Sandy thumped her arm. “It’s not about that.”

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about me missing you.”

• 143 •

RADclY fFe

“You think I won’t miss you?”

“You’ll be working,” Sandy said softly, her voice muffled against Dell’s T-shirt.

Dell shifted the short soft strands of Sandy’s hair through her fingers. “I’ll always be working. That doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking about you. Jesus, San, I love you.”

Sandy sat back, her eyes searching Dell’s face. She remembered a conversation she’d had with Frye, one of those up close and personal ones she’d rather not have. Frye had said if she loved Dell she couldn’t make her crazy, because then Dell wouldn’t be thinking about work.

Instead she’d be thinking about her, and she’d get hurt.

“I love you too,” Sandy told her. “I like knowing you’re coming home to me. I like coming home to you. I like it a lot.”

“Fuck.” Dell pushed her fingers through her hair. “I thought I was doing a good thing, moving you out of here. I don’t like Mitch and Irina being so close to you. I don’t know what the guys Irina has been working with will do when she hooks up with them again.”

“You think they’ll hurt her?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. But just the same—”

“You’re gonna be with her, Dell. What about you getting hurt?”

Sandy slapped Dell’s chest. “And don’t give me that crap about you being a cop. You don’t wear a vest when you’re with her. Anything could happen.”

“Maybe,” Dell admitted. She wasn’t going to insult Sandy by blowing smoke at her. “But I’ll have backup. The lieutenant and Watts are following me.”

“Yeah, just like they were following you when you went into that house with her the last time. Frye almost ended up dead.” Sandy grabbed Dell’s face between her hands. “If something happens to you, rookie, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Dell covered Sandy’s hands with hers. “That’s how I feel about you, don’t you get it? I’m totally soft for you, babe.”

Sandy laughed, her eyes flickering down to Dell’s crotch. “Since when?”

“Up here,” Dell said, tapping her forehead.

Sandy straddled Dell’s lap. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Uh…it’s hard for me to think right now.”

• 144 •

Justice for All

“Try.” Sandy leaned forward and kissed Dell fleetingly before leaning back.

“Working.” Dell could tell from Sandy’s stare that she wasn’t going to get away with anything short of details. “At the Troc. Then Ziggie’s. Then I don’t know.”

“Jesus, Dell,” Sandy whispered. “You gotta be careful.”

“I will. I promise.”

Sandy kissed her again, but it wasn’t a fuck me kiss. It was an I love you more than anything kiss. Then she climbed off Dell’s lap, walked to the small closet, and pulled out a worn floral fabric suitcase.

“What are you doing?” Dell asked, her voice hoarse.

“Packing some stuff to go to Michael’s.”

“You sure?”

Sandy looked over her shoulder and made herself smile. “Yeah, Michael is cool. No problem.”

“I’ll be there later tonight.”

“Okay. That’s good.”

Sandy carried the bag to the dresser just inside the door and started pulling items from the drawers. Dell went up behind her and put her arms around her, tugging Sandy back against her chest. She nuzzled Sandy’s neck. “I know you don’t want to.”

“I said it’s okay.”

“I know. But it sucks. And I’m sorry.”

Sandy turned in Dell’s arms and pressed into the curve of Dell’s body until not even a whisper stood between them. “I want to do this for you.”

“Thank you,” Dell murmured, amazed when her eyes filled with tears. She probably should have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t. She just held on more tightly. “Thank you.”

• 145 •

• 146 •

Justice for All

ChAPTER FOURTEEN

Michael had just finished changing from her work clothes into loose cotton slacks and a pullover when Sandy buzzed from downstairs. Tugging the clasp from her hair, she shook out the shoulder-length waves on the way to the elevator.

“I hope you didn’t eat,” she said when Sandy emerged. “I just ordered Chinese.”

“That sounds great. Thanks for letting me crash here again.” Sandy followed Michael to the spare bedroom and dropped her suitcase by the closet. She plopped down on the bed and stared at her hands.

“You’re always welcome.” Michael sat next to Sandy. “We can go into the office together on Monday.”

“Geez. That seems like such a normal thing to do.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Michael took Sandy’s hand. “So what’s the deal?”

“Dell wants to stash me somewhere so she can shack up with Irina.”

“That’s handy. And you went along with it? Big of you.” Michael’s tone was teasing.

Sandy cut her a look. “Yeah right. As if.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.”

“But she does want me out of the way for a while. In case things get hinky.”

