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his aftershave. Normally, she would feign annoyance at that and playfully slap Stevens on the arm, but given a lot of the other smells in this dungeon of a lab, maybe his Old Spice was a welcome reprieve. “I'd say that's a good bet, Doc.”
    “Only problem is,” Juanita added, dropping the blood-stained bullet into a nearby metal tin before placing said tin in a clear evidence bag, “there are more than a dozen firearms that can fire this kind of bullet.”
    Stevens snorted. “Then I guess it's a good thing we've got a whole department that does nothing but figure out what bullets came outta what guns.”
    “You know...” Juanita turned off the backlight attached to the magnifying glass before removing her protective goggles and peeling off her latex gloves. “I'm kinda jealous that you all get to go out there and bring down the people who do shit like this. I get blood and guts and sobbing relatives who come in to confirm ID... and...”
    Stevens closed the distance, grabbing Juanita by her shoulders and pulling her into a hug. His chin rested on the top of her head as his broad arms wrapped around her and his hand started running up and down her back. “I know, J.”
    “I'm not gonna be able to sleep for days,” she admitted, her voice muffled against Stevens' starch-white dress shirt. “All I'm gonna see is Devin's head.”
    “That's how it is for all of us,” Stevens explained, giving Juanita a squeeze when her fingers curled against the fabric of his shirt. “It's different when it's a kid, you know? Even after we arrest whoever did this, it's gonna haunt us.”
    “It's not fair,” she whispered.
    “No, it ain't.” Stevens gently pulled out of the hug, keeping his hands on Juanita's shoulders. “I had my way, we'd slap the cuffs on those bastards, drag 'em in here, make 'em look at what they did, and then haul them off to spend the rest of their worthless lives in jail.”
    “Just... promise me you'll get 'em.”
    “J, look who you're talking to.” Stevens thrust a thumb over his shoulder. “Not just me, either. Hi is as hard-nosed as they come. Your brother's too goddamn decent a person to let something like this go... and don't forget we got our very own superhero on the team. Those four bags of puke who killed that boy? They're not long for this world.”
    “Then what are you waiting for?” Juanita reached around to give Stevens a playful slap on his backside.
    “Ballistics,” he shot back with a quick kiss.

CHAPTER 9
     
     
     
    When Jill stepped into Captain Richards' office, shutting the door behind her, she noticed a man she had never seen before seated in the leather sofa across from the captain’s desk. He wore a navy blue three-piece suit that looked like it cost more than what she made in a month, and he had probably the best posture Jill had ever seen. The last time she saw a back that straight from a seated position, it was in a diagram they had shown her when she was in school.
    “Sir?” Jill cocked her head in the direction of the mystery man; her best guess was he was paying a visit from downtown, and Jill braced herself for whatever bombshell the Bishop had sent this man to drop on them.
    “Andersen, I want you to meet Colonel Jeff Downs,” Richards introduced, rising from his chair and emerging from behind his desk. “He's paying us a visit from downtown.”
    Jill shook the man's hand when he stood, noting that he was four inches taller than her and as bald as they came. “Well, I don't mean any disrespect, Colonel, but visits from the Bishop aren't usually cause for good news.”
    “Understood,” Downs said with a genial smile.
    If nothing else, he didn't appear to be angry. Still, suits from the Bishop L. Robinson Sr. Police Administration Building didn’t normally poke their heads into individual precincts unless something major was going down. Briefly, the red block letters scrawled onto Jill's white board flashed into her brain again, and she wondered if this