Justice in the Shadows Read online

  Only blocks away, a black-haired woman with violet eyes sat beside the bed of a still figure in a room illuminated only by the otherworldly glow of medical equipment. With impersonal readouts and muted sounds, those machines monitored the fragile essence of her lover’s life. Hunched forward, elbows on her knees, unaware of the cramps in her shoulders and thighs, J.T. Sloan held Michael Lassiter’s hand tenderly in both of hers. Slowly, carefully, she turned the heavy platinum wedding band on Michael’s finger, the mate to the one on her own, and watched with desperate intensity the pale eyelids below delicate brows for signs of awakening. The nurses had washed the blood from Michael’s rich blond hair, but Sloan could see it still. See it on Michael’s face, in her hair, pooling in the street below her head as she lay so still in the road.

  “Michael,” Sloan whispered, tears streaking her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, baby. So sorry.”

  Catherine had sworn that Michael had opened her eyes for just a second the night before, but she hadn’t awakened since. The doctors told Sloan that Michael had a closed skull fracture along with a serious concussion and that it was difficult to predict when she might regain full consciousness. They said that head injuries were tricky.

  Tricky. Sloan moaned softly, but she didn’t realize it.

  There’s some swelling in the brain. She could wake up in an hour, or a day, or a week. They didn’t say she may never wake up at all, but that was all that Sloan could hear.

  Bowing her head, she brushed Michael’s hand back and forth across her cheek, choking on her fear and her guilt. If I lose you, I’ll die.

  No truth had ever been clearer to her.

  *

  Six a.m. Quitting time.

  The thin blond with the short, spiked hair leaned back in a booth in an all-night diner on the corner of Twelfth and Locust and sighed. All the other girls had gone home, but she’d stayed just a little longer.

  Stupid. She’s not coming.

  It had been a long night and not a particularly profitable one. She could have turned a few more tricks, but she’d turned down most of them. She’d made enough to cover her food for the week doing quick hand jobs in the front seats of the mid-range sedans of the middle-aged suburban husbands who wanted to get off on their way home. But twenty bucks a pop wasn’t enough to make the rent. For that kind of money, she’d need to do more than the hand action and the occasional blowjob in dark alleys. She’d have to fuck for it.

  And she hadn’t been. Not since the night she had seen Anna Marie lying naked on a dirty mattress in a filthy hotel room, looking so frail and helpless. Looking so pathetic, and so very dead. She had gazed at Anna Marie, but she’d seen herself. She wasn’t particularly afraid of dying. There were worse things than that. But she hadn’t run away from one kind of hell just to end up another kind of victim. Sure, she had a place of her own, and she didn’t owe anyone for it. She was a free agent. Dangerous choice to be alone on the streets without a pimp, but she got by. But she was too smart not to know that some night it could be her, and seeing Anna Marie like that had brought it all home. She’d get into the wrong car or walk down the wrong alley, and it would be her, broken and tossed aside.

  It almost had been her, not so long ago, even after she’d quit giving it up on her back in the rooms-by-the-hour over on Thirteenth. He’d said he just wanted a quick toss and he’d give her fifty bucks if she’d jerk him off just the way he asked for it. Like she didn’t always. Jesus. He was clean-cut and well spoken and looked like a lawyer, so when he said he was in a hurry and didn’t need a room, gesturing with his chin toward an alley at the end of the block, she figured he’d come fast. So she said, Sure, come on baby, let me take care of that for you. But when they’d walked so far into the dark narrow space that she couldn’t see the street, he pushed her hard against the jagged brick wall and slid his hand up under her skirt. He grabbed her roughly and unzipped with the other hand, and she knew she was in trouble.

  It all happened so fast.

  She screamed and kicked at his crotch, and he roared and slammed her head into the wall when she tried to run. Then there was a terrible flash of pain in her forehead and blood in her eyes, and he punched her in the stomach and she thought she might die. Then suddenly, he let her go and she slumped down, and through the tears and the blood and the awful pain, she saw—

  “Hey, Sandy.”

  Sandy looked up into Dellon Mitchell’s blue eyes, remembering the fierce look the young cop had had on her face that night. The night she’d stood between Sandy and her assailant.

