by Radclyffe
Dell toyed with a strand of slightly curly blond hair. “The only thing everyone pretty much agreed on was seeing more in the way of street-corner turf battles. Small stuff that would have gone unnoticed if you weren’t actually hunting for it.”
“Huh. Retaliation, you think? Or testing to see if there’s pushback?”
“If MS-13 is trying to play chicken with Zamora, they’re in for a nasty surprise.” Dell snorted. “Zamora’s crew will come charging back.”
Sandy sighed. “I hope we’re wrong about what’s brewing.”
“All we can do is be ready.” Dell rolled Sandy over, kissed her, and pulled her up from the bed. “Come on, let’s take a shower and catch a couple hours’ sleep.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Sandy grinned. “Let’s get reacquainted first.”
“Okay, but I gotta tell you, baby…” Laughing, Dell pulled her shirt off over her head, tossed it aside, and headed for the bathroom. “I remember you.”
*
When Catherine heard the front door open and close, she poured a second cup of coffee. Rebecca walked into the kitchen a minute later, and Catherine held out the cup. “Long night.”
“Ugly night.” Rebecca kissed her, took the coffee, and sipped absently. Rebecca looked impeccable as always, but her eyes were tired and something else…worried, sad perhaps.
“What was it?” Catherine asked.
“Three kids dead from overdoses at a club.”
Catherine’s stomach twisted. She was a psychiatrist, but death was no stranger to her, not working with the police, not with a police detective as her lover. “That’s a nightmare.”
“Yeah, it is.” Rebecca pulled off her blazer, dropped it over the back of a kitchen chair, and pulled Catherine into her arms. She closed her eyes and buried her face in Catherine’s hair. Some of the despair seeped from her soul, driven out by the reminder of what was good and strong and beautiful in her life. She caressed Catherine’s cheek, kissed her again.
“How did you get involved with that?” Catherine asked.
“We think there might be a connection between those kids and a previous girl who OD’d. All of them are on Zamora’s turf.”
“That seems too…convenient,” Catherine mused.
“You’re right,” Rebecca said, “and that’s why you are so good as a profiler.”
“You think it’s some kind of setup?”
“Maybe,” Rebecca said. “Or just an opening volley in a war.”
“Sooner or later, you’ll stop it.” Catherine sighed. “Are you going to be able to get some sleep? You’ve been out all night.”
“A bit. Don’t worry.”
“How about I stay for a little while?”
Rebecca’s brows rose. “You’re all ready for work.”
“Mmm.” Catherine laced her arms around Rebecca’s waist, leaned back in her arms. “Are you afraid to muss me up?”
“I’ve always thought you were incredibly beautiful and totally sexy no matter what you were wearing—pj’s or one of your very elegant suits.” Rebecca chuckled. “And I’ve never really worried about mussing you up. Do you have time to be mussed?”
“Actually, I do, if you have the energy.”
Rebecca pretended to frown. “Are you questioning my prowess?”
Laughing, Catherine kissed her. “Not your prowess, darling. Stamina, maybe.”
“You have no idea what you’re in for, then.”
“Oh, I think I do. But I wouldn’t mind if you reminded me.” Catherine grasped her hand and tugged, pausing when Rebecca didn’t move. “What is it?”
“I love you—you know that, don’t you?”
“I do,” Catherine said gently. “I know that with every breath I take, and I count on it with every beat of my heart.”
“I’m glad, because I don’t know any other way to show you, except…” Rebecca shrugged. “Words don’t work.”
“Words are nice, wonderful,” Catherine whispered, “but what really matters to me is that when you need a place to rest, a place to heal, a place to be happy, you come to me.”
“Always.”
“And that’s how I know you love me, Rebecca.” Catherine tugged her hand again. “Now, come on upstairs and muss me up a little bit.”
*
“What the fuck happened?” Kratos Zamora demanded of his stone-faced captain. “Why are the cops crawling all over my club? Benjamin has been on the phone since three in the morning. I’m going to have them in the lobby in another couple minutes.”
