“That’s possible—and we’ll continue to work that angle with a conventional investigation. But given the high-level interest in this case, we want to cover all the bases—and you know firsthand how much more you can learn from the inside.”

Yeah. She did.

If she hadn’t befriended the key people in the trafficking case, convinced them she was on their side, the ring would still be operating.

Instead, thanks to the evidence she’d been able to amass, the operation had been shuttered and the leaders rounded up and charged.

“Look at it this way, Cate.” Sarge leaned forward, using his most persuasive tone. “If Stephanie told another student where she and her boyfriend planned to go for the weekend—and you can get that girl to confide in you—we can realign our resources. As soon as we have a trail that leads off campus, we’ll cut you loose. That could be as fast as a week or two.”

She narrowed her eyes. “The trafficking job wasn’t supposed to last long, either.”

“It didn’t—not for an investigation like that.”

That might be true . . . but it had felt like forever.

Another reason to write off undercover work.

Hardened as she’d become to violence and gore and man’s inhumanity to man during her decade in law enforcement, it was a whole different ball game to live that seaminess every day from the inside.

But the lieutenant and Sarge had presented a compelling case.

She was the best candidate in the department to pass for a seventeen-year-old.

And if foul play was involved in the girl’s disappearance, as the new evidence suggested, they should use every tool at their disposal to track down the truth whether there was political pressure being brought to bear or not.

She let out a long, slow breath. “You’re not giving me much choice here.”

“Yes, I am. We won’t force you to take an undercover assignment. If this isn’t a role you think you can pull off, we’ll try to come up with an alternative plan. For the record, we did check to see if the school has any open staff or faculty positions. It doesn’t. But even if it did, the ideal is to place someone who can talk to the girls—especially Stephanie’s roommate—as a peer. A student is the best candidate for that.”

His rationale was difficult to refute.

She was stuck.

Much as she disliked undercover work, her passion for justice wasn’t going to let her walk away from an opportunity to help solve what appeared to be a crime.

“When would I go in?”

“You’d move into the dorm January 4.”

That gave her eight days to psych herself up for the assignment and get up to speed on the players—and her cover story.