“Ya think?” Cat said, winking at him.
“What about their vehicles, do they have GPS?” Kevin said, “We might be able to figure out their cell hits too for the last month, maybe it was location related.”
“Good thought,” Cat said, nodding, writing notes as they talked, “Looks like we’ll need to request some reports.” Glancing back at Devin, who was tapping away at her computer, “How’s it going over there Glimmer?” Cat asked, smiling.
“Quit it,” Devin said, without looking up and grinning at the same time.
“Glimmer?” Christian queried.
“Kind of her nick name in the hacker world,” Cat said.
“You were a hacker in your past life, weren’t ya Blue?” Jeanie said then.
“Probably nowhere near that caliber,” Christian said.
But that had garnered Devin’s attention. She pointed a finger at him, and then crooked her finger, her green eyes sparkling.
“Uh-oh…” Christian said, grinning as he stood up and walked into Devin’s cubicle.
Within minutes they were deep in a discussion.
“Well, alrighty then,” Cat said, grinning.
“What else can we tap for this?” she said then tapping her pen. “Could catch a ride up to Sac and SF and talk to their SACs…” looking up, “Who wants to go for a ride in a King Air?”
Two hours later Jeanie and Mace had met up with two pilots from the Aviation unit with Division of Law Enforcement. They’d headed out to the Long Beach Airport where the Division of Law Enforcement had part of their aircraft inventory and they were on their way north. One of the pilots had brought the diaries in to them and thanked them for helping them track down “the bastards that did this,” it was obvious the pilot was effected.
Cat shook his hand, “We will, I promise,” she said.
Ron Yamamoto nodded his head, amazed that the new Director had been able to pull the task force together so quickly. It gave him a lot of hope for his Bureau.
Over the next 6 hours Cat and Dave poured over the diaries, using the newly installed white boards in their areas to list out any possible leads. At noon Jovina and Susan had gone up to the cafeteria to get them all food.
Susan walked in to hand Dave a sandwich while he was writing. He took the sandwich, leaning over to kiss his wife on the lips, then began eating the sandwich while still looking at the board. Susan stood next to him, smoothing her hand down his back, and handing him the water she’d brought him occasionally. Jovina watched them, thinking that they seemed so perfect for each other.
Walking into Devin’s cubicle, Jovina handed the girl a sandwich and a soda knowing from the parties she’d attended with Devin that she drank Mountain Dew.
“Oh, you’re awesome,” Devin said, stopping long enough to pop the top on the soda and taking a big swig.
“Eat the sandwich too,” Jovina told the other woman as she walked out of her cubicle and into Cat’s office.
Cat was sitting on the edge of her desk, one jean clad leg swinging back and forth the heel of her boots hitting the desk rhythmically to the beat of the music she had on the office. She was deep in thought. Jovina walked over and leaned into kiss Cat, sliding her arms around her shoulders. Cat leaned against her, kissing her back for a few moments.
“Come eat,” Jovina said, pulling at her.
Cat looked at her board again, but then nodded.
Even as she sat eating she continued to look at the board. Jovina was doing her best to stay out of the way, but she was ever curious about what was happening.
“So what does all that mean?” Jovina asked finally.
Cat blinked, and looked over at her, then looked back at the board, gesturing as she finished chewing a bite of sandwich.
“Those are possible leads as to what this agent was working on,” she said.
“Okay,” Jovina said, nodding, “but what is that going to tell you?”
“Well,” Cat said, sitting back, “we’re hoping it will help us to reconstruct at least the last month, to see where they were, who they dealt with and see if those intersect with the other. We need to find a common thread.”
Jovina nodded, “So you can get an idea who did this.”
“Right,” Cat said nodding, “hopefully.”
Jovina nodded, thinking they were searching for a needle in the proverbial haystack.
Later that evening when they finally left the office, Cat stopped to light a cigarette outside of the building. Walking to the car, Jovina noticed that Cat was rolling her shoulder.
