by Radclyffe
“I can’t figure this out on my own, love,” Michael said quietly. “Please tell me.”
“Developing the ESU is a straightforward job. It’ll be a little frustrating due to the antiquated equipment and bureaucratic roadblocks that are sure to exist, but all in all, it might be fun.”
“And?”
Sloan pressed her lips to Michael’s temple and rubbed her hand in gentle circles over the center of Michael’s back. “And I’ll have access to every computer in the system. Somewhere in there is the answer that we’ve all been looking for.”
“You mean…” Michael began hesitantly. Frowning, she tried desperately to sort out the fragments of memory and shattered connections in her still-traumatized brain. “…who killed Rebecca’s partner?”
Sloan nodded.
“And who...hurt me?”
“Yes.”
“And then what will you do?”
Sloan knew the answer that Michael wanted. She knew the answer but hesitated, because she couldn’t lie to her. “I don’t know.”
Michael raised her head, ignoring the surge of pain, to look into Sloan’s eyes. “You promised me you would tell Rebecca. I remember that. You promised.”
“I did,” Sloan whispered. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into the soft fragrance of Michael’s hair. Her voice barely registered a whisper. “It’s just that…I want to hurt someone for hurting you.”
“I know.” Michael stroked Sloan’s cheek, then threaded her fingers into Sloan’s hair. She raised her mouth to Sloan’s and kissed her gently. “I won’t ask you to keep your promise, because I know that you will.”
Sloan let the comfort of Michael’s kiss soothe her troubled soul, wondering if she would be able to keep her lover’s trust.
Chapter Four
Sloan jerked awake to the ringing of the bedside phone. Cursing silently, she tried to reach it without shifting Michael’s head from her shoulder, hoping not to rouse her.
“I’ll get it,” Michael whispered, rolling carefully toward the side of the bed. She retrieved the portable handset and passed it to Sloan before curling up against her lover’s side again.
“Sloan,” she said, her voice thick with the remnants of sleep. She couldn’t believe she’d dropped off in the middle of the day. She rarely slept, day or night, when in the middle of a project. The investigation with Rebecca’s team had been ongoing for several weeks, and her role in it had grown so steadily that she and Jason had put all their other contracts on hold. Now, when she was so close to a breakthrough—with finding Michael’s assailant as the payoff—she could think of little else. Only her concern for Michael’s well-being took precedence. “Uh-huh. Sure. That sounds fine.”
“Problem?” Michael asked when Sloan hung up with a faint groan.
“No, just a meeting with Frye.” Sloan kissed Michael’s forehead and eased away. “But I’m going to have to go. I’m sorry. You should sleep a little longer.”
Michael laughed. “Darling, all I do is sleep.” She sat up slowly, then stood. “Let me walk you out.”
Sloan took her hand as they left the bedroom. “You know, there’s something I forgot to tell you. I invited Mitchell to stay here for a few days—until she’s getting around a little bit better.”
“I think that’s a good idea. When is she coming?”
“Today sometime. Her girlfriend Sandy too.”
“Well, we’ve got room.”
“You don’t mind?” Sloan stopped in front of the loft doors and curved an arm around Michael’s waist, drawing her near. “Because if it’s too much—”
“I don’t plan on cooking and cleaning for them, darling,” Michael chided gently. “It’ll be fine. The company will be nice.” She kissed Sloan lingeringly, cleaving to her as she did. When she drew away, she sighed contentedly. “God, you feel so good.”
“You too,” Sloan replied, her voice husky and low.
“My headache’s gone.” Michael cupped her hand behind Sloan’s neck and kissed her again.
“Oh, baby,” Sloan gasped. “I have to go. Frye is going to be here any minute.”
“You go ahead.” Michael smiled, her eyes liquid with desire. “I’ll be here later.”
“I know,” Sloan murmured, drawing a finger along the edge of Michael’s jaw and over her mouth. “And knowing that is the best thing in my life.”
