“Is she badly hurt?”

Tory could tell from the tight, flat sound of Kate’s voice just how difficult it had been for her to ask that question. “She’s mostly banged up. I don’t know what’s worse, a nice clean bullet wound or all these damn minor injuries.”

Kate laughed shakily. “You’re starting to sound like a Marine’s wife.”

“Don’t even think it.” Tory bent down and removed a leaf from Reggie’s mouth. “Don’t eat that, sweetie.”

“Do you need me to come and get her?”

“I’ll call you later. I need to go into the clinic, but I don’t want to leave Reese just yet.”

“I know. Jean and I both want to see her, of course, but I think she needs you for a while first.”

Tory watched through the wide glass doors as Bri put her hat on, obviously getting ready to leave. Reese squeezed her arm and said something that made Bri nod seriously. Some order of business, Tory surmised. “I need her for a while, too.”

“When you think of it, tell her we’ll be by later.”

“Thanks, Kate. For understanding.”

“She’s home. That’s enough for us right now.”

“Yes.” Tory smiled as Reese swiveled on the stool and met her eyes. The heat that flooded through her came as a surprise. She hadn’t realized just how cold she’d been. “We’ll see you later.”

When Kate rang off, Tory collected Reggie and went back inside. “Hungry?”

“Some.”

“How about I fix you something to eat, then we all go back to bed.”

Smiling, Reese nodded. “Let me go lock the doors.”

“You ready?” Kevin said, eyeing Carter speculatively. “You still look like shit.”

“Thank you. That makes me feel so much better.” Carter knew just exactly how bad she looked. The stitches Dr. King had put in didn’t show much in her hair, but the bruise had seeped down along her jawline, discoloring the right side of her neck. The purple hues matched the circles under her eyes.

“Don’t smart-mouth Allen,” Kevin warned. “She’s royally pissed at you.”

Carter sighed, thinking not for the first time that she didn’t really care what bug Special Agent Allen had up her ass that morning. She had more important things on her mind. Like whether Enzo had contacted Rica. Or if Rica was still in Provincetown. Or if Rica thought of her at all. “I know how to handle suits like her.”

“Yeah. That’s obvious. You’ve been doing such a good job so far.”

“Listen, Kev,” Carter said seriously. “No matter how this goes, don’t put your ass on the line for me. Not this time. Because…” She shrugged. “It’s just not that important.”

Kevin studied her. “You mean that, don’t you.”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Okay. So let’s go see what the feds want from us.”

Allen was alone. Carter had expected either her immediate superior or a representative from internal affairs to be there, too. Instead, Allen stood by the window in the small, featureless room, her back partially turned to the door. As usual, she wore a dark navy pantsuit and a cream-colored silk blouse. Her blond hair was stylishly but simply cut. Her shoes were expensive but functional. She was pretty, but she worked hard to make sure it didn’t show. Carter looked at Kevin, who shrugged.

“Have a seat, Detective.” Special Agent Allen glanced once at Carter and ignored Kevin. As Carter pulled out a straight-backed chair in front of the rectangular metal table, Allen added smoothly, “Your presence is not required, Detective Shaughnessy.”

“Now wait a minute,” Kevin protested.

“That’s okay, Kevin.” Carter settled into the uncomfortable chair, smothering a wince as a tender spot on her hip connected with the unpadded seat. “Go get coffee or something. I’ll call you when we’re done.”

Kevin hesitated in the doorway, looking back and forth between the two women, his jaws working as if he were chewing glass. Then he muttered something that was just garbled enough to be unintelligible, which was probably wise, because Allen was regarding him as if he were an alien specimen in a zoo.

“Okay. Sure.”

When they were alone, Allen pulled out a chair opposite Carter and sat down. “I’ve been trying to reach you for over three days.”

“I was indisposed.”

“Yes. I can see that.” Allen slid a file folder in front of her, opened it, and extracted a single sheet of paper. “This is your last report. It was filed almost two months ago.”

“I’m not much for forms.”

Allen closed the folder and pushed it away. Then she leaned forward and laced her fingers together on the table top. “Rizzo is getting forgetful. Ever since we picked him up on Sunday he’s become more and more vague about all kinds of information he was very certain about before. He’s not our only informant, but a large part of the case we’re building against Alfonse Pareto hinges on his testimony.”

“He’s probably scared shitless,” Carter said. “He’s been part of that organization for forty years. He knows what happens when someone talks. It’s one thing to have secret meetings with you in a car under a bridge somewhere, feeding you little tidbits to keep himself out of jail and you satisfied. But climbing up into the witness box and ratting out one of the three most powerful organized crime heads east of the Mississippi? Come on.”

“You’re right. Men like him are often unreliable.” Allen shrugged. “Which is why your report is even more critical.”

“I don’t have a whole hell of a lot to report just now, Special Agent.”

“You’ve had several months to get a handle on Ricarda Pareto’s place in all of this. If you can turn her, then…”

“Rica?” Carter laughed. “If she were involved, which I’ve told you she isn’t, there’s no way she would betray her father.”

Allen sat back and said conversationally, “Not even for you? Not even for the woman she’s sleeping with?”

“We’re not sleeping together. And if we were, it wouldn’t matter. Rica isn’t part of it.”

“We have evidence to suggest otherwise.”

Carter shook her head. “What you have is rumor and wishful thinking.”

“Pareto is using the daughter’s gallery in SoHo as a front for money laundering. It’s relatively small scale for him, but significant enough for us to bring her in. They may be moving drugs through there as well.”

