Jeannie grabbed her phone off her desk and told Matt she’d be right back. In a state of disbelief, she walked out to her car, got in and turned the engine on for heat. Then she took a couple of calming breaths before she called her husband.

“Hey, baby, this is a nice surprise.”

They normally didn’t talk during the day when they were both busy at work.

“Jeannie? Hello?”

“Sorry, I need to talk to you.”

“Is everything okay? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, but something happened just now…”

“You’re freaking me out, sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

“It’s something good, at least I think it’s good. I don’t know.”

“Quit talking in riddles and tell me what’s going on.”

“The mayor has asked me to consider being the deputy chief.”

“Holy shit, Jeannie! That’s amazing! I told you the Daniella Brown bust would turn out to be a good thing for you.”

“It’s not just that. She wants a woman. That I’m a Black woman makes me that much more appealing.”

“Baby, you’d rock that job, or any job for that matter. They know how great you are, or they’d never be talking to you about this.”

“You’re not even slightly biased, though, right?” she asked, amused by his enthusiasm.

“I know how hard you work and how dedicated you are to the job. Others see that, too.”

“I’m not sure I should do this.”

“Why not? What’s the downside?”

“I’d be skipping three ranks and suddenly outranking people who’ve been here a lot longer than I have. They’d probably cry foul. It’s apt to be more headaches than anything, but the upside is it would get me off the streets and into a regular nine-to-five kind of job.”

“That’s a huge upside, especially with the baby coming.”

“I know.”

“Do you want the job?”

“I don’t even know. It’s not something I’ve considered for even a second, because it never occurred to me that I’d be offered it.”

“Well, now you have, so you need to think about it. What does it entail?”

“It’s a lot of admin stuff, budgeting, interaction with city hall, the council, that kind of stuff. I wouldn’t be doing as much actual police work.”

“Would you miss it? The police work?”

“I would, but I’d still consult on cases as needed, so I wouldn’t be completely cut off from it, and after the Deasly case… I’ve just been so heartsick over that. As deputy chief, I could ask to oversee the review of Stahl’s old cases to keep my hand in things.”

“It sounds to me like you might be interested.”

“Do you really think I could do it? That I could handle the blowback from the officers who’ll cry foul about me being promoted over them?”