*
In the conference room on the third floor of Sloan’s building, Rebecca helped herself to a cup of coffee. The rest of the huge space was partitioned into various work areas crammed with computers and a vast array of electronic equipment, some of which was not yet available on the open market. At the sound of footsteps at her back, she turned and greeted Sloan. “Sorry for the short notice.”
Wordlessly, Sloan shrugged and headed straight for the coffeepot. She poured a cup, took a long sip, and lounging against the counter, regarded Rebecca inquiringly. “No problem. Something come up?”
“Clark arrived for a meeting with Henry, and I decided I needed to be unavailable.”
“What’s that bastard doing back in the picture?”
“I don’t know.” Rebecca looked past Sloan to the door and nodded to the handsome blond man who stood on the threshold. His expensive, meticulously tailored shirt and pants contrasted distinctly to Sloan’s casual attire, but the shadows beneath his deep blue eyes mirrored hers. “Hi, Jase. How’s it going?”
Jason McBride, Sloan’s associate at Sloan Security, smiled tiredly. “It feels like moving a mountain with a tablespoon, there’s so much data to sift through.”
“You should take a break before Sarah comes and drags you out of here,” Sloan suggested, referring to her best friend and Jason’s live-in lover. “Go home, get some sleep.”
“Yeah, like you, I suppose,” Jason remarked with friendly sarcasm.
“I just woke up.”
Clearly surprised, Jason sank into one of the chairs at the conference table. “So miracles really do happen.”
Laughing, Sloan joined him.
Jason looked to Rebecca. “What’s happening on your end?”
“A few noteworthy bits, but let’s wait for Watts. He’ll be here any minute.”
Right on cue, a subdued pinging emanated from a speaker in the far corner of the room. All three heads turned toward the bank of security monitors lined up along the wall. The first screen showed an image projected from the video camera above the street-level door. Watts stood on the top step, frowning up at the camera. Before Sloan could buzz him in, he turned his back to the building, as if looking back down the street.
“Hey,” Jason said as another figure materialized. “That’s Mitchell!”
“I’d better go give them a hand,” Sloan said, punching in a number sequence on a keypad to release the security locks on the street-level door.
“Stay put,” Rebecca interjected. “I’ll go.”
As soon as they were alone, Jason queried Sloan. “Why the meeting?”
“It looks like the team is back in business,” Sloan said.
“Really? Good, because we could use some help tracking down the rest of the video-porn subscribers. And anything else we find along the way.”
Sloan said nothing.
“What?”
“You might have to handle that alone.”
Jason frowned. “Why?”
“I’m going to be tied up with another job.”
“You’re kidding.” Jason stared, clearly confused. “What could be more important than delivering the coup de grâce to this smut ring?”
“You know what, Jason,” Sloan replied softly.
“We’ve got a line into their organization now, Sloan,” Jason pointed out. “We’ll nail down the porn distributors, and one of them is going to roll. Then we’ll be able to pinpoint Michael’s assailant or at least find out who gave the order.”
“Starting tomorrow,” Sloan said with evident satisfaction, “I’m going to have access to everything I need to figure
out who is responsible.” At his look of puzzlement, she went on, “I agreed to help develop an electronic surveillance unit for the police department. I’m now an official civilian consultant.”
“You’re kidding.” The sound of voices from just outside the door prevented him from elaborating further on his disbelief. He turned, and a smile lit his handsome features. “Dell? Hey. How are you?”
“Great.” Mitchell, seated in a wheelchair with Sandy at the helm, grinned back. “The doc said I can’t weight-bear until tomorrow. But then I’ll be mobile.”
“Crutches,” Sandy muttered. “Freakin’ crutches, Dell.”
“Excellent,” Jason said. “Hi, Sandy.”
“Hi,” Sandy replied as she helped Mitchell move from the wheelchair to a seat at the table.
