Still coming, Catherine skimmed her hand down Rebecca’s tensed abdomen and between her legs, closing unerringly around her clitoris.

Beyond thought, she tugged at Rebecca with the same staccato rhythm that pulsed through her body, harder than she might have had she been aware of her actions.

“Oh,” Rebecca shouted, shocked into orgasm. “Oh yeah…oh.”

As they clung to one another in the Þ nal moments of release, their cries mingled and eventually dwindled to faint moans and soft whimpers. Rebecca carried Catherine with her down onto the bed, cradling her against her chest. Catherine groped for the sheet and pulled it over them.

“I don’t know how you do that,” Catherine murmured, her voice thick with the vestiges of passion. “Know just what I need, just when I need it.”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Rebecca said seriously. She stroked Catherine’s hair. “I feel so damn lucky to have you.”

“What we have,” Catherine said. “It’s precious.”

“I know.” Rebecca sighed. “I’m trying to deserve it. I know I probably don—”

Catherine pressed her Þ ngers to Rebecca’s mouth. “Shh. That’s not what I meant.” She pressed a kiss to the scar that marked Rebecca’s heart. “I want you more than anything else in my life—more than safety, more than certainty, more than promises. Just you, here with me like this, every night. When you can, give me that.”

“I will,” Rebecca whispered. When I’m sure I won’t disappoint you, I will.

• 64 •

Justice Served

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tuesday

Hey, it’s about time you showed up.” Jason greeted Mitchell with an affectionate smile and rolled an ofÞ ce chair in her direction. “Park it there, and let’s get to work.”

Gingerly, Mitchell leaned her crutches against a bench, eased into the chair, and propelled herself across the hardwood ß oor with her good leg to Jason’s side. “Man, it feels good to get down here.”

“How’d you escape?”

“Sandy got in late. She’s still asleep. I think Michael’s napping too.”

“Well, let’s just see how much we can get done before Sandy hauls your ass back upstairs.”

“I’m a lot better,” Mitchell protested.

“Don’t tell me—tell her. She’s the one riding herd on you.”

Mitchell grinned. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Rebecca called earlier. She and Watts have to be in court for some other case and will be by later. Sloan is at Police Plaza with the detectives she’s training for the new Electronic Surveillance Unit.” He shook his head. “They have no clue what they’re in for.”

“You know, six weeks ago I would’ve done anything to get assigned to that unit.”

“So what changed your mind?” Jason pushed a stack of computer printouts toward her. “I bet Rebecca could get you assigned if you wanted. It wouldn’t hurt for us to have another inside computer technician.”

“Uh-uh. I’ve got other things to do now.” Mitchell shufß ed the papers. “Are these the hits on the porn subscribers?”

“Yep. We need to start putting names to accounts.” Jason brought up a spreadsheet on the monitor. “This is how I’ve broken down the data so far.”

• 65 •

RADCLY fFE

“Okay. Split it up and I’ll get going.”

“So,” Jason said, transferring Þ les, “you like the undercover thing, huh?”

“Yeah,” Mitchell said absently as she scanned the Þ gures scrolling on her screen.

“And Mitch. You like Mitch too.”

Slowly, Mitchell swiveled to face Jason. “You know I do.”

“And you’re still okay with it?”

If it had been anyone other than Jason, she might not have answered. But Jason was the one person, other than Sandy, whom she trusted to understand. “It feels good. Like, just another part of me.”

Jason nodded, his eyes on her face. Waiting.

“And, well, Sandy likes it too.”

“That’s handy.”

Mitchell grinned. “And I like that she likes it.”

“Even better.” Jason appeared to be weighing his words.

“Sometimes it can get confusing.”

“Are you ever confused?” Mitchell asked softly.

“No,” Jason replied just as softly. “Never about what I feel, only about what others might think.”

“I already know what the only people who matter to me think.”

Jason looked as if he wanted to ask more, but he merely nodded.

“The boys were asking after Mitch last night. I told them he was laid up for a few days because of the motorcycle accident. They want to visit.”

Mitchell blinked. “Here?”

“I told them he was staying with some friends. It would probably be good for your cover if they saw you and Sandy together.”

“What about all the security and stuff in the building? Don’t you think that’ll make them curious?”

“They won’t ever see this ß oor, because we’ll program the elevator to go right to the loft. All they’re going to see is the garage and Sloan and Michael’s apartment.”

