Неизвестный - 4. Justice In The Shadows

“Mmm, so’s your skin,” Sandy murmured, licking a circle around the tight navel. Her breasts rested against Mitchell’s fly, and she rubbed them back and forth slowly as she worked her lips over the taut muscles. “You taste good.”

The weight of Sandy’s body pressing into Mitchell’s crotch forced the firm form in her pants harder against her straining flesh. Discomfort became acute stimulation, and her clitoris twitched with warning spasms.

“Wait…wait a second,” Mitchell uttered in desperation, one hand cradling Sandy’s cheek, the other reaching for the fly of her leathers. “Let me get this out of here.”

Sandy grasped her hand and looked up. “Leave it for a little while. It’s sexy.”

Mitchell blushed and met Sandy’s eyes. “It’s not…it won’t work.”

“I don’t need it to work, idiot.” Sandy pulled the T-shirt over Mitchell’s head and reached for the tape holding the ace wrap in place. “I know who you are, Dell.”

Mitchell looked down as Sandy carefully released her breasts, the blond head bent over her naked flesh. With trembling fingers, Mitchell stroked Sandy’s cheek, then ran her thumb over the full pink lips. Sandy bit the tip of her thumb, and her thighs tightened. When Sandy brushed her fingers over Mitchell’s nipples, she tensed and cried out.

Sandy’s breath came faster, her hands shaking as she flattened her palms over the small firm breasts, massaging them gently. Moaning in surprise, she felt herself get wet. She hadn’t really expected that. All night she’d told herself she was just playing with Mitch to get him used to being treated like a guy. But she’d enjoyed it—more than enjoyed it. She hadn’t wanted to admit it, but she’d been hot all night. And she wanted Dell now, wanted her the way she hadn’t thought herself capable of wanting anyone—not this way, not in her body, in her blood. “Oh yeah, you feel so fucking good.”

Through eyes gone dim with arousal, Mitchell watched Sandy suck a hard nipple into her mouth, and the sight and sensation drove her close to the edge. Whimpering faintly, dangling on the brink of exploding, Mitchell turned her head and sought Sandy’s gaze. “Please, Sandy…please.”

“Mmm,” Sandy murmured, leaning close. “You are so sexy when you’re hot, you know that? I wanna keep you this way for a while.”

“I’m gonna die…” Mitchell ached for the feel of skin against her skin, for Sandy’s flesh beneath her hands.

They both jerked as a shrill ring pierced the room. Mitchell stiffened as Sandy cursed.

“Mother fucker.”

“What is it?” Mitchell asked, her stomach so tight with unrequited need she thought she’d be sick.

“My phone.” Sandy’s voice was wild.

“Ignore it, okay.” Mitchell drew Sandy’s hand down to her fly and pressed her fingers to the swelling there. She whimpered; she couldn’t help it. “Please.”

The sound shrilled again.

“No—it’s my phone. Jesus Christ.” Sandy was having trouble thinking clearly. She was so excited her brain was mush. “Frye’s phone. That’s her calling.”

Mitchell went cold.

The phone rang a third time and Sandy lunged for her purse. “Yeah, what?”

“How you doin’, Sandy?”

“Peachy.” Sandy glared at Mitchell who had sat up and was pulling on her T-shirt in quick angry motions.

“Did you get Mitchell squared away?”

“Yeah.” Sandy laughed without humor. Oh yeah, I took care of her all right. Fuck.

“I still need the street Intel on those filmmakers.”

“Okay. When?”

“How about right now.”

Sandy panicked. “You can’t come up here.”

“I wasn’t going to.” A beat of silence. “What’s the matter? You got someone up there with you?”

Oh no, just Dell with a hard-on and pissed as hell. Jesus, she’d probably go for your throat right now. Sandy made a fast decision. “A john.”

“That wasn’t the deal. You work for me, you don’t turn tricks.”

“Look, I’ll meet you right now.”

Another pause. “Okay. Meet me at Woody’s, in the back room.”

Sandy closed the phone and faced Mitchell. “I have to go out.”

“She calls and you jump? She that good?”

“You’re a jerk.” Sandy gathered her small purse and headed for the door.

“Take my jacket.”

Sandy pulled a tiny royal blue satin zip-up top from the coat tree by her door and slipped it on. “Don’t you know by now that they don’t buy what they can’t see?”

Mitchell paled. “Sandy…”

But she was talking to a closed door.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Sandy threaded her way through the crowd clustered around the bar for last call and walked into the dark recesses of the rear. She dropped into the seat across from Frye at a tiny back table. “Funny place for a meeting, unless you’re looking to get laid. You looking for some action? Cause I’m free now, thanks to you.”

Rebecca ignored the taunts. Sandy’s anger was one thing she counted on, and she had a feeling it was a big part of what kept Sandy from being swallowed by the street. “You get rid of your visitor?”

“What do you think? I left him at my place?” Sandy ried not to think about where Mitchell had gone, what she was doing, who she might be with. “You gonna be calling all the time now? It cramps my style.”

“You’re not supposed to have a style any longer, remember?” Every night as she drove the streets, Rebecca watched the young girls sell their bodies to survive, knowing there was nothing she could do to change their fates. She tried, and would probably keep trying—scanning the faces, looking for likenesses to the blurred images on the missing persons bulletins, taking those she could convince to leave the life to shelters or women centers—but it was a never-ending battle doomed to failure. Every day there were more of them. Why Sandy meant more to her that any of the others, she couldn’t say. “I have an investment in you, and I expect you to take care of yourself.”

“I’ve managed just fine so far.”

“Yeah—that new scar on your forehead is proof of that. Someone beat the living hell out of you, didn’t they?”

“It was nothing. I could have handled that even if Dell—” Sandy clamped her jaws shut. Shit!

Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. “What does Mitchell have to do with it?”

“Nothing.”

“Her life is on the line now, Sandy. Don’t fuck with me, I don’t have time.” Rebecca’s tone was harsh, not with anger, but worry. What in hell have I missed?

“A guy was roughing me up. Dell stopped him.”

“Stopped him how?”

“Like cops do—she took the fucker down and arrested him. She got into trouble for it, too—because she pulled her gun and got rough or something.”

And the pieces tumbled into place. Mitchell on suspension. Mitchell undergoing counseling—mandatory in situations like that. Catherine and Mitchell—Catherine who must know all about it. How much hasn’t Catherine told me?

“Okay,” Rebecca said quietly. “So let’s talk business. I need you to find an Asian girl named Lucy.”

“Lucy what?”

“No last name—she’s about sixteen, and she might work for Angel Rivera.”

“Angel’s a mean pimp.” Sandy’s eyes grew hard. “He hooks his girls on smack to keep them working.”

“I know that,” Rebecca said, her anger barely contained. And I’d love to put him away, or kick the crap out of him, but he always manages to slip through some crack in the system. “I tried showing the picture of the girl from the video around Chinatown. I thought maybe she was a runway and someone might know her.” Four hours in and out of every bodega and restaurant in a ten-block area and one slim lead to show for it. “No one knew her, but someone said they thought maybe she was a friend of this Lucy.”