Storms Of Change

“I don’t know, sweetie. The transport left Germany early this morning, our time. I’m not sure how long it takes for that kind of flight.” Tory had to force herself not to pace. The hours crawled by. She’d gone to the clinic in the morning, knowing that Reese couldn’t possibly arrive before nightfall. Even then, she was always aware in the back of her mind that Reese was on her way home. Home for good, if she had anything to say about it.

“I know she’s probably not gonna want to see anybody for a while,” Bri said, echoing her father’s gentle warning, “but do you think maybe you could call and let us know she’s home?”

Smiling, Tory gave Bri a quick hug. “I know that Reese will call you first thing. She’s going to want a report on everything that’s happened while she’s been gone.”

“I should still plan on running class at the dojo for a while, right?”

Tory nodded. She hadn’t mentioned to anyone what Reese’s father had said about her injuries. Reese would share what she wanted to. “She’s probably pretty tired, honey. I think it’s a good idea for you to take care of everything there for a while.”

“No problem.” Bri colored slightly. “I like teaching class.”

“I can tell.” Tory squeezed her hand. “You’re very good at it too. I enjoy your classes.”

“Thanks.” Bri stuffed her hands into the pockets of her uniform pants. “Well, I should go, so you can…you know, be alone with Reese.”

“Come on. I’ll walk you down to your cruiser.”

Tory watched Bri back out and stood in the driveway watching until the car disappeared. It was eight p.m., and she didn’t think she could stand another night alone. She returned to the deck and stretched out in one of the lounge chairs, watching the sky grow dark, and waiting.

The crunch of tires brought her bolting awake. She jumped up and nearly fell. She didn’t wear her ankle brace around the house anymore, but her damaged lower leg wasn’t strong enough to tolerate even a normal level of sudden stress. She hissed in a breath and waited a second for the sharp stab of pain to relent, while her heart pounded wildly. Headlights flashed through the trees and shrubs between their rear deck and the driveway, but she couldn’t make out the details of the vehicle. It might be Kate. It could be Bri, too impatient to wait for a phone call. It might be Nelson. Moving quickly but more cautiously, she hastened down the steps. The security lights over the garage came on, illuminating the scene like a movie set.

A big black car with a small American flag waving on the front fender idled in the drive. She caught a flash of an insignia on the shiny black surface before the rear door opened and obscured it. A man exited the front passenger side and walked around the front of the car toward her, but she didn’t even look at him. It could have been the president of the United States and she would not have cared. She didn’t wait, couldn’t wait, and hurried toward the open rear door. Then, she halted abruptly as Reese slowly climbed out.

“Hi, baby,” Reese said softly.

She was in uniform, the desert camos that she’d worn in the picture on Tory’s desk. That was the only similarity between how she looked in that photograph and now. Tory had never seen her so thin. The harsh light from the security lights accentuated the hollow shadows beneath her eyes. A row of black sutures ran across her forehead. Tory knew without asking that the wound was caused by a blow from a rifle butt, and she felt fury like she’d never known. When Reese had been captured, Tory thought she had understood the white-hot rage to kill, but now she knew with absolute certainty that she could kill with a cold clear mind. Somewhere in the depths of her consciousness, she knew she would be frightened by that knowledge later, but not now. Now her wrath only made her tender. She took a slow step, then another, and another until she gently framed Reese’s face and brushed the lightest of kisses over her mouth.

“Welcome home, darling.”

Reese curved an arm around Tory’s shoulders and held her against her chest, brushing her cheek against Tory’s hair. “I missed you so much.”

Tory curled her arms around Reese’s waist, every motion careful, because she knew she was hurt, but she didn’t know where or how badly. Reese’s heart beat against her breast, something she had missed every day that Reese had been gone. She had managed without her, would have managed for herself and for Reggie for as long as it took, forever if necessary. But without the beat of Reese’s heart steadying her world, she would have bled for eternity missing her. “I’m so glad you’re home. I love you.”

“I love you,” Reese whispered. She tilted Tory’s chin up with her left hand and kissed her again. “Is the baby here?”

“Asleep. But you can wake her.”

Reese smiled. “I can wait awhile.” With her arm still around Tory’s shoulders, Reese turned slightly away to face the man who stood nearby. “I understand you’ve met my partner.”

Roger Conlon nodded. “Dr. King.”

“General. Thank you for bringing her home.”

“She earned it, Doctor.” He started back around the car. “Good night, Colonel. Dr. King.”

“Sir,” Reese called. “Would you like to come inside?”

The general hesitated. “Not tonight, Colonel. I need to get back to Washington. There’s a war on.”

“Some other time, then,” Reese said. She released Tory and saluted with her left hand. “Good night, sir.”

He returned the salute as he slid into the car. Reese and Tory stepped back a few feet while the car backed out, turned onto Route 6, and disappeared.

“Let’s get you inside,” Tory said gently. Reese was trembling, and Tory knew that only part of it was the emotion of homecoming. Reese was physically weak, something that Tory found incredibly frightening. “Come inside and hold me.”

“Oh yeah. That sounds good.” Reese rested her forehead against Tory’s and closed her eyes. “So damn good.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Rica poured the last of her wine, set the empty bottle beside her, and sipped without tasting. After preparing a meal that she hadn’t eaten, she’d settled into a lounge chair on the first-floor deck…the one that faced Herring Cove and the beach trail along which she had watched Carter run weeks before. The sunset blazed above the water, a glorious canvas she didn’t see. Now it was dark. The sky was a riot of stars, the air tart enough to sting. Perhaps it was the wine, but she didn’t feel cold. Carter had been gone twelve hours. In those twelve hours, Rica had gone to work and accomplished nothing. She’d come home and tried to go about the daily routine that usually satisfied her. Simply doing things when she wanted, how she wanted, always gave her a comforting sense of control. It also allowed her to live a lie of her own choosing.

Perhaps coming to Provincetown, opening the gallery, had been the ultimate lie. Self-delusion at its finest…pretending that forsaking her father’s name would somehow make her less a part of who he was, what he was. But she was still her father’s daughter, whether she gave the orders or not. Whether she acknowledged what went on around her or not. And when the ultimate test had come, she had chosen family over everything, including love.

Carter had been gone twelve hours, and in that time, Rica had tried very hard to convince herself it was for the best. There was no future for them. How could there be? Carter was sworn to destroy the very foundation of Rica’s life. And if she didn’t, that life would destroy her.

Rica sipped her wine, wondering whether the lies Carter had told her were any worse than the ones she told herself.

Her arm still around Tory’s shoulders, Reese stopped just inside the door and looked around the living room. The doors to the deck were open, just screens holding out the night. A single light burned under a counter in the kitchen, but she didn’t need light to see every inch of the space. She’d seen it over and over again in her mind, every day that she’d been away… she remembered coming home from work just a few days before Reggie had been born and finding Tory stretched out on the couch, complaining of feeling like a whale and looking so beautiful that Reese had wanted to get down on her knees, press her face to the swell of Tory’s belly, and weep for the miracle within. Sitting in a rocker with Reggie in her arms, watching her suck on a bottle, her blue eyes wide with wonder and promise. The sun slanting in at dawn to illuminate Tory’s face while she slept, an image Reese carried in her heart like a treasured photo. This house sheltered her family, and her family was her heart.

“Good to be home,” Reese said, her voice still hoarse from the searing heat of the desert and the days without water and the tubes they had put down her throat when they’d cleaned her wounds.

“Yes.” Tory waited, listening in the silence for the things she knew Reese wouldn’t say.

“Did the baby walk yet?”

“No,” Tory said gently. “She’s pulling herself up and she’s teetering for a few seconds, but no forward motion.” She hugged Reese carefully. “She’s waiting for you.”

Reese pressed her face to Tory’s hair. “Let’s go to bed.”

“That would be perfect.”

Upstairs, they paused in the doorway to Reggie’s room. Reese stood at the threshold, listening the way she had listened in the desert for the sound of metal on metal, for the approaching thunder of explosive rounds, for the whir and thump of rotor blades, and finally, for rescue. She listened with all her mind and body to the steady, soft breathing of her daughter as she slept, safe and secure and innocent.

“She’s a wonder, isn’t she,” Reese murmured.

“Yes, she is.”

Inside the bedroom, they stopped by the bed. Earlier in the evening, Tory had turned the sheets down, leaving it open and welcoming, and had switched on a lamp on the dresser. She pressed her palms to Reese’s chest. The stiff, starched material was rough against her skin. The muscles beneath were hard. The heart beneath was wounded. “Can I help you undress?”

“Yes.” Reese cupped Tory’s face. “Please.”

A slanted swatch of material above the right breast pocket said Conlon in large block letters. A similar patch above the left breast said U.S. Marine. As if those few words defined her completely. At one time they had. Tory opened the first button, then the next, and the next.

“How high can you lift your right arm?” Tory asked.

“About shoulder level, if I go slow.”

“Then don’t try. We’ll get the left out, and I’ll slide it off.” Tory moved around Reese, first to the left, then behind, then to the right, carefully removing her shirt. Underneath she found an Ace wrap holding bandages in place over Reese’s right shoulder and upper chest. Tory’s stomach clenched, but her voice was steady. “Burns?”

“Some.” Reese flashed on the blazing Humvee, of running across open ground that seemed endless while bullets snapped around her, of grabbing the unconscious driver and jerking him out of the mangled wreck. Of lying on top of him while the sky ignited into a scorching inferno. She shivered.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No.” Reese touched Tory’s hair. It was soft, silky, smoother than anything she could remember touching for weeks. “There was a firefight. It split us up. A ground-to-surface missile took out one of the Humvees. It burned.”

Tory sat down on the edge of the bed, her legs weak, and quickly covered her reaction by reaching for the button on Reese’s waistband. “That sounds terrifying.”

Reese looked down, watching Tory open the buttons on her pants. Tory had beautiful hands. Her fingers were narrow and long. She had calluses on her palms from the kayak paddle. Her hands were steady. “Only for a second. Then you’re just too damn busy to think about it.”

“That’s good, then.” Tory curled her fingers around the thick canvas and rocked the pants down Reese’s hips and let them fall around her ankles. “Sit down, darling. What about your collarbone?”

The air was alive with shouts and screams and the roar of automatic rifle fire. Flames writhed into the night sky, giant tongues of fury. “I fell. Tripped carrying the driver over my shoulder. I took the fall on my right. Hit a rock.”

“Lift your foot so I can get your boot.” Tory wanted to ask about the driver. Was he…she?…alive? But she was afraid to take Reese somewhere she wasn’t ready to go. Reese was one of the strongest women she’d ever known. Reese would tell her what she could, when she could, and whenever that might be, Tory would listen, no matter how much it made her want to scream and rage. The desert combat boots were dark brown leather…rough rather than shiny…as if the boots had been turned inside out so they wouldn’t reflect beneath the brilliant desert sun. She unlaced first one, then the other, and pulled them off and placed them side by side beneath the bed. “There’s a bandage on your leg.”

Every breath was like swallowing fire. She managed to get to her feet, despite the stabbing pain in her chest and the scorching agony of the burns. She couldn’t lift the driver but suddenly another Marine materialized beside them and, between the two of them, they dragged the limp body toward the shelter of darkness. She stumbled when her leg buckled.

“It’s nothing much.” Reese regarded the wound on her thigh. “Bit of shrapnel caught me in the leg.”

“Did they get it out?”

