Shield of Justice Read Online Free PDF Page A

Catherine Rawlings. She couldn’t figure out just what it was that made the woman so compelling. Her integrity concerning her patients was unshakable, and Rebecca admired that resolve even though it was making her job more difficult. She was obviously beautiful, intelligent, and compassionate, but it was something deeper that had captured Rebecca’s attention. Catherine Rawlings had, in the course of a few hours, awakened in her some long-buried yearning for the company and solace of a woman.
    Rebecca wondered then if she hadn’t merely imagined the warmth in the doctor’s gaze when she had looked at her. With an irritated shrug, she shook off the memory of Catherine Rawling’s smile.
It’s what she does, you idiot. She’s supposed to make people feel as if they’re supported and really matter.
    She tossed her jacket on a chair and pulled off her shoulder holster, draping it on the back, before stretching out on the worn couch. She rarely slept in her bed; the empty space beside her only made sleep more elusive. What she couldn’t know as she finally closed her eyes was that, across town, Catherine Rawlings turned in her sleep and smiled at the image of a tall, blond woman with lonely eyes.

    *

    It was not yet seven a.m. when Rebecca pulled her red Corvette convertible into the lot behind the Eighteenth Precinct, slotting it in between the police cruisers and vans. She knew Jeff would be upstairs already, typing out their report of last night’s events. She smiled to herself at the thought of Jeff’s face as he labored over the typewriter. She should probably take pity on him because she typed three times faster than he did, but a deal was a deal. As anticipated, she found him hunched over his rickety metal desk in the tiny squad room on the third floor, slowly two-finger typing a report in triplicate.
    “Hi, Reb,” he said without glancing up. “Anything from the shrink?”
    “About what you’d expect,” Rebecca answered, shedding her jacket to the back of her chair. “Nothing yet. Want some more coffee?”
    “Yeah,” he said, looking up long enough to toss her a lecherous grin. “I’m gonna need it. Late night. Shelley was still awake when I got home.”
    “Nice to know someone’s making out,” she grumbled good-naturedly as she headed for the table at the back of the room. She threaded her way between dilapidated chairs and dented desks haphazardly crowded together, nodding to the few people finishing up paperwork from the night shift.
    She and Jeff Cruz were a two-man team within the Vice unit, specializing in one particular area—sex crimes. They pursued their allotment of battered spouses and child abuse call-outs, but, for most of those cases, they assessed the situation and then assigned the follow-up to uniforms or turfed the appropriate ones to the Youth and Family Services division. Their bread and butter was handling bigger, more organized problems—child pornography rings, prostitution as a subsidiary of organized crime, and, like now, the repeat sexual predator.
    She filled two Styrofoam cups to the brim with the evil-looking black liquid that passed as coffee. She carried them at arm’s length back to the desk that faced Jeff’s and pushed a stack of files to one side with her elbow. After settling into her chair, she steeled herself for the first taste of the bitter brew.
    “Ah,” she murmured after her first swallow. “Nectar of the gods.”
    “You must still be asleep if you think that swill is good.” Jeff reached for his own cup without taking his eyes off his typewriter.
    She shrugged and snatched the first page of his report. As usual, it was neat and complete. “You could use the computer, you know,” she remarked. “It would make corrections a lot easier.”
    He favored her with a dour look and said nothing.
    “Nothing new, I take it,” she continued, skimming the brief review of the latest assault.
    “Still waiting on the lab reports, but I figured we could stop