“Not Rica.” Carter’s hands fisted beneath the table, but she forced herself to sit calmly. “Whatever you’ve got, Rica isn’t the one behind it.”

“It’s her gallery. That puts her name on the warrant.”

Cold sweat broke out between Carter’s shoulder blades as sick worry churned in her stomach. If Rica were arrested, the press would have a field day. Her picture would be in every tabloid in the country. She’d never have a moment’s peace or privacy again. “You should be looking at Enzo. You said you had him in the surveillance photos going in there, sometimes when Rica wasn’t even there. It’s probably his sideline. Damn it, Allen, you know it isn’t her.”

“Then get her to give up some information. I want her father’s connection at the port. We’re not just talking drugs. We’re talking automobiles, electronics…maybe even girls.”

“If someone’s moving human traffic, it’s not Pareto. Maybe one of his lieutenants has gone independent. Pareto’s old-school. You know that.” Carter stood, too agitated to sit. She paced in the small room, thought of her barren apartment, and yearned for the feel of salt air on her skin and the beach at dawn. “You can’t get to Pareto through Rica, because I don’t think she knows anything. And even if she did, she’ll never turn.”

“A woman will do a lot of things for love. Or what she thinks is love.”

At the unexpected sound of pain in Allen’s voice, Carter halted abruptly. She caught a glimpse of sadness and regret in Allen’s face before her features reformed into her normal professional facade. Briefly, she wondered if Allen had been the one to compromise herself for love, or if the nameless woman had betrayed her. Because it was clear there had been a woman. But knowing that, even feeling sympathy, did not make them allies. Allen was threatening the woman Carter loved. “If you name Rica in this, I’ll go on record against it. She’s innocent.”

“Your convictions aren’t going to mean very much. Especially since you nearly blew months of work by attacking Lorenzo Brassi.”

“I didn’t attack him. I pulled him off a woman he was trying to rape.”

“You don’t know his advances were unwelcome. We have photographic evidence…”

“Fuck your evidence. Rica was a victim.”

“Your judgment leaves something to be desired.”

Carter laughed. “Why don’t you just admit that you were wrong about her. Whatever information you had, whatever you think you saw in those surveillance photos, Rica is not involved with Enzo Brassi. She’s not part of her father’s organization. She’s not responsible for her father’s actions.”

“Well,” Allen said, shrugging as she stood. “I guess we’ll find out just how much she knows when we bring her in.”

“If you can even get a warrant with what little you’ve got, all you’re going to do is tip your hand to Pareto. He’ll know what you know, and then he’ll just cover his tracks. You’re jumping the gun.”

“If we can’t get anything from the daughter, we’ll at least be a step closer to Brassi, and Brassi sits at Pareto’s right hand. One way or the other, we’ll be closer than we are now.”

Carter knew she wasn’t going to be able to reason with Allen, because for whatever reason, Allen was fixated on Rica. Maybe she wanted Rica to be guilty. Maybe on some level she needed Rica to be guilty. Just because Allen was supposedly one of the good guys didn’t mean her motives were pure, or rational. Carter didn’t really care. All she cared about was getting Rica out of Allen’s line of fire. She wasn’t certain quite how she was going to do that, but she knew she had to. An arrest would ruin Rica’s life.

“If there’s something going on at the gallery in New York City, Rica is obviously not involved. She hasn’t been there for weeks.”

“She was there about a month ago.” Allen walked to the door, then paused as if in afterthought. “By the way. Unless you bring me something on Rica, you may find yourself on the bad end of an obstruction of justice charge.”

Carter watched the door swing closed behind Allen. She might have no official role in Rica’s life any longer, but nothing that had happened between the two of them had been about the case. Nothing that mattered. And now, Carter realized, keeping Rica from being destroyed because of her family ties was the only thing she cared about.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“So?” Kevin pounced the minute he saw Carter exit the station’s rear door to the parking lot. “What’s the word?”

“How’d you know I’d come out here?” Carter asked, stalling.

He snorted. “Come on, you and I have been ducking out on meetings this way for the last four years. What did she say? You were in there long enough.”

Carter squinted in the bright noon sun. Her head ached. Her heart ached. “Let’s go for a beer.”

Kevin stopped and stared, his big open face revealing surprise and concern. “Kinda early.”

“It’s either that or a pain pill,” Carter said as she wove her way through the departmental and private vehicles baking on the tarmac. “What would you choose?”

“Good point. The Shamrock?”

Carter nodded, thinking that the dark, dingy hole-in-the-wall bar suited her mood perfectly. Plus, it was a cop bar, but not the kind where whole squads got together to celebrate. It was a place for solitary drinking when the waste and insanity that was a cop’s daily fare got to be too much. No one would bother them, or even notice them. Cops went to the Shamrock to try to forget, not for company.

The couple of men who sat at the bar didn’t look up as they walked in. A woman, blond, thirty, looking as if she hadn’t slept in a week, was slumped over a glass she cradled in both hands in a booth against the wall. She glanced once in their direction and quickly looked away. She was still new enough to be embarrassed at not being able to handle another dead child, another senseless vehicular fatality, another rape. Carter tried to remember how old she’d been when she’d passed from caring to numbness. It’d been a while ago. Before this case. Long before Rica.

“Two beers,” Carter said to the bartender. She handed a longneck to Kevin, and they ambled into the darker recesses at the rear. She slid across the cracked red vinyl seat to the far corner of a booth, turned sideways to rest her sore back against the wall, and stretched her legs out into the aisle. Kevin pulled at his beer, sitting across from her and waiting.

“Allen wants to get a warrant on Rica for whatever’s going down at the gallery,” Carter said at last.