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home. It was a price she gladly paid for being the only daughter of a Latin father. “Papi, it’s late, and I have to work in the morning. I’ll come by this weekend.”
    “We’re just concerned for you, that’s all.”
    There were times in her life when she could have sworn that her parents knew everything about her-including whom she was dating and whether he called her or nudged her in the morning. But could they possibly know that her purse had been stolen? “Why are you concerned?”
    “You know why. That Falcon wacko is out on bail.”
    “That seems to be the top news for the night.”
    “This is serious, Alicia. The state attorney assured me that setting bail at ten thousand dollars was as good as throwing away the key on this guy. That obviously didn’t turn out to be the case. He may be a drifter, but we have to be very careful with him.”
    She couldn’t have agreed more, but she didn’t want to worry her parents further by telling them about the stolen purse. “Look, I can’t come over tonight. But I promise, first thing tomorrow I’ll meet with the chief and the state attorney about tacking on a restraining order to the terms of release.”
    “All right. That’s a good plan. But be careful going home tonight.”
    “I’m a cop, remember?”
    “You’re my daughter first. We love you, that’s why we worry.”
    “Love you, too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
    The valet brought her car around as the call ended. The drive home took fifteen minutes, which she spent in total silence, no radio. The stolen purse had given her plenty to think about, enough to make her stop worrying if the call to Vince had been a mistake-for now, anyway. Phone calls to old lovers, particularly those made from a bar, usually didn’t start replaying in your mind until about three a.m.
    Alicia lived alone in a Coconut Grove townhouse. The Grove was part of the City of Miami, an area unto itself that was well south of downtown. Alicia was one of eight of “Miami’s bravest” assigned to patrol it. Long before the developers took over, the Grove was known as a Bohemian, wooded enclave, a haven for tree lovers and flower children of the 1960s. Some of that charm had managed to survive the bulldozers and wrecking balls. The sidewalk cafés on Main Street were as popular as ever, and finding your way through the twisted, narrow residential streets beneath the green tropical canopy was a perennial right of passage in Miami. But to Alicia-to any cop-the Grove was essentially a world of extremes. It was a place where some of south Florida’s most expensive real estate butted up against the ghetto, where the mayor’s multimillion-dollar mansion was just a short walk from his daughter’s “questionable” townhouse. The Grove could ser vice just about anyone’s bad habit, from gangs who smashed and grabbed, to doctors and lawyers who ventured out into the night in search of crystal meth, to the distinguished city councilman in need of a twenty-dollar blow job. But yes, it did have some of that old charm, whatever that meant, and Alicia couldn’t imagine living anywhere else in Miami.
    “I hate this place,” she muttered. Searching for a parking space always made her feel that way. Naturally, some jerk had taken her assigned space outside her townhouse, so she was forced to cruise the lot for a visitor’s spot. She found one next to the Dumpster, which of course meant that her car would be covered with raccoon tracks in the morning. She turned off the ignition, but her Honda continued to run. It sputtered twice, the chassis shook, and then it died. Never before had she owned a car that made such a production out of killing the engine. This one was such a drama queen, which was why she’d named it Elton.
    She got out and closed the car door. An S-curved sidewalk led her through a maze of bottlebrush trees and hibiscus hedges. A rush of wind stirred the leaves overhead-another blast of Arctic air from one doozy of a