by Radclyffe
Rebecca stood. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Are you kidding me? You look like—”
“You said that already. Come on. We won’t go far.”
Sandy shook her head, but followed Frye to the elevator. Dell looked over once as they walked through the room, then quickly back to her keyboard. Sandy kept her distance while they rode down, aware of the cameras everywhere. But once outside on the street, she looped her arm through Frye’s without being invited.
When Frye gave her a raised eyebrow, she snapped, “You don’t look that steady. I don’t want you falling into the street and getting run over. I’ll never get any dinner, which is what I came here for to begin with.”
“Let’s go to the deli around the corner,” Rebecca said, moving her arm out of Sandy’s grasp to curl it around her shoulder. “Why the hell don’t you ever dress for the weather? You’re shivering.”
“I’m used to it.”
“That’s not what your body is saying.”
“I’m in charge of my body,” Sandy said flatly.
Rebecca said nothing. A few minutes later they slipped into a greasy spoon on the corner of Market and Fourth that smelled like fried onions, strong coffee, and tomato sauce. They claimed a booth at the back and a waitress asked them what they wanted, not bothering to offer them menus. Rebecca ordered a sandwich and coffee, then thought better of the coffee and switched to water. She still had a headache and maybe the caffeine wasn’t such a good idea.
“Just a Bud,” Sandy said.
The waitress cocked her head at Rebecca and Rebecca nodded. Sandy was legal in all the ways that counted. She’d proved herself enough times to deserve a beer.
“So, what’s the deal,” Sandy asked.
“Things have changed,” Rebecca said. “We’ve put a crimp in the supply line by exposing the trafficking operation down at the port. I’m sure there’s plenty of those foreign girls still around, but my guess is whoever is running them is going to be very cautious for a little while. That means a lot more action is going to come to your friends.”
Sandy sipped the beer the waitress brought her. “Don’t you mean me and my friends?”
“Not if you’re not hooking, which you aren’t. Right?”
“Jeez, don’t start sounding like Dell.”
Rebecca frowned. “Are you and Mitchell having problems about that?”
“No,” Sandy said quickly, afraid that she might get Dell in trouble somehow. “She’s just, you know…overprotective. Must be a cop thing.”
“Must be.” Rebecca waited until the waitress slapped a heavy white plate with a thick sandwich down on the table. She wasn’t really hungry, but she couldn’t remember the last time she ate. She knew she needed the food, so she forced herself to take a bite. “I want you to find me a replacement.”
“For Dell?” Sandy said, her heart rising in her throat. Man, Dell would lose her mind if Frye let her go.
“No,” Rebecca said in exasperation, trying not to shake her head and make the pounding any worse. “For you.”
“Why? I’ve got the contacts, I like the money, and besides—you know you can trust me.”
“Like I said, the situation is different now.”
Rebecca had thought long and hard about this while she’d been lying in a hospital bed. Any reliable confidential informant was invaluable, and Sandy was not only trustworthy, she was smart and street savvy. She was as much a member of the team as any of them. But she was also the least trained and probably the least capable of taking care of herself. Rebecca had intentionally used her, put her at risk, more than once. It was necessary because she needed Sandy to get the job done, and the job was everything. The job had always been everything, more important than her lovers, more important than her life. But something had changed, and she wasn’t quite sure how or what.
Six months ago, if Sandy had been hurt while gathering information for her, she would’ve been angry. If Sandy had been killed, she would’ve been saddened, hurt. And she would’ve hunted down whoever had done it no matter how long it took. Because that was her job, and Sandy was hers to protect. Now if Sandy got into trouble some night, if she was hurt, Rebecca wasn’t sure she could live with it. She knew Mitchell wouldn’t be able to. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose again. How the hell had she gotten this attached to one of her CIs? And how did she end up with a cop on her team involved with her CI, a prostitute no less? It was a recipe for disaster, completely against protocol. Why hadn’t she put a stop to it? At times like this, she thought maybe she still should.
“Look,” Sandy said, gripping Rebecca’s arm. “I’m careful. I’m smart. And I’ve got friends out there. People I care about, just like you care about Dell and Jason and Sloan. Hell. Even Lard Ass.”
“That’s Detective Watts to you,” Rebecca said, smothering a smile. “I’ll look after your friends. That’s my job.”
“Yeah yeah. You’ll look after everyone. Sure. Look at you. You are as gray as this floor.” Sandy pulled her phone out of her jacket again. “I’m calling your lady to come and get you.”
Rebecca jerked upright and winced. “No! I’m heading home soon.” She looked at her wrist and for the tenth time that afternoon remembered she didn’t have her watch. Catherine must have taken it home from the hospital when she’d been admitted, because it hadn’t been with her personal effects. “What time is it?”
Sandy looked over her shoulder at a round-faced wall clock with a faded Hershey’s ice cream logo hanging on the wall behind the counter. “Almost six thirty.”
“Oh, Christ,” Rebecca whispered. Catherine would be home any minute. She pulled money from her pocket and dropped it on the counter. Thankfully, Catherine had made sure she had cash when she left the hospital. “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“You’re not driving, are you?”
