Part 1

Valorie Dawes tiptoed to her roommate’s bedroom door, taking each cautious step as quietly as possible. She could never be sure if Beth had company, or if she’d pulled an all-nighter to study for exams and wanted to sleep all day, or both. Usually, Beth left some sort of signal in their tiny common living space if she didn’t want Val to disturb her before 9:00 a.m. But during finals week, none of the usual rules applied, except one: waking her meant Val would have hell to pay.

She crept closer to the door, grimacing every time the old floorboards creaked, and listened. Nothing. Maybe Beth hadn’t even come home.

Val waited another moment, pressing her ear to the door. A soft buzzing sound seemed to emerge from within. Snoring, or perhaps her morning alarm. Maybe if she brought coffee—

The door swung open, and Val jerked back in a panic. The five-foot seven, pear-shaped figure of her lifelong friend appeared in the darkened doorway, her eyes bleary between tousled locks of brown hair.

“What are you doing there?” Beth asked, striding past her toward the kitchen in a pale-yellow bathrobe. “And please tell me there’s caffeine. I’ve still got to cram for my Business Ethics final today.”

Beth poured coffee into a tall ceramic mug and made a pouty face. “I hate that you’re finishing a semester early. I’ll never find a roommate as good as you.” She searched the fridge and dumped a pint of creamer into her mug. “Oh, thanks for getting groceries. Otherwise we’d have starved today.”

“I’ll be out of here by dinner,” Val said, “once I drop my application in the mail. I was hoping you’d look at it for me...?” She pointed to a stapled set of printouts on the kitchen table. “After you’ve had your coffee, of course.”

“Dammit, Val, this makes me sad. It’s the end of an era.” Beth poured Val a mug of black coffee and they sat opposite each other at the table. They toasted each other with their mugs and took long sips of the tasty brew.

“It’s just a few months,” Val said. “We’ll be roomies again once we’re both back in Clayton. That’s still the plan, right?”

Beth’s gaze floated upward, over Val’s shoulder. “Good morning, gorgeous,” she said.

Val furrowed her eyebrows. What a curious thing to say. She started to reply, but something moved in her peripheral vision. No, not something. Someone. She turned, and the bare, muscular chest of a large, dark-haired man filled her vision. Close to her face. Close enough to smell his cheap cologne.

Cologne that brought her back to the worst day of her life—the day a man towered over her, dominated her, hurt her—

Val leaped out of her chair, hooked her right foot behind the dark-haired man’s left leg, and pushed him to the floor. She stepped over him and spun around, crouched in a jiu jitsu fighter’s stance, fingers curled and ready to strike.

“Val! What the hell?” Beth shouted, jumping to her feet. Her coffee had spilled all over her bathrobe, drenching her and the floor. “Geez, Rick, are you all right?”

Rick, who Val realized was Beth’s latest conquest, picked his tall, muscular frame up off the floor and wiped coffee off of his face. He wore only a set of red boxer shorts and a goofy smile. “I’m fine,” he said, laughing. He glanced at Beth, then nodded to Val. “That’s quite the security team you’ve got there. You must be Valorie.” He opened his arms, reaching out to hug her. Val backed away.

Rick planted a long, wet kiss on Beth’s lips, grinned at Val, and ambled back to the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

“I’ve told you a thousand times, you need to warn me when you have guys over,” Val said. “Where’d you find this one?”

“Never mind. He’s temporary. Now, let me see this application.” She picked up the stapled pages and read while refilling her coffee. Val busied herself with cleaning up the spill.

“It looks great,” Beth said after a minute. “But Val, are you certain you want to do this? I mean, given what you’ve been through...”

“But why Clayton?” Beth sat down again. “With what happened to your uncle there, and to you—”

“That’s why it has to be Clayton,” Val said, tossing the soiled rag into the sink. “No place needs an infusion of justice more than our own hometown.”

“That’s what worries me.” Beth set the application down on the table, careful to avoid the wet spots, and rested her chin on her hands. “It feels like—and please, don’t take this the wrong way—maybe you’re not seeking justice so much as revenge. For your uncle, and the whole Milt incident.”

“Don’t say his name,” Val said, clenching her eyes shut. “And I’m fine. I’ve put all that behind me.”

“Are you sure?” Beth stood and circled the table, placing her hand on Val’s shoulder. “Val, what if your anger over your uncle’s death, and for what Milt did, drives you to...I mean, what if you get into tough situations with bad guys, and, you know...it doesn’t end well. For them, or for you.”

Beth squeezed Val’s shoulders and knelt to put her face level with Val’s. “I’m afraid for what could happen to you.”

“Nothing will happen to me,” Val said in a voice more forceful than she‘d intended. “I’m not out to punish other men for what those scumbags did to my family. I just don’t want other scumbags doing it to other families, and to other thirteen-year-old girls. Or grown women. Or anyone.” She locked eyes with her friend, softening her tone. “I promise. I’ll be safe.”

Beth’s face crumpled into a sad smile. “I know you will.” She gazed into Val’s eyes for another moment, then looked away.

Val sighed. She might never convince her friend of how she felt. What unsettled her was that she hadn’t yet convinced herself yet, either.

Valorie paused outside the open doorway of Lieutenant Laurence Gibson’s cramped office, a shaded-glass enclosure trimmed with dark wood and beige government-issue metal chairs, desk, and filing cabinets. Gibson’s bearlike figure seemed overly large for the room, and his dark brown skin, broad nose, bulbous eyes, and untamed salt-and-pepper hair exaggerated the effect.

Val shut the door. The breeze of its motion caused papers to flutter, pinned to the walls or stuck to the filing cabinets with refrigerator magnets. A quick perusal told her where Gibson preferred to get his coffee, pizza, and sub sandwiches, and, like everyone else in Clayton, Connecticut, he rooted for the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Lieutenant.” Val sat in the worn, thinly padded metal framed guest chair. Gibson’s desk towered in front of her, resting on cylindrical risers to accommodate his massive frame. At five-six, one twenty-five, she felt like a kid in the principal’s office, rather than a 22-year-old who graduated a semester early from the University of Connecticut.

She stood and extended her hand across the lieutenant’s enormous, cluttered desk, raising it uncomfortably high above the coffee cups and pencil holders stacked along its edge.

Gibson remained engrossed in a document pulled from a manila folder. Finally, he noticed her outstretched hand and took it briefly in his.

“Very impressive credentials.” Gibson peered over his pince-nez glasses. “Criminology degree from UConn, graduated cum laude. Outstanding entry exam. Your essay on community policing was first-rate. And you’re a bit of an athlete, aren’t you?”

Val allowed a tiny smile. “I ran track in high school and college. I also played soccer.”

“All-Metro midfielder in high school. Starter on the ACC championship team at UConn. More track ribbons than I could fit in this office. You’ve proved yourself a worthy competitor, Ms. Dawes.” He glanced at her again. “You’re a little small for a cop, but you’ve stayed in good shape. You should have no trouble passing the physical.”

“Thank you, sir.” Val blushed and held her breath. She should say more, but what? She had no idea. She kept her mouth shut.

She nodded. “My...uncle taught me.” Dammit. She hadn’t wanted his name to come up in this interview. But she smiled at the memory. Uncle Val’s gift of firearms training for her tenth birthday had infuriated her parents, but only endeared him to her more.

Gibson set the application down on his desk and removed his glasses. “I’ll come straight to the point. The name Val Dawes carries a certain amount of, shall we say, respect around here.”

Val sat upright and rigid in her chair. “I’m not trading on my uncle’s repu—”

“You’d be crazy not to.” Gibson sat back in his chair. “Valentin Dawes was a good man and a great cop. One of the best. Some of that must have rubbed off on you.”

Val‘s face darkened, and she stared down at her hands. “I want to be considered on my own merits, sir. On my credentials, not his.”

“We wouldn’t have it any other way.” Gibson put his glasses on and picked up her application again. “Your exam was among the best I’ve ever seen. Clearly you’ve prepared for this for some time.”

Gibson’s eyes widened, and he gazed at her a moment. Val sat motionless in her chair, torn between regret over interrupting him and relief over derailing discussion of an emotional subject. Finally, Gibson gave her a closed-mouth smile and a curt nod. Good. He understood.

“As you may know,” he said, “we’re on a push to recruit more women and minority officers.”

She shifted in her chair, and it scraped the floor with a harsh, raspy noise. “I don’t want to be an affirmative-action hire. If I don’t out-compete the men—”

“You do. Don’t worry. That’s not the point.” Gibson pushed his glasses over the bridge of his nose. “Ms. Dawes, we have 335 sworn officers in the Clayton Police Department. Guess how many are female.”

“Ha! I wish.” He exhaled, the wind whistling through his teeth. “Less than thirty. Not percent. Total. That’s even worse than the national average, which is pitiful.” He sighed. “People say that police work is a man’s game, Dawes. It attracts people who are a little more aggressive, controlling, and confident in their physical abilities. More often than not, those people are men. And a lot of men around here want to keep it that way.”

“Do you?” The words escaped before she could stop them. “Um, I mean, do you, sir?”

“If I did, you wouldn’t be here.” He leaned back in his chair. “Unfortunately, the Neanderthals outnumber the ones who agree with me. And they can make life tough on a young woman, even one with your qualifications. But given your uncle’s legacy—well, let’s just say I’m hoping that slows them down a little.”

Gibson smiled. “We’d like you to start at the academy on the first of next month. Can you do that?”

“Very well.” He stood and offered his hand. “Welcome to the Clayton, Connecticut Police Department, Officer Cadet Dawes.”

Val jogged to a stop ten feet from police academy trainer Sergeant Matt McKenzie, a side of beef with a razor-sharp silver crew cut and a jaw like a concrete block. First to finish their three-mile “warm-up run,” she hurried to get ready for whatever drill he planned to push the cadets through next. Sergeant Mack, as he preferred to be called, barked orders like an army drill sergeant, and had no patience for cadets who wasted his precious time.

“Line up, lunkheads,” Mack yelled, clapping his hands above his head. He glared at the twenty-six male cadets from around the state as they trickled in from the running track. “Come on, come on, double time!” He pushed the last few cadets into position with a rough shove around their shoulders. “You guys ought to be ashamed of yourselves, getting beaten that bad by a damned girl!” With that he cast a wicked grin at Val, and not a friendly one. Her cheeks burned, but she’d learned the hard way not to object aloud to Mack.

A lanky cadet with thick brown hair pushed into line next to Val. She sighed. Whenever Ben Peterson came near, things seemed to go wrong for her.

“Way to go, Dawes,” Ben said in a low sneer. “Showing us up again. Can’t you cut us some slack now and again?”

“If that’s request number 206 for a date, the answer is still no,” she murmured.

Mack glared and pointed a thick, gnarly finger at her. “You got something to share with us, Dawes?”

“Then shut your trap.” Mack paced in front of the group. “Gentlemen and ladies—lady—we have a special treat for you today. A guest instructor, here to school you on the finer points of hand-to-hand combat. Sergeant Brenda Petroni of Clayton P.D. Sergeant?”

Val’s breath caught in her throat. After six weeks of men giving her nothing but grief and hostility, seeing a female instructor at the academy—from her own department, no less—seemed too good to be true. She glanced at Petroni, who, like Mack, wore a loose workout uniform and running shoes, despite the chilly morning air. About five-eight, with curly, dark brown hair and a sturdy build, the forty-something woman smiled at the cadets. Compared to Mack, she appeared relaxed, even downright friendly.

“Thanks, Mack. Cadets, I’ve taught you the basics of self-defense, but the rules of engagement out there are changing.” She scanned the group and locked her gaze for a moment on Val. Her eyes sparkled and her smile seemed to sharpen—or did Val imagine that? Petroni gave her a slight nod, then continued. “To demonstrate, may I have a volunteer?”

For a few seconds, no hands rose. Long experience with Mack had ingrained in every cadet a grave fear of volunteering. Too often it involved pain, humiliation, or, at a minimum, extra work. But with Petroni, things might be different. For a woman, anyway. Val raised her hand, and two or three male hands followed.

“You, and you.” She pointed at Val and Ben. Val gazed up at him in surprise. Ben never volunteered for anything.

They stepped forward, one on either side of Petroni. Behind them, Mack emitted a low chuckle. Damn. If he expected to be entertained by this, then volunteering was definitely a mistake.

“Mr. Peterson? Please demonstrate the proper method for restraining this perp, here.” She indicated Val with an open palm and instructed them to face each other. “Ms. Dawes, try to escape your hypothetical crime scene by getting past Peterson.”

Peterson grinned, then crouched. Val feinted left, then lunged right. Ben hooked his elbow and spun behind her, twisted her arm behind her back and forced Val to the ground. A sharp pain streaked up to her shoulder, and she howled. He dug his knee into her side and forced his arm around her neck, choking her.

“All right, let her up,” Petroni said, sounding disgusted. “Okay, guys. What did you see here? Anyone?”

Ben started to help her up, but when Petroni’s gaze turned away, he shoved her back onto the ground. His knee slammed into her upper thigh, pressing all two hundred pounds of his weight onto her. She grunted in pain again.

“You ladies done over there?” Mack said with a growl. Peterson scrambled off her, his face reddening. Val got up and dusted herself off. The other cadets stared at their feet.

Petroni shook her head at Peterson and turned toward the group. “Come on, speak up,” she said. “What’d he do right? What’d he do wrong, according to your training?”

“Well,” drawled a blond-haired cadet off to one side, “he could’ve broken her arm.”

“But he doesn’t know if she’s got a gun, or knife, or what,” said a muscular man with a dark crew cut.

Petroni nodded. “Good observations, everyone. Now, again, but reverse roles. Dawes, use appropriate levels of force.” Their eyes locked, and Val detected a hint of a smile on the older woman’s face.

Peterson faced her, hands out front, as if to grab her. Val got into a defensive crouch, her fingers curled, karate-style. Peterson lunged straight at her, grabbing her, pushing her to his left. She grabbed his upper arm and dropped into a tight roll, pulling Peterson along, using his own momentum against him. He landed on his back with an audible whump, followed by a groan. Val scrambled onto him, pinning both arms with her knees, her forearm pressed hard against his windpipe.

“Whoa!” “Holy cow!” “Did you see that?” Mumbling from the male cadets filled Val’s ears.

“That Peterson’s a pussy,” said someone at the far end of the line. A roar of laughter from the cadets followed.

Val stood and extended a hand to Peterson. Ben shook it off, rolling to his side, lifting himself to his hands and knees on the turf. “Where’d you learn that?” he asked between gasps.

“From my sensei, of course,” she said. “Black belt, jiu jitsu. Perhaps I should have warned you.”

“That would have been nice.” Ben got to his feet and shuffled back into the line of cadets.

“What we’re going to learn today—those of us who don’t know already,” Petroni said with a wink at Val, “is how to restrain a suspect with minimally necessary force, and the guidelines for doing so. Partner up. Try to find someone your own size. Dawes? You stay here with me.” She said in a low voice to Val, “I don’t dare sic you loose on those guys. You could kill one of them.”

“They‘ve tempted me, more than once,” Val said. “I’m sorry for ruining your demonstration, though. I should have taken it easy on him.”

Val shook her head. “Unless you consider constant belittling and having your ass grabbed twice a day ‘taking it easy’.”

“Then don’t you ever take it easy on them,” Petroni said. “They’ll never respect you if you do. And no need to apologize to me. I knew your martial arts abilities going into this drill. That little demo had a purpose. With luck, none of them will ever forget it.”

Petroni smiled. “Me too, Dawes.” She blew into a whistle hanging from a leather string. “Listen up, cadets! It’s time to learn how to defend yourselves out there!”

Two months later, Val stepped off a city bus in downtown Clayton, exchanging the bus’s pungent aromas of stale sweat and diesel exhaust for the muggy heat of a late New England summer afternoon. She hustled across the street and climbed the wide, shallow steps leading to Central Police Headquarters. The aging, six-story block of brick, glass, and concrete looked like it might have been designed, built, and last maintained by Joseph Stalin.

Val pushed through the wide glass entry doors to the public lobby. Twin rows of pink granite pillars, three feet in diameter at the base, rose thirty feet from the white marble floors to the vaulted ceilings. Bronze chandeliers held dim bulbs too high off the ground to provide any real illumination. The air, a good ten or fifteen degrees cooler than outside, gave her goosebumps. “Chicken skin,” as her uncle Val used to say.

She’d arrived a half hour early for her “entry interview,” a series of administrative meetings with Human Resources staff and an evaluation by the department’s psychiatrist. She hoped to finish by five. She and Beth planned to meet for drinks to celebrate the new job and their new shared apartment. But the receptionist delivered bad news: her first appointment would start twenty minutes late.

Too nervous to sit on the uncomfortable benches in the HR office, she toured the building’s impressive lobby, absorbing the department’s public relations efforts on display. Photos of City Council members, the police commission, and the top departmental brass took up most of one wall. Another summarized highlights of the city’s history since its founding in the early 1800s, most of which she’d learned in grade school. A third exhibit, however, brought her browsing to an abrupt halt.

The Wall of Fallen Heroes consisted of photos and news stories commemorating the two dozen or so officers—all men—who’d given their lives in service to the city of Clayton. The first such incident dated back to 1831, taking the life of a 22-year-old—Val’s own age—attempting to halt a bank robbery. Half of the fatal events occurred during the Civil War in efforts to aid the Underground Railroad. A handful had occurred since World War II.

The most recent, though, hit home to Val. The photo depicted a rugged, clean-shaven man with short brown hair. He resembled her older brother, except for his sparkling hazel eyes flecked with gold, like hers. A man she’d loved like a father, and the only man to whom she had entrusted her darkest, most horrible secret.

She ran her fingers over the nameplate under the photo, a lump rising in her throat. She didn’t need to spend time gazing at the giant image. She’d kept a copy of it on her dresser since her ninth birthday. Yet she couldn’t help but read every headline from the many newspaper clippings framing it.

Val’s attempts to read the remaining news articles had to wait, as tears blurred her vision and forced her eyes closed.

Valorie approached the casket, her heart aching. Every step took longer than the one before. She couldn’t see inside the coffin yet. It was open, but elevated on a viewing platform, putting the top edge a few inches higher than her wiry frame. Behind the casket, a photograph of Uncle Val rested on a tall easel, his friendly hazel eyes betraying the stern look he’d adopted for his official departmental head shot.

She had dressed entirely in black, but in slacks and a tight-fitting, short-sleeved top rather than a dress. Her father had argued with her about that, but at thirteen, she could choose her own clothes. Besides, Uncle Val would have wanted her to be comfortable and “ready for anything.” Who could be ready for anything in a dress?

Besides, dresses only attracted the unwelcome attention of creepy old men like “Uncle” Milt, who preyed on innocent young girls. And thanks to Milt, she no longer thought of herself as “innocent.”

She shuddered, pushing the awful memory out of her mind. Or tried to. Something that horrific, she would never forget. But next time, if there ever was a next time, she’d be ready.

Uncle Val had always been ready for anything and everything, until four days before, when a criminal’s bullet cut him down in the line of duty. Forty-five-year-old Detective Valentin Dawes died a hero, not only in her adoring eyes, but in the eyes of the entire city. The long parade of strangers behind her waiting to view her uncle’s open casket proved that.

Taking heavy breaths, she trudged up the dais steps, her eyes cast downward. Valorie wanted to see him all at once, at a moment of her choosing.

She shuffled over to the casket, eyes still on her feet. Another deep breath. Okay. Ready.

