by Radclyffe
“Some of the dancers?”
Head nod.
“Do they just dance? Or do they hook, too?”
“Maybe.”
“Where? Which clubs?”
A shrug.
Rebecca passed another twenty. She didn’t think the girl was holding out for more money. She was scared. “Which clubs?”
“I don’t know...I haven’t seen him in a while. Maybe the Blue Diamond—”
“The place on Delaware Avenue?” Watts asked.
She nodded.
“Where else?”
Shrug. “Ziggie’s once. I don’t know.”
“What’s his name?”
Negative head shake.
“Okay,” Rebecca said. She passed the photos of the two girls who had been in the video with him. “How about them?”
The young girl stiffened.
Bingo.
“Fifty dollars,” Rebecca whispered. Come on. Help me.
A trembling finger landed on the Asian girl’s photo. “She used to dance at the Blue Di. Maybe she still does.”
“Name?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice was almost transparent now. Her dark hair framed a face both guileless and world-weary. She raised liquid eyes to Rebecca’s. “Her stage name was Trudy.”
“What about the other one?”
“No.”
“No you don’t know her?”
“She just said that, Frye,” Sandy interjected, sensing Lucy was about to bolt. “Jesus. You got your money’s worth. Leave us alone so we can enjoy the food. You and Bluto there kinda spoil the appetite.”
The waitress slid two plates heaping with eggs, potatoes, and toast in front of the girls.
Rebecca folded a fifty-dollar bill around her card. As she slid that across the table under the rim of Lucy’s plate, she said quietly, “I can take you to a shelter where you can get a new name, a new start.”
A head shake. Definite. No.
“If your pimp beats you, call me. I’ll make sure he never does again.”
No response.
“You need help—any kind of help, call me.” Rebecca gave Sandy a hard stare. “You—keep your nose clean. And keep your ass out of the alleys.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Sandy snorted with a kiss-my-ass attitude and turned her attention to her breakfast.
Rebecca and Watts left, handing the waitress money for the check on the way out the door.
“Did we just get anything?” Watts asked as he crammed himself into the Vette.
“I don’t know,” Rebecca mused, heading north out of South Philly toward Sloan’s. She looked at Watts speculatively. “Have you ever heard of prostitutes having escorts?”
“Nope—pimps might cruise around checking up on their stables, but they don’t drive the girls to work.”
“Sex videos, Internet porn rings, girls being shuttled around to sex clubs.” She shook her head. “What does that sound like to you?”
“Organized?”
“Definitely that and—” Her phone rang, and she pulled it from her belt. “Yeah, Frye...okay, fine...on our way.”
“What’s up?” Watts asked.
“Sloan’s awake, and she wants to talk to me.”
“Huh. You gonna chew her ass?”
“The thought has crossed my mind.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he said, laughing. “Can I watch?”
Rebecca eyed him flatly. “Gee, Bluto, I don’t know about that.”
“Goddamned smart-mouthed who—” He caught himself. “She’s...uh...smart, that kid. She played that well.”
“She is, and she did.” Her mind, however, was not on how well Sandy had protected her cover, but on a vague idea that was forming in her mind. She needed something that would connect Jimmy Hogan and Gregor Zamora and a bunch of young girls being ferried around to sex clubs and porn shoots. The picture was there, she just needed a few more pieces. And when she had it, she hoped she’d learn why two cops had died.
Chapter Twenty
At Sloan’s, Rebecca rode the elevator up one more flight after Watts departed on the third floor. The doors slid open, and she exited into an entryway lit by matte black metal-encased spots nestled among exposed ventilation ducts, electrical conduits, and pipes. The floor was highly polished random-width oak planking and the walls a muted wash of pale color. Industrial chic, and very well done. She looked for a bell or knocker, saw none, and then, out of habit, looked for the camera. She didn’t see it, but knew it had to be there, because as she took one step closer to the massive double steel doors, they parted soundlessly. Sloan waited on the other side.