The Marine who had come to her aid swore as the projectile lodged in his calf, but he kept running. They both kept running, half carrying their comrade. “Passed through.”

“Lie back, and I’ll get your briefs off.” She searched Reese’s face. She hadn’t stopped thinking about what some nameless, faceless monsters might have done to Reese in those hours when Reese had been helpless. As a physician, she had been trained to push doubts and uncertainty aside in order to function, but this time she had not been able to completely block the terrible fear. “Okay?”

There was nowhere to go, no way to reach sanctuary. It had only been a matter of a few minutes before the five of them had been surrounded by three times as many men with more firepower than they could repel. Reese softly kissed Tory. “They threw us in the back of a truck at first, then locked us up in some kind of shack. They didn’t give us food or water and were quick to use a rifle butt. Just the same, they didn’t even want to touch me or the other female Marine. We weren’t clean.”

“I hate them,” Tory whispered.

“I’m sorry for scaring you.”

Tory stood and rested her hands ever so lightly on Reese’s shoulders. “Lie down. Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything except what you had to do.” She eased the cotton briefs over hipbones that were far too prominent, taking care not to snag the material on the clear plastic that covered the sutures on Reese’s thigh. Another scar. Another battle. Too many. Too many.

“Baby,” Reese said quietly, catching Tory’s hand and urging Tory down beside her. “I’ll heal.”

Tory dropped the last piece of the uniform on the floor and lay down to claim the Marine as her own again. She curled on her side against Reese’s left shoulder and drew the sheet up over them both. It felt awkward, because she always slept on Reese’s right side. But that was where Reese was hurt. She knew Reese’s body would heal because Reese was strong and fit, and the wounds, her physician’s mind said, were painful but not dangerous. She worried, agonized over, the wounds she couldn’t see and would never see. And wondered how they would heal and what scars they would leave. “I love you.”

The sheets were so soft. Tory’s body was so warm. Reese caressed Tory’s shoulders and arm, then held her close. “I love you.”

Tory curled her arm around Reese’s middle. Her ribs arched starkly beneath her skin and her stomach hollowed down to the curve of her pelvis as if someone had carved parts of her away. “It’s good to have you home.”

She’d been disoriented from the blow from the rifle butt, and it had been hard to keep track of time. They were all frightened. But they were together, and when the guards were far enough away not to hear, they whispered encouragement to one another. Reese reminded them that they were alive, and they were Marines. Their fellow Marines would not abandon them. And in her private moments, she reminded herself that Tory was waiting. That Reggie had a lifetime of discovery ahead of her. And that she needed to go home, because she had promised she would.

“It’s good to be here. Better than anything else in the world.”

Carter rolled over in the grip of an uneasy sleep, and the pain in her back jolted her awake. “God damn it.”

After Kevin had dropped her off at her apartment in Cambridge, she’d swallowed three pain pills and crawled into bed. She squinted at the clock. Seven hours ago. Now it was the middle of the night and she wasn’t exactly awake, but was too sore to find a comfortable position and slide back into sleep. She could swallow another handful of pain pills and that might do the job, but she knew without checking that the blinking red light on her phone was a message, probably many messages, from Special Agent Allen. And she was going to have to face the Special Agent in Charge in the morning, and she’d need a clear head if she was going to save any piece of her ass or some part of her career.

When she’d first stumbled into the apartment and seen the blinking light, she’d had the crazy idea it was Rica. The way her heart had swelled so big, so fast, it actually hurt inside her chest. Hurt in a good way. And then just as quickly the pain settled in the pit of her stomach, because she’d realized that Rica did not know her home number. And even if she had, she would not be calling.

Carter curled on her side and closed her eyes, even knowing that sleep wouldn’t come. It was starting to be easier to ignore the pain in her body than the one that ached ceaselessly in her soul.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Tory sat at the breakfast counter sipping coffee, as she did every morning. This morning, even the mundane felt extraordinary. She’d never tasted a better cup of coffee. The air was fresher, sweeter, than she could ever remember. Excitement hummed through her body. It took feeling truly alive to make her realize that she hadn’t been. The thought was both exhilarating and terrifying.

At exactly 7:30 a.m., she heard a car pull into the driveway. She smiled to herself, having expected it an hour earlier. Wondering how painful that hour of waiting had been, she went to the door and greeted her visitor. “Hi, sweetie.”

Bri quickly doffed her cap and turned it restlessly between her fingers. “I…uh… so, is she here?”

Tory held the door open and gestured Bri inside. “She’s sleeping.”

“Oh. Okay.” Bri bent down and picked up Reggie, who had crawled over to them. She bounced the baby once or twice and settled her against her hip. “So. How is… everything?”

“She’s doing fine,” Tory said. “Come on in and have coffee. She’ll be up soon.”

“Nah. I should probably get back out…”

“Hey,” Reese said as she slowly came down the stairs. Her thick black hair, shorter than she usually wore it, was slicked back and still damp from the shower. Her jeans and a short-sleeved pullover were loose. She grinned at Bri with sharp, clear blue eyes. “How you doing?”

Bri grinned back, rocking ever so slightly on her heels as if trying not to run forward. “Not bad.”

Reese’s attention fixed on Reggie. “Hey, sweetheart.”

Reggie started squirming and Tory quickly plucked her from Bri’s arms. “Let me take her.” Then she carried her to Reese. “I don’t know if you should hold her just yet.”

“It’ll be okay,” Reese said hoarsely. When Tory passed the baby to her, she held her against her left side and nuzzled her neck. Reggie giggled and Reese closed her eyes, shivering lightly.

After a minute, Tory gently took her back. “She’s too heavy for you to hold with your collarbone the way it is, darling.”

Wordlessly, Reese let her go. Then she glanced over at Bri, who looked embarrassed and uncertain. “Come on in.”

“Maybe I should come back.”

“No.” Reese edged a hip onto a stool on the living room side of the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area. “Have a seat. Tell me what’s been going on.”

When Bri cast a quick, doubtful look in Tory’s direction, Tory nodded encouragingly. Then Bri rushed the final few feet, skidding to a halt beside Reese, looking as if she wanted to hug her. Reese tossed her left arm around Bri’s shoulders and pulled her in for an embrace. She held her without saying anything for a long moment while Bri gently threaded her arms around Reese’s waist.

“Missed you,” Reese said.

“Oh yeah. Man, me too.”

Bri’s voice wavered and Reese clapped her on the back before loosening her hold. “So. Bring me up to date.”

Tory slid a cup of coffee across the counter to Bri, who picked it up automatically as she launched into an excited recounting of everything that had happened in the sheriff’s department since the day Reese left. While they talked, Tory grabbed the portable phone and carried Reggie out onto the deck. She checked that the gate was closed, went back inside to quickly retrieve her coffee, and once outside again, speed-dialed.

“She’s up,” Tory said when Kate answered the phone. She leaned against the railing and looked back into the house, watching Bri and Reese together. It was a sight she’d seen a thousand times, but it took losing that little piece of family to make her realize how much she needed it. They looked so much alike, even more so now that Reese was thinner. But there was no mistaking the stark contrast between Bri’s youthful buoyancy and Reese’s fatigue. It saddened her, to know that Reese had once been like Bri, fresh and eager and optimistic. She’d lived long enough and lost enough to know that there was no going back, but in loving Reese she’d found more than she’d ever lost. Now what she wanted most of all was to give Reese a place to recover her faith in the things that made her who she was. Honor, duty, principle. “What, Kate? I’m sorry. I…I can’t quite believe she’s home.”

“How does she seem?”

“She’s worn out. Quiet.” Tory had lain awake for a long time, listening to Reese’s breathing and trying to determine if she was sleeping. Usually she could tell, but something had changed in the cadence of Reese’s breathing while she’d been gone. It was as if even while asleep every now and then she would stop and listen. Tory wondered what she was listening for and was afraid she knew. There was no respite from danger, when death came in the silent seconds between heartbeats. And as much as Tory wished that she could, she knew she could not protect Reese from the threats that haunted her sleep.

“Is she badly hurt?”

Tory could tell from the tight, flat sound of Kate’s voice just how difficult it had been for her to ask that question. “She’s mostly banged up. I don’t know what’s worse, a nice clean bullet wound or all these damn minor injuries.”

Kate laughed shakily. “You’re starting to sound like a Marine’s wife.”

“Don’t even think it.” Tory bent down and removed a leaf from Reggie’s mouth. “Don’t eat that, sweetie.”

“Do you need me to come and get her?”

“I’ll call you later. I need to go into the clinic, but I don’t want to leave Reese just yet.”

“I know. Jean and I both want to see her, of course, but I think she needs you for a while first.”

Tory watched through the wide glass doors as Bri put her hat on, obviously getting ready to leave. Reese squeezed her arm and said something that made Bri nod seriously. Some order of business, Tory surmised. “I need her for a while, too.”

“When you think of it, tell her we’ll be by later.”

“Thanks, Kate. For understanding.”

“She’s home. That’s enough for us right now.”

“Yes.” Tory smiled as Reese swiveled on the stool and met her eyes. The heat that flooded through her came as a surprise. She hadn’t realized just how cold she’d been. “We’ll see you later.”

When Kate rang off, Tory collected Reggie and went back inside. “Hungry?”

“Some.”

“How about I fix you something to eat, then we all go back to bed.”

Smiling, Reese nodded. “Let me go lock the doors.”

“You ready?” Kevin said, eyeing Carter speculatively. “You still look like shit.”

“Thank you. That makes me feel so much better.” Carter knew just exactly how bad she looked. The stitches Dr. King had put in didn’t show much in her hair, but the bruise had seeped down along her jawline, discoloring the right side of her neck. The purple hues matched the circles under her eyes.

“Don’t smart-mouth Allen,” Kevin warned. “She’s royally pissed at you.”

Carter sighed, thinking not for the first time that she didn’t really care what bug Special Agent Allen had up her ass that morning. She had more important things on her mind. Like whether Enzo had contacted Rica. Or if Rica was still in Provincetown. Or if Rica thought of her at all. “I know how to handle suits like her.”

“Yeah. That’s obvious. You’ve been doing such a good job so far.”

“Listen, Kev,” Carter said seriously. “No matter how this goes, don’t put your ass on the line for me. Not this time. Because…” She shrugged. “It’s just not that important.”

Kevin studied her. “You mean that, don’t you.”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Okay. So let’s go see what the feds want from us.”

Allen was alone. Carter had expected either her immediate superior or a representative from internal affairs to be there, too. Instead, Allen stood by the window in the small, featureless room, her back partially turned to the door. As usual, she wore a dark navy pantsuit and a cream-colored silk blouse. Her blond hair was stylishly but simply cut. Her shoes were expensive but functional. She was pretty, but she worked hard to make sure it didn’t show. Carter looked at Kevin, who shrugged.

“Have a seat, Detective.” Special Agent Allen glanced once at Carter and ignored Kevin. As Carter pulled out a straight-backed chair in front of the rectangular metal table, Allen added smoothly, “Your presence is not required, Detective Shaughnessy.”

“Now wait a minute,” Kevin protested.

“That’s okay, Kevin.” Carter settled into the uncomfortable chair, smothering a wince as a tender spot on her hip connected with the unpadded seat. “Go get coffee or something. I’ll call you when we’re done.”

Kevin hesitated in the doorway, looking back and forth between the two women, his jaws working as if he were chewing glass. Then he muttered something that was just garbled enough to be unintelligible, which was probably wise, because Allen was regarding him as if he were an alien specimen in a zoo.