“No, Watts is my ride. He went back to headquarters to finish up some paperwork. I’ll call him to pick me up outside of Sloan’s.”
Sandy jumped up and wrapped her arm around Rebecca’s waist when Rebecca swayed. “Gimme your frickin’ phone and tell me his number.”
“It’s number two on speed dial.” Rebecca didn’t resist the help. She really did feel like crap.
*
“So,” Vincent asked when Angelo picked up the phone. “You doing anything over there besides pulling your crank?”
“Hell, yeah.” Angelo raised his left shoulder to hold the phone against his ear while he handled the video camera. “Are you sure you don’t have me watching some kind of whorehouse? There’s more action going on in that building than in some of our joints.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like girls coming and going. Real lookers and real friendly-like. Some of them are dykes for sure.”
“Heard that. You getting ID?”
“They’re not wearing name tags, but I’ve shot some great footage. Real boner material.”
“Just keep it in your pants. The boss wants to know who’s shacked up with who.”
“There’s some little blonde who looks like she’s servicing the whole team. She has to know plenty. We ought to put one of the boys on her.”
“Don’t worry. The boys are gonna be plenty busy soon. See you in the morning, and you better have more than tits and ass on film.”
“Believe me, I’ve got plenty.” Angelo dropped the cell phone on the windowsill and zoomed in on the face of a tall, chiseled blonde in casual clothing who climbed into the passenger side of a Crown Vic. Had to be a cop. When the car pulled away, the skinny little whore in the red leather jacket went back into the building. Man, she was a busy little beaver. He settled back into his chair and laughed at his own joke.
*
“Hey, babe,” Dell said as Sandy leaned against her back and wrapped her arms around her from behind. She shivered when Sandy kissed the side of her neck. Technically, she wasn’t on duty, but she was scanning shipping manifests for Jason,
looking for discrepancies that might indicate other deliveries of girls from Eastern Europe. “I’m sort of working here.”
“And I’m sort of hungry. Maybe a few other things too.”
Dell grinned, closed the file she was working on, and swirled her chair around. “Yeah? Already?”
Sandy let out an uncharacteristic squeal as Dell pulled her down into her lap and nuzzled her neck. “Jesus, Dell,” she snapped, pushing her away. “What if Sloan walks in?”
“She won’t care.”
“Well, Frye would kick your ass.”
Dell stiffened. “She’s still here?”
“No. Watts is taking her home. She shouldn’t have been here at all this afternoon. What’s wrong with the bunch of you?”
“She’s the boss. She calls the shots.”
Sandy snorted. “Are you gonna take me somewhere for dinner or do I have to go by myself?”
“I’m done here for now. Take off your jacket.”
Sandy punched her. “I said not here. Geez, rookie. What’s wrong with you?”
Dell rose, pulled her leather jacket off the back of a nearby chair, and held it out.
“I don’t want your jacket,” Sandy said.
“You do if you want a ride. You’ll freeze in what you’re wearing.” Dell waited. “Besides, it turns me on when you wear my clothes.”
Sandy rolled her eyes, but she took off her skimpy vinyl number and accepted the black leather jacket Dell slung around her shoulders. “What about you?”
“You’ll figure out some way to keep me warm.”
“If you’re lucky.” Sandy slowly ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip.
“I’m always lucky.” Dell kissed her quickly and held up five fingers as she started away. “See you downstairs.”
When Dell pulled up in front of the building on her Ducati, Sandy climbed on behind her, leaving the heavy leather jacket unzipped. It enclosed them like a tent as she wrapped her arms around Dell’s waist. The only thing between her breasts and Dell’s back was her thin bra and Dell’s T-shirt. Sandy’s nipples got hard.
“I’m not so hungry anymore,” she breathed, licking the rim of Dell’s ear. “Maybe we should just go home.”
Dell grabbed one of Sandy’s hands and cupped it in her crotch. “We’ll pick up some takeout and eat it in bed. Later.”
Sandy laughed and squeezed until Dell yanked her hand away. “Much later.”
*
Angelo craned his neck to watch as the motorcycle roared down the street. Then he shut off his video camera. “Gotcha.”
Chapter Four
Catherine slowed as she turned the corner onto her block, a five-minute walk from the hospital. Streetlights in her West Philadelphia neighborhood of Victorian twins were few and far between, making visibility a challenge, but she thought she recognized the dingy gray Crown Victoria idling at the curb in front of her house. She told herself she was imagining things. It couldn’t possibly be a departmental vehicle, and the hulking form behind the wheel couldn’t possibly be William Watts. It was almost 7:00 p.m. and Rebecca must have been home hours ago. William wouldn’t be coming by to discuss business at this hour. He knew Rebecca needed more recovery time.
Catherine took a few steps, chiding herself for her overactive imagination. She’d barely slept in the last few days and had been stressed and apprehensive in the weeks leading up to the raid. It didn’t matter that she knew Rebecca was superb at her job, or that the odds of a mortal injury were low. She didn’t believe in statistics, not where the woman she loved was concerned. So she’d worried and tried to keep her fear from distracting Rebecca. Because Rebecca would do what Rebecca would do, and she needed all of her mind on the job to do it safely. Then Catherine had opened the door in the middle of the night to find Sloan on the porch, and for one terrifying second the rest of her life gaped empty and barren before her. Rational thought or even the reality of Rebecca beside her could not mitigate the agony of that moment. It would haunt her forever.
