It was a Thursday late in April. In Manhattan, the night was mild and balmy with a clear sky above her. The moon was full, and Detective Elisa Maza, NYPD, had a lot on her mind as she drove home that night. She’d just come off investigating a murder in the uptown financial district. It was obvious the victim had been a money launderer, obvious to her at least that he’d also been working for Tony Dracon, a local mob boss who thought he was above the law. Trouble was, so far anyway, he was right about that. Unless she got very lucky, there was no way she’d be able to tie him to this, if he was even the one who called for the hit. For all she knew right now, Dracon might not have been her victim’s only client, or it could even have been a rival of Dracon’s making a move (though that last scenario was a stretch at best). Regardless, whoever pulled the trigger had been a pro, no question. Single gunshot to the back, cameras caught nothing, no witnesses and no evidence except the bullet itself. She’d spent hours trying to find something – sent uniforms out to canvas the area, talked to everyone who she thought might have seen anything. Nothing. The ballistics would be back tomorrow, but that would probably be a dead end without the murder weapon to match it too. In short, she was feeling like she’d wasted an afternoon. She’d became a cop because she came from a family of cops, sure, but she’d also done it because she believed in what she was doing. In things like justice, a civil community, right and wrong, protecting people. The reality was, you had to work hard for those things, and, from her perspective, it seemed like you only ever got them half the time.

All of which meant that she was definitely in the mood to go home, get something to eat (she was in the mood for pancakes for some reason, even though it was past dinner time), then curl up on the couch with her cat and watch TV or read a book for a while. Get a little lost in someone’s imaginary world where the heroes always won in the end, the bad guys always ended up in jail, little boys didn’t lose their dads, and happily ever after was just a clever plot twist away.