Неизвестный - 5. Justice Served Страница 13

“I’ll see you later,” Rebecca said at last, sweeping her Þ ngertips over Catherine’s cheek.

“Yes.” Catherine kissed her one more time and stepped away. “Be safe, darling.”

v

Mitchell dragged her eyes away from her twin and strode directly to Sandy. In a low voice, her back to Erica, she asked, “You okay?”

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“I guess.” Sandy’s gaze ß ickered from her lover’s face to that of the woman who watched them intently from across the room, her expression devoid of emotion. Except cold calculation. “Jesus, Dell.

What the fuck?”

“I can explain.” A frantic edge of desperation underlay Mitchell’s voice. She caught Sandy’s wrist in her hand, expecting her to pull away, but the ß inch at her touch cut even deeper than withdrawal. “Sandy.

Please. Just give me a chance to Þ nd out what’s going on.”

“That would be good, don’t you think?” Sandy’s voice was ß at, her eyes empty. “I’d sort of like to know that myself.” She couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off the other woman. “Jason must’ve thought she was you, because he keyed the elevator automatically. He was probably so busy with his head up some computer he just glanced at the monitor.”

“She’s my sister . ”

“Well, duh. ” Sandy grabbed Mitchell’s waistband and yanked her a few more steps back until they were almost in the kitchen alcove. In a low voice taut with nerves, she said, “She’s been here almost an hour and hasn’t said word one. Except to ask if OfÞ cer Mitchell resided at this address. Oh, and to introduce herself as Lieutenant Mitchell. Fuck, she’s like a zombie in a slick uniform.”

“That’s her normal attitude.”

“You could’ve warned me she was coming!”

“I didn’t know. ”

“Then how about mentioning a carbon-copy sister running around?”

Sandy glanced at Erica again. “She’s watching me like I’m going to lift your wallet.” She shivered. “God, she looks just like you.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Mitchell said, her voice brittle and tight.

“When she walked in, I thought at Þ rst…” Sandy shook her head.

“I’m glad I kept my clothes on.”

Mitchell laughed quietly, the Þ rst glimmer of hope returning to her heart. Sandy seemed more freaked than pissed. “I’m telling you, I didn’t know she was coming. I don’t know why she’s here. I have to talk to her.”

“Yeah, you do.” Suddenly serious, Sandy extricated her arm from Mitchell’s grip. “I’m gonna take off.”

“No,” Mitchell said, more loudly than she intended.

“Yes, Dell,” Sandy said stifß y. “Whatever’s going on here, it’s…

family stuff.”

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“You’re the only one who matters to me.” There was something verging on panic now in Mitchell’s voice. “Please. Please don’t leave me.”

Sandy’s eyes narrowed as she stared at her lover. “Is she going to do something to you? Hurt you somehow?”

“No,” Mitchell said with a shaky laugh. “No. I just…I just don’t want to lose you.”

“Lose me. Lose me how, Dell?”

Mitchell couldn’t breathe. Sweat trickled from her hair down her neck. Her stomach threatened to heave. “Don’t let them chase you away.”

“Them? Who?”

“The people who say we’re wrong.” Mitchell’s voice was barely a whisper, and her face was ashen. Her eyes, normally so clear, were unfocused, clouded with past torment.

“Dell. ”

Mitchell twitched and blinked. She focused on Sandy’s face, relieved to see the temper in Sandy’s eyes. “Yeah?”

“You know what I said before?” Sandy asked, placing her palm along the edge of Mitchell’s jaw. “About you being pretty smart for a cop?”

“Yeah?” Mitchell trembled, holding her breath.

“I take it back.” Sandy traced her Þ ngers tenderly down Mitchell’s neck and rested her open hand against her chest, caressing her softly.

“I’ll see you later, rookie.”

“Sandy.”

There was an interminable moment of silence, or so it seemed to Mitchell. Please. Please I need you.

“I promise, Dell,” Sandy whispered.

v

Mitchell didn’t move until she heard the faint whisk of the elevator doors open, then close, and the distant whir of the motor taking Sandy away. She waited another twenty seconds, steeling herself, searching for anger to be her strength. Then she turned and faced her twin.

“What are you doing here?”

“Who’s the girl?”

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“I asked you Þ rst.”

“The hospital needed some kind of insurance information, and they didn’t have a current telephone number. At least not one you answered.

Apparently they got your emergency contact information from an old form on Þ le at the police department. It took me a few calls, but I Þ nally got someone who’d said you’d been detailed here recently.” She surveyed the loft. “I take it they didn’t mean here, precisely. Interesting setup.”

