“Uh…morning.”

“Good,” Sandy grumbled, lifting her chin in Dr. Torveau’s direction. “Maybe Dell will listen to you.” Carefully, she disentangled herself from her girlfriend and moved away. “She won’t admit she’s about to keel over.”

“Sandy,” Mitchell complained with a sigh.

“It’s true, Dell.”

Torveau leaned against the wall in the stairwell and folded her arms across her chest, her eyes narrowing as she watched Mitchell maneuver down to the landing. “How do you feel?”

When Mitchell hesitated, Ali added, “And don’t try to snow me.”

“Uh…”

“That bad, huh?” Ali pushed away from the wall and eased over to Mitchell. Casually, she slipped her hand under Mitchell’s elbow.

“Come on. Let’s go back to your room and have a look.”

• 13 •

RADCLY fFE

Once Mitchell was back in bed, Ali collected disposable gloves and dressings from a cart in the hallway and prepared to change the dressing on Mitchell’s left thigh. She glanced sideways at Sandy, who was standing by the head of the bed, her hand on the police ofÞ cer’s shoulder. “You okay with this?”

“I’ve probably seen worse.”

Ali merely nodded. There was something in the young woman’s eyes that spoke of hard truth. A minute later, she had the bandage open and perused the row of sutures that extended for ten inches from the top of Mitchell’s midthigh down the inner surface. Carefully, she probed along both sides of the incision, then straightened. “The wound’s nice and clean. Let’s see how the artery is doing.” When she Þ nished palpating the pulses in Mitchell’s foot, she nodded with evident satisfaction. “Everything is in working order.”

“See. I knew that.” Mitchell’s voice was breathy with relief.

Sandy snorted again.

“However, your blood count this morning was lousy. If you were any older, I’d transfuse you. But I’d rather not unless it becomes a problem.” As she spoke, the surgeon rewrapped Mitchell’s thigh. “You feel crappy because you’re weak, and you’re not used to that.”

“When will I feel better?” Unconsciously, Mitchell had reached out for Sandy’s hand, and now she entwined her Þ ngers with Sandy’s much smaller ones. The strength in Sandy’s grasp was comforting, and she held on tightly.

“It will probably take several months for your counts to come back up to normal, but you should start feeling better day by day.” Ali smiled. “It just takes a little patience.”

“Oh yeah, she’s got lots of that.” Although her tone was laced with sarcasm, Sandy regarded Mitchell tenderly.

“It seems to be an occupational trait,” Ali replied. “If you’ve got someplace to stay where you won’t have to do too much walking, you can go today.”

“Okay! Yeah, we can make that work.” Mitchell looked to her girlfriend for conÞ rmation. “Right, San?”

Sandy sighed. “Yeah, yeah, rookie. If that’s what you want.”

The truth was, Sandy wanted Mitchell out of the hospital every bit as much as Mitchell wanted to go. The place scared her under the best

• 14 •

Justice Served

of circumstances, and seeing her normally strong and capable lover weak and in pain was scaring her even more.

Softly, she stroked Mitchell’s cheek. “We’ll Þ gure something out, baby.”

v

Dr. Catherine Rawlings pushed a stack of Þ le folders aside and reached for her phone. “Yes, Joyce?”

“Rebecca’s here,” her secretary announced, adding without needing to be asked, “and you’ve got thirty minutes before your Þ rst appointment.”

“Thanks. Tell her to come in.”

Catherine waited behind her desk for the simple pleasure of watching her lover cross the room. They had met in this room not quite half a year before, when Detective Sgt. Rebecca Frye had been in the midst of a harrowing serial-murder investigation. They had begun their joint involvement in the case as polite adversaries and ended as passionate lovers. As if the whirlwind onslaught of unexpected love had not been enough, Rebecca had nearly died from a gunshot wound, and both she and Catherine were still recovering, physically and emotionally. Even had she not nearly lost Rebecca, Catherine doubted that the pleasure of seeing her for the Þ rst time after they’d been apart would have been any less. Rebecca, more than any woman she had ever known, moved her in the deepest reaches of her being. She smiled as the door opened and her tall blond lover, slender in her trademark tailored dark suit and coolly beautiful, entered her ofÞ ce.

“Hey,” Rebecca said as she walked around the side of Catherine’s desk and leaned down to kiss her. “Got a few minutes?”

“Mmm. On your way to see Dellon?” Catherine replied.

