It was a quandary.

Dez had never lived with anyone, not since leaving her childhood home, that is. Even in college she had had her own dorm room all to herself. Only once had she ever considered moving in with someone, but she had been young and innocent at the time, fresh out of Police Academy. She hadn’t been careful with her heart and had fallen in love with someone who turned out to be a user. The woman, another cop, had trifled with her, seduced her, played mind games, then thrown Dez away once the dark-haired woman grew attached. It had been tremendously painful, and Dez had sworn never ever to get involved with a fellow officer again. She hadn’t counted on Jaylynn though.

So lost in thought was she that it took a moment before she realized the din of conversation had ceased. The stove fan still hummed and the radio played a Sheryl Crow song. She glanced back over her shoulder to find five pairs of eyes staring her way. "What?"

Jaylynn moved away from the stove and put an arm around Dez’s waist. "You don’t have to do that—"

"But it sure looks ship shape," Tim hollered across the kitchen.

Dez let her eyes focus on the four open cupboards. She hadn’t intended to rearrange things so entirely, but it seemed that she had. And now there was open space in nearly a third of the lower shelves. The kitchen garbage can was overflowing with boxes and bags that contained little or nothing. "I—I—well, I hope you don’t mind . . . ."

"No," Jay said, admiring the shelves. "They look much better. Thanks. I think we’re ready to go for more groceries now. We’ve certainly got room for them!" She looked at her watch. "Only got a few hours ’til Dez and I have to go in to work, so we better get a move on." Turning, she announced, "Any last requests? Speak now or forever hold your peace."

"Nilla wafers," Tim said.

Sara looked at the list around the big woman’s arm. "Did you write down teriyaki sauce and brown rice?"

Dez perused the list and nodded when she found it.

Jaylynn peered over at Luella who was sharing a quiet conversation with Kevin. "Luella, you want any special delicacies?"

"Nope. I could use something now to wet my whistle though."

Sara opened the fridge door. "Lemonade, orange juice, canned ice tea, milk—both two percent and skim—Coke, Diet Coke, 7-Up, Gatorade, or Hawaiian Fruit Punch?"

The silver-haired woman paused. "I do believe that the punch would suit me fine."

"If that’s it then we’re gone," Jaylynn said.

Dez picked up the grocery list and tucked it in the pocket of her plaid shirt along with the pen. She felt a warm pressure on her hand and looked down to find Jaylynn’s hand in hers, pulling her toward the swinging door. Glancing back over her shoulder she found Luella’s eyes on her, amusement spreading across the smiling face. With one last backward glance, she shrugged, then let herself be drawn out of the kitchen, through the living room, and out the front door.

* * *

Dez felt more lighthearted than usual as she dressed in the locker room at the precinct. Nothing like a little sleep to perk me up. And she’d had a great time shopping with Jaylynn and getting things ready for the party with Sara, Luella, and the boys. She thought that the homecoming celebration for Bill on Saturday was going to be fun, even if she wasn’t much for parties. As long as Jaylynn was there, Dez knew she would enjoy herself.

She grabbed her water bottle and headed up to roll call. No one else was in the briefing room, so she dialed the main precinct from the house phone and asked for Tsorro or Parkins. When told they were out on a call, she declined to leave a message. She was curious about the Tivoli investigation, but not enough to bother them with a message.

She heard someone coming down the hall. When she turned and sat, a figure rounded the corner and entered the room.

"Yo! Dez, baby. What’s hap’nin’?"

Few officers could get away with calling her "baby," but she made many exceptions for Crystal Lopez. The Latino woman had eighteen years of experience and had worked with Dez since she joined the force nearly ten years earlier. Crystal had never let the dark-haired woman down and had been an especially loyal friend in the months after Ryan had been shot and killed in the line of duty. She was shorter and much stockier than Dez, but very nearly as wide-shouldered. Her short-cropped hair was jet-black without a speck of gray in it, despite the fact that her fortieth birthday was coming up after the New Year. The tall cop liked to tease Crystal sometimes about "robbing the cradle" because her girlfriend, Shayna, was closer in age to Dez. She also liked to taunt her every once in a while about always being late. And Shayna was even worse. The two of them couldn’t ever get anywhere on time. Dez had given up on them ever arriving at the appointed time set and usually lied about start times, moving them up at least half an hour.

"Nothing’s happening, Crystal. What are you doing here so early?"

"FTO feedback to the sergeant." As she moved toward Dez, she ticked off names on her fingers. "I’ve had Oster, Mahoney, Pike, Neilsen, Grainger, and that new transfer from Houston. Oh, and also Jaylynn." She sighed. "Seven oral reports to give."

