Alex handed her the coffee, then eased down on the desk beside her.

“Thanks.” She sipped, winced, and watched a couple of hookers strut out of the holding cells. A tall, bleary-eyed man with a night’s worth of stubble shifted around them and followed a uniform through the door that led down to the cells. Rachel gave a little sigh.

“What’s wrong with us, Alexi?”

He grinned again and slipped an arm around her. “What? Just because we like slogging through the dregs for a living, for little pay and less gratitude? Nothing. Not a thing.”

She chuckled and fueled her system with the motor oil disguised as coffee. “At least you just got a promotion. Detective Stanislaski.”

“Can’t help it if I’m good. You, on the other hand, are spinning your wheels putting criminals back on the streets I’m risking life and limb to keep clean.”

She snorted, scowling at him over the brim of the paper cup. “Most of the people I represent aren’t doing anything more than trying to survive.”

“Sure—by stealing, cheating, and assaulting.”

Her temper began to heat. “I went to court this morning to represent an old man who’d copped some disposable razors. A real desperate case, that one. I guess they should have locked him up and thrown away the key.”

“So it’s okay to steal as long as what you take isn’t particularly valuable?”

“He needed help, not a jail sentence.”

“Like that creep you got off last month who terrorized two old shop keepers, wrecked their store and stole the pitiful six hundred in the till?”

She’d hated that one, truly hated it. But the law was clear, and had been made for a reason. “Look, you guys blew that one. The arresting officer didn’t read him his rights in his native language or arrange for a translator. My client barely understood a dozen words of English.” She shook her head before Alex could jump into one of his more passionate arguments. “I don’t have time to debate the law with you. I need to ask you about Nicholas LeBeck.”

“What about him? You got the report.”

“You were the arresting officer.”

“Yeah—so? I was on my way home, and I happened to see the broken window and the light inside. When I went to investigate, I saw the perpetrator coming through the window carrying a sackful of electronics. I read him his rights and brought him in.”

“What about the others?”

Alex shrugged and finished off the last couple of swallows of Rachel’s coffee. “Nobody around but LeBeck.”

“Come on, Alex, twice as much was taken from the store as what my client allegedly had in his bag.”

“I figure he had help, but I didn’t see anyone else. And your client exercised his right to remain silent. He has a healthy list of priors.”

“Kid stuff.”

Alex sneered. “You could say he didn’t spend his childhood in the Boy Scouts.”

“He’s a Cobra.”

“He had the jacket,” Alex agreed. “And the attitude.”

“He’s a scared kid.”

With a sound of disgust, Alex chucked the empty cup into a wastebasket. “He’s no kid, Rach.”

“I don’t care how old he is, Alex. Right now he’s a scared kid sitting in a cell and trying to pretend he’s tough. It could have been you, or Mikhail—even Tash or me—if it hadn’t been for Mama and Papa.”

“Hell, Rachel.”

“It could have been,” she insisted. “Without the family, without all the hard work and sacrifices, any one of us could have gotten sucked into the streets. You know it.”

He did. Why did she think he’d become a cop? “The point is, we didn’t. It’s a basic matter of what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“Sometimes people make bad choices because there’s no one around to help them make good ones.”

They could have spent hours debating the many shades of justice, but he had to get to work. “You’re too softhearted, Rachel. Just make sure it doesn’t lead to being softheaded. The Cobras are one of the roughest gangs going. Don’t start thinking your client’s a candidate for Boys’ Town.”

Rachel straightened, pleased that her brother remained slouched against the desk. It meant they were eye to eye. “Was he carrying a weapon?”

Alex sighed. “No.”

“Did he resist arrest?”

“No. But that doesn’t change what he was doing, or what he is.”

“It might not change what he was doing—allegedly—but it might very well say something about what he is. Preliminary hearing’s at two.”

“I know.”

She smiled again and kissed him. “See you there.”

“Hey, Rachel.” She turned at the doorway and looked back. “Want to catch a movie tonight?”

“Sure.” She’d made it to the outside in two steps when her name was called again, more formally this time.

“Ms. Stanislaski!”

She paused, flipping her hair back with one hand as she looked over her shoulder. It was the tired-eyed, stubble-faced man she’d noticed before. Hard to miss, she reflected as he hurried toward her. He was over six feet by an inch or so, and his baggy sweatshirt was held up by a pair of broad shoulders. Faded jeans, frayed at the cuffs, white at the stress points, fit well over long legs and narrow hips.

It would have been hard not to miss the anger, too. It radiated from him, and it was reflected in steel-blue eyes set deep in a rough, hollow-cheeked face.

“Rachel Stanislaski?”

“Yes.”

He caught her hand and, in the process of shaking it, dragged her down a couple of steps. He might look lean and mean, Rachel thought, but he had the grip of a bear trap.

“I’m Zackary Muldoon,” he said, as if that explained everything.

Rachel only lifted a brow. He certainly looked fit to spit nails, and after that brief taste of his strength she wouldn’t have put the feat past him. But she wasn’t easily intimidated, particularly when she was standing in an area swarming with cops.

“Can I help you, Mr. Muldoon?”

“I’m counting on it.” He dragged a big hand through a tousled mop of hair as dark as her own. He swore and took her elbow to pull her down the rest of the steps. “What’s it going to take to get him out? And why the hell did he call you and not me? And why in God’s name did you let him sit in a cell all night? What kind of lawyer are you?”