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knew she was troubled and didn’t care; she knew her crimes were cries for attention, but it didn’t matter.
    She would usually cooperate up to a certain point when caught, just to get a feel for police procedure in case she decided to continue her malfeasance into her adult years, but she always held back just enough to provide both herself and any others she’d managed to drag into her crimes a certain level of plausible deniability that even the cops had to respect.
    And of course, when she crossed into exasperation territory, she could always bat her eyes and wiggle her ass.
    Except with the women.
    “Sugar, don’t pull that crap with me.”
    Margaret Swanson, the assistant chief of police since old man Perry retired and everyone got promoted up, sat across her desk from the snotty Crane bitch and smiled. She knew the little cunt hated to be called Sugar or Sweetie or Honey or Baby or anything that smelled chauvinistic or condescending in any way.
    No, being condescending is your job, isn’t it Sweetie?
    “Mister Deauville is going to press charges this time,” she added smugly.
    Sarah shrugged. Large Marge wasn’t worth wasting her breath on and was almost as irritating as those stupid guys that tried to pick her up online. Yeah, like I’m really going to fly out and meet some unemployed mechanic with BO and grease under his fingernails or some hipster doofus writing his thesis on the Exigency of Celebrity Gossip in a Post-Recessionary Economy.
    “And your daddy won’t be able to give me any headaches, neither.”
    Sarah’s eyes flashed in anger for the first time. Too bad her father would have never actually harassed anyone just for doing their job; he was so much better than that.
    That was half the problem, really. Sarah could never measure up, not in her own mind.
    But most cops would have known better than to even mention such a possibility.
    Especially since her father died only a few short months prior, as Sarah sat in the exact same seat.
    ***
    It had been a very long legislative session, and a very late night at the state capital building on the night the senator died. He staggered back to his office with nary an aide in sight, as he’d been working his staff incredibly hard for weeks, and as the light at the end of the tunnel was now in view, he figured he could coast the rest of the way under his own steam, for a change.
    That had always been his least favorite part of the job; depending on staff who basically gave up their lives in the service of his career. Oh sure, they loved their jobs and many had gone on to careers in politics themselves, but he could see the toll it took on their families even if they couldn’t, which was ironic given the fact that he’d only recently begun to notice the toll it was taking on his own family.
    It had been so easy in the beginning, to make excuses and soldier on “for the people”, but he’d been kidding himself. It was a selfish game the way he’d played it, and he’d finally decided to do something about it.
    The senator was going to retire.
    He hadn’t told a soul, especially since there had been so much talk about running for governor in two years. If he’d breathed a word to anyone, all hell would have broken loose in the party, and his final, meager achievements before the recess would have been scuttled for those legislators whose ambitions were still corruptible. He wasn’t even sure his family would want him to quit, and they were the ones who suffered the most from his work, if living in luxury could be described in any known universe as remotely resembling suffering.
    Except for Sarah. Sarah would understand. Oh, he could imagine her tough exterior hanging together for a while as she assessed his seriousness, but once she understood exactly what was going to happen, she’d crumble. The hard façade she had built around herself over the years would melt away and reveal his little girl once more. At least, that was his hope. 
    She was