by Radclyffe
“Jeez, Sandy. I’m a cop.” Mitchell’s tone was clearly incredulous. “I can handle myself. You’re the one who’s likely to get into trouble, being Frye’s confidential informant. If anybody ought to quit, it’s you.”
Sandy snorted. “Look, rookie. I’ve been managing on the streets a lot longer than you’ve been a cop. I know my way around.”
“Oh yeah, sure you—” Mitchell broke off as a knock sounded at the door. “Yeah?”
The door swung open, and Sloan took one step into the room. “Safe to come in? Or should I wait until you’re done throwing things?”
“I oughtta go,” Sandy said, leaping up as she released Mitchell’s hand.
“Hey,” Mitchell protested. She rolled over and made a grab for Sandy’s hand, then caught her breath and groaned as pain lanced through her leg. “Oh, ow, fuck. Ow.”
“Dell!” Sandy grasped Mitchell’s shoulders and pushed her gently back to the pillows. “Lay down, you blockhead.”
“Don’t go,” Mitchell gasped.
“Okay, okay. Jeez.” Sandy stroked Mitchell’s cheek. “I’ll stay already.”
Sloan cleared her throat. “You two squared away now?”
“Yeah,” they answered in unison.
“Good.” She tilted her chin at Mitchell. “How’re you doing?”
“Not too bad,” Mitchell said, fighting to keep her breath even. Her leg throbbed as if someone had kicked her, more than once. She took in the circles under Sloan’s normally vibrant violet eyes and the sallow tint to her skin. Now that she was paying attention, Sloan, dressed in her usual faded jeans and tight white T-shirt, looked thinner than Mitchell remembered. “You?”
Sloan lifted a shoulder. “Jason and I have been working around the clock extracting data from the computers we confiscated in the raid the other night. We’ve got a dozen sources of potential subscribers to sift through—chat-room transcripts, e-mail distribution lists, on-line bulletin boards. We’re drowning in data.” Despite her obvious fatigue, she exuded excitement.
“You know,” Mitchell said, suddenly energized. “I could work on that until my leg’s better. I helped Jason with the initial data analysis, and I set up some of the traces.”
“It’s an idea,” Sloan replied hesitantly. She had considered suggesting it herself, but had resisted trying to recruit one of Frye’s people for her own private investigation out of respect for the homicide detective. But if Mitchell was otherwise unoccupied… “Look, why don’t we see how you’re feeling in a few days—”
Mitchell pushed up on the pillows, shaking her head vehemently. “I’m okay. They’re going to let me out of here today. I could start tomorrow.”
“There’s just one little problem,” Sandy interjected with the barest hint of sarcasm.
“What?” Mitchell asked, turning to her girlfriend.
“You can’t walk, let alone drive or ride the bike.”
“By tomorrow, I’ll—”
“Stay at our place,” Sloan interjected. “We’ve got plenty of room, and all you have to do is ride the elevator one floor.”
“Yeah? That would be grea—” Mitchell halted, carefully not looking in Sandy’s direction. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine at Sandy’s.”
“Both of you.” Sloan grinned at Sandy. “I don’t plan to keep an eye on her, and somebody should. You’d be doing me a favor if you hung out at our place for the next few days and made sure she doesn’t get into trouble.”
“What do you say?” Mitchell gave Sandy a pleading look.
“I’m not going to sit around there all day, you know,” Sandy said flatly. “I’ve got things to do too.”
“I know. No problem.” Mitchell’s eyes were alight with anticipation. “So that’s a yes?”
Sandy turned to Sloan, trying unsuccessfully to mask her grateful expression. “Sure. Why not.”
Chapter Three
Just as Sloan settled behind the wheel of her new gunmetal gray Porsche Carrera GT, her cell phone rang. She peeled out of the parking space and accelerated down the exit ramp before hitting the speaker button on her phone.
“Sloan.”
“It’s Frye.”