Rebecca stood still on the threshold, taking stock. The security consultant, dressed in her typical jeans and white shirt, looked nevertheless like a different woman than a few hours before. Her eyes were clear and bore barely a hint of shadow; her stance was relaxed but alert; her grin, a toned-down version of her usual cocky one, was confident.
“Detective.”
“Sloan.”
“Thanks for coming.” Sloan stepped aside with a sweep of her arm, bidding entry. “Please.”
Rebecca stepped inside and looked around. As she expected, the design and furnishings were more of the same modern style, softened by thick area rugs and surprisingly placid landscape oil paintings on the walls. What caught her attention almost immediately, however—a presence dominating the room—was the exquisitely beautiful woman seated on the sofa in the central living area. Her classically elegant features were scarcely marred by the bruises and obvious swelling. There was pain swimming in her deep blue eyes, though, and it hurt Rebecca on some basic, instinctual level to see it.
“Detective Sergeant Frye—my partner, Michael Lassiter.”
“Rebecca,” Rebecca said, walking forward to offer her hand. “Hello.”
“I’m so happy to meet you,” Michael said, smiling into the arctic blue eyes. The gaze meeting hers did not feel cold, however, merely careful.
“I’m glad to see that you’re better,” Rebecca replied.
“Yes, thank you.” Michael glanced at Sloan, who stood quietly to one side. “It was my idea that you come upstairs. I wanted to meet you, and although I’m improved, I wasn’t up to the elevator ride, even for a short distance. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Rebecca smiled. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Other than keeping my impetuous lover out of harm’s way?” Michael ignored a slight groan from Sloan’s direction, smiling softly. “You can accept an invitation from Sloan and me for you and Catherine to join us for dinner when I’m a bit more worthy of company.”
“I’d be delighted to accept for both of us.” Rebecca was surprised to realize that she’d have a hard time denying this woman anything. Even in obvious pain, she exuded a quiet grace. Purposefully, Rebecca reminded herself of her duty. “As to Sloan, that’s another story. She’s a little independent.”
Michael nodded carefully, finding that small movements didn’t seem to bother her headache as much. “I won’t argue. I won’t even mention extenuating circumstances of which you’re well aware. So, I’m going to leave you two to sort that out.”
Sloan moved forward quickly to help Michael rise. Slipping an arm around her lover’s waist, subtly supporting her, she glanced at Rebecca. “I’ll be right back.”
“Of course.”
Rebecca crossed to the opposite wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and took in the view. She was idly following the lights of a barge on the river when Sloan rejoined her. She waited for Sloan to make the first move. It wasn’t what she expected.
“Sorry if that put you on the spot,” Sloan said quietly. “Michael is having trouble remembering things, and—”
“You don’t need to explain. She’s...” Rebecca struggled for the word and came up short. “She’s very...lovely.”
“Yes.” Sloan’s voice was thick, her throat tight.
“And very perceptive.” Rebecca’s face was inscrutabl
e as she continued to look out. “It would have been a smart move on your part, though, to have me meet her. If you had thought of it.”
“Oh?” Sloan asked, intrigued. She would have preferred to keep Michael far away from anything having to do with this case—or any case—but Michael had said it would help to fill in the blanks in her memory if she could put faces to the people who populated their world. “Why?”
Rebecca turned her head, met Sloan’s gaze. “Seeing her like that...it makes me want to put a gun to someone’s head.” Before Sloan could reply, Rebecca added, “But I won’t.”
“Neither will I.”
“I don’t know that.” Rebecca leaned a shoulder against one of the thick metal beams that supported the glass sections, her eyes hard. “And if I can’t trust you, I can’t have you on the team.”
“You need me.” It wasn’t said arrogantly, because they both knew it was fact.
“Jason can do the work.” Rebecca would not be blackmailed into making a decision that could compromise her entire operation. Nor would she knowingly put one of her people into a situation they couldn’t handle. And Sloan was a loose cannon.
