"Honey," Mitch.e.l.l 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 * 194 *

Justice Served 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," Mitch.e.l.l whispered. "I'll go crazy if something happens to you."

Sandy's features softened and she strode quickly to Mitch.e.l.l, driving her ngers into Mitch.e.l.l'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 Mitch.e.l.l's cheek.

"Except I'm not doing any business anymore. And that's because of you."

Mitch.e.l.l 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 Mitch.e.l.l pulled her down into her lap. Rather, she threaded her arms around Mitch.e.l.l's neck and rested her head against the curve of Mitch.e.l.l's shoulder. "I got so I didn't want anyone near me except you."

"Oh man," Mitch.e.l.l 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.

Mitch.e.l.l shook her head, the ngers 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 Mitch.e.l.l's face. "What are you talking about, rookie? You're sounding a little crazy."

"I am crazy. Totally." Mitch.e.l.l'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 f.u.c.king way I'm living in that fancy place you've got. I probably wouldn't even pa.s.s the security check."

"f.u.c.k their security checks," Mitch.e.l.l spat. "If that's where we * 195 *

RADCLY fFE 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 ngertip 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 Mitch.e.l.l's nger with the tip of her tongue, then nipped at it with her teeth.

"Yeah, I know." Mitch.e.l.l eased her nger between Sandy's lips and into her mouth, closing her eyes partway as Sandy sucked on it.

"But you will."

* 196 *

Justice Served

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

Sat.u.r.day 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 ngers around it. She cupped the back of Rebecca's head in her palm and thrust her c.l.i.toris hard against Rebecca's mouth. In her mind, she was screaming, but only the barest groan escaped. Flames licked her skin and she ushed 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 ooding the plains of her body, rolling through the elds 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 rst full breath in what felt like eons and expelled it on a long sigh.

"Oh my G.o.d. 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 o.r.g.a.s.m, induced by a few swift tugs on her tumescent esh when she felt Catherine approaching climax. "f.u.c.king phone."

"Oh no," Catherine protested, running her hand down the center of Rebecca's bare back.

"Yeah. Frye."

* 197 *

RADCLY fFE 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 uid motion. The muscles beneath Catherine's ngers 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 erce 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 fteen minutes."

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

"Sandy's missing."

v Rebecca drove with one hand on the wheel, the other on her cell phone. Beside her, Mitch.e.l.l sat rigid, her back so stiff it did not touch the seat. Her feet were planted at on the oor, palms pressed to her thighs. Her splayed ngers were white.

"What exactly did she say when she left?" Rebecca asked.

"She'd set up a phone meet with Trudy. It was the rst time they'd connected since the bust." Mitch.e.l.l'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.

"Mitch.e.l.l?"

"I don't know."

* 198 *

Justice Served Rebecca slammed on the brakes, downshifted hard, and swerved to the curb. In the same motion, she turned in the seat and grabbed Mitch.e.l.l's shoulder, forcing the younger woman to look at her. "She's out there, and we're going to nd her. That's what we do. If anyone's hurt her, we'll take care of it. Now get your f.u.c.king head together, because I need you. And so does she."

Mitch.e.l.l blinked. The ngers 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, Mitch.e.l.l. She's your girl. You know her. Someplace she trusts. Somewhere safe."

"Chen's. That's where we used to meet, back when we rst started...going out." Mitch.e.l.l 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 Sat.u.r.day-morning streets.

v "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 Mitch.e.l.l growing restless beside her, but she kept her own posture and expression relaxed. 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 * 199 *

RADCLY fFE strangely right about that time-say, leaving without nishing 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?" Mitch.e.l.l asked calmly.

"Just after two, I think."

Mitch.e.l.l'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 re 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." Mitch.e.l.l 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 de ne Mitch.e.l.l's future.

Mitch.e.l.l took a deep breath and thought back to the months and years of training that had been part of a career she had tried hard to forget. This was the war and these streets the battle eld that she had spent a lifetime preparing for. Her mission was now, and nothing would * 200 *

Justice Served ever matter more. The roaring in her head grew still. Her heart rate slowed, her vision cleared. The faint trembling in her hands dissipated.

She turned and met her lieutenant's eyes. "Yes, ma'am. I'm ne."

"Good. You approach from the north, and I'll come in from the south. We'll check the alley directly behind Chen's rst, and if there's nothing there, we'll follow their most likely path."

"Understood."

Five minutes later they met again beside the unmarked brown metal door that was only identi able as Chen's service entrance by the crates of moldering vegetable remains stacked by the nearby dumpster.

"Nothing," Rebecca said atly. "Where would they likely head for?"

"Jesus," Mitch.e.l.l muttered, rubbing her face. "If they were done talking, Sandy would either check out the strip or come home."

"If she thought they were being followed, she'd want to shake him pretty fast," Rebecca mused. She turned, orienting herself in the narrow, dank alley, trying to put herself in the place of two frightened girls. "At 2:30 in the morning, the only activity around here is on South Street. It's the only place they might be able to blend in with other people on the street." She pointed west. "And if they were trying to make it to the strip, they'd go that way. I'll take this direction, you head toward the river. Just in case I'm wrong."

"What about backup?" Mitch.e.l.l asked.

"No point yet. You have your cell?"