She studied his still figure, only visible from the shoulders up, pale and lifeless in the casket. Her first thought—Thank God they hadn’t shot him in the head—made her angry at herself. Then, hot tears flowed down her face. This isn’t Uncle Val, her heart raged. He was always so vivacious, so alive. This is someone else. It’s not real!

She dried her tears with a tissue and stood tall in front of the casket. Uncle Val would not want her to cry. He would want her strong, remembering their special moments together, rather than mourning the ones they would never have. Thinking of the future, not the past. Of what she could become.

Uncle Val, she vowed, I will make you proud of me. I’ll carry on your work, like we talked about. I’m going to be just like you, Uncle Val. Or at least, as good as I can be.

She stiffened her upper lip and tasted the salty tears flowing into the corners of her mouth. She peered at her uncle’s lifeless form one more time, then turned and hurried off the dais.

Dr. Christopher Cyrus, PhD, considered the young female cadet before him. Twenty minutes into the interview and she had said nothing that indicated a lack of fitness for serving as a police officer for the Clayton police department.

But he knew something about this cadet. First off, he knew her uncle and near-namesake, Valentin Dawes. Who didn’t? A local hero, a detective who’d cracked the most famous murder and kidnapping case in local history twenty years before. A man who’d taken three bullets over his career, the last one fatal, each time sacrificing himself for citizens who walked away without a scratch. A man whose funeral drew the attendance of over a thousand people, including Cyrus.

The funeral’s attendees had also included the thirteen-year-old version of the cadet sitting in Cyrus’s office with her hands folded on her lap. He remembered her much-younger face from that day, wet with tears, far more innocent and trusting of the world than the woman who smiled at him now. He sensed the anger inside her, in her terse, barely restrained responses to his questions. Given her family’s history, he could hardly blame her.

But anger, justified or not, was not a quality sought in police cadets, in Clayton or anywhere else.

“Let's explore your past a bit more,” he said, smoothing his salt-and-pepper beard with his fingers. “Specifically, your childhood.” He smiled at her and adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. He coughed into his hand, waiting.

“My...childhood?” She uncrossed her legs and smoothed her wrinkle-free black slacks. “Which part of my childhood?”

He noted the slowing of her enunciation, the way people do when they’re uncomfortable with a topic. “Yes,” he said. “The period from when you were, say, twelve to fifteen.”

She tensed, worry lines crowding her hazel, gold-specked eyes. “Oh, you mean, how have I dealt with the grief from my uncle’s death?” She exhaled, tossed up her hands. “What would you like to know?”

“How do you feel about what happened to your uncle?” He watched her face, her hands. “Was justice served in his case?”

“The murderers were caught, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison,” she said. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Still relaxed. Had he missed the boat here? “Yes, that’s true,” he said, “but how do you feel about it? Do you ever wish, for example, that the people who shot him should have been punished more severely?”

She shrugged. “Sure. Lots more. But we’ve done away with the death penalty in Connecticut,” she said, her voice growing more animated, “and rarely used it even when we had it. If child molesters don’t get executed, why should cop killers?” She paused, took a breath. “I’m sorry. I get a little emotional about this topic.”

He nodded. “Understandable. Ms. Dawes, we have a responsibility to ensure that our peace officers...how shall I say this? That they—”

“That they’re not vigilantes? No kidding. Look, doc, I had three years of grief counseling after my uncle died, and I’ve talked this issue to death. The truth is,” she said with a mischievous smile, “I know what kind of answers you want here, and I could give them to you all day. But here’s the reality. My uncle was my inspiration to become a cop—before a couple of hostage-takers gunned him down at the shopping mall that day. We were close. It pissed me off that he died so young, and I’m super-pissed that he died the way he did. But I’m not becoming a cop to avenge his death. Okay? Straight-up, that’s the God’s-honest-truth.”

He sat back in his chair, pushed there by the force of her words. She felt strongly about this, but he wouldn’t say that her feelings or her reactions were in any way imbalanced or perversely motivated. Still, he was missing something.

“Ms. Dawes, if you found yourself in a similar situation, do you think you could keep your personal feelings under control?” He fought for words. “Would you be able to restrain yourself from using deadly force, unless absolutely necessary?”

“I do, doctor.” She grimaced. “I’ll never forget my uncle, and I think about him every day. But not because I’m out to exact justice on his killers or their successors roaming Clayton streets. I miss him. I loved him. I’ve tried my whole life to live by his example—to put people first, exercise kindness, communicate, and strive for understanding. That’s the kind of cop he was, and it’s the kind of cop I’m going to be.” She’d leaned forward during her speech, and Cyrus had to admit, her passion was infectious.

He had no reason not to believe that Valorie Dawes, like her uncle, would make a great cop. Still, something about her left him unsettled. Apprehensive, even. Nothing he could put his finger on. Just a feeling.

He gazed at the form in front of him, one that, with his signature, would arm this woman with deadly force and release her to the streets. Should he make the highly unusual move of rejecting her admittance to the police force, based on a feeling?

Val turned to find the man with the baritone voice who had spoken to her. “G. Kryzinski” read the nameplate pinned to his chest, just below eye level for her, on his dark blue uniform. About six-two, with a build on the husky side of athletic, he had ten or fifteen years on her. Not that it showed in his wavy, jet-black hair—not a gray speck there, nor in the five o’clock shadow darkening his high cheekbones and rugged jawline. Three chevrons adorned his sleeves. A sergeant.

“That’s right. I’m Val.” She extended her hand, grateful to have company in the briefing room. She felt like a complete geek, showing up over an hour early for a 5:00 p.m. shift on her first day.

“I’m Gil. Welcome to Clayton P.D.” He shook her hand, nodded, and smiled. “Partner.”

Gil’s smile broadened. “I’d say not.” He turned and walked toward the coffee urns at the side of the room. “Actually, I requested you. Can I buy you a drink?” A boyish smile revealed tiny laugh lines around his dark brown eyes.

“Sure, thanks. Black, one sugar. Um...why did you request me?” Please, she begged the universe. Not another Ben Peterson.

Gil poured the coffees and stirred sugar into one. “Your reputation. Outstanding cadet, family legacy, great athlete, big into community policing. I heard you even aced the marksmanship test.”

Val nodded. “Fair enough. But you have me at a disadvantage. I know nothing about you.” She sipped the coffee: piping hot, weak, and bitter.

“Eight years on the Clayton force. Just made sergeant. Refused a desk job. I want to stay on the streets, so they made me swing shift supervisor here at Liberty Heights. Essentially, the straw boss for the beat cops in that neighborhood—our neighborhood. Transferred in to get that, from South End.”

“But why me?” she asked. “You could have chosen anyone, with your rank. Someone with experience.”

Gil shook his head. “Nope. I wanted someone with a fresh perspective. And I wanted to train you—the right way.”

Gil sipped his coffee again and grimaced. “This stuff’s awful, isn’t it? First thing I’m gonna do is change the coffee service.”

“Second,” she said. “The first thing is, you’ll level with your partner when she asks you a direct question.” She met his surprised look with a steady stare.

“Once again, I stand corrected,” he said. “And that fearlessness you just showed me fits your rep. That’s why I chose you as my partner.” He stepped away to toss his coffee into the sink.

She gave her own cup a disapproving stare, then focused back on him. “I hope I can live up to your expectations.”

Gil nodded, and a smile curled at the corners of his lips. “You will, Dawes. Just do me one favor.”

His smile fell into a line across his lips. “Be honest with me,” he said. “Always. As I will be with you.”

He sat in the hard wooden chair next to her, putting their eyes on an even level. “This is important, Dawes. By being honest I don’t mean just being truthful when asked. You need to feel you can talk to me. Anytime. About anything. Even if it means correcting my latent sexism.” He smiled again in a self-deprecating way.

She nodded and turned aside. His words provoked memories she’d much rather suppress. She’d never shied away from stating her opinion or calling out bias. But she’d never excelled at opening up, not about herself.

His suspicious tone startled her back into the moment. “Uh, sorry,” she said. “What’s on our agenda?”

“Getting you to stay in the present, first off.” He grinned at her. “Where’d you go just now?”

She hesitated and then regretted it. Recognition shone in his eyes. He knew she was hiding something, dammit. She shrugged and took a solemn breath. “I was remembering something from my childhood. Someone said something similar, and—well, it triggered a memory.” She smiled. “Not in a bad way.”

She shook her head. “No. My father. He was always getting into my business, you know? Until he began to ignore me.” She clamped her mouth shut. She hadn’t intended on revealing so much.

After a moment, his lips eased into another smile. “Fathers can be that way, can’t they? So, did you ever tell him?”

“Hell, no.” She grimaced. “We, uh, didn’t have the closest relationship. Still don’t.”

“Closer to your mom, then?” His tone seemed innocent enough, but his eyes bore into her with savage intensity. Nothing innocent or casual about this conversation.

She shook her head again. “Mom left when I was fourteen. Haven’t seen her since. Things...weren’t good at home.”

“Ah. Well.” His expression softened. Whatever he’d been looking for from her, he’d found it. “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, let’s get going. We’ll never catch any bad guys in here.” He stood and gestured toward the door with his cap.

With a sigh of relief, Val stood and followed him out. That conversation had veered close to troubled waters—dangerously close. She’d trusted him right away, more than any man since Uncle Val. He had a way of putting her at ease while challenging her protective shell. Depending on the type of guy Gil was, that could spell trouble. She made a mental note of it.

“Where do you live, Val?” Gil guided their cruiser east on Albany Avenue. He had taken her out on patrol immediately after her new-employee orientation session ended—forty minutes of pep talks and PowerPoint presentations by desk jockeys. Probably the same people that made the coffee.

“Not far from here.” She pointed out her passenger-side window. “Three blocks from that coffee shop, toward the cemetery. About a fifteen-minute walk from the precinct.”

“No kidding?” She turned toward him. “I thought you lived in South End.”

He scoffed. “Hell no. On a cop’s salary? I wish.” He peered through the windshield at the group of African-American youths loitering outside a boarded-up pawn shop. “This spot’s usually trouble,” he said. “These kids have no jobs, nothing to do, no parents—or none paying attention, anyway. We have to keep an eye on them.”

“Don’t be such a smartass.” He almost suppressed a grin. “I don’t know their real names. Just their nicknames. Well, for most of ’em.” They passed the gang at low speed. “The tall one, he’s called Pope. No idea where the nickname came from, but it fits. He’s the leader. Whatever he says is Gospel to The Disciples.”

“That’s what they call themselves. The gang.” He pointed to another member of the gang. “That one there, the little guy? Seems to be one of Pope’s favorites. They call him Dog.”

She laughed. “I don’t recall any of the original twelve disciples being called ‘Dog’.”

“Historical accuracy ain’t their thing. Ruling the streets, on the other hand...”

Val craned her neck to watch the group stare back at her as they passed. “Let’s swing back around and talk to them.”

“Later,” Gil said. “If we go back now, they’ll scatter, thinking we’re gonna bust their asses for something. Not that we shouldn’t. They’re always up to something.”

“You have quite the outlook on life.” She turned back toward him. “So, did you move to Liberty Heights when you transferred, or have you always lived here?”

“When I transferred. I lived in the Barry Square area before, east of Maple. Another lovely spot.” He wagged his head and snorted. “Hell, I got robbed twice down there myself. Those bastards are nervy.” He stopped at a light and checked something in the rear-view mirror.

“Well, burgled, to be more precise. Ripped off my TV, stereo, and a couple hundred in cash. Even a gun, the first time.”

“No. Little .22 pistol I kept around. I’ve always had my own guns.” The light changed. He put the car back in motion. “In this line of work, it pays to be familiar with a variety of weapons.” He turned onto a side street and drove through the neighborhood.

“What do you mean?” She frowned. “The .38s they give us pack plenty of pop, they’re reliable, and accurate as pistols go. Why do you need a .22?”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, then shrugged. “I see Uncle Val didn’t teach you all the inside dope on policing.”

“I want to get back to Albany Avenue and walk around a little. Maybe meet the Pope and his Disciples.”

“Ay caramba, you are persistent,” he said. “In due time, and I’ll warn you. They’re gonna have fun with you.”

Gil grinned as he took another right, heading north toward Albany Avenue. “You wait. You’re going to meet some guys that make me look like Hillary Clinton.”

Gil laughed. “I rest my case.” He pulled the squad car over and parked. “Okay, Officer Dawes. Time to meet and greet. Your first hour of community policing has begun.”

The good old boys at the station rewarded Val for showing up early on her second day with donut duty. Rather than protesting, she took requests for special varieties and filed away the memory for her own first opportunity to haze new recruits. Juggling the donuts and a tray of coffees in one hand, she reached to lift the door handle of her cruiser with the other. A mocking male voice greeted her from behind.

Val’s hand froze on the handle. She took a deep, calming breath and turned to face the sneering figure one car away in the parking lot. “Have we met?”

The man’s tall, lanky body seemed a mismatch to the mocking baritone emanating from within. His dress shirt hung loose about his slender torso, and amber transition lenses shaded his dark eyes. Thick, brown waves of hair framed his long, angular head. “Val Dawes. Everyone knows that name. Clayton’s hero. Do you hope to be a hero, too, Miss Dawes?” The final few words echoed off the buildings framing three sides of the urban parking lot.

Her face flushed, and color rose from her neck to her cheeks. Less than two full days on the force, and already it had started. “I just want to be the best cop I can be, Mister...?”

Tall Boy extended his hand across his bright blue Subaru WRX. “Paul Peterson, Clayton Copwatch. I believe you’ve met my cousin Benjamin.”

She shivered. Ben Peterson had once mentioned his cousin. Ben had described Paul as smart, tenacious, and arrogant—quite the combination, given Ben’s own penchant for looking down his nose at the rest of humanity.

“Of course,” she said. “Now I notice the resemblance.” And she had to admit, his serpentine smile aside, Paul was far more handsome than Ben. She gave his hand a quick, polite shake. “Well, my partner’s waiting for me. Better go.”

“He lets you drive?” Peterson’s tone grew even more derisive. “This department’s going soft. First women cops. Now the rookies drive. What’s next? Weekend retreats? Strategic planning meetings? ‘Kumbaya, my lord! Kumbaya!’” Peterson’s laughter drowned out the echoes of his booming singing voice.

“Don’t give up the day job.” Val hopped inside her cruiser before Peterson could respond. That idiot! She couldn’t get away from him fast enough. She turned the key, shifted into reverse and, a moment before looking over her shoulder, jammed her foot on the gas.

Crunch! She heard her error before she felt it: the crumpling of metal and smashing of glass, universal sounds of the low-speed fender-bender. A quick glance behind her confirmed it. She’d hit another car passing in back of hers. And not just any car: a Clayton Police cruiser.

“Heroic move, Dawes!” Peterson grinned. “Take out two patrol cars in one blow, without even leaving your parking space. Did you learn that at the academy, or was this something your uncle taught you?”

She scrambled out of the vehicle. “Don’t you have someplace to be? There must be a politician who needs investigating somewhere.”

“Oh, I’m right where I’m supposed to be.” He leaned on the other cruiser’s hood. “After all, a witness should never leave the scene, now should he, Officer Dawes?”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Val said, about ready to spit. “Go ahead and quit the day job.”

“Strikes me,” he said, his grin widening, “that’s more your problem than mine.”

The officer driving the impacted cruiser, a tall, overweight, middle-aged man with a thin crown of short brown hair, got out and inspected the damage: a dented and scratched passenger door on his car, a crumpled rear fender and smashed tail light on hers. “What the hell, Dawes?” he said. “Don’t they teach kids to drive these days?”

She noticed his three chevrons, read his nameplate. “A. Papadopoulos.” She held up her hands in surrender. “Sorry, sir. My fault.”

“No kidding,” he said. “Holy cannoli, look at this mess.” He walked around the vehicle to inspect more of the damage.

“Well, Ms. Dawes,” Peterson said, “this all works out nicely for my next blog entry. Supports my theory, you know?”

“What theory? What story?” Val spun back to glare at him. “Are you kidding me? Is news so slow that you report on fender-benders in parking lots?”

“It appears to this reporter,” he said, shaking his head in disdain, “that the rumors are true. You got hired because of your uncle’s reputation, rather than any ability you might have. The great Val Dawes. What a tragic next chapter to his fine legacy.”

“Did I do something to offend you?” Val said between clenched teeth. “Or does hatred of me run in your family?”

“Just keep in mind, Officer Dawes,” Peterson said with contempt dripping in his voice, “that I’ll be watching you. Like a hawk, Dawes. Like a hawk.” With that, Peterson jumped in his Subaru and sped off, laughing.

Filing the accident report took nearly an hour, making Val late for her scheduled shift. She hitched a ride with another officer heading out on patrol and found Gil in a city-owned parking lot on Woodland Avenue. He sipped coffee from a paper cup and leaned against their replacement cruiser, the sun setting behind him.

“I heard about your driving skill demonstration,” he said with a grin. “So, have we discovered your one weak spot—your skill behind the wheel?”

“One weak spot?” she said. “If you’re making a list, you’d better have a lot of paper and pencils handy.”

She slapped her forehead. “What an idiot! I left them at the precinct, along with two ice-cold cups of coffee.” She buried her face in her hands. “What kind of cop can I be if I can’t even do donuts right!”

“Yeah, you’re doomed,” Gil said in mock seriousness. “Bad driving and no donuts. That’s two flaws discovered in one day. Not a good trend, Dawes.”

They walked in silence along Woodland for a few blocks. Gil pointed to an apartment building looming ahead. “That’s Clayton Heights. Public low-income housing. The few men that live there spend most of their days in jail and their nights running from us. We’ll knock on a lot of doors in there.”

She nodded. “Mmm.” She examined the sorry-looking tower of brick and glass covered in graffiti, grime, and hopelessness. A series of fire escapes rusted in the moonlight. Maybe she could get Peterson to do a story on housing conditions. Anything to get him off her case.

“And over there, that convenience store?” Gil pointed to a brightly lit, squat square of concrete on the corner. “Guy named Taufiq runs it. He’s a good guy. From Bangladesh, I think. Free coffee to men and women in blue, and he keeps his eyes and ears open.”

“Taufiq. Okay, good to know.” She rubbed her arms against the night chill, wondering if the department would dock her pay for the accident.

Gil eyed her with a curious stare. “Come on, Dawes. Shake it off. It’s just donuts...oh, yeah, and a patrol car. We’ll all have a good laugh over it in a week.”

“It’s not only that.” She stopped walking, fighting for words, not sure how much she should tell Gil.

“I smashed that car—make that cars—right in front of that jerk who writes that awful cop-watch blog, Paul Peterson.”

“Peterson?” Gil shook his head. “He’s a nobody. Don’t worry about him.”

“I don’t want to start out with some big exposé hanging over me and sullying my family’s legacy,” she said. “My uncle would roll over in his grave.”

“Forget the press scum, and especially bloggers like Paul Peterson,” Gil said. “Don’t sink to his level.”

“I don’t think there’s a chasm deep enough for me to get to his level,” Val said, but she grinned. Gil’s upbeat dismissal of Peterson was infectious.

“Don’t let him get to you. He’s a schmuck.” Gill pulled her down the sidewalk by the arm. “Besides, we’ve got a big night planned. You’re going to meet Pope.”

She stepped ahead of Gil and spun around to face him, walking sideways down the street. “How do you know he’ll be out tonight?”

