JUSTICE SERVED.

by RADCLYfFE.

Acknowledgments.

With each Justice entry I write, I say, "That's it. I'm done with this series." It's dif cult to write on many levels, but each time I begin a new story in the series, the characters spring to life and I lose myself in their journey.

My beta readers sustain me through the long weeks of uncertainty as each tale unfolds and I question if I will ever be able to do the story justice. They never let me down, providing insight, encouragement, suggestions, and critiques with tender care. I count on them to keep me from going astray. Thank you Athos, Diane, Denise, Eva, Jane, JB, Paula, Robyn, and Sh.e.l.ley.

In addition, I'd like to extend my appreciation to all the members of the Radlist for constancy and inspiration, to Ruth Sternglantz and Stacia Seaman for ne editorial input, and to Linda Hill, for her vision and commitment to lesbian ction.

Lee has never complained about the sacri ces she's made to help me realize a dream. For that, I am ever grateful. Amo te.

Radclyffe 2005.

Dedication.

For Lee.

For Taking a Chance.

Justice Served.

CHAPTER ONE.

Monday.

I don't think the doctor wants you going up and down stairs yet,"

warned the small blond in the skintight black Capri slacks, white ribbed tank top, and open-toed stack heels. October was around the corner, but Sandy Sullivan rarely wore more than the bare essentials.

"Have to try," Of cer Dellon Mitch.e.l.l grunted. Grimacing with the effort, she swung her injured left leg free of the crutch as she maneuvered up the rst stair in the hospital stairwell. "You live on the third oor, remember?"

"We can stay at your place, Dell. You have an elevator and a doorman, remember?" Hands on hips, Sandy stepped back to allow the young, dark-haired police of cer to set her crutches onto the next stair, but stayed close enough to catch her should Mitch.e.l.l lose her balance and topple over. Considering that Mitch.e.l.l was a head taller and twenty pounds of muscle heavier, Sandy might have trouble breaking her fall, but she was not about to let anything else happen to her new lover.

"I don't want to lie around in my apartment." Sweating, Mitch.e.l.l paused long enough to brush her forearm across her forehead. The shock of jet-black hair promptly tumbled back into her eyes. Her bad leg felt like it weighed fty pounds, and she couldn't believe how much her arms were shaking. She didn't want Sandy to see that or she had a feeling she would be forcibly dragged back to bed. Even if Sandy was half her size, when she was red up, she was unstoppable. "I want to be able to get back to work."

Mitch.e.l.l also didn't want to point out that it would be better for both of them if they remained visible on the streets in Sandy's neighborhood, a part of town known for its small-time hustlers, corner drug dealers, and prost.i.tutes. Mitch.e.l.l had just begun an undercover a.s.signment, and Sandy was supposed to be her girlfriend. The fact that * 11 *

RADCLY fFE the cover story had suddenly become the truth complicated issues, but they still needed to maintain appearances.

"What's the matter? Are you afraid you'll get a bad reputation if you have a hooker in your sw.a.n.ky apartment?" Sandy's tone was less accusatory than anxious as she watched Mitch.e.l.l, still in her hospital gown. The young cop was as pasty white as she had been the night before, her dark blue eyes clouded with pain that she thought Sandy couldn't see. "Getting soft, rookie? I didn't think you cared what your doorman thinks."

"I don't," Mitch.e.l.l said through gritted teeth. "Especially about you. But I care about people tying me or you to the action the other night."

Thirty-six hours before, Mitch.e.l.l had been stabbed while apprehending several key suspects in an Internet p.o.r.nography ring.

Those arrests had climaxed weeks of work by an unusual team of Philadelphia police of cers and civilian consultants led by Mitch.e.l.l's mentor and role model, Detective Sgt. Rebecca Frye. Mitch.e.l.l wanted back on that team more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life, except the young woman who peered at her anxiously with a frown on her pale, worried face. And the fastest way to get back on the team was to get back on her feet. "If I didn't blow my cover already, I don't want to now."

"Screw your cover. You're shaking, Dell."

"I'm okay."

"No, you're not." Sandy moved closer and wrapped her arm around Mitch.e.l.l's waist. "You're just as stubborn and blockheaded as a certain other cop I've met. But you don't have to be like Frye all the time."

"It's not about Frye." Mitch.e.l.l allowed herself to lean against Sandy while she caught her breath and swiped futilely at the sweat now beaded on her entire face. "I'm just not used to these crutches."

"Yeah. And it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you just got operated on yesterday morning and lost a couple of buckets of blood before that, either." Sandy snorted in disgust. "Jesus, cops are such a pain in the a.s.s."

"Are you going to b.i.t.c.h at me the whole time I'm laid up?" Mitch.e.l.l feigned distress, but she was grinning. She leaned back against the wall, * 12 *

Justice Served angling her body to take the weight off her leg while making room for Sandy to snuggle up against her.

