by Radclyffe
“Not to mention,” Jason said, “using him to hack into law enforcement’s entire computer network. All bases covered.” He turned in his seat and looked at Sloan. “What do you want to bet that the Port Authority computer system is compromised too. This organization is sophisticated, and they’re going to want to monitor everything they can. If they can find an assistant district attorney to squeeze, they can find somebody at the port.”
Sloan nodded, her eyes shining. “We’ll need to get at that system.”
“The problem with that,” Rebecca said, “is if we go for warrants now, we’ll have to bring Clark into it.”
“No fucking way,” Watts snapped. “The last time we did that, he stole the case out from under us.”
“Then let’s find some other way to break this open,” Rebecca said, her voice like flint. She looked at Mitchell. “How did Jimmy trip to those ships? Watts couldn’t find a connection between them. Different captains, different crews, different cargos.”
“The timing,” Mitchell said.
“No way,” Watts objected. “I looked at that with Captain Reiser. Different days of the week, different weeks of the month. There wasn’t a pattern.”
“But they were at about the same intervals, right?” Mitchell knew that everything hung on this, and sweat broke out between her shoulder blades and trickled down her back. She didn’t have a damn bit of proof. Only a feeling. I must be crazy. She took a breath. “Every two to three months.”
“Yeah,” Watts said warily, as if he expected a trap. Still, he eyed her with lively curiosity. “So?”
“Those are the same intervals when the regular girls weren’t available to do the sex videos. That’s when Trudy and her friends filled in. Trudy knew those dates. The exact dates.”
“And if we got those dates from her,” Rebecca said pensively, “we’d eventually match them to those ships. That could have worried someone enough to eliminate Trudy, especially with her right in the middle of that bust last week on the film set.”
It ate at Rebecca to know that the sting operation she’d set up had inadvertently led to a young woman’s death. No matter that she couldn’t have foreseen the risk to Trudy, who just happened to know more than anyone realized at the time. Hindsight didn’t change the fact that Trudy was dead. Rebecca swallowed back the bitter bile of self-recrimination and forced herself to focus. “We need to nail down those dates.”
“All we have to do is check the videos right around the times those ship arrived and see if we find Trudy or any of her friends in them,” Jason said, looking at Sandy. “You’d recognize most of Trudy’s crowd, right?”
Sandy nodded. “I’d for sure be able to tell the working girls from the pole dancers.”
Sloan looked up from the tablet where she had been jotting notes and turned to Mitchell. “According to your theory, the girls who were smuggled into the country on those ships were the regular girls—the ones who usually performed in the sex videos, right?”
“Yes. And probably danced in the clubs, were hired out to sex parties, and eventually ended up being sold off as sex slaves.” Mitchell’s tone dripped with revulsion. “A sweet little pipeline in human flesh direct to the marketplace. Bastards.”
“What’s your explanation for why the girls weren’t available around the time the ships came in to do the sex videos? Why was it then that Trudy and her friends had to fill in?”
Rebecca spoke before Mitchell could answer. “Because they were being rotated. New girls were arriving, the old ones had to be moved. Probably sent out to other cities. I bet there’s a network all across the country merchandising in these girls. And the new girls would need to be broken in before they could be trusted to perform in the films.”
“It hangs together,” Watts said with an approving glance at Mitchell. “Nice.”
“We’ve got to fill in all the blanks,” Rebecca said. She stood abruptly and paced. “Jason, how far back do you have the video downloads?”
“I’ve got a couple of computers from guys who stored everything. At least a year, maybe more.”
“Sandy,” Rebecca said, spinning in her direction. “You work with Jason and map out the timelines. I want all the dates where it looks like local girls were filling in.”
“Okay,” Sandy said, with no hint of her previous distaste at the task.
“Watts, you’ll need to get with Captain Reiser as soon as Sandy and Jason narrow down those dates. Try to isolate those ships. The network supplying these girls has to be relatively close-knit, so I’m betting you’ll find that all of them originated in one or two ports. We’ll need to nail them down.” She frowned, looked around the table. “What else?”
