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out, too. Definitely no love lost there. Belatedly Mike seemed to realize he’d touched a nerve, and he moved hastily to a fresh subject.
    “And your family?”
    “Same as usual. Mom has her bridge club and new interior decorator. She’s happy. The firm’s still growing, so dad’s happy.” They’re relieved we’re divorced, but no need to say that. Mike knew her parents loved him about as much as his parents had loved her.
    “What’d they think of you getting into law enforcement?”
    “That I’m nuts.”
    “Same old, huh?”
    “Yeah, same old. I imagine your parents had a few choice words about you getting to work for me.”
    “They’re still rolling on the ground laughing.”
    “It is ironic, isn’t it?”
    “Hey, you know me. All water under the bayou.”
    “Yeah,” she said softly, and had to look away. “Yeah.”
    Mike finally rose to his feet. He turned the chair around and placed it back in front of the desk. He kept studying her with dark, unreadable eyes. “So are you seeing anyone, Sandy?”
    She hesitated, caught off guard by this line of questioning. “No. You?”
    “Nah, nothing serious.”
    “With you, I didn’t think they ever were serious.”
    “It had been with you, ma chère. It had been with you.”
    He strode for the door. It was just as well. Sandra’s heart was beating too fast in her chest now and she couldn’t think of a thing to say.
    At the last minute, however, his hand on the knob, Mike turned around. That look was back in his eyes. Dark, somber, searching.
    “It wasn’t so bad,” he said softly. “You and me. Our marriage wasn’t so—”
    “Mike, look me in the eye and tell me you were happy. Look me in the eye and tell me our marriage was the best year of your life.”
    He couldn’t do it. And they both knew it.
    After a moment, he turned around. He ripped open the door with more force than necessary. He slammed it shut behind him. He stormed down the hall.
    And that made Sandra think back to other days, to the last day. The day she announced with a pounding heart and sweating hands that their marriage was over. And in stead of saying no, instead of finally fighting for her or at least taking her in his arms and telling her it would be all right, Mike had simply said, “Fine.”
    Fine. Mike Rawlins’s signature word. Fine.
    That had been the day Sandra had finally stopped loving her husband and had learned to hate him instead.
     
    “What the hell kind of assignment is this?”
    “The easy kind.”
    “Let me see if I got this straight. We identify who this Vee kid is. We track him down. We talk to his family and friends. And then we just walk away? We turn our backs on some cop-threatening punk and write up a report on the subject instead? This,” Koontz said seriously, “is what happens when you put a woman in charge.”
    “Welcome to the nineties,” Mike told him, and resumed tapping on the keyboard. “She does have a good point about him writing the letter, though.”
    “Conjecture. We’re risking our necks for conjecture.”
    “When has it ever been any other way?”
    Koontz scowled. He always got annoyed when Mike was right. He hunkered down by the computer, where Mike was perusing the gang database for Vee’s name. Koontz was actually the more computer literate of the two, but he hated to work the keyboard when other cops were around. Looked too clerical.
    “You were in her office for a long time,” Koontz said.
    “It’s called a debriefing, man. You should try showing up for one sometime.”
    Koontz wasn’t fazed. “That was some suit she was wearing,” he observed next. “Showed off just enough curves and class to intimidate us poor working stiffs. Except for you, of course. You always did go for the uptown type.”
    Mike kept his eyes glued to the computer screen. Koontz shook his head in disgust.
    “Ah, man, I’m right, aren’t I? You’re going soft on her again. One look and you’re like a junkie desperate for a fix.