Justice Served

by Radclyffe

  “You need to track down everything about them,” Rebecca said, making another notation in her pad. “Check the shipping companies, the cargo manifests, the origination and final destination points, the crew—anything that they might have in common. Jimmy picked up on something. We have to know what it was.”

  “Reiser is already on it. I’ll have more information for you to feed into your computers in a day or so.”

  “Good,” Rebecca said. “You run with that for now.”

  “No problem.” Watts’s tone suggested that he did not mind the assignment.

  “Mitchell, what’s your duty status?”

  “Dr. Torveau cleared me today,” Mitchell said, unconsciously sitting up straighter in her seat. “All I need is my psych clearance.”

  “I don’t know, kid,” Watts muttered. “You could wait a long time for that.”

  Mitchell grinned.

  “Get it. I want Mitch and Jasmine back in the clubs. With Beecher dead and nothing solid from Port Authority, the only place to shake out a new lead is there.” Rebecca folded her notebook and slid it into the inside pocket of her blazer. “My street sources are coming up empty. The bust at the video studio has sent people underground, and with the hit on Beecher, it’s not safe for my CIs to do much digging. I don’t want them calling attention to themselves.”

  No one at the table looked at Mitchell; everyone knew that Sandy was one of Rebecca’s CIs. Mitchell pressed her palms hard into her thighs to prevent herself from curling her fingers into fists.

  “Saturday night is always a big night at Ziggie’s,” Jason said into the void. “Mitch and Jasmine and the Kings could hit it tomorrow night. There ought to be enough after-hours activity that no one would notice us asking a few questions.”

  “Do it. It’s time to make something happen.”

  *

  “Just think about it,” Mitchell heard Michael say as she stepped off the elevator.

  “Yeah, okay,” Sandy replied hesitantly.

  “I mean it. You’d do fine.” Michael turned to the sound of Mitchell approaching. “Hi, Dell. Is the meeting over?”

  Mitchell nodded, looking curiously from Sandy to Michael. Sandy appeared uncomfortable, a distinctly unusual condition for her. Mitchell had seen her angry, stubborn, even hurt. But almost never uneasy. “What’s up?”

  Sandy popped up and hurried down the hall in the direction of the guest room. “Nothing.”

  “Something’s going on,” Mitchell insisted as she hustled to catch up.

  “I think we should go home,” Sandy said, walking directly to the closet and lifting out her suitcase.

  “Me too.” Mitchell sat on the side of the bed, her arms out to either side, watching Sandy pack. “I’m pretty much healed, and it’s time for me to get back to work.”

  “Don’t you have to see Cath—Dr. Rawlings too?”

  “Yep—first thing tomorrow.”

  “Huh.” Sandy folded one of Mitchell’s white T-shirts and laid it next to a camisole in her suitcase.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then how come you won’t look at me?” Mitchell frowned. “Did Michael say something to upset you?”

  “No,” Sandy snapped.

  “Well, it’s something,” Mitchell persisted.

  Sandy slammed the dresser drawer hard enough to knock over several bottles of perfume that stood on its top. She whirled in Mitchell’s direction, her eyes glinting with irritation. “If I wanted you to know something, I’d tell you. So stop with the questions.”

  Mitchell blinked at the unanticipated assault. Then, in an extraordinarily quiet voice, she said, “I want to know what Michael said that bothered you. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to go ask her.”

  “You can be a real pain in the ass, Dell. Once in a while you should just mind your own business.” Despite her words, Sandy’s voice had lost most of its edge.

  “You are my business.”

  Sandy sighed and joined Mitchell on the bed, her thigh their only point of contact where it lightly touched Mitchell’s. Staring straight ahead, she said in a subdued tone, “She offered me a job.”

  “Yeah?” Mitchell said, carefully hiding her surge of excitement. “How did that happen?”

  “She had to drop some papers off at her office the other day when we went shopping for my new outfit. While we were there she showed me around. Innova takes up the whole twentieth floor, and you can see everything—all the way to New Jersey—from up there.”