“Will you hate me if I say I think that makes sense?”

Sandy picked at the seam on the inside of her pale pink pants.

“No. I get why she wants to do it this way. But I don’t like it.”

“I don’t blame you. Needing to leave your house is really upsetting.”

• 147 •

RADclY fFe

“Yeah well,” Sandy muttered, “when Dell got the apartment down the hall from me, we didn’t know she was going to end up with a girlfriend. Another girlfriend.”

“You’re not worried about Irina, are you?”

“Oh, no. She’s only practically gotten Mitch to fuck her two or three times already.” Sandy shifted further onto the bed and folded her legs beneath her. She glared at Michael. “And trust me. When a girl grabs a guy’s dick, he stops thinking about anything. Including his girlfriend.”

“Ah, I won’t argue.” Michael smiled. “Although I don’t think it’s completely a guy thing.”

Sandy snorted. “Okay. I suppose when Dell starts in on me I’m not thinking about much of anything either.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Sloan too?”

“She can be persuasive.” Michael gave Sandy’s hand a shake.

“I’ve got a really good idea.”

“What?”

“Let’s open a bottle of wine, eat Chinese, and watch a movie.”

“Can I still bitch about Irina?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Sandy glanced around. “Sloan still at work?”

“She’s in a meeting with Rebecca. I think she’ll be there for a while.”

Sandy smiled. “In that case…what about sharing the inside scoop on her when she’s being persuasive.”

“I don’t like to brag.”

Laughing, Sandy bumped Michael’s hip with hers. “Yeah yeah.

I’ll just stick to my fantasies.”

v

“So what’ve we got?” Rebecca asked when she found Sloan working at a computer in HPCU headquarters.

“Pull up a chair,” Sloan said, hitting a few more keystrokes before swiveling to face her. “Someone’s trying to get into our network.”

• 148 •

Justice for All

“And that’s unusual?”

Sloan shook her head. “Not really. Random intrusions are very common. Usually they’re probes launched en masse looking for susceptible computers to access.”

“I take it this isn’t random?”

“No. This is a very subtle and very smart assault. They hit the computers at Police Plaza too. Had more success there because the network’s not fully shielded yet.”

“All right,” Rebecca said. “Run this down for me. What are we looking at here?”

“Since I don’t believe in coincidences,” Sloan said, “I have to believe this is the same person who infiltrated Police Plaza before.”

“I thought we tracked that back to Beecher, and he’s dead.”

Sloan shook her head. “No. Beecher was the entry point. But he didn’t set it up himself. He was a middleman. A cyberbagman.”

Rebecca smiled grimly. “I get it. And now that the bagman is out of the equation, we’re moving up the ladder.”

“Oh yeah. Way up the ladder.” Sloan glanced at the monitor, then back at Rebecca. “There’s probably only a handful of people in the country that could do this. If you take out Jason and me, maybe three or four.”

“Do you know who they are?”

Sloan’s eyes narrowed. “Ten years ago I would have. When I was still with Justice.”

“Son of a bitch. Clark knows, doesn’t he?”

“I’d bet money on it. I bet he’s known all along.” Sloan leaned back in her chair and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans.

“He’s playing us.”

“What do you he think he wants?”

“What every fed wants. A high-level informant inside the organized crime family.”

“And this thing with Irina and Mitch?”

“He’s hedging his bets. Irina might pay off for them, but she’s a long shot.” Sloan thought about Clark and Kratos Zamora and Michael.

There were no coincidences. Avery Clark would use anyone, risk anyone, to get what he wanted. “There are no good guys anymore.”

“Wrong,” Rebecca said softly. “There’s us.”

• 149 •

RADclY fFe

Sloan swung back to her monitor, not wanting Rebecca to read the truth in her eyes. She hadn’t been one of the good guys for a long time, and with every day that passed, and every time she faced the evidence of another betrayal, she knew she moved further away from the light.

Rebecca might believe that their leaders weren’t corrupted, but she didn’t any longer. “I don’t want Clark to know we suspect. I want to let this guy try to get in, and every time he does, I’ll chase him back to his hole. I’ll find him.”

“I want to know when you do.” Rebecca waited in the silence, letting Sloan make her choices.

“Right,” Sloan said quietly.

Rebecca rested her hand on Sloan’s back. The muscles beneath her fingers were tight as steel. “You’re wrong, you know.”

“How’s that,” Sloan said hoarsely.