  “Hi, rookie. You look like shit.”

  “Thanks.” Mitchell managed a smile, but her eyes were dull with fatigue. “You eat already?”

  “Just about to,” Sandy lied, because she wanted an excuse to stay. She’d never seen Mitchell like this, so worn and weary. Supercop wasn’t in uniform, either, but was wearing a dirt-smeared football jersey and jeans. It was scary to see her looking less than spit-and-polish, or less than strong and sturdy. Sandy did a quick eye scan for signs of injury, fearing she’d been hurt somehow. “You buying?”

  “Sure.” Mitchell grinned for real this time. “You order for us, okay?”

  Reassured, Sandy cocked an eyebrow. “What’s with you, anyhow? Something happen?”

  “Just a bad night.”

  “Did you guys go after those Internet pervs?”

  Mitchell nodded.

  “You get ’em?”

  “We got the guy we wanted.” Mitchell’s voice was harsh with anger. “But the fucking feds took him right out from under us. We came away empty.”

  “That sucks, Dell,” Sandy said vehemently. “So you still don’t know where they’re filming the skin flicks or where they’re getting those kids?”

  “Nope.” Mitchell tapped her fork on the tabletop despondently. “And now I’m probably gonna get pulled back to a desk somewhere.”

  “They screwed you over for helping me, didn’t they,” Sandy said quietly. It wasn’t a question.

  Mitchell wanted to object, but the last time she’d tried to soft-pedal the truth with Sandy, she’d almost walked out on her. “I’m in trouble for clubbing the guy with my weapon.”

  “The fucker deserved it.”

  Mitchell met Sandy’s eyes. “Yeah, he did.” And I’d do it again if someone was hurting you.

  “So what now?” Sandy searched Mitchell’s blue eyes, looking for truth and afraid she’d find what she was hoping for. More afraid that she wouldn’t.

  Mitchell’s gaze softened, and she almost reached out to touch her. “We have breakfast, then I walk you home. Sound okay?”

  Sandy’s throat felt oddly tight. “Sure, why not.”

  Forty-five minutes later, they stood in front of a row house south of Bainbridge where Sandy had a small studio apartment.

  “So, I’ll see you later,” Mitchell said, making no move to leave. She leaned against the rickety wood railing on the small stoop while Sandy pulled a key from the impossibly tiny purse that hung on a long chain around her neck. Her scoop-neck cotton top was too thin and too tight, designed to show off her breasts, and Mitchell noticed.

  Sandy looked up and caught Mitchell’s gaze moving over her. Men stared at her body all the time, sometimes with fever in their eyes, and their looks left her cold. The appreciative warmth in Mitchell’s eyes made her blush. “If they’re gonna stick you on a desk somewhere, I guess maybe I won’t be seeing you.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Mitchell shook her head, her stomach suddenly tight. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Sandy didn’t believe her. She shrugged.

  “Anyhow, I think the psychiatrist doing my eval is on my sid—”

  “They’re making you see a shrink?” Sandy’s voice rose in indignation. “Jesus, Dell.”

  “It’s SOP...uh...standard operating procedure in a disciplinary situation.”

  “That blows.” For the first time, Sandy realized just how bad things were for the rookie because of her. Quickly
, unthinkingly, she stepped across the small space and rested her fingers on Mitchell’s cheek. “I’m really sorry.”

  Surprised, Mitchell straightened, her chest unintentionally brushing Sandy’s. “Not your fault. I’d do it again.”

  Sandy’s nipples contracted swiftly at the touch of Mitchell’s shirt against her breasts. Startled, she dropped her hand and backed up, wondering if Mitchell had felt it. “Nobody asked you to.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Mitchell grinned. “I gotta go. I’ll see you.”

  “Whatever,” Sandy replied. But, her body still humming, she remained in the doorway watching until Mitchell was out of sight.

  Chapter Two

  At precisely seven-thirty a.m., Catherine opened her inner office door to the waiting room and motioned for her first patient to enter. She sat down behind her desk, surveyed the young woman sitting opposite her, and frowned. Officer Dellon Mitchell was still in the clothes she had worn the night before during the task force raid.

