In Pursuit of Justice
Page 1
Synopsis
In the dynamic double sequel to Shield of Justice and A Matter of Trust, Det. Sgt. Rebecca Frye struggles to return to duty after a near fatal shooting. Joining forces with enigmatic computer consultant J.T. Sloan, Rebecca accepts a temporary assignment with a Federal task force investigating an Internet child pornography ring.
Rebecca’s obsession with finding her partner’s killer and her involvement in the multi-jurisdictional investigation threaten both her life and her new relationship with Doctor Catherine Rawlings. When Catherine becomes professionally involved and an attempt on the life of a task force member ensues, the pursuit of justice becomes a deadly race against time.
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Acclaim for Radclyffe’s Work
Lambda Literary Award winner Stolen Moments “is a collection of steamy stories about women who just couldn’t wait. It’s sex when desire overrides reason, and it’s incredibly hot!”—On Our Backs
Lambda Literary Award winner Distant Shores, Silent Thunder “weaves an intricate tapestry about passion and commitment between lovers. The story explores the fragile nature of trust and the sanctuary provided by loving relationships.”—Sapphic Reader
Lambda Literary and Benjamin Franklin Award finalist The Lonely Hearts Club “is an ensemble piece that follows the lives [and loves] of three women, with a plot as carefully woven as a fine piece of cloth.”—Midwest Book Review
ForeWord’s Book of the Year finalist Night Call features “gripping medical drama, characters drawn with depth and compassion, and incredibly hot [love] scenes.”—Just About Write
Lambda Literary Award finalist Justice Served delivers a “crisply written, fast-paced story with twists and turns and keeps us guessing until the final explosive ending.”—Independent Gay Writer
Shield of Justice is a “well-plotted…lovely romance…I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!”—Ann Bannon, author of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles
Lambda Literary Award finalist Turn Back Time is filled with “wonderful love scenes, which are both tender and hot.” —MegaScene
Lambda Literary Award finalist When Dreams Tremble’s “focus on character development is meticulous and comprehensive, filled with angst, regret, and longing, building to the ultimate climax.” —Just About Write
A Matter of Trust is a “sexy, powerful love story filled with angst, discovery and passion that captures the uncertainty of first love and its discovery.”—Just About Write
“The author’s brisk mix of political intrigue, fast-paced action, and frequent interludes of lesbian sex and love…in Honor Reclaimed…sure does make for great escapist reading.” —Q Syndicate
Change of Pace is “contemporary, yet timeless, not only about sex, but also about love, longing, lust, surprises, chance meetings, planned meetings, fulfilling wild fantasies, and trust.”—Midwest Book Review
“Radclyffe has once again pulled together all the ingredients of a genuine page-turner, this time adding some new spices into the mix. shadowland is sure to please—in part because Radclyffe never loses sight of the fact that she is telling a love story, and a compelling one at that.”—Cameron Abbott, author of To The Edge and An Inexpressible State of Grace
“Innocent Hearts…illustrates that our struggles for acceptance of women loving women is as old as time—only the setting changes. The romance is sweet, sensual, and touching.”—Just About Write
“Sweet No More…snarls, teases and toes the line between pleasure and pain.”—Best Lesbian Erotica 2008
“Word of Honor takes the reader on a great ride. The sex scenes are incredible…and the story builds to an exciting climax that is as chilling as it is rewarding.”—Midwest Book Review
In Pursuit of Justice
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In Pursuit of Justice
© 2003 By Radclyffe. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-264-1
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Bold Strokes Printing: April 2010
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design By Sheri (GraphicArtist2020@hotmail.com)
By the Author
Romances
Innocent Hearts
Love’s Melody Lost
Love’s Tender Warriors
Tomorrow’s Promise
Love’s Masquerade
shadowland
Fated Love
Turn Back Time
Promising Hearts
When Dreams Tremble
The Lonely Hearts Club
Night Call
Secrets in the Stone
The Provincetown Tales
Safe Harbor
Beyond the Breakwater
Distant Shores, Silent Thunder
Storms of Change
Winds of Fortune
Returning Tides
Honor Series
Above All, Honor
Honor Bound
Love & Honor
Honor Guards
Honor Reclaimed
Honor Under Siege
Word of Honor
Justice Series
A Matter of Trust (prequel)
Shield of Justice
In Pursuit of Justice
Justice in the Shadows
Justice Served
Justice For All
Erotic Interludes: Change of Pace
(A Short Story Collection)
Radical Encounters
(A Erotic Short Story Collection)
Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.
Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments
Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love
Erotic Interludes 4: Extreme Passions
Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games
Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery
Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets
Dedication
To Lee, my heart’s pursuit
Chapter One
Everything hurt. Her jawed throbbed where he had struck her; her wrists chafed beneath the rough nylon cord that bound them tightly behind her back; and her breasts, exposed in the chill damp air, ached. The cavernous room was alive with shifting shadows, turning her fear to horror. His hands were rough—holding her down, violating her body, invading her soul. Helpless, she screamed silently, casting into the dark for salvation.
Please, please help me.
And then a voice—strong and certain and sure—called her name. A woman, blazing with strength and purpose, stepped from a darkness deeper than night to light the corners of her terror.
She’s here. I prayed for her help, and she heard. She came.
With the cold circle of impending death pressed to her temple, she realized her mistake. Dread followed quickly on the heels of relief. Desperately, she shouted a warning that made no sound. She begged not for her own life, but for that of the woman she had summoned.
No, no! I didn’t mean it. Don’t come here. He’ll kill you. I’m sorry. Oh God, don’t do this.
A thundering explosion, deafen
ing her. A searing trail of fire, dazzling her vision, blinding her. A thick red torrent—warm against her cheek; all that remained of her tormentor—his blood on her face and the hole in her heart.
Not my heart, her heart—oh, My Heart, don’t leave me like this.
Stumbling, falling, her breath tearing from her chest in slivers of pain, she forced herself to look upon her own soul dying. There on the floor in the flickering candlelight, all of her hopes dissolved in a river of crimson, pumping past her hands with inexorable force. Relentless, pitiless, victorious death. The stakes had been set; the trade had been made—one life for another. She had been spared and, in the sparing, had lost everything. She would live, empty and forsaken. Guilt did not do justice to the agony of remorse she suffered for having called this one woman to her destruction.
On her knees in her lover’s blood, her neck arched as if pleading to be sacrificed, begging to be taken instead, beseeching to be freed from the torment, she screamed again.
“Catherine.”
Cold, she was so cold. Drowning in an agony of loss and self-recrimination. So dark, no air. “No…”
“Catherine, it’s all right.”
“Oh, my God.” Dr. Catherine Rawlings shot upright in bed—gasping, sweat-soaked, and disoriented. Frantically, she turned in the dark room to the woman beside her, her hands roaming over the naked figure, reassured by the solid heat of her. Alive, she’s alive. Finding her voice, she whispered hoarsely, “I’m sorry.”
“No.” Detective Rebecca Frye pulled the trembling woman into her arms, stroking the damp wisps of auburn hair back from her cheek. “Don’t apologize.”
“I woke you,” Catherine said, her voice still shaking. “You should go back to sleep.”
Rebecca gathered her closer, fitting their bodies together, breast against breast, thigh between thigh. “Let me comfort you, just this once.”
“You do.”
“Not often enough.”
“Having you next to me is all the comfort I need.”
“Well, then, let me believe I’m slaying your dragons. It makes me feel important.”
“Oh, you are that.” Catherine shivered, the image of Rebecca lying in a pool of blood chiseled indelibly on the tablets of her memory. She didn’t need to be asleep to revisit that moment. Every time she looked at her tall, blond lover, she saw her precious life ebbing away with each heartbeat—seconds from death—having willingly sacrificed herself for Catherine.
During the first few weeks after the shooting, she had been able to shrug off the swift rise of terror and dread that so often took her unawares and left her shaking—sometimes when she was awake, more often when she slept. With Rebecca in the hospital, so critically injured, she’d had enough to occupy her thoughts that she had managed to ignore her own sleepless nights and anxious days. But Rebecca had been out of the hospital for more than two weeks, and the episodes were getting more frequent, and more terrifying.
Smoothing her hand down Rebecca’s chest, lingering for a heartbeat on the thick scar tissue above her left breast, she murmured, “You’re very important. Without you, I’d never get that great table at DeCarlo’s, and I’d so miss having dinner there.”
“We’ll go tomorrow then.”
“Rebecca…let’s wait another week.”
“It’ll be fine. It’s just dinner,” Rebecca murmured, running her hand upward along the curve of Catherine’s side until she cradled her breast in her palm. “Besides, I’m ready for a night out. I’m going stir crazy—for a lot of reasons.”
“I know, but it’s too soo—oh—” She caught her breath at the sharp point of pleasure that sparked from her nipple through her stomach as fingers closed hard on her breast. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” Rebecca teased, her mouth on Catherine’s neck, tasting the salt, reveling in the pulse of blood beneath her lips. “I’ve missed you this way.”
“You’re still recovering,” Catherine gasped. You’re not healed. You’re still too thin; you’re still so pale.
Rebecca smoothed her palm down Catherine’s abdomen, fingertips brushing lightly through silky hair. Catherine moaned—a faint strangled gasp of longing. Oh, my God, don’t do that. I want you so much. I was so afraid I’d lost you.
