Неизвестный: 6. Justice For All

“Sloan,” Michael chided softly. “You know very well if you’re involved in something I won’t be able to drag you upstairs.”

Laughing, Sloan gunned the Porsche across the lot and out onto the Benjamin Franklin Parkway heading east. “Baby, I want to see you.

And being dragged away sounds like fun.”

“Oh, I’m sure I can think of other fun things too.”

“Can’t wait. See you soon.”

Michael said good-bye and Sloan hung up, just barely managing not to ask again if Michael was sure she was all right. She had argued against her going back to her job so soon, but she understood the need to work. Until she’d fallen in love with Michael, all she’d had was work.

Even now, when the hunt was on, the chase consumed her. Sometimes

• 23 •

RADclY fFe

she couldn’t tell the difference between being the hunter and the hunted and all she could do was keep running through the complex labyrinth of cyberspace until she won or dropped. Only Michael had ever been able to call her back.

v

“Tell them no,” Sandy Sullivan mumbled, wrapping her slim arm around Dellon Mitchell’s narrow waist and tethering her with a leg across the thighs.

“Work, babe,” Dell whispered, trying unsuccessfully to extricate herself from Sandy’s grip. Not that she really wanted to go anywhere.

Sandy might be half her size, but she was curvy in all the right places and her skin was so smooth Dell could lose herself for hours just running her fingertips over every inch. Not that she could really last for hours without doing more than just touch her, but it felt that way sometimes.

The only thing in the world that could get her out of bed with Sandy was a call to arms. The only thing she loved as much as Sandy was being a cop. She was the youngest member of the High Profile Crimes Unit and awakened daily hardly able to believe she was part of the team. She’d do anything to prove herself. “I gotta go, babe.”

“Screw that, Dell. It’s your day off.” Sandy propped her head on her elbow, her short blond hair spiky and her eyes even sharper. “Even cops and whores get a day off.”

“You’re not a whore. You were never a whore.”

Sandy rolled her eyes. “Okay. Even classy streetwalkers like myself get a break once in a while.”

“I had a day off. Well, most of the day. And you kept me busy.”

Dell pushed up against the pillows, brushing strands of dark hair back from her face. Sandy automatically curled up against her chest and Dell stroked her hair. “The lieutenant’s out of the hospital.”

Sandy stopped playing with Dell’s nipple, thank God, and sat up facing Dell. “Frye’s okay?”

“I guess so, or they wouldn’t have let her out. I told you I would have taken you to visit her.” Dell wasn’t crazy about the fact that Sandy was her lieutenant’s confidential informant. In fact, she hated the risk Sandy took every time she went out on the street to gather intel. It only bugged her some that Sandy was a little bit in love with Rebecca Frye.

• 24 •

Justice for All

She trusted the lieutenant. She trusted Sandy. It’s just that she couldn’t imagine measuring up to the lieutenant in anybody’s eyes. Frye was not only good-looking, she was an awesome cop. Dell thought if she turned out to be half as brave and smart at her job as the lieutenant, she’d be satisfied.

“She had enough people hanging around her,” Sandy said dismissively. She ran her finger down the center of Dell’s thigh, smiling when Dell twitched as if an electric current had shot through her. “Sure you have to go?”

Dell grabbed Sandy’s hand. “You know I gotta. And yeah, I’m gonna be thinking about what I’m missing the whole time.”

Sandy kissed her, rubbing her breasts lightly over Dell’s.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Dell grabbed her and flipped her onto her back. Then she settled her hips between Sandy’s legs and gently bit down on her neck.

She could spare ten minutes.

• 25 •

• 26 •

Justice for All

ChAPTER TwO

Rebecca shook Watts’s hand off her elbow as they climbed the few stairs to the alcove at the entrance to Sloan’s building.

“Will you cut that out. I’m fine.” She glared up at the palm-sized surveillance camera tucked into the corner. “Rebecca Frye and William Watts.”

Watts leaned forward so the camera could pick up his face. “You look like shit,” he muttered without moving his lips.

“Thank you. Now that you’ve registered your opinion, stop hovering.”

When the door didn’t automatically click open, she knew they were the first to arrive. A few seconds later a faint beep sounded and she quickly keyed in her security code. The door opened and she stalked into the cavernous ground level with Watts on her heels.

“I was just saying, you—”

“Unless you want to walk up to the third floor,” Rebecca said, punching the button to the elevator, “you should put a sock in it.”

Her voice echoed around the unfinished brick walls. Wood beams extended twenty feet overhead, enclosing the space that housed Sloan’s vehicles and the sophisticated mechanics controlling the building.

Sloan’s security was beyond state of the art and her company’s electronic surveillance center made the NSA look antiquated. With its hi-tech equipment and privacy, her building was the perfect place from which to run the HPCU.

“Man,” Watts muttered, hastily sliding into the elevator, “it was so nice and peaceful the last couple of days. Nobody bitchin’ at me.

Nothing more strenuous to do than fill out a few forms.”

• 27 •

RADclY fFe

“I’ll bet it was great,” Rebecca said as the elevator whisked soundlessly upward. “Bored yet?”

“It was enough to make a man cry.”

Rebecca smiled as she stepped off into Sloan and Jason’s domain.

Two huge U-shaped workstations holding more than a dozen computers faced each other around an open central area. No one was currently at work but data streamed across many of the oversized plasma monitors.

“I’ll be in the conference room. You think you can rustle up some stuff to make coffee?”

Watts frowned. “Is it okay, do you think? I mean, coffee’s like a stimulant, right? Makes your blood pressure go up?”

“Don’t tell me you were listening at the door.” Having Catherine worry about her was bad enough. Appearing weak in front of her colleagues, especially those she commanded, was just adding insult to injury.

Watts held up both hands. “I’m not saying a word.”

“Coffee. Black. Strong. Now, Watts.”

As soon as he headed off to the small kitchen tucked into one corner, Rebecca made her way to the only other enclosed area in the expansive space. The conference room held a massive antique library table surrounded by ten chairs, a counter in the back where a never-empty coffeepot usually sat on a warmer, and one entire wall of monitors. The screens provided views of the streets in front and rear of the building in both directions, the entry alcove, the elevator, and everywhere else in and around the building except Sloan and Michael’s living quarters one floor up. A laptop rested on the table in front of Sloan and Jason’s customary seats. Rebecca eased into a chair in her spot on Sloan’s right, happy to be off her feet. She needed to be able to think, and the less she moved around, the less her head bothered her.

It felt good to be back at work. She’d been part of the special sex crimes unit until her previous partner, Jeff Cruz, was murdered. She’d been in the middle of an intense manhunt for a serial rapist, and between the stress of the case and Jeff’s death, she’d almost come unglued. But she’d met Catherine, and her life had changed in ways she’d never dreamed. Then her captain had assigned her to head the HPCU. She had worked in multijurisdictional task forces before, but not with civilian consultants. She’d resisted at first, even though both Sloan and Jason were highly skilled ex-federal agents. Now she couldn’t envision her