  “Haven’t you been to bed?”

  “Watts and I had a lot of paperwork to do. By the time we cleaned that up, it was late...early...uh, today already.”

  “We can reschedule if you—”

  “No.” Mitchell made an effort to sit up straighter and tried to clear the cloud of exhaustion from her brain. “I need to get this done. With the task force most likely dead, I’m going to be reassigned.” She grimaced. “And I want to get back to the street. If I have this thing still hanging over my head, they’ll bury me somewhere.”

  “Have you talked to Rebecca?”

  “About what?” Mitchell looked confused.

  “Maybe she can help you with this situation.”

  Mitchell stared at her, then laughed shortly. “It doesn’t work that way, Dr. Rawlings. You don’t take your troubles to anyone, especially not to a detective like Frye.”

  Catherine said nothing, realizing a bit belatedly that she didn’t want the discussion to focus too sharply on Rebecca. She might become distracted by her patient’s impressions of her lover, and what mattered was how Dellon felt—not how she viewed Rebecca.

  “She’s so...she’s what every cop wants to be,” Mitchell continued, following her own thoughts. “Always in control, always in command, always so...on top of the job. She wouldn’t whine to anyone about anything.” She looked at Catherine as if that explained everything.

  Catherine nodded, thinking briefly of how much it cost her lover to maintain that kind of emotional discipline, day after day. Then she brought her mind back to the weary young officer. “Who do you talk to, then?”

  “No one.”

  The words were spoken softly, and for the briefest instant, Mitchell looked away.

  “Someone at home?” At the slight shake of the dark head, Catherine asked gently, “Friends? A lover?”

  Wary, Mitchell hesitated. “Does this have something to do with my evaluation?”

  “No. This just has to do with you.” Catherine smiled, aware of what troubled Dellon. “I’ll dictate that report the moment we’re done and see that it goes to your captain this morning. I’ll tell him what I told you the last time you were here—that your actions were appropriate considering the circumstances.”

  “Then what does the rest of it matter?”

  Catherine leaned forward. “You do a difficult and dangerous job, Officer. Sometimes talking about it can make it easier.”

  A muscle in Mitchell’s jaw twitched, and she clamped her teeth down to stop it. She thought about the late-night conversations beneath dim streetlights and the early-morning breakfasts. She thought about the dark alley and the hulking stranger. Maybe if she hadn’t been so tired—maybe if Catherine’s eyes hadn’t been so kind—she would have kept quiet.

  “I have a friend.”

  Catherine waited.

  “The woman I told you about...the woman who was in the alley that night. We talk sometimes.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Sandy.” Mitchell smiled faintly. “We weren’t going to talk shop, but that’s changed recently.”

  “Because of what happened?”

  Mitchell shook her head. “Before, I think. Just sorta gradually.” Her eyes met Catherine’s. “I met her on the job a while back, and then I’d see her on the streets in my sector. She’s a prostitute.”

  Catherine remembered what Dellon had told her about coming upon the woman being assaulted in the alley. He had one hand around her throat and the other under her skirt. Her thighs were bare, pale, ghostly in the moonlight. I saw her face for the first time then. There was blood on her face...She had been screaming before—shouting, I think—for him to stop. Now she was...whimpering. I was afraid he was going to kill her.

  “That’s a dangerous profession as well.” Catherine’s voice was mild as she watched Dellon’s blue eyes darken and turn inward. It amazed her that Dellon had been as restrained as she had been in subduing the assailant. Her mind skittered to an image of Rebecca confronting the man who had held a gun to Catherine’s head. The calm in her lover’s eyes just before she fired. Forcefully, she pushed the memory away.

  “Dangerous?” Mitchell raked a hand through her hair. “Jesus Christ...” She gave Catherine an apologetic look. “Sorry...yeah, I guess you could say that.”

  “And does that worry you?”

  Mitchell met her gaze. “Yeah.” She paused. “All the time.”

  “Have you told her that?”

  “Hell, no.” Mitchell smiled. “She’d tell me to take a walk and not come back.”

