The tension ebbed from Mitchell’s body in one blessed rush. “I love you.”

“That won’t get me breakfast, Dell.” Sandy’s voice was soft as she spoke.

“Then let me buy you breakfast.”

“I’m not talking about just breakfast.”

Mitchell wrapped an arm around Sandy’s shoulders and held her tightly, pressing her lips to the top of Sandy’s head. “Neither am I.”

“I don’t think we better talk about this anymore right now.”

“Making you nervous?”

“Big time.”

“I’m not going to give up, you know,” Mitchell murmured.

“You mean it?” Sandy tried but couldn’t keep the tremor of need from her voice.

“Oh yeah, I mean it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay, you can bug me about the life…if you want to. Just…not all the time.”

“Where did you go tonight?”

“Nowhere special.” Sandy tugged Mitchell’s T-shirt from her

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jeans and slid her hand beneath, playing her Þ ngertips along the curve of Mitchell’s ribs. “Just around.”

“San. Don’t blow me off, okay?”

“I checked out a few places on the strip. Then down on Delaware at the Blue Diamond.”

“The Blue Diamond?” Mitchell’s voice hardened. “Jesus. That’s one of Zamora’s places. What were you doing there?”

“Looking for Trudy.”

“For Frye.” The way Mitchell said it, it wasn’t a question.

“Maybe.”

Agitated, Mitchell rubbed her hand up and down Sandy’s bare arm. “You gotta be careful, honey. People are going to be on edge because of the bust. Looking for something that’s off. Don’t go asking around for her right now.”

“You think I’m dumb, Dell? You think I made it this long without you by being stupid?” Sandy pulled away. “Jesus. Sometimes you are just as bad as a guy.”

“Whoa. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s supposed to mean just because we’re fucking I don’t need you to take care of me.”

“What if I want to?”

“Not if you’re going to be a pain in the ass about everything.”

“What if I want you to take care of me?”

Sandy caught her breath. “Do you?”

“Sometimes, yeah, I think I do.”

“Fuck, Dell.” Sandy settled back against her, seeking the warmth of her skin with her Þ ngers again. “I…you know…I love you too, rookie.”

“I missed you while you were gone tonight.”

Sandy kissed Mitchell’s shoulder, then rested her cheek on the spot. “Why did your sister come today?”

“I don’t know. She said it was because…she wanted to make sure I was okay.”

“How come you don’t sound like you believe her?”

“Because she doesn’t care if I’m okay.”

“How do you know?” Sandy stroked Mitchell’s stomach, dipping her Þ ngers beneath the waistband of her jeans where they rode low over her hips.

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Unconsciously, Mitchell lifted her hips into the touch. “She stopped caring two years ago.”

“What did she do?”

“She followed the rules,” Mitchell murmured softly, reaching for the button on her jeans.

“Dell, baby, what…”

“I don’t want to talk right now,” Mitchell said, pushing Sandy’s hand deeper into her jeans. She closed her eyes, wanting only the solace of Sandy’s touch. “Please, honey.”

“Shh,” Sandy crooned, stroking tenderly as Mitchell gave a small cry. “It’s okay, baby. Everything is going to be okay.”

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Justice Served

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Thursday

At 7:20, Rebecca settled in her usual place at the conference table in Sloan’s ofÞ ce, struggling to ignore the faint headache building behind her eyes. She hadn’t had more than a few hours’ sleep a night in over a week, but it wasn’t the lack of rest that was wearing on her. It was the case. There was something she was missing, had been missing since the day she’d looked down on Jeff’s and Jimmy’s bodies, and, whatever it was, it still eluded her. The investigation had splintered in too many directions too quickly. From the very beginning, her focus had been fragmented. Jeff had been killed in the midst of a madman’s serial-murder spree, and she hadn’t been able to pursue her partner’s killer while hunting a maniac. She’d had to keep working, and she had been able to do little more than bury her shock and pain over Jeff’s death.

Then she’d been shot, nearly died, and had fallen in love, all in the course of a few weeks.

As soon as she returned to duty— too soon by all accounts—the

“desk job” she’d been assigned to led to a morass of underground criminal activity ranging from Internet pornography to child prostitution.

And now she had to ferret out the mole in the police department who had very likely orchestrated the murder attempt on Sloan, crack the prostitution ring that had supplied the young girls for the porn videos, and discover why two cops had been executed. Still too many threads with nothing to connect them.

She sighed, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes.

“Rough night?” Sloan asked.