When Catherine’s hips lifted involuntarily beneath her fingers, Rebecca smiled and promised, “I’ll be very still—just let me touch you. It won’t hurt me.” Shifting lower, she found a nipple with her teeth. Biting lightly, she slid her hand between Catherine’s thighs, hovering a whisper above her, her palm warmed by the heat. “But I want you so much. Please.”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” Catherine relented because she needed so desperately to know in her bones that Rebecca was safe, to burn with the desire only this woman could stir in her, to extinguish fear with passion. “Touch me, Rebecca. I need to feel you. Make me…”
She choked, unable to speak, as Rebecca’s fingers danced lightly over her straining flesh, stroking her fleetingly, dipping into the shimmering depths of her desire to spread liquid fire over her painfully engorged tissues. Turning her cheek to her lover’s chest, Catherine closed her eyes, struggling to contain the avalanche of release that thundered demandingly through her blood. Trembling, she filled her hands with Rebecca’s body, fingers digging into her arms, needing to be connected to her—everywhere. Only the tiny fragment of her mind still functioning kept her from pushing her hand between her lover’s thighs to claim her, too. But she resisted with the last fiber of her strength, rocking against the fingers that tormented her.
Too soon…toosoon…ohI’mcomingtoosoon…
“Yess…” Rebecca held back as long as she could, listening to the cadence of Catherine’s breathing, feeling her heart hammering against her own chest, sensing the tightening of muscles deep inside. When the woman in her arms went rigid, a strangled cry escaping her throat, Rebecca slid into her, filling her completely in one swift, sure motion. Muscles clenched, then spasmed, and Catherine arched, shouting in surprise, before finally convulsing in sweet, sweet surrender. Rebecca Frye closed her eyes and, secure in her lover’s embrace, rode the crest of passion like a conquering hero. Never, never had she felt more alive.
*
“What time is it?”
Rebecca rolled over and peered at the digital clock. “Almost six-thirty.”
“Ugh,” Catherine groaned, pushing back the covers to get up. “Thank God it’s Friday. Ohh…I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Wait a minute,” Rebecca said quietly, pulling her back down. When Catherine moved against her with a sigh, Rebecca settled onto her back with her arms around the still-drowsy woman. “So. Tell me about the nightmare.”
“It was nothing. Just a dream.”
“The third one this week?”
Catherine traced her fingers along Rebecca’s ribs, down her abdomen, remembering what it was like to make those muscles flicker with urgency when they made love. What if they never… She came back to herself with a start. “It’s a bit of stress. Nothing to worry about.”
“Because of me?” Rebecca insisted, tightening her hold. “Something I did?”
“No,” Catherine assured her quickly. It was hardly your fault…
“Is it Blake?”
Catherine’s stomach turned over. She should have realized that Rebecca was much too astute not to make the connection, although she doubted the detective realized exactly what about that night plagued her. For Rebecca, the idea of sacrificing herself in the line of duty was a simple reality of her life. “It scared me, almost losing you.” At least that part was true. So terribly, terribly true. “When you were shot, I saw it. Your body jerked backward as if a giant hand had struck you. And then you fell. You were so still, so quiet, and there was so much blood.”
“Catherine…”
“I was terrified…I remember, I was so cold. I felt something inside of me begin to die.”
“I’m all right now.”
“Not quite,” Catherine said ferven
tly, running her fingers over the scar tissue even as she pushed the lingering memories away. It was over. “But you will be.”
“It’s true,” Rebecca insisted vehemently. She hated knowing that Catherine still suffered because of what had happened to her. The sooner she was back on her feet, the sooner this would be behind them. “Listen, I know you’ve had to take care of me the last couple of weeks, but I’m fine now. Everything is back to normal—at least it will be as soon as I pass the physical, re-qualify with my weapon, and jump through hoops for the shrink…uh…sorry. But you know what I mean.”
“Yes.” Catherine laughed finally, loving the certainty in her detective’s voice. “I know what you mean. And you should remember that I am a psychiatrist. So believe me when I tell you I’m fine and there’s nothing to worry about.”
Rebecca pushed up against the pillows until she was sitting and looked seriously into her lover’s eyes. “I’m still going to worry until those circles under your eyes go away.”
“Well, then, just concentrate on getting well.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do. Starting today.”
*
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I’m sure you have other more pleasant things to do at home on a Friday evening.”
“When you call me for a session, I know it’s important,” Hazel Holcomb replied, indicating the two overstuffed chairs flanking a low coffee table. The furniture was arranged upon a thick oriental carpet in front of a stone fireplace; the walls on either side were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and a large antique mahogany desk sat before bay windows that looked out on a well-tended flower garden. It was a functional but decidedly comfortable space. “Sit down. Do you want coffee or…let me see, I think I have some soda.”