“That’s why Benjamin is your attorney. He’ll throw up roadblocks.” Spiro Pavlou dressed like a businessman at all times. His shirt was Irish linen, his tie silk, his charcoal suit custom tailored, and his imported Italian loafers gleaming. Kratos had no immediate successor. His children, a son and a daughter, were still too young to introduce to the business. Of the two, his daughter was more likely to follow in his footsteps. She was quick, tough, and incredibly loyal. At fourteen she had an inkling of where the family fortunes came from and didn’t seem bothered by it. Kratos had already told her law school or business school first, preferably both, and then she could move into an office next to his. Until then, Spiro was the de facto heir, and he understood his position would be that of regent until Kratos’s children came to power. For now, though, he was still accountable for the mistakes that happened, no matter whose they were.
Kratos chopped the air, a rare show of temper for him. “I’m not interested in how effective Benjamin might be in deflecting the police, I want to know why I even have to worry about it.”
“Three kids OD’d—”
“I know that,” Kratos said with exaggerated calm. “What I want to know is how it happened. Who the hell sold them the shit? According to what Benjamin could get out of the cops, they probably bought the stuff inside our club.”
“We don’t know that for certain.” Spiro slid his hands into his perfectly creased trousers. Unlike Frankie and some of the old-time captains, Spiro didn’t worry about telling Kratos what he wanted to hear.
“Where is it coming from?” Kratos asked.
“We don’t know, but everything points to the Salvadorans dealing in our territory.”
“In our clubs?”
Spiro didn’t sugarcoat it. Bad was bad. “On the street for sure, and considering last night, probably in the clubs too.”
Kratos rose, strode to the floor-to-ceiling windows, scanned the barges on the river a quarter mile away. He’d scaled back on the waterfront enterprises after the police broke up their lucrative trafficking ring, and he couldn’t afford to have his clubs and the backroom enterprises they supported shut down while the police crawled all over them. “We can’t have this—it makes us look weak and it puts us too much under the microscope with the police. I don’t want that fucking Frye in my office.”
Spiro grimaced. “I think that might happen. You do own the club, and considering these were college kids and not some ghetto rats…”
“I own a lot of things.”
“Yeah.” Spiro lifted a shoulder. “True.”
“Send the little bastards a message,” Kratos said. “It’s time they stopped climbing up our asses. Let them know who the big dog is.”
“How big a message?”
“One they can’t misinterpret.”
“All right,” Spiro said carefully. “I’ll see that it’s done.”
“And make it soon,” Kratos said as Spiro turned to leave. “I want them to know if they piss in my yard, we’re going to tear their throats out.”
Spiro nodded.
When he hit the sidewalk, he pulled out his cell phone and made the first call.
Chapter Twenty-five
Jay waited for Archie to dictate the last post, coordinated all the field notes from the techs, and compiled summaries to forward to Olivia. By then it was almost five in the morning. Olivia had said she was going to meet with the last family, but they had come and gone, and a light still burned u
nder her office door when Jay was ready to leave. She paused outside the door but didn’t knock this time. She was tired, beyond tired, and Olivia must be too. As much as she wanted to see her, as much as she craved hearing her voice, yearned for a glimpse of the haunting, incandescent smile, she needed to regroup before she talked to Olivia again. She definitely needed to wrestle with her runaway emotions and totally out-of-control libido.
She wasn’t too proud or too arrogant to court her, hell, to plead with her if necessary, but she also wanted to respect Olivia’s needs and her wishes. Olivia had been burned by some bastard who made her believe that her feelings were somehow responsible for his unconscionable actions. And now Olivia wanted to disown the very passion that made her unique. If ever there was a crime, that was it, to incite guilt over what was so natural, so incredibly beautiful. Olivia hadn’t forgiven herself yet for trusting Marcos and for the harm done to her mother, even though Olivia was guilty only of trusting the wrong person. Jay only hoped she could convince Olivia to dare to trust again.