Sloan shook her head. “He’s good. He’s very, very good. But he can’t do what I can do. Ask him.”
“You’re too close to this one. I knew it from the beginning, and I let it slide. That was my mistake.” Rebecca fixed Sloan with an unyielding stare. “But you blew it last night. You should have called me as soo—”
“I know. I was wrong. I apologize.”
Rebecca nodded slightly, accepting the apology. “The fact remains, I don’t know that you won’t decide the investigation is moving too slowly and take matters into your own hands.”
“I won’t.” Sloan’s face tightened and a muscle in her jaw jumped. “I won’t because it would hurt Michael.”
Rebecca considered the power of that statement. Considered what she had seen of Sloan’s condition when Michael had been injured. Considered the effect that love—no, not just love, bone-deep need—had had on her own life since meeting Catherine. She blew out a breath. “Your word on it?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Watts will be deeply disappointed.”
Sloan raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“He was hoping for a royal ass-chewing.”
“You can always fake it,” Sloan suggested with a laugh.
“Nah. He’d enjoy it too much.” Rebecca grew serious. “I need a full report.”
“Let me say goodbye to Michael, and we can head downstairs. It’s going to be a long night.”
“Yes.” Rebecca rubbed her face, thinking about all she needed to do. Thinking about Catherine and another night she would not be with her. “I thought it would be.”
*
When Rebecca and Sloan walked into the conference room together, three sets of curious eyes fixed on them.
Sloan winked at Jason, who wisely pretended not to notice.
Watts craned his neck and examined Sloan from head to toe. “I don’t see any bite marks.”
“They’re there,” Sloan said quietly in passing.
Watts smiled, satisfied.
Mitchell decided silence was the safest move on her part.
“Where’s Dr. Rawlings?” Rebecca asked.
“She had patients,” Mitchell replied.
Rebecca glanced at her watch and grimaced. It was later than she’d thought, and now she’d missed the opportunity to have a quick dinner with Catherine. Automatically, she pushed the disappointment aside and settled into a chair at the head of the table. “Okay, Sloan. It’s your show.”
“I found a back door in Flanagan’s computer,” she said. “In simple terms, that’s a secret way into a system unknown to the user. Depending on the level of access, the intruder can remove, alter, or delete files. This user had root access.”
Jason gave a small grunt of surprise.
“That’s good?” Watts asked sharply, hating the way these discussions left him feeling like a rookie again.
Sloan shook her head. “That’s bad. At least for the person whose system has been compromised. It means that the intruder can do just about anything to the data and then alter the logs to make it impossible to see what he, or she, has done.”
“Cover his trail,” Watts commented.
“Exactly.”
“And you identified this intruder?” Rebecca asked.
Sloan nodded. “Like I said before, it’s impossible to totally erase the electronic trail, but most people would not have found it. I almost didn’t.” She met Rebecca’s gaze. “I tracked the log-on data back to Henry.”
“That’s pretty sophisticated stuff,” Mitchell said quietly.
The comment hung in the air, but the unspoken for a police detective was clear to all.
“Does he fit for the rest of it?” Sloan asked. She looked around the room and saw the silent assent.
“What about someone hacking his user identity to set up the back door?” Jason postulated.
Sloan shrugged, looking skeptical. “You know how hard that would be. We’d be theorizing an even greater level of computer sophistication. And why?”
“To set him up?” Mitchell suggested.
“In case of what? I’m sure the hacker never expected anyone to be looking for this kind of thing.”
“I agree,” Rebecca said. “The PPD is just starting to establish an electronic surveillance unit. We don’t have anyone that I know of who could do what Sloan’s done, so our UNSUB must feel pretty safe.”
“Do we have anyone else who fits for this?” asked Sloan.
Jason shook his head. “None of the people who made our short list, including Henry, have the ability to do it, on the surface at least. Two attorneys, a judge, a cop, and a psychologist. I’ve pulled their college transcripts. No one had any special computer training at all.”
