“This is Dr. Torveau, Ms. Slo—”

“Is she all right?” Sloan pushed herself upright, fumbling on the end of the narrow bed for the clothes Catherine had left her. “Is she—”

“She’s stable. She’s not awake, but she’s starting to show some purposeful movement. It could be any time.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Three minutes later she was waiting by Michael’s bedside once again. “Baby, it’s me,” Sloan whispered, brushing her fingers over Michael’s pale cheek. “I love you.” She’d said it a thousand times in the last forty hours. It was all she could think to say. It was the only thing that mattered in her life. “I…”

Michael’s lids fluttered. Sloan held her breath.

“Michael? Baby?”

Sloan blinked, because she thought she might be dreaming. Blue eyes, the crystal blue of clear ocean water, met hers. Sloan sucked in a sharp breath, then reached trembling fingers for the hand that moved weakly across the crisp white sheets toward hers.

“Sloan?”

“Right here.” Sloan looked around, wondering if she should call someone. But nothing in the world would get her to move from Michael’s side. “You’re going to be okay. You’re in the hospital, but you’re gong to be okay.”

“You?”

“What, love?” Sloan leaned closer. She was shaking so much she thought her legs might go. “I can’t…”

“Are you…all…” Michael swallowed painfully. “…all right?”

“Oh God.” Sloan laughed, an edge of wild tears in her voice. “You’re here…that’s all I need.”

Michael sighed and closed her eyes. Sloan’s heart tripped with sudden apprehension. “Michael?”

“She’s just asleep,” Ali Torveau, the trauma surgeon, said quietly from the doorway. “She’ll be in and out like that for a while. She was lucky.”

“Lucky.” Sloan glanced back at her lover, so fragile, so precious. Rage burned like acid in her gut. “Yeah.”

When Rebecca’s pager sounded for the third time in less than half and hour, she looked at the readout grimaced. “I think our time is up. That’s the captain’s number again. I’ll come back out later tonight—see if I can shake down some of my sources.”

“How ’bout that hooker you mentioned the other day?”

Rebecca stiffened and said nothing. Although the description was true, she rarely thought of Sandy as one of the marginal, beaten-down women who sold their bodies with seemingly careless disregard for their own ultimate fate. Sandy wasn’t like that, not yet. She was still clear-eyed and spirited, still fighting the forces that colluded to drag her down.

“I’ll let her look at some pictures.” Rebecca’s tone was clipped and short. “Maybe she can ID them for us.”

Watts cleared his throat. “We’ve got some better pictures she could look at, maybe. Recent pictures.”

“What?” Rebecca pulled in to the lot behind the one-eight and turned in her seat to regard him with just the faintest hint of suspicion.

“Didn’t Sloan say she was recording that little fuck fest last night? There’s two girls right there that we know are involved for sure.”

“And a guy,” Rebecca said softly. “Jesus, Watts.”

She unclipped the cell phone from her belt. She doubted that anyone would be around, but she tried the main number at Sloan Security first. A male voice answered on the fourth ring.

“Jason, it’s Frye.”

“Hey.” His voice was flat, tired.

“Any news on Michael?”

“Not yet.”

Rebecca pushed her sympathy for Michael’s friend and her anger at the assault aside. The best thing she could do was find whoever was behind it. “Do you have Sloan’s computer there? The one she used last night to monitor the live feed of the sex video?”

“Sure. I was just about to call you. I’ve got a good print of the guy.” Jason’s tone was animated for the first time. “I had to extract the images from several partial views and do a computer simulation to get the composite, but it’s good enough to through the databases—NCIP, Armed Forces, DMV—for starters.”

“Okay.” Rebecca blew out a breath. “Do it.”

Rebecca jumped from the car, keyed the alarm, and headed toward the back entrance to the station house at a fast clip.

“Where’s the fire,” Watts puffed as he hurried to her side.

“Look—we probably took whoever’s running the kiddie porn show by surprise last night. They’re going to be tightening up their internet security now, especially if they know that Justice has one of their mid-level guys.” She shouldered through the rear fire door on the first floor and headed toward the elevators. “They could be reorganizing the whole operation, too—changing personnel, switching out the kids, relocating the studio right now. We’ve got to get as much as we can as fast as we can.”

“You want to tell me how you managed to come away empty from an operation that you were supposed to be coordinating, Sergeant?” Captain John Henry’s voice was level, but his mahogany face was a shade darker than usual with barely suppressed irritation.

