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“Look—I can get a uniform. I wouldn’t want you to actually have to work—“
“No way. I’m getting a hard-on just thinking about it.”
Rebecca’s hands tightened on the wheel, as she suddenly recalled all the reasons she couldn’t stand him. “Just forget it.”
“Hey,” Watts said quickly. “Joke. That was a joke. It takes a lot more than that to give—“
“I don’t need to know about that, Watts,” she assured him as she pulled into the lot behind One Police Plaza. “I’ll fill you in when I’ve met with the suits from DC. If there’s something I can use you on, I’ll let you know.”
“Good enough.” He sat back, glad to be out of the squad room, happy to contemplate some real work. Even if it was with a bunch of bureaucratic assholes who didn’t know dick about police work. The Sarge could handle them. He’d give her a week before she was back on the street. Frye a desk jockey. Sure. And I’ve got a ten-inch pecker.
Staring straight ahead through the windshield, she added, “I never thanked you for that night we nailed Blake. I counted on you to save Catherine’s life. You came through for me. I owe you.”
“Nah, you don’t. We both hit him.” He shrugged. “Besides, I couldn’t let him waste the doc. Guess I got a soft spot for dames. But you know, Sarge, you can’t let yourself take ‘em too seriously. You’re finished if you do.”
Rebecca smiled to herself, deciding not to be offended. “Catherine is special.”
“Oh, man,” Watts moaned, shaking his head in mock sadness. “You’re already a goner.” He cleared his throat. “But I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t make yourself a target like that too often. The investigation after that went down really busted my balls.”
She turned her head and regarded him unblinkingly. “You’re breaking my heart, Watts.”
Then she ignored him for the rest of the trip as she piloted the sleek car through the streets. He just sat grinning happily to himself. Frye was back. Things were looking up.
CHAPTER SEVEN
REBECCA SAT WITH the Vette idling at the curb, surveying the address that the anonymous female voice had given her when she’d called the office of Avery Clark, US Department of Justice, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. CCIPS.
Alphabet soup—Initials and Acronyms. Frigging feds just love them .
The four story, brick fronted warehouse looked nothing like a government building. Rebecca was certain it wasn’t. What she wasn’t sure of was what it was, and why the task force was going to be run out of there instead of One Police Plaza or the Federal Building at 6th and Walnut. This looked private. But that couldn’t be. There just wasn’t any precedent for a public/private coalition on an active investigation, and certainly not when the feds were involved.
She shut off the engine. She wouldn’t find out what was going on in there by sitting in the street waiting for a clue. Besides, as bad as this was going to be, there was the possibility that it could lead her places. Places she wasn’t going to have easy access to any other way. Like organized crime’s undercover ops. The same ops that had had lead to her partner’s death.
The wide reinforced door to the first floor was locked and she pushed the bell next to an intercom. A disembodied genderless voice requested, “ID.”
Slowly, she opened the fold-over leather case displaying her badge on one side and a police photo ID opposite and held it up to a small camera mounted in the corner of a narrow recess above the entrance. The door lock clicked open and she pushed through into a surprisingly well-lit garage that occupied the entire first floor. A sleek black Porsche Carrera convertible sat in the center of the large room. At the rear, she could make out a freight elevator with yet another intercom and no visible controls. Probably remote controlled.
“Third floor,” a voice instructed as she approached the lift, and several more cameras swiveled to follow her progress across the room. The whole set up made her skin itch, but she never even twitched. She did, however, unbutton her blazer as she stepped into the doublewide elevator car to give her access to her weapon. That at least was something that had gone well. An hour on the range with Watts to get her groove back, and then she’d nailed every one of the recertification targets. She had her badge and her gun. She was back.
The elevator moved soundlessly upwards and opened onto another huge space, this one lit by sunlight from the floor to ceiling windows on the wall opposite her as well as rows of overhead tracks. Through the windows she had an unimpeded view of the waterfront and the river beyond. Prime Old City real estate. Definitely not city property.
Rebecca took her time getting her bearings. Lots of computers, lots of assorted electronic paraphernalia, and lots of communication equipment. It looked like a government operation from the scope and probable cost of the hardware. The government always went big on the technical stuff and skimped on the manpower.
“Detective Sergeant Frye?”