"I don't know," Sandy replied, wrapping her arms around Mitch.e.l.l's waist before kissing her neck. They'd been lovers for less than a week, and Sandy couldn't look at her without getting wet. "It depends on how long it takes you to get better. If it takes too long, I could get very cranky."

"You think I won't be able to take care of business?" Mitch.e.l.l dipped her head, brought her mouth to Sandy's, and ran her tongue lightly over the surface of Sandy's bottom lip. Sandy moaned softly, and Mitch.e.l.l's heart rate skyrocketed. Oh man, now I will fall down.

With the heat of Sandy's body warming her all the way through, she didn't care a bit if they ended up in a heap on the oor. As she icked the tip of her tongue over the inside of Sandy's lip, she snaked a hand beneath the back of Sandy's tank top. She could practically span the entire width of her girlfriend's small waist with one hand. "G.o.d, you feel good," she muttered.

"I don't think this activity is on the prescribed list of treatments for stab wounds," a voice on the verge of laughter announced from behind them.

Mitch.e.l.l, sliding her arm protectively around Sandy's shoulders, jerked her head up. Her gaze met the laughing brown eyes of her surgeon, Ali Torveau. Mitch.e.l.l blushed.

"Uh...morning."

"Good," Sandy grumbled, lifting her chin in Dr. Torveau's direction. "Maybe Dell will listen to you." Carefully, she disentangled herself from her girlfriend and moved away. "She won't admit she's about to keel over."

"Sandy," Mitch.e.l.l complained with a sigh.

"It's true, Dell."

Torveau leaned against the wall in the stairwell and folded her arms across her chest, her eyes narrowing as she watched Mitch.e.l.l maneuver down to the landing. "How do you feel?"

When Mitch.e.l.l hesitated, Ali added, "And don't try to snow me."

"Uh..."

"That bad, huh?" Ali pushed away from the wall and eased over to Mitch.e.l.l. Casually, she slipped her hand under Mitch.e.l.l's elbow.

"Come on. Let's go back to your room and have a look."

* 13 *

RADCLY fFE Once Mitch.e.l.l was back in bed, Ali collected disposable gloves and dressings from a cart in the hallway and prepared to change the dressing on Mitch.e.l.l's left thigh. She glanced sideways at Sandy, who was standing by the head of the bed, her hand on the police of cer's shoulder. "You okay with this?"

"I've probably seen worse."

Ali merely nodded. There was something in the young woman's eyes that spoke of hard truth. A minute later, she had the bandage open and perused the row of sutures that extended for ten inches from the top of Mitch.e.l.l's midthigh down the inner surface. Carefully, she probed along both sides of the incision, then straightened. "The wound's nice and clean. Let's see how the artery is doing." When she nished palpating the pulses in Mitch.e.l.l's foot, she nodded with evident satisfaction. "Everything is in working order."

"See. I knew that." Mitch.e.l.l's voice was breathy with relief.

Sandy snorted again.

"However, your blood count this morning was lousy. If you were any older, I'd transfuse you. But I'd rather not unless it becomes a problem." As she spoke, the surgeon rewrapped Mitch.e.l.l's thigh. "You feel c.r.a.ppy because you're weak, and you're not used to that."

"When will I feel better?" Unconsciously, Mitch.e.l.l had reached out for Sandy's hand, and now she entwined her ngers with Sandy's much smaller ones. The strength in Sandy's grasp was comforting, and she held on tightly.

"It will probably take several months for your counts to come back up to normal, but you should start feeling better day by day." Ali smiled. "It just takes a little patience."

"Oh yeah, she's got lots of that." Although her tone was laced with sarcasm, Sandy regarded Mitch.e.l.l tenderly.

"It seems to be an occupational trait," Ali replied. "If you've got someplace to stay where you won't have to do too much walking, you can go today."

"Okay! Yeah, we can make that work." Mitch.e.l.l looked to her girlfriend for con rmation. "Right, San?"

Sandy sighed. "Yeah, yeah, rookie. If that's what you want."

The truth was, Sandy wanted Mitch.e.l.l out of the hospital every bit as much as Mitch.e.l.l wanted to go. The place scared her under the best * 14 *

Justice Served of circ.u.mstances, and seeing her normally strong and capable lover weak and in pain was scaring her even more.

Softly, she stroked Mitch.e.l.l's cheek. "We'll gure something out, baby."

v Dr. Catherine Rawlings pushed a stack of le folders aside and reached for her phone. "Yes, Joyce?"

"Rebecca's here," her secretary announced, adding without needing to be asked, "and you've got thirty minutes before your rst appointment."

"Thanks. Tell her to come in."