“Presumably the girls are coming into port in containers,” Sloan said. “Someone has to know which ships, which containers, and where they go on the docks. Otherwise it would be impossible to free the girls and secret them out of the port.”
“Unless the container got loaded directly onto a truck and went out that way,” Watts offered.
“Maybe,” Sloan said. “But if they’re staying local—and we are hypothesizing that they are, at least for a while—all they need is a couple of vans to move them from the port to their stash houses. That’s a lot less complicated than arranging for a semi.”
Watts nodded in agreement. “They’ve got to have an inside man at the port, maybe even a couple. Don’t they track all those containers by computer or something?”
Sloan’s grin spread. “They do indeed. Give me some dates, and I’ll tell you which container they arrived in.”
“This is all very pretty,” Rebecca reminded the group. “But we don’t have any proof.” She looked at Mitchell. “We need the girls. In operations like these, the girls are supervised twenty-four hours a day. They don’t go outside the house. They don’t talk to anyone. They don’t move from one location to another without guards. We need to know where they’re being kept.”
“I might have a way of finding out.”
The room became very still.
“There’s a girl…a woman…at Ziggie’s. Her name is Irina.” Mitchell was aware of Sandy going very still beside her. “I think she’s some kind of keeper. I think she watches out for them, supervises them maybe.”
“That fits,” Rebecca said. “It’s easier to use women to indoctrinate the girls—less threatening. These supervisors teach them how to behave. Teach them how to turn tricks. Teach them that if they try to run, they’ll be caught and deported.”
“And you think this Irina is gonna tell you where she lives?” Watts asked disbelievingly.
“No,” Mitchell said quietly. “But I think she might take me there.”
“Why?”
Mitchell was careful to keep her expression neutral and her voice bland. She was also very careful not to look at Sandy. “We’ve talked a few times. We sort of…hit it off.”
Watts stared, his brows knit. Remarkably, he said nothing.
“The girls at Ziggie’s have always been friendly with the kings,” Jason said, jumping into the breach. “Since Mitch is new, it makes sense that he would get noticed.”
“When are you seeing her again?” Rebecca asked calmly.
“Maybe tonight,” Mitchell answered.
“That doesn’t give us much time to set up.” Rebecca glanced at Watts. “Two-car tail? Put a wire on Mitchell?”
Watts grunted and drummed his fingers again. “We’re going to need more help. Crap. That means Clark, because the second we go to Henry with this, he’s going to cover his ass and call the feds.”
“I can ride backup with Rebecca and monitor the wire,” Sloan said quickly.
“I’ll be inside Ziggie’s with Mitch,” Jason said. “If he’s going to leave with Irina, he can give me a sign, and I’ll leave first.” He looked at Watts. “I can ride with you.”
“You’re gonna ride backup in a dress and those come-fuck-me shoes again?”
Jason smiled, a soft, sensuous smile that flickered and
was gone. “As I recall, you liked those shoes.”
Watts blushed beet red and muttered under his breath, “Fuck me.”
“It sounds like we can coordinate the tail and the bust, if we need to,” Sloan asserted.
Rebecca shook her head. “Uh-uh. It’s too soon. We need to tie this up a little neater before we put Mitchell inside the operation. I want as much corroboration as we can get before we go for the warrant—I want enough to make the arrests stick. That means the timeline, the ships, analyzing the computer system at Port Authority, identifying the inside people moving the containers. We need video surveillance on the docks. We need a few more days.” She looked at Mitchell. “You’re going to have to string her along.”
Mitchell nodded. “I think it will take some doing to get her to take me home anyhow.” She hesitated. “That’s not the way they usually do things.”
“What do you mean?” Sloan asked.
“What she means,” Sandy said brittlely, “is they usually fuck their johns in a dark corner in the back.” She angled in her seat until she could see Mitchell’s face. “They don’t usually take their tricks home. Not unless there’s something special going on.”