Jay walked out of the building, fatigued from the long, arduous night of heartbreaking work and consumed with the unexpected revelation of how intensely she had connected with Olivia. She didn’t register where she was until she stood in the hall outside the trauma admitting area, like a horse that came home to the barn out of habit, returning to the only safety it knew. She grimaced and spun around.
Ali stood an arm’s length away. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“Wish I could tell you that.” Jay ran a hand through her hair. “Daydreaming, I guess.”
Ali smiled, but her eyes were wary and worried. “At this hour of the morning, I’d have to say it was more like a nightmare. You okay?”
“Yeah,” Jay said. “You’re right, though, I’m beat. I was just walking. This is where I came.”
“You’re always welcome here.” Ali checked her watch. “I’ve got a little time before rounds. Buy you breakfast?”
“Hey, I’m fine. You don’t need to babysit me.”
Ali didn’t smile, just shook her head. “I guess you don’t get that I miss you and, you know, I love you.”
Jay sighed with equal parts shame and tenderness. “I’m sorry. I’m an ass. I miss the hell out of you too. Even more than I miss…” She lifted a hand. “All of this. I never thought that would happen.”
“Come on, we’ve got time for the cafeteria.” Ali squeezed her shoulder and didn’t let go until Jay fell into step beside her. They went through the cafeteria line together as they’d done countless times before, choosing the too-yellow scrambled eggs, the underdone bacon, and the dry toast just like always. Extra-tall steaming mugs of coffee completed the ritual, and they grabbed a table by themselves over by the windows.
“I thought you were getting along okay there,” Ali said, doctoring her coffee with three creamers and an honest-to-God sugar.
“I am.” Jay dumped creamers into her coffee, thinking of all the times she’d brought Olivia coffee over the past few weeks. Everything she did somehow made her think of Olivia. “Just a long night, some senseless deaths—you know how that feels.”
“I do. I’m sorry to hear it.” Ali made a sandwich out of her eggs and bacon and took a big bite. A few seconds later, she said, “I’ve never really seen you thrown off stride by the tough ones before. Bothered, sure. Sad for the families. Pissed off at the waste and needless suffering, sometimes. But that’s not what I’m seeing now. Somebody on your case? Giving you a hard time?”
Ali sounded like she was ready to go to battle. She probably would if Jay told her she needed backup. There’d been plenty of times when she was a kid that Vic and Ali had been ready to do the big sister protector routine. Jay smiled, glad to be home for a few minutes. “I don’t think you can help me out of this one, but thanks.”
Ali’s brows lifted. “Ah. Woman trouble.”
Jay laughed for the first time in what felt like a century. “You didn’t just say that.”
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Ali’s tone held a little bit of a challenge, a little bit of sympathy. “Tell me, is it the beautiful Dr. Price, assistant chief medical examiner?”
“Acting chief medical examiner now,” Jay said. “Greenly’s in the cardiac intensive care unit. Had an MI out in the field last night. Emergency cath. He’s probably gonna be okay, but Olivia is in charge for now, possibly permanently.”
“Wow. Sorry to hear about Greenly. Is Olivia happy about being interim chief?”
“Oh yeah. She’s right for it, will be great at it.”
Ali frowned. “Are you bothered by it?”
“No,” Jay said, pushing her eggs around on her plate. “At least, I wouldn’t be if she wasn’t using it as an excuse not to get involved with me.”
“Oh, the tangled web gets thornier.” Ali leaned back in her seat, sipped her coffee, watched Jay for any sign of trying to skirt the issues. “So you made a move and she said Sorry, not in my career path?”
Jay laughed. “See, you just don’t give me enough credit.”
Ali smiled. “How so, hotshot?”
“I didn’t make the move. Olivia took me to bed and thoroughly…” Jay’s throat constricted. Images of Olivia stripping her down, straddling her, making love to her until she couldn’t move a muscle crashed through her brain. Her mouth went dry, her words died, and her heart threatened to stop in her chest.
“Wow again.” Ali looked intrigued now. “She took you down?”
“Thoroughly and completely.”
“And then she dumped you.”
