Неизвестный: 6. Justice For All

“I’m clean, too.”

“Even better.” Catherine crossed to Rebecca and kissed her on the cheek. “How are you feeling?”

“Not bad. I don’t suppose you know when I’m getting out of here?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Catherine tried to keep her tone light.

“Since I expected that would be your first question, I made some calls on my way over.”

She appraised the damage to Rebecca’s face. Even though she knew, rationally, that Rebecca would heal, she couldn’t prevent the sinking feeling she got in the pit of her stomach at the sight of the injury.

The bullet had glanced off Rebecca’s skull just above her temple. The impact had been enough to flay open her scalp and give her a hairline fracture, but the neurosurgeons assured Catherine once the concussion resolved there would be no permanent damage. Still, it was impossible to erase the image of Rebecca lying so still and pale on a stretcher, her blond hair matted with congealing blood. Catherine tried to tell herself it was because Rebecca was so skilled, so good at what she did, that she’d managed to avoid serious injury. If she pondered the possibility that it was only luck that had kept the bullet from striking Rebecca a half-inch lower or a half an inch farther to the right and killing her

• 16 •

Justice for All

instantly, she’d never be able to sleep again when Rebecca was out on the streets. Luck was far too fickle a lady to be the guardian of her lover’s life.

“Ali said she’ll stop by as soon as she’s finished in the OR, and if you promise to behave, she’ll let you go.”

“I’ll promise her anything she wants,” Rebecca said.

Catherine raised an eyebrow. “It’s a good thing I trust Ali Torveau, then.”

“You can trust me.” Rebecca slipped her arm around Catherine’s waist and kissed her. When she felt Catherine’s resistance, she loosened her hold and eased back. She looked away, fearing what she might see in Catherine’s eyes. “I should get dressed.”

“Let me get your clothes.”

“I can do it.” Rebecca walked to the tall narrow closet next to the door. “I know you have patients waiting.”

“I want to drive you home.”

“That’s okay,” Rebecca said briskly. “I’ll call one of the team.”

She opened the closet. A shirt and clean pair of jeans hung on hooks where Catherine had placed them when she’d brought them from home. They weren’t officially living together, but they might as well be. Rebecca still had her small, spare apartment above a mom-and-pop grocery store in South Philadelphia, but she spent almost every night in Catherine’s Victorian near University Hospital where Catherine was the assistant chief of psychiatry. They’d been talking about living together, but that was before the shooting—the second time Rebecca had been shot in the line of duty since she and Catherine had been together. She wouldn’t be surprised if Catherine wanted to reconsider. Every other woman Rebecca had ever been with had eventually decided that the demands and risks of her job were too much to deal with.

“You should get back to work,” she told Catherine without turning around.

A pair of hands slid over her shoulders and Catherine leaned ever so gently against her back. With her mouth very close to Rebecca’s ear, she whispered, “I’m not going anywhere and you can’t chase me away.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” Rebecca stared into the closet.

She hadn’t realized she was cold until the heat of Catherine’s body

• 17 •

RADclY fFe

warmed her. She never realized what she needed until Catherine gave it to her without being asked. She covered one of Catherine’s hands.

“I’m sorry.”

“Turn around.”

Slowly, Rebecca turned.

Catherine’s heart clenched at the fear she glimpsed on her lover’s face. Rebecca was the bravest, strongest woman she’d ever known, and she couldn’t bear to think that anything she had said or done might have put that look in Rebecca’s eyes. “Do you love me?”

“More than my life,” Rebecca whispered.

Catherine laced her arms around Rebecca’s neck. “As long as that’s true, I’ll be right here.”

Rebecca clasped Catherine’s waist and kissed her again, and this time nothing stood between them. Immediately, her heart felt lighter.

Catherine was a few inches shorter than her own six feet, and she loved the way Catherine’s body fit against hers. Holding her, knowing Catherine was hers, was like shining a light in the dark places in her soul. “I love you.”

“That’s all I need, Rebecca.” Catherine feathered her fingers through Rebecca’s sleek, fair hair. “It’s really so simple.”

Rebecca leaned her forehead against Catherine’s. “Why can’t I understand that?”

“You will, darling. You—”

The hall door swung open at the same time as a sharp rap sounded, and a brunette in surgical scrubs breezed into the room. Ali Torveau, Rebecca’s trauma surgeon and a good friend to them both, planted her fists on her slim hips and regarded them quizzically.

“Why is it every time I have a cop for a patient I end up finding her in a clinch with some good-looking woman before I even have a chance to sign the discharge papers?”

Catherine slipped out of Rebecca’s arms. “This is not a clinch.

Clinching is for teenagers. What you witnessed is an embrace.”

“Uh-huh. Looked a lot like a clinch to me.” Ali pointed toward the bed. “Rebecca—in bed.”

“I feel fine,” Rebecca protested.

“Down,” Ali repeated with just a hint of a growl.

“Okay. Okay.” Rebecca stretched out on the narrow bed. As soon

• 18 •

Justice for All

as she did she noticed that her headache dialed down a notch or two.

She decided to keep that information to herself.

“Any double vision?” Ali flicked the beam of a penlight back and forth between Rebecca’s eyes.

“No.”

“Headache?”

“No.”

“Let’s try that one again. Headache?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rebecca could see Catherine’s concerned expression. “Mild. Nothing worse than a bad hangover.”

Ali swung her stethoscope from around her neck, hooked it in her ears, and pressed the bell to Rebecca’s chest. “Take a deep breath.

Again. One more time.” Then she straightened and slung the stethoscope over her shoulder. “Fortunately the x-rays don’t show any evidence of sternal or rib fractures. I don’t expect you’ll have the same kind of pulmonary problems you had after the chest wound.”

The last thing Rebecca wanted was Ali reminding Catherine of another brush with death. “Look, this was nothing. I was wearing a vest and it did its job. I got caught with a glancing round. The ER guys should’ve sent me home with a couple of stitches.”

“We all know what happened, darling,” Catherine said quietly.

“And we all know what could have happened. Let’s just—”

Another knock sounded and a slightly overweight, gray-haired man in a brown suit that was shiny at the knees lumbered in. He took in the group and quickly looked at the ceiling. “Is everything covered?

I hope not.”

“You should be so lucky.” Rebecca had never been so happy to see her partner, William Watts. She hadn’t wanted to work with the sometimes crude, reputedly over-the-hill detective after her longtime partner had been executed along with another undercover cop just less than a year before. But her captain had insisted and it hadn’t taken her long to realize that Watts was no burned-out cop putting in time until his pension. He was astute, hardworking in his own laid-back way, and most importantly to Rebecca, completely trustworthy.