He thought of himself as a modern kind of a guy, but he had to admit he hadn’t come across any women in detective divisions, and Tanner had come as a surprise to him.

In recent years, the journals had been full of articles about women fighting for equality in what had always been the man’s world of law enforcement. He remembered guys at his own SO having their noses out of joint over Sheriff Dixon hiring female deputies. It was rarer still to see women in plainclothes divisions, and the stuff of headlines when a woman made it to the top ranks.

For the most part, he didn’t see a problem with a woman being a detective. The job was mostly mental, not physical. But he had his doubts about a female detective sitting down across the table from the kind of scumbags detectives routinely had to question.

As he came into the investigative division the door to an interview room opened and a petite blonde woman backed out, pointing her finger and shouting at whoever was still in the room.

“—and you’re nothing but a fucking piece of dirt, you know that? You think you can sit there and snicker at me like you’re fucking twelve years old? Think again, asshole! Do that to me again and I’ll kick your fucking balls up to your ears!”

Mendez stared like a deer in headlights.

The woman had a badge clipped to her belt at the waist of a trim pair of black trousers. The black T-shirt she wore fit her like a second skin. Her dishwater blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

She slammed the door to the interview room and turned to look square at Mendez. Her eyes were as green as a cat’s.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said with that same slightly hoarse voice he’d heard over the phone. “Can I help you?”

“Tony Mendez,” he said.

She had the grace to blush a little—or maybe that flush on her cheeks was still anger. Hard to say.

She stuck a hand out at him and squeezed his fingers with the grip of a nutcracker. “Danni Tanner. Sorry you had to hear that.”

“Interesting technique,” Mendez commented. “You got a tough one in there?”

The door to the interview room opened again and a tall guy in a rumpled suit came out with a smirk on his face.

Tanner glared at him. “Wipe that fucking smirk off your face.”

“Go take a Midol.”

“Fuck you and your whole fucking family, Morino.”

“Mor-on-o,” she muttered half under her breath as Morino casually gave her the finger and walked away.

Tanner made a face of utter disgust, then turned back to Mendez. “My partner,” she said. “How’d I get so fucking lucky? Come with me.”