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah,” Sandy said quietly. “You can tell everyone thought Michael was like…a queen or something. And she was nice to everybody.”

  “She’s like that,” Mitchell observed, her hand creeping across the space between them to grasp Sandy’s. “She pays attention to everyone.”

  Sandy nodded silently.

  “So?” Mitchell asked finally. “What about the job?”

  “The guy who runs the supply room—you know, orders all the stuff that everyone needs, like paper and files and even cell phones—is leaving soon. Moving out of state. They want to train a replacement before he goes.”

  “So that’s the job?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like that before.” Sandy unconsciously squeezed Mitchell’s hand. “What if I messed it all up?”

  “Like how?”

  “I don’t know—ordered the wrong stuff. Or forgot to order something.”

  “Well, I suppose you’d just return the wrong stuff and order the right stuff.” Mitchell shrugged. “I bet that happens a lot.”

  “There’s computers.”

  Sandy said the word as if it were a life-threatening disease.

  Mitchell couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

  “Shut up,” Sandy snapped, slapping Mitchell’s arm and trying desperately not to smile.

  “Honey, look at what I do every day. You don’t think maybe I could teach you what you needed to know?”

  “I’ve never had a job. I don’t how to do it.”

  “Well,” Mitchell said softly and kissed Sandy gently on the cheek. “We’ll just have to teach you. There’s nothing you can’t do, San. I promise.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

  Mitchell gaped. “You’re kidding, right?” She tugged Sandy upright and framed her face with both hands. Leaning close, she said very distinctly, “I love you. If you want to try this job, then you should. You’ll be great. If you don’t want it, then forget it.”

  “But you’d like it if I did, wouldn’t you?”

  “It’s too dangerous out there, doing what you’re doing for Frye. I want you to stop. Job or not, I want you to stop.” Mitchell kissed Sandy’s forehead, then her mouth. “If you had another job, you’d feel better about quitting this one.”

  “I have some things to finish for Frye, Dell.” Sandy drew away, anticipating Mitchell’s protests.

  “Look,” Mitchell said, trying hard to contain both her temper and her fear. “Frye said just this afternoon that the heat is on around this whole Internet porn thing, and that it’s too dangerous for the CIs. She’s going to pull you anyway.”

  “Well, she hasn’t yet.” Sandy stood, thinking about her upcoming meeting with Trudy. She had to at least see her, warn her to keep her head down. She resumed packing, pretending not to hear Mitchell’s teeth grinding.

  “Honey,” Mitchell said, “you have to trust me on this one. It’s not safe ou—”

  “You have to trust me.” Sandy scooped up a pile of panties and dumped them into her suitcase. She closed the hasp and straightened. “I have a meeting tonight. It’s important. I’m going.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “No,” Sandy barked. “Jesus, Dell. I might as well put a big sign on my head that says police informer. Get a grip.”

  “I can’t,” Mitchell whispered. “I’ll go crazy i
f something happens to you.”

  Sandy’s features softened and she strode quickly to Mitchell, driving her fingers into Mitchell’s hair, tilting her head back before kissing her soundly on the mouth. “Nothing’s going to happen. It’s just another night—business as usual.” She stroked Mitchell’s cheek. “Except I’m not doing any business anymore. And that’s because of you.”

  Mitchell frowned, then her eyes darkened with understanding. “Nothing?”

  Sandy shook her head.

  “For how long?”

  Sandy lifted a shoulder.

  “Honey?”

  “A while.” Sandy didn’t protest when Mitchell pulled her down into her lap. Rather, she threaded her arms around Mitchell’s neck and rested her head against the curve of Mitchell’s shoulder. “I got so I didn’t want anyone near me except you.”

  “Oh man,” Mitchell moaned, burying her face in Sandy’s hair, her hand sliding under Sandy’s top. “I gotta have you all the time.”

  “You already do,” Sandy said with a shaky laugh.

  Mitchell shook her head, the fingers of one hand splayed beneath the soft curve of Sandy’s breast. “I don’t mean that way. Well, I do, but I mean the other way too.”