“Okay. Sure.”

When they were alone, Allen pulled out a chair opposite Carter and sat down. “I’ve been trying to reach you for over three days.”

“I was indisposed.”

“Yes. I can see that.” Allen slid a file folder in front of her, opened it, and extracted a single sheet of paper. “This is your last report. It was filed almost two months ago.”

“I’m not much for forms.”

Allen closed the folder and pushed it away. Then she leaned forward and laced her fingers together on the table top. “Rizzo is getting forgetful. Ever since we picked him up on Sunday he’s become more and more vague about all kinds of information he was very certain about before. He’s not our only informant, but a large part of the case we’re building against Alfonse Pareto hinges on his testimony.”

“He’s probably scared shitless,” Carter said. “He’s been part of that organization for forty years. He knows what happens when someone talks. It’s one thing to have secret meetings with you in a car under a bridge somewhere, feeding you little tidbits to keep himself out of jail and you satisfied. But climbing up into the witness box and ratting out one of the three most powerful organized crime heads east of the Mississippi? Come on.”

“You’re right. Men like him are often unreliable.” Allen shrugged. “Which is why your report is even more critical.”

“I don’t have a whole hell of a lot to report just now, Special Agent.”

“You’ve had several months to get a handle on Ricarda Pareto’s place in all of this. If you can turn her, then…”

“Rica?” Carter laughed. “If she were involved, which I’ve told you she isn’t, there’s no way she would betray her father.”

Allen sat back and said conversationally, “Not even for you? Not even for the woman she’s sleeping with?”

“We’re not sleeping together. And if we were, it wouldn’t matter. Rica isn’t part of it.”

“We have evidence to suggest otherwise.”

Carter shook her head. “What you have is rumor and wishful thinking.”

“Pareto is using the daughter’s gallery in SoHo as a front for money laundering. It’s relatively small scale for him, but significant enough for us to bring her in. They may be moving drugs through there as well.”

“Not Rica.” Carter’s hands fisted beneath the table, but she forced herself to sit calmly. “Whatever you’ve got, Rica isn’t the one behind it.”

“It’s her gallery. That puts her name on the warrant.”

Cold sweat broke out between Carter’s shoulder blades as sick worry churned in her stomach. If Rica were arrested, the press would have a field day. Her picture would be in every tabloid in the country. She’d never have a moment’s peace or privacy again. “You should be looking at Enzo. You said you had him in the surveillance photos going in there, sometimes when Rica wasn’t even there. It’s probably his sideline. Damn it, Allen, you know it isn’t her.”

“Then get her to give up some information. I want her father’s connection at the port. We’re not just talking drugs. We’re talking automobiles, electronics…maybe even girls.”

“If someone’s moving human traffic, it’s not Pareto. Maybe one of his lieutenants has gone independent. Pareto’s old-school. You know that.” Carter stood, too agitated to sit. She paced in the small room, thought of her barren apartment, and yearned for the feel of salt air on her skin and the beach at dawn. “You can’t get to Pareto through Rica, because I don’t think she knows anything. And even if she did, she’ll never turn.”

“A woman will do a lot of things for love. Or what she thinks is love.”

At the unexpected sound of pain in Allen’s voice, Carter halted abruptly. She caught a glimpse of sadness and regret in Allen’s face before her features reformed into her normal professional facade. Briefly, she wondered if Allen had been the one to compromise herself for love, or if the nameless woman had betrayed her. Because it was clear there had been a woman. But knowing that, even feeling sympathy, did not make them allies. Allen was threatening the woman Carter loved. “If you name Rica in this, I’ll go on record against it. She’s innocent.”

“Your convictions aren’t going to mean very much. Especially since you nearly blew months of work by attacking Lorenzo Brassi.”

“I didn’t attack him. I pulled him off a woman he was trying to rape.”

“You don’t know his advances were unwelcome. We have photographic evidence…”

“Fuck your evidence. Rica was a victim.”

“Your judgment leaves something to be desired.”

Carter laughed. “Why don’t you just admit that you were wrong about her. Whatever information you had, whatever you think you saw in those surveillance photos, Rica is not involved with Enzo Brassi. She’s not part of her father’s organization. She’s not responsible for her father’s actions.”

“Well,” Allen said, shrugging as she stood. “I guess we’ll find out just how much she knows when we bring her in.”

“If you can even get a warrant with what little you’ve got, all you’re going to do is tip your hand to Pareto. He’ll know what you know, and then he’ll just cover his tracks. You’re jumping the gun.”

“If we can’t get anything from the daughter, we’ll at least be a step closer to Brassi, and Brassi sits at Pareto’s right hand. One way or the other, we’ll be closer than we are now.”

Carter knew she wasn’t going to be able to reason with Allen, because for whatever reason, Allen was fixated on Rica. Maybe she wanted Rica to be guilty. Maybe on some level she needed Rica to be guilty. Just because Allen was supposedly one of the good guys didn’t mean her motives were pure, or rational. Carter didn’t really care. All she cared about was getting Rica out of Allen’s line of fire. She wasn’t certain quite how she was going to do that, but she knew she had to. An arrest would ruin Rica’s life.

“If there’s something going on at the gallery in New York City, Rica is obviously not involved. She hasn’t been there for weeks.”

“She was there about a month ago.” Allen walked to the door, then paused as if in afterthought. “By the way. Unless you bring me something on Rica, you may find yourself on the bad end of an obstruction of justice charge.”

Carter watched the door swing closed behind Allen. She might have no official role in Rica’s life any longer, but nothing that had happened between the two of them had been about the case. Nothing that mattered. And now, Carter realized, keeping Rica from being destroyed because of her family ties was the only thing she cared about.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“So?” Kevin pounced the minute he saw Carter exit the station’s rear door to the parking lot. “What’s the word?”

“How’d you know I’d come out here?” Carter asked, stalling.

He snorted. “Come on, you and I have been ducking out on meetings this way for the last four years. What did she say? You were in there long enough.”

Carter squinted in the bright noon sun. Her head ached. Her heart ached. “Let’s go for a beer.”

Kevin stopped and stared, his big open face revealing surprise and concern. “Kinda early.”

“It’s either that or a pain pill,” Carter said as she wove her way through the departmental and private vehicles baking on the tarmac. “What would you choose?”

“Good point. The Shamrock?”

Carter nodded, thinking that the dark, dingy hole-in-the-wall bar suited her mood perfectly. Plus, it was a cop bar, but not the kind where whole squads got together to celebrate. It was a place for solitary drinking when the waste and insanity that was a cop’s daily fare got to be too much. No one would bother them, or even notice them. Cops went to the Shamrock to try to forget, not for company.

The couple of men who sat at the bar didn’t look up as they walked in. A woman, blond, thirty, looking as if she hadn’t slept in a week, was slumped over a glass she cradled in both hands in a booth against the wall. She glanced once in their direction and quickly looked away. She was still new enough to be embarrassed at not being able to handle another dead child, another senseless vehicular fatality, another rape. Carter tried to remember how old she’d been when she’d passed from caring to numbness. It’d been a while ago. Before this case. Long before Rica.

“Two beers,” Carter said to the bartender. She handed a longneck to Kevin, and they ambled into the darker recesses at the rear. She slid across the cracked red vinyl seat to the far corner of a booth, turned sideways to rest her sore back against the wall, and stretched her legs out into the aisle. Kevin pulled at his beer, sitting across from her and waiting.

“Allen wants to get a warrant on Rica for whatever’s going down at the gallery,” Carter said at last.

“Huh. I don’t think we’ve got enough hard evidence on that to go after anyone, not yet. I agree there’s something there…probably a little bit of cash cleaning. Small-time, though. I’m surprised Pareto would risk his daughter for something like that.”

Carter drained half the bottle in several deep swallows. “It’s not Pareto. It’s Brassi.”

“Yeah, that would make more sense…Brassi setting up a little sideline and using Rica as a front. You think she knows?”

Carter shook her head. “Pareto doesn’t give those orders himself. Brassi is his messenger, so Rica would think that anything Brassi told her to do was coming from her father.”

“Well, if Pareto doesn’t know about it, Brassi’s risking his neck. All the daughter has to do is tell Daddy that this guy is fooling around with her business, putting her at risk. Do you think Brassi’s really that crazy?”

“Oh yeah. He thinks he’s got Rica in his pocket because he’s important to her father. And some other reasons. It goes back a ways.”

“All this family shit makes me nuts,” Kevin muttered. “Loyalty only goes so far, you know?”

Carter regarded Kevin silently for a long moment. “You agree with me, then? That Rica’s not part of this?”

Kevin shrugged. “You’re good police. Good instincts. Even if you are thinking with your… whatever, right now.”

“My whatever,” Carter said, grinning sadly, “doesn’t come into this. Rica doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

“If your dick’s anything like my dick, that doesn’t matter.”

Kevin didn’t always wear his wedding ring when he was working undercover. None of the undercover detectives did. But Carter had never known him to fool around on his wife of a dozen years. They had three kids. She tried to imagine what it would be like to go home after a day or week or a month of being someone else, of living another life, and then putting all that aside for the semblance of normality. She’d never needed to. She didn’t have another life besides the one she assumed until the next assignment. “So you think Allen’s off base with this plan of hers?”

“Yeah, I do,” Kevin said slowly. “She’s jumping the gun…and might blow any chance of getting at Pareto by going for the small fish first. Even if she got something to stick on Brassi, he’d never turn. Just doesn’t make good tactical sense.”

“Yeah, I think Brassi’s a dead end as far as getting to Pareto. Glad you agree.”

Kevin frowned. “Why is it so important what I think?”

“Because you’re my partner and someone needs to keep an eye on Allen,” Carter said quietly. “And because I turned in my shield today.”

Kevin banged his beer bottle down with a thump. “Jesus Christ, Carter, what the fuck’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” She grinned just a little unsteadily. “Well, if you don’t count the bumps and bruises.”

“Don’t try to laugh this off. We’re talking about your goddamn career here.”

“No we’re not. We’re talking about Allen’s personal agenda and the fact that we both know it’s wrong.”

“Okay. Fine. We’ll go over her head. Together.” He started to slide out of the booth. “Come on. Right now.”

“If I could move fast enough I’d haul you back down, but I can’t. So just sit. Please.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, but he settled back into the seat.

“It’s more than Allen. It’s me, too, Kev. Things used to be really clear to me. Black and white. Right and wrong.” She drained her beer and set the bottle gently on the tabletop. “Now it’s not.”

“That’s because of Rica. You’re all twisted up about her, but it doesn’t make what her father does right.”

“No, it doesn’t. But it doesn’t make her wrong.”

Kevin rubbed his face furiously, then sighed loudly. “What are you going to do?”

“You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Like hell. I don’t want to end up coming after you one of these days.”

Carter smiled, and hoped this once, she was telling the truth. “I’ll make sure you never need to.”

Reese marveled, not for the first time, at how memory blunts the fine details of beauty. She knew every inch of Tory’s face as her own, but the images she’d replayed in her mind dozens of times while she’d been in Iraq were nowhere near as breathtaking as the reality. The midday sun slanted through the window and haloed Tory’s face as she slept. Her hair held a little more gray, her skin carried a few more lines around her eyes and mouth than when they’d first met, but she was only more lovely with the passage of time. Reese traced a fingertip along the edge of her jaw and smiled when Tory murmured with pleasure.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Tory whispered, her eyes still closed.