Rebecca turned slightly to her left and surveyed the woman who approached across the highly polished wood floor. Five-ten, one forty, muscular build. Black hair, eyes deep—violet, about thirty. White T-shirt, leather blazer, jeans. Heavy platinum band on the left hand ring finger.
“That’s right,” Rebecca replied, taking the outstretched hand. The grip was cool and firm but not over-powering. Confidant, like the stance and the voice.
“J.T. Sloan.” She indicated a slender blond man who looked like he might have been a Ralph Lauren model seated at one of the computer consoles. “My associate, Jason McBride.”
Nodding to him, Rebecca said, “I was supposed to meet Clark from Justice.”
“He called,” Sloan said, her expression carefully neutral. “Said he’d been detained at the Federal building. There’s a meeting set for seven-thirty tomorrow here.”
Rebecca frowned. It was starting already. The inevitable meetings and lousy communications that usually ended up wasting more time than anything else. “With who?”
“Him, someone from Customs, you, and us.”
“What department are you with?” Rebecca asked, feeling the beginnings of an enormous headache gathering behind her eyes. She was tired, and that added to her annoyance. Christ, she’d only been on her feet half a day. She shouldn’t be tired.
“We’re private.”
The words came as a surprise, although they shouldn’t have. Rebecca looked around the state of the art room and thought about Jeff the last morning she’d seen him alive, two-finger typing out a report on an ancient Smith Corona. It was too elaborate for the police department, and somehow too sleekly efficient for the feds. “Your place?”
Sloan nodded, watching the detective who had slipped both hands into the pockets of her trousers, hands which Sloan was pretty certain were clenched into fists. This is one unhappy cop. Wonder whose shit list she got on to pull this assignment.
“There’s supposed to be a uniform assigned here,” Rebecca remarked, trying to decide whether she should ask about the operation or wait for the guy from Justice. She had no idea what these two were doing on the task force, and she didn’t want to advertise her own ignorance of the situation. “Our department’s paper chaser.”
“Haven’t seen anyone,” Sloan observed noncommittally.
Jason had turned on his swivel chair and was watching the two of them, his head moving imperceptibly back and forth with the stops and starts of the staccato conversation. The two women regarded each other steadily in the loud silence—Sloan, darkly good-looking and unconcernedly casual, Frye starkly handsome and tautly reserved. Lots of room for fireworks here.
Sloan considered the upcoming operation and assessed the complexity of alliances and allegiances likely to be a factor. The past was much further from her mind than it had been a year ago, but some memories never fade completely, despite apologies and retractions and concessions. Avery Clark had never been an enemy, but neither was he a friend. He’d called her because he needed her, and she didn’t owe him anything except her expertise. She owed this detective, who was most likely going to end up with the dirty part of the job, even less. “Why don’t we grab some coffee and I’ll fill you in on what I know.”
Rebecca glanced at her wristwatch, a functional unadorned timepiece with a broad leather band and solid gold face. She wore it every day, just as her father had until the day he’d died. Four fifty-nine. She stretched her long frame in the uncomfortable straight-backed chair in the small, windowless room and thought about the spacious waiting room outside Catherine’s office. Thick Oriental rug, shaded floor lamps, a coffee table with up to date magazines. Professional, but human. Warm and welcoming. Like Catherine. She remembered that first night—her own impatience, the pressure of a horrendous case, Catherine’s calm, firm resistance to being questioned. A stalemate that had eventually led to something far different. Just a few months ago, two very dissimilar women finding…
“Sergeant?” a male voice asked as the door across the tiny anteroom opened with a creak. The plain entrance to the inner office carried no identifying label or occupant name.
“Yes.” She stood, her face carefully blank.
A middle-aged man with thick unruly brown hair and a linebacker’s build dressed in a plain white shirt and dark trousers, sleeves rolled to mid-forearm, extended his hand and stepped toward her. “Rand Whitaker.”
She shook his hand and followed him into another bland room crammed with an institutional appearing desk, a wall of mismatched bookcases, and two generic arm chairs as he said, “Come on in.” Fluorescent lights in a drop ceiling and wall-to-wall dark gray carpet completed the impersonal space.
“Have you done this before?” he asked as he settled behind the desk in a swivel chair that squeaked in protest.