Rebecca sat down on Mitchell’s right, with Watts on her opposite side. Once Sandy joined them, Rebecca began. “Okay. Everyone’s here, so let’s get up to speed. As of this morning, we are now officially the High Profile Crimes Unit.” She looked around the table. “Jason, you and Sloan will have official status as civilian consultants. Sloan’s going to be doing some work directly from police headquarters, but you’ll still be based here. In fact,” she regarded Sloan now, “I’d like to base the entire unit here if at all possible. I don’t trust the security at headquarters.”
“That’s fine with me,” Sloan said. “Jason and Mitchell can set up a secure databank to handle the necessary documentation. We’ll store everything using the Justice Department encryption protocol, so we should have no problem with the records being admissible in court.”
“Handy,” Watts observed. “You just happening to have that program.”
“I learned everything I know from Uncle Sam.” Sloan grinned. “Just your tax dollars at work.”
“Uh-huh, right.”
“Jason,” Rebecca’s voice rose above the friendly bantering. “Where are you with the data analysis?”
“In addition to the guys running the video relay stations that we’ve already identified, we could potentially track down about three hundred subscribers just in the greater metropolitan area alone. How hard do you want to go after them?”
“How long would it take?”
Jason waggled his hand. “We have to backtrack through credit card accounts, Internet aliases, multiple e-mail addresses, servers—the whole works. With just Dell and me working it, probably a few weeks.”
“In all likelihood,” Sloan interjected, “these are the end users. The guys who don’t know anything about the structure of the organization and who just want to get off to porn. For our purposes, the return might not be worth the effort.”
Rebecca’s gaze was distant as she considered options. “These guys are perverts, and some of them are probably active pedophiles. They need to be investigated.”
“No question,” Sloan agreed. “But do we need to be investigating them?”
“What’s the chance that we’ll pull a name out of those computers that will lead us to our mole?”
“Not an impossibility,” Jason mused. “Most of the porn makers and distributors got into the business because they like the product. Maybe that’s what hooked our insider too, but we can’t count on it.”
“For the time being,” Rebecca said, “you and Mitchell keep at it. At least until Mitchell is ready for street duty.”
At that, Mitchell sat up straighter, her body nearly quivering with anticipation. “Am I going back undercover?”
From the corner of her eye, Rebecca saw Sandy stiffen. “We’ve disrupted part of the porn ring, but I thing it’s pretty clear that they’re using prostitutes as models. Some local street girls, but others whom we haven’t been able to identify. They’re not in our system—so who are they? I want to know who they are and how they’re being recruited. So far, the sex clubs are our best leads.” She glanced from Mitchell to Jason. “And Jasmine and Mitch have an in there, so I want them to work it.”
Jason’s mouth curved into a smile that was pure Jasmine. When he spoke, his voice took on a honeyed texture, although nothing else in his posture changed. “What fun.”
“Jasmine needs to talk to the drag kings and tell them Mitch was in a motorcycle accident. It will explain his leg and his absence.”
“Not a problem. The boys have a show tonight, and Jasmine can drop around.”
During the conversation, Watts shifted in his chair, the ponderous creaking underscoring his uneasy expression. “Mitch rushing out of Ziggie’s right before that bust the other night might raise some suspicions.”
“No one knows I was at the factory during the arrests,” Mitchell pointed out hurriedly. “I can always say I got a call from my girlfriend busting my balls”—she glanced apologetically at Sandy—“because I was out late clubbing, and I crashed the bike speeding to get home.”
Watts nodded. “Yeah, that might play.” He regarded Mitchell steadily. “And you did manage to get in places none of us could.”
“Well, Mitch did,” Mitchell replied with just a hint of self-satisfaction.
“Oh yeah—the guy with the plastic pole,” Watts grumbled. “He’s a wonder, all right.”
“Okay,” Rebecca said, nodding to Mitchell. “As soon as you’re cleared medically and by…the department, I want you to reconnect with the kings and start working the clubs at night. Concentrate on Ziggie’s.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Sloan, you’ve got the department computers. Anything new on the identity of the inside man?”