She made a sour face. “Gil, remember our talk yesterday, about being really open and honest with each other? If I’m going to be effective, you need to fill me in on how to reach these guys. If I don’t—”

“Just trust me, okay?” Gil soft-punched her arm. “After you meet him, you can think about how to stay in touch. Or if. And it’s not entirely up to you. He has a say in this too. In the meantime, watch and learn.”

Val blew out a loud breath, turned forward, and fell into step next to Gil. They circled the block, back to where Gil had parked the patrol car. “Okay,” she said. “Flip you for who’s driving?”

“Flip me?” He grinned. "I’d never take a bet like that with someone who knows jiu jitsu.” He handed her the keys. “When we see The Disciples, drop me off and circle the block, then look for my signal. If I wave, pick me up. If not, park and come join me.”

“So mysterious.” She clicked the remote to unlock the cruiser. “Why aren’t we using our secret watch radios?”

“They’re in the shop, with your car.” Gil smirked and climbed into the cruiser.

She started the engine. “Is this standard protocol, you meeting with gang members alone?”

“And what do bureaucrats know about interacting with gangs?” he asked. “Nothing, that’s what. Now drive.”

He remained silent for the next few minutes. Maybe her driving made him nervous, after all. Then again, he never held back when he had something to say, particularly if it gave him an opportunity to tease her. She turned onto Albany Street and drove until they reached the spot where the gang usually congregated.

“The mystery deepens.” They passed another closed-up shop, then a second-run movie house.

“Just keep your eyes open.” He got out and walked to the corner of the building, a dimly lit area populated by trash dumpsters and the remains of a few locked-up bicycles. She drove off, shaking her head. While she shared his disdain for bureaucracy and ill-informed rules, leaving him alone there made her nervous.

It took several minutes to make the circuit. When she returned to the front of the theater, Gil stood in the center of a ring of black youths. He faced away from the street, but he turned and nodded when she passed.

She parked the cruiser in a convenience store lot around the block and jogged back to Gil and the gang. She paused when they came into view, waiting for a signal. Gil stood a few feet from the man he’d called Pope, a hulk of a man in his late twenties with a broad, expressionless face. Easily six-four, two-fifty, probably bigger, with a series of gold rings adorning each earlobe. Two shorter, bulkier giants stood on each side of him, the positions of rank in the gang, each with a smaller set of gold earrings. Several younger boys, none over the age of eighteen, spread out in either direction.

“Your girlfriend’s here,” one of the smaller boys on the fringe of the group said to Gil. With his skinny frame and girlish voice, he couldn’t have been older than fourteen.

“Yeah. Keep your dumbass trap shut, Dog,” one of the bigger guys next to Pope said, spitting at Dog’s feet. Dog dodged the spit and pounded one fist on his chest, but said nothing.

“You got new pussy?” Pope grinned at Gil. Gil still hadn’t turned to look at her.

Val’s cheeks burned in the cool night air. There were no women in this group, not even the hookers and meth queens she’d expected to find. She slowed her pace.

“She’s my partner. You should meet her.” Gil waved one hand over his shoulder. “Come on, Dawes. Show the Disciples your pretty weapon.”

“Woo!” the guys yelped. “Forget the gun,” one of them added. “Show us your pretty little titties.” Another Disciple slapped him a high-five and several of them laughed.

Warm-faced, Val strode into the circle, bumping Gil on purpose as she passed. She didn’t turn to see his almost-certain glare. Two could play this game.

She dropped her hand. “I stand corrected. Pope.” She stood with her hands on her hips, feet spread shoulder width.

Pope spoke without looking at her. “You must be the new sister of Albany.” He turned to Gil and grinned. “You getting nun?” The whoops from the Disciples clued Val into the pun. “Nun,” not “None.”

She spread her hands wide. “That makes you—what? The priests? Or the altar boys?”

Pope finally looked her way, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. Gil stepped up next to her. “Pope, this is Val Dawes. You may recognize the name.”

Pope scowled and spat. The spit landed within an inch of Val’s foot. “That rotten motherfucker. You’re his—what? Niece?”

“No, I ain’t. That motherfucker had a problem with me. Locked me up two times for nothing. Got my ass fucked good the second time. I ever see his white ass out on the street I’ll—”

Pope narrowed his eyes. “Not reading no motherfucking newspapers.” The space around Val closed in with large, male bodies.

“Well,” Gil said, “fun party, boys, but we have a busy social calendar. Gotta go. Lotta criminals to go catch.”

The tall one on Pope’s left snickered. “That’s good, man, that’s good. Criminals to catch.” He stopped when Pope glared at him.

Pope locked eyes with Gil. “Next time, come alone to our party, or bring some pussy to share. Something worth eating.”

Val took a step forward and pointed a finger a few inches from Pope’s face. Disciples on both sides of him closed in. She raised her other hand, palm-out, and they stopped. “Listen, cocksucker. Let’s get a few things straight. I’m in charge here, not you. You see me coming, you best go the other way. I know the shit you boys are up to. You stay clear of me and you’re fine. But if I catch you, I make your life miserable, just like my uncle. Understood?”

Pope pursed his lips as if to spit again. He hooked his finger around hers in a tight grip, swaying it back and forth a few times. A crooked grin escaped his face. He let go and turned his back on her. “Disciples!” He raised both hands over his head. He sauntered off, a regal pace that reminded Val of a papal march. His gang followed, forming a V-wedge behind him, the bigger gang members closest and the smaller ones trailing behind.

“Yeah, but not as ‘your pussy.’ What the hell was that about?” She stood on tiptoes and put her face inches from his, shaking his shoulders.

“I didn’t call you that. He did.” Gil shook himself free. “But you’re right. I should have corrected him there. My bad, and I’m sorry.”

She sighed, and tension flowed out of her. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I just wish that had gone better.”

Gil smiled and led her back toward the parked cruiser. “Welcome to community policing, Val. Not all of our clients are sweethearts. And not every day with your partner is peaches and cream.”

She scoffed. “Peaches and cream? I’d settle for a good cup of coffee now and again.”

“Need I remind you, it’s still your turn to buy,” he said. “Stale donuts at the precinct don’t count.”

“What, don’t you at least buy a cup of coffee for your ‘girlfriend’?” she said in a mocking tone.

“I would if you were,” he said, smiling, then grew serious. “But you’re not. What you are is my partner, and a rookie. The rookie part means, until you know what you’re getting into, you listen, with your mouth shut, and your eyes and ears open. Okay?”

“And since I’m a woman, I bring you coffee? Is that it?” Anger seeped into her voice again.

He shook his head and smiled at her. “No, Val. We’re partners. That means we take turns buying coffee. And I’ve changed my mind. It’s my turn to buy.” He held out an open hand. “Partner.”

She accepted his outstretched hand, shook it once, and nodded. “I’ve got a lot to learn, don’t I?”

She nodded and realized how lucky she was to have drawn Gil as a partner. She could have done much worse.

Val fired her final six rounds, all hits on the human-shaped target fifty feet away, and smiled. She loved the firing range, and not only because of her second-in-class marksmanship at the academy. With the noise-blocking earmuffs on and her eyes focused on the target, the rest of the world disappeared, leaving her to her own little world of concentration and skill. She yanked off the earmuffs and waited for the automatic pulley system to retrieve her results.

“Pretty impressive, cadet,” came a sneer over her shoulder. “Think you can fire like that when it’s a live body coming at you?”

Val glared at the tall, round-bellied man in uniform watching her from the next shooting lane. The bald dome of his scalp shone with sweat. She recognized him from her fender-bender a few days before: Alex “Pops” Papadopoulos, a twenty-year man with a reputation for laziness and opposition to anything resembling change.

She took a deep breath and choked back a sarcastic jibe about how easy a target Alex would be. Instead she forced a smile and said, “I hope I don’t have to find out. But perhaps you have wisdom to share from your own experience, Sergeant?”

His cocky smile faded and he shifted his weight against the wall. “I’ve had to pull my weapon out a few times,” he said, “but I’ve never had to shoot to kill.”

“Not lucky,” Pops said behind her, his voice rising. “I’ve just never had to panic, or over-compensate for my weakness or size.”

Pops smirked and shrugged. “You’re the college graduate, rookie. You figure it out.”

She drew in a slow, deep breath, then exhaled just as slowly. “I’m here to learn, Pops. From my elders. Please share your knowledge with me.” She tried, but failed, to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“I’m sure you’re smart, Dawes. But I’d rather my potential partners are half a foot taller, have sixty pounds more muscle, and keep cool in a crisis. A lot of those guys applied for this job. Instead, we hired you.” He sneered and selected a firing lane.

Val stepped toward him. “You think I’m too small to be a cop? That I’ll panic in a crisis? Why would you think that, Pops? Because I’m a woman?”

Pops gazed down at her with a crooked smile. “No, cadet. Not just because you’re a woman.” He stepped closer, looming over her. “It’s because someday, we might have to work together. And I’d rather have someone next to me who can help me survive the encounter, rather than someone I’d have to pull from the bottom of a scrum.”

He scoffed. “Oh, really? What are you going to do, Dawes, when a 300-pounder gets the drop on you and you don’t have time to reach for your gun? What if the best solution isn’t deadly force, but clocking the S.O.B. and making him eat dirt? What if—”

His talking stopped and he howled in pain, his finger caught in her vise-like grip and twisted backwards towards his wrist.

Releasing his finger, she hooked Alex’s ankle with her own and pushed him by the shoulders onto on the floor. “Oops. Clumsy me. I guess I must have panicked.”

She left the target practice room with a spring in her step. With her ear muffs back in place, she could barely hear Alex’s cursing.

Val’s work week began on Thursday evenings at 5:00, which meant eating a light, early dinner before meeting Gil at the precinct station. In late October, that gave them an hour to walk the streets before sunset, with another hour of twilight before the streets got too scary for most ordinary citizens in the Abernethy neighborhood. During those two hours, Gil preferred to walk the main streets with Val, chatting with business owners before they closed up shop for the night. He also engaged with the “regulars,” as he called them—people who had nothing better to do than hang out on the unseasonably warm evening. Adults smoked cigarettes on front stoops and bus benches. Young men and a few women played pickup games of half-court basketball in the park or soccer in the street. Teens and younger kids tore up the sidewalks and parking lots with their skateboards. Gang action, Gil explained, picked up after dark.

“Why don’t the other cops walk their beats as often as you do?” Val asked Gil. They strolled up Woodland Avenue past storefronts housing quick takeout restaurants, cheap clothing, and fly-by-night check-cashing stations. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Alex Papadopoulos out of his car, except at the station or firing range.”

Gil shook his head in disgust. “Pops is a Type Three cop,” he said. “A clock-puncher. Don’t be like him.”

“What’s a Type Three?” she asked. “And how many ‘types’ are there?”

They circumnavigated a small park, a patchwork of asphalt with basketball hoops that had lost their chain-link nets, and which the city had long ago given up trying to maintain. “Four,” he said. “Haven’t I told you about this yet?”

She searched her memory, but came up empty. “No, and I’d remember something like this. It sure didn’t come up at Academy.”

“Okay, here’s the world according to Gil,” he said with a laugh. “Keep in mind, this isn’t ‘official’. That’s why you didn’t hear about this at Academy.”

She nodded. “They said we’d learn ‘real police work’ on the job. So, fill me in, boss.”

His expression grew serious, and he faced straight ahead while they walked. “Type One is the Soldier, or what’s known as a ‘Cop’s cop.’ That’s the kind we all say we want to be. Soldiers have each other's back, no matter what. They’ll put their own neck on the line for their brothers—and sisters—in any situation. You go into a situation with them, they’ll have your back. You can trust them.”

He eyed her sideways. “Depends,” he said. “Can you trust me? In any situation?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “And by ‘situation’, I assume you mean, an interaction with a perp on the street?”

“I mean any situation,” he said, and stopped her so they could face each other. “Everything from going in on an arrest or a raid to having each other's backs in a staff meeting or an internal investigation. Soldiers in blue stick together, no matter what the stakes.”

They walked a little farther in silence, checking out the activity in the park. A foursome in shorts and loose-fitting T-shirts shouted smack-talk over a pickup game of basketball. A half-dozen younger kids played on a rusty swing set while their parents chatted on a park bench that needed a new coat of paint ten years ago. She resisted the urge to ask him what the other types were. She’d learned, in her few short weeks of training, that Gil spoke when good and ready, and not before.

“Am I a ‘cop’s cop’?” she asked when they reached the corner opposite the parents.

“Too soon to tell,” he said. “And I suspect you might be a Type Two. Or, possibly, a Type Four.”

“Type Two is the ‘Savior’—the victim’s cop. Those cops put the safety and welfare of potential victims above all else—including fellow cops,” he said. “Citizens want us all to be Twos.”

“Can’t you be a mix of Soldier and Savior?” she asked. “Or are they incompatible?”

“In most situations, you can,” he said. “But in a life-and-death situation, you might have to choose who you’ll save. Soldiers back up their comrades in blue. Saviors will sacrifice themselves, and their partners, to save a crying baby.”

“And you think I’m one of those?” She winced, noting his condescending stare. “Sorry. I don’t mean to sound defensive.”

“I’m not saying one is better or worse than the other,” he said, his expression serious. “We need some of each on the force. If we didn’t, we’d either have a lot of dead cops, or a lot more dead citizens, and neither is acceptable. We need to know who we’re with when we go into a life-threatening situation.”

She nodded, absorbing the implications of Gil’s words. He’d have her back, no matter what, but wouldn’t necessarily trust she’d have his. But he’d know she would fight for the victim to the death. “Fair enough,” she said. “Now, what’s a Type Four?”

“Patience, young Jedi,” he said with a smile. “Let’s go in order, shall we? Type Three is the ‘Survivor.’ All they care about is making it through the day. They avoid any kind of risk or change and never step up to do anything outside of the bare minimum. That’s Pops. All he wants to do is survive long enough to collect on his pension. Survivors view citizens, perps or otherwise, as obstacles to get around. They take shortcuts instead of putting in the hard work. Threes are the ones that give cops a bad name.”

They walked on, circling behind the parents watching their kids and stepping over a few piles of dog poop that had long since dried up on the sidewalk. She spoke in a low voice to Gil. “So, Type Four is even worse, eh? Are those the ones that are all trigger-happy?”

Gil shrugged. "Survivors can get that way, too,” he said. “Tasers and pistols are the lazy cop’s answer to the hard job of police work. But yes, Fours can get that way. Fours I call ‘Avengers.’ They’ll do anything to get their man. Or woman.” He grinned. “Women commit crimes, too.”

“Sounds like Avengers are the opposite of Survivors,” she said. “How could I be both?”

He shook his head. “You’re not both,” he said. “I’m just undecided which one you are. I hope you’re more of a Savior type.”

“Why?” she said. “What’s wrong with going all-out to nab a perp on the run?”

“Avengers lose focus, and forget what’s important,” he said. “They get so gung-ho about finding their perp, they start to bend rules, and, like Survivors, take shortcuts, albeit for a different reason. Like Saviors, they’re passionate about their work, but sometimes they get such tunnel vision, they even forget about their victims.” He stood in front of her, blocking her path. “Avengers are the most dangerous, Val. Don’t become an Avenger. If you must choose, be a Savior or a Soldier. Okay?”

She met his steady gaze, one devoid of his usual humor, and shrunk under its intense fire. “I’d rather be a Soldier,” she said. “But you’re probably right. In all likelihood, I’m a Savior. I hope to hell I’m not an Avenger.”

“I hope so, too, Val,” he said. “And I’ll do whatever I can to keep that from happening.”

They stared at each other a long moment, with a slight smile creasing Gil’s face, and Val absorbing the implications of what he’d just told her. Would she sacrifice Gil’s life for a child’s if she had to choose, with no time to think? Or any other citizen? Her brother and his five-year-old daughter, yes, without a doubt. But what about a stranger?

She averted her eyes and focused on the neighborhood around her, taking in all that she saw. Two gray-haired men laughed at a joke one of them had just told. They looked kind—someone’s grandpas or uncles. A delivery truck rumbled past, honking its horn at a driver trying to turn the wrong way on a one-way street, resulting in a tense exchange of shouts and middle fingers. Did they merit more protection than a fellow cop? What about the gang members like Pope and Dog?

The crackling of a woman’s voice on their radios interrupted her reveries. “All units in the vicinity of Woodland Park,” said the dispatcher. “Backup needed on a 10-16 on Greenfield and Woodland. All units in the vicinity, please respond.”

“That’s a domestic disturbance,” Val said, her heart racing. “Aren’t we close to that intersection?”

“Very,” Gil said. He unclipped his radio. “Unit A-27, on our way to that 10-16,” he said. “We’re less than five minutes away on foot.”

“Make that three,” Val said, breaking into a run across the park. In a split second she reached sprinting speed, heading toward Woodland Avenue.

Six blocks into her sprint, Val passed a group of middle-aged Latinas huddled on the sidewalk. They shouted something about a man beating a woman and pointed in the direction she was running. She kicked it into high gear and reached the faded red-brick two-story Colonial seconds later. Bright lights shone from every front and side window, all curtainless, but no human figures appeared in any of them. No sign of another officer in the area. Whoever called for the assist must have already gone inside.

A row of mailboxes signaled that the house contained four separate apartments. She paused on the front porch to catch her breath and listened for the telltale loud noises of a domestic disturbance. At first, only the sounds of distant sirens, honking horns, and the buzzing of street lamps reached her. But after a few seconds, the muffled scream of a woman or a young girl emerged from the house. Then a man’s voice: “Shut up, you stupid cunt, or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

More sounds: flesh hitting flesh. An unmuffled cry of pain—definitely a girl. Teenager, or younger. “Stop it,” she yelled. Another scream followed.

Val ran across the porch toward the sound. This time a man stood in the first-floor window, his ruddy skin flushed against the yellowed fabric of a stained white tank top. A lit cigarette dangled between snarling lips. His left arm held something—or, someone—below him. His right arm rose above his head and arced downward. Slap! Skin pounded skin. The female voice yelped, and his hand rose again. “Shut up!” he yelled, and swung again. No slap. “Stay still, you little whore, or I’ll break your goddamned neck. Worse than your fucking mother.”

No time to wait for Gil or the other backup. Val pounded the window with her fist. “Police! Let her go and get your hands up where I can see them!”

The man stopped his punch, looked around, apparently unsure of the source of this interruption. She rapped on the window again and pulled her flashlight off her belt, flicked it on and pointed it at his face. He squinted and shielded his eyes with his free hand.

“Get away from the girl!” She kept the light in his eyes. Best he didn’t see that Val was alone.

Without warning, the man lurched forward, as if pulled by something, nearly falling. “Get back here!” he yelled.

A door slammed, and moments later, a girl of eleven or twelve stumbled around the side of the house toward her, dressed only in a torn nightgown. Welts and bruises marked her arms, legs, and face, visible even in the dim light. One eye had swollen shut and blood seeped from her nose and lip. More blood dripped down both of her legs.

“That bastard,” she whispered. He’d pay for this. She slipped her jacket over the girl’s thin shoulders. The girl hugged her, crying. Val held her, rocking left, right, whispering, “It’s okay now. It’ll all be okay.” But she didn’t believe it. She knew better.

She looked back down the street. Gil had tripped and fallen while trying to rush around the group of women, who helped him up, then clutched at him, chirping in high voices. He seemed unable to pull away from them. He waved at Val: Go on ahead.

Val looked back to the window. The man had disappeared. Shit! “Who is he?” she asked the girl, pointing at the house. “Is he your father?”

