She’d like one moment when she was not Sergeant D.D. Warren, Supercop, but a woman instead.

Is this what a biological clock did to a female? Fried her brain cells, ruined her work ethic, made her stupid?

She was not getting married. She was not having children. She was not going to have sex in her office. So she might as well read the fucking case reports, because this was her life. This was what she had left. Five dead in Dorchester and no one alive to tell the tale.

She made it ten more minutes, then said Screw it and headed home. Time for a cold shower, reheated Chinese food, and a good night’s sleep.

D.D. was just pulling onto I-93 when her cell phone rang.

She grabbed it impatiently, barked out a greeting.

It was Phil; he didn’t sound good. “We got another one.”

“Another what?”

“Family. Dead. The male with a bullet between his eyes. Get over here, D.D. And bring your Vicks.”

D.D. was not a fan of vapor rub or scented cotton balls when working a crime scene. Some of the guys rubbed lemon juice on their hands, then cupped their palms over their noses. Others chewed half a pack of spearmint gum—swore that overwhelming their taste buds limited their olfactory senses.

D.D. was old-fashioned. She believed to effectively work a scene, you needed all your senses, including smell.

She regretted her high standards the second she walked through the door.

“What the fuck is that?” she snapped, one hand immediately covering her nose and mouth, the other swatting at a fly.

Alex Wilson was standing in the cramped family room. Rather heroically, he held out his handkerchief. Her eyes were watering, but she waved him off.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered. She remained standing in the doorway, trying to get her bearings while controlling her gag reflex.

Place looked like a dump. The floor at her feet swam in garbage. She saw grease-stained cheeseburger wrappers, empty containers of McDonald’s fries, wads of tissues, and—heaven help her—a soiled diaper. Then the diaper moved and the world’s fattest cockroach streaked across the dirt-brown carpet before disappearing beneath an open pizza box dotted with green-colored pepperoni.

“Son of a bitch.” D.D. was back out the door, off the front steps, and over the edge of the property, where she willed herself not to puke in front of the crime-scene team or, heaven help her, the local news. Her eyes swam with tears. It took several gulping breaths of rain-swept August air to calm her stomach.

She had just straightened, turning toward the house to debate round two, when she spotted Bobby Dodge ducking beneath the yellow crime-scene tape at the end of the drive. Given a choice between tap-dancing with a cockroach or tangling with a Massachusetts State Police detective, she headed straight for the state cop. Who also happened to be her former lover. Who also now happened to be a happily married man.