Mitchell ignored the unspoken request for an explanation. It wasn’t she who needed to explain. “Why did you come?”

“I’m your sister, Dellon.”

“And that’s supposed to mean something?”

Erica’s eyes, the same deep blue as Mitchell’s, sparked with ire.

“I’m not the one who relinquished my commission. I’m not the one who walked away. I’m not the one who left everything—and everyone—

behind.”

“Like I had some kind of choice?”

“You had a choice. You had a choice before you ever got into bed with—”

“That’s enough.” Mitchell didn’t raise her voice, but it whipped through the air between them like a hand striking ß esh. “You should leave.”

Erica’s body was rigid, her shoulders back, her arms straight at her sides. She looked like a recruiting poster, clear-eyed and righteous with purpose. “Damn you.” Her voice was surprisingly soft, nearly plaintive.

“Do you know how much it hurt me to lose you?”

“I know.” There was no sympathy in Mitchell’s voice, only bitterness. They had shared the same womb, the same birthday, the same hopes and dreams. They’d been closer than lovers. She’d bled from the loss as if from an amputated limb, until her heart had run dry.

“That girl…she can’t be more than sixteen. You can’t seriously be—”

“Leave it alone, Erica.”

“Have you lost your mind, Dellon?” Erica Þ nally broke form and approached Mitchell, stopping a few feet away. They did not touch.

“You threw away one career. Now you’re willing to risk another for someone like that?”

“Someone like that,” Mitchell said very slowly. Her entire body

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Justice Served

quivered; the hairs on her arms stood up from the tension wiring her skin. She was afraid if she moved, she’d burst into ß ames and never be able to contain the rage. “Oh—you mean not shallow and Þ ckle?”

“Robin I could almost understand,” Erica spat, “but her? She’s nothing like…us.”

“No, she’s nothing like us.” Mitchell’s voice was dangerously soft. Her hands cramped from the effort to keep them at her sides. She wanted to break things. “She’s nothing like Robin, either, is she? And we both know how virtuous and honest Robin was.”

“She made the right decision. You should have too.”

Mitchell’s head snapped up and she had to step back, back from the wrath left unrequited for so long. “I chose an honest life.”

“You threw away your life!” Erica laughed, a hollow sound. “God, you always were so damned idealistic.”

Mitchell’s eyes traveled over the pristine uniform, the symbol of all that she had once believed to be good and honorable. She thought about Sandy, a young woman who fought seemingly insurmountable odds just to survive, and who should have been hardened and jaded by the struggle. Sandy’s hands, Sandy’s heart—so tender. She thought of the sweet acceptance she had discovered in Sandy’s arms and met her sister’s furious gaze. “It’s not idealistic when it’s real.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Remembering Sandy’s touch, Mitchell felt an inexplicable calm lick at the ß ames of her fury. “You wouldn’t understand.”

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CHAPTER TWELVE

Dee Flanagan did not look up from her microscope at the sound of approaching footsteps in the empty lab. It was well after hours; even her lover—a senior crime scene investigation technician—

had left for the day. Maggie had gone home to prepare supper, another meal like so many that, more often than not, Dee would miss while caught up in analyzing some tantalizing bit of evidence.

“We’re closed,” the CSI chief growled. “Try back after 7:30

tomorrow morning.”

“Sorry to bother you, Chief,” Sloan said mildly as she slid a single sheet of paper onto the granite counter next to Dee’s right hand. “I just wanted to talk to you about this report.”

Slowly, Dee straightened, granting Sloan a sideways glance. She Þ xed her gaze on Sloan’s chest. “What’s with the shiny new ID?”

Grimacing, Sloan Þ ngered the laminated badge clipped to the pocket of her faded blue work shirt. “Civilian consultant. Pretty special, huh?”

Dee merely grunted. “You know, it took Frye close to ten years before I let her walk around in here unsupervised.”

Sloan rocked casually back and forth on her boot heels, her thumbs hooked over the front pockets of her jeans. She was a few inches taller and a good twenty pounds heavier than Flanagan, but it didn’t feel that way when the wiry CSI chief had her hackles up. “But Frye taught me the rules. Don’t touch anything.”

“Apparently she forgot the one about not interrupting me when I’m processing evidence.” Dee was not smiling.

“Actually, she didn’t. And I wouldn’t have, if I didn’t think this was something you’d be interested in.”