"You’ve had all of them, huh?"

Crystal smacked the big cop in the upper arm, hard, then sat in a chair next to her. "You know what I mean, chica. Supervisors are always looking for information on the probationers, and I’ve ridden with a variety. I still can’t believe that asshole, Neilsen, is probably gonna make it. I had a talk with Alvarez, but he says you can’t kick someone off the force for being an ass. Alvarez says Neilsen’s patrol work is proficient."

Dez shook her head and closed her eyes. Dwayne Neilsen was a rookie jerk from Jaylynn’s Academy class, and he had been nothing but rude to both of them. Sexist, racist, and homophobic—he was a throwback to the old days. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he had joined the force in the Fifties. She knew cops who had thirty and forty years in who were more open-minded than that twenty-two year old bigot. He was one of her least favorite people on the force, especially because of the disrespectful way he treated Jaylynn. She changed the subject. "How’s Shayna?"

"Real good." She stretched out her short legs, crossing them at the ankle. "They just made her manager at the store. She’s got more book work and does the work schedules now. She doesn’t like worrying about whether everyone’s going to show up or not, but she got a two dollar an hour raise, so that’s a little bit of incentive."

The noise level increased out in the hall, and officers began to trickle into the roll call room. Braswell, one of the old dinosaurs who Neilsen made look halfway decent, wandered in carrying a giant slab of fudge. Calvin Braswell had a prodigious potbelly hanging out over his duty belt. He looked like he hadn’t washed his sandy-colored hair for a couple days, and his 70’s "porkchop" sideburns puffed out far enough to indicate to her that it was time for a serious trim. Another officer walked up to him and said, "Jesus, Cal, like you need that big ol’ piece of fudge!"

Braswell grinned and wolfed down a huge bite. "You’re just jealous." He gave a little salute toward the two women, then found a seat a few chairs ahead of them.

Crystal and Dez exchanged a smile. Braswell was an okay guy, but nobody ever wanted to ride with him. He was lazy, preferring to sit in a cafe or coffee shop and wait to be dispatched to a scene. He couldn’t run a block—with or without fudge—and all he wanted to talk about was football. But he wasn’t nearly as boring as some of the other old-timers. Trenton, Steussel, and Franklin were all dull and bland. On the other hand, Reed, a gray-haired Black man who had over thirty years in was full of stories about things that had happened in the past. He even remembered the old days when Dez’s father was still alive and arresting bad guys. So all the old-timers weren’t too bad. And all of them were vastly better than some of the younger guys like Barstow, who thought he was God’s gift to women, or Neilsen who Dez felt was God’s punishment to all of them.

Another day with this happy little family of wackos. Dez bit back a smile. These sisters and brothers in blue were like family sometimes. They gossiped and worried about each other, backed each other up, and carried on feuds just like any family. Some didn’t get along, but some of them were people you’d want to know for life. Like Crystal. And Cowboy. Like Ryan had been.

A feeling of sadness washed over her. It was the same emotion she always felt when she thought of Ryan. Thirty-eight was too young to die. She thought about his wife, Julie, and the two kids, Jeremy and Jill. She hadn’t seen them for a while. That was still hard. The grief threatened to well up and spill over whenever she was in their presence. But maybe after Sara and Bill’s party, she would call Julie and ask to take the kids somewhere. And she ought to start thinking about holiday presents for the kids . . . but later. She put it out of her mind in haste.

An energetic, blonde-headed dynamo whisked into the room, and Dez’s gaze was drawn to her, soaking in the intensity of her presence. All of the big cop’s past griefs had been made bearable because of this smiling being. It was a wonder that everyone in the room didn’t sense the energy that so often passed back and forth between the two of them. She felt the heat rise up her neck to her ears, and she grabbed up her water bottle from the floor and drank from it, hoping that no one noticed her red face. Jaylynn flounced over and sat next to Crystal, two seats away from Dez, which was just as well. If she had sat beside the tall cop, Dez might not have been able to recover her balance as quickly as she did. And it was a good thing that she regained her emotional equilibrium because the duty sergeant stalked into the room to update them about the latest crimes and stolen cars to watch out for. In short order, he sent them out to their cars to begin the shift.

* * *

The air was cold outside, and Jaylynn was glad to be riding for once in a squad car with a decent heater. Once the sun had gone down four hours earlier, the air took on quite a chill. Like the last few nights, it had been a quiet shift, and she had stayed warm for all of it. Dez was driving to allow her the chance to finish off a hamburger, and now she felt slightly over-full as she looked out on the deserted streets of the Frogtown area.