“Are you hurting?” Jovina asked.
“Yeah, little bit stiff,” Cat said, grinning.
Jovina dropped back, moving to Cat’s left side to reach out and touch Cat’s shoulder, massaging it with her fingers.
“Mmmm…” Cat murmured as they stood at the crosswalk. Even so Jovina noticed that Cat’s eyes moved everywhere around them.
When they got to the car Jovina said, “You never relax when you’re like this, do you?”
“Not outside, no,” Cat said, shaking her head, “You can’t.”
As Cat started the car her stereo came on, a very dancey song that had her tapping the wheel as she backed out of the parking space. Jovina noticed she checked around her a couple of times, before pulling out and down the ramp for the parking garage. Before she entered the road, she glanced in her rearview mirror for a full 30 seconds, then looked around her again and pulled out.
A few blocks away the light was green, but a man, who looked homeless was walking across the street, putting his hand out to ‘stop’ traffic. Jovina noticed Cat shift forward in her seat, glancing over she saw Cat’s hand move to her holstered weapon at her hip. Her eyes were looking around, then in to the rearview mirror. Finally the homeless man cleared the lane and the traffic started moving again. Cat didn’t relax until she’d passed the man, and she kept her eyes on him the entire time.
“What was that?” Jovina asked, having sensed Cat’s tension.
“It was nothing,” Cat said, then looked over at Jovina, “Oh,” she said, grinning, “Yeah, that’s the job,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Jovina asked.
“When we’re dealing with something like this, you have to be careful. You watch everything, anything out of place is a red flag, you watch that kind of thing closely.”
“So the homeless man crossing the street against the light…”
“Was out of place,” Cat said, “He was wearing a long jacket that could have concealed a weapon. He could have been a distraction for someone to run up on the car from behind or the side, could have been anything.”
Jovina nodded, blowing her breath out, “I don’t know how you do this,” she said, her tone awed, “I don’t know how you can watch everything at the same time, and be so very aware.”
Cat shrugged as she accelerated onto the freeway, “It’s the job.”
Jovina nodded, looking over at Cat again.
“Catalina,” she said then.
“Hmm?” Cat said, glancing around again, checking her rearview mirror, then glancing at Jovina who was watching her, “What?”
Jovina grinned, “Work you is very different from regular you,” she said.
Cat chuckled, “Is it?”
“Yes,” Jovina said, nodding, “but I have to say it was really interesting to see you working.”
“You weren’t board silly?” Cat asked.
“No! I mean, you guys use terms I’ve never heard of before,” Jovina said, “But it was still very interesting.”
Cat grinned, “Yeah, like an episode of Cops.”
Jovina laughed, “Except without people yelling at you the whole time.”
“Oh, trust me, I’ve had people yell at me before.”
“You have? Since you’ve been a narcotics officer?” Jovina asked.
“Oh yeah,” Cat said rolling her eyes, “I’ve had people scream at me about a parking ticket they got. I was like ‘do I look like parking enforcem
ent?’!”
“That’s awful! Does that happen a lot?”
“Well it does if you let people see your badge, that’s why most of us wear our badges turned around, or keep them in our pockets.”
Jovina shook her head, then she looked at Cat thoughtfully, “Am I wrong to assume that you got into this business because of Rachel and me; Because of what happened?”
“No,” Cat said, her look serious, “You’re not wrong at all. That is exactly why I got into this business.”
Jovina nodded slowly, realizing what that meant. Catalina risked her life every day because of Jovina’s own weakness with drugs and Rachel’s tragic slide that ended up killing her. Reaching over, Jovina took Cat’s hand in hers, squeezing it gently.
“Thank you,” she said, softly, tears in her eyes.
Cat looked over at her, grimacing at the tears in Jovina’s eyes, “I had to.” She said simply.
Jovina nodded, her tears spilling over.
