Page 16 of Heat of Justice (Duty #3)

‘I never thought I’d feel this way again’.

Kim was buzzing from the gorgeous admission. Personally, all this: her crazy attraction to Cody, even as they had their first and rather tense meeting at the police station; calling her for help in the middle of the night while in the throes of a terrifying vision; taking the first step to kiss her on the beach, then inviting her into her home, and making hot, fierce love to her… All of it, yes, was a total first for her. And she had yet to share her most intimate secret with Cody. As they ate, Kim enjoyed watching her. She loved her frequent smiles, sparkling blue eyes, and that focused, attentive, and warm expression Cody always fixed her with. Her blond hair was still a little wet, alluringly messed up from the shower. The badge and weapon stowed on the kitchen counter only made her more attractive and desirable. The badge struck Kim as a beautiful symbol of Cody’s commitment to a higher cause. And the gun… Well. In the hands of a cop, it was a safe, good thing, indeed.

“Tell me, Detective,” Kim prompted her softly. “Am I still a suspect in your investigation?”

Cody paused to meet her gaze after spearing a last piece of chicken off her plate. Her expression was probing. Her eyes held a hint of surprise.

“I don’t sleep with murder suspects, Counselor.”

“Of course you don’t.” Kim waved a hand in dismissal at her own question. “Sorry. I guess that’s my clumsy way of trying to find out more about the case. Can you talk about it now?”

“It’s okay. Based on evidence, the victim’s husband is our main suspect.”

“Damn. I knew it!” Kim gritted her teeth. “Do you have him in custody?”

“Not yet. He took off.”

“No way!”

As she slapped a hand on the table, a tiny muscle in Cody’s jaw tightened in response, revealing her state of mind about the situation.

“Sadly, yeah,” she said. “But we’ll get him. I’ve canceled his credit cards, put a trace on his vehicle, and issued a state-wide arrest order for him.” She glanced at her watch and nodded. “I have to get back out there soon.”

“You need to sleep.”

“I’m relaxed enough.” Cody smiled again. “You saw to it.” She offered an open hand across the table, and as Kim laid hers into it, laced their fingers together. “It’s pretty remarkable the way your gift led you straight to the body.”

Kim nodded, even as her heart began to race.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Remarkable is a good word for it.”

“There’s more to these visions than you told me before, isn’t there?” Cody prompted gently.

Kim reached for her glass, noting that her right hand shook lightly as she finished the wine. Cody had not touched hers after the first sip, which made sense if she planned to return to work that night. Maybe she’d like a glass of water. Or something more to eat. Dessert, perhaps. Yes. There was ice cream in the freezer. Kim almost asked if she would like a scoop, then noticed what was happening. Drifting… Her mind’s attempt at staying off the painful stuff, she supposed. Focus, she admonished herself. Cody squeezed her fingers.

“Are you okay?” she murmured.

“Yes.” Kim nodded firmly. “Fine. And you’re right; there is more I haven’t said.”

It was time, she decided, to tell her the full truth.

◆◆◆

Quinn stood for a while at the entrance to her building’s private gym, watching her wife kick and punch the living hell out of a training bag. Lia was a swimmer who loved both the fluidity of the sport and the freedom to practice it out in the open ocean. As a teenager on the East Coast, she spent her summers working as a lifeguard. Now, she belonged to Lewiston P.D.’s open-water swim club and specialized in middle-distance events. Though Lia liked to compete, Quinn knew it was the raw and elemental side of the sport that really drew her to it. In the off-season, she had convinced her to start a weight-training program. Lia, naturally gym-phobic to begin with, stuck with it when she noticed that it improved her performance in the water. She was no slouch either when it came to self-defense, but she was not a martial arts practitioner or boxer by choice. The fact that she had decided to hit the gym on her own and was now kicking that bag as if it were a personal enemy of hers for sure got Quinn’s attention. And when the heavy punching bag swung back a little more violently than perhaps expected and almost knocked her down, she wondered how long Lia had been at the exercise. She was covered in sweat and seemed pretty tired too.

“Hello, beautiful,” she said as she stepped forward.

“Hey.” Lia spared her a quick glance. “Not done yet.”

“That’s okay.” Quinn went to stand behind the bag to hold it in place. “Here you go. Now kill it.”

Lia grunted in assent and went on to unleash a fresh series of straight jabs, cross jabs, and sidekicks.

“Harder,” Quinn prompted. “Left, left, right. Kick it. Great! Come on, Lia, all you’ve got.”

Lia redoubled her efforts, punched until it looked like she might fall, then delivered a final searing kick and walked away to collapse on her back in the middle of the mat. Arms spread to the side, tongue out, she lay there with her chest heaving. Quinn stood over her, smiling.

“You are so damn sexy, Ms. Kennedy.”

Lia cracked an eye open and shot her a suspicious stare.

“Must be true love,” she snorted, “if you really think that in the state I’m in.”

With a chuckle, Quinn lowered herself down to kiss her on the lips.

“Correct. You are sexy, and I love you, even when you are all sweaty and in a bad mood. Even,” she added with a grin as she flicked her finger under her armpit, “when you forget to shave.”

“Get off,” Lia instructed. As Quinn moved to a seated position next to her, she straddled her lap, wrapped both arms around her neck, and held her tight. “I love you so damn much,” she gasped in a voice thick with emotion.

Quinn embraced her. She rubbed a soothing hand up and down her back.

“So do I, darling,” she murmured. “I love being married to you. Nothing makes me as happy or matters more to me than you and our relationship.”