Dee squinted, assessing Sloan, who met her eye to eye. Then she

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nodded once, apparently liking the unß inching determination in Sloan’s expression. “All right. What’s this all about?”

“The results of a tox screen on the body that was tossed in a dumpster behind Methodist Hospital last night.”

Dee’s posture shifted subtly, like a dog on point catching the scent of its prey. “That report isn’t Þ nished yet. I haven’t sent it out.”

Sloan tipped her head toward the page on the counter. “Interesting reading.”

Her gaze still on Sloan, Dee picked up the sheet and quickly scanned it. A muscle along her jaw bunched, and a sound close to a growl reverberated in her chest. When her eyes rose to Sloan’s again, there was a challenge in their blue depths. Most people would have stepped back, but Sloan did not. “Where did you get this?”

“From your computer.”

Automatically, Dee shot a look over her shoulder at her ofÞ ce. The door was closed, just as she had left it. The lights were out. “Want to tell me how you got past me?”

“I didn’t. I got it from a computer upstairs on the third ß oor, through the network.”

“Let’s go talk.” Without waiting for a response, Dee led the way between the lab benches to her ofÞ ce. She opened the door and ß icked on the light, illuminating a small room made even more claustrophobic by the piles of journals, Þ le folders, specimen containers, and evidence bags piled on every available surface. Her desk, an old-fashioned wooden affair covered with scratches and dents, was surprisingly orderly despite the stacks of paperwork. Waving in the direction of a stool, Dee said, “Have a seat. Then explain.”

As she shifted manila folders and a plaster model of a shoeprint from the nearest backless stool, Sloan said, “I have sysop privileges.”

“Meaning you can snoop around.” Dee tilted back in the wooden captain’s chair, her hands hanging loosely over the arms. To a casual observer she would have appeared relaxed, except for the piercing focus in her eyes. It was the calm readiness of a sniper lying utterly still but ready to deliver death in an instant.

“Essentially, yes. I’m familiar with your system, of course, because I worked down here a week or so ago. But then, I was trying to get into the main system. Today, I reversed the process.”

“Why?”

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Sloan shrugged. “Curiosity. Plus, your department is the epicenter of evidence for the entire police department. The autopsy reports, the trace analyses, the tox screens, ballistics—everything the detectives rely upon to make a case passes through here. If I wanted to inß uence the outcome of an investigation, this is where I’d start.”

“And you pilfered that report from my hard drive.”

“I did. Yes.”

Dee didn’t move a muscle, but her voice had dropped dangerously low. “You should’ve asked.”

Sloan’s voice was steady, her expression unperturbed. “I don’t have to. That’s the point. I own the system now.”

The two women stared at one another until, Þ nally, Dee smiled.

“Now I know why you play on Frye’s team. But I’d bet you don’t play unless you want to.”

“Ordinarily, you’d be right.” Sloan lifted a shoulder. “Right now, I’m Frye’s.”

“I’m impressed. So—what’s your point, besides that?”

Sloan grinned. “Can I tell Frye you said that? About being impressed?”

“I’ll deny it.”

“Thought you might.”

“Do I have a problem down here?” The humor had ß ed from Dee’s eyes, leaving them glacially cold.

“You do. Since I was already looking around, I discovered that I’m not the only one who’s accessed your computer with sysop privileges.

Except, of course, that shouldn’t be possible, because until today, the network wasn’t set up to allow that.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning you’ve been hacked. And by someone who’s good at it.” Sloan leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped.

There was an edge of excitement, verging on respect, in her voice. “My guess is someone sent a Phatbot—”

“A factbot?”

“No—Phatbot.” Sloan spelled it, then continued, “a form of Trojan horse—a bit of malicious code that’s tacked onto something that appears harmless. An e-mail, a doc Þ le, an image. The kinds of things that you open and review dozens of times every day.”

“I know what they are—but what exactly do they do? ”

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Sloan raised her hands and let them fall. “Just about anything the intruder wants. If a computer is infected, a remote attacker will have access to all the Þ les and programs. They can copy data, alter data, insert data. Pretty much have the run of the house.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dee said in a strangled whisper.

“When you and I talked about this before, all I could do at the time was patch a quick Þ x onto your system. Beef up your Þ rewalls.

Now, with unrestricted access to the network, I can do something real about it.”

“I need to protect the evidence.” Dee bolted up so quickly that the chair spun back against the wall. “Christ.” She leaned forward on her desk and Þ xed Sloan with a Þ erce stare. “You need to Þ x this now.”