“His name is Mr. Harkins,” the girl said between sobs, with a slight accent. Puerto Rican, Val guessed. “He’s mama’s boyfriend. She calls him Richard. He’s drunk, and so mean...” She broke into sobs again. Val hugged her and fought back her own tears. That rotten prick could not get away with this.

“Where’s your mom?” Val shook the girl by the shoulders to regain her attention. Harder than she meant. She took a deep breath. Don’t take it out on the girl. Save it for him.

The girl shrugged, curled back into Val’s hug. Not knowing what else to do, Val walked her toward the sidewalk in front of the house. “How about the neighbor’s? Can you go there for a minute, at least, to get out of the cold?”

The girl sniffled, nodded, and pointed to the group of women down the street. “Mi tia, Camila.”

“Okay,” Val said. “Go. I’ll wait here. Oh, one more thing. Is he armed? A gun, a knife, anything?”

The girl nodded. “My mom keeps a gun by her bed. He shot the...” She broke into sobs again, throwing her body against Val’s and holding tight.

“He shot someone?” Val managed to slide down to eye level with the girl. “Antoinetta, I know this is hard, but it’s important. Did he shoot someone?”

Shit! No time to waste. Val gave the girl a gentle push toward the cluster of women still clutching at Gil. She unclipped her radio, pressed the Talk button. “Dispatch, this is Dawes. Location, 2916 Greenfield Street. Officer down, repeat, officer down. Suspect is armed. Requesting additional backup.”

She grimaced. The guy could escape long before help arrived. She waved at Gil, but he remained focused on the girl running toward him. Frustrated, she peered into a bedroom window on the far end of the porch. No sign of the man, the mother, or the downed cop.

Gil broke free of the women and hustled over to her. “Did I hear ‘officer down’?” he asked, out of breath.

“And he has a hostage inside, the girl’s mother,” Val said. “We’ve got to get in there.”

Another cruiser pulled up, lights flashing, and two uniformed officers jumped out. “You two cover the front!” Gil yelled to them. “We’re going around back.”

They drew their .38s and discovered an open door in the back that led to a tiny kitchen. Val entered first, crouching low, greeted by a humid stench ten degrees warmer than the air outdoors. Dirty dishes crowded a tiny Formica-topped table. Empty beer and whiskey bottles littered the counter. Pots and pans sat on the stove with food dried in the bottom, and a litter box in the corner overflowed with turds. “Police!” she yelled. “Come out with your hands up. Into the kitchen. Now!”

“Get the hell out of my house or you’ll end up like your friend here,” the man said. “Dead!”

Val’s blood went cold. The bastard killed a police officer. Based on what Gil had told her, she guessed her partner would kill Richard without asking any questions. Maybe he even deserved that. But her priority at the moment was Antoinetta’s mom. Which, she guessed, made her a Savior Type in Gil’s taxonomy. Whatever.

Sure enough, Gil crept forward, toward the arch separating the two rooms. He peered in and tapped his own badge, then grimaced and mouthed to Val: “I see him.” The downed cop, she realized. Gil signaled for her to cover him. She crouched, her shaking hands gripping her service weapon.

Gil spun into the room, weapon drawn. An arm swung down behind him holding something dark and metallic, smashing it onto Gil’s head. He went down in a heap, unconscious.

“You want some of this action, bitch?” the man yelled to her, laughing. “I mean you there in the kitchen, lady. Fucking pig!”

Val stared at Gil, lying motionless in the middle of the room. Another cop lay bleeding from a gunshot wound, and a woman remained in danger. Clearly the man didn’t fear cops and could handle himself when attacked. She needed another approach.

“Richard,” she said, forcing her voice to remain calm. “This will go a lot better if you let Antoinetta’s mother go.”

“Get lost,” the man yelled. “And take that worthless kid with you. Her mom wants to stay here with me. Don’t you, Rosa?”

A woman whimpered. At least she was alive. But Gil was down, and the other officer could still be alive and bleeding out. Time to expedite the conversation.

“Come out where I can see you,” she said. “We need to talk.” She gripped her .38’s handle with white knuckles.

Except shooting a cop and beating a child. Asshole. “I’m not saying you did,” she said. “I just want to talk to you.”

Deep breaths. Stay calm. “What happened here tonight?” Val asked. “How did Antoinetta get hurt?”

“That’s kids for ya.” Yeah, always getting bruised and beaten in their nightgowns by themselves, somehow without the knowledge of a drunk, sadistic bastard. She fought to keep the anger out of her voice. “What did she do tonight? What was she up to?” Val crept through the kitchen and pressed herself against the wall next to the doorway to the living room. “Did she misbehave?”

Derisive laughter. “Oh, yes. She was a very bad girl. Are you a bad girl, copper?”

“You rotten shit,” Val said under her breath. Her stomach turned, and she needed to spit. She took a step to the sink, gagged at the sight of crusty dishes and standing water, and discharged the ball of mucus and hot bile that had collected in her mouth. She returned to the edge of the doorway.

“No, dipshit, I’m not,” she said. Okay, Val, keep the nasty out of your voice. “Nor was Antoinetta. But it sounds like you might have been a bad boy tonight. Are you a bad boy, Richard?”

That awful laugh again. “Is that what she said? That lying little weasel. Fucking chingadera.” He laughed again.

Val gritted her teeth. Stop it! she wanted to shout. “Had a few drinks tonight, Richard?” Static on the radio. No news. No help yet. What the hell was taking the others so long?

“No, not at all. So long as you didn’t give any to the girl.” Where’s that backup?

Laughter again, setting Val’s teeth on edge. “As if I could stop her. You should see her with the rum. Little drunken fucking chingadera.” Loud, angry laughs, almost a cough, even more grating. “You know, when they get drunk, these little chicas, they can get pretty wild. Talk about ba-ad girls.”

Blood pulsed in the veins at Val’s temples. She shook her head, refusing to let him get under her skin. “Is that the best you can do, Richard? Underage girls, too young and small to say no to you?” Her voice quavered, and nausea stirred in her gut. She tightened her grip on her weapon, but the sweat on her palms made it slippery.

Floorboards creaked, in the next room or beyond, followed by his horrible laughter again, a little louder, a little closer. It sounded forced. Of course! He was “laughing” to cover up the noise he was making as he moved into position to escape—or, attack.

Hoarse laughter, grating to the ear. “Let’s play tag, like me and your buddy did. You’re it, pig. Come and find me.”

A static-laden voice blared from her radio. Dammit! Something about a burglary in progress in Frog Hollow. No mention of her backup. She gripped her gun with both hands. Sweat collected on her upper lip, and she licked it off. Her mouth had gotten very dry. He didn’t answer. Another creak—

A white blob flashed in the doorway. He came at her, his head ducked low, like a football player going in for a tackle. She swung her arms toward him, but he moved too fast. He crashed into her, knocking her backwards. Her back slammed into the cabinets, and her head thumped against the edge of the counter. She saw stars for a moment, then the floor rushed up at her face. Her forehead thumped onto the linoleum, and she collapsed face-first onto the floor. Dizzy, she tried to get up, but the world spun around her. Sharp pain jabbed her side. The bastard had kicked her! She rolled away, somehow, and sat up against the cabinet. The man stood before her, his fist arcing toward her. She dodged the punch, and a loud crack filled her ears. He howled in pain, holding his right hand in his left, swore, and dashed out the back door of the house.

Val rolled onto all fours, gasping for breath. She tried to stand, but the pain in her side made her cry out, and she leaned against the cabinets for support. He’d kicked her in the crease between her Kevlar vest and belt, a soft spot, and hard. She’d have a nasty bruise, if not internal organ damage. Shit, this hurt. On top of that, her dizziness returned, along with overwhelming nausea.

She cradled her radio to her ear. “Unit A-27...reporting. Suspect...in 10-16 on Greenfield...escaping on foot. White male, forty, six foot, two-fifty, light brown hair.”

“Roger that,” the dispatcher responded. “Backup units less than one minute from your location.”

“Checking,” Dispatch said. “Status of officer reported down on that scene?”

“Two officers. Investigating.” Val holstered her weapon and radio, then pressed her hands on the countertop and pulled herself to her feet. She ignored the pain in her side enough to walk a few steps on her own. A pair of sirens blared outside, one the unmistakable wail of the local ambulance company. She stumbled into the living room and checked Gil first. Breathing, with a steady pulse. She sighed with relief, then scanned the room and spotted the blue-uniformed man curled up in the corner in a growing pool of blood. She scrambled to him, turned his body toward her. Her own pain disappeared as adrenaline surged through her. She didn’t recognize the officer, a 30-ish white man with short, brown hair and a stocky build. His face had gone pale—he’d lost a lot of blood. She checked his breathing and pulse, found both. He was alive, but unconscious.

“What’s the situation inside the house?” Dispatch responded. “Are all suspects—”

She spotted another officer lying face-down at the end of the hallway and rushed to him. Also unconscious from a blow to the head, but alive. R. Lopez, read his nameplate. She returned to the living room and grabbed a man’s shirt off the floor, pressing it onto the other officer’s wound to stem the bleeding. She spotted his nameplate. “Hold on, Samuels,” she said. “We’ll get you out of here.” Her head felt light, and dizziness washed over her again, but she kept the pressure on the wound. Where were those damned medics?

Moments later, footsteps pounded around her. A lanky African American man with close-cropped curls and a young dark-haired Latina, both dressed in blue scrubs, rushed into the room. The man tapped her on the shoulder. “We’ve got this, officer,” he said.

She leaned against the wall, breathing hard. “I checked his vitals,” Val said. “He’s alive. Gunshot to the midsection.”

“Let’s move him out!” the male paramedic said. In seconds they’d secured him to a stretcher that appeared as if by magic, and they carried him out the front door of the house.

“You okay?” A familiar voice. Who? When had she closed her eyes? “Dawes? Are you awake?” Rough hands shook her.

She opened her eyes. Gil’s face appeared, close enough to smell his after-shave. Dried blood formed a winding river down his forehead and cheeks. Lopez stood behind him, rubbing blood off of his own face. “The guy...where is he?” She groaned and held her side. Damn, it hurt.

Val closed her eyes again. Dammit. The son of a bitch shot a cop, raped a twelve-year-old girl, kicked her in the kidneys, and then he got away.

After all of her training, all of her preparation, spending all of her life dreaming about delivering justice to creeps like that, in her first big confrontation with a real-life criminal, she’d failed. Failed the community, failed Uncle Val, failed everybody.

Gil was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him anymore. Her head swam, and she lay down on her back. Consciousness drained away from her, replaced by the image of the man she most despised: an untried, unpunished criminal. The man who had done to her what Richard Harkins had done to Antoinetta.

Bedtime. Lights-out time, to be precise. Even though she’d turn thirteen in a few weeks, Mom and Dad still enforced her curfew. She closed her book, turned off her reading lamp, and set Mulligan, the stuffed bear with the little bell around his neck, against the door. Uncle Val gave the old bear to her when she turned six, promising that Mulligan would warn her if any monsters ever tried to hurt her. She’d long ago stopped believing in monsters, but as Dad often joked, never argue with success.

Her parents’ voices rose above the rumbling of the TV downstairs, then “Uncle” Milt’s, followed by raucous laughter. Her mother said, “Milt, that’s terrible!” But she laughed along with the men.

Uncle Milt was telling his dirty jokes again. Once he’d even told a few in front of Valorie and Chad, until Mom put a stop to it. Valorie hadn’t gotten the joke, but Chad had. He was sixteen, so he knew more about such things.

After witnessing Mom’s reaction to the joke, Valorie didn’t want to know about those things. Any of it.

They called him “Uncle” Milt, but Valorie had learned months before that he wasn’t related to Mom after all. In fact, he was only about ten years older than Mom, but she’d always treated him like family, inviting him to holiday dinners and such. He’d served with Grandpa in the military or something, a long time ago. Milt had no family of his own, at least not anymore. He seemed sad to Valorie, despite his boisterous manner and bawdy humor. Maybe that’s why Mom kept inviting him over—she felt sorry for him.

Chad found Milt funny and even looked up to him. From the racket raised downstairs, Valorie guessed Chad was showing off one of his latest jiu jitsu moves again to impress the old fart.

But then came the awful crash, Chad’s yelp of pain, and Mom’s cry of “Oh, no!” and Dad’s “Chad, are you all right?” She hadn’t needed to hear the muffled answer.

Minutes later, Mom knocked on her door. “Honey, your brother’s broken his arm,” Mom said. “We’re taking him to the emergency room. Uncle Milt will stay with you while we’re gone.”

“Why can’t Milt drive him?” Valorie asked, her heart pounding. Please, please, don’t leave me alone with Milt.

“He’s had too much to drink,” Mom said in a low voice. “Anyway, we can’t leave you here alone at night.”

Downstairs, Milt said something like “I’m fine, really,” and Valorie hoped he’d convince them to let him go.

“Nothing doing,” Dad said over Milt’s protests, and Valorie knew that battle was lost.

“I’ll go with you to the hospital,” she said, sitting up in bed.

“No, it’s too late. You have school tomorrow.” She used that insistent, commanding tone that told Val two things: first, that Mom had gotten drunk too, and second, she’d better not argue. Mom’s footsteps faded down the hall, heavy and uneven.

Valorie sighed and crawled under her covers. “Mulligan, you guard the door,” she whispered. He smiled back. Mulligan always smiled and always kept her safe.

Downstairs, Dad mentioned the guest room. Crap! The room right next to Valorie’s. Milt probably snored really loud, too.

The front door slammed shut, the car pulled away, and she could hear only the blaring of the television.

Then footsteps, plodding on the stairs...

A thin crease of light crept under her door from the hall. The toilet flushed, and the light grew brighter and dimmer again. Quiet reigned for several seconds. Then, footsteps again.

Too many footsteps. Six, seven, eight. But the guest room was only three or four steps from the bathroom.

A shadow appeared outside her door. Two shadows, actually. Feet. She shut her eyes, pulled up her covers—

A tiny bell rang. Valorie’s eyes sprang open. The door swung wide. A large shadow filled the doorway, framed by the dim glow of the ceiling lamp from down the hall. The shadow became the figure of a man, six feet tall, heavy, with a fringe of hair around his balding head.

“Milt?” She shivered under her blanket. “I think you’re in the wrong place. The guest room is—”

“My dear Valley Girl,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re still awake.”

Val stiffened at the touch of the doctor’s ice-cold stethoscope on her skin, her gasp audible enough to elicit a comforting smile from the young nurse recording her vitals on an iPad. Val inched away from her on the examination table, crinkling its paper cover loud enough to drown out the hum of the nearby stack of computers and monitors.

“Are you experiencing pain there?” asked Dr. Kim, a forty-something Asian woman whose tortoise-shell glasses seemed to hold her long, silver-speckled hair in place behind her ears. “I tried to avoid the obvious bruises, but they don’t always show.”

“No, no,” Val said. “It’s just a little cold. Can I put my clothes back on?” She pulled the paper-thin gown closer and hugged herself for warmth. Why doctors always kept examination rooms so frigid, she’d never understand.

“We’re almost done.” Dr. Kim gave her a polite smile. “Breathe deeply for me, slowly. That’s good.” She jotted down another note, set her clipboard aside, and removed her glasses, letting them rest against her chest. “Based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think you’ve suffered any serious internal injuries,” Dr. Kim said, “but we’ll take some X-rays to make sure. I think a CAT scan might also help us out here. You may have a concussion from that blow to your head, so we’ll want to keep an eye on that for a few days. I’ll write up a work release that you can give to your superiors.”

The nurse, a young Latina with bright red lipstick that contrasted with her light brown skin, laughed out loud this time, earning her a stern glance from Dr. Kim. The nurse took a step away from Val and busied herself with her iPad.

“A work release means you can take time off,” Dr. Kim said with a smile, this time a genuine one. She stood only a hair over five feet tall, if that, and had to look up to meet Val’s eyes. “So you can heal before returning to duty.”

“So, it’s optional?” Val asked. “I’d rather just go back to work, if it’s up to me.”

Dr. Kim and the nurse exchanged puzzled glances, then the doctor returned her attention to Val. “It’s up to you, of course,” she said. “Why don’t we see what the X-rays and CAT scan tell us?”

Val sighed. If only her doctors had been this thorough when she’d needed them to be, ten years earlier. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.” She followed the nurse down the hall. They passed a waiting room filled with clusters of people standing and staring at mute TV screens.

Val glanced back at the boy, giving him a quizzical look. The boy grinned and pointed to the TV screen above his head, which displayed two faces, side by side: Brian Samuels, the policeman who had been shot—and Val’s. The caption on the screen read, “Clayton police injured in domestic violence response.”

A girl standing next to the boy, a few years younger and bearing a family resemblance, ran up to Val. “Can I have your autograph?” she asked in a meek voice, holding out a coloring book and a crayon.

Val took the book from her, warmth flushing her skin. Protocol probably forbade such gestures, but she couldn’t bring herself to say no. “What’s your name?” she asked the girl.

“Autumn,” the girl said. She took the signed book back from Val and hugged it close to her chest. “I want to be a policewoman when I’m old enough, just like you!” She skipped back to her family, showing off her new prize.

Val lowered her head and followed her nurse down the hall. Maybe a day off wouldn’t be a bad idea.

A few steps before they entered the radiology lab, the familiar face of a young girl burst from another examination room, accompanied by an African-American woman in scrubs and a nameplate reading, “Dr. T. Phillips.”

“Antoinetta!” Val rushed toward her. A sad smile broke across the girl’s tear-streaked face. She threw her arms around Val in a bone-crushing hug. Val grunted in pain, but the girl’s grip only tightened. Maybe she had cracked a rib, after all.

“Are you okay?” Val asked her, breaking the embrace and cupping the girl’s face in her hands. “Are they taking good care of you?”

Antoinetta’s grin disappeared and her gaze fell to the floor. “Si,” Antoinetta said. “Can I go home now?” She teared up again and buried her face in Val’s chest.

“Could I have a word with you, Officer?” Dr. Phillips asked, a worried expression on her face. She signaled to Val’s nurse, who slid closer and wrapped an arm around Antoinetta’s shoulders. Val gave Antoinetta another quick hug and followed the doctor across the hallway, out of earshot.

“Antoinetta is reluctant to let us administer the rape kit,” Dr. Phillips said. “She keeps saying she did nothing wrong, which is true, but she has it in her head that we’re blaming her for all of this.”

“She did, but the patient also has to be willing,” Dr. Phillips said. “But she respects you so much, so...”

“Give me a few minutes with her,” Val said. She returned to Antoinetta and led her by the hand up the hallway to the waiting area. They sat facing each other on adjacent seats. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“You will, soon,” Val said. “The doctors need to check to make sure you’re okay. They can’t always tell just by looking at you.” She spoke in a slow, measured pace. “They need to check your insides, too. It’s standard procedure.”

Tears flowed like open faucets down the girl’s face. She shook her head. “He...he told me...if I tell anyone...” She broke into sobs and pulled her hands free, covering her face.

Val’s heart ached for the girl. She knew Antoinetta’s feelings of fear and shame well. All too well.

“Say it!” the man said, his voice a nasty hiss, so harsh it made her jump. His hand pressed down on the back of her neck, gripping her with too much force. She shook her head.

“Out. Loud!” He pushed at her head. It hurt.

She tried to take a breath, but inhaled only pillow. She wheezed, an awful sound. He loosened his grip, and she gasped air into her lungs.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said with a moan, choking on the words.

