3. In Pursuit Of Justice

“Well,” Rebecca mused, feigning thought, her thumb playing over Catherine’s palm, “I got all spruced up in my best suit and I washed the Vette. I’m trying to impress you with the dinner and the wine.”

She’d missed her that afternoon when she’d opened the door of her apartment to be greeted by the musty scent of abandonment. Out of years of habit, she’d dropped the duffle inside the door and walked directly across the rugless living room to the single window, pushed it up, and leaned out to breathe the aroma of car exhaust and Saturday dinners. Home. As familiar as a favorite bar, and as lonely as the tail end of the night with only a bottle for company. She leaned closer across the table, her gaze claiming Catherine with the intensity of a caress. When she was with her, the places inside that always ached stopped hurting. “I was hoping that you chose that dark green blouse with me in mind, because it reflects in your eyes—like shadows in a forest, calling my…”

“Rebecca,” Catherine murmured, her heart hammering, “we’re in a restaurant.”

Undeterred, she continued in a low, husky tone, “And I’ve been thinking all afternoon about the way my skin burns when…”

“We are going to sit here and consume this very fine food, or Anthony will be so offended he’ll never recover.” Her voice cracked and she had to swallow. She had never been the focus of such undiminished attention in her life. It was a heady feeling and she suddenly understood how people made fools of themselves for love. “Is this how you seduce women?”

“Only you.”

“It’s working.”

“Good.”

Reluctantly, they sat back in their seats, breathing a little erratically, fingertips just barely touching on the fine linen. The first time they’d been to DeCarlo’s they’d just met. They’d been strangers, uncertain, wary, but drawn to one another nevertheless. In the weeks since, they’d shared fear and passion and near death, but, in so many ways, they were strangers still.

“There is something wrong with the appetizers?” Anthony DeCarlo asked anxiously from beside them.

“No,” Catherine answered, smiling quickly at him before glancing back at Rebecca, whose eyes had never left her face. “They’re perfect.”

CHAPTER FOUR

REBECCA ROLLED OVER and opened her eyes. She smiled when she found Catherine, arms wrapped around her pillow, lying close beside her and watching her with a tender expression in her soft green eyes.

“I fell asleep last night, didn’t I?” Rebecca asked.

“Uh huh. Actually, you fell asleep several times last night.” Catherine ran her fingers through Rebecca’s thick, tousled blond hair, finally resting her fingers in the curve of her neck. “Let’s see. First you fell asleep in the car. I was very glad that I didn’t drink more of Anthony’s wonderful champagne, because I wouldn’t have been able to drive us home, and you were literally out on your feet by the time we got to the Vette.”

“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said, completely chagrined. She’d had very different plans for the Saturday evening, none of which had included falling asleep at nine o’clock.

“Don’t be. You obviously needed to rest, and I am very fond of sleeping next to you.”

“Well, I’d like you to be fond of a few other things before the sleeping part,” Rebecca murmured, shifting closer until their bodies touched along their entire length. Instinctively, effortlessly, their limbs entwined and they pressed even nearer until their lips were only a breath apart. “It was supposed to be a hot date, remember?”

“Oh, I remember that very well.” She didn’t seem to have any control over what happened to her body when Rebecca was against her like this. The feel of Rebecca’s skin hot against her own, a heat so much more consuming than any fever, set her blood on fire. It was hard to think, it was hard to remember that she meant to go slowly and carefully this first time. She hadn’t made love to Rebecca in almost two months and her hands were already shaking with the need to touch her. Valiantly, she tried to distract herself with conversation, because she was a heartbeat away from forgetting her good intentions.

“When we got home,” Catherine continued, “you managed to make it up the stairs with just a little help from me, but by the time I had my shoes off, you were asleep again.” She ran her fingers down the center of Rebecca’s chest, pausing to brush her fingertips over a taut pink nipple. The swift intake of breath and automatic surge of Rebecca’s hips were exactly the reward she had been seeking. Moving her lips along the edge of Rebecca’s jaw, she finally reached her ear and whispered, “I had a really good time taking your clothes off, though.”

Rebecca couldn’t help but laugh. “I am thoroughly humiliated. What a putz.”

“Oh, you are so far from that,” Catherine replied, laughing, too.

“Well, I’ve had smoother moments. I guess the workout tired me out a little more than I realized.”