“That too.” With an uncharacteristically self-conscious expression, Rebecca suddenly stepped back and slid her hands into the pockets of her trousers. “But I wanted to talk to you Þ rst. I…have some news.”

“Oh?” Regarding her with concern, Catherine rose, walked around her desk, and slid an arm around her lover’s waist. “Did something happen at your ungodly-early morning brieÞ ng with Captain Henry?”

“A lot,” Rebecca conceded. “We worked out a compromise to keep the team together so that we can Þ nish hunting down the leak in

• 15 •

RADCLY fFE

the department and have a shot at breaking this prostitution network, or whatever the hell it is, wide open at the same time.”

“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Catherine kept her voice neutral, a practice that was second nature to her from her many years of practicing psychiatry. She was still adjusting to the fact that her lover’s profession carried with it the daily risk of injury or even death.

Balancing the desire to support Rebecca in her work while dealing with her own fears and uncertainty was a constant challenge. Nevertheless, it was a struggle she kept to herself, knowing that Rebecca was a cop to her core. “To keep the team together?”

“Oh yeah. Absolutely.” Rebecca curled an arm around Catherine’s shoulder and rested her cheek against Catherine’s thick auburn hair.

“We’re close to putting all the pieces together—who’s been leaking conÞ dential information and altering sensitive police Þ les, who Þ ngered Jimmy Hogan and Jeff Cruz for assassination, what’s going on with the girls in the skin videos and the sex clubs, and how it all ties into organized crime. If we just have a little more time, we can break it.”

It was impossible to miss the undercurrent of excitement and determination in her lover’s voice. But Catherine, sensitive to nuance and inß ection, heard something else there as well—reservation and frustration. Being next in line for the chairmanship of the Department of Psychiatry, she was no stranger to politics. “You said compromise.

What did you have to give him?”

“It’s not what I had to give,” Rebecca grumbled. “It’s what I had to take.”

“Come sit down and tell me,” Catherine murmured, drawing Rebecca toward the sofa opposite her desk. When they were settled side by side, she turned and rested her Þ ngers on Rebecca’s thigh. “So?”

“Avery Clark.” Rebecca named the Department of Justice agent with obvious displeasure.

“He’s back in the picture?” Catherine exclaimed with surprise.

Avery Clark had been the federal government’s liaison with Rebecca’s team during the initial phases of their investigation into a widespread Internet pornography ring. However, when the joint task force had successfully made a key arrest, Clark had asserted jurisdictional primacy and cut Rebecca and her colleagues out of the information loop. Catherine couldn’t imagine Rebecca or any of the other members of the team willingly working with Clark again.

• 16 •

Justice Served

“Oh yeah, he’s back. And how.” Rebecca blew out an exasperated breath. “No Clark, no team.”

“Ah, so no choice.” Catherine squeezed Rebecca’s thigh sympathetically. “Sorry. But you’ll Þ nd a way to make it work.”

“Probably, but I don’t know how I’m going to convince Sloan of it.”

JT Sloan was the civilian computer consultant and a past DOJ

agent herself whose history with the government was still shrouded in mystery. Whatever the unhappy association had been, Sloan’s animosity toward the agency had grown exponentially when her lover Michael had been nearly killed in an assassination attempt. Sloan had been the intended target and, nearly wild with grief and guilt, she had attributed the tragedy in large part to Clark’s withholding of critical information from the team.

“Sloan won’t be a problem if you present it to her correctly.”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Your suggestion, Doctor?”

Catherine smiled softly. “Darling, what is the most important thing in the world to Sloan?”

“Michael,” Rebecca answered immediately.

“Yes. Sloan wants to Þ nd the person who hurt her lover, but even more than that, she doesn’t want to hurt Michael any further. You and I both know that the safest place for Sloan is on your team, not running around by herself. And Michael knows it too.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Rebecca said, frowning. “Using Michael against Sloan.”

“I love how honorable you are, but there’s nothing dishonorable about this.” Catherine leaned forward to brush her mouth over Rebecca’s. “You’re not using Michael. You’re just offering Sloan the solution that’s best for everyone.”

Rebecca sighed. “You’re right, but I’ll bet she doesn’t see it that way.”

“She will. Just give her a little time.” Catherine rested her cheek against Rebecca’s shoulder and wrapped an arm loosely around her waist. “So it will be the whole team together again. Sloan and Jason on the computers, you and Watts on the street, and Dellon? What about Dellon and Sandy?”

“It depends on how quickly Mitchell recovers and if there are any