Неизвестный - 3. In Pursuit Of Justice

“Good…don’t stop then…” Rebecca groaned, her knees nearly buckling as pinpoints of pleasure streaked from beneath Catherine’s fingers. Arching her back, she closed her eyes and tried to steady herself with her hands on Catherine’s shoulders. She’d never had a woman take her this way, and she’d never even known before how much she’d wanted it. But she did. The feeling of surrendering to Catherine’s passion was more freeing that anything she had ever experienced.

“Can’t,” Catherine moaned, her head throbbing and her vision nearly gone. Some small working part of her mind reminded her that they were standing in the middle of her living room, and she grasped Rebecca’s hand and pulled her urgently toward the sofa. “Sit down,” she commanded as she yanked down the zipper on Rebecca’s trousers.

The backs of Rebecca’s knees hit the edge of the sofa and she had no choice but to comply, feeling the clothes stripped from her body as she went down. She found herself nearly naked, Catherine in her lap, their mouths dancing over one another’s skin again. When fingers slid between her thighs, all she could do was drop her head against the back of the couch and moan. It had been like this that first night, her need rising so fast she’d never had a chance to contain it, but this time she didn’t resist. She welcomed the fire that burned through her blood, purging the wounds far deeper than flesh. “Please,” she begged.

Catherine slipped to her knees between Rebecca’s legs, and then leaned forward to take her with tender hands and demanding lips. No thought, no insecurity now. This—this splendor, this wonder, this indescribable beauty—this was hers for the taking, and take her she did. With certainty of touch and surety of heart, she lifted her lover on the wings of her own breathless desire to a place beyond knowing.

Rebecca sifted strands of thick auburn hair through her nearly lifeless fingers, unable to muster enough strength to lift her head from the cushions of the couch. Her thighs still trembled, and her stomach rippled with aftershocks. “Catherine?” she asked hoarsely.

“Mm…”

“I’m wasted.”

“Me too.”

“If you help me up, we can probably make it into the bedroom. You must be uncomfortable.” With effort, she slipped her palm beneath Catherine’s chin, raising her lover’s head from where it rested against her own inner thigh, and managed to focus on the deep green eyes. “If you give me a few minutes, I might be able to reciprocate, too.”

“I’m fine.” Catherine smiled. “Making love to you seems to set me off.”

“Still, I have plans for you.” She was tired, and her chest ached, and the lassitude that lingered after her release had nearly lulled her into sleep, but she needed Catherine to know how much she wanted her. She needed to show her, and there wasn’t much time.

“Hold that thought,” Catherine said warmly as she pushed herself upright and extended one hand to Rebecca. “Let’s have dinner first. We both need to eat.”

“All right. Food first, but don’t think I’m forgetting.”

“Oh, believe me, I won’t let you forget.”

As it turned out, time slipped away and it was close to midnight by the time Rebecca had stir fried the vegetables and noodles she’d picked up earlier in the evening, and even later by the time they’d finished eating and piled the dishes into the dishwasher.

“Come on,” Catherine announced, grasping Rebecca’s shirttail and tugging her away from the sink. “Bed. I’m fading and…”

“I need to go out later.”

Catherine stopped moving abruptly, letting the material fall from her fingers. “What?”

Rebecca turned and rested her hips against the counter. She didn’t want to see what was in Catherine’s eyes—she was afraid it would be that combination of hurt and resentment that had so often been in Jill’s—but she forced herself to meet the other woman’s gaze. There were questions in the depths of those green eyes, and confusion, but they hadn’t grown cold. Not yet. Drawing a deep breath, she steeled herself for the pain that was sure to come when Catherine turned from her in anger. “I’ve been away from the job a long time. I need to get a leg up on this new case, and there are some people I need to see.”

Catherine stared at her, struggling to absorb the words and place them into some context she could deal with. There wasn’t any. “Tonight? In the middle of the night—alone?”

It was Rebecca’s turn to be confused. “Catherine, I’m a cop.”

“Of course, I know that, Rebecca,” Catherine snapped, rubbing the bridge of her nose and pacing the length of the kitchen. “I thought this was desk duty. A paper chase.”

“It is—well, it is and it isn’t. It’s a real investigation, and a lot of it will be done through computer searches and whatever the hell else it is that those eggheads are going to do, but there’s real police work to be done, too.”

“What about Watts? I thought he was going to do the street work?” She forced herself to slow down. Screaming would not help, and the very fact that she wanted to scream was upsetting enough.

“He is,” Rebecca affirmed. She took a chance and walked the few feet to her, tentatively taking her hand. The slight contact eased some of the tension in her stomach, although Catherine’s response was guarded. “But he can’t talk to my contacts. It took me years to cultivate them, and they don’t talk to just anyone. I’ll just be talking. I swear.”

Catherine took a step away, but she kept her hand in the detective’s. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier? When you got here—or on the phone when I called you from the car?”

The cop was silent.

“Rebecca?”