A few minutes later when they pulled into the garage, Cat got out, and opened Jovina’s door, offering her hand to help her out. When Jovina got out, Cat continued to hold her hand, pulling her to her and hugging her. Jovina snuggled into Cat’s arms, sighing, it was a dangerous thing loving this woman.
Cat was sitting out on the balcony smoking later that evening when the sliding door opened. She glanced back to see Christian stepping outside.
“Hey, Blue,” Cat said, “Did you get settled at the hotel?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding.
He moved to sit in the chair across from her, touching her legs as he did.
“We did good work today,” he told her.
Cat nodded, taking a deep drag off her cigarette.
“You were really good,” he said then, his light blue eyes showing pride. “The director knew what she was doing, pulling you in.”
“I sure as shit hope so,” Cat said, “This is too important for me to fuck up.”
“You won’t,” Christian said, his tone.
“Thanks Blue,” Cat said, smiling.
“So what do you think of this director?” Christian asked.
“She’s good,” Cat said, nodding, “She’s a lot like Midnight, she gets it, you know?”
“Yeah, it seems like she really does.” Christian agreed, having seen it in the way she addressed the problem. “Where’s she from?”
“DEA,” Cat said, “She was like second in command over there.”
“And they fucked her over, right?”
Cat nodded, making a face.
“Because she’s gay, or because she’s a woman?” Christian asked.
“Probably both,” Cat said, “That and the fact that she’s Iranian.”
Christian’s eyes showed surprised, “Really now?”
Cat nodded, grinning at his reaction.
“Well, she’s an American citizen, obviously,” Christian said, curling his lip in disgust, “What the fuck was their problem?”
Cat chuckled, leave it to Christian to put a not too fine point on things.
“Their loss is our gain,” Cat said, smiling.
“Right there.” Christian said, grinning. “So, is she dating that assistant of hers?”
Cat grinned, inclining her head.
“No, shit really?” Christian said, having been halfway joking.
“Yeah, it’s pretty new, though.”
Christian nodded, “And that Devin is hot.” He said then.
“And Skyler will kill ya if you even think about it,” Cat said.
“Skyler?” Christian asked.
“Her girlfriend, fiancée, the ex-Army pilot who flies rescue choppers for LA Fire.”
“Son of a bitch are there no straight women left in LA?”
“Only the lousy ones,” Cat said, grinning.
“So, what about you?” Christian asked then, “That beautiful Brazilian you got in there,” he said, his head nodding at the apartment.
“What about her?” Cat asked as she reached for another cigarette.
“You gonna do something serious about that?” he asked.
Cat looked back at him for a long moment, then shrugged, “I don’t know.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on Liz,” he said, his tone chiding.
“Don’t’ start with me Blue if what I heard is true, you were still pretty hung up on Susan when she met Dave, and you were seeing your wife.”
“That’s low…” Christian said, narrowing his eyes.
“Yeah, well, stay outta my love life,” Cat said, smiling to take the bite out of her words.
“You care about her?” Christian asked doggedly.
Cat sighed, “Jesus, I’ve known her most of my life, Blue, of course I care about her.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I’m just done with love right now,” Cat said.
“So what’s the story there?” Christian asked then.
“Where? With Jovi?” Cat asked.
“Yeah,” Christian said, sitting back and stretching his legs out in front of him.
Cat looked back at him, then shrugged, “She was my first.”
“First?” Christian asked.
“First love,” Cat said, “Hell, first everything…” she said, her voice trailing off wistfully.
“Okay…and then?”
“And then she and our other best friend Rachel discovered drugs,” Cat said, her voice changing.
Christian winced, “What happened?” he asked, his voice soft.
“Rachel ended up contracting AIDS from a dirty needle. She died in front of us and still Jovi wouldn’t get off the drugs. She used the excuse that she was sad about Rachel… She wouldn’t see that she was headed down the same path.”