“No.” She eyed the plain fronted manila folder that sat closed in front of him. The label was obscured, but she knew what it was. Her jacket. Everything the department had accumulated on her in her twelve years of service. There were no reprimands, no inquiries, no investigative reports in that file—at least not to her knowledge. There were two citations.
“You understand this is routine after an officer involved shooting or a serious injury to an officer in the line of duty. In your case…” He regarded her intently, then continued, “It’s both.”
I understand I won’t be able to get back to work until you say I can. I understand that you’re supposed to be here to help the rank and file, but you’re not one of us. And I understand that cops aren’t allowed to have problems, at least not the kind of problems that you deal with . She met his gaze directly. “Yes, I understand.”
“Okay. Good.” He leaned back in his chair, seemingly undisturbed by the ominous sounds that any movement produced. “You’re Special Crimes, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Like it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s my job.”
He smiled. “Have you ever been shot at before, Sergeant?”
“Yes, once.” She knew it must be in the file—it had been a domestic dispute, like the one that her father had been killed in. Like him, she’d responded to a call from a concerned neighbor who had heard screams from the apartment next door, and as with him, when she and her partner had announced themselves as police officers, the husband had opened fire. Unlike her father, she had been lucky.
“You weren’t hit that first time, were you?”
“No.”
“Did it frighten you?”
“Not really,” Rebecca replied, wondering where he was going. “It happened quickly, and then it was over. We fired over his head, he threw out the gun, and we were on him in a second. There was nothing to be afraid of.”
“Did you think about it later? Dream about it?”
“No.”
“What about this time?”
It had been different the second time. She’d known it was coming. She’d been prepared for it from the second that she’d stepped into the dark, cavernous room. She’d been looking right at Raymond Blake while he held a gun to Catherine’s temple. He’d been twitchy, raving, and she knew there wasn’t much time. She wanted him to focus on her; he had to be angry at her; he had to move the weapon from Catherine’s head and put it on her. She knew exactly what would happen as she goaded and taunted him into turning the automatic on her.
“What do you remember about it?”
“Not much,” she answered, sitting relaxed in the chair, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee. “It was only a minute or two.”
He opened the file, shuffled a few papers, glanced down for a few seconds as if reading, then regarded her neutrally. “The report from Detective Watts says that you and the suspect—Blake—exchanged words, but your partner stated that he couldn’t hear what you said.”
Rebecca waited. He hadn’t asked a question.
“What did the two of you talk about?”
“I identified myself as a police office and ordered him to drop the weapon.”
“That’s all?”
“There wasn’t time for anything else.”
“You were alone at the time?”
“No,” Rebecca replied evenly. “Detective Watts was behind me.”
“Outside the building.”
“Yes—with a clear sight line to the subject.”
The psychologist was silent for another few seconds. “I’m not IAD.”
She waited again. He might not be Internal Affairs, but she didn’t doubt that her confidential psych eval would be available to them for the asking.
“I’m not inquiring because I’m faulting your procedures, Detective,” he continued. “I’m wondering why a seasoned detective would walk into a situation where the risk was so high.”
“I felt that the hostage was in immediate danger of execution.”
“Dr. Rawlings.”
“Yes.” Catherine. The bastard had struck her, torn her blouse open, bound her hands. He hadn’t had enough time yet to do anything else to her, but I knew what he intended to do. I remembered his voice on the tape, describing it in detail, and I wanted to kill him then. I can still hear his voice. Sitting there, recalling his smooth, intimate tone as he’d talked about fucking her lover, she had to concentrate not to clench her fists.
“Detective,” Rand Whitaker asked softly, “did you walk into that room intending to trade yourself for the hostage?”
Rebecca met his eyes, her cool blue eyes unwavering. Very clearly she replied, “No.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
AT NINE-FORTY, Catherine stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of a building that had once been a gracious four story Victorian before it had had been purchased by the University and converted to offices. It was dark, the night was cool; summer was dying. A shadow moved from beneath a tree nearby, and she stiffened.
“It’s me. I’m sorry.”
“Rebecca,” Catherine said with a soft sigh. She held out her hand. “How long have you been here?”
“Not long—fifteen minutes, maybe. Joyce said that you had an eight-thirty so I figured you’d be done about now.” She linked the fingers of her left hand through Catherine’s. She was right-handed and needed to keep her gun hand free on the street.
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