“A few of them.” Rebecca might not have admitted that to anyone but Sloan, but in many ways they were equals on the job. Whatever Sloan had done for the government in her past life, Rebecca had no doubt that she’d been the team leader, not one of the troops. Rolling her

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head on the chair back, she surveyed Sloan’s rumpled shirt and pasty complexion. “You look a little ragged yourself.”

Grunting in agreement, Sloan slumped across from Rebecca with her own cup of coffee cradled between her hands. “Just got home.”

“Were you at Police Plaza all night?”

Sipping her coffee, Sloan nodded.

Rebecca sat up straighter. “Anything?”

“I know who it is.”

Rebecca was suddenly very much awake, ß ashing back to the last time Sloan had thought she’d discovered the person behind the murder attempt that had nearly killed Michael. Sloan had come close to taking matters into her own hands. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Just put the pieces together.”

“And?”

Sloan met Rebecca’s gaze head-on. “No one’s dead yet.”

“Good,” Rebecca said grufß y, the tension in her chest dissipating.

“Am I going to like this?”

“Like I thought, it’s not a cop.”

“What isn’t?” Watts asked, as he lumbered into the room and made straight for the coffeepot.

“You’ll Þ nd out in a minute,” Rebecca informed him. “Let’s wait until everyone’s here, and then we’ll bring the team up to speed.”

Grunting assent, Watts shufß ed toward the table with his coffee in one hand and two doughnuts in the other. “Who sets all this stuff up, anyhow?”

From the doorway, Jason replied, “I do.”

“You’ll make somebody a great wife,” Watts mumbled around a mouthful of jelly and dough.

“I already have the wardrobe.”

Watts sputtered and choked, inspiring Sloan to pound him on the back as she laughed. He was still wheezing when Mitchell arrived, walking slowly but without her cane.

“How’s the leg, Detective?” Rebecca asked as she rose to reÞ ll her coffee. She lifted a cup in Mitchell’s direction and scrutinized her.

“It’s Þ ne, Lieutenant. Thank you.” Mitchell did her best to hide the limp as she moved as quickly as she could to the counter next to Rebecca. “I can get that, ma’am. But thanks.”

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Rebecca raised a brow. “I thought we dispensed with the formalities a while back.”

“Yes, ma’am…Lieutenant.” Mitchell took the offered cup of coffee.

“Good to see you up and around.”

“I should be ready for full duty anytime now.”

“I want it in writing. From Torveau and…” Rebecca shot a look over her shoulder toward the others gathered at the table and lowered her voice. “Whoever else you’re seeing.”

“Dr. Rawlings.” Mitchell held Rebecca’s gaze, searching for a reaction.

Rebecca merely nodded. “Good enough. Now, let’s get this meeting started.”

Mitchell maneuvered into a seat next to Jason as Rebecca returned to the head of the table and said, “So, where do we stand? Watts?”

Watts gulped down the last of his second doughnut and cleared his throat. “The stakeouts have pretty much been a bust. Neither Campbell or Beecher has done anything even a little bit suspicious. Considering our lack of manpower, I say we can that detail.”

“We’ll come back to that in a minute. Anything else?”

“Charlie Horton and Trish Marks’s homicide investigation into Hogan and Cruz’s murders went nowhere. For all practical purposes, they’ve pretty much cold-cased the Þ les. I got nothing from talking to the guys in narco about what Jimmy was into—nothing that we didn’t get from the Þ rst round of interviews, anyhow. If someone there was running him, no one knew who it was. More likely, he was reporting directly to the feds and giving everyone else just enough to avoid suspicion.”

“I’ll take another run at Clark myself,” Rebecca said stonily. “If he’s holding something back now, then he’d better have a very good reason for it.”

Watts muttered a disparaging observation about Clark’s lineage, then continued, “The only other thing I got was the possible lead at Port Authority.”

“Go ahead and Þ ll in the others,” Rebecca advised.

Watts recounted his trip to the property room, his discovery of a few of Hogan’s unÞ led papers, and the undercover detective’s interest

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in activity at the Port of Philadelphia. “We’re gonna take a run down there today to check things out.”

Rebecca studied Sloan, who had a faint frown line between her brows. “What do you think?”

“I suppose it’s possible that Hogan tripped onto something illegal on the docks that got him killed. Stolen cars coming in by boat, a drug shipment, wholesale-container thefts—there’s a lot of merchandise moving on those docks every day. It’s not that difÞ cult to divert a tractor-trailer full of electronics or other pricey commodities to a warehouse somewhere. One ‘misplaced’ shipment among hundreds every day is going to take a while to catch anyone’s attention.”