“How are you feeling?” Catherine asked, suddenly serious, her hand stilling on Rebecca’s skin. She’d seen Rebecca work for days at a time with no sleep, but she’d never seen her as physically depleted as she’d been the previous night. Even knowing that it was a perfectly natural occurrence at this stage in her recovery didn’t eliminate the quick rush of fear.

“I’m feeling way better than fine,” Rebecca replied soundly, claiming Catherine’s mouth for a kiss.

“Ah…” she sighed when she could find her voice, “I can tell.”

Rebecca kissed her again, and it was the warmth of her tongue that was Catherine’s undoing, or perhaps it was the way Rebecca pressed her fingers into the shallow depression at the base of her spine, or the way she—

“Rebecca,” she gasped, “I can’t possibly wait another minute.”

“Then don’t.”

Rebecca shifted her weight until they were reclining, Catherine beneath her. Bracing her arms on either side of Catherine’s shoulders, she fit her hips between Catherine’s thighs and rocked into her, the rhythmic pressure making them both hard in a matter of seconds.

Sighing, Catherine ran her hands up and down Rebecca’s back, cupping her buttocks, squeezing the tight muscles as she thrust, forcing them together even harder. Watching Rebecca through eyes dim with need, she found the reflection of her desire mirrored in Rebecca’s intense expression. Even as she felt Rebecca’s strong shoulders and arms beneath her fingers and the insistent pressure of her hips working between her own thighs, she couldn’t help but see the irregular, bright red scars on her chest.

“How do you…feel?” she asked, her words punctuated by short gasps as she found it increasingly harder to catch her breath.

“I’m…perfect,” Rebecca assured her, but all she could really feel was the growing heaviness in her stomach and the slowly rising tension between her legs. Her arms were trembling with the effort of supporting her upper body, but she didn’t care. It had been so long, too long, and she needed this more than she needed air to breathe.

“This is torture,” Catherine gasped, linking her fingers behind Rebecca’s neck and pulling her head down, bruising her mouth with a kiss. Their tongues trysted with the same seeking need as their hips thrust, until the tempo of blood pounding and muscles clenching and lips searching echoed the pulsing beat deep inside. “I need to taste you. It’s been so long. I feel like I’m starving”.

“I won’t last if you do,” Rebecca groaned. It had been a very long time for her too, and she was already crazy to come.

“I don’t care.” Gently but insistently, Catherine placed her palms on Rebecca’s chest and pressed until she relented and rolled over onto her back. Following in one smooth motion, Catherine settled between the taller woman’s thighs, her breasts resting for a moment in the moist heat between Rebecca’s legs. Then she caught the rim of skin edging Rebecca’s navel and tugged it between her teeth, drawing a deep groan from Rebecca that made her head swim. Following the insistent pressure of Rebecca’s palms against her face, she inched lower until her lips brushed the fine hair between Rebecca’s legs. The scent and heat of her was like being welcomed home, and with a grateful sigh, she rested her cheek against the soft smooth skin of her lover’s inner thigh and slowly, reveling in the first sweet taste, took her between her lips. She had intended to go slowly, had meant to savor every sensation, but Rebecca’s sharp cry at the first touch of her mouth and the tightening of the muscles in Rebecca’s thighs told her how very she close was. Suddenly, all Catherine wanted to do was lose herself in Rebecca’s pleasure.

“Oh no,” Rebecca moaned, her voice tight and choked. “You’re going to make me come right away.”

It was enough to make Catherine’s heart shatter. She loved having her like this, feeling the two disparate elements of Rebecca’s being fuse at the moment of final release—strength and surrender, power and need, wariness and trust—all of her trembling, quivering on the edge of dissolving. So, so unbelievably beautiful.

“It’s not enough,” Rebecca whispered hoarsely when her body finally stopped shuddering. “I want you somewhere…somewhere inside…”

“I know.”

The first time had been fast, furious—a wild, frantic reclaiming of body and soul after the threat of separation far greater than time or distance. The next time, and the next, followed on a swell of arousal that was no more possible to quell then it would have been to stop the revolutions of the earth. It was a force beyond volition and just as natural. They’d met in the midst of crisis, and during those few hectic weeks, they’d made love in moments of need, and in moments of gratitude, and in moments of nearly desperate passion. But they’d had very little time for happiness, let alone elation. On this particular Sunday morning in early September, with sunlight painting their skin in shades of gold, they made love for the sheer joy of being alive—and being together.

