“You were forced on all of us,” Duncan said. “Not everyone is as cheerful about it as I am.”

“Only because they aren’t retiring.”

Duncan went into the squad room, which was crammed full of cubicles and file cabinets. There was a vending machine, a microwave oven, a small refrigerator, and some bulk-size boxes of granola bars, coffee sweetener, and breakfast cereal on a table in a corner. He was headed for his cubicle, and Eve was about to go to the food, when they were met by Detectives Wally Biddle and Stan Garvey, known around the station as Crockett and Tubbs.

“I heard you caught a bloody one, Donuts,” Biddle said. He colored his hair beach-boy blond and liked to dress in designer clothes that he bought on the cheap at the outlet mall in Camarillo. He was an LA native who’d dreamed of being a competitive surfer and was good at it, just not good enough to go pro.

Duncan glanced at Eve. “Crockett and Tubbs don’t know how close they came to getting the case. You owe us one, boys.”

Eve continued on to the vending machine while Biddle and Garvey trailed Duncan to his cubicle.

“How about we make your day?” Garvey said. He was black and embraced the Tubbs nickname. He often talked about leaving the job to become a producer. A lot of Hollywood elite lived in Malibu, Hidden Hills, and Calabasas and being assigned to Lost Hills put him in their orbit. In his off-duty time, he worked security at celebrity parties and on studio location shoots. Eve was certain that Garvey wouldn’t have arrested Deathfist if he’d been in her place.

“Tell the captain you want to step aside and we’ll take the case off your hands,” Biddle said.

Eve was plugging coins into the vending machine and could hear every word they were saying. The squad room wasn’t that big.

“Why would you want to do that?” Duncan settled into his seat, which squeaked under his weight.

“Out of respect for you,” Garvey said. “Deathfist can’t hack it and you’ve done your time. You’re almost out the door. You should be taking it easy.”

“You shouldn’t have to do the work of two detectives,” Biddle added.

“I won’t be,” Duncan said. “She will.”

Eve bent down to pull a Coke can out of the vending machine and it aggravated her bruised stomach, the unexpected pain making her wince. She straightened up, took two granola bars from the bulk-size Nature Valley box, and headed back to Duncan’s cubicle as Biddle and Garvey were walking away.

She waited until they were gone to ask: “Did you say that because you have confidence in my energy and ability or because you don’t give a shit anymore?”

“Both,” Duncan said.

Fair enough, she thought. She went to her cubicle, opened her desk drawer, and found her container of Aleve, a twelve-hour pain reliever that she kept for menstrual cramps. She figured it would work just as well on a beating and dry-swallowed a pill.