“I was…” she ran a hand through her hair, shrugged her tight shoulders. “I thought you’d be angry. I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”

“Angry,” Catherine said softly. “Did you think that I might be worried? That I might be concerned that you’ve barely been out of bed a week and you’re already working fifteen hour days? God, Rebecca—”

She walked over and sat down at the small kitchen table, motioning to the adjoining chair with one hand. “Sit down. You look tired.”

Rebecca sat. “I meant to tell you, but when we got here—”

“I didn’t give you much chance to talk then, did I?” Catherine filled in, a faint smile relaxing her troubled expression.

“I wanted you, too. Badly.” Rebecca took her hand again, and this time Catherine’s fingers laced comfortingly between hers. “When you touch me, everything just…falls into place. Everything makes sense.”

“I know.” She brushed her fingers over the detective’s cheek. “For me, too. Our non-verbal skills are just fine. Outstanding, as a matter of fact. But we need to do a little better on the verbal parts.”

“I’m bad at it,” Rebecca said honestly. “Around my house, the job came first. My father never explained; my mother never complained. But I know there were a lot of nights he never came home. And then—well, then he never came home.”

Catherine’s heart thudded painfully, but she just nodded. Rebecca’s expression was distant, and she doubted that the detective really saw her.

“I grew up with silence. That’s the way most cops are.” The blue eyes she lifted to Catherine’s swirled with anguish. “I’ve never even said these things out loud before.”

“And that’s exactly why I love you,” Catherine whispered. “Because you’re saying them now.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IN THE HOURS after midnight, the streets in Catherine’s sedate neighborhood were eerily quiet, but as Rebecca approached the Tenderloin in the heart of the downtown area, foot and vehicular activity picked up. Here on the neon-lit sidewalks and in innumerable rundown bars, strip joints, and cheap hotels, life teemed with restless energy. She pulled to the curb not far from an all night diner that was a local hangout for the area’s denizens—mostly prostitutes taking a break between johns, panhandlers who had been lucky enough to scrounge the price of a cup of coffee, and bar goers who hadn’t been lucky enough to find company for the late lonely hours. Stepping from the Vette into the night for the first time in nearly two months, Rebecca felt another piece of her life slip back into place. On these streets, she knew exactly who she was, and exactly what was expected of her. A strange comfort, but a familiar one. Her blood hummed with the faint stirring of anticipation that being out here, hunting, always produced. She wasn’t hunting a person, not tonight, but the information she gathered—the odd comment, the offhand observation, the bit of gossip bandied about—might someday lead her to her prey. She’d almost reached the brightly lit spot on the sidewalk in front of the diner when she caught sight of a familiar figure push through the revolving door on the way out. Quickly, she stepped into the darkened overhang of a boarded up video store and waited for the person to pass. She only had a fleeting glimpse of the leather jacketed, blue-jeaned form as the woman strode quickly by, but the sharp, clear features beneath midnight black hair were impossible to mistake. Dellon Mitchell was out very late in a very dicey part of town.

Rebecca decided to wait a few minutes before checking out the diner. The minute she walked in, she’d be obvious to everyone. Those who didn’t know her would still be able to tell she was a cop. Even in jeans and a tee-shirt, a light windbreaker covering her holster, her eyes screamed cop. Usually, she didn’t mind. Visibility could be a form of power, especially if it intimidated informants into to telling her what she needed to know quickly with a minimum of pressure. But she didn’t know who might be inside, and Mitchell’s presence here, for no reason that Rebecca could imagine, worried her. Maybe it was coincidence, but any cop could tell you that there was no such thing. Ignoring the smell of urine and rotting wood, she leaned against the moldy wall of the tiny dank alcove and watched the diner.

She didn’t have to wait long. Less than five minutes later, three young women came out and headed her way, walking close together as they laughed and talked. It didn’t require a detective’s skills to determine their occupation. Their too-short skirts and body-hugging, scooped neck tops, along with too much make-up and cheap accessories, spelled hooker. Rebecca fell into step next to a thin blond with spiked hair who might have been anywhere from twelve to twenty.

“Hiya, Sandy,” she said quietly.

“Christ!” the young woman exclaimed. Glancing quickly at her companions, who were staring at her curiously, she grabbed Rebecca’s arm and pulled her into the shadows under an awning. “Go ahead, you guys. I’ll catch up.” When they’d moved away, she hissed, “Goddamn it, Frye. When are you going to leave me alone?”

“I did. Two whole months.”

“Well, it seems like yesterday. What do you want?”

“Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” Rebecca offered. She knew that being seen with her could be a problem for the young prostitute, although she didn’t care if she ruined her business for the night. She did care if she put her in physical danger. Anyone in that part of town appearing too friendly with the police could make enemies quickly. “I want to catch up on old times. Have you eaten? I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“It’s four a.m.”

“Okay—dinner then.”

Sandy snorted in disgust. “Fine. Chen’s. Come on.”

They moved quickly through back streets that were so narrow they might have been alleys except for the historic townhouses lining them. The residents of Society Hill, as the area was called, issued constant complaints to City Hall regarding the Tenderloin and its undesirable activity. Unfortunately, the seedy par of town bordered some of the most expensive real estate in Center City. Every six months the police swept the area nightly for a week or two trying to reduce the nightlife, but it always returned.