“Pizza or Chinese?”

“Chinese,” Catherine answered drowsily, trailing her fingers along the crest of Rebecca’s hip. “More green vegetables.”

“Oh yeah. I guess I need to preserve my strength if we’re going to keep this up.” Rebecca shifted, moving the arm which she just realized was numb. In fact, now that she thought about it, a lot of her seemed to be pleasantly enervated. “We are going to keep it up, right?”

“Tell me you still need more.”

“Well, not right this very minute,” Rebecca conceded, wondering if she’d ever walk again, “but soon.”

Catherine leaned up on an elbow, pushing strands of damp hair back from her face, and stared at her. “Are you serious?”

Rebecca grinned. “Okay, maybe not until the morning.”

“Thank god, because I am exhausted.” She settled back in the crook of Rebecca’s arm and drew one leg up over her lover’s thigh. The room was dim, afternoon somehow having slipped into dusk, and the day held that timeless quality that only late Sundays in waning summer could. It reminded her of the naïve innocence of childhood when life seemed to be nothing more than an endless stretch of warm, lazy afternoons. Bicycles and baseball and a favorite book under the shade of a tree—no conception of disappointment or loss. Even then, and certainly never as an adult, could she ever remember having been so satisfied or so completely content. She couldn’t think of a single thing to worry about. Somewhere in the back of her pheromone-saturated mind that fact rang danger bells, but she couldn’t bear to break the spell by probing for the source. “I’d rather be here with you like this than do anything else in the world.”

For a second, Rebecca’s heart stopped, and she could hear the blood stilling in her veins. The idea of being that important to this one incredible, remarkable woman was terrifying and exhilarating and like nothing she’d ever experienced. Nothing in her life had ever struck her with the power of that single sentence, not even getting her shield. Not even the bullet. “Why?” Why me, of all the women you could chose?

“You remind me of what’s important.”

Rebecca turned on her side so she could see Catherine’s eyes. “What things are those?”

“That’s the funny thing about love,” Catherine mused, tracing the side of Rebecca’s neck with the fingers of one hand. “They’re different things for all of us, but being in love makes us feel them just the same.”

“You know what’s really scary?” Rebecca said quietly, wondering if she’d ever be able to take a full breath again. Her chest was so tight, and it had nothing to do with getting shot.

“What?”

“I know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes,” Catherine whispered, her voice thick with so many feelings, and her skin still raw with the aftermath of passion, “I know that you do.”

“How hungry are you?” Rebecca asked, gathering Catherine’s breast into her palm, rolling the nipple under her thumb.

“Starving,” Catherine replied, tilting her head to catch a full lower lip between her teeth. And I never even knew it.

“Are you going to eat that?”

Catherine studied the last shrimp in Szechwan sauce. It looked inviting. “I want it, but I think I’m full.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Rebecca commented as she quickly captured it with her chopsticks. “There’s no time to waste then.”

They were sitting naked on the bed, the Times stacked at the foot and open containers of food, paper plates and napkins between them. It was dark outside Catherine’s bedroom windows, and they’d turned on the shaded bedside reading lamp.

Catherine watched Rebecca deftly manipulating the slim slivers of wood, remembering the way those fingers had felt on her skin. “You’re going in tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Does your Captain know you’re coming?”

“Not yet.” Rebecca’s smile was thin. “He’d probably refuse to see me until after I did the thing with Whitaker.”

“The department psychologist.”

“Uh huh.”

“But you are going to, right?”

“No choice. There’s been a lot of bad press the last few years—reports of excessive use of force, vigilantism, escalating suicide rates among the ranks, and a million other things. So now, anything involving an officer, whether it’s a complaint or an officer-involved shooting or even sometimes just drawing your weapon, can land you in counseling.”

“But with you there’s reason,” Catherine offered gently, knowing that no officer wanted to be reminded of their vulnerability or of the fact that emotions were one thing outside their control.

“Maybe.” The silence grew heavy between them, and finally Rebecca asked, “What is it?”

“I’m worried about you,” Catherine confessed.

“Don’t be. I feel fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Good.” Her fears would make little sense to Rebecca, for whom life was so much more black and white. Cops like her did not fear possibilities, because only the facts mattered. Reality for her detective was defined by events, not eventualities. “Just—be careful.”