“I was.”

Tory opened her eyes and regarded Reese with professional focus. “How do you feel?”

“Lazy.”

“Silly me,” Tory said, laughing softly. “Here I thought you’d be home for at least a couple of days before you started chafing about the inactivity.” She ran her fingers gently over Reese’s collarbone. “What about this?”

“If I lie on my left side like now, it doesn’t really hurt. I can even move my right arm pretty comfortably.”

“You’re still not going to be able to carry the baby for a while.” At Reese’s sound of protest, Tory hastened to add, “Back and forth to the crib like this morning is fine. But getting her in and out of her car seat is going to take two strong arms. Believe me, she’s still nonstop wiggle.”

Reese grinned. “I noticed.” She smoothed her hand over Tory’s bare shoulder and down her arm to clasp her fingers. “My unit was scheduled for recall to the States in a few weeks. Because of my injuries, I most likely won’t be going back.”

“Thank God.” Tory shuddered. “I didn’t even consider that might happen.”

“I wouldn’t be here at home recovering if my father hadn’t arranged it. I might even still be in Germany. But I can’t do much until my collarbone heals, anyhow.”

“I’m really grateful to him for getting you home, and for keeping the press away from us.”

“The military isn’t all that anxious to tell the public all the little details of what’s happening over there. They rescued us so fast, I’m not even sure the embedded reporters with our unit knew what was happening.”

“Still,” Tory brushed a kiss over Reese’s mouth, “I was very glad to have him for my father-in-law this past week.”

“I’m sorry it’s been so difficult. He can be…”

“No, I mean it. He was very helpful, and I’m sure it was hard for him.”

“It’s going to get harder,” Reese said quietly. “I plan to resign, and I’m going to ask him to move the paperwork through.”

Tory closed her eyes, took several long breaths, and then met Reese’s gaze. “Are you sure?”

Reese smiled. “I was thinking about it all the way back in the plane. I realized as I was coming home that I’ve been moving toward that decision for a long time. Even before I met you, leaving active service to come here was the first step in letting go of that part of my life.”

“Reggie and I will be very grateful if you do. It was so hard with you away.”

Reese stroked Tory’s chest and cupped her breast. Most of the fullness from pregnancy had subsided, and she caressed the warm, pliant flesh gently. Tory’s nipple tightened and Reese felt an answering tension in the pit of her stomach. “I know. For me too. A lot of the time I just felt…empty.”

“You’re home now. It will be all right.” Tory covered Reese’s hand with her own and pressed Reese’s fingers firmly into her flesh, stilling the gentle strokes. “I don’t think you want to do that. Not until you’re bet…”

“You don’t have any broken bones, do you?” Reese murmured, working her thumb across Tory’s nipple.

“No, but you do.”

“I’m not going to move much of anything.” Reese slid her hand from beneath Tory’s, clasped Tory’s neck, and drew her close. She kissed her, tasting her lips slowly while she traced the soft junctures with her tongue, replacing another memory with the wonder of the now. “And you don’t have to do anything either. I just want to touch you.”

“Oh God, yes,” Tory murmured. “Anywhere. Everywhere. Whatever you need.”

What Reese needed was to skim her fingers over Tory’s breasts and hips and thighs as she kissed her again. She drank her in, slowly savoring her as she continued her explorations. She watched Tory’s eyes as she caressed her, recognizing the instant when pleasure became need. She smiled.

“You’re so beautiful when you’re aroused.”

“I feel like part of me has been closed up in a dark room,” Tory said breathlessly, “and you just opened a door. The sunlight almost hurts my eyes, but it feels so good to be warm. God, don’t stop touching me.”

Reese nipped at Tory’s lower lip. “I never will.”

“Reese, darling, I need you so mu…oh!”

“It’s all right,” Reese soothed as she swept her fingers between Tory’s thighs. “Let me give you this.”

“I’m afraid I’ll forget and hurt you,” Tory said desperately. “Reese, I don’t know…”

“Shh.” Reese slowly stroked through the heat, massaging the places that made Tory tremble, easing inside, a little deeper with each stroke. “You feel so good. I need you.”

Tory tilted her hips and took Reese in completely, one exquisite millimeter at a time. “Oh that’s so good. Deep. I want you deep inside.”

When Reese was completely sheathed, she lay still, only her lips moving on Tory’s. As her tongue met Tory’s and they gently teased, she felt Tory tighten around her fingers. Still she did not move. As the contractions came faster, harder, she whispered, “I can feel you coming.”

“Yes,” Tory whimpered softly. “Coming. Just for you.”

“I love you.”

“Oh,” Tory cried softly as her orgasm washed over her. “I love you.”

Rica dropped the book she’d been pretending to read as she sat for hours on the sofa. She’d read and reread the same few pages over and over. She regarded the phone on the end table as if it were a loathsome creature rather than an inanimate object. It had rung only once in the last twenty-four hours, and she’d been reluctant to answer it, knowing it was likely to be a call about some problem at the gallery in New York. But then, what else would it be? Carter wouldn’t call. She had sent Carter away, and Carter would respect her wishes. Carter was the first person in her life who had ever really listened to what she had to say, and believed her.

She picked up the phone, finally admitting it was time to do what she’d been avoiding all day, and pressed the familiar numbers.

“Hello,” her father said.

“Papa? It’s me.”

“Hello, Rica. I was just about to call you.”

“I need to see you,” Rica said, feeling an unanticipated surge of relief at having said the words.

“Yes. I have some things to discuss with you, too. Let’s talk tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Why wait. I’ll send a car.”

“But…”

“I’ll see you later, cara.”

Surprised by her father’s oddly abrupt tone, Rica wished that she could see Carter. Just being with Carter made her feel as if she had a real life of her own, one worlds apart from the one she’d been born into. But wishes, she had learned, were only painful indulgences, and she didn’t have time for that luxury at the moment. She needed to get ready for the most important meeting of her life.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It was well after midnight when Rica arrived at her family home, but her father was waiting for her in his study, dressed in a suit as he always was and looking far fresher than she felt. He rose when she entered, came around his desk, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Let’s walk in the gardens, cara,” he said.

He wanted to talk outside, Rica realized, and immediately braced herself. Although the house was routinely swept for monitoring devices and the phone lines checked, she knew that her father never took chances when he discussed business. She took his arm and followed him out as if they were going to take a leisurely stroll. He didn’t seem the least bit tense, but she doubted that she had hidden her own anxiety very well from him. It felt as if someone were kneading her insides with an iron fist.

As soon as they were outside, Rica said, “There’s something I want to tell you, Papa.”

“Let’s sit.”

Her father led her along a subtly lighted flagstone path to a secluded seating area with a wooden glider suspended from two tall trees in its center. She had often spent hours during the summer curled up on that very glider, reading and dreaming. She sat next to her father, who extracted a cigar from his inside jacket pocket. She waited while he went through the ritual of clipping the end with a small cigar knife he carried…a gift from her stepmother…and firing it with a gold lighter. Her father smoked a custom blend of tobacco, and the smoke that drifted into the air was vaguely sweet.

“What is troubling you?” Alfonse asked.

“There are things we’ve never talked about that I need you to know,” Rica said. “Things about me.”

“If there is something that concerns you,” Alfonse said, “then I want to know.”

“I’ve never wanted to hurt you.”

“And you haven’t.”

“If I do, it’s only because I need you to know how I feel. Because I want you to understand.” Rica realized she’d forgotten the logical things she’d planned to say, and simply said what was in her heart. “I am never going to be any part of your business. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“I understand that such matters do not interest you,” Alfonse said quietly. “But you are my daughter, and that is a powerful tie that will always be important. Your husband…”

“Papa, there isn’t going to be a husband. I am never going to marry a man. I’m a lesbian.”

Alfonse continued to smoke and slowly swung the garden swing with a foot against the flagstone. “We are all complicated people. Love…desire…it is never simple. There are many reasons to marry, and not all of them are about what we feel.”

“I’m not going to marry someone I don’t love, and I’m never going to love a man. Not like that.”

“What about children?”

“I don’t need a husband for that.”

Alfonse smiled faintly. “No, but it is easier. Would it be so difficult to take a husband who would want children as well, and have the other things you need with someone else?”

“It would be a lie, Papa. I can’t live that way for the rest of my life.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

It was a fair question and one that Rica had thought about for hours…no, for weeks. Ever since meeting Carter. “Because I don’t want secrets between us. And because Enzo needs to understand once and for all that I will never marry him.”

“Enzo. Yes, he thought…we both thought…that would be the natural course of things.”

Rica detected an edge to her father’s voice that hadn’t been there before, even when she’d said she was a lesbian. It surprised her that he hadn’t had more of a reaction then, but now she could sense his anger. “I never gave him cause to believe that, but he always has considered me his.”

“I admit, I gave him cause to believe I supported that idea. I had believed he would make a worthy son-in-law.” Alfonse’s face in the moonlight was as immobile as the statues scattered throughout his gardens. “I realize now that was a mistake.”

“I should have said something much sooner…”

“There’s a bruise on your cheek, cara. Were there other times he struck you and you hid the marks from me?”

Rica’s hand flew to her face. Before leaving Provincetown, she had carefully applied her makeup and had been certain that he would not notice the bruises. They had already faded considerably, and she was shocked that he had detected them, especially in the subdued light. “No. I…I would have told you, but how…”

“A messenger arrived early this evening and brought me an envelope. Inside was a photograph of you…not a very good one, but it was clear enough for me to see that someone had struck you in the face. Your cheek was still swollen and discolored.” Alfonse regarded her steadily. “I do not know who sent it, but you may tell whoever did that I am in their debt.”

“I…I don’t know who…” Rica tried to make sense of what her father had just told her. No one had taken her photograph. No one even knew what had happened except Carter and the doctor. Then she remembered waking up the morning after Carter had brought her home to discover that Carter was already up. She’d had no memory of Carter getting out of bed or moving around the room, but Carter could easily have photographed her then. “I might know who took it. A woman.” She held her father’s inquiring gaze. “A woman who loves me.”

“I believe that, if she is the one who sent the photo. And you. Do you love her?”

“Yes,” Rica whispered.

“I want you to do something for me without asking any questions, because I’m your father.”

Rica waited.

“I’ve arranged for you and Angela to take a cruise. Just a week of relaxing in the sun because you’ve both been working hard.”

“When?” Rica asked, wondering why he wanted her far away from Boston.

“In the morning. We’ve already contacted Angela and she’ll meet you at the airport. The tickets will be waiting there for you.”

“I can’t,” Rica said softly. “I can’t without knowing why.”

Alfonse drew on his cigar, then turned it between his fingers, apparently studying the bright red tip as it flared in the darkness. “All I can tell you is that you are in danger and until I have corrected my part in placing you in jeopardy, I want you somewhere safe.”

“I need your word on something, Papa, or I won’t go.”

“Tell me.”

“The women I’ve fallen in love with. I don’t want her harmed, no matter what you might learn about her. Promise me that.”

“If she means you no harm, Rica, then she will have none from me. What is her name?”

“Carter Wayne.”

Alfonse Pareto grunted softly. “The lawyer friend of Rizzo’s. I remember meeting her. Are you quite sure of her feelings for you?”

“Yes. More than that, I trust her, Papa.”

“Then I will trust you. You have my word, cara.”

“I’ll be ready to leave in the morning.”