Sloan shoved bills at the bored high-school student in the glass-enclosed booth and then gunned the 5.7L V10 engine, just missing the slowly rising toll arm as she sped beneath it and onto one of the narrow one-way streets behind the hospital. “What’s up?”
“Can you meet me at Police Plaza now?”
“Why?” Sloan’s hand tightened on the wheel. A trip to the heart of police bureaucracy was the last thing she wanted to do. Just being inside any law enforcement complex brought back memories she didn’t care to revisit.
“I’d like you to have a talk with my captain.”
“Is this an official request?”
“Not exactly.”
Sloan pushed the Carrera east toward downtown, having intended to return to her office/residence in a renovated four-story factory building in Old City. With a slight detour, she could be at Police Plaza in ten minutes. It was a tangent, however, that held far more than a few moments of lost time in the balance. She had promised herself seven years before that she would never again voluntarily associate with organized law enforcement on any level.
“It’s important, Sloan.”
Rebecca might be a friend, but she was still a cop. That wasn’t something Rebecca Frye ever stopped being. Some part of this request was official, and that’s exactly what Sloan wanted none of. She could do a lot of things on her own to discover who had orchestrated the hit-and-run assault that had almost killed Michael. She was confident that, in time, she would have a name. She was equally confident that she could do what needed to be done for justice to be served, with her own hand and with a clear conscience. She didn’t need official sanction; she needed retribution. The silence grew. The purr of the huge engine and the steady throb of barely leashed power echoed the animal hunger for vengeance that raged in her depths.
“Sloan?”
“Yeah.” Sloan eased her grip on the wheel, downshifted, and turned left toward North Philadelphia. “Be there in five.”
*
Rebecca stood waiting for her on the other side of the security booths in the main lobby, and Sloan followed her silently toward the elevators.
“There’ve been some developments since the last time we talked,” Rebecca said as they waited for the elevator doors to open.
“Problem with the arrests?” Sloan asked, suddenly concerned that some legal loophole had popped up to taint the evidence that she and Jason had gathered from the bust the previous weekend. Electronic evidence and computer forensics were still something akin to black magic to most law enforcement agents, who preferred to base their cases on court-tested modes of proof such as fingerprints and eyewitness identification.
Rebecca shook her head. “No. They’re all solid. The two of you did a great job.” Once on the third floor, Rebecca led the way down the hall. “In fact, that’s why you’re here.”
The nerve center of the detective bureau was a huge, brightly lit room filled with the sounds of ringing phones and rumbling male voices. Sloan glimpsed only one woman, against the far wall, her voice lost in the cacophony. Picking her way along a narrow pathway created by a dozen or so haphazardly placed desks, she felt the eyes of everyone in the room on her back. All too aware of the rapid pounding of her heart and the knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach, she waited beside Rebecca, who rapped on the door of a glass-enclosed office. The last time she been in a police station, she’d been wearing handcuffs. She fought the urge to reach over and rub her left wrist where a faint scar still remained. They’d tossed her none too gently into the backseat of a patrol car, and she’d fallen so that the weight of her body had pinned her arms to the seat. The pressure on the too-tight cuffs had torn her flesh.
“The captain has a proposition for you.”
“Look, Frye,” Sloan began urgently, “I don’t think—”
“
Just hear him out.” Rebecca pushed the door open and said, “This is Captain John Henry. Sir, JT Sloan.”
Sloan had no choice but to enter the small room, made smaller by the two chairs in front of the desk and a bank of file cabinets along one wall. The big man behind the paper-covered desk rose and extended his hand.
“I thought it was about time we met, Ms. Sloan,” Henry said in his rich basso profundo.
“Just Sloan,” Sloan replied automatically as she took his hand. “Captain.”
Henry pointed at one of the chairs and Sloan sat, crossing her blue jeans–clad legs with a nonchalance she did not feel. She rested her hands on her knees with her fingers loose, despite the fact that she wanted to ball them into fists. Tension thrummed through her limbs like current along a high-voltage line.