Christian nodded, knowing that it had to have been really rough on Cat and starting to see why she’d been so adamant about helping Elizabeth a couple of years before.
“So,” Cat said, “I left, left her, left San Francisco, moved to San Diego to finish my degree and get into the narcotics biz.”
Christian nodded, understanding her logic completely.
“But now?” he asked.
“She says she’s been clean for five years,” Cat said.
“Do you believe her?” Christian asked.
“I do,” Cat said.
He nodded again, “But you still don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“If you love her.”
“I don’t know, Blue, there’s so many emotions there, I can’t tell which ones are old, which ones are new… She doesn’t get any of this… My life now, my friends, my job.”
“And Liz did?” Christian countered, knowing the answer even as he asked it.
“No,” Cat said, shaking her head, “But it was different, you know?”
Christian pursed his lips thinking that no he didn’t see the difference, other than the fact that Jovina hadn’t fucked Cat over repeatedly, whereas Liz had, but he didn’t think pointing that out to her was going to be useful.
“Can we just stop talking about my love life now, please?” Cat said.
“Fine,” Christian said, holding his hands up in surrender.
A few minutes later the slider opened again, and Jericho stepped out, she was still wearing her Division of Law Enforcement windbreaker, which told Cat she’d just left work. Glancing at her watch she saw that it was 9PM.
“Pushing a little aren’t ya, Director?” Cat asked, glancing behind Jericho seeing Zoey and Jovina stepping out of the back door as well.
Jericho looked back at Cat, not answering, but pulling out a pack of cigarettes and pulling one out.
“So,” Cat said, grinning, and sitting forward in her chair, “we’ve got some leads at this point, if it was something they were working on, we’ll find it.”
Jericho nodded, moving to lean against the wall, Christian immediately stood to offer her his chair. Jericho put her hand out, shaking her head, “Been sitting all day,” she said with a grin.
Christian grinned, then offered the chair to Zoey, and Jovina moved to perch on the side of Cat’s chair.
“Devin’s working on seeing if someone got past the firewall and compromised your system,” Cat said, “Blue’s helping her out with that. I haven’t heard back from Jeanie or Mace yet, but I figure they’ll give me reports tomorrow. I told them to stay up there for the night, I don’t want to push your pilots too hard right now.”
Jericho nodded, appreciating Cat’s concern for her people. Every agent in the department was reeling from the murders. Jericho felt completely responsible, and it was making her sick.
“Have you thought anymore about it being related to you?” Cat asked then.
“I’ve thought of nothing but,” Jericho said candidly.
“Anyone stand out in your past?” Christian asked.
“Not that I can think of,” Jericho said, shaking her head, “But I’ve put a lot of people away over the years,” she said.
“Can I access DEA records to get a list?” Cat asked.
“Yeah, I’ll get you access,” Jericho said, “And I’m already having my reports and records over-nighted here.”
“Good, okay,” Cat said.
“Okay, well, I’ve got Marshal set up with Devin, so she’s good, and Bach is standing by if we need him.”
“We could use his eyes in the office,” Cat said, “There’s a lot of diaries to go through.”
“Good, I’ll have him come in,” Jericho said, nodding.
“Wait, Marshal?” Christian asked, looking over at Cat pointedly.
“Windwalker-Marshal,” Cat said, looking heavenward, “Yeah…”
Jericho looked between the two of them expectantly. “Anyone want to clue me in here?”
“Ah,” Cat said, curling her lips in indecision, “Well, Kashena is more than just a good agent,” she said, looking over at Christian.
“She kinda broke Midnight’s case a year and a half ago,” Christian said.
“Broke it, how?” Jericho asked, her look narrowed.
“Well…” Cat said, “She kind of has this gift…”
“What kind of gift?” Jericho asked.
“The premonition kind,” Cat said.
“The what?” Jericho said, her tone indicating she thought they were fucking with her.
Turning Tables (WeHo Book 3) Page 14