“Reese, there’s someone at the door,” Tory called as she hurried past Reggie’s bedroom on her way to the stairs. Reggie was standing up in her crib and demanding to be free in no uncertain terms. “I’ll see who it is. Just keep an eye on her but don’t lift her.”

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Reese replied.

Tory finished buttoning her blouse on the way downstairs and hurried to the door. It could only be Bri at eight in the morning. When she opened the door, she stared in surprise at Carter Wayne, noting absently that the bruises were improved.

“Sorry to bother you, Doctor,” Carter said quietly. “I was wondering if I might speak to Sheriff Conlon.”

“Reese is on a leave of absence,” Tory snapped. At the sound of her own anger, she closed her eyes for a second. “I’m sorry. She’s not working just now. If there’s something you need, you should probably check with Chief Parker.”

“This is on the personal side, ma’am. I won’t take up much of her time.”

“How did you even know she was here?”

“I had breakfast at the diner in town. It came up in conversation.”

“Of course.” Tory sighed. The whole town was probably talking about Reese’s precipitous return. “It’s eight in the morning, Detective.”

Carter reddened. “Sorry. I’m still on cop time. I’ll come back.”

“No, wait,” Tory said as Carter turned to leave. “Come inside and have some coffee. I’ll get Reese.” Tory directed Carter to the kitchen. “Help yourself. The mugs are in the first cabinet above the sink.”

“Thanks. Can I pour any for you?”

“Make that two.”

Five minutes later, Reese appeared in blue jeans, a short-sleeve khaki shirt, and loafers without socks. She regarded Carter pensively as she picked up a cup of coffee and sipped. “I don’t usually do business in my home.”

“I don’t blame you, and I apologize. I didn’t want to go to the station.” Carter shrugged. “And it’s mostly personal.”

“Just the same, let’s take it outside.” Reese indicated the deck, and she and Carter carried their coffee outside and closed the sliding glass doors. “Looks like somebody kicked the hell out of you.”

Carter fingered her sore jaw. “Kick’s the word for it. Your wife was nice enough to patch me up.”

Reese smiled. “That would explain why she’s pissed at you.”

“I don’t follow.”

“She doesn’t like patching up cops. Figures we take too many chances and overestimate our own skills.”

Carter grinned. “She’s right.”

“Almost all the time.” Reese tensed as a shadow flickered in the corner of her vision, and then she relaxed again when Tory passed through the living room carrying Reggie on her way into the kitchen. “What’s the problem? Something to do with that undercover case you were telling the chief and me about a couple of months ago?”

“Yeah.” Carter wished she could sit down. Her back still bothered her when she stood for long, but the sheriff looked just as bad as she felt, and if she was standing, Carter would too. “My assignment was to get close to the daughter of a Boston crime boss. The daughter has a place here. Turns out, she’s clean, and now I think she might be in trouble. I need your help with that.”

“Who is it?”

Carter hesitated. It went against her every instinct to share information, but she had no choice, and after thinking about it all night, she decided that if she were ever going to trust anyone with this information, it would be Reese Conlon. “Ricarda Grechi. She owns a gallery in town and lives on Pilgrim Heights.”

“I don’t recognize the name.”

“Her father is Alfonse Pareto.”

Reese whistled. “It would’ve been nice for us to know this earlier.”

“Rica is not part of her father’s business.”

“You’re sure?” Reese studied Carter’s face as she took another sip of coffee.

“Positive. But I’m afraid the guys who tuned me up might go after her next.” Carter jammed her hands in the pockets of her khaki pants. Admitting she couldn’t protect Rica was eating holes in her. “I was hoping you’d look after her.”

“I don’t know when I’ll get back to active duty. Someone else is going to need to know about this.”

“But they don’t need to know all of it. If you just ask your people to do ride-bys on her house and the gallery. Tell them she’s got a crazy boyfriend or something, and you just want to keep an eye on her.” Carter grimaced. “Christ, that’s practically true.”

“Why are these guys coming after her if she’s not part of the business?”

Carter flushed but kept her eyes level with Reese’s. “Because of me. I got in between her and a guy who thought she was his property.”

“You got personally involved with the subject you were investigating?” Reese asked mildly.

“Not exactly.” Carter looked out over the harbor, imagining how this must sound to a by-the-book cop like Conlon. “I fell in love with her. She doesn’t feel the same.”

“Christ.” Reese turned to face the water and their shoulders touched very lightly. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You went undercover to get evidence on the daughter of one of the most powerful men in organized crime. Instead, you ended up involved with her and managed to piss off some other guy who considered her his. He sent a couple of enforcers to work you over, and now he might be coming after her.”

“That’s about right.”

“What’s his name?”

“Lorenzo Brassi.”

“Not small-time either.” Reese shook her head. “I see your problem, but why don’t you have some of your people keep an eye on her?”

“One of the task force leaders is convinced Rica is dirty. I can’t trust any of them to see what’s really going on. My partner backs me, but he’s only one guy.”

“So there’s two of you who believe she’s clean.”

Carter gripped the rail hard with the hand that wasn’t holding her coffee cup. “Not anymore. I turned in my shield.”

“You quit,” Reese said flatly.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Carter faced Reese. “Because I crossed a line.”

“Do you think you’re the first cop who ever did that?”

“Maybe not. But I’m still on the other side of the line, and I don’t think I’m coming back.”

“Because of her.”

Carter nodded. “Yeah. Because of Rica.”

“Even if she doesn’t love you.”

“That doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Reese shook her head. “No. It doesn’t.” She thought about Tory and the Marine Corps and the war and her daughter. She thought about her responsibility to all of them and understood that some choices were made just because they were right. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m not sure. I own a place here in town, but I don’t think Rica is going to want me around. It’s too small a community for us not to bump into each other.”

“Maybe you’ll want to go back on the job after things settle down a bit.”

Carter smiled. “I think I burned my bridges there. I’ll figure something out.”

“I’ll do what I can to see that Ms. Grechi is safe. I don’t want you trying to do it yourself. You’re not a cop in this town.”

“It’s mostly my fault she’s in this situation.”

“Nothing is ever that simple. You know that.”

“Maybe it is, and we just don’t want to admit it.” Carter picked up her coffee cup and gestured toward the house. “I should go. I’ve bothered you and your family enough.”

“Let me have a number where I can reach you…and keep me informed of developments.”

“Will you call me if there’s a problem with Rica?”

Reese studied her. “I don’t know. It depends on what the circumstances are. Like I said, cop or not, you took yourself out of the equation when you fell in love with her.”

“Doesn’t seem right, does it?” Through the glass, Carter watched Tory play with Reggie on the living room floor and spoke almost to herself. “That the one thing that should bring you the closest keeps you apart.”

“If you’re lucky, that’s not the way it works out. Give it time. Things might change.”

“Yeah.” Carter grinned sadly at Reese. “Anything can happen, right?”

After Carter and Reese exchanged numbers, Carter apologized once again to Tory for interrupting their morning and left.

Tory settled on the couch with Reggie. “You’re not getting involved in anything with her, are you?”

“I’m just passing on information to the squads. I won’t be doing anything myself.”

“Whatever she’s involved with, I saw the results. Both she and her girlfriend have been assaulted in the last few days.”

Reese frowned. “You saw her girlfriend, too?”

“Yes. Um…Grechi. Ricarda Grechi. Someone assaulted her. And then went after Carter.”

“You saw them both at the clinic?”

“Yes.”

“As emergencies?”

“That’s what it was, both times.” Tory bent down to retrieve the toy Reggie threw on the floor and then regarded Reese speculatively. “You’re using that tone of voice like I’m a suspect. What’s on your mind, Sheriff?”

“Sorry.” Reese sat on the couch on the opposite side of Reggie. “Those two are involved with some seriously bad people. I just don’t want you anywhere near it.”

“I’m a doctor, darling. I have to do my job.”

“I know. But if either one of them ever calls you because of another emergency, I need to know right away. And I don’t want you to see them at the clinic alone.”

“It’s that bad?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“You don’t need to worry.” Tory leaned across the baby and kissed Reese softly. “We’ve had all the excitement we can stand in this family for quite some time. I’ll be careful.”

“Thanks.” Reese smiled as Reggie climbed into her lap.

“Not so fast. I need you to promise that you won’t get in the middle of Carter’s problem. I saw what they did to her, and you are in no condition to fight anyone.”

Reese reached for Tory’s hand. “I’m not looking for trouble. I’ll pass the information on, and I’ll be out of it. The only thing I care about is being here with you and Reggie.”

Tory kissed her again. She believed her, but she knew that as soon as Reese’s body had healed, she would need to go back to work. Until she did, her mind and her heart would never be well. “And we’re very glad you’re here. So very glad.”

Chapter Thirty

Carter dug her cell phone out from under a pile of unfolded laundry. “Wayne.”

“Where are you?” Kevin asked.

“On the Cape.” Carter perched on the end of the sofa and surveyed the disaster of her apartment. Half-packed boxes of dishes stood open on the kitchen floor, two suitcases bulging with clothes leaned against the wall by the front door, and the remains of the pizza that had been both lunch and dinner rested in the center of the coffee table next to an empty bottle of wine.

“Got a TV?”

A trickle of foreboding crawled up her spine. “What’s going on, Kevin? I’m not in the mood for games.”

“Breaking news on the local station. A ‘well-known’ crime figure just went up in flames. Car crash on some back road outside the city.”

“Who?” Carter’s hand tightened on the phone.

“First reports are sketchy, but it looks like Enzo Brassi.”

“Jesus.”

“In spades,” Kevin said. “You don’t happen to know anything about it, do you?”

“I’m a couple hundred miles away, Kevin.” Carter rummaged through several boxes until she found an unopened bottle of wine, then tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear while she searched the kitchen for a corkscrew. “And I don’t know anything about blowing up cars.”

“Where’s Rica?”

Carter’s voice went cold. “I don’t know. She’s not in town…at least the gallery’s been closed for almost a week. Just what are you suggesting?”

“Ah, hell. I don’t know. I was about to call you about something else when I heard the news report. There was a fire at Rica’s gallery in SoHo just after four this morning. That’s a little bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Was she there?” Carter asked urgently.

“Place was empty. Most of the damage was in the back offices.”

“Professional job?”

“Most likely.”

“Why the hell didn’t you call me sooner?” Carter growled.

“I didn’t call you because I didn’t hear about it until just about an hour ago when Allen decided to share the information with the rest of the team. Seems that gallery’s been closed all week, too.”

Carter digested the information as she poured the wine. “If both galleries are closed, Rica’s probably out of town somewhere.”

“I suppose you checked around there for her?”

“I’m not stalking her, Kevin. I’m clearing out my apartment right now.” Carter sighed. He knew her too well. “Okay, I drove by her house a couple times and the gallery a few more than that, just to see if anyone was watching her places. Nothing.”

“Allen’s about ready to go postal over here. With Brassi dead and the records in Rica’s gallery destroyed, she doesn’t have a case. At least not from the angle she was working.”

Carter had to smile. “Now there’s a shame.”

“She’s not stupid, Carter. She’s gonna be looking hard at you for this.”

“Let her. She won’t find anything.”

“It sure looks like someone tipped Pareto about Brassi running a little sideline at that gallery.”

“You think?” Carter took a healthy swallow of wine and hoped the satisfaction didn’t show in her voice.

“I guess you’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

“There’s nothing you need to hear,” Carter said quietly.

“That’s not the same as there being nothing to tell.”

Carter let the silence be her answer.