Rebecca sat silently beside Sloan.
“I won’t even pretend to understand what it is that you do, Ms.…uh, Sloan,” Henry said, sitting erect in his chair, his hands clasped on the desk. As usual, his white shirt was wrinkle free and buttoned to the top, where his tie lay neatly knotted. He had rolled each cuff up precisely once. His eyes, intent on Sloan’s face, were brown, a shade darker than his skin, and sharp with intelligence. “But I appreciate the fact that you played a critical part in Detective Frye’s investigation. I also understand that there’s more work to be done.”
“At this point, Captain, your electronic surveillance unit should be able to follow up on most of the information we uncovered.” Sloan knew that probably wasn’t true, but it was the polite thing to say.
“You’re right,” Captain Henry said, nodding thoughtfully. “At least, you would be, if we had an electronic surveillance unit. But we don’t.”
Despite the fact that, in the last few years, all branches of government and industry had stressed computer security, local law enforcement agencies lagged far behind in developing electronic surveillance units, mostly because they lacked personnel with the necessary skills. Sloan said nothing.
“The mayor and the chief and the head of City Council are very grateful that you and Detective Lieutenant Frye were able to uncover this pornography ring.” Captain Henry’s expression remained neutral, but the barest undercurrent of sarcasm edged his tone. “They were also, however, deeply embarrassed by the fact that such a thing existed in our city. They want to be sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
Sloan took a quick look at Rebecca. Detective lieutenant, huh? I guess a lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours. Frye stared straight ahead, her expression completely unreadable. Sloan was momentarily irritated, wishing that Frye had given her a heads-up as to what the hell this meeting was all about. Because she still didn’t have any idea. Then her mind focused on what Henry was saying, although she couldn’t really believe what she was hearing.
“…been authorized to hire a civilian consultant to set up the unit. We’d like you to do it.”
“I’m not available, but I can recommend several well-qualified security experts who could handle the job,” Sloan said immediately.
“City Hall wants to see immediate action on this,” Henry countered evenly. “You’re already cleared. Security screening on the others would take too long.”
Sloan couldn’t help but laugh—a short, humorless sound. “Obviously, your system does need help. I wouldn’t pass a decent security screen.”
“You’ve already demonstrated your considerable abilities, and Lieutenant Frye vouches for you personally.” Henry’s expression never changed. “In addition to that, you’ve already been cleared at the highest level.”
“Highest level?”
“Agent Clark from the Justice Department.”
“Clark,” Sloan whispered.
“While overseeing the development of the ESU,” Henry continued smoothly, “you’ll be assigned to Lieutenant Frye’s unit.”
Sloan was still trying to absorb the fact that Clark had vouched for her. He should know that her arrest and subsequent dismissal from the Justice Department disqualified her from a position such as this. The fact that he had paved the way made the entire offer suspect.
“I need to think about it.”
Henry stood. “Of course.” He extended his hand. When Sloan took it, he squeezed gently. “Just remember, we have two dead police officers whose murderer is unaccounted for, an unsolved attempted vehicular homicide—I believe you’re familiar with that incident—and”—he glanced at Rebecca—“a mole somewhere with direct access to our personnel and case files. The identities of those individuals is probably somewhere in here.” He rested his hand on his computer. “I’d like you to find them, if you can.”
Sloan stared at the blank computer monitor, but what she saw was Michael lying in the street in front of their building, her face pale, her body battered and bruised, a maroon river streaming from beneath her head. Her hands closed into fists.
“Oh,” Sloan murmured softly, “I can.”
*
Michael Lassiter stared at the computer screen, willing her eyes to focus. A dull throb reverberated at the base of her skull, impeding her ability to concentrate. Queasiness simmered in the pit of her stomach. With effort, she settled her trembling fingers on the keyboard and began a memo to the division heads of Innova Design Consultants, the company she had founded with her ex-husband and now headed. Fifteen minutes later, she had completed one paragraph, and her head threatened to explode. Sporadic flashes of light streaked across her field of vision, and the queasiness had swelled to a surging tide of nausea. She closed her eyes, hoping to fight down the sickness.
