Frank shook his head. "That's going to take time. We need to keep our boy--or girl--here until we find out who the hell we're looking for. And I can think of exactly one way to do that."

"Four," Sam said, firmly. He ticked off another finger, and his eyes went to me for a split second, then slid away. "Mistaken identity."

There was another small silence. Cooper came out of his trance and started looking distinctly intrigued. My face had started to feel like it was scorching me, like overdone eye shadow or a top cut too low, something I should have known better than to wear.

"Piss anyone off lately?" O'Kelly asked me. "More than usual."

"About a hundred abusive men and a couple of dozen abusive women," I said. "No one's jumping out at me, but I'll send over the case files, flag the ones who got most obnoxious."

"What about when you were undercover?" Sam asked. "Could anyone have held a grudge against Lexie Madison?"

"Apart from the idiot who stabbed me?" I said. "Not that I recall."

"He's been inside for a year now," Frank said. "Possession with intent. I meant to tell you. Anyway, his brain's so fried he probably couldn't pick you out of a lineup. And I've gone through all our intelligence from that period: not a single red flag anywhere. Detective Maddox didn't piss anyone off, there's no sign that anyone ever suspected her of being a cop, and when she was wounded we pulled her out and sent someone else in to start over. No one was arrested as a direct result of her work, and she never had to testify. Basically, no one had any reason to want her dead."

"Does the idiot not have friends?" Sam wanted to know.

Frank shrugged. "Presumably, but again, I don't see why he'd sic them on Detective Maddox. It's not like he was charged with the assault. We pulled him in, he gave us some bullshit story about self-defense, we acted like we believed him and cut him loose. He was a lot more useful outside than in."

Sam's head snapped up and he started to say something, but then he bit his lip and focused on rubbing a smudge off the whiteboard. No matter what he thought of someone who would let an attempted cop killer off the hook, he and Frank were stuck with each other. It was going to be a long investigation.

"What about in Murder?" Frank asked me. "Make any enemies?" O'Kelly gave a sour little laugh.

"All my solves are still inside," I said, "but I guess they could have friends, family, accomplices. And there are suspects we never managed to convict." The sun had slid off my old desk; our corner had gone dark. The squad room felt suddenly colder and emptier, blown through by long sad winds.

"I'll do that," Sam said. "I'll check those out."

"If someone's after Cassie," Frank said helpfully, "she'll be a lot safer in Whitethorn House than she would be all by herself in that flat."