In Pursuit of Justice (9 page)

“Any problems with that?”

“Not a one.”

“Okay. Good.” He leaned back in his chair, seemingly undisturbed by the ominous sounds produced by any movement. “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 in which her father had been killed. 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?”

“No.”

“Dream about it?”

“No.”

“What about this time?”

It had been different this 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. She could see him now as clearly as she had that night. 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, exactly what was coming, as she goaded and taunted him into turning the semiautomatic on her.

“No.”

“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 officer 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 sightline 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. She was not about to say anything that they could use against her, now or the next time something like this happened.

“I’m not inquiring because I’m faulting your procedures, Sergeant,” 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 wrists. He had put his
hands
on her. 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 now, 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.”

At 9:40 p.m., Catherine stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of a building that had once been a gracious Victorian before it 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—didn’t mean to scare you.”

“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 8:30, 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.

“You could have waited inside.”

“I didn’t want to run into a patient. Besides, it’s nice out here.” They began to walk. “Drive you home?”

“Mmm, yes. My car’s in the parking garage. I can leave it if you bring me in tomorrow. Can you stay tonight?” Needing to ask was hard, but this was new territory for both of them. She didn’t want to make assumptions.

“I have to go in early. There’s a meeting in the morning.”

“Ah, so you’ve seen your captain.”
I see you’re already wearing your gun again.
I knew it would be soon, but did it have to be this fast?
Of course, there are some things that you police always do quickly. You work nonstop when a case is new and the blood is still fresh; you interrogate people before the tears have dried and they’re emotionally the most vulnerable; you bury your dead and move on before the ground is cold. You ignore your own pain, at least you try to, until something inside you breaks or turns to stone.

Catherine thought about her new patient, the young officer who was trying so hard not to acknowledge the pain and terror and abandonment she must have felt walking down that dark alley with no one at her back. Her heart twisted, but her voice was steady. “You’re working again, then?”

Rebecca leaned down to unlock the Vette. “Not quite. He put me on a desk. Have you eaten?”

“Uh…lunch.” She was relieved at the idea of a desk assignment and then reminded herself that the reprieve was temporary at best. “Doing what?”

“Feel like Thai?” Rebecca pulled away from the curb and reached for her cell phone at Catherine’s affirming nod. “There’s a menu in the door. Just call out what you want,” she added, punching in numbers from memory. She relayed the order, then drove in silence, watching the traffic, the people on the sidewalks, the city teeming with life.

Catherine rested her hand on Rebecca’s thigh and, when it became apparent that Rebecca wasn’t going to answer, asked again, “What kind of desk assignment?”

“I got a half-assed briefing of sorts this afternoon.” Her jaw tight, Rebecca replayed the conversation with Sloan in her mind. Finally, she continued grimly, “I’m not entirely sure
what
I’m supposed to be doing. I’ll find out in the morning—at
another
briefing. Bare bones—it’s a task force to ferret out the important players in a porn ring. One that uses kids, apparently. There’s some kind of Internet angle and that’s what got the feds involved. I don’t have the details yet. It’s the usual federal need-to-know bullshit, which means that probably no one knows anything.”

“Why a task force?”

“To make the job twice as complicated and three times slower.” Rebecca shrugged. “The feds are involved, but they can’t really operate effectively on a local level—not one-on-one. They’re bureaucrats—they don’t have any street contacts.”

“But you do,” Catherine said slowly.
No wonder she’s not more upset
.

“Yes.” Rebecca smiled for the first time. “I do.”

“How come I get the feeling that this isn’t such a desk job after all?”

Rebecca pulled to the curb and turned in the seat, stretching her arm behind Catherine’s shoulders, her fingertips resting on the bare skin at the base of her neck. “It’s the fastest way for me to get back to work, and the captain didn’t give me much choice. And I
do
know this territory. Four months ago, Jeff and I busted two prostitution houses that were dealing children. We bagged a handful of pushers and pimps, but we knew at the time it was just the tip of the iceberg. We were never able to figure a way inside the network. Everything we tried dried up—nothing but dead ends. Then the Blake thing sidetracked us. Maybe this Internet investigation will give us a break.”

Catherine listened to Rebecca talk about her partner Jeff Cruz as if he were still alive. Of course, he had only been dead a few days before Rebecca herself had been shot, and the two intervening months had an aura of unreality about them. Time and events had been suspended while the detective struggled to survive and then to heal. It was no wonder that Rebecca hadn’t really assimilated the hard truth of his death.
What in God’s name is the police psychologist thinking to let her work?
She’s barely recovered physically, and she hasn’t even
begun
to deal with everything that’s happened emotionally.

“What Internet angle?” Catherine asked, trying unsuccessfully to quell her anger. She couldn’t believe that Rebecca’s superiors didn’t know that this was a tacit approval for her to go back to street duty.

“The feds brought a couple of civilian computer hotshots on board, at least that’s what I think they are. They’re going to try to contact some of these characters on the Internet.”

“Why civilians? That seems unusual.”

“It would be if this was any other kind of case, but we sure don’t have anyone with the technical know-how of these people.” Sloan had shed a little light on the situation, but she knew damn well there was more that the woman hadn’t told her. “Apparently, there are so many problems with hackers on the national level with corporate and even military break-ins that the feds are stretched thin enough to see through in computers crimes investigations. They’re recruiting college kids to fill in the gaps.”

Rebecca pushed open the car door and caught her breath as a sharp twinge knifed down her left arm. “Let me run in and get dinner.” Carefully, she slid the rest of the way out and straightened up. The pain was gone.

Catherine watched her cross the sidewalk, wondering if the detective really thought she hadn’t noticed that quickly suppressed grimace of pain. When Rebecca returned, by unspoken agreement they avoided further talk of her new assignment, letting casual conversation and easy silences dissipate the vestiges of tension.

“I’ll get plates,” Catherine said as she dropped her briefcase by the door, and Rebecca carried the takeout toward the coffee table in front of the sofa. Walking into the kitchen, she called, “Want soda?”

“Just water is fine,” Rebecca answered, settling wearily on the couch. She glanced at her watch, amazed to see that it was only 10:20. Leaning back, she closed her eyes and absently rubbed the ache in her chest.

A minute later, Catherine returned, balancing plates, silverware, and napkins. She stopped a few feet from the sofa and quietly set the items on the table. Carefully, she lifted a light throw she kept on the back of the nearby chair and spread it over the slumbering woman. She could wake her, but Rebecca was already deeply asleep. If she awakened before dawn, she would come to bed. If she didn’t, Catherine would sleep well knowing that for tonight at least, her lover was safe. That thought comforted her, but there was a dull ache of loneliness in her heart as she turned off the light and made her way by the dim light of the moon through the quiet apartment toward the bedroom.

*

Across town, J. T. Sloan leaned against the window’s edge in the large darkened loft, staring into a night only faintly illuminated by the glow from ships moving slowly on the wide expanse of river a few hundred yards below. Off to the left, the huge steel bridge arched over the water, its towering arches outlined with rows of small blue lights. She’d stood in the same spot countless times before, but the melancholy that had once been her companion was gone.

The muted sounds of the elevator ascending in the background brought a smile to her lips. The reason for her present contentment had just arrived. She walked to the long barlike counter that separated the loft living space from a sleek, efficient modern kitchen, turned on a few recessed track lights, and poured from a bottle of Merlot she had opened earlier to allow it to breathe. On her way to the door, she set the wine glasses and a cutting board with crackers and cheese on the low stone coffee table that fronted a leather sofa in the sitting area. She slid the heavy double door back on soundless tracks just as the blond in the hallway outside approached.