“Good girl,” he said. “I know you won’t. Because you don’t want to get in trouble, do you? You know what people think about girls who do what you do.”

“Antoinetta,” Val said in a low voice, shaking off the ancient memory, “when I was a girl about your age, a man did something terrible to m—my friend,” she said. “Someone I knew well. A terrible thing. And do you know what happened to that man?”

“Nothing,” Val said. “Because my friend was afraid to tell anyone. Her family, her friends, anyone. She wouldn’t even admit it to me.” Her voice caught on this truth, one she’d feared admitting all of her life. “Not for a long time, anyway. And when she did tell the people close to her, it was too late. The police could no longer collect the evidence, and the man went free.”

Antoinetta blinked tears from her eyes. “Did they ever catch him?” she asked.

Val’s shoulders trembled. “No,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “They never did. They never punished the man for what he did to...my friend.”

Antoinetta lowered her own voice. “What happened to the girl?” she asked. “Is she all right?”

Air whooshed from Val's lips. “She suffered,” she said, “for the rest of her life. She always wished she’d said something sooner, so the police could have caught and punished the man, and made sure he never came near her again.”

“Maybe.” Val choked on the reality of her answer. “Unless we can prove what he did. Which is what the doctors want to help us do.”

A long moment passed. Antoinetta’s tears stopped, and a look of steely resolve swept over her face. “If you catch him,” she said, “what will you do to him?”

Val squeezed her hand. “We’ll prosecute him and put him in prison for a long time.”

Antoinetta’s face curled into an angry snarl. “Just prison?” she said. “Eso es todo?”

“I’m afraid so,” Val said, her heart sinking. “But prison is an awful—”

“If you catch him and he tried to get away,” Antoinetta said, “can’t you shoot him, like they do on TV?”

Val’s breath caught in her throat. “What you see on TV is not always what happens in real life,” she said. “We try not to shoot people unless they’re threatening the lives of others.”

“I hope,” Antoinetta said in a menacing voice, “that when you find him, he tries to get away. And when he does, I hope you shoot off his little bicho!” She left a stunned Val seated on the bench and returned to Dr. Phillips, nodding in response to the doctor’s question. She gave Val a thumbs-up and disappeared with the doctor into an examination room.

Radiology showed no cracked ribs or internal organ damage. Gil met her in the waiting room and spread his arms for a hug, but she grabbed his hands and squeezed them instead.

“Still sore,” she said, averting her eyes. “Have you been waiting here all this time?”

He nodded, with what she interpreted as a slight pout on his face. “I wasn’t going to let my partner walk out of a cold hospital without an escort,” he said. “What’s the prognosis?”

She grimaced. “I’ll live. They wanted me to take time off, but I, uh, misplaced the doctor’s note already. How’s Samuels doing?”

Gil’s face turned grave. “He’s still in surgery. The doc was hopeful, though. Nothing major got hit, but he lost a fair amount of blood.” His expression brightened. “You saved his life, Val. So far, anyway.”

Her face grew warm and she shook her head, strolling toward the exit. “The medics saved him. What’s the word on Harkins?”

“He’s still on the run. But we’ll get him.” Gil put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him. “Val, I’m serious. You did impressive work at that scene tonight. I’ve seen those standoffs go on for hours. Had that happened, Samuels would be at the morgue instead of ER.”

“We’ll get him,” Gil said. “Stop changing the subject. I’m putting you in for a commendation and a medal—no, don’t interrupt me. You earned it. Okay?”

He gripped her shoulders, forcing her to stop walking and face him. “Not everyone, Val. And even if everyone did, it’s still amazing and brave stuff. Look, the work we do is hard and dangerous, and we don’t get thanked very often for it. That’ll wear on you after a while, trust me. So when you do get a little recognition, don’t spit on it, okay? Learn to take it and appreciate it.”

He drove her home in silence. Val’s mind raced from Antoinetta to Harkins and back to Gil’s comments. They arrived at her apartment a few minutes before three in the morning, the end of their shift. Gil parked the cruiser in front of her building, turned off the engine, and looked toward her. She stared straight ahead, through the windshield, her side still aching from the bruises Harkins had dealt her. He exhaled loudly, his hands still on the wheel, waiting. A car droned by, and a light sprinkle of rain drizzled the windshield. Static buzzed on the radio, its sound turned low. The cruiser’s headlights stayed on, shining bright circles of yellow light on the road.

She turned toward him and found his dark brown eyes gazing upon her. How long he’d been staring, she had no idea. At first he looked fierce, with his square jaw, stubbly beard, and slight frown. But his expression softened into a reassuring smile, and he kept his hands to himself, unlike most guys who’d gotten her alone in cars at night.

“Thank you for the ride,” she said. “And for your support, and...well, everything.”

“Well, I...guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, grabbing the door handle.

“Pfft! I took worse blows from clumsy soccer players and stayed in the game. I won’t let this slow me down.”

Gil laughed. “You’re something else, you know that?” He shook his head and stared at the steering wheel, fumbling with the keys in the ignition. Then he looked up. “Okay, I tell you what. I’ll recommend a few days of light duty for you. It’ll give you a chance to catch up on paperwork and maybe do some digging on this perp, Harkins. We need to track him down, and we’re not going to do it by looking in every low-income apartment building in the city. Sound fair?”

She considered it. She’d always done well with research projects. Anything that helped get a child molester off the streets sounded worthwhile. “Okay, partner. You’ve got a deal.”

She tiptoed through her apartment so as to not wake Beth and plopped onto her bed, only to bounce back up, howling in pain. She’d already forgotten about the bruises. Damn that pervert Harkins!

For the next hour, she lay in bed, waiting for the painkillers to kick in. She vowed to find the man who’d hurt that little girl, and make him pay for what he’d done.

Val entered Friendly’s, a tiny coffee-and-sandwich shop on Edgewood Drive across from City Park, and searched for Brenda Petroni, the self-defense trainer from the academy. Before she’d finished scanning the room, a tall, willowy blonde jumped up from a corner booth. “Shannon O’Reilly,” the blonde said, her hand outstretched. “Brenda invited me to join you both for lunch today. You’re Val Dawes, right?”

“How is it that everyone seems to know who I am?” Val accepted the handshake, but stood rooted in place. “Did somebody put a ‘rookie female cop’ sign on my back?”

Shannon laughed. “I knew your uncle,” she said. “We worked on a few cases together before I made detective and moved downtown to Missing Persons. He kept a picture of you on his desk.”

Val’s eyes opened wider. Shannon didn’t look old enough to have served with Uncle Val. Lean and fair-skinned, she had no wrinkles on her face, even around her eyes or mouth.

Shannon laughed again. “I’m thirty-five, in case you’re wondering,” she said. “And yes, I still get carded.”

“Lucky you.” Val waved at Brenda walking in the door. Dressed in street clothes, she appeared even stockier than when in uniform.

“It’s less of an advantage than you‘d think in our line of work,” Shannon said, once they’d located a booth away from the hordes of screaming children. “It’s hard enough for most women to get taken seriously as a cop. When you look twenty-one, you might as well wear a dunce cap all day. Oh, and did you somehow miss the blonde hair?”

“That’s reassuring to hear,” Val said. “I was beginning to think they saved it all for me.”

“Honey, welcome to the party-crashers at the old boys club,” Brenda said with a sneer. “Most of these guys think we should all be home raising babies and cooking meatloaf for our hard-working, brave husbands in uniform.”

“It’s even worse when a woman makes sergeant, like Brenda here.” Shannon thanked the waiter for their coffees. “It’s bad enough we’re taking their jobs, as they see it, and ‘pretending’ to be their equals. When they actually have to follow orders from us, forget it. The shit you take from your peers on patrol will seem like a celebration in your honor by comparison.”

“Ugh.” Val fought down the image of her fellow academy cadets’ sneering faces and could barely sip her coffee. But then she considered Gil and shook her head. “That doesn’t translate into a lack of backup on the street, does it? I mean, if you’re in a dangerous situation—”

“No, then it’s the reverse. Totally patronizing,” Brenda said. “They never let a woman take the lead and they’re always trying to shield us from difficult situations. Half the time I was on patrol, they treated me like I was in their way. There are exceptions, like your uncle, your partner Kryzinski, and a few others. But out of 300 men on the force, you’ll be lucky to find two dozen who will treat you as an equal.”

“That may be a little harsh,” Shannon said, “but it’s close. The main point is, we have to prove ourselves every day on the job to these guys. Are we good enough? Tough enough? Smart enough?”

“And it’s not like they’re physical specimens or Mensa geniuses themselves,” Brenda said. “Half of them got their jobs by having a brother or uncle on the force. No offense,” she said to Val. “And I’m no better. My father, my uncles, even my grandfather was a Clayton cop.”

“None taken,” Val said. Brenda’s admission buoyed her spirits. By comparison, the Dawes family was the new bunch on the block. “I think in my case, having a legacy makes it harder to live up to expectations.”

“You have big shoes to fill,” Shannon said. “Speaking of filling up, what are you gals going to eat? I’m starved.”

Over lunch, Shannon and Brenda gave Val an earful. She had a tough road ahead as a female recruit. By the end of the meal, she felt utterly depressed. “That’s crazy,” she kept saying in response to the reality they painted for her: promotion rates half those of the men. Lower pay. Longer stints in undesirable shifts and precincts. Less desirable assignments overall, and a greater likelihood of getting stuck behind a desk or a phone. “And don’t let your partner stick you with all the paperwork,” Brenda said. “They’ll say it’s seniority, but that’s bunk. With male recruits, they take turns, and everyone pulls his own weight. After an appropriate break-in period, of course.”

“Gil’s been good about that,” Val said. “Are you gals getting dessert?”

“Are you kidding? Why else come to Friendly’s?” Shannon grinned. “Ice cream all around.”

“Don’t let it get you down,” Brenda said, still cheerful despite all the horror stories. “I tell you what, Val. Any time you want, you call me. Any of these guys give you shit, I’ve got your back.”

“Thanks.” Val smiled. At last, she’d made a few friends in the department, other than her partner. “This has been a big help.”

Val ended up taking one day off, spending most of it in bed in a painkiller-induced haze, eating nothing until Beth shook her awake at seven o’clock.

“I picked up Korean barbecue on the way home from work,” Beth called from her adjacent bedroom while she changed clothes. “And a six-pack. Let’s party!”

“I thought you were going out tonight.” Val blinked her eyes and watched the ceiling swirl overhead. Or was the bed swirling?

“I had a date with Victor, but the jerk-off canceled at the last minute. Probably found a blonde with bigger tits who’ll go to bed with him on the first date.”

Val sat up, trying to imagine a woman with looser dating standards than Beth. “I’m not sure that barbecue is a good idea,” she said. “My stomach’s still queasy from the painkillers.”

“That’s because you took them on an empty stomach.” Beth appeared in her bedroom doorway, buttoning the waist of her unzipped jeans and pulling on a New York Giants jersey. The shirt got stuck on her head. For a moment, only a bush of blonde-streaked brown hair poked through the opening on top as Beth struggled to yank it onto her pear-shaped torso.

Val glanced away, not wanting to stare at the bronze spare tire overlapping Beth’s waistline, nor at the expanse of white padded bra that made her already large boobs seem enormous. Voluptuous women made Val feel tiny in her slender, athletic frame. “I’ll pass on the beer, but I am hungry,” she said, and pushed herself off of the bed.

Beth threw an arm around her and helped Val stumble into the kitchen. Val had to hold her breath to suppress the nausea bubbling up in her stomach, stimulated by the excessive scent of lavender emanating from Beth’s neck. The girl never understood the concept of moderation in perfume, food, or men.

“Who is this Victor guy, anyway?” Val swallowed a tangy, spicy, melt-in-your-mouth bite of pork. “Have I met him?”

“He’s the mechanic who replaced the starter in my Mustang last week,” Beth said. “He just moved here from Arizona, and I promised him a drive through the fall foliage with the top down. I think he wanted my top down instead.” She cupped her boobs, squeezed them once, and laughed. “Girl, your face is so red right now!”

True enough, Val’s entire head felt hot, and not from the spicy pork. “I thought you were still dating Justin,” she said. “What happened with him?”

“Justin’s boring,” Beth said. “And not only in bed. All the guy wants to do is play video games with his friends. How about you? You must be rolling in offers from all those hot men in uniform. Anything promising?”

Val shook her head, her face warming again, and she fished another rib out of the takeout box. “There’s a strict policy against dating other cops, honored mostly in the breach, of course. Not that any of them seem interested. I think I threaten them.”

“Introduce me, then,” Beth said with a laugh. “I have no such policy.” She bit into a juicy piece of meat. “Mm. So good. Hey, who was the good-looking guy who dropped you off last night?”

“I peeked out the window for a moment. It was a cop car, why shouldn’t I be curious?” She swallowed another bite of barbecue. “So, are you interested in him?”

“No. Haven’t I explained this?” Val picked up the rib again, then sighed and dropped it again. She still had no appetite. “Department policy aside, he’s fifteen years older than me.”

Beth made a face. “With what you’ve been through, I know that older guys—”

“He’s not that old,” Val snapped, then regretted it. She registered the hurt expression on Beth’s face and shook her head. Neither of them needed to mention Uncle Milt’s name. His memory haunted every conversation they ever had about Val’s relationships with men. “I mean, I’d rather meet someone closer to our age, if anyone.”

Beth brightened and held up one finger. “Hey! That reminds me. I met these two guys at the Flag and Gauntlet Tavern a few weeks ago. One of them seemed interested, but he didn’t want to abandon his friend. I could call them, set something up.” Her face lit up with her gigantic trademark smile, so infectious that Val almost wanted to say yes.

Almost. Val couldn’t remember the last time she had fun on a date. In fact, she couldn’t even remember going on one since her second year of college, with a friend of Beth’s that spent the entire evening hinting about the size of his penis. “I don’t think so,” Val said. “I’m busy with work, and I need time to recover, and—”

“Enough lame excuses,” Beth said. “All you do is work. Besides, I need your help. I really want to meet this guy, and he won’t do it unless I find a date for his friend.”

“I work evening shifts,” Val said. “My schedule doesn’t leave much room for dating.”

Beth’s grin faded. “Come on, Val,” she said. “Get back on that horse. Give it another try. Not all men are creeps.”

“I’m not saying they are. I just...” Her voice trailed off as Beth’s face fell. Guilt swept over her. She and Beth had shared every important moment of growing up—every crush (mostly Beth’s), first kiss (again, Beth’s), every struggle with dumb teachers and crazy parents. Beth was the only one that Val had confided in after the incident with Uncle Milt. The only one she trusted with her horrible secret.

Gazing at her friend, Val knew she’d lose this battle of wills. And she owed her. The woman had fed her, for God’s sake.

“All right,” she said, and even as Beth celebrated by cheering and covering her head with hugs and kisses, Val knew she was making a mistake.

Lieutenant Gibson took Gil’s recommendation and put Val on desk duty for the next several days: answering phones, running license plates and criminal records for patrol officers involved in traffic stops, and filing reports. It allowed her to research Richard Harkins, though, and what she found chilled her.

Harkins had been arrested multiple times in the past decade, but had yet to go to trial for any charges. His rap sheet included domestic disturbance complaints with three different women. In two cases, the complaint included allegations of child abuse. At least one girl intimated that she’d been abused, or at least touched inappropriately, but she later recanted her story. Without corroborating evidence, Harkins walked on all charges.

Val wondered how many other incidents had gone unreported. His record also included public drunkenness, giving alcohol to a minor (again, an underage girl), and a bar fight. No shootings, much less of a cop, but the guy represented trouble wherever he went.

And he went everywhere. Going back to age 16, she found prior arrests in Georgia, Utah, and California, plus temporary addresses and employment records in Oregon, Indiana, and Tennessee. He’d attended public school in Massachusetts and had family in Torrington and New Haven. He’d spent time in Florida, where he picked up an illegal firearms charge, but once again, he somehow skated away from any real punishment.

Despite the all-points bulletin and aggressive manhunt launched by the department, though, Harkins appeared to have disappeared. Her guess was that he might have fled to another state.

After a few days, Val resumed her street duties and the evening shift with Gil. He greeted her with a wide grin and open arms, but when she hesitated, he dropped the hug and offered an enthusiastic handshake. “Glad to have you back, partner,” he said. “They had me working with Pops while you were out. I’d have been better off working alone.”

“I wouldn’t wish that guy as partner on anyone,” Val said. She regretted rebuffing Gil’s hug, but too late now. “I’m glad I got you instead of him.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Gil clapped her on the back, harder than she would have liked, but she didn’t complain. They rode out in their patrol car and parked in the lot of a small shopping center to start their walking rounds. She briefed him on her research on Harkins while they walked.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Gil said. “Guys like that don’t start out by shooting cops. They escalate, and after a while, they think they‘re invulnerable. Samuels, unfortunately, was his latest victim.”

“How is Samuels doing?” Guilt washed over her. She hadn’t even thought of her fellow soldier in blue since the night of the shooting. She should have visited him while she’d been on light duty.

“Better,” Gil said. “They sent him home from the hospital yesterday. He’s off for at least six weeks, though—if he comes back at all.”

They fell into a somber silence, matching each other’s pace while they walked. The air cooled as the sun descended toward the roofs of the shops and apartment buildings lining the busy street. Neon lights flickered in the windows of cheap watering holes blaring pop hits from ten years before. They turned a corner, and Val realized where they were. She faced Gil, excited.

“That’s not our usual beat,” he said, his brow furrowing. Then recognition dawned on his face. “Woodland Avenue,” he said. “The scene of the crime. You really want to go there?”

“I want to see what people know about Harkins,” she said. “Try to get a lead on where he‘s hiding out.”

“The detectives have done that,” he said. “You think you’ll find out something they missed?”

She nodded. “Who would you rather talk to? A stranger in a suit, or someone who walks your neighborhood every night?” She didn’t wait for his answer, striding forward at a fast pace. He caught up to her after a few moments, breathing hard, but gave her a thumbs-up.

She stopped first in a corner convenience store on Woodland and Greenfield and approached the brown-skinned, dark-haired man behind the counter. She pegged his age as late twenties or early thirties. “I’m Val Dawes,” she said. “I believe you know my partner, Gil Kryzinski. Do you have a moment?”

“Good evening,” the man said. “I am Taufiq Sharkar. I always have a moment for the brave officers protecting us from the criminal filth who prey on our citizens. Would you like some coffee? On the house. Please.”

She stole a look at Gil and mouthed, Is that okay? Gil nodded and strolled over to the coffee counter.

Val remained with Taufiq. “What do you know about this man?” She showed him a picture of Harkins. “Does he come in here often?”

Taufiq made a face, as if wanting to spit. “He used to.” He pointed to a rack of hard liquor, cigarettes, and porn magazines behind him. “A man in search of trash, if you ask me.”

Taufiq shook his head. “No, but he has been in here with Rosa—his, well, girlfriend, I guess you’d call her—and her daughter. He does not treat them well. He always curses at them and calls them names. Once I saw him slap the girl, Antoinetta, just for asking him to buy her something. The man is a pig.”

“Not since that night. But...” He fumbled for words, fingers fidgeting. “Rosa is not the only woman he has abused. He lived here several years ago, when I first came to Clayton. I saw him with two or three other women—sometimes one, then the other. Often they had bruises, and they always seemed sad and afraid when they were with him.”

Gil returned with the coffee and handed a cup to Val. Still uncertain, she fumbled with her wallet.