“Michael?” Sloan crossed the loft in long strides, her face creased with concern. She knelt by Michael’s chair while cupping her hand at the base of Michael’s neck. “Baby?”
Comforted by the cool touch of her lover’s fingers, Michael leaned into Sloan’s caress. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“Missed you,” Sloan murmured, her eyes riveted to Michael’s pale face. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to get a little work done myself.”
Sloan struggled not to let her apprehension show. Michael looked so frail, and her obvious pain knifed Sloan’s heart. “Rushing things a little, aren’t you?” She lifted Michael’s hand and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. “Ali said you should take it easy for a few weeks. Not to expect too much.”
Michael turned her head, resting her cheek in Sloan’s palm. “I didn’t think that reading my e-mail qualified as a major endeavor.”
“Why don’t you lie down for a little while.” Sloan slid her hand beneath Michael’s elbow. “Come on, I’ll walk you into the bedroom.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Michael asked, remaining motionless, searching Sloan’s face. “Something about what happened to me?”
“No.” Sloan crouched again until their eyes were at the same level. She held Michael’s gaze as she lightly stroked her cheek. “No. You had a really bad concussion. Remember Ali said it might be a few weeks before the symptoms cleared up? Headaches especially. It’s probably just too soon to work at the computer.”
“Sloan,” Michael said fervently, “that’s where I do most of my work. I’m a design consultant.”
“I know, baby, I know.” The edge of anxiety in Michael’s voice was unmistakable, and Sloan ached to reassure her. “But you’ve only been out of the hospital a week. This is normal.”
“I hate this.” Michael wrapped her arms around Sloan’s neck and leaned into her, resting her cheek on Sloan’s shoulder. “I hate feeling so weak, and I hate feeling useless. And I hate being apart from you most of all.”
“Oh no, baby. No.” Sloan rose slowly, enfolding Michael in her arms, and kissed her forehead, then her lips. “You’re getting better, and that’s the most important thing to me. Lying with you at night, holding you, waking up with you beside me. That’s everything.”
Michael pressed against her, needing her solid strength. “Not quite everything.”
<
br /> Sloan’s pulse skyrocketed as Michael’s breath caressed her neck and the soft curves of Michael’s body melded to her own. The rush of arousal was entirely beyond her control, and she tried valiantly not to let her desire show. They had made love briefly several days before, despite Sloan’s protests. Michael had seemed to need the connection, and Sloan could refuse her nothing. But despite her body’s acute response to her lover’s nearness, sex was the last thing on Sloan’s mind. All she wanted was for Michael to be well. “No, definitely not everything, but those other things can wait.”
“No choice.” Michael sighed, brushing her lips over Sloan’s. “Damn—I’m sorry. I need to lie down.” She mustered a smile. “Then I want you to tell me what you’ve been doing since last night.”
Once they were settled in the bedroom, Michael curled against Sloan’s side with her head on her lover’s shoulder. While Sloan recounted the details of the meeting at Police Plaza, Michael listened without comment, her arm curved around Sloan’s waist.
“So you agreed?” Michael asked when Sloan fell silent.
“More or less,” Sloan said. “I agreed to submit a preliminary assessment of the status of their electronic retrieval and analysis capabilities, along with my recommendations for developing a state-of-the-art electronic surveillance unit. Probably once they see my bill, that will be the end of it.”
Michael laughed gently. “Why did you agree? You don’t need the work, and I can’t imagine that they’ll be able to pay your going rate.”
Sloan shrugged but said nothing. Her continued silence triggered every one of Michael’s alarms, but the persistent throbbing in her head made it hard for her to think clearly. She was aware only of a sense of unease, and her frustrating inability to process it made her headache even worse. She sighed.