Find out the dates of all the live video broadcasts. Let’s look for some kind of pattern there.” Then she focused on Sandy. “What exactly did Trudy say about the nights that she Þ lled in for the video shoots?”

“Just what I said earlier,” Sandy said, weariness and stress edging her voice with impatience. “Every few months, is what she told me. I didn’t ask for dates.”

“I need speciÞ c dates.”

“I’ll ask arou—”

“No,” Mitchell said forcefully. “Whoever shot Trudy saw you with her. You’ve been made. It’s not safe.”

“I’ll be careful.”

This time, it was Rebecca who spoke. “No. Mitchell’s right. I want you off the streets.”

“Wait a minute,” Sandy protested. “You can’t—”

“I’ve got an idea,” Jason interrupted. “I can pull the videos from

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the conÞ scated computers, at least all the ones that were downloaded and saved. And these guys save everything. Sandy can screen them for me. She ought to be able to tell the ones that have street girls in them.”

“Perfect,” Rebecca said with satisfaction. “In the meantime, I want Mitch back in Ziggie’s tonight. Watts, you and I will be backup.”

Watts snorted. “Great. I get to watch the door again while he gets the T&A.”

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Saturday Afternoon

How are you holding up, Detective?” Catherine asked as Mitchell slumped into the chair opposite her desk with a sigh.

“Not bad.” Mitchell resisted the strong urge to lean her head back and close her eyes. She’d slept very little the night before, especially after awakening at three and realizing that Sandy had not returned to the apartment. She’d paced until daybreak, when she’d Þ nally given in and called Rebecca for help.

Catherine regarded her with a compassionate smile. “Sure?”

“I’ll make it. I need to be sure that all my paperwork is in order.”

“It is Saturday, and—”

Uncharacteristically, Mitchell interrupted. “I know, but the lieutenant is a stickler about these kinds of…” She trailed off, casting Catherine an apologetic look.

“And?” Catherine prodded with the barest of smiles.

“And as long as I tell her I’m cleared for duty, she won’t care about getting the forms Þ led.”

“This is so you can work tonight? The surveillance Lieutenant Frye was talking about this morning?”

“Yes,” Mitchell said, her voice gaining strength as she sat up straighter. “I’m ready.”

“You’ve had a rather momentous few days.”

Mitchell huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. Actually, it’s been a really momentous week. I get stabbed, my sister shows up unexpectedly after two years, and then I Þ nd a body I think is my girlfriend.”

“And despite all of that, you want to undertake this assignment tonight?”

“Of course.” Mitchell looked confused. “This is it. This is when it

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all starts coming together, and after this morning…” Her voice caught unexpectedly, and she blinked in surprise.

“Tell me about this morning,” Catherine urged.

For a moment, Mitchell remained silent, her eyes distant, remembering. Then she twitched as if awakening from a dream and focused on Catherine’s face. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

Catherine nodded wordlessly.

“She’s got this stupid short, red, fake-leather jacket.” Mitchell laughed, the sound undercut with pain. “She looks really hot in it, but the damn thing is worthless as far as keeping her warm is concerned.”

Mitchell stared at her lap, her hands curled over the tops of her knees.

“Trudy was wearing it, but I didn’t know that. I saw the body, the blood, the red jacket.”

Mitchell fell silent again, the agony of the memory written across her face. Catherine had a sudden ß ash of Rebecca lying in a pool of blood, her skin white, her chest unmoving. She experienced the terror again, the empty desolation. Her heart aching for the young woman across from her, she murmured, “You thought it was Sandy.”

“Yeah,” Mitchell said, her voice hoarse, her Þ ngers white. “I thought she was dead, and I felt something inside of me…freeze. Like all the life was leaving my body and there was nothing left behind.”

She shook her head, then met Catherine’s eyes, her own bleak. “It hurt so much.”

“I know,” Catherine said softly. “Does it still hurt?”

Mitchell took a shaky breath and nodded. “Some. I mean, I know she’s all right. But I still…feel it.”

“Your head knows she’s all right, but your heart will take a little while longer to believe it.”

“I almost didn’t come this afternoon because I didn’t want to let her out of my sight.” Mitchell smiled crookedly. “She’s starting to complain that she’s suffocating.”

Catherine laughed. “Do you think she means it?”