They walked toward Rosa and Antoinetta’s Colonial, asking everyone they passed about Harkins. Most shook their heads and denied knowing him, but a few did so with fear on their faces—especially the women. When they reached the small apartment building a few doors away from the Colonial, a woman emerged, wearing a long, flowing dress and scarf, calling Gil’s name.

“That’s Camila, Antoinetta’s aunt,” Gil said. He greeted her with a smile and wave, which she returned, exclaiming something in Spanish.

“She says Antoinetta’s doing great,” Gil said, “and, thank you.” He pointed to Val. “She’s the one you should be thanking, Camila.”

“Gracias, gracias!” Camila said, shaking Val’s hands with both of hers. Meanwhile, a door slammed, and Antoinetta raced down the street toward them.

“We thank you so much!” Antoinetta said, crushing Val in a tight hug. “You saved our lives!”

“Has Mr. Harkins been back since that night?” Val asked her after escaping the hug. “Have you seen him?”

Antoinetta‘s eyes widened and she shook her head. “My mother said he might be in Louisiana,” she said. “He has a cousin there.”

Camila erupted into a torrent of invective in Spanish, gesturing and spitting and stomping her feet. Val looked to Antoinetta, who grinned.

“She says she is not a cousin, but another girlfriend that he beats and cheats on,” Antoinetta said. She asked Camila something in Spanish, sending the older woman into another angry tirade. “Or he could be in Georgia or Florida, also with women he beats.”

Camila ranted again in angry Spanish. “She says, what detectives?” Antoinetta said. “The police only come here to arrest us, never to ask us anything. Other than you, she means.”

Val sighed, anger building within her. So typical of Clayton! Of course the department would focus on the Samuels shooting. But it made no sense to ignore the rape of a young girl, even if she lived in the “wrong” neighborhood, not least because they might share clues to help find him.

She stepped closer to Antoinetta, put her face close to the girl’s, and spoke in a low voice. “When he lived with you, did he...I mean, this was not the first time he...”

Antoinetta shook her head, tears streaming down her face, and buried her face in Val’s chest. “Many times,” she said, her voice breaking. Sobs wracked her body, and Val held her, rocking the girl side to side, soothing her.

Val turned toward Gil and shook her head. She pulled Antoinetta closer, murmuring reassuring sounds, absorbing the girl’s sobs into her chest.

Gil stared at her, blinking, until Camila wrapped her own arms around him in a swaying, tearful hug. There the four of them stood, with Val fighting back her own tears, holding onto a girl who reminded her far too much of her own, younger self.

Gil and Val interviewed several other neighbors on Woodland and nearby streets, all of whom echoed what Taufiq had told them. Many had seen Harkins with a series of women, each of whom sported bruises and black eyes after a short time with him. In a few cases, the women’s young daughters shared the bruised bodies and downcast expressions of their mothers. The women themselves had all left the city, most without filing police complaints.

“I think we get the picture,” Gil said a few hours later. They headed back toward the main drag, each sipping a fresh cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. “It might be moot, though. The guy’s in the wind. Without federal help, we’re unlikely to find him.”

“I agree,” Gil said. “He doesn’t exactly keep a low profile when he’s here. He must think he’s invincible. Why don’t these women report his ass?”

Val shook her head, her temperature rising. “Only a man could ask that question. Come on, let’s hit Upper Abernethy. I bet he grabs a lot of asses in those bars, and we’re sure to find someone willing to file a complaint.”

“How so?” She stopped, waiting for him. “I thought our job was to scour the neighborhood, looking for any sign of him, to share with the detectives.”

“We can’t do this ourselves,” he said, “and we can’t do it piecemeal. We need organized help.”

She laughed. “Who? You got a union of journeyman fugitive hunters to call on?”

Several minutes later, they arrived at the corner of Albany and MLK Jr. Boulevard on foot. Val recognized the random assortment of broken-down bicycles and garbage dumpsters strewn around the parking lot next to the old, abandoned theater. A circle of black youths warmed their hands over flickering flames darting up from a metal barrel.

“The Disciples?” She shook her head. “That’s your union of fugitive hunters?”

“Can you think of anyone who knows the streets better?” Gil leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Keep a low profile this time. I’m not altogether sure they’ll help, but they sure as hell won’t if you show them up again.”

They approached the group, Gil taking the lead, and stopped at the edge of the empty lot. A few of the youths glanced their way, but otherwise they gave no sign of acknowledging the presence of the two cops.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Gil called out to them. None of them responded, although a few guys, huddled together on the outer circle on the far side of the fire, laughed among themselves.

This time one of the inner circle glanced over his shoulder at Gil. Three gold earrings sparkled in the reflected light of the fire. “We don’t want any,” he said, and gazed back at the fire.

Gil nodded once to Val and took a few steps toward the group. She followed. They both stopped when four of the youths—the oldest couldn’t have been more than seventeen—formed a shoulder-to-shoulder wall between Gil and the gang. The smallest, whom Val recognized as the boy named Dog, flanked the left side of the wall.

“State your business,” the seventeen-year-old said. His ears sported two gold rings each and a diamond post on the right side. The other three had no bling.

“That’d be me.” Three-rings stood behind the seventeen-year-old, and the wall parted to expose his massive frame. Six-four and three hundred pounds of muscle, he looked like a defensive lineman Val had once tutored at UConn. He wore a short-sleeved vest over a dark, long-sleeved T-shirt and baggy pants that billowed in the soft breeze.

Val glanced at Gil, but could only see part of his face. He didn’t react to being called “Copsky,” but dropped his proffered handshake and crossed his arms.

The youths muttered to each other, mostly unintelligible. Val made out a few phrases: “Ain’t trucking no business with cops.” “Pope gonna kick his ass, he says yay.” Thomas, the acting leader, scoffed. “What kind of business?”

Gil winked at Val, then dug in the gravel with his toe, staring downward. “We’re looking for a guy. White dude,” he added before Thomas could respond.

Thomas grinned, his gold fillings glinting in the dim light of the street. “You see any white dudes here?” He spread his arms wide and turned from side to side. “Aside from you, I mean.”

Gil, nonplussed, handed Thomas a copy of the Harkins photo. “You recognize him?”

Thomas glanced at the photo. “He looks like a thousand guys I see every day. You know, all those white guys that come pray at our black church.”

Several members of the group giggled. “All look the same to me, you know?” one of them joked.

Gil shook the picture in his hand. “All the same, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye out. Hundred bucks for any leads that work out.” He offered the picture again.

Thomas laughed. “A hundred bucks! What am I gonna do with that, buy a dime bag? Man, I thought you were talking money.” He turned his back and faced the fire. The wall closed behind him.

“Hundred fucking cheetos, man,” one of the gang said in a derisive tone, laughing. “We gonna be rich!”

Gil sighed, glanced at Val. Gestured with his head: Let’s go. He turned to leave.

Val stared at him, then at the gang, her heart sinking. She’d been so impressed with the brassiness of Gil’s idea and the fearless way he’d approached them, but now it appeared he’d already given up. Where was his resolve? Where was the patience he always counseled her to have? Anger and frustration boiled up inside her.

“Five hundred!” The words escaped Val’s mouth before she could entertain any second thoughts. Gil froze in his tracks, and Cardinal Thomas pushed his giant frame through his bodyguard’s human wall. He stared at her in amazement and whispered something to Dog, who dashed off down the street.

Val stayed put, ignoring Gil’s hostile glare. Her knees shook, and her arms would have, had she not pressed them tight to her body under each armpit. Queasiness stirred in her gut. She’d intervened in Gil’s negotiation when he’d told her to keep her mouth shut. Now a gang of toughs who probably hated everything she stood for—her uniform, her race, her sex—surrounded her, their muscles rippling under tight T-shirts.

Not to mention that she’d offered more than a week’s take-home pay for clues to catching a white guy they didn’t even know.

She cleared her throat, tightening with sudden dryness. “If you’d rather not—”

“Wait.” Thomas held up one hand. Gil turned to face Thomas, then Val. His face registered surprise mixed with irritation. He raised an eyebrow, as if to say: Your game, now. He stood next to her, facing the group.

A minute ticked by, then another. The gang resumed its hand-warming, other than Thomas and his bodyguard. Cars grunted past, many of them needing mufflers or new timing belts. Their radios, set to low volume, burped static.

After several minutes, someone in the group turned to the side, followed by the others. A large black man with seven gold rings in each ear stepped into the circle, trailed by Dog. Thomas gave way, and the new man stood in front of Val.

“I understand,” said Pope, “that you have a business proposition for us.”

Val cleared her throat again. “We’re looking for a guy.” She nodded to Gil, who offered up the picture of Harkins again. “We’ll pay you five hundred dollars if you find him.”

Val looked to Gil for support, got a blank expression in return. She took a deep breath. “He’s wanted for beating his girlfriend and raping a little girl, over on Woodland Avenue.”

Pope’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded to Thomas, who held out an open palm. Gil handed him the picture. Thomas held it up for Pope to see. Pope nodded, and Thomas passed the picture around to the group behind him. “Motherfucker,” Pope said in a low voice.

Pope shook his head. “You can take that one back when we’re done. Come back in a couple of days. We’ll let you know what we’ve got.”

“Couple of days, I said,” Pope said, his voice full of steel. “Bring cash. Twenties and fives.”

Pope smacked the card to the ground and ground it under his heel. He leaned in closer to Val, putting his eyes directly in front of hers. “I don’t call the cops. For anything.” He poked a finger into her breastbone, hard enough for her to feel it through her Kevlar vest.

She took another deep breath, exhaled. “Got it. I’ll come back in a few days.” She took a step backward.

Pope smiled and followed her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and walking with her toward the curb. “Look,” he said. “I know you think you tough. But a little white girl like you gotta be careful.” He glanced back at the gang, all of whom fixed their stares on him. He leaned close and whispered in her ear. “Pretty white girls tend to get hurt out here on the street. I don’t want that to happen.” He grinned. “At least not ‘til payday. Dig?”

He released his grip on her shoulder and returned to the group. Val stood at the edge of the lot, waiting for Gil, her body shaking.

Val’s body continued shaking, long after they left the Disciples far behind them. Not helping matters, Gil refused to speak until they’d walked several blocks, his mouth set in a stern line.

“Please, say something!” she said for the tenth time after they ordered coffee in Taufiq’s convenience store. “Yell at me, fire me, tell me I’m an ass, whatever. Just speak!”

“What the hell possessed you to jump in like that?” Gil said between clenched teeth. “And you’re buying coffee, since you have so much cash to give away. Sorry, Taufiq. Today it ain’t free.”

She paid a smiling Taufiq and led Gil outside. “I thought we needed to up the ante. They clearly weren’t going to take you up on an offer of a measly hundred bucks.”

“Of course they would have,” Gil said. “Have you forgotten who has a history with these guys? We were negotiating. Something you clearly suck at.”

“How do you know?” Val sipped her coffee, the cup shaking in her hand. Her shoulder still tingled where Pope’s fingers had dug in.

“Because I’ve done this before,” Gil said, exasperated. “Well, don’t expect me to bail you out of this. You’ll need to come up with the cash yourself. Good thing we get paid tomorrow.”

Val shuddered out another deep breath. Gil, of course, was right. She’d stepped in where he’d told her not to. She needed to listen to him more and learn from him. “I’m sorry.”

“Forget about it. Call it a five hundred dollar lesson in street training.” He took a deep slug of coffee and tossed his empty cup into a trash can. “I’ll give you credit for how you handled Pope, though. That was great.”

“Handled him? He terrified me!” She sipped her coffee, burned her lips. How could Gil gulp it down so fast?

“He terrifies me, too. But you pushed his buttons. I was guessing he’d demand a grand. Instead he caved at the five Franklins.” Gil smiled at her. “You got him in his soft spot.”

Gil clapped a hand on her shoulder, re-igniting the tingling sensation from Pope’s earlier squeeze. “Cecily.”

Gil smiled. “His little sister. Pope’s very protective of her. The moment you mentioned Harkin’s abuse of Antoinetta, you had him.”

Gil’s face darkened. “Word is, their old man molested her when she was seven or eight. Then he just...disappeared.” His eyes widened. “Pope was thirteen at the time, but already a big, tough kid. If you know what I mean.”

Gil shrugged. “No body, no murder. And let me put it this way: nobody’s filed a missing persons complaint, either. Least of all, Pope’s mother.”

Val’s heart pounded. She’d have bet every one of her track trophies that she shared nothing in common with Pope. Yet clearly they shared a connection she’d never have guessed.

She looked back at Gil, who had a stupid grin plastered all over his face. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

Gil wiped the grin off—almost. “The fact that you offered Pope five hundred bucks for something that, in retrospect, he’d probably have done for free.”

She finished her coffee and glared at Gil. “Next time,” she said, “would you please share information like that before I offer up next month’s rent?” She stalked off, pretending not to hear his laughter.

The rest of their shift dragged on, a slow night in the city. Val stewed over the incident with The Disciples most of the night, her emotions in turmoil. Pope’s warning about how she could get hurt nagged at her. Her first instinct—to ignore it as an empty warning from a street thug working an advantage over her—failed, serving only to preoccupy her more. She wanted to pry some insight out of Gil, but his teasing her over the $500 offer pissed her off, and he couldn’t resist making cracks about once an hour about how much money she had to burn. As the night wore on, worry that Pope may have intended his warning as a threat took over. On top of that, she pictured Cecily, whose older brother led one of the most feared gangs in the city—and still some sick asshole abused the poor child. That thought depressed her.

It also reminded her of Antoinetta, and in turn Officer Brian Samuels, still recuperating at home from his injuries. That made her blush, which only brought back the anger. The press, the public, and even other cops—even Gil, for God’s sake—made her out to be a hero, when she’d just done her job. The title felt cheap, unearned—a mere label. Her Uncle Val had earned that title, taking bullets to save innocent lives. Multiple times. That’s what she called a hero.

A half hour before quitting time, they returned for their final pass on Abernethy, still barely speaking to one another. Approaching the convenience store, Gil tapped her on the shoulder. “Coffee time,” he said. “I’ll buy.”

“No coffee for me, or I won’t sleep,” she said. “But make it a hot cocoa, and I’m all ears.”

Taufiq greeted them inside the door with a wide grin. “My favorite policemen—er, and women,” he said. “Please, have a coffee on the house.”

While Gil fixed himself a fresh cup, Val slouched against the check-out counter. She entered “Clayton police shooting Samuels” into the Google search app on her phone. She tapped on the top result, a story headlined “Local Hero Recovers After Saving Girl,” accompanied by a photo of a smiling Samuels in uniform.

“See?” Val said. “At least Clayton Copwatch understands who made the real sacrifice in this incident.”

Taufiq’s ever-present grin faded, and he busied himself with something behind the counter, his head bowed.

Val moved closer to Taufiq and pointed to the picture of Samuels. “Taufiq? Why does this upset you?”

Taufiq forced a smile. “Please, let me buy that cocoa for you.” He brushed her phone aside and refused to look at her.

Val gave him a quizzical stare. “Taufiq, what’s gotten into you?” she asked.

Gil finished fixing his coffee and came up behind Val, peeking over her shoulder. A moment later he let out a low whistle. “You’ll regret reading that crap,” he said. “I recommend you close that now.”

“Why?” Val glanced at Gil, then Taufiq, both wearing sour expressions. Curiosity took over and she skimmed through the article until she spotted her own name. What she saw made her blood boil.

Despite the fact that Clayton P.D. had Officer Samuels’ assailant surrounded, the suspect remains at large. This raises serious questions, chief among them: why did Clayton P.D. allow a rookie police officer to take the lead in the suspect’s attempted—and bungled—arrest?

Copwatch has also learned that the department has not disciplined the officer, Valorie Dawes, for her failures in the case. Worse, the department has recommended her for decoration and honors.

Confidential sources have informed Copwatch that such cases usually result in harsh sanctions such as demotion or suspension. But Dawes’s namesake uncle is a well-known local hero. Could her celebrity status be the reason for her special treatment?

“Special treatment?” Val’s shriek bounced off the walls. She slammed her phone onto the counter and spun around to face Gil, bumping into him and spilling his coffee onto the floor. “I told you not to recommend me for that damned medal!”

Gil shook hot liquid off his fingers and swore, then moved aside so Taufiq could mop up the mess. “I told you not to pay attention to what this idiot Paul Peterson writes,” he said. “That damned muckraker. He knows nothing.”

“He knows I’m not a hero, and I agree with him.” Val wiped the counter with a handful of napkins from the donut rack. “But saying I let that son of a bitch get away—that I’m responsible—that—”

She squeezed the wet napkins in her fist, and coffee ran over her hands back onto the counter she’d just cleaned. She stared up at Gil, then at Taufiq, both frozen in front of her. Staring at her, open-mouthed, as if in disbelief.

Their disbelief crept over her, and she realized that the blogger had it right. She had let Harkins get away. And the article’s criticisms skewed not only her, but also Gil, if not the entire department.

“The next time I see Paul Peterson,” she said through ragged breaths, “I’m going to break him in half.”

Val picked at her salad, a gourmet mish-mash of unrecognizable greens, three different colors of beets, and some sort of under-cooked grain. She searched, without success, for another few drops of the sweet red dressing that made the mixture tolerable. Beth and their two male companions had long ago finished theirs, gushing about how “inventive” and “adventurous” it was. They gobbled an entire basket of tooth-shattering breadsticks they dipped in a bowl of so-called aioli, which tasted like store-bought mayonnaise and smelled like pickled garlic. Give her a hearty pasta with red sauce or a thick, juicy cheeseburger any day over this nouveau crap.

The white-shirted waiter offered to top off her wine from the bottle chilling on the stand at her elbow, but she declined with a quiet smile. He nodded and refilled Beth’s glass, then emptied the bottle with a splash in each of the two men’s glasses. “Another?” he asked.

“Definitely!” said Val’s date, a thick-necked jock named Brent with curly hair and the uneven skin of a long-ago battle with acne. Brent laughed and half-pretended to pour some of his wine into her glass, but she snatched it away in time. He laughed again, a braying sound that reminded her of George Bailey’s goofy friend Sam Wainwright in that old Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. Brent laughed at everything, especially his own jokes. He probably laughed during sex. Something she never wanted to confirm.

“You’d better get drinking, if you’re going to keep up with us,” said Beth’s date, a 30-ish rake with a dark shadow of a beard and an easy smile. Joshua’s bright green eyes and tousled mop of light brown hair reminded her of the actor Bradley Cooper, but without the muscles or the charm. He smiled non-stop, probably to show off his perfect teeth, which at the moment were bright red from the beets in the salad, or the wine, or from sucking someone’s blood. Both men creeped Val out, though she couldn’t put her finger on why.

“Not until five o’clock,” Beth said. She gulped her own wine and waved to the waiter, already returning with a fresh bottle. “Come on, Val. Live a little.”

“If I were a cop, I’d drink non-stop!” Brent’s crazy laugh echoed off the walls.

Val cringed. If people like Brent became cops, she’d stay drunk all the time, too.

Then again, too many guys like Brent did become Clayton cops. Why weren't more of them polite, self-reflective, and respectful, like Gil?

She blushed. How inappropriate! Gil was her partner and mentor, and maybe friend, not someone to think about on a date with someone else.

“So, you’re not going to answer me?” Brent said. “Too personal a question?”

Val blushed again. She had no idea what he’d said. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What was the question?”