“Assuming that the inside source had help, then, the simplest explanation is that Henry gave someone who did know how to do it access to hack into the system.”
“But you can’t prove that from what you have,” Rebecca stated.
“Not yet,” Sloan admitted. “I need to go back tonight. I need to look at what Henry’s been doing. With the information I have, I can easily access his files.”
“Do it,” Rebecca said immediately. “In the meantime, we work the other angles we discussed this morning. Sandy nabbed us a solid lead—a dancer who might be our video girl. Watts and I will look for her.” She turned to Mitchell. “I need you in those clubs as soon as possible. We’re looking for information on an escort service that might be transporting girls to the clubs—to perform, to hook, we’re not sure. That and any word you can get for us on the video shoots.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rebecca looked at Jason. “What kind of cover story are you going to use?”
“There’s a big drag scene in DC. A place called Club Chaos on Dupont Circle is the heart of the drag king scene, and Jasmine performed with some of them there a couple of times.” Jason looked at Mitchell. “I thought we could put Mitch out as having been a bouncer at the club. That way, he won’t be expected to perform.”
Watts looked a little red in the face, but he said nothing.
“I can handle that,” Mitchell said. “I’m good at busting drunks.”
That drew a laugh, and Rebecca stood. “Okay. Anything breaks, I want to know.” She purposefully did not look at Sloan. “Anything.” Then she turned to Watts. “I need a couple of hours, then let’s cruise the clubs down on Delaware.”
“Sure, Sarge.” He heaved himself to his feet. “Sounds like my kinda night duty.”
*
Mitchell, sweating and swearing under her breath, humped the mattress up another few stairs. She looked out from under the leading edge, which was balanced on her back, at the open-toed, stack-heeled shoes and skin-tight black slacks of someone standing on the third floor landing. Nice toes. Craning her neck, she looked up the length of the very sexy bod
y into laughing eyes. Totally nice everything. Her legs got shaky, and it wasn’t from the effort of carrying the mattress.
“Hiya, Sandy.”
“Hi, Dell. Whatcha doin’?”
“Moving in.”
Sandy eased down a step on the narrow staircase, grabbed one side of the mattress, and lifted. “Is this it?”
“It’s a start.”
“Uh-huh.”
Together they dragged it the rest of the way down the dim hall and dumped it unceremoniously into the middle of the empty living room of Dell’s studio apartment.
“This is pathetic,” Sandy observed, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
“I get a hot plate in here—it will be fine.” Mitchell didn’t care where she slept. She’d bedded down in worse places. Besides, she wasn’t looking at the peeling paint, or the dust bunnies the size of bowling balls, or the questionable growth along the edge of the decades-old icebox. She couldn’t look anywhere but at Sandy, so bright eyed and fresh and oh-so-hotsexykissable...Mitchell jerked at the warm touch on her hand.
“Uh-huh.” Sandy took Mitchell’s arm and tugged. “Come on. You can shower at my place.”
“I gotta go to work.”
“So do I. Come on.”
Once inside the apartment, Sandy closed the door and put both arms around Mitchell’s waist beneath her leather jacket. “I thought you’d never show up.”
Then Sandy pressed full-body against the startled cop and kissed her, taking her time, working her way over the surface of Mitchell’s lips before slipping her tongue between them and exploring the inside. By the time she was inside Mitchell’s mouth, sucking slowly on her tongue, Mitchell had walked them across the room to the sofa, and they fell onto it in a jumble of arms and legs. Mitchell groaned as Sandy’s hand slid up the inside of her leg and cupped her through the jeans. Sandy moaned as fingers found her nipple through the thin material of her top.
“Sandy,” Mitchell gasped, pulling her head back, trying to clear the haze of lust that pulsed with the rhythm of the hand squeezing fitfully between her thighs. Tried to hold on to some tiny bit of control. “Jesus, you’re making me crazy with that.”