Free Shield of Justice by Radclyffe

with short dark hair and a perpetual curl to the end of her surprisingly full mouth. Flanagan didn’t like anyone touching anything in her lab.
    “They’d better not be yours, Frye,” the smaller woman snapped, barely affording the detective a glance. “If you haven’t learned by now not to contaminate a scene, you should be on traffic.”
    “You turn up anything?” Rebecca persisted, ignoring the jibe. Traffic was one step up from the property room in terms of inglorious assignments.
    Flanagan turned and leaned her hips against the counter, shaking her head. “Not much yet. Lots of shoe prints, but without a suspect, they won’t help us. Bike tire treads…ditto. Same with the semen analysis. This one matches the other two, by the way. I
can
tell you it’s the same guy, but without his cooperation, I can’t match it to anyone.” She looked as irritated and frustrated as Rebecca felt.
    “What about the trace evidence from the newest victims, Myers and Ryan?”
    Dee Flanagan raised an eyebrow, studying the tall blond detective. She’d never known Frye to jump to conclusions. “You’re certain the other woman—Ryan—was part of this?”
    Rebecca nodded. “She was there. I think she tangled with him. She saw something, at the very least.”
    “Darla Myers had his semen on her but not much else.” The scientist consulted her notes. “There were a few nylon fibers on her skin that didn’t come from her own clothes. Could have come from him.”
    “Can you match them to anything?”
    Flanagan shrugged. “Generic sports clothing, most likely. No help there. Maybe Maggie will have better luck with the chemical analysis of the material, but I doubt it. I’ll tell you one thing, though,” she added.
    Rebecca’s pulse speeded up. “What?”
    “Darla Myers didn’t put up a fight, if that’s what you were theorizing. No scrapes on her hands, no broken nails, no tissue or fiber
under
her nails, and no evidence that she even tried to block any of the punches to her face. She was beaten after she was unconscious, as near as I can tell.”
    “It fits,” Rebecca said grimly, feeling the rage again and quickly stifling it. “When will you have the rest of it for me?”
    “When it’s done,” Flanagan said curtly.
    “Call me. Any time,” Rebecca replied as she turned to leave.
    Flanagan just grunted, her attention already focused again on the shoe casts she had spread out for sizing.

    *

    Rebecca was almost out the door, finally done for the day, when her pager went off. For a moment she debated not answering it. She was on her way to Catherine’s, and she hadn’t thought of much else for the last hour while she brought her case notes up to date. The memory of Catherine’s face, her voice, the touch of her hand kept drawing her attention away from the task of organizing and filing reports. She wanted to see her more than she had wanted to do anything for a long time.
    Before she could take the final step through the doorway, her pager vibrated again.
Damn.
She turned around and took the front stairs two at a time back up to the third floor. Leaning over the counter at the intake desk, she announced, “Frye here. What’s up?”
    The frazzled dispatcher, sweating profusely in her blue uniform, looked up from the computer console. “Jeff Cruz is not responding to his calls. The captain wants to see you, pronto.”
    Swearing under her breath, Rebecca hurried to the glass enclosed office at the end of the hall and rapped at the door marked “Captain John Henry” in peeling black letters. The black man behind the desk was fiftyish, fit, and big. His iron gray hair was cut short, and his demeanor was blunt and authoritative. The white shirt he wore was stiff with starch, and his tie was tightly knotted, even in the ninety-degree heat.
    “Where’s your partner?” he barked without preamble as Rebecca entered his office.
    “I don’t know,” Rebecca said, surprised by the question and suddenly a little