I scowl because he enjoys batting back and forth with the captain. I do not, and with good reason. Every encounter for me with Moore includes a ghost in the room: the former captain, my father, whom we buried only three months ago today, and not with the honor I would have liked. “Seriously, Lang?”

“I didn’t do anything.” He wiggles an eyebrow. “Not that he knows about.”

I plop my hands on my hips and glare.

“Oh come on, brains,” he chides, “you were the youngest detective in the precinct, at twenty-five, with the highest scores on record. You had some crazy-high IQ test. You can handle the captain.”

“You’re enjoying this,” I accuse.

“I kind of am. Maybe he wants to know why you’re thirty-two and won’t take the sergeant’s test.”

“You’re forty and you haven’t taken the test,” I counter.

“Because I’m a fuckup.”

I love him, but he kind of is a fuckup, and it’s always been interesting to me that my father partnered us so often. “Well then,” I say. “I haven’t taken the test because I don’t want to manage people like you.”

“Jazz!” the captain shouts. “Now!”

I shove strands of my long, light brown hair behind my ears, and do so for no good reason. To a detective like myself, it might seem like a nervous gesture. So would the way I stand up and run my hands over my blazer, the likes of which I often pair with a silk blouse and dress pants. The jacket hides my weapon and badge, and the silk says: “I’m female, hear me roar.”

I’m not roaring now, though. My spine is stiff, and when I glance at the spot on my desk that once sported a photo of my father—tall and handsome, with green eyes that matched mine, and thick brown hair—I’m sick to my stomach. I’m also ready to get this over with.

Turning away from Lang, I tune out his, “Good luck!” that starts a symphony of the same from various detectives in the pit of desks. The captain isn’t going to press me to take the sergeant’s test. I’m the daughter of his dirty predecessor, only three months in the grave, for God’s sake. And apparently, my desire to join Internal Affairs to be the better Jazz made me a worse traitor than my father.

Captain Moore doesn’t trust me. The fact that my godfather is Chief of Police and my father’s ex-best friend doesn’t help matters.