“You didn’t get enough the first time?” Detective Tanner’s partner, Morino, arched an overgrown eyebrow. He looked like he’d crawled out of a laundry basket. Prewash cycle. His shirt was wrinkled and there was an oily spot the size of a quarter on his tie.

“Is Detective Tanner here or not?” Mendez asked. He had no patience for slobs. Sloppy man, sloppy work.

Even though he was technically not on duty, Mendez had dressed appropriately in pressed khaki slacks and a tucked-in black polo shirt with the FBI National Academy crest embroidered on the left chest.

“Sure,” Morino said, motioning him to follow as he headed down the hall. “It’s your lucky day—if you’re a masochist.”

“You don’t like having a lady for a partner?”

Morino laughed as they walked into the detective division and toward the small sea of steel desks where Tanner sat. “She’s no lady. She’s a vagina with a gun.”

“That’s better than being a hairy asshole with a big mouth,” Tanner said, unperturbed by her partner’s disrespect.

“Stick a tampon in it,” Morino sneered.

Tanner sneered back. “Go fuck yourself with a broom.”

“The one you flew in on?” he asked as he walked on past her.

“Yeah,” she called after him. “I sharpened the end just for you.”

Mendez took the seat at the side of her desk. “It doesn’t bother you that he talks that way to you?”

Tanner rolled her eyes. “I grew up with four brothers in a family of longshoremen. Nothing that one comes up with is going to faze me.”

“He should have some respect,” Mendez said, peeved enough for both of them. “Where’s your boss? He ought to put a stop to that.”

She huffed an impatient sigh. “I didn’t sign on to be a cop because I thought all the guys would open doors and hold my chair for me, detective,” she said. “I’ve had my ass kicked on this job. Seriously. Morino’s mouth is only a problem for me if I let it be. And believe me, in the battle of wits, he is by far outmatched. I don’t need a white knight to ride in and save me.”

Mendez scowled, shooting a look across the room where Morino was half sitting on another detective’s desk. The pair of them were sniggering like ninth graders.

“Thanks anyway,” Tanner added, getting up from her chair. “You want to look at the Lawton files?”

He wanted to go over and smack Morino upside the head. Instead, he stood up and put his attention on Tanner. “Yeah. I specifically want to see everything you have on Ballencoa himself,” he said, falling in step beside her. “My partner and I paid him a visit yesterday.”

“In San Luis?”

“In Oak Knoll. Lauren Lawton wasn’t seeing ghosts. He’s there.”

“Boy, this is your lucky week,” Tanner said.