“You need to be careful, partner. You’re walking a very thin line.”

“I’m out of it, Kevin. It’s all over.”

“Don’t be so sure. Just keep in touch.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.” Carter closed the phone as Kevin rang off and stared around the room. Bare walls, boxes waiting to be filled, and the only memories worth keeping were the few minutes that Rica had spent there with her. Not much to say for her or her life.

Rica gave the cabdriver ten dollars for the five-dollar trip from Race Point to the center of town. She hefted her briefcase and carry on, and stepped out into Carter’s driveway. “Thank you.”

“You want me to wait?”

“No. I’ll call you back if I need you.”

Carter’s Explorer was ten feet away, the back open and partially filled with boxes. When Rica saw the packed vehicle, she pushed away the immediate sense of loss at the thought of Carter leaving. Carter hadn’t left yet. That was all that mattered. That was all Rica had thought about on her twelve-hour trip. She stopped at the foot of the stairs as Carter started down with an armful of clothes. Carter wore threadbare jeans, a black T-shirt, and running shoes. Her hair was longer and wilder than Rica remembered. She looked dangerous and sexy, and Rica felt a tiny shiver dance through her.

From three feet above her on the stairs, Carter regarded her with surprise. “Rica. Hello.”

Awkwardly, Rica shifted her luggage and then simply put it down on the ground. “Moving out?”

“Yeah.” Carter edged past Rica and dumped the garments into the back of her SUV. “You look good with a tan. Bermuda?”

“Aruba.”

“I hear that’s the place to visit. Been gone long?”

“Five days.” Rica realized her linen blouse and slacks were rumpled from long hours on the plane, and since she hadn’t slept a full night the entire time she’d been away, she probably looked as bad as her clothes. “I came home a couple of days early.”

Carter smiled. “Having too much fun?”

Rica smiled too, but her voice was serious when she replied. “I wanted to see you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like unfinished business.”

“I think you pretty much finished things the last time we talked.” Carter sidled past her to the stairs and gestured toward her apartment. “I’ve got an open bottle of wine. You look like you could use a drink.”

“I know that’s not a compliment just at the moment.”

Carter lightly touched her fingertips to Rica’s cheek. “The bruise is gone.” She brushed a stray strand of hair away from the corner of Rica’s mouth. “You’ve got a spectacular tan.” She leaned forward as if she might kiss her, then stopped. “You look fantastic.”

“I see that your head injury hasn’t healed yet.” Rica caught her scent…a faint odor of clean sweat, rich grapes, and the sea. Her stomach tightened with the memory of Carter’s hands on her, in her. Thickly she said, “I’ll take that wine.”

“Okay.” Reluctant to move, wondering when she might be this close to Rica again, Carter hesitated another second. “Let me get your bags.”

“Take the light one. Your wrist must still be sore.”

Carter didn’t argue, because Rica was right. She grabbed the briefcase in her better hand and led the way upstairs. Once inside, she propped Rica’s luggage next to her own, found another glass, and poured wine for them both. Then she set the glasses on the table in front of the couch and cleared a space for them to sit. The open doors to the front deck allowed in enough of a breeze that it was comfortable inside.

“Did you come right from the airport?”

“Yes.”

“Not much luggage for almost a week.”

Rica smiled wryly. “Well, Detective Wayne, that’s because most of it is still at the airport waiting for me to pick it up later. I didn’t want to drag it all over here, so I just grabbed what was easy.”

“What’s the hurry?”

Contemplatively, Rica sipped her wine, very aware of Carter’s thigh resting lightly along her own. “I don’t know. I woke up in the middle of the night with this… feeling, that I needed to come back. Right away. All I could think about was seeing you.”

“This just came to you out of the blue?”

“Not exactly. Just the urgent sense that I needed to come home. I’ve been thinking about you all week.”

Despite her resolve not to let her feelings get out of hand, Carter felt a twist of desire. “You’re making me a little bit crazy here, Rica. What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you. But first…” Rica set her glass aside and cradled Carter’s jaw in the palm of one hand. “I really have to kiss you.”

Carter moaned at the softness of Rica’s mouth and the delicate tease of her tongue along the inside of her lip. She was instantly wet, painfully aroused. “Christ.”

When Rica drew back, she was breathing quickly and her face was flushed. “When did you take the picture?”

“Wait…what?” Carter’s head wasn’t working right, and considering that most of her blood had rushed to a few inches between her legs, she wasn’t surprised. Then her brain clicked in. Pareto had obviously told Rica about the photo and, fleetingly, she wondered if he’d told her the rest. She hadn’t counted on Rica knowing, but there was really no reason not to tell her the truth. “I took it that first morning while you were asleep. With the camera on my cell phone.”

“For one of the reports you were going to turn in?” Rica asked acerbically.

“No. By that time, I knew there wouldn’t be any report on you.” Carter shrugged. “I took it because I…I don’t know. Habit, I guess. It was a crime.” She emptied her wineglass in one deep swallow and refilled it. “It was more than a crime. I guess I just wanted something on him.” She met Rica’s appraising stare. “Taking it without your knowing was an invasion of your privacy. I apologize.”

The corner of Rica’s mouth twitched. “There are a number of things you could apologize for. I don’t think this is one of them.”

“Maybe you should tell me what the other ones are.” Carter held up her hand. “No. Wait. Maybe you could kiss me again first.”

Rica laughed softly. “I don’t think so. I tend to get too distracted, and there are things I want to know.”

“All right.” Carter took Rica’s hand and was relieved when Rica allowed her to hold it. The small connection made her feel more in touch with herself than she had been all week.

“Why did you do it? Why send it to my father?”

“Because I wanted him to know that you weren’t safe.” Carter looked away, the muscles in her jaw bunching as she swallowed her anger. “Because I couldn’t keep you safe.”

Rica stroked Carter’s face. “It’s not your job to do that.”

Carter whipped her head back so quickly Rica jumped. “It wasn’t about the job. I love you.”

Rica closed her eyes. “I don’t want to hear that right now.”

Right now, Carter thought, feeling a glimmer of hope. She didn’t say she didn’t want to hear it at all. “Let me know when you do. Just in case.”

“Don’t try to charm me into forgetting why I came here. Why was my father so sure it was Enzo?”

Carter considered her answer, suddenly aware that Rica didn’t have all the information. She considered any number of stories before realizing that there could be only one answer. Now. Ever. She told her the truth. “I wrote a note on the back.”

“My God, you’re a little bit crazy, aren’t you?”

“Some. Yeah.”

“What did it say?”

“Enzo’s handiwork. And there’s more at the gallery.”

“What?” Unconsciously, Rica looked in the direction of her gallery, as if she could see it through the walls and across the blocks that separated them.

“Not that one. The one in Manhattan. We think…” Carter winced. “Some people think Enzo had a sideline, probably selling drugs or other contraband on his own and laundering the money through your gallery. Maybe even passing the goods that way.”

“The bastard.” Rica very carefully placed her wineglass on a stone coaster that sat all alone next to the pizza box. “We were about to have an accountant go over the books.”

Carter shook her head. “He’s not that dumb. You might have found a few irregularities, but I’m sure he didn’t leave a paper trail.” She looked pained. “Of course, that wasn’t about to stop our illustrious leader from looking for one.”

“You’ve been watching the gallery,” Rica said accusingly. “God, is there no end to this?”

“I wasn’t watching it, but it’s been watched, yes.” Carter put her glass next to Rica’s and took her hands. She automatically smoothed her thumbs back and forth over the tops of Rica’s fingers as she held them in her palms. “Have you talked to your father in the last day?”

“No. I’ve been traveling. My return was sudden. He doesn’t even know that I’m back.”

“So you weren’t due to come back today,” Carter said, just to be sure.

“No. Not until the day after tomorrow.”

“I don’t know all the details, Rica, but there was a fire in the Manhattan gallery. I doubt there’ll be any records for anyone to find.”

Rica leapt up. “A fire! My God.” She stared at Carter. “What about the inventory? The artwork?”

“I don’t know. I just heard myself.”

“I need to call my father. My father will know.”

“Wait a minute,” Carter said as Rica fumbled in her briefcase for her phone. “There’s something else you need to know.”

“What more could there be?”

“We think Enzo’s dead. A car accident early this morning.”

Rica blinked and stared, then dropped the briefcase on the floor. Wordlessly, she sat down again next to Carter and curled her fingers around Carter’s thigh just above her knee. Her hand trembled and Carter slid an arm around her shoulders.

“You okay?” Carter said after a full moment of silence. “Rica?”

“My father sent me away. Me and Angie. So no one would be at the gallery this week. So we would be far away when something…happened.” She stared at Carter, her eyes dark with pain. “That was the reason for the trip, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know, baby.” Carter skimmed her fingers through Rica’s hair and kissed her softly on the lips. “I don’t know, and this is one thing you don’t want to know.”

“But you knew. You knew if you sent that picture what he would do.”

Carter shook her head. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know how much he loved you.” She took a deep breath. “I only knew what I would do if I were him.”

“What? What would you do?”

“I’d make sure Enzo never did anything to hurt you again, in any way.”

“You’re a cop, Carter. Cops don’t work that way.” Rica raised their joined hands and rubbed her cheek against Carter’s. The warmth comforted her.

“I’m not a cop anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I quit.”

“I…you…why?”

“You know why. Don’t make me say it, when you already told me you don’t want to hear it.”

For a second Rica looked perplexed, then she shook her head violently. “For me? No. I can’t let you do that for me.”

“Not just for you.” Carter freed one hand and stroked Rica’s face. Her fingers trembled as violently as Rica’s. “For me too. For whatever’s left of my sanity.”

While Rica struggled to take in everything she was hearing, she found herself more and more drawn to the way Carter’s lips curved as she spoke. To the strength of the fingers holding hers. To the pulse that raced in Carter’s throat. Her brain was on overload but her body was singularly focused. “I want you to make love to me.”

“Rica.” Carter willed herself not to move, because everything in her wanted to take Rica into her arms. “You’ll be sorry later, and that will kill me.”

“No,” Rica whispered. “I won’t.” She leaned into Carter, drawing Carter’s arms around her. She nuzzled Carter’s neck and kissed the soft skin of her collarbone. “I’ve never been sorry that you’ve touched me. Ever.”

“I’m going to take you home. We’ll talk some more in the morning.”

“On one condition.”

Carter grinned wearily. “I’m not sure I want to hear this.”

Rica kissed her again, possessively this time, her mouth searing over Carter’s. “I want you to stay the night with me.”

“I don’t know why I ever think I’ll figure you out.” Carter tilted her head back so Rica could kiss her way down her throat. “Because I’m always wrong.”

“Is that so bad?” Rica murmured as she nibbled on Carter’s neck.

Carter groaned, her legs shifting restlessly as pleasure rushed through her. “Christ no. It’s good. Very good.”

Chapter Thirty-One

It was close to nine p.m. by the time Rica and Carter collected the rest of Rica’s luggage from the airport and reached Rica’s place.

“Let me get some air in here,” Rica said on her way through the living room to open the windows. “I’ve forgotten how good it feels to come home.”

“It’s a nice change to be here when one or the other of us isn’t banged up,” Carter said.

“Isn’t it.” Rica smiled at Carter over her shoulder. “Would you mind taking the lighter stuff up to my bedroom? I’ll be up in just a second.”

“Ah…” Carter wasn’t sure the bedroom was going to be such a wise choice. She couldn’t even look at Rica without aching to touch her.