“Do you ever take a nip of something before work, to help you get through the stress?” Brent said. “You know, to take the edge off?”

“Not Val,” Beth said, drawing Josh’s face close for a sloppy kiss. Val cringed. A display like that would be inappropriate at the humblest of burger joints. In a place this fancy, they could get thrown out. “Val’s a good girl,” Beth said. “She never breaks the rules.”

“Never?” Brent said. “You wouldn’t even, say, take a free meal, or fix a traffic ticket for someone?”

“Of course,” Brent said. He rested his hand on Val’s thigh. She brushed it away and crossed her legs, shuddering. He frowned at her, then issued another donkey-laugh. “I guess it’s a good thing we have more wine!”

The main course arrived, and the conversation shifted to how amazing everything tasted and smelled. Val’s own dish, a thick, juicy slice of filet mignon, dripped brown au jus onto her roasted red potatoes. A trio of asparagus stalks rimmed the edges of her plate like a green frame. A light scent of garlic and green herbs mingled with the savory aromas of the charred beef. She dove in with relish, the meat melting on her tongue.

“Try mine!” Brent shoved a fork loaded with lobster, dripping with butter, near her face. “I want to try yours, too.”

She shook her head, still chewing a mouthful of her filet, but Brent pushed his fork closer, poking her lips. She waved her free hand to brush it away, but she slapped the fork too hard, and the chunk of lobster landed on Joshua’s lap.

“I’m so sorry!” Val grabbed her napkin and dipped it in water, offering it to Josh.

Josh grinned and spread his legs wider. “Clean me, baby!” he said, way too loud.

“Lucky dog!” Brent said, braying again. He leered at Val. “Hey, baby, why don’t you knock some food my way next time? I’ll get the napkin ready for you!”

On the drive home, Val squished herself into the corner behind the driver and placed her purse on the center of the back seat of Josh’s car. She hoped that would create a physical barrier large enough to discourage Brent from attempting physical contact. She regretted wearing a skirt, especially without leggings, but the unseasonably warm night convinced her to go bare-legged. Jeans, or stainless-steel armor, would have worked even better.

Sure enough, Brent disappointed her once again, grabbing her thigh and leering at her. She shuddered, failing to suppress the memory of creepy Uncle Milt grabbing at her body, grinning at her. No, no, NO—

Val pushed Brent’s hand away, but he seized the opportunity to hold her hand in his large, clammy paw. She pushed the vomit back down her throat—luckily she hadn’t eaten much at dinner—and forced a weak smile before wiggling her hand free. He grabbed her leg again, this time higher up her thigh. Dammit! She wiggled her hand under his, pushing it to the seat, but he took it as a sign that she wanted to hold hands, and wrapped his big mitt around hers. She sighed, considered pulling away again, but at least this way he wouldn’t keep grabbing at her. Instead, she held on to his hand for dear life, pressing it into the seat several inches from her knee. She stared out the window, plotting her escape from the inevitable goodnight kiss.

“Dinner was amazing, wasn’t it?” Beth said from the front seat when they stopped at a red light. “What’s next? Music and dancing?”

“Hell yeah!” Josh said, and their lips locked yet again in a wet, sloppy smooch. Val gagged and pushed Brent away from a similar attempt. Her heart raced, and the car grew stuffy. She lowered the window a notch.

“I love the night air, too,” Brent said, his face still too close to Val’s. His breath reeked of garlic and beets. “Maybe we can take a walk after Josh drops us off.”

“You need to buckle your seat belt.” She pushed him away. “And I’m sorry, but I need to call it a night. I have to work tomorrow.”

“Once a cop, always a cop, eh?” Brent said with another one of his braying laughs, but it lacked enthusiasm, and hurt showed in his eyes.

“Come on, Val,” Beth said over Josh’s shoulder. “Don’t kill the buzz. We’re all having fun here.” They returned to making out, like horny teenagers.

“I’d really like to get to know you a little better.” Brent freed his hand and explored her leg again.

She found her purse and set it on top of his wandering digits and wondered what species of octopus he descended from. “Perhaps we can talk on the drive home,” she said.

“Great idea,” Beth said. “Let’s go to our place. I’ve got a great bottle of wine I’ve been meaning to crack open, and—”

“I’m sorry, guys, but I have a splitting headache, and I need to sleep.” Val frowned at Beth, who returned an angry sneer. Too bad. Val needed out of this car and out of this date more than Beth needed another quick lay. Besides, she’d said the code words, “splitting headache,” that they’d long ago established as meaning “I need out!” The two friends had always respected each other’s needs in that department. No exceptions.

Beth sighed and patted Josh’s shoulder, nodding. “I guess we need to save it for another night. Val’s migraines are not a pretty sight.”

Good. Val didn’t get migraines, but it meant Beth heard and understood the message.

Beth and Josh chatted in quiet voices during the drive home. Val and Brent remained quiet, although he cast a few longing glances her way, and after rebuffing a few more leg-grabs, she let him hold her hand out of self-defense, fighting her revulsion.

“Here we are,” Josh said, parking a half-block away. “You guys go on ahead.”

Beth glared at her. “Josh and I need a moment to, ah, talk.” She giggled. Josh grinned like a wolf. They’d be making out before the doors even closed.

Val sighed. Fine. It was only half a block. How much harm could he do? She kept her distance as Brent walked her to the door.

“I enjoyed meeting you tonight,” Brent said. “I hope we can get together again sometime.”

“We’ll see.” Val stopped on the dark front steps, already out of view of Josh and Beth, and wished the landlord had replaced the burnt-out bulb in the lamp. Or at least trimmed the hedges. She felt hemmed in by his size and the tight space. “I work nights...and I try to visit my niece on my off days, and...well, it was nice meeting you, too, Brent.” She forced a smile and braced herself for the inevitable move.

Sure enough, the moment she dipped her hand into her purse for her keys, he wrapped his long arms around her and pulled her in close. He cocked his head to move in for a kiss, but she worked her arms inside and kept him at a harmless distance.

He stepped back, holding her hand, and gave her a long look. “Yeah. I’m sorry too.” He leaned in closer and spoke in a whisper. “Even with migraines, I think you’re a pretty sight.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks,” she said, patting his chest. “That’s sweet of—”

And then she couldn’t breathe, because he crushed her in a tight embrace, and his mouth smothered hers, his tongue slathering her lips and reeking of vinegar. She gasped for air, but that only egged him on more. He pushed her against the door, pinning her arms, grinding his body against hers. Panic rose inside her. His size, his strength, his weight, forcing himself on her, refusing to take no for an answer—

Then her training kicked in, and muscle memory took over. Her knee shot into his groin, and she freed one hand. She drove two stiff fingers into his throat, and he tumbled backwards off the steps, landing hard on the ground. Val pushed her key into the lock before he could stand. She ducked inside, but he slipped his foot inside the door before she closed it. It bounced open, and he lunged. She stepped aside and gave his back a one-handed push. He crashed face-first onto the floor, howling in pain. She landed another kick to the groin, and his howl turned into a hollow groan.

“If you aren’t gone from here in two seconds, I’m calling the cops,” she said, spittle spewing onto his chest. “And if you have any doubts as to what my fellow officers in blue would do to protect one of their own, please, hang out and let me educate you.”

Val welcomed the sight of Gil the next evening, his warm smile and calm demeanor a welcome change from the poor examples of manhood she’d witnessed the night before. Her lingering soreness at him over the “$500 incident,” as they called it, evaporated with his polite and non-intrusive inquiries about her days off. Gil didn’t exploit their small talk to invade her space, he listened to her, he asked intelligent questions, and perhaps most important, he kept his distance from her. Handshakes and claps on the shoulder, just like with their male colleagues. Like...friends.

“We might run into The Disciples tonight,” Gil said once they’d hit the pavement to start their rounds. “Did you bring cash for Pope, in case he finds something?”

“Crap, I forgot about that.” She dug into the wallet tucked inside her belt and found $50. “I need to find an ATM.”

“There’s one in the Quick Mart,” Gil said. “And I could use some coffee.”

Taufiq greeted them with warm smiles and an offer of free coffee and donuts. They followed their usual protocol of accepting only the complimentary drinks, per department policy. Gil poured while Val slid her debit card into the ATM at the back of the store.

“Dammit,” she said. “I was afraid of this.” She waved Gil over and showed him the screen. “The machine limits me to a $250 withdrawal. Can you lend me the difference?”

Gil laughed and brandished his own card. “I’ll split the bounty with you. I insist.”

She wondered if he’d noticed the low balance on the screen before he offered, and guessed not. Would Brent have been so gracious? Only if it meant getting her in the sack. Gil offered out of genuine kindness. She owed him, big time.

And not just cash. He took care of her, as a rookie trainee and as a person. A wave of gratitude washed over her. She should do something, show him how she felt. That’s what a normal person would do.

Val edged toward him, but something stopped her. Wouldn’t let her get closer to him. Wouldn’t let her do what anyone else in her position would do: smile at him, touch him, maybe even hug him, tell him thanks.

He waited, his head cocked, as if wondering what the hell was taking her so long. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No, no,” she said. “I, uh...forgot my PIN for a moment.” She touched the screen, and it beeped at her. Dammit! In her flustered state of mind, she’d pressed the wrong button, and canceled the transaction. She groaned and went through the process again, then stepped aside to let Gil use the machine.

The bells on the store’s front door jingled. The aisles screened her view, so she leaned around the well-stocked shelves to peek. A short, wiry black teen approached the counter, turning his head from side to side. She couldn’t see his entire face, but he looked familiar. The young man said something to Taufiq. Taufiq nodded, rang up a purchase—and disappeared from view with a crash. The teen grabbed at the register.

“Shit!” She pulled her club from her belt. “The kid’s robbing the store!”

Val dashed up the aisle, but the youth ran through the door before she reached him. She followed him out the door. Fifteen yards ahead of her, he sprinted at top speed toward the street.

“Stop! Police! Hands up!” she shouted and ran after him, but the young man ignored her, and gained another few steps on her in a matter of seconds. Val's legs churned, but he maintained his lead on her, racing down the sidewalk. She contemplated pulling out her firearm, but a half-dozen people dotted the sidewalks and traffic clogged the busy street. Too risky, and drawing the weapon would only slow her down. She ran on, hoping her conditioning would give her an advantage. But the kid was fast, and her bulky uniform and gear weighed her down.

He reached the corner and dashed into the intersection. Tires squealed, horns blared, and two cars swerved in opposite directions. Their tail-ends collided with a loud bang, spewing glass and chrome onto the street. Locked together by their rear fenders, they blocked the young man’s path, and he had to run around them. Val reached them moments later and, with an athletic leap, scrambled over their hoods, landing a few steps behind the youth. She flipped her baton forward. It got tangled between his legs, and he landed on the sidewalk, hard. Bills of various denominations littered the pavement.

Val grabbed his arms and yanked them behind his back before he could recover and lifted him to his feet, surprised at how light he was. She pushed him against the brick wall of the adjacent building, cuffed him, and spun him around to see his face.

Her heart sank when she recognized him. “Dog!” she shouted over heavy breaths. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing, robbing a place with two cops inside the store?”

Dog’s eyes widened. Recognition dawned, and his head drooped. “Damn, man, I didn’t see ya’ll in there.” He glanced up. “The money’s all getting away.”

Val stole a quick glance around. Sure enough, a light breeze had picked up, scattering the bills further up the street. Footsteps thudded toward her from the other direction, followed by Gil’s voice, shouting something she couldn’t make out.

Dog nodded, dropped to his knees, and folded his hands behind his neck. Val shook her head. The kid knew arrest procedure better than she did.

She gathered up her baton and as many of the loose bills as she could. Gil arrived moments later and stood guard over Dog while a few passersby helped retrieve the money.

She marched Dog and the cash back to the Quick Mart while Gil tended to the two drivers who’d collided.

“Thank you, Officer Valorie!” Taufiq said when they returned. “You have rescued my store!”

“He pushed me, I fell against the wall,” Taufiq said. A dozen packages of cigarettes remained scattered on the floor behind the counter. “Then he grabbed the money and ran.”

They counted the cash, a little over $200. “You’re lucky,” she said to Dog. “You’re under the felony threshold. But you assaulted Mr. Sharkar. He’s within his rights to press charges against you.”

Dog hung his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I didn’t use no gun or nothing.”

“You think that makes it all right?” Val shook her head. “What were you thinking, Dog?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I never done this before.” He scraped his toe on the floor. “I’m just trying to make Deacon.”

“Deacon?” Val lifted his chin and met his eyes, read the fear and confusion there. His meaning dawned on her. “It’s a rank, right? In The Disciples?”

She exchanged glances with Taufiq. “Does Mr. Sharkar look like The Man to you?”

Dog looked at Taufiq and toed the floor again. “I shouldn’a told you that. Pope gonna kill me.”

An idea dawned. She should run it past Gil, but he hadn’t returned from the fender-bender yet. She pulled Taufiq aside. “You okay? You’re not hurt?”

“And you got your money back.” Another nod. “Listen. You’re within your rights to file a complaint, but we could do some good here—for the neighborhood, and for you. If we charge him, your store will remain a target. But if we work this right, The Disciples could become allies—for both of us. Are you willing to give it a try?”

Taufiq thought a moment, then nodded. “If it works, it will be worthwhile,” he said. “And I trust you.”

Gil pushed a still-cuffed Dog into the back seat of their cruiser outside the store and shut the door behind him. “Come on, get in,” he said to Val, standing next to him. “We need to get him booked. Did Taufiq give you a statement?”

“Sure.” Gil tossed her the keys, crossed his arms, and squinted at her. “You’re up to something.”

She leaned closer. “My own version of community policing.” She filled him in on the conversation they’d had in the store.

“You’re crazy,” he said when she finished. “We can’t let him walk. Gibson will have your ass in a sling if he finds out.”

Gil scowled, but he slid in on the passenger’s side. He picked up the radio mic. “I told HQ that we were bringing him in. I’d better alert them to the change in plans.”

Gil smiled. “Ah, so some version of sanity prevails.” He replaced the mic in its holder.

They reached The Disciples’ corner two minutes later. As usual, a trash barrel provided warmth to a small circle of men. Gil and Val escorted Dog to the edge of the lot, each holding one arm by the biceps.

Cardinal Thomas greeted them with a humorless smile. “Returning our lost pet? We hadn’t even gotten around to posting signs in the neighborhood.” He reached for Dog, but the two cops pulled him back a step.

The Cardinal’s eyes widened. “Cops don’t usually hold hostages,” he said, “except in jail cells.”

Cardinal Thomas’s nose flared, but he kept his voice even. “Pope’s got an appointment.”

“Fine,” Val said, exchanging glances with Gil. “He can make another appointment to visit Dog downtown sometime.” They tugged Dog back toward their cruiser.

“Wait.” Thomas signaled to a young runner with a single gold loop earring, and the kid disappeared into a dark alley at the back of the lot.

“You have two minutes,” Gil said without breaking stride. “Then we drive.”

“What the fuck?” Thomas stepped toward them. “You think we just wait around here for you to show up so we can have a damned meeting? We got shit to do too, you know.”

“Yeah, you guys are crazy busy today,” Val said, waving toward the group warming their hands.

“You either produce Pope in two minutes, or Dog spends the rest of his teen years getting ass-fucked by guys your size,” Gil said. “Your call.”

Val leaned over to Gil. “Was that really necessary?” she said in a whisper. He shrugged in response.

Thomas fumed a moment, then held up one finger. He stepped away and made a quick call on his cell phone in a low voice. Ninety seconds later, a car pulled up behind the cruiser. Pope emerged from the passenger side, sat on the hood, and lit a cigarette.

Gil shook his head. “He ain’t here yet.” He checked his watch. “Twenty seconds.”

He glared at her, then let go of Dog. “Fine. Your circus, your clowns.” He followed Val and Dog toward Pope.

When they got to ten feet away, Pope stood and crushed the cigarette under his heel. “S’up, Dog? Copsky?” He paused and grinned at Val. “And Copette?”

“Your boy screwed up,” Val said. “Tried to relieve my friend Taufiq’s Quick Mart of two hundred bucks. Didn’t spot us hanging around in back. Right, Dog?”

“Dog’s going down for robbery and aggravated assault,” Val said. “Unless...”

Val checked in with Gil, who lifted his shoulders an inch and let them fall. Your circus, your clowns. She took a deep breath. “I want you to protect Taufiq’s store. In fact, nobody pulls crap like this in the entire neighborhood. Anyone tries, they catch hell from you.”

“That’s a good one.” Pope shook his head. “It don’t add up. You know we got, ah, business to do.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Val said. “So change your business model. No more knocking off convenience stores or roughing up the neighbors to earn an earring. Find something else that doesn’t scare the entire neighborhood from walking on their own street.”

“Fine,” Val said. “Come on, Dog. Let’s go find you a public defender.” She pushed him toward the cruiser.

“Wait, wait.” Pope rubbed his chin and glanced at Thomas, who had edged closer, with a small crowd of Disciples behind him. “You’re saying you’ll let Dog walk on this if we help you?”

Pope signaled to Cardinal, and the two conferred a moment in low voices. Cardinal Thomas shook his head, arms crossed, anger lining his face. “I get it,” Pope said at one point, “but dude, this is Dog we’re talking about.” Thomas reacted with more angry shakes of his head, but his body language signaled defeat. Finally, the two man-hugged and approached the cruiser together. “Deal,” Pope said, reaching for Dog.

“The guy we showed you a picture of the other day.” She handed him another copy. “Any leads on him?”

Pope tapped the picture. “This white boy’s gone, man. High-tailed it down to Alabama or one of them redneck places. Nobody's seen him in almost a week.”

Gil stepped forward next to Val, dragging Dog along with him. “And you’ll tell us the moment you find out? Without us having to chase you down and set up a damned appointment?”

Pope gazed at Dog through a cloud of blue smoke. Dog glanced up once and resumed his toe-digging in the gravel. Pope blew a hole in the fog and nodded. “Word.” He waved a Disciple over wearing a single gold earring. “Gunner. Where’s that cousin of yours live, the dancer?”

Pope inhaled on his butt again. “She seen him there once before. She‘s looking for him. If she sees him, you’ll know.”

Val side-eyed Gil, who tilted his head down once. She unlocked Dog’s cuffs, her heart pounding. Gibson might give her a tongue-lashing or worse, but she had to trust her instincts.

The next evening, as Val dressed in the women’s locker room, Brenda Petroni tapped her on the shoulder. “Travis wants to jaw at ya,” she said, pulling off her own Kevlar vest.

“Sergeant Blake?” Val paused while buttoning up her blues. “What about?”

“You tell me,” Brenda said. “You in trouble for some reason?” she asked.

“Hey, how about drinks tomorrow with Shannon?” Brenda said. “We haven’t talked in a while.”

“You got it.” Val tugged on her shoes, her mind racing. As squad commander, Travis Blake served as Gibson’s right-hand man at the precinct, dealing with staff assignments and discipline. Had Gil ratted her out on the Dog situation? Her fingers shook, unable to create a knot in the laces.

She knocked on Blake’s open office door moments later and spied him cramming a thick file into the top drawer of a tall metal cabinet. Sergeant Travis Blake was a heap of a man, generous in all proportions. He stood at least 6'5" even when he slouched, which was rare. His body resembled a whiskey barrel, and he had arms and legs like an elephant, with ham-like fists. Even his eyes and nose were large. He stared at Val, his gray eyes matching the curly swatch closely cropped to his watermelon-sized head.

