That’s what was weighing on her most, really. The man who was shot? The money launderer? He’d also been a single father who’d lost his wife in a car accident two years ago. He had a five year old son. The man’s girlfriend had brought him with her when she’d come down to the office building after getting the call from the police. The little boy had been quiet as a church mouse, wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes for more than a second. Sure, his dad had been a crook probably, but his son hadn’t done anything and he’d had to live through losing both his mom and his dad. She wondered if Tony Dracon had even hesitated a little bit because of that, or if he’d even cared at all. He probably hadn’t. People like that rarely did.

She was a little distracted with her thoughts, running the case over in her head again, when she stopped at a red light. It was a one lane road. A little after twelve o’clock at night. Her window was down and there weren’t too many cars around at this hour. The moon was right straight ahead of her. She found herself looking at it while she waited, then she heard a crash and a body fell with crushing force onto a parked car across the street in her field of vision. ”Holy…” She couldn’t quite believe she’d seen that, but she got out of her car anyway. The light turned green and the one car behind her honked.

”Police!” She yelled at the driver of the car. ”Knock it off!” She looked up at the building above where the body had fallen from. There weren’t any lights on up there, but she heard sounds of a struggle and saw a flash of something through the window on the top floor. She hurried back into her car, shifted it into drive, and hit the gas hard, jerking the car forward and making an illegal turn to park by the curb in a red zone across the street by the building where the disturbance was happening. She checked her sidearm under her jacket and grabbed her assault rifle and a crowbar from her trunk, then headed for the building. The building had a coffee shop/bistro on the bottom floor; it was closed for the night. The top floors looked like offices. The door to the stairs was locked, so she used the crowbar to pop the lock. Luckily the door was weak enough to give and she didn’t need to use her gun to get inside. The department would get a bill for the repairs no doubt, her captain wouldn’t exactly be thrilled, especially if she got there too late or couldn’t make any arrests, but if someone’s life was in danger up there, she didn’t really have much choice.