  “She sounds pretty independent,” Catherine observed, noting the tension easing from the tight body and taut features the longer Dellon spoke of her friend. More than friendship?

  “Hard-headed and short-tempered.” Mitchell’s voice had softened. “Almost as bad as a cop.”

  “Almost?”

  Mitchell laughed, freely this time. “I guess she’d argue that.”

  “We’re about out of time, Officer. Do you—”

  “Could you call me Dell?”

  Surprised, Catherine nodded. “Of course. Dell, what are your plans for further sessions?”

  “Do I have to say right now?” She hadn’t wanted to come at first, had only done it because she’d been forced to. Now...

  “Just call and let my secretary Joyce know what you decide.”

  Mitchell stood and held out her hand. “Okay, thanks.” They shook, and she started to turn away, then looked back. “It helps, sometimes. To talk.”

  “Yes.” Catherine’s eyes were gentle. “Come back any time, Dell.”

  *

  Across town, Rebecca walked into the squad room on the third floor of the 18th precinct and threaded her way through the crowded maze of metal desks and haphazardly placed chairs toward her desk in the far left corner. She slowed as she approached, an eyebrow cocked in surprise.

  “Somebody die I don’t know about?”

  William Watts looked up from the Daily News as Rebecca slowly lowered herself into a chair, all the while regarding him curiously.

  “What? Why?”

  Rebecca tilted her chin at him. “The suit.”

  He looked down, then met her gaze blankly. “I got two.”

  “Uh-huh.” She’d never seen him in anything other than a shiny out-of-style brown one that looked as if he’d picked it up at Goodwill. The one he wore currently was still probably a good ten years out of style, but it was clean and pressed. Scary.

  She picked up a stack of folders, glanced at them, and tossed them aside. She wasn’t interested in old cases, or new ones for that matter. She was interested in only two specific unsolved ones—Jeff Cruz’s murder and the attempted murder of J.T. Sloan. They had to be related, because each of them had the smell of an inside job.

  “You gonna talk to the Cap this morning?” Watts asked.

  “About what?”

  “About what?” His face contorted in anger. “About the feds stealing our collar. About somebody leaking the infor
mation that we were going for a bust last night. About someone arranging to take out a member of our task force—the one really critical person—the cybercop?” He lowered his voice. “Don’t let Sloan or McBride know I said that—about them being important. Especially with them being civilians and all.”

  She was silent for a minute, regarding him thoughtfully. She didn’t want another partner. Jeff had been more than that to her; he’d been her friend. Half the time she didn’t even like Watts. Then she stood. “Let’s take a ride.”

  Without a word, he followed her into the hall, down the stairwell, and out into the rear parking lot. The minute he was outside, he lit a cigarette, drawing deeply as he hurried to keep up with Rebecca’s long strides. When they reached her red Corvette, she opened the driver’s door and gave him a look. Sighing, he dropped the half-finished smoke to the asphalt, scuffed it out, and wedged himself into the front seat.

  Rebecca wheeled the car deftly out of the lot and headed for the on-ramp to I-95. A few minutes later, they were rocketing south.

  “Who’d you tell about the plans for the raid?” she asked without preamble.

  “What? Fuck, nobody.” His voice was indignant.

  “That leaves Catherine, Mitchell, Sloan, McBride, or Clark.” She looked at him, her expression remote. “Which one do you figure for the snitch?”

  “Well, we know it ain’t the doc,” he replied immediately. “And McBride and Sloan are way tight, so it wouldn’t be them. The kid? No way would Mitchell talk.” He paused. “That kid’s got stones. For a girl, she ain’t a half-bad cop.”

  Rebecca stared at him until he fidgeted in his seat.

  “Okay. She’s a good cop.” He watched her eyes. They were hard chips of blue-gray stone. “For a man or...woman.”

  She grinned and looked back to the road.

  “Fuck,” he said under his breath. He eased his cramped legs under the low-slung dash. “And I can’t figure Clark for torpedoing the bust. He went to all the trouble to set up this joint task force when he could just as well have done it without us.” He reconsidered. “Well, he could have done it without us, but not as fast. What’s your take?”