Mitchell didn’t know what to say in front of everyone else. She didn’t know what to say, period. There wasn’t anything special going on; there wasn’t anything going on at all. Except, of course, the fact that Irina expected Mitch to fuck her, and Mitchell wasn’t exactly sure how to avoid that without blowing Mitch’s cover. From the sound of Sandy’s voice and the hot, hard fury in her eyes, Mitchell knew she was in trouble. Remembering Irina’s mouth, the full, lush curves of her body, the practiced touch of her hand, she realized that so was Mitch.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sunday – evening
At the sound of the front door opening, Catherine looked up from the couch where she sat reading the Sunday papers. Rebecca walked in, wearing the same clothes she’d left the house in nearly twenty-four hours before. Always pale, her skin now appeared nearly translucent, with a faint tinge of bluish gray shadowing her high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. Catherine had seen her fatigued many times before. She’d seen her fight for life in a hospital bed. She knew what her lover looked like when she was nearing the end of her reserves, but this time, in addition to weariness, there was something else in Rebecca’s eyes. Some pain that Catherine was surprised Rebecca allowed to surface within sight of anyone else. She patted the sofa next to her.
“Come sit down. You look tired.”
Grimacing, Rebecca shrugged out of her blazer and dropped it on a nearby chair. With one hand she released the buckle on the strap beneath her right arm that secured her holstered weapon beneath her left breast. This, too, she shed with a practiced motion and let it settle atop the rumpled jacket. With a sigh, she sank down beside Catherine, where she leaned her head back and stretched her long legs out in front of her. With one hand, she groped for Catherine’s, and finding it, closed her fingers around her lover’s. “Hi.”
“Hello.” Catherine angled her body and drew Rebecca’s head down against her shoulder. “Are you in for the night?”
“I wish,” Rebecca mumbled, closing her eyes.
Catherine stroked Rebecca’s hair, then the back of her neck, eliciting a soft groan. These were the moments that were hardest for her, when what she wanted most was to hold Rebecca for hours, keeping her close, restoring them both as only this quiet connection could. Instead, she needed to prepare herself for Rebecca leaving once again on the most dangerous kind of assignment she could undertake. Undercover operations, as Catherine had come to learn, were notoriously unpredictable. The last one had ended with Dellon nearly bleeding to death from a stab wound. And now another night loomed when she would not know where her lover was, what danger she might be in, or what harm might already have befallen her. The ringing of the phone in the middle of those dark, lonely nights was like a death knell. She tightened her hold on Rebecca and rested her cheek against the top of the blond head.
“What’s wrong?” Rebecca murmured.
For an instant, Catherine hesitated, then realized that she could not expect Rebecca to share her uncertainties if she herself did not. “Missing you, a little bit.”
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said immediately, starting to straighten.
“No.” Catherine held her fast. “I don’t want you to be sorry. It’s not something for you to fix, darling. It’s just the way I feel.” She looked down to see Rebecca searching her face with worried eyes. She slanted her mouth across Rebecca’s, kissing her hard. She felt the instant when Rebecca’s tired body came to life, the faint tightening of her limbs, the sudden quivering of the muscles beneath her hands. Easing away from the kiss, she laughed softly. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant I was missing, but that’s part of it.”
“I’ve got six or seven hours, at least,” Rebecca responded, her voice already rough with desire.
“When you should be sleeping.”
“It’s not sleep I need. It’s just you. Just you.”
Catherine’s lips parted in soft surprise as her heart melted. “Why, when I know that you love me, does hearing you say it always make me weak with wanting?”
Rebecca grinned, her eyes alive again. “I pick my moments.”
“Your timing always has been excellent,” Catherine murmured. There were things she wanted to say, things she wanted to ask, but those things could wait until they both took what they needed from one another. She smoothed her hand down the front of Rebecca’s shirt until she reached the slender belt that encircled her waist. As she found Rebecca’s mouth again, she slipped the thin leather through the small silver buckle and then moved on to the clasp and zipper beneath. As she licked her way into Rebecca’s mouth, her hand followed a similar path into the secret pleasures between Rebecca’s thighs. Rebecca moaned and sucked on her tongue, the unexpected sensation igniting the inferno that lay in wait deep inside. Waiting only for this one woman’s touch.