“What about the camera over the door? Most people don’t have one of those.”

Jason grinned. “We have a custom light Þ xture that screws over it for just such times as these.”

“Okay then. When?”

• 66 •

Justice Served

“Jasmine has a show tonight. The kings will probably be there.

You up for it afterward?”

“Sure.” Mitchell wondered, however, if Sandy would be ready for Mitch to get back to work.

v

Watts, carrying a Styrofoam cup brimming with mud-colored coffee, ambled down the hall leaving a trail of splashes on the scuffed tile ß oor in his wake. He leaned against the door frame of a large room that resembled the vice squad room with its haphazard arrangement of desks and mismatched chairs—but there were ten times as many computers here. Sipping his coffee absently, he regarded the two men in shirtsleeves and baggy chinos—the kind of nerdy guys who got their asses kicked in high school—as they listened with rapt attention to Sloan. She was half turned away from him, one hip hiked up on a desk, as she pointed to something on a monitor that Watts couldn’t see. He had assumed that she’d be bored to tears setting up whatever it was the city wanted her to do, but to his surprise, she seemed to be into whatever she was saying. Even from where he was standing, he could sense her energy. He pushed away from the doorway and strolled in to join the group.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Just getting organized,” Sloan replied, easing off the desk. “You guys go ahead and get the network hardwired. I’ll be back.”

When she indicated the hallway with a tilt of her head, Watts nodded and preceded her out. Once there, he said, “I’d have brought you coffee, but this stuff doesn’t qualify.”

“Thanks anyway. I know better than to ingest anything around here.”

“I see you got stuck with the pocket-protector twins.” Watts snorted. “Hard to believe they’re detectives.”

Sloan suppressed a smile. “They’re eager.”

“So you’re really going to set up this electronic spy thing?”

“That’s what they’re paying me to do.” Sloan grinned. “Although if I only gave them what they’re actually paying me for, they might be able to manage interdepartmental data retrieval in a decade or so.”

“Nothing but the best when you work for the city.”

• 67 •

RADCLY fFE

“Yeah, I noticed that.” Sloan glanced into the room where the two detectives were absorbed in sorting out a tangle of cables. She lowered her voice. “But once I get the various networks connected, I’ll be able to browse any database I choose. I already know someone on the inside has been hacking data from the crime lab and the detective bureau’s Þ les. With unlimited access, I can trace him back to the source computer, not just the department.”

“How long?” Watts asked eagerly.

“If I had Jason and Mitchell here, maybe a week, but there’s no way to do that without someone getting suspicious.” Sloan lifted a shoulder. “Working by myself—I don’t know. I could get lucky, or it could take me a few weeks.”

“How long if you sleep once in a while?”

Sloan’s mouth tightened. “I have a wife, Watts. I don’t need another one.”

Watts smirked. “How about a boyfriend?”

“How about you Þ nish your coffee break somewhere else and let me get to work.”

“I was hoping you could do me a favor.”

“What?”

“I need to look at some Þ les that don’t exist.”

“Yeah?” Sloan’s eyes brightened. “And where might these nonexistent Þ les be located?”

“Well—I Þ gure one of three places. Captain Henry, Avery Clark, or buried in the narco records.”

“You want to know what Jimmy Hogan was doing for the Justice Department that got him killed.”

Watts nodded.

“It’s not Henry,” Sloan said with certainty. “When the initial evidence pointed to him as being the mole, I went through every byte of data in his system. He never had anything to do with Hogan’s undercover assignment and never got a single report from him. That all went to narco, because Hogan was presumably their boy.” Her expression hardened. “Of course, no one knew he was really Justice’s plant and working for Clark. So it’s possible he never Þ led any kind of substantive report with the PPD but just passed everything he got on to the feds.”

“Maybe. But Hogan must’ve been feeding some tidbits to Jeff

• 68 •

Justice Served

Cruz, or else why would Jeff have been with him down on the docks the day they were shot?” Watts slid a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and shook one out. He lit it with a scratched and dented Zippo and took a deep drag. “Hogan either thought Jeff knew something, or he decided to cut Jeff and the Loo in on his investigation.”

“Hogan was supposed to be undercover investigating the drug arm of Zamora’s operation. Frye and Cruz didn’t have anything to do with drugs.” Sloan followed the trail of smoke from Watts’s cigarette as it curled indolently toward the ceiling. “You’re gonna set off the smoke alarms.”