What an inadequate request. Don’t get hurt. Don’t get killed. Don’t leave me now, not after touching me like this.

“I’ll do everything by the book. I promise.” She’d seen the uncertainty in Catherine’s eyes, and it killed her to know she’d put it there. She’d keep her word, too. As much as she could, and still do what she had to do.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT HAD BEEN more than two months since Catherine had last watched Rebecca’s transformation from the woman she had held through the night into the cop. Oh, the cop was always there, whether on duty or not—surfacing for an instant in the sharp appraisal of a stranger who approached on the street or evident in the fleeting shadows that marred her clear gaze when some memory momentarily escaped her ironclad control—but never so much as when Detective Sergeant Rebecca Frye began the morning routine of pulling on a crisp, starched shirt and creased tailored trousers, shrugged into the fitted leather shoulder holster, and slid the case that held the gold shield into the breast pocket of her blazer. As she assembled the symbols of her identity, Rebecca’s expression became more remote, her carriage more guarded, and her eyes more distant. It was a frightening thing to witness when what you needed most were the things she hid away.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Rebecca remarked, watching Catherine gather her briefcase, beeper, and cell phone from the small table just inside the front foyer. They’d showered separately, and when she’d joined Catherine in the kitchen, they’d barely had time for a cup of coffee and toast. Nevertheless, there was a discomfiture in Catherine’s face that wasn’t usually there.

“Am I?” Catherine smiled, realizing that she had indeed been preoccupied. “I suppose I am. You would make a good psychiatrist, Detective.”

“And you’re doing that shrink thing again—avoid and divert. Ask a question, change the subject.” Her tone was teasing, but she watched the woman in the understatedly elegant jade suit assiduously. “That’s a cop’s trick.”

They were only two feet apart, but the air between them was thick enough to walk on. It was a distance that if left unbreached would grow, and Rebecca had reached out. Catherine dropped her briefcase and stepped across the gulf, sliding her arms around the tall blond’s waist.

“I’m trying to get used to the fact that things will be different now.”

Rebecca put her hands on Catherine’s hips, under the edge of her jacket, and kissed her softly. A moment later, she said firmly, “No. They won’t.”

“Call me later?”

“Count on it.”

At 7:10 she walked into the squad room and sensed the ever-present knot of uncertainty and unease in her stomach begin to loosen. Everything looked, and smelled, the same. Same shabby mismatched desks fronting each other in randomly placed pairs, same sickly institutional green paint on the walls, same worn gray tiles on the floor. The odor of stale smoke, old coffee grounds, and honest sweat permeated the air. She couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief when she saw that her desk was exactly as she had left it. Her mug was there in the middle of a stained blotter, a pile of dog-eared file folders balanced precariously in one corner, and the phone was angled precisely the way she always placed it when she was working. Even the rumpled hulk of a man seated at the desk opposite hers looked exactly the same. Fiftyish, gray haired and balding, forty pounds over his fighting weight—stereotypical flat foot right out of Ed McBain.

“Is that your only suit, Watts?” she asked as she shed her jacket to the back of her chair.

William Watts looked up at the sound of the deep, cutting voice, his expression impassive but his eyes quick and sharp as they took her in. Thin, still pale, and edgy. Not too bad, considering. He smiled, but it didn’t show on his face. Not much did. “What, did I miss the memo about the dress code?”

“Yeah, the one that recommends the laundry every few months.”

He grunted, watching her slide open the bottom left hand drawer of her desk and place the empty holster carefully inside. She didn’t look right without it, but she still looked damn good to him. He was relieved to find that he could look at her and not see the river of blood spreading over her chest. For a few weeks he’d been afraid he’d never stop seeing it. “How come the Cap didn’t say anything about you coming back?”

“Because he doesn’t know it yet.”

Her smile was thin and there was a new hardness in her eyes. He’d thought her tough before; now she was stone. Maybe that’s what it took to come back after what she’d been through. He didn’t really want to know. “Well, if it will get me off these goddamned cold cases, I’ll go in with you.”

She studied him, a big part of her wanting to dislike him still. Mostly because he was sitting in Jeff’s chair, and Jeff was dead. He had just offered to back her up. He’d done that once before, when it really counted. When it had been the only thing that mattered more to her than the job. When it had been Catherine. “I can handle it.”

“Right,” he replied, reaching for another file on another old case that hadn’t been solved and never would be.