Jay winced. “Not exactly. Not the we should just be friends line. Definitely not the this was a mistake line. More like I’m going to be really busy and it’s not a good time to get involved line.”
“Well,” Ali said thoughtfully, “of the three, that’s probably the best. It’s not exactly I don’t want you, you were terrible in bed, and there’s no future kind of thing. It’s more like…I’m scared out of my mind.”
“Maybe,” Jay said quietly. “Or maybe she really would just rather focus on work and her safe game of Go.”
“Huh?”
“Go…she plays some high-level strategy game online. I don’t think I could even learn the rules.”
“Sounds like she’s avoiding something.”
“Maybe,” Jay said again. “I don’t want that to be me.”
“There’s more,” Ali said carefully. “I can see it in your face. You don’t need to tell me if it’s Olivia’s business. That’s between you and her. But as a friend, you can tell me how you feel.”
Jay pushed the tray away and cradled her coffee cup. “I’m pretty much helpless here. I—” She blew out a breath, shook her head. “I’m pretty much falling for her.”
“More than sex.”
“Way more.”
“All right then.”
Jay frowned. “All right then?”
“If you’re in that deep, that way, you can’t walk away until she tells you there’s no chance. And you can’t push too hard, because she might walk.”
“Like I said—kind of screwed here.”
“Oh, come on—since when did you get so cautious. You’re observant, read her. Not what she says, what she does. Pay attention to that. Since you’ve never mentioned getting so hung up on anyone like this before, I have to believe it’s different.”
“It’s definitely different.” Jay let out a long breath. “Oh, man, is it different. I don’t even recognize myself.”
“She really took the legs out from under you.”
“Actually, she did. Literally.”
Ali laughed. “You know, I’m picturing her, and she’s slender and elegant and, you know, you’re not exactly delicate, and she…” Ali waggled her hand.
“Yeah, she did. Rolled me over and made me beg.”
“I think I like her.”
“That’s good, because I love her.”
Ali stared.
Jay had to remember to breathe. “O
h, fuck.”
“Congratulations,” Ali said softly.
*
Just before seven, Olivia finally reached Greenly’s secretary and got his calendar for the upcoming two months. By seven thirty she’d gotten through most of it, emailed colleagues and the state board members who needed to be informed about his status, and sent instructions to Pam to reschedule his meetings for her. She also had Pam reassign several seminars Greenly was to have given to the other MEs. When things looked like they were reasonably under control, she hurried outside for coffee before morning rounds. Jay was just paying Hasim when Olivia got to the food truck, and for one instant, she considered escaping before Jay saw her. And wasn’t that ridiculous. Of course she could see her and not make an idiot of herself, sweaty palms or not.
“Hi,” Olivia said.
“I got your coffee,” Jay said.
“You didn’t need to,” Olivia said quietly.
“I was getting mine anyway. Bagel and cream cheese okay?”
“I’m not even sure I can eat anything,” Olivia said wearily.
“You’d better. I know what you had for dinner.”
Olivia thought back to the McDonald’s in the middle of the night. Jay had been quietly taking care of her, thinking about her and what she needed, last night and now. The realization was foreign, the pleasure a little frightening. She couldn’t think about it for very long or she’d give in to the urge to head back to her apartment with Jay, crawl under the covers, and sleep for the rest of the day.
“You should go home,” Olivia said. “Technically, you’re not even supposed to be here after twenty-four hours on call. It violates the residency—”
“Bullshit, Olivia.” Jay’s voice was low and dark, just a little bit angry. “I’m not going home.”
“I could order you to go home,” Olivia said, digging in her heels, and she wasn’t even sure why. In Jay’s place, she would stay too. Any responsible fellow who wanted to get the most out of their training never paid attention to the ridiculous residency rules about mandatory hours on call and off, as if medicine were a nine-to-five job and no one got sick at night. But she didn’t think they were talking about the fellowship, and she needed to keep their relationship on the level of two colleagues, working together. “All right, stay until after morning rounds. Then you’re going home.”