“I’ve been traveling since five this morning and I want a shower.” Rica crossed to Carter, who stood surrounded by luggage, and kissed her. “And forgive me for saying this, not that I really mind, but you smell like you’ve been working all day and might like one too.”

Carter grinned. “Is that some kind of half-assed come-on?”

“No,” Rica said as she slowly ran her tongue down Carter’s neck. “It’s an invitation to take a shower with me.”

Carter felt her knees weaken and her stomach flutter. “I thought we agreed…”

“No,” Rica said once more. She pulled Carter’s T-shirt from her jeans, slid her hand underneath, and pressed her palm low on Carter’s belly while her fingers skimmed beneath the waistband of her pants. “We didn’t agree to anything. I asked you to make love to me and you wanted to wait.” She knelt, bumping the largest piece of luggage with her hip to move it out of the way, and unbuttoned Carter’s jeans. “We didn’t discuss me making love to you.” She slid down the zipper, opened the denim, and kissed the soft skin at the base of Carter’s belly.

“Rica…” Carter whispered, her thighs trembling. She knew there were things they should discuss. She knew there were dozens of reasons they should stop. She knew…she knew…she couldn’t think. “I want you so much.”

Rica brushed her cheek against Carter’s stomach and wrapped her arms tightly around her hips. She closed her eyes. “I know. Me too. I’ve been crazy all week thinking about you.”

Carter bent and gently grasped Rica’s shoulders, guiding her upward. She folded her in her arms and kissed her, slowly and deeply. She felt Rica’s hands delve under the back of her T-shirt, one hand racing up and down her spine and the other diving into her pants to squeeze her ass. Carter pressed her thigh between Rica’s legs and heard her moan. The sound of Rica’s excitement cut through her like a scythe slicing ripe wheat, and as her resistance fell beneath the onslaught of unbearable pleasure, she unbuttoned Rica’s blouse. Rica cried out when Carter dipped beneath the satin cup of her bra to close her fingers around Rica’s breast.

“Too hard?” Carter gasped.

“No,” Rica moaned. “I like it hard. I like to feel your hands on me.” She dragged her hand around Carter’s side, her nails leaving faint red lines in their wake, and pushed her fingers into the open vee of Carter’s jeans. She moaned again when she encountered no other barriers, only Carter, swollen and hot and wet. “Oh my God.”

“Don’t.” Carter slammed one hand over her crotch, trapping Rica’s hand beneath the denim. “Don’t touch me there.”

“Oh, baby why?” Rica’s voice was a plaintive plea. Her eyes were wild, her lips shining with their kisses, her breasts tight and firm in Carter’s palm. “I want to. Oh God, I want you so badly.”

Carter swayed, half undressed, vision hazy, her stomach knotted with excitement. “I want us to make love in bed.” Her breath came in irregular spurts and she struggled not to come beneath the pressure of Rica’s fingertips. “I want you to make me come slow, while I’m looking into your eyes. I want to see you when I…” She groaned and closed her eyes when Rica’s fingers twitched over her clitoris. “Please.”

“All right,” Rica panted, pressing her face to Carter’s chest. “All right, darling. Slow. I’ll try. I’ll try.” She laughed shakily. “I’m usually not like this.”

“No.” Carter gazed down through half-closed lids to where Rica’s arm disappeared into her jeans. “Neither am I.”

Rica leaned into Carter, one arm around her waist to steady herself as she pulled her hand from Carter’s jeans. “Maybe we should take that shower and cool off.”

Carter kissed Rica’s cheek, then the corner of her mouth. “Shower sounds good. But nothing’s going to cool me off.”

“Even better.”

The sheets were cool and crisp against Carter’s heated skin. She lay facing Rica as they kissed and caressed, their legs entwined, her sex pressed tightly to the smooth skin of Rica’s thigh.

“Are you okay?” Rica asked quietly.

“Never better in my life.” Carter massaged Rica’s breasts, rhythmically brushing over her nipples until they grew impossibly hard.

“Feels so good.”

“Oh yeah.” Carter skimmed her mouth over Rica’s, then worked her way along Rica’s jaw to her ear. She tugged on her earlobe with her teeth and traced the rim with her tongue before teasing inside. Rica whimpered and arched against her. Carter didn’t think she’d ever been so hard and so ready. “Rica,” she whispered. “Open your eyes.”

Rica, her flickering pupils wide and black, met Carter’s gaze. “Can I touch you now?”

“Please.”

Smiling dreamily, Rica skimmed her fingers up and down the center of Carter’s stomach, then brushed through the hair between her thighs, then circled three fingertips over the base of Carter’s rigid clitoris. She massaged her in slow, steady circles. “You’re so wonderfully swollen and wet. Does it feel good?”

“Amazing.” Carter gasped and kissed Rica urgently, unconsciously squeezing and twisting Rica’s nipple. They kissed and stroked and caressed until Carter could barely breathe. Every muscle in her body was in an unrelenting state of spasm. “Can’t take much more.”

“You need to come, don’t you?” Rica breathed against Carter’s mouth, flicking her tongue between Carter’s lips as she kept up her firm, methodical strokes. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want to come all over you. So fucking hard.” Carter released Rica’s breast and slid her hand between Rica’s thighs. She cupped her sex, her fingertips gliding just inside her.

Rica moaned softly and twitched on Carter’s fingers. “Shall I finish you now, darling? Would you like that?” She thrust into the depths of Carter’s engorged flesh, switching to long, full caresses.

“Yes. Yes, Christ, please,” Carter said, hips lifting frantically. “Make me come, Rica. Rica, Rica…”

“That’s right, darling, that’s right,” Rica crooned, working Carter into a smooth deep climax. “You come for me now.”

Carter’s head snapped back as her orgasm surged beneath Rica’s skilled fingers. She was only vaguely aware of her legs thrashing and her fingers pushing hard into Rica. When she registered Rica’s wild cries of pleasure and felt Rica writhing next to her, she roused herself enough to thrust Rica to a jolting climax.

“Oh God,” Rica sighed. “At last.”

Carter laughed and kissed Rica lightly. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me after sex before.”

Rica slapped Carter playfully on the hip. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep that kind of information to yourself.”

Suddenly serious, Carter kissed Rica again. “I know exactly what’s good for me. You.”

“Carter.” Rica stroked Carter’s cheek and brushed her fingers through Carter’s damp hair. “I love you.”

Carter went completely still. She searched Rica’s face and found only certainty. She felt the wariness and distrust that she had carried for years like a tight chain around her heart simply break and fall away. She smiled. “I think that would be a matter of some consequence.”

“Oh, it absolutely is.” Rica caressed Carter’s face, her shoulders, her back, pressing closer until their bodies touched nearly everywhere. “For me.”

“For me too.”

“I’m so glad.”

Carter brushed her thumb over Rica’s chin and kissed her again. “I can’t seem to stop doing that.”

“That’s just fine with me.”

“Are you happy?” Carter asked gravely. Of all the questions she had ever asked, this felt like the most important.

“Oh yes.”

“It’s going to get complicated, because as crazy as it sounds, I’m not good at hiding. Not something like this.”

Rica laughed. “You? The undercover detective who managed to stroll into my father’s study without anyone even noticing?”

“There will be other Enzos, Rica. Other men your father will want to see you with. Men who will believe you should be with them. I’m not going to just stand by and watch them try to take you.”

“That will never happen.” Rica sat up and pulled the sheet up to her waist, turning so that she could face Carter. She wanted Carter to see her as she explained why nothing would ever be the same again. “I told my father I will never have anything to do with his business.”

Carter pushed up against the pillows, but did not bother with the sheet. “Telling him in so many words counts for a lot. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try.”

Rica shook her head. “I also told him that I’m a lesbian, and that I don’t intend to marry any man for any reason.”

“You’ve had a busy week,” Carter said, admiration in her voice. She took Rica’s hand and kissed her palm. “How did he take it?”

“He’s always known, of course, at least since I’ve been an adult. But we’ve never actually brought it out into the open. He tried bargaining, but I think he was convinced when I told him I was in love with you.”

“Me!”

“Did you expect me to say someone else?” Rica asked with an amused smile.

“I thought you might tell me first.” Carter held her hands wide in astonishment. “Jesus. Does he know…oh man, Rica. He’s got to have some idea what I was doing there because he saw me with Rizzo.” Carter frowned. “We’ll just have to make sure that he doesn’t see us together. And we’ll have to be sure that…”

“No,” Rica said flatly. “No more hiding. From him or because of him. He knows I love you, I told him you wouldn’t hurt me, and he accepts that.”

“Why don’t I know any of this? When did you decide you can trust me?” Carter ran both hands through her hair. “Do you know what this last week has been like? I thought I was going to lose my mind thinking I’d never see you again.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Rica leaned forward and kissed Carter lingeringly. “I know. I needed time to sort it out. I realized after I told you that I didn’t want to see you anymore that we both lied, to ourselves and to each other. I couldn’t not forgive you.” She stroked Carter’s face. “And God, I love you so much.”

Carter pulled Rica into her arms and they settled down again side by side. “He’ll probably find out sooner or later that I used to be a cop.”

“Are you sure you’re not going back?” Rica asked carefully.

“Would it make any difference between us if I did?”

“No,” Rica answered immediately.

“I’m not going back.”

“Because of me?”

Carter started to answer and then paused. “A little bit, yes. But hear me out before you jump to conclusions. Mostly I quit because I didn’t have any kind of a life and sooner or later I’d never be able to. I’d lose myself so deep in the lies that had become my life, I’d never find my way out. And I’m in love with you. And there’s no way I could be a cop and be your lover. They’d be all over me to get information about your father.”

“I’m sorry,” Rica said. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? It’s not your doing or your choice. It’s just the way it is.” Carter snuggled Rica’s head against her shoulder and stroked her hair. “I’m okay with it. In fact, I feel great. I love you, Rica. Jesus. It feels good to say that.”

“It feels wonderful to hear it.” Rica closed her eyes and listened to Carter’s heart beat, quiet and steady. She felt peaceful, as if she had passed through a storm that had raged around her her entire life. “You’re going to have to unpack your car again.”

“I know.” Carter closed her eyes and felt herself drifting. She heard the foghorn on Long Point sounding in the distance and realized she felt at home. With Rica, she was home, and always would be. “I’ll probably have to get a job too.”

“Well, I suppose I could find something for you in the family business,” Rica said absolutely seriously.

Carter opened one eye and cocked an eyebrow.

Rica grinned. “Then again, maybe not.”

“Go to sleep, Ms. Grechi. You’re starting to scare me.”

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Absolutely,” Carter murmured, nuzzling Rica’s neck.

“Every morning?”

Carter opened her eyes and met Rica’s, which were wide and unguarded. “I’d like that, if you want.”

“I want very much.”

“Then the answer is yes.”

Epilogue

Tory sat Reggie in the middle of the living room floor with an array of toys and headed to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee. She glanced at the clock. 6:55 a.m. Bri would arrive in five minutes. At the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs behind her, she said without turning, “Do you want coffee to take with you?”

“No, I’m fine,” Reese said. “We’ll pick some up someplace on our pass through town.”

Tory turned in time to see Reese snugging the knot in her tie against her crisp khaki collar. She had predicted it would be two weeks before Reese rebelled at the inactivity. She’d been surprised, because it had turned out to be almost three weeks before Reese insisted she felt well enough to at least go in to the station to do paperwork. During those weeks when Reese had been home, Tory had worked abbreviated shifts to spend more time with her. They’d even gone out of town for several short trips to visit Tory’s family.

