Tandem Unit Read online

  “I just got in last night and the Times sent me to cover the sentencing. I didn't know about the security checks,” she babbled, feeling like a total idiot.

  “Hey, take it easy, baby,” Blakely said. Taking her elbow he turned towards the guard and said, “It's all right, Charlie. The lady's with me—I'll vouch for her.”

  “You say so, it's good enough for me, Detective,” the guard said promptly. He shoved the pile of clothes she'd laid on his desk at Sadie who hurriedly began putting them on again. “She was holdin' up the line anyway,” he added, beckoning for the next person to move forward.

  “It's … it's so good to see you again,” Sadie panted, hopping on one foot as she tried to replace her high-heeled shoes. Blakely obligingly slowed down and let her hold on to his elbow to perform this operation.

  “Yeah, 'M glad I ran into you, kid. Holt and me figured we'd never hear from you again.”

  “Well all you had to do was pick up the vid-screen and call,” Sadie said indignantly, hobbling in the uncomfortable heels as fast as she could down the marble hallway after him as he resumed walking.

  Blakely gave her a piercing glance out of his deep blue eyes.

  “We figured you didn't want to hear from us or you woulda called,” he said quietly. “We've both been missin' you, Sadie. Missin' you a lot. Heard you got nominated for a S.

  P. Good work,” he added quickly, not giving her time to remark on his last words.

  But Sadie thought she felt a faint tickle of some emotion—sorrow, loss, hope?—in the back of her brain. Could it be that the bond wasn't completely gone after all? She supposed she would know for sure when she saw Holt.

  Oh boy, here we go again, she thought. But strangely, the idea didn't upset her the way she would have expected it to.

  “I'm working for the Times now.” She smiled up at him a little shyly. “They called and offered me a job as correspondent after I got the nomination. I, uh, I never expected to run into you or Holt in the line of duty though. Where is he, anyway?”

  “Saving me a seat. It's packed in there,” Blakely said. “C'mon, let's see if we can squeeze you in.”

  Squeeze was the right word, Sadie thought, when they got settled in the long, bench-like seats that lined the courtroom. She was lucky to have run into Blakely, she thought, because there was no way she could've gotten such a good seat otherwise. People were actually standing three deep along the walls, craning their necks to see the front of the room whereas she and Blakely and Holt were in the second row of seats with a clear view of everything.

  Holt had greeted her with more reservation but no less warmth than his partner and now she sat jammed between the two of them, her heart pounding and her breath coming faster than normal, trying to ignore the emotions she felt from both men and take notes on the court proceedings. The bond was still there all right; it was amazing how it had come to life as soon as she was sandwiched between the two of them again. It had flared like a smoldering ember that had been suddenly dowsed with lighter fluid, seemingly stronger than ever and apparently ready to pick up exactly where they had all left off.

  Sadie wasn't sure how she felt about that. Being between them reminded her of how much she had missed them both, missed the closeness they had shared. The warm golden current that was currently buzzing through her nerve endings like a low-level electrical charge made her feel mildly drugged with her body's need for physical contact. How long since she had been touched? Since she had made love to anyone? Not since the night they had healed her for the last time. Sadie tried hard not to think about it.

  But she was wary of letting herself be sucked back into the seductively sexual relationship they had been involved in before she went back to Io. Also, she wondered at the way her body was reacting so strongly to the proximity of both men. It was like she had been starving for the last six months and suddenly someone had sat her down at an all you can eat buffet and told her to dig in. Was she actually somehow physically addicted to them? Surely not … she crossed her legs uneasily, pressing her thighs together and trying to ignore the wet heat she felt building between them.

  Sadie tried to keep her mind on the trial and wondered what Blakely and Holt thought. They kept exchanging those little half-glances over her head that spoke volumes without saying a word. She felt hope and need from both of them although the hope was considerably stronger from the optimistic Blakely and fainter from Holt. If only she'd had a little more time to orient herself here in NNYC before she'd run into them! She was lonely and alone, a small-colony girl lost in the big city and it made her feel vulnerable and needy. It didn't help any that she felt Holt and Blakely wanting to hold her close between them and ease her pain either. It would be so easy to let them … too easy, she thought warily, resisting an urge to squirm like a kid in her seat. Goddess, she could barely breathe.

  The proceedings went fairly quickly, or at least Sadie supposed they were quick. She had never covered a trial before. Van Heusen had already been convicted of numerous crimes including the ownership of illegal flesh tanks and the use of black market brains. He sat on the defendant's side of the room beside a small army of attorneys and legal aids, resplendent in a maroon synthi-silk suit with the huge diamond ring he had been wearing the night they first met him flashing ostentatiously from the thumb of his right hand. Sadie supposed he had decided to go out in style although she thought that flaunting his wealth with the ring and the suit was a bad idea, especially while the jury was settling punitive damages for the colonists who had been wronged.

  “Old bastard isn't givin' an inch,” Blakely whispered low in her ear giving her a little shiver. Sadie nodded, agreeing with him. Van Heusen sat ramrod straight in the high-backed chair as he listened to the judge levy fines in excess of a billion credits to cover the costs of growing new bodies and providing emotional counseling for the colonists whose brains had been stolen. The judge seized all his property in the name of the court and sentenced him to three consecutive life sentences.

  “Guess he should have grown himself a new body while he had the chance,” Holt whispered in her other ear. “Even if it wasn't exactly perfect.” Sadie nodded again, trying to ignore the second little shiver that ran down her spine when his hot breath blew across her ear and concentrate on the proceedings. Van Heusen had ga mbled and lost. There was no way he would be able to fulfill his dream of immortality now. He would die in prison long before he was able to get out and arrange to have a new body grown for him. His fastidiousness and vanity over the latex-like skin texture of a flesh tank-grown body had been his undoing.

  At last it was over and not a minute too soon to suit Sadie. The entire time she'd been sitting between Blakely and Holt she had felt herself becoming more and more aroused until concentrating enough to ta ke notes on the trial became a contest of wills between her conscience and her libido. I have a deadline. I have to pay attention to this! she told herself sternly. But her body was humming so loudly with sexual tension that she could barely hear herself think.

  “…out for a drink?”

  “Huh?” she asked, looking up to see both sets of blue eyes looking at her.

  “I said Holt and me know a great little bar not far from here. How 'bout a drink?” Blakely ran a hand nervously through his dark curls.

  Sadie thought about it—really thought hard. On the surface it sounded harmless but if she went out for a drink with these two now she would, in all probability, wake up in their bed tomorrow once again full of remorse and guilt. She wished she could shake that kind of small-colony thinking right out of her head but she couldn't. Love it or hate it, Goshen and everything she had learned there was part of her. She had come out here to start a new life and that was what she intended to do. Even though you love them? Even though you need them the way they need you? The little voice didn't sound like Gerald or Aunt Minnie or anybody else she knew but it didn't sound like logic either. I have a deadline, Sadie reminded herself. I have a brand new life and I don't want to blow it.