“Oh God,” Catherine breathed, breaking the kiss. “Here. Right here. Right now. Take your clothes off, darling.”
Rebecca leapt to her feet, already pulling loose the buttons on her shirt as Catherine wrenched off her own top, exposing her bare breasts. Trousers followed shirt, underwear fell into the heap, and in another second, Rebecca lay between Catherine’s legs. She brought her mouth down hard on Catherine’s, sliding inside, slicking her way through the heat, probing deeply before she pushed herself up on her arms and stared desperately into Catherine’s eyes. “Don’t tell me you want to go slow. Please.”
Catherine braced both hands on Rebecca’s shoulders and pushed downward. “No. No. Hurry.”
Then Rebecca was between her thighs and Catherine arched as hot mouth met hot flesh and she felt herself drawn into the cauldron of Rebecca’s desire. Blindly, she sought an anchor, finding Rebecca’s shoulder and digging her fingers into muscles tight as steel when teeth closed around the stiff, aching prominence of her clitoris. Her eyes went blind and her throat closed on a scream as passion erupted deep inside. She fought against the first wave of orgasm, wanting the urgency to build, delirious with the exquisite pleasure. When Rebecca’s tongue swept the length of her, then beat against her clitoris with a steady insistent rhythm, she lost the battle. Her breasts swelled, her belly spasmed, and sweet release eclipsed will. She found the back of Rebecca’s head with one hand and held Rebecca’s mouth against her as the climax poured forth.
“Don’t make yourself come,” Catherine gasped, still coming herself. “I want you in my mouth.”
Rebecca shuddered, desperate to come, but loath to separate from Catherine’s still-pulsing sex. She held off another few seconds until need overpowered all else, and then she reared up to straddle Catherine’s body. She gave a hoarse cry as Catherine’s hands clenched on her buttocks and Catherine’s mouth drove against her clitoris. Too close to orgasm to control her muscles, she fell forward and barely managed to brace herself with one arm against th
e sofa. Still, Catherine’s mouth never left her, sucking and tugging on her, driving her mad.
“Oh Jesus, you’re going to make me come,” Rebecca groaned. Nearly deaf with the roar of blood in her head, she barely registered Catherine’s exultant cries. She was coming, bucking and thrusting and shouting out her infinite gratitude. Then she was falling, helpless and weak, and Catherine was there to catch her.
“I love you, oh, I love you,” Catherine murmured over and over, curled around Rebecca’s trembling form. “You’re in my blood, right down to the heart of me.”
“Love you too,” Rebecca muttered, struggling for breath.
Catherine laughed softly, searching on the back of the sofa for the light throw she kept there for when the evenings turned cool. She pulled it down over them and settled more comfortably on her back with Rebecca’s head nestled against her shoulder. It wasn’t their usual position, and she liked being the one to offer shelter. “Okay?”
“Oh yeah,” Rebecca sighed. “Definitely okay.”
After waiting another few moments for Rebecca’s heartbeat to slowly settle, Catherine asked quietly, “Why do you have to go out later?”
“Mitchell’s going back to Ziggie’s. Watts and I will back up again.”
Remembering the haunted look in Rebecca’s eyes when she’d first returned home, Catherine knew there was more. “You’ve learned something.”
Rebecca shifted slightly and opened her eyes to stare up at the ceiling. “Mitchell did, really. She thinks, and I agree with her, that most of the girls involved in the sex videos—and probably working a fair number of the strip clubs in the city—have been smuggled in on ships from Russia.”
“Oh my God.” Catherine turned on her side so that she was facing Rebecca, wanting to see her face. “Is that what this is all about?”
Rebecca nodded and gave her a quick summary of Mitchell’s theories. As Rebecca spoke, Catherine listened and watched. She saw the faint flicker of Rebecca’s pupils when she talked about Trudy, heard the barest deepening of her voice that only hinted at the depth of her pain. Oh, you are so very good at hiding your sorrow.