  Sandy leaned back to look into Mitchell’s face. “What are you talking about, rookie? You’re sounding a little crazy.”

  “I am crazy. Totally.” Mitchell’s thumb brushed Sandy’s nipple, and she smiled at the instant response. “I want to be with you all the time. I want us to live together.”

  Caught off guard, Sandy laughed harshly. “There’s no fucking way I’m living in that fancy place you’ve got. I probably wouldn’t even pass the security check.”

  “Fuck their security checks,” Mitchell spat. “If that’s where we wanted to live, that’s where we’d live. But I don’t want to live there either.”

  “You don’t?” Sandy couldn’t hide her curiosity. “Where then?”

  “I was thinking maybe we can get a place around here somewhere or Queen Village. There’s a lot going on down here—you know, with Jasmine and the Kings performing and everything.” She traced a fingertip over Sandy’s lips. “We can look for a place as soon as this case wraps up.”

  “I didn’t say yes.” Sandy licked the end of Mitchell’s finger with the tip of her tongue, then nipped at it with her teeth.

  “Yeah, I know.” Mitchell eased her finger between Sandy’s lips and into her mouth, closing her eyes partway as Sandy sucked on it. “But you will.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Saturday

  The sensation began in the pit of her stomach—an ever-increasing pressure like the tight coiling of the spring mechanism in an old-fashioned clock. The muscles on the insides of her thighs quivered, her calves contracted, and her heels dug into the mattress as her hips lifted. She had stopped breathing, the moan dying in her throat. Searching desperately behind her with one arm, she found the smooth, curved edge of the headboard and clamped her fingers around it. She cupped the back of Rebecca’s head in her palm and thrust her clitoris hard against Rebecca’s mouth. In her mind, she was screaming, but only the barest groan escaped. Flames licked her skin and she flushed hot; an agony of raw nerves and raging blood beat between her thighs; hot lightning scorched the length of her spine. She summoned all her strength but managed only a whisper.

  “I’m coming.”

  For a few seconds, minutes, hours, eternity there was no thought, no awareness beyond the torrent of pleasure flooding the plains of her body, rolling through the fields of her mind, laying waste to reason, replenishing her spirit like a deluge in the desert. And then, mercifully, peace followed the cataclysm, and the tension left her body. Catherine drew in her first full breath in what felt like eons and expelled it on a long sigh.

  “Oh my God. My ears are still ringing.”

  Rebecca grunted and rolled away, fumbling with one hand on the nightstand. She was still struggling to recover from her own orgasm, induced by a few swift tugs on her tumescent flesh when she felt Catherine approaching climax. “Fucking phone.”

  “Oh no,” Catherine protested, running her hand down the center of Rebecca’s bare back.

  “Yeah. Frye.”

  Catherine knew the instant her lover slipped away and the detective took her place. Rebecca swung her legs to the side of the bed and sat up in one fluid motion. The muscles beneath Catherine’s fingers tightened, as if preparing to surge into motion. The very air around Rebecca’s body crackled with tension.

  “What was she wearing?”

  Rebecca’s tone was sharp. Catherine did not need to see her face to envision the fierce focus in her ice blue eyes.

  “No! Stay there. I’ll get back to you as soon as I make a few calls.”

  Rebecca swore under her breath.

  “All right. I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

  As Rebecca closed the phone and stood, Catherine checked the clock. A little before six a.m. “What is it?”

  “Sandy’s missing.”

  *

  Rebecca drove with one hand on the wheel, the other on her cell phone. Beside her, Mitchell sat rigid, her back so stiff it did not touch the seat. Her feet were planted flat on the floor, palms pressed to her thighs. Her splayed fingers were white.

  “What exactly did she say when she left?” Rebecca asked.

  “She’d set up a phone meet with Trudy. It was the first time they’d connected since the bust.” Mitchell’s voice was gravelly, her throat desert dry. She stared through the windshield at the familiar neighborhoods, registering nothing. There was an odd numbness in her chest and belly, as if she’d been gutted. There was no pain, only a vast emptiness, dark and endless. “She didn’t say where.”