She did as he ordered and waited, hands folded on her lap. He sat behind his own desk, his eyebrows arched, a frown on his face.

“So, we got a citizen complaint,” he said, and took a deep breath. He bent one leg and rested his ankle on his knee, tapped his thumb, waiting.

“About me?” she said when she couldn’t bear the silence any longer. Such a brilliant deduction. At least it wasn’t from Gil. Her mind raced, inventorying names of people who may have complained. Not Dog, but maybe one of The Disciples? Antoinetta? Her mother, or her aunt? God forbid, Taufiq might have changed his mind, and reneged on the deal. Gil’s warning of what Gibson would do if he found out echoed in her head, and her heart pounded. “From whom?” she asked after an eternity.

Davenport? Definitely a last name, but not Taufiq’s or Antoinetta’s, and probably not Dog’s. But it sounded familiar. She’d heard it recently...where? “Should I?” she asked.

Blake harrumphed, unbent his knee, and let it drop to the floor with a thump as he leaned over his desk. “Don’t you learn the last names of the men you date?”

“Oh, crap.” Her body went limp in the chair. Not that jerk. “Brent Davenport complained about our date to you?”

“He said you threatened him and used excessive force in response to a ‘friendly gesture,’ which I take to mean an attempted goodnight kiss,” Blake said. “Did you really kick him in the nuts for that?”

Unbelievable. For a moment, she regretted not kicking him harder. “It was more than a peck on the cheek.” Val’s face grew hot and her voice more animated. “He crushed my body against the wall and tried to break into my house. But what the hell? Why is this any of the department’s business?”

“It’s not, if that’s what happened,” Blake said. “But if a citizen complains, we have to investigate.” He scribbled on a form, folded it in half, and shoved it inside a folder. “Consider it investigated.”

Blake cocked his head with a sigh and a lazy half-smile. “Try not to beat anyone up today, okay?”

“I mean it, Dawes,” he said. “I’d hate to see the good work you’re doing out there get screwed up over some ass-grabbing punk.”

Heat flooded her face again. She took a deep breath and stepped closer to the sergeant. “Are you saying I should turn the other cheek?” she said. “No pun intended.”

Travis smothered a smirk. “How about we put this behind you?” he quipped and burst out laughing. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

Val, despite herself, chuckled along with him, but her mirth quickly subsided. Try as she might, she couldn’t let this pass. “So, Sarge. Is the department saying women’s bodies are fair game, and that we have to put up with this crap from whatever bozo can’t keep his hands to himself?”

Blake started to respond, then shook his head. “I get your point, Dawes. Just...keep your responses in proportion to the crime, okay?”

Val smiled. “That, Sergeant, is exactly what I’ve been doing.” She slipped through the door before Blake could respond.

Gil stood waiting for her at their cruiser in the parking garage, leaning against the driver’s door with his arms folded. “I want to discuss something with you,” he said when she got within earshot.

He cocked his head in surprise, then moved closer and lowered his voice. “Something you want to tell me?”

She exhaled a heavy breath, tossed her hands in the air. “Blake called me in for getting too rough with that Brent guy I told you about. It appears the creepy mouth-breather filed a formal complaint.”

“Why?” Gil asked in mock innocence. “The little shit doesn’t enjoy getting kicked in the balls?” He shook his head and clapped his hands on her shoulders. “The punk had it coming. And if you need me to talk to Travis about it—”

“No,” she said, wiggling out of the near-embrace, “but thanks. What’ve you got?”

Gil kept his hands spread at her sides for a moment, as if wondering what to do with them, then re-crossed his arms. “We’re not covering much ground, walking the neighborhood together,” he said. “I think we need a change of tactics.”

Val’s face fell, along with her heart. “You mean driving? I thought the whole point was to mix it up, be present on the street, build relationships. How can we—”

“No, no,” Gil said, laughing. “Slow down. I suggest we split the beat. That way, we can cover twice as much territory.”

She considered the idea and didn’t like it much. “Aren’t you’re supposed to be training me? How can we do that if we’re in different places?”

He waved at the air, as if swatting a fly. “You’ve shown me everything I need to see. You know procedure, you have good instincts, and you relate to the community better than I do. But I get your point. How about we try it for two hours, then get together for coffee and share notes? Any questions you have, you can ask me then. I’m sure there’ll be some ‘teachable moments’, as they say.”

“I thought policy was to work in pairs,” she said. “For safety reasons.”

“My plan was, we’d patrol parallel streets, a few blocks apart. Stay in touch by radio. Any weird things come up, we’ll be close enough to help each other.”

“Well, it will help us maintain a broader presence in more places.” She smiled at him. “Why not? What could go wrong?”

As they drove to their usual parking spot, they discussed which streets each one would cover. Something about this new arrangement bothered her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She shrugged it off as a matter of being over-cautious and did her best to put on a cheerful face for Gil.

Gil and Val settled into a booth at a pastry shop a few hours later. Heavenly aromas of baking confections and fresh-brewed coffee filled the air. Val finally understood why so many people believed cops spent all their waking hours in places like this.

Val dunked a half-crescent of powdered goodness into her light-brown brew and swooned, her free hand on her heart. “I can’t stand being so alone!” she said in mock despair. “Thank you for rescuing me, oh knight in shining armor!”

Gil laughed and stole the other half of her pastry. “That’s my reward,” he said when she protested. “Besides, I have more places I can hide these calories.” He patted his belly.

Val snorted. “I have more body fat in my little finger than you carry on your whole body. Give me that cinnamon twist!” She snagged a chunk of the golden-brown confection from his napkin and shoved it into her mouth. “Fair’s fair,” she tried to say, but it came out as “frumphs furmng.” Or something like that.

“Anyway,” he said, guarding the rest of his food, “I think that splitting up worked well. Don’t you agree?”

She sipped her coffee, finally able to swallow. “Some people asked if you were sick or something.”

She nodded. “I told them you had a mistress. They were horrified that you’d cheat on your wife and me.”

“Only because you don’t ha—wait. So you would cheat on me?” She swatted him on the arm with a playful punch. “Brat.”

“Val, I have to confess.” His shoulders sagged. “I...I have been seeing other policemen.”

“That settles it. I’m never leaving your side again.” She scooted around and sat on the bench next to Gil, pressing him into the corner. Confusion crossed his face, and his arm hung in the air over her shoulders, as if he couldn’t figure out where to put it.

Then Val realized what she’d done, and how things would look to a casual observer: a young female cop cozying up to her partner in a tiny booth. The touch of his leg and body against hers sent shudders down her spine. She coughed, paused, and snagged the final bite of his donut, and scooted back to her side of the table.

Gil remained in the corner, still frozen in place, staring at her while she devoured his treat. He relaxed and slid back to the center of his bench, shaking his body like a dog shedding water.

“Yes, yeah, you bet,” Val said with a little too much enthusiasm. “Let’s go.” She grabbed her coffee and scooted out the door, not waiting for him to follow.

She walked down Abernethy, her leg still tingling where it had pressed against Gil’s.

Val sipped her almost-untouched Chardonnay and wondered why she’d ordered the same damned wine again that, in truth, she didn’t care for. It tasted bitter and musty, like an old oak barrel that had sat out in the rain for several years. She made a mental note to ask for something different next time. If the waiter ever returned to her booth.

She pushed the wine aside and checked the time. Shannon and Brenda must have gotten caught in traffic. She opened her news browser and scanned the headlines. Her finger hovered over the “Close” button, but a headline link at the bottom of her screen gave her pause.

Her blood pressure rose. She knew she shouldn’t give in to the click-bait story title, but on the off chance it might contain new information the department hadn’t uncovered, she had to check. She clicked on the link, hoping against hope that she was wrong about the writer’s identity.

The byline appeared on screen and she sighed. No such luck. This was the “work,” if she could call it that, of Paul Peterson of Clayton Copwatch.

She scanned the piece, a rehash of facts cherry-picked from old news reports to make Clayton P.D. look bad. Toward the bottom, under a section entitled “Analysis,” she read:

Clayton police continue to be stymied in their search for the suspect, identified by confidential sources as Richard Harkins, a vicious thug reputed to have victimized several women and young girls in the city, particularly in the Abernethy District.

Critics say it’s easy to see why. “Not when they put rookie cops on the case,” said a source who asked to remain anonymous. “C.P.D. sent a woman half his size in to arrest him. What were they thinking?”

What, indeed?

- ClaytonLifer

Yah they send a teeny woman cop in to defend us but the South End gets big guys. No surprise who gets more crime.

- WrongSideofTrax

If Herkns was raping men they’d have the best and britest on the case beleeve you me.

- DancesWithBoys

Val seethed and slammed her phone onto the table. She grabbed her wine glass and chugged its contents, choking on its bitter aftertaste. Definitely needed to switch to red.

“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Gunbelt is here!” Brenda Petroni appeared at the end of the booth, dressed in a dark blue blazer, a pastel blue button-down blouse, and black slacks. Behind her, Shannon O’Reilly appeared, her strawberry blonde hair looking wind-blown, her cheeks red, and a motorbike helmet under one arm. Brenda signaled to the waiter and the two women slid into the booth across from Val.

“Bad day at the office?” Shannon asked, pointing at Val’s empty glass. “Or are we that late?”

Val tapped her phone. “I went browsing where I shouldn’t have again, and I don’t mean porn sites,” she said.

“We warned you not to pay any attention to that idiot,” Brenda said. She called out to the waiter, “Two merlots over here, please.”

“Three.” Val pushed her wine glass to the end of the table. “Sorry, I can’t help it. I’m like a moth drawn to flame. I can’t resist.”

“More like a train wreck,” Shannon said. “Believe me, that Peterson jerk sheds no light on anything.”

“I don’t understand where he gets his information,” Val said. “Who feeds him this crap?”

“Let me see it,” Brenda said. She scanned the article on Val’s phone and tsk’d. “The old boys’ network is up to their tricks again.” She showed it to Shannon, who cursed.

“They did the same thing when I came in,” Shannon said. “Certain men in the department get bent out of shape at the prospect of women moving up in the ranks—or even women getting hired as patrol officers. It’s a constant battle.”

“You’re saying he’s getting this misinformation from within the department?” Val asked. Color drained from her face. She’d assumed Peterson got his made-up facts from know-nothings on the street, or from his imagination. She’d never considered that her own comrades in blue would undermine her.

“Be careful who you talk to,” Brenda said, thanking the waiter for their fresh round of wine. She passed a glass to each of her companions and raised her own in a toast: “To cops we can trust.”

The merlot tasted chocolaty and smooth, far better than the fruity Chardonnay. “I hope we can trust more than just each other,” Val said, feeling the wine’s warmth in her throat. “I’d like to think I can trust my partner.”

“Gil’s one of the best you’ll find,” Brenda said. “At the opposite end of the spectrum, Pops is an antique. We should have put him out to pasture a century ago. Gibson is all right, but no saint. Blake too—wait, why that face?”

Val blushed and tried to hide behind her wine glass. “Travis didn’t impress me as the most progressive of men in our last conversation,” she said, and recounted their recent meeting.

At the end of the story, Shannon shrugged. “That almost qualifies him as a feminist in this department,” she said. “My sergeant asked me out a dozen times in my first year—and he was married. I had to wear Kevlar in my pants to stop him from grabbing my ass all the time.”

“At least Travis took your side on the complaint,” Brenda said. “That’s more than most would have done.”

“But who’s talking to Peterson?” Val sipped her merlot again. She’d definitely stick to reds from now on. “I can’t imagine it’s the detectives on the case. They came off looking pretty bad.”

“You can eliminate them, and the women in the department,” Shannon said, twirling the stem of her wine glass on the table. “That narrows it down to...oh, three hundred people.”

“The bottom line is, you can’t worry about what the idiots in the press say, especially on the Internet,” Brenda said. “Nobody reads their stuff anyway.”

“But someone in the department is trying to discredit me,” Val said. “Shouldn’t I be worried about that?”

Shannon and Brenda exchanged glances. “All I can tell you,” Brenda said, “is to trust few, and talk even less. And...” She and Shannon raised their half-empty glasses, waiting for Val to follow suit. “When in doubt, come to us. We’re always here for you.”

“Likewise,” Val said. “I’ve got your backs, too.” They clinked glasses and downed the rest of their drinks in unison.

Two nights later, Val hurried along the boarded-up storefronts of Jacobs Street. She apologized mentally to the various regulars that, tonight, she didn’t have time to stop and chat up. She should have walked this stretch over an hour ago. Not that anyone kept her on a clock, and Gil had warned her not to get too “regular” on her beat or she’d lose the element of surprise. But on this warm Indian summer night in late October, people came out in numbers. She’d made several stops and spoken longer than usual with “the clientele” on both sides of the trouble coin: shopkeepers, tavern bouncers, loitering teens, street musicians, and homeless old men carrying hand-drawn cardboard signs pitching for money. All part of good community policing.

Before she could respond, a noise about 100 feet away interrupted her. A woman’s voice, or a young girl’s, leaked out of an apartment window of a mixed-use building, two stories above a street-level grocery. “Stop, please! You’re hurting me!”

“Shut up, bitch!” a man’s voice replied. Next came the sound of skin slapping skin, and a cry of pain. Definitely a young girl.

“You need help up there?” Val’s hand rested on her baton, her other hand on the radio mic.

No response. A light flickered on. Glass shattered, and the light blinked off. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going, bitch?” a man snarled. Another scream, this time, muffled.

“What’s going on?” Val’s heart raced. “Come to the window, mister. Let me see you. And her.”

The silhouetted figure of a man darkened the opening for a moment, then darted away. “Shh!” someone said from inside. “See what you’ve done?” The man’s voice.

“Bring the girl to the window.” The pounding in Val's chest made it hard to hear. “I want to make sure she’s all right.”

“Leave me al—mmph!” The girl’s shout disappeared, as if swallowed up by a blanket.

“Suspected 428 on Jacobs and Leach,” Val barked into her microphone. “Backup requested. Gil, how close are you?” Val hustled to the entrance of the apartment building, a solid metal door next to an electronic security panel. No way to bust in there. She pushed several call buttons, but no one picked up or buzzed her in. Candy wrappers fluttered on top of a pile of cigarette butts in the corner of the entryway.

“I’ll be there in less than five,” Gil said over the radio. “Is that the Jacobs Arms?”

“There’s a rear exit and a fire escape,” he said, out of breath. “We’ll need to cover the exits. Dispatch, where’s that backup?”

Another scream erupted from the third floor, along with the sound of fabric tearing. Val moved away from the building to get a better view. Shadows flitted across the window, including what looked like a man pulling the hair of a much smaller girl, then pushing her down.

“Hello?” An old woman’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Is someone there?

“Police!” Val shouted. “Responding to a domestic disturbance. Please, buzz me in!”

The lock clicked, and Val yanked open the door. Odors of stale tobacco smoke, spicy food, and urine seared her eyes and made her gag. Fighting for breath, she raced up the stairs two at a time. She arrived at the third-floor landing in time to spot a dark-haired man in a yellow tank top and jeans emerging from a doorway midway down the hall.

“Stop! Police!” Val shouted, reaching for her weapon. The man glanced at Val and ran the opposite direction, disappearing down a staircase at the other end of the hall. He carried an object in his right hand—something dark and metallic.

She broke into a run, heading toward the stairs he’d descended. A girl of eleven or twelve stuck her head out the door he’d just exited. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her dark, tangled hair draped over her torn blue blouse. The girl wiped blood from her lip. “He—he has a gun,” she said, sniffling.

The girl broke into tears. “He...tried to...” She pulled the door part way closed and tugged her blouse down to hide her underwear. “I didn’t let him, and he...got mad.” More sobs.

Val’s muscles tensed, and her whole body shook. Another one! “Stay inside!” she shouted and pulled the door shut. She dashed to the stairs, following the man down. He had already passed the second floor, on his way to the first. “Freeze!” she shouted.

The man looked up at her—a mistake. He stumbled, missed the last few stairs, and tumbled to the landing between floors. He lurched back onto his feet and continued down the final flight of steps. Val gained ground on him, but not before he burst through the heavy metal door into the alley behind the building.

“Stop! Police!” she yelled after him. The man ran through the alley toward Jacobs Street. She grabbed her radio off her belt. “In pursuit of 428 suspect fleeing southbound from the Jacobs Arms,” she puffed into the mike. “Suspect is Asian male in his thirties, five-eight to five-ten, one-sixty to one-eighty, and armed. Request backup, stat! Gil, where are you?”

She clipped the radio onto her belt. Calling in had slowed her, and the suspect had gained ground. She gritted her teeth, put her head down, and charged harder. Even harder than when she’d run to Antoinetta’s, or when she’d chased Dog. Her heart pounded, but she felt good. It had been a long time since she’d run this hard. Not since the 440 relay at the regional meet the year before. Her lungs ached, sucking in air.

The suspect looked over his shoulder and right-angled across the street, dodging cars. She followed on a diagonal, closing the gap to fifty feet, then forty. The man turned onto a side street. She followed. Thirty feet. He had to make choices. That slowed him down. All she had to do was run.

He turned again. She recognized the street. An alley—a dead end. Apartments with locked, secured entry doors loomed over street-level shops, all closed. He had trapped himself.

She followed him part way into the alley and hit a tidal wave of unwelcome scents emanating from dumpsters lining the walls on all three sides. She halted twenty feet from him, unholstered her revolver, and flicked off the safety. “Freeze!” she yelled. “Hands up! Now!”

He stopped, still facing away from her. As if in slow motion, his left hand drifted to his side. His right remained shielded from her.

“Turn around! Face me!” She edged closer, her weapon aimed at the center of his body mass.

His body twisted, achingly slow, counter-clockwise, his hands spread wide. For a moment his right hand ducked out of view. When it came back into view, it held something dark. His arm jerked forward, supported by his left. Something whizzed past her head just before the loud “pop” reached her ears. A memory from academy training flashed in her mind: Bullets travel faster than sound.

Instinct, training, and reflexes kicked in. She dropped to one knee, still aiming, both hands steady, supporting the weapon. He moved his arm, following her path, pointed again at her—

A red blotch appeared in the center of his chest. Redness sprayed the dumpsters along the brick wall behind him. His body slammed into the dumpster, his arms wide, his feet forward but his weight supported by the metal wall behind him. He stared at her a moment, shock fading from his eyes. His head lolled to one side, his legs buckled, and he tumbled face-down onto the street.

Val remained in her crouch for two or three seconds, still holding her right arm in position with her left, both hands shaking. Voices murmured somewhere in the background. “Did she just shoot that guy?” said a man’s voice. “Is he dead?” asked someone else. The voices seemed far away. Recorded, like in a movie.

A woman’s voice above her broke her frozen stance. “You got him!” the woman yelled. “Good shot!”

She spotted the aging matron two stories up. “I saw the whole thing!” the woman yelled. “He shot at you first. I’ll testify!”

Val gave her a slow wave with her left hand and lowered her gun toward the fallen man. She stood, gravity tugging at her body, numbness washing over her. More voices, words she could not recognize.

Sirens wailed, and grew louder. Val trudged toward him. She knew before checking his pulse that he was dead.

She took a deep breath. Siren-blaring cruisers pulled up, doors opened and slammed shut. Shouting voices, most of them male. Gil’s among them, asking if she was all right.

She felt more than all right. She reholstered her weapon, staring at the man’s lifeless body. The pervert who’d attacked a young, helpless girl. He’d tried to rape her, and would have had Val not happened by. Fucking child molester.