Let it go, she thought, although she suspected that was one battle she wouldn’t win.
Then Rebecca climbed out of the passenger side of the sedan.
She didn’t notice Catherine but walked slowly up to the house, obviously exhausted. For a few seconds, Catherine hovered on the verge of turning and walking away, she was that angry. Not only angry. Hurt. At times like these, being a psychiatrist was not the least bit helpful. It didn’t matter that she knew what she should do, what she should say, what might help defuse the emotional situation. It didn’t matter that she understood some of the things that drove Rebecca to drive herself. At this moment, she didn’t care about all the things she knew or sympathized with. She was hurt and disappointed and frightened, and thinking her way through this was not going to be easy.
She waited until the Crown Victoria pulled away because she didn’t want Watts to witness anything personal between her and Rebecca. Rebecca would hate for a colleague to get a glimpse of their private life, and Catherine was far too personally reserved to allow it either. Rebecca, moving at only a fraction of her normal pace, had just reached the landing in front of the door when Catherine fished her house keys from her briefcase and climbed the four broad marble stairs to reach around her.
“Are you just coming home?” Catherine fitted her key into the lock.
“Yes, I—”
“Don’t,” Catherine said softly. “I’m not quite ready to hear it just yet.”
Rebecca hesitated on the threshold. “I can call Watts. Have him come back and take me to my apartment.”
Catherine looked back at her for a second. “Rebecca, I’m upset.” She deposited her briefcase on the parson’s bench in the foyer and shrugged out of her coat. “You look exhausted.”
“I didn’t do—”
Catherine shook her head. “Now is not the right time to talk about this, but what’s happening is part of being together. Come inside.”
“I hate this,” Rebecca said.
“I know. So do I. Are you hungry or do you want to go straight to bed?”
“I’m not hungry, but you must be. I’d like to sit in the kitchen with you while you have something to eat.”
Catherine took her hand. “Come on, then.”
*
Kratos Zamora poured another glass of Bollinger Blanc de Noirs and leaned across the table in the private dining alcove to light the redhead’s cigarette. He enjoyed watching her slowly exhale a thin stream of fragrant smoke. Even in the candlelight he could make out the emerald tones of her eyes. Her shoulder-length curls were the color of a summer sunset over the ocean, the same blood-red that often heralded a storm. She regarded him with a hint of amusement, but rather than be annoyed, he was intrigued. Women usually fawned or primped or seduced, but they never laughed at him. Or challenged.
“You think very highly of my talents,” she said.
“You’ve never disappointed me.” Kratos never ate at the same restaurant twice in a row, and there were half a dozen private dining areas like this one in the restaurant. The likelihood that a listening device had been planted was slim, but his men had swept the space earlier, and he felt secure discussing business here.
Talia raised an eyebrow. A smile played over her perfect lips.
Kratos shrugged. “Where business is concerned.” He’d tried to seduce her once, and she’d refused. He’d been surprised and that was rare. He wasn’t deluded enough to believe women were drawn to him rather than his power and wealth, but he was used to getting what he wanted. This woman had merely said no, but when she refused she’d held his eyes in a way few men dared, and he understood that persisting would be to no avail.
“Five years ago almost no one had the skill to detect electronic intrusion. That’s no longer the case.” Talia tapped the delicate ash against the edge of a crystal ashtray and it shattered into powdery shards. “What you ask is difficult.”
“But not impossible.” Kratos watched her maroon-tinted lips close
deliberately around the end of the cigarette. Her mouth tightened slightly as she inhaled and her flawless high-boned cheeks hollowed. His erection throbbed, and he enjoyed the sensation, but didn’t let the pleasure distract him. “Disrupt the communications and you create chaos. Chaos leads to inefficiency and distrust.”
“What about the new investigative division at One Police Plaza?” she asked. “How much of a threat are they?”
“My friends there tell me that the unit is barely functional. I doubt there is any danger from that direction.”
“And yet you said our plant inside City Hall was identified. That took a sophisticated cyberinvestigation.”
Kratos waved a hand. “He was careless.”
He was not about to admit his concern that the HPCU might be able to trace the man they’d had inside back to him. Besides, he was always careful to keep several layers of people between himself and culpability. If by some miracle the authorities were able to determine who had placed the spyware in the PPD computer systems, they would not come up with his name. But he doubted that was a possibility.
Talia regarded him through narrowed eyes as the smoke curled in the air between them. “Tapping into computer files is different than actively sabotaging a police communications network. The government no longer takes cyberterrorism lightly.”
“Of course,” Kratos said. “And your payment will reflect the risk.”
“Three hundred thousand,” Talia said evenly. “Fifty percent to be wired immediately to my account.”
Kratos nodded.
“I need everything you can tell me about the principals. Can you be certain of your sources?”