  “What’s your best guess?”

  In the silence that followed, Rebecca pushed her own sick fears deep down inside. She’d put Sandy out there. Never mind that Sandy knew the risks. In the end, she alone was responsible for anything that happened to her. Sandy—sharp-tongued, quick-witted, tough, vulnerable Sandy. She probably weighed all of a hundred pounds. Jesus Christ.

  “Mitchell?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rebecca slammed on the brakes, downshifted hard, and swerved to the curb. In the same motion, she turned in the seat and grabbed Mitchell’s shoulder, forcing the younger woman to look at her. “She’s out there, and we’re going to find her. That’s what we do. If anyone’s hurt her, we’ll take care of it. Now get your fucking head together, because I need you. And so does she.”

  Mitchell blinked. The fingers digging into her shoulder created small circles of pain, a welcome reminder that she was still capable of feeling. The sharp edges of Rebecca’s words cut through the mist of desolation that clouded her mind. She was not helpless. Sandy was not gone.

  “The…diner, maybe.”

  “No, too busy. Too many pimps who might see them.” Rebecca inched closer, easing her viselike grip. “Come on, Mitchell. She’s your girl. You know her. Someplace she trusts. Somewhere safe.”

  “Chen’s. That’s where we used to meet, back when we first started…going out.” Mitchell shivered as the ice encasing her heart cracked. It hurt to feel her heart beat, but the pounding was a welcome ache. “South Str—”

  “I know where it is,” Rebecca snapped as she shifted back into her seat, her foot already jammed on the gas pedal. The Corvette peeled down Bainbridge, the engine screaming in the nearly empty Saturday-morning streets.

  *

  “Yes, I remember,” Lilly Chen said. She’d answered their knock immediately, wrapped in a long robe, looking as if they hadn’t just awakened her from a sound sleep. “With another girl. Last booth in the back. Two o’clock.”

  “Anything unusual happen?” Rebecca asked.

  Lilly frowned. “I don’t think so. They talked, they ate. We were busy. Friday nights are like that.”

  Rebecca sensed Mitchell growing restless beside her, but she kept her own posture and expression relax
ed. Witnesses frequently didn’t realize how much they truly knew, and if they felt pressured, they often forgot or fabricated. Neither was desirable, especially not now, when they had so little to go on. “Do you remember any customers acting strangely right about that time—say, leaving without finishing their meal?”

  “There was one like that!” Lilly exclaimed, her eyes bright. “He ordered but didn’t eat. Left too much money on the counter because the check wasn’t ready.”

  “What time was this?” Mitchell asked calmly.

  “Just after two, I think.”

  Mitchell’s heart jumped into overdrive. “Did he talk to them?”

  Lilly shook her head. “No. No one did, or at least I didn’t see.”

  “What about your waitresses? Would they have noticed?” Rebecca asked.

  “My children. They were working last night. I could wake them.”

  “No,” Rebecca said, “not right now. We may want to talk to them later, if that’s all right.” Questioning the kids would take too long, and what they needed now was an idea of where Sandy might have gone. Finding out who might have gone after her could wait.

  “Anything else you can think of? Anything that was at all different.”

  Lilly started to shake her head again, then stopped. “Sandy gave me money at the table, not up front at the register like usual. I don’t remember seeing the girls leave.”

  Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. “Back door?”

  “Maybe,” Lilly agreed. “The fire door is back by the restrooms. They could have left that way.”

  “Thanks,” Rebecca said. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “It’s okay,” Lilly called after them.

  As they hurried down the sidewalk, Rebecca said, “There’s an alley that runs behind this row of storefronts. Let’s check it out.”

  “Okay. Right.” Mitchell spun away, only to be jerked to a halt by Rebecca’s hand on her shoulder again.

  “Take it easy. There’s probably no one still around, even if he did follow them out the back. But keep your head on straight.” Rebecca waited, watching, knowing that now was the moment that would define Mitchell’s future.