“I was hoping you could tell me, sir.” Rebecca’s eyes were winter grey and her voice colder still.

“Sit down, Sergeant.”

“I’m fine, sir.”

“That wasn’t a request.” He hadn’t raised his voice, but his formidable shoulders bunched with tension. “Your paperwork is still incomplete. No psych eval. I could pull you put of the field and sit you behind a desk until you grew roots.”

“Whitaker must have forgotten to send the report,” Rebecca replied.

“Nice try, Frye. Whitaker says you have a final meeting before he signs off.”

She gritted her teeth. “I guess there was a miscommunication.”

“I’m sure.” Henry tipped his chin toward the chair. “Now sit your ass down.”

Rebecca sat. Despite her concern that Henry might be behind the leak that had led to the attack on Sloan’s life, he was her commanding officer, and he held all the cards.

Henry sighed. “Did you come away with anything from the operation at all?”

“Other than a civilian in the hospital?” Rebecca rarely disclosed all the details of her investigations to anyone, even her captain.. “Not much. We know there’s an Internet porn ring broadcasting live sex videos in the area. The guy the feds snatched from us last night is a part of it.”

“Connected to organized crime?” Henry asked almost eagerly. “It would be big if we could tie Zamora and his crew to this.”

“Nothing solid.” Rebecca watched him for some sign that his interest was more than just that of a cop wanting to clean up the city and advance his own career at the same time. If he were the mob’s inside man, his questions might give him away.

“Have you got anything working on the streets that might pay off?”

“Soft stuff. Nothing hot.” She leaned forward almost imperceptibly. “Look, Captain. If you give me a little room to work this, I know I can break something open. I still have the whole team. We know almost as much as the Feds, and they don’t have the contacts I do.”

He leaned back in his leather chair, the only concession to comfort in the room, and steepled his surprisingly elegant hands in front of his chest. His heavy lids appeared nearly closed. “I have no authority to approve that kind of operation.”

Rebecca said nothing.

“I think it might take Whitaker another week or so to finish his report,” Henry mused. “Until he does that, you can’t go into the regular rotation.”

Rebecca knew that he was giving her the unofficial green light to keep hunting for the leaders of the porn ring, and anything else that she might turn up. Unofficial meant unprotected, too. He was out of the loop and unaccountable. She’d be alone, without department sanction. If he were dirty, it was a perfect way to set her up. Much the way Jimmy Hogan had been set up. A cop working outside was easier to dispose of.

“I’m sure he’ll want to see me another time or two, yes sir.” She needed the freedom to pursue the case, and this was the only way she’d get it.

“Sergeant,” the captain added before Rebecca turned away, “you can have a man or two to assist.”

“Watts,” Rebecca said immediately, ignoring the faint look of surprise on Henry’s face. Firmly, she said, “And the uniform—Mitchell.”

“I’ll see to it.”

Rebecca had almost reached the door when she heard the quiet words, “Good luck, Sergeant.”

She didn’t answer as she stepped through and closed the door.

Watts waited just outside. “What’s he say?”

“Not here.” She glanced at her watch. Five-thirty. Six months ago she would have immediately headed back to the Tenderloin in the hopes of finding some of her confidential informants who were just crawling out of bed and hitting the streets for the start of their night. She’d stay out—dropping into the bars, talking with her CIs, watching, listening, taking the pulse of the city—until the night dwindled into dawn. Night after night. That had been her life.

But it wasn’t now. Couldn’t be now.

“I’m going to be at Sloan’s at nine tonight. Call Jason and Mitchell and tell them to meet us there, if you want in on this. That’s all I can give you now.”

He jiggled the change in his pocket and thought about the stack of files on his desk. Cold cases—old cases that had run out of steam. No leads. No suspects. No hope of closure. He could sit on his ass and make phone calls for the next three years and retire with thirty years in. Good pension, good health benefits. Or he could throw in with Frye, who seemed to attract danger like moths to flame.

He studied the tall, blond, intense woman by his side—a tough street cop whose only agenda was justice. A cop’s cop.

“I don’t have anything cooking right now.” He shrugged. “I’ll ride along.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Catherine stepped from the elevator and glanced around the lobby. Rebecca stood with a shoulder against a column, talking on her cell phone. She wore a gray gabardine suit and a plain white shirt. A thin black belt encircled her waist. The shoulder holster was not visible under the carefully tailored jacket, but Catherine knew precisely where it lay along Rebecca’s left side, just below her breast. Quickly, she threaded her way between the people milling about in front of the information desk.