She couldn’t believe how time was flying. Time was marching on toward the end of October, and any day now, the sunny weather during the day could change from the balmy 40’s and 50’s and then eventually to below freezing. As usual, she was not looking forward to it. For the past six years, every winter she wondered why she hadn’t yet moved to a warmer state.

The rookie drained the last of a bottle of warm Pepsi and stuck the plastic container in a paper bag under her feet. "You know what, Dez?" The dark-haired cop glanced her way, arching an eyebrow in answer. "We sure aren’t eating very well lately. I swear I’ve gained five pounds."

Shaking her head, Dez growled, "Tell me about it."

"We need to spend a little more time in the gym, I think."

"We need to spend a little less time at the pig trough, Jay."

The rookie laughed out loud. "I always liked your plan of eating five or six times a day—but I suppose you didn’t intend for pizza and fried chicken and Taco Bell burritos to be on the list."

"Nope."

"What are we going to do about this?"

"You mean before we’re as big as that poor woman in ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’?"

"Yeah. Way before that."

Before Dez could answer, Dispatch came over the radio to report a fire.

"That’s right down the street there! Look, Dez! You can see the smoke. We should have noticed."

The dark-haired woman was already wheeling to the right as Jaylynn responded to Dispatch. Dez didn’t even bother to turn the siren on, though she did flip on the lights. They pulled up in front of a two-story stucco house, and in seconds they were both out of the car and up on the lawn, flashlights out. Dez ran up the cement stairway and beat on the front door. She called out "Police!" but no one came.

She tried the front door. It was locked and the metal knob was hot. She pulled her hand back with a yelp, then turned and ran down the stairs. "Circle the place, Jay. Look to see if anyone’s home. Watch for open doors and windows." She started to back away, pointing as she moved. "If you see anything unusual—footprints in the flower beds, tools, gas cans, bomb parts, whatever—take note. Don’t touch anything. I’ll meet you around back and compare notes."

Dez took off to the right at a fast clip, using her flashlight to survey the house and surroundings. Jaylynn trotted to the left, sweeping her heavy-duty flash across the porch. Beyond the porch railing she could see in the front window, and something in the background glowed a dull red. She moved to the side of the house checking out the windows in the upper and lower story, examining the flowerbed alongside the house. Of the three double casement windows along the top story, only the middle one, near the front of the house, was open. She could see wisps of smoke coming out of the window and floating upwards. The air smelled acrid, like burning plastic.

Otherwise, nothing looked out of the ordinary. She ran to the back of the house and met Dez, just as the bigger woman climbed up the back stairs and tried the rear door. She beat on it with her flashlight. It, too, was locked, though not hot like the front knob. She stood on her toes and looked through a tiny window in the upper part of the door. "Dammit! I can see flames coming toward the kitchen now, too." She turned and hurtled down the wooden stairs. "You see anything?"

Jaylynn shook her head. "Just one open window, upper west side.

Dez touched her shoulder mike. "Two-Five Boston to Dispatch. Where is the fire department?"

A tinny voice came back. "On their way, Two-Five Boston. E.T.A. less than five minutes."

"Right," Dez snarled to Jaylynn. "If they’re on the way, why don’t we hear them?"

Jaylynn grabbed the dark-haired cop’s forearm. "Listen...do you hear that?" She pivoted and walked toward the west side of the house, her head cocked to the side. Dez followed. "There! You hear it? A whimpering sound."

Just as she said that, very clearly they both heard a high-pitched wail. "It’s hot, Mommy! It’s hot! I want Mommy! Mommy, where are you?"

They spotlighted the side of the house with a criss-cross of lights from their two flashlights as they both moved toward the front of the house.

"Hey!" Dez shouted. "Hey, kid!" Under her breath she said, "I hope to hell that’s not coming from this house."

"Oh my God, Dez, it is." For a brief moment, the beam of the rookie’s flashlight captured a shock of light-colored hair in the open window in the second story, then the little head disappeared.

Both cops backed up in the yard and shone their lights up at the window. Dez touched her shoulder mike. "Two-Five Boston to Dispatch. We have a small child in the upper story of the house. Confirmed visual. We request immediate assistance."

The dispatcher sounded irritated when he informed them again that the Fire Department was on the way.

Jaylynn was pacing with anxiety. "We can’t go in, can we?"

"Even if we break the door down, I don’t think there’s a way to get upstairs. I’m afraid we have to wait."

The blond head was back at the window, and now he was wailing. "Mommy! It’s hot. Help me!" Jaylynn thought he looked to be three or so. He put his hands on the windowsill and pulled himself up, leaning forward.