Lia pulled back to regard her fiercely, with the same sort of emotion blazing across her eyes. Then she kissed her, deep and hard, just the same.

“Okay, tell me what’s wrong,” Quinn prompted.

“It’s to do with the blogs.”

“The last one was nasty.”

“They all are,” Lia growled.

“Agreed.”

“And now I think I know who is writing them.”

“What? You do?” Quinn blinked in surprise, then promptly narrowed her eyes. “Well. Who?” she grunted.

Lia shook her head. “I need to show you stuff before we get to that.”

“What stuff? Lia—”

“No, really, it won’t make sense just to tell you without the supporting evidence.”

“Huh. Spoken like a real cop, actually.” Quinn liked that. It made her smile. “Or the hardcore investigative reporter that you are, of course.”

“I feel disgusting,” Lia declared. She sniffed her sweaty t-shirt. “Let me take a quick shower first, and then I’ll fill you in properly. Okay? And you can tell me what you think.”

“You could tell me now.”

“No. We can’t cut corners with this.”

“Okay, then. So long as you let me shower with you, I’ll let you keep the suspense going a bit longer.”

“You’re clean as a whistle. And you smell wonderful.”

“Yeah.” Quinn grinned. “So?”

◆◆◆

Twenty minutes later, they settled on the couch in front of her laptop. Every muscle in Lia’s body ached, but she had needed to let off steam after uncovering said evidence. Kicking the shit out of the punching bag felt like a good idea at the time. Quinn’s hand on the back of her neck, stroking gently, was wonderful now. So was the way she had taken care of her in the shower. Another brilliant thing about being married, Lia discovered soon after they got together, was that you always had someone to wash your hair for you if you were too tired to do it yourself. Today, like every time Lia let her do it, Quinn had turned the exercise into a drool-inducing, exquisite massage.

“Thanks for being patient,” Lia told her.

“I never have much of a choice when you’re so stubborn, do I?” Quinn snorted ironically in reply.

“I’m not stubborn,” Lia answered, nicely tongue-in-cheek.

“Of course not. Hey, I won’t argue. I’ve seen how well you can punch, so...”

“Are you joking?”

“No, I mean it. Your technique is very good, even as you were tired.”

“Thank you, babe.” Lia smiled and brushed a light kiss over her lips. Coming from her wife, who was a powerful and skilled fighter, this was a lovely compliment.

“So, what’s going on?” Quinn prompted.

Without further ado, Lia told her about the patterns she had noticed in the blogs. She did it the same way she had explained it to Demi, by highlighting the sentences that were written all in caps, and talking about a signature style.

“Okay. Nice bit of observation.” Quinn stared intently into her eyes. “You know someone who writes like that?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Brooke Oldfield.”

For a moment, Quinn’s face looked blank; then, she frowned in recognition.

“Brooke?” she repeated. “Your ex?”

“Yeah.” Lia nodded with a heavy sigh.

“But I thought you said you were on good terms?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And she’s the one who broke up with you. Right?”

“Right. Yes. That’s correct.”

Lia had met her former partner on a journalistic assignment to Iraq when both were separately granted permission to embed with a troop of soldiers on the ground. Lia as a photographer, Brooke as a writer for the New York Times. It seemed logical to team up for the duration. The two women grew close during the adventure, and it also made sense, upon their return home, for them to move in together. Considered rising stars of the media, they started to travel the world on various assignments. Along with the best jobs, they also received lucrative contracts from major networks. Building a stellar partnership in all aspects of life, really. Until Lia’s father fell seriously ill, and she decided to put him first ahead of her career. Brooke stuck with her for a few challenging months, but then she made her own choice, and the relationship did not survive. Though Lia grieved the loss of her fiancée at the time, she never harbored a grudge. Especially not now that she was married to Quinn. She and Brooke were not meant to be for the long term. She was fine with that.

“This makes no sense, Lia.”

“Don’t you think?”

“No. The blogs are targeting me.”

“But of course, they are!” Lia exclaimed. “Come on, Quinn. Coming at me directly would never be as effective as hurting you! If Brooke is behind this… Goddammit! I will never forget her for the devastated look in your eyes when you first told me you were under investigation.”

Even now, thinking about it made Lia’s blood boil in pure rage. Quinn pulled her gently against her.

“Hey. Please, don’t be upset.”

“I’m not upset. I am pissed off and protective.”

“Okay, yes.” Quinn flashed a bright, warm smile if a touch on the sheepish side. They’d already established she found the protective streak alluring. “Now, listen: lots of people write stuff all in caps to emphasize a point.”

“I know. But this is too much coincidence.”

“Have you heard from Brooke in recent times?”

“No. And that’s strange in itself because she used to send me postcards from exotic locations once or twice a year. But I’ve been so busy… And so happy with you, Quinn, that I have not thought of her in a long time.”

“Are you feeling guilty about that?”

“Well.” Lia sighed again. Her wife knew her so well… “Yes, I am, a little bit. And here’s why.” She clicked on another screen, a Hotmail address. “Not long after I met you, I started drowning in junk emails on this thing. I just assumed the account had been hacked, somehow, and created a new one on Google. I’m pretty sure I gave Brooke the new contact, as well as to other friends of mine, but it seems she didn’t get the message.”

Lia watched Quinn’s expression darken as she scanned the long list of Brooke’s unanswered emails.

“Wow,” she said in a flat voice. “The woman’s been busy, huh?”