Catherine waited behind her desk for the simple pleasure of watching her lover cross the room. They had met in this room not quite half a year before, when Detective Sgt. Rebecca Frye had been in the midst of a harrowing serial-murder investigation. They had begun their joint involvement in the case as polite adversaries and ended as pa.s.sionate lovers. As if the whirlwind onslaught of unexpected love had not been enough, Rebecca had nearly died from a gunshot wound, and both she and Catherine were still recovering, physically and emotionally. Even had she not nearly lost Rebecca, Catherine doubted that the pleasure of seeing her for the rst time after they'd been apart would have been any less. Rebecca, more than any woman she had ever known, moved her in the deepest reaches of her being. She smiled as the door opened and her tall blond lover, slender in her trademark tailored dark suit and coolly beautiful, entered her of ce.

"Hey," Rebecca said as she walked around the side of Catherine's desk and leaned down to kiss her. "Got a few minutes?"

"Mmm. On your way to see Dellon?" Catherine replied.

"That too." With an uncharacteristically self-conscious expression, Rebecca suddenly stepped back and slid her hands into the pockets of her trousers. "But I wanted to talk to you rst. I...have some news."

"Oh?" Regarding her with concern, Catherine rose, walked around her desk, and slid an arm around her lover's waist. "Did something happen at your unG.o.dly-early morning brie ng with Captain Henry?"

"A lot," Rebecca conceded. "We worked out a compromise to keep the team together so that we can nish hunting down the leak in * 15 *

RADCLY fFE the department and have a shot at breaking this prost.i.tution network, or whatever the h.e.l.l it is, wide open at the same time."

"That's what you wanted, isn't it?" Catherine kept her voice neutral, a practice that was second nature to her from her many years of practicing psychiatry. She was still adjusting to the fact that her lover's profession carried with it the daily risk of injury or even death.

Balancing the desire to support Rebecca in her work while dealing with her own fears and uncertainty was a constant challenge. Nevertheless, it was a struggle she kept to herself, knowing that Rebecca was a cop to her core. "To keep the team together?"

"Oh yeah. Absolutely." Rebecca curled an arm around Catherine's shoulder and rested her cheek against Catherine's thick auburn hair.

"We're close to putting all the pieces together-who's been leaking con dential information and altering sensitive police les, who ngered Jimmy Hogan and Jeff Cruz for a.s.sa.s.sination, what's going on with the girls in the skin videos and the s.e.x clubs, and how it all ties into organized crime. If we just have a little more time, we can break it."

It was impossible to miss the undercurrent of excitement and determination in her lover's voice. But Catherine, sensitive to nuance and in ection, heard something else there as well-reservation and frustration. Being next in line for the chairmanship of the Department of Psychiatry, she was no stranger to politics. "You said compromise.

What did you have to give him?"

"It's not what I had to give," Rebecca grumbled. "It's what I had to take."

"Come sit down and tell me," Catherine murmured, drawing Rebecca toward the sofa opposite her desk. When they were settled side by side, she turned and rested her ngers on Rebecca's thigh. "So?"

"Avery Clark." Rebecca named the Department of Justice agent with obvious displeasure.

"He's back in the picture?" Catherine exclaimed with surprise.

Avery Clark had been the federal government's liaison with Rebecca's team during the initial phases of their investigation into a widespread Internet p.o.r.nography ring. However, when the joint task force had successfully made a key arrest, Clark had a.s.serted jurisdictional primacy and cut Rebecca and her colleagues out of the information loop. Catherine couldn't imagine Rebecca or any of the other members of the team willingly working with Clark again.

* 16 *

Justice Served "Oh yeah, he's back. And how." Rebecca blew out an exasperated breath. "No Clark, no team."

"Ah, so no choice." Catherine squeezed Rebecca's thigh sympathetically. "Sorry. But you'll nd a way to make it work."

"Probably, but I don't know how I'm going to convince Sloan of it."

JT Sloan was the civilian computer consultant and a past DOJ agent herself whose history with the government was still shrouded in mystery. Whatever the unhappy a.s.sociation had been, Sloan's animosity toward the agency had grown exponentially when her lover Michael had been nearly killed in an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt. Sloan had been the intended target and, nearly wild with grief and guilt, she had attributed the tragedy in large part to Clark's withholding of critical information from the team.

"Sloan won't be a problem if you present it to her correctly."

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Your suggestion, Doctor?"

Catherine smiled softly. "Darling, what is the most important thing in the world to Sloan?"

"Michael," Rebecca answered immediately.

"Yes. Sloan wants to nd the person who hurt her lover, but even more than that, she doesn't want to hurt Michael any further. You and I both know that the safest place for Sloan is on your team, not running around by herself. And Michael knows it too."