Sloan shook her head. “Nothing beyond what we knew this weekend. There are two ADAs who had access to the warrants and who could’ve tipped someone off to the details of the computer investigations: Margaret Campbell and George Beecher.”
“Let’s sit down with their profiles tomorrow and look for something that’s off,” Rebecca said. “Make sure their jackets are complete—criminal records search, education and financial summaries, job evals—all of it.”
“Done.”
“Watts and I will arrange surveillance on both of them. It’ll be tricky, because they’re likely to be suspicious after the arrests this weekend. They’ll be looking for something out of the ordinary.” She glanced at Watts. “You and I should be the ones sitting on them, at least in the beginning.”
He pursed his lips. “Can’t do it 24-7.”
“Agreed, but I think it’s safe to assume they’re not likely to have contact with anyone during the day. So we’ll start with night tails.”
“You’re the boss.”
“During the day, Watts,” Rebecca went on pointedly, “I want you to go back over everything you can find in Jimmy Hogan’s files. If Avery Clark is back in the picture, and Jimmy Hogan was one of his undercover agents, then the Justice Department thinks there’s still something here to find. And I think whatever that is, it’s what got Jimmy…and Jeff…killed.” Her eyes were a flat, hard blue, as impenetrable as the surface of a bottomless well. “And I know that Avery Clark is not going to tell us. He’s hoping to wait in the wings again while we dig out the information he’s interested in. But this time, we aren’t handing it over.”
Her remark prompted a chorus of damn rights and a single, harsh no fucking way from Watts.
“Anything else?” Rebecca asked, looking around the table. When no one spoke, she bumped her fist lightly on the table top. “Right, then. Let’s do it.”
As the team dispersed, Rebecca approached Sandy. “Got a minute?”
“Not really.” Sandy indicated Mitchell, who was pale and shaking, with a tilt of her chin. “I think the rookie oughtta be in bed.”
“I’ll take her upstairs and get her settled,” Jason offered.
Sandy looked as if she wanted to refuse, but she finally shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” Rebecca said, leading the way to the elevator.
They rode down in silence with Watts. Once outside, she and Sandy headed toward the waterfront while Watts walked west after mumbli
ng goodbye.
“Cold?” Rebecca asked.
Sandy shook her head, although she wore only a short, tight red vinyl jacket that did not close across her small breasts. Her nipples stood out starkly under the nearly sheer top.
“You look cold.”
“I’m not.” Sandy’s voice held the barest edge of annoyance. She shot Rebecca a look out of the corner of her eye. “Okay, maybe I am a little.”
Rebecca hooked her fingers beneath Sandy’s elbow and tugged her into a coffee shop on Front Street. They navigated the narrow path between the counter and a single row of tables until they reached the last table in the rear. On the way, Rebecca held up two fingers and asked for coffee. A minute later they sat with steaming cups cradled between their palms.
“I need you to find Trudy,” Rebecca said, referring to the young dancer-cum-prostitute who had been with Sandy in the porn studio the night of the arrests. “We haven’t been able to find her since she left the ER the other night.”
“Can you blame her?” Sandy said bitterly. “First she ends up going down on that pig for the camera, and then she gets caught in the middle of your raid. Watts drags her off to the hospital, where some doctor takes her clothes away and pokes and scrapes her everywhere.” Sandy sipped her coffee, apparently oblivious to the scalding heat against her lips. “What do you expect?”
“I expect she’s laying low, but that won’t last long. She’s going to need money.” Rebecca stared into Sandy’s eyes. “She’s going to do what she’s always done to get it, which means hook or pose. Either way, she’s going to expose herself to danger.”
Sandy laughed, a short mirthless sound. “You mean more so than usual?”
“I mean that if anyone knew she was going to be at the shoot that night, they might suspect her of tipping us off.” Rebecca didn’t add that if anyone knew that Trudy had been meeting Sandy to bring her to the porn shoot, she could be in danger too. She knew from the look in Sandy’s eyes that she’d made the connection. “I want to find out what else she knows—”