unwelcome images from her mind.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHEN THE ALARM went off, Michael made a quick grab for it in an attempt to silence the insistent buzzing before it awakened Sloan.

“What time is it?” came a husky whisper from the darkness.

“6:15.”

“Do you have a meeting this morning?” Sloan asked, clearing her throat and trying to dispel the cobwebs from her brain.

“Yes. Development and Marketing are meeting to discuss agendas.”

Sloan rolled over as Michael sat up in bed, appreciating the way the sheets cascaded down her lover’s body, leaving her breasts bare. Suddenly, she forgot the fact that she’d only had an hour and a half of sleep. They hadn’t been able to have dinner together the evening before, because by the time Michael had gotten back from a late business meeting, Sloan and Jason had been deep into another night on the job. Internet traffic was high between four and two a.m. when kids were home from school. That’s when adults looking for a contact would be trolling. With effort, she pushed aside those thoughts. Running a hand down Michael’s bare arm, she said, “I missed you last night.”

“Me, too.” Michael sighed. “I’d better go. I want to be there to referee. You know those two groups can never agree as to whose timetable should take priority. And of course both division directors are total hotheads, and usually one or the other or both of them threatens to quit after every meeting. I figured I’d save myself some time by being there to put out any fires.”

“They’ll play nice if you’re there. And you could always threaten to can them before they have a chance to quit.”

“Maybe.” Michael laughed and leaned down to kiss her. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mmm. I will,” Sloan murmured languorously, her arms encircling Michael’s waist. Pulling the other woman down into her arms, she added, “In just a few minutes.”

Surprised, Michael emitted a short peel of laughter that turned to a muffled moan as her body met Sloan’s, and her skin began to hum with the familiar pulse of desire. Her body called the next shot, and before she knew it, she was straddling Sloan’s thigh and devouring her lover’s mouth, suddenly ravenous for the taste of her. While she was lost in the kiss, Sloan lifted her hips, rolling Michael over, and then settled possessively upon her. The hum became a roar.

Unwillingly, Michael pulled her mouth away from the kiss, gasping, “No time.”

“I’ll be quick,” Sloan growled, her lips against Michael’s neck, her hand brushing the length of Michael’s side to her hips.

“Liar. You’re never quick.” But she wasn’t moving away.

Sloan pushed herself up and in one quick motion slid down the bed until her breasts nestled between Michael’s thighs and her cheek was pressed to Michael’s stomach. Nipping at the sensitive skin around Michael’s navel, she trailed her fingers lightly up the inside of her lover’s left thigh, dancing back and forth over the tender places between her legs.