Tory knew that Reese had tried hard to act as though she was enjoying every minute, and Tory believed that most of the time that was true. But she had seen a distant look come over Reese’s face in their quiet moments, and she imagined that Reese had been thinking about where she had been and those she had left behind. As much as Tory wanted Reese safe at home, healing in body and soul, she knew Reese needed something different. “Remember, you promised me you’d stick to desk duty until I’m satisfied your collarbone is healed.”

“I remember.” Reese kissed Tory’s cheek and stole a sip of coffee from her mug. “I think riding around in the cruiser is pretty much the same as riding a desk.”

“No, it isn’t.” Tory tugged Reese’s tie for emphasis. “If you’re in the cruiser and something happens, you’re not going to just sit there while Bri gets out and handles it alone. You know that.”

Reese sighed. “All right. That’s probably true.”

“Probably?” Tory wrapped her arms around Reese’s shoulders and settled against her. She kissed her chin, then her mouth. “Oh please.”

Reese grinned, then settled her hands on Tory’s behind and squeezed. “Both arms seem to be working pretty well.”

“Mmm. I seem to remember that from last night.”

“You felt so good,” Reese whispered. She nibbled on Tory’s lower lip, then kissed her long and hard, still feeling Tory’s cries of release from hours before echoing in her bones.

“Oh, fu…sorry!” Bri blurted from the doorway.

When Reese broke the kiss and raised her head, Bri had one foot through the door and a look of abject contrition on her face. “It wasn’t locked. I should’ve knocked. I’ll go wait…”

Tory looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Come on in, sweetie. We were just talking.”

Bri glanced once at Reese, then let the door close behind her. She gasped and pointed past them. “Whoa! Catch that.”

Both Reese and Tory followed her gaze, and then Reese bent down and held out her arms to Reggie.

“Come on, champ. Keep coming. That’s it.”

With a look of determination and supreme delight, Reggie tottered across the four feet that separated them and tumbled into Reese’s arms. Laughing, Reese hugged her and stood, holding her tight to her chest. Tory wrapped an arm around them both and held open the other to Bri. After a second’s hesitation, Bri joined the celebration.

“I told you she was waiting for you to come home.” Tory’s eyes were bright with tears.

“Glad I didn’t miss it.” Reese rested her cheek against Reggie’s head and closed her eyes. “Damn glad.”

After five minutes of silence in the cruiser, Reese said, “What’s on your mind?”

Bri gripped the wheel so tightly her fingers were white. She stared straight ahead. “Nothing. I was just thinking.”

“Thinking pretty hard.”

“Not making much progress, though.” Bri glanced at Reese and grinned sheepishly.

“Why don’t you try breathing now and then and see what that does for your head.”

“You’d think I’d know that by now. I’m always telling the students in the dojo to do that.”

“Sometimes we forget our own lessons,” Reese said quietly.

Bri continued to drive down Commercial Street as far as the Provincetown Inn, then circled around to Bradford and headed back toward town. “What do you do when someone gives you an order, and you think it’s wrong?”

“A superior officer?”

Bri nodded.

“You follow it, unless you know it to be illegal by whatever law governs the situation. The law of the land, where we’re concerned right now. Military law, where I just was.” Reese heard the distant thunder of war and knew the answers were never really that simple. “What made you think of that?”

“You didn’t want to go, did you?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“But you did.”

“Yes.”

Bri spoke so quietly Reese could barely hear her. “I’m not sure I would have.”

“You would have,” Reese said with certainty, “if you’d sworn to.”

“Sometimes when you were gone, I was mad at you. For leaving.” Bri’s hands had tightened on the wheel again and her voice trembled.

“Head over to Herring Cove,” Reese said. When Bri cut the engine a few minutes later, Reese got out. “Let’s walk.”

They followed the sandy trail between the dunes until they crested the last swell of earth above the beach, then stopped, shoulder to shoulder, bodies just barely touching. Fishermen stood up to their knees in the surf casting for sea bass, here and there people walked with their dogs along the undulating shore, and far out to sea, fishing boats and trawlers skimmed the horizon. In a few more minutes, Tory would put the red kayak in and start toward Race Point.

“Last week,” Reese said, “I left the Corps.”

Bri stared. “For good?”

“Yes.” Reese met Bri’s astonished gaze. “My responsibilities are here now, to Tory and Reggie. To you. To this community.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“One hundred percent.” Reese saw Bri’s body relax, but her expression was still troubled. “And forget about being mad at me while I was gone. I think the job we do is harder on the people we love than on us. Just remember that, when Caroline is giving you a hard time about the job.”

Bri smiled. “She doesn’t. Too much. She’s like Tory that way.”

Reese laughed. “Then she worries plenty.”

“Yeah. She does.” Bri breathed deeply, exhaled slowly. “So we’re okay now?”

“We always were. You ready to go to work?”

“One more thing. Tory asked me to make sure you stick on the desk.” Bri jammed her hands in her pockets. “Except you’re my superior officer, so what’ll I do if you decide not to?”

Reese squeezed Bri’s shoulder. “I have a stop to make before we head to the station. You can drive me there, deliver me back to the station, and then I’ll sit at my desk. I won’t put you in the position of choosing, but if I did, I’d expect you to assess the situation and use your best judgment. And I know you would.”

“Sometimes things aren’t always black and white, are they?”

“No, they’re not,” Reese said quietly. “That’s when you have to go with gut instinct.” She tapped Bri’s chest where her badge rested above her heart. “And what’s in here.”

Rica pointed to a blank space on the west wall of the gallery. “Can you hang that up there?”

“Sure,” Carter said, carrying the largest painting that had arrived in the previous day’s delivery.

At the sound of a knock on the front door, Rica called “We’re closed,” and turned to point out the sign in the front window that listed the gallery hours. When she saw the figure on the other side of the door, she strode angrily forward, flipped the lock, and yanked the door open. “Look, I’ve had about enough. If you don’t have a warrant, you can…”

“I’m Sheriff Conlon, Ms. Grechi.” Reese spoke quietly as she looked into the gallery and nodded to Carter. “I’d just like to speak to Carter. I saw her car parked out front.”

“I know who you are. And I don’t care what you want.” Rica stood firmly in the doorway. “Carter isn’t going…”

Carter put her hand on Rica’s shoulder. “It’s okay, babe. The sheriff’s a friend of mine.”

Rica turned stormy eyes to Carter. “Well, where was she a week ago when we could’ve used a little official help.” She wrapped an arm around Carter’s waist and angled her body between Reese and Carter. “You’re not taking her anywhere.”

“I can talk to her right here if you’d be more comfortable,” Reese said, trying to read the situation. Rica Grechi was more frightened than angry, that much she could see. “It might be better for everyone if Carter and I take a little walk down the street, though.”

“Better for who?” Rica snapped.

“Reese knows the whole story, Rica. We can trust her.”

Rica searched Carter’s face. “Are you sure?”

Carter nodded and kissed Rica softly. “Positive. I won’t be gone long.”

“Take your phone.” Rica stroked Carter’s cheek. “Call me if there’s any trouble. If you’re not back in thirty minutes, I’m coming after you.”

“I’ll be back before then. Don’t worry.”

Reese waited until the door closed behind them and Carter joined her on the sidewalk before speaking. “Sorry. I didn’t realize it would be a problem for me to stop by the gallery.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Carter said as they turned toward the center of town, “except we’ve had a rough couple of weeks since that business with Lorenzo Brassi.”

“When you called and told me you thought the threat to Ms. Grechi was over, I pulled the patrols off her house and gallery. Was that a mistake?”

“That isn’t where our problem’s been coming from.” Carter indicated a coffee shop. “Want anything?”

“Always good for coffee. I’m buying.”

Reese ordered two coffees to go, thanked the many townspeople who said they were glad to see her back, and handed a cup to Carter as they walked back outside. “So tell me why Rica Grechi looks like she’s ready to take on anyone who comes near you.”

Carter smiled. “She’s being a little overprotective, I guess.”

“Considering someone kicked the hell out of you a few weeks back, that’s probably justified.”

“It’s more than that. The FBI pulled me in a couple days after they confirmed it was Brassi who went up in flames. I guess my quitting right before it happened and the fact that Rica and I are lovers sent everybody’s red flags into the stratosphere.”

“You must have expected it.”

“I did. At least I expected to be questioned.” Carter sipped her coffee. “But the lead FBI agent decided if she sweated me long enough, she’d get what she was after. She invoked the Patriot Act and kept me incommunicado for three days. Finally my ex-partner raised so much hell they let me go.”

“Jesus,” Reese said. “Whether you resigned or not, you’re still one of us.”

Carter shook her head. “No. I’m Rica Grechi’s lover. That makes it a whole new ballgame.”

They walked to the end of the pier at MacMillan Wharf and finished their coffee while the ferry docked and a hundred people piled off for a day of sightseeing and shopping. Carter tilted her head back as the wind blew salt spray through her hair. It felt good to be outside and free.

“Rica didn’t know what had happened to me,” Carter said, “and there was no one she could call. She was scared.” Carter’s jaws clenched as she remembered just how scared Rica had been. “Now that she’s had some time to settle down, she’s mightily pissed.”

“I don’t blame her.” Reese smiled briefly, thinking that Tory would have reacted very much the same way. “I stopped by to see if you were staying in town. I guess you are.”

“I’ve got my place here, but I’ve pretty much been staying at Rica’s. I’ll probably end up opening the law office for real.” Carter eyed Reese speculatively. “But this isn’t just a social call.”

“I also thought I’d let you know that the FBI gave us a call and requested we put you and Rica on our watch list.”

Carter’s stiffened. “Why are you telling me?”

“Because I thought you should know, cop to cop.”

“I’m not a cop anymore.”

“You quit because you had to. Because you had another responsibility, to Rica and to yourself. Doesn’t mean you’re not a cop still.” Reese indicated her watch. “We better head back before your girlfriend comes after me.”

“I appreciate the heads-up, but Rica and I aren’t going to live looking over our shoulders. We don’t have anything to be guilty about.”

“I didn’t figure you did, which is why there aren’t any patrols on either one of you. And that’s why we’re not really having this conversation.”

“Thanks.”

“You know, this is a pretty small town. Quiet, most of the time.” Reese glanced up and down Commercial Street, which was coming to life with early-morning deliveries, tourists out for their runs, and people picking up coffee and pastries from the bakeries and coffee shops. “But things do get exciting from time to time. You ever feel like trying small-town policing, come by the station and we’ll talk.”

“You don’t think that would be a problem, considering Rica’s father?”

Reese shrugged as they turned up the sidewalk to the gallery. “That’s his life, not hers.”

The door opened, and Rica hurried out. She slid her arm around Carter’s waist again. “Everything all right?”

“Fine.” Carter circled Rica’s shoulder and held her close. “Don’t worry, babe.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt your morning, Ms. Grechi,” Reese said. “I’ll try to see that you and Carter aren’t troubled any further. If you are, please call me.”

Rica studied Reese for a long moment, then held out her hand. “Please forgive my temper earlier. And call me Rica.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Rica.” Reese saluted with a finger to the brim of her hat. “You both have a good day now.”

As Reese turned and glimpsed Bri waiting in the cruiser, she felt the last shattered pieces of her world settle into place. This was where she was meant to be; this was her life. She was home.