“Probably a little. She’s pretty independent.”

“I noticed. How do you feel about that?”

“Most of the time I think it’s pretty great,” Mitchell conceded.

“But when she insists on getting in the middle of things where she might get hurt, I’m not too keen on it.”

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“And have you talked about it?”

Mitchell grinned. “Uh…maybe more like shouted about it.”

“But you’re handling it?”

“We’re okay. I drive her crazy, but she knows I’m doing it because I love her.”

“Good.” Catherine regarded Mitchell intently for moment. “Is there some other reason, besides not wanting to leave Sandy, that you didn’t want to come today?”

Mitchell looked down at her heavy black motorcycle boots, considering, then shrugged one shoulder. “I thought you might tell me I can’t go back to work.”

“Why did you think I would say that?”

“Because of this morning. I didn’t handle it so well.”

“Oh? I didn’t notice that anything was wrong at the conference.”

Other than the fact that you looked like you’d been through the wringer.

“Was there some kind of procedural problem in the Þ eld?”

Swiftly, Mitchell shook her head in denial. “Not that kind of screwup. I mean, I think I handled everything okay. Followed protocol.

But…”

“But?”

Mitchell sighed heavily. “I pretty much fell apart when I thought it was Sandy. I kind of couldn’t think. Then…well, then I heaved in the gutter.” She grimaced, remembering, still chagrined. “Jesus. I can’t believe I did that.”

“Don’t you think it’s natural for someone to have an extreme reaction when they believe someone they love has been killed?”

“I’m a cop,” Mitchell said immediately. “I’m supposed to be able to handle it.”

“Handle that kind of loss? How?”

“By doing the job. By just…doing what has to be done.”

Catherine struggled to be objective. Mitchell sounded eerily like Rebecca, so certain of what must be done and so very certain she could trade her humanity for her duty over and over without slowly dying.

God, what makes them do this?

Wishing desperately that she understood, Catherine knew with a sinking heart that she might never Þ nd the answer to what made her lover who she was, what made this young woman believe that it was possible to bury that much pain for the good of a…a job. Not a job. The

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job. Suddenly, she realized that she had never asked the right question.

The answer wasn’t to be found in understanding why they did what they did. It was all about how the work was an extension of who they were. “What does being a cop mean to you?”

Mitchell’s brows drew down sharply at the unexpected question.

Taking her time, she formed her answer. “It means taking all the things that are important to me, about who I am and what I believe, and bringing them together in one place. When I’m a cop I’m me, more than any other time in my life except…” She smiled. “Except when Sandy and I are making love.”

“When you’re being a cop and when you’re with the woman you love,” Catherine said quietly. “That’s when you’re you?”

“Yes,” Mitchell replied solemnly.

Catherine considered the idea, considered all she knew of her lover, all she had learned from Dellon and from other police ofÞ cers over the years. She believed it. She still didn’t entirely understand it, but she accepted that the essence of their being, their self-deÞ nition, was intimately shaped by their responsibility, dedication, and pride in being police ofÞ cers. Her responsibility at the moment was determining if this one police ofÞ cer could safely function, regardless of how critical it might be to Mitchell to fulÞ ll her role on the team.

“You seem to like being undercover. Is it stressful?”

“No,” Mitchell admitted. “Not when I’m Mitch. Mitch is…”

Struggling, she met Catherine’s eyes and found only acceptance. “Mitch is me. Part of me, anyways. I just let that part come to the surface, and it’s not work.”

“I’ve wondered,” Catherine said. “Do you have to think about behaving like a man, or…how does that happen for you?”

Mitchell grinned. “It comes pretty easy. It’s not just clothes or the co—other stuff. When I’m Mitch, and people relate to me like I’m a guy, it’s easy to stay in character. Sure, it helps to look the part, to have the right equipment in my jeans, but a lot of it is about how other people see me. Sandy helps a lot.”

“How?” Catherine watched Mitchell’s face come to life, saw the energy return to her eyes, saw her body straighten with renewed strength. She wasn’t entirely certain whether it was the mention of Sandy or Mitch, but something had infused Mitchell with excitement and purpose.

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“She digs Mitch. She makes it work for me. She never lets me forget who I am when I’m him.” Mitchell made a wry face, considering her words. “Did that just make any sense?”