****

“All right, everyone take your seats.” Dana stood up at the podium and cleared her throat. “He found a man at the Lakeshore Docks this morning with a fatally gunshot to the head. His name was James McCarter; he was the President of the McCarter Industries. We think he got up with Shane McCutcheon AKA Lord LA. She is the biggest smuggler of the United States of this day. She’s running the biggest smuggling business in Los Angeles, and we haven’t caught her yet. This is the reason why we called this meeting.” Dana looked at Bette, and Bette nodded. “We need two officers to go undercover as drug dealers. We need you to get in with the McCutcheon and get in as deep as you have to.” Everybody began to raise their hands, but Dana already had the two officers picked. “Morales, Peabody—you are now part of the McCutcheon investigation. I want you two to meet Lt. Porter and I in her office at 1300 hours. Dismissed.” Everybody began to move around as Carmen sat in her seat frozen. She couldn’t believe that she was picked of this investigation. She was the underdog of the LAPD and did paper work at her desk. She didn’t know if she was ready for this opportunity. Helena walked over to Carmen and touched her arm.

“Morales,” Carmen looked up. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah,” Carmen nodded her head. “I’m fine.” She got up from her chair and buttoned her jacket. “I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

“C’mon, you are ready. I know you are. This is our first time to get in the action. This is our chance to show that we can do it.” they walked out of the room and down the hall.

“I hope you’re right.” The two women walked to Lt. Porter’s office, and Carmen knocked on the door.

“Come in,” the two officers walked into the office as Dt. Fairbanks and Lt. Porter turned their attention to them. Dana smiled and put her hands on her hips. “Good afternoon officers, take a seat.” Carmen sighed nervously and sat down. Helena took a deep breath and clasped her hands together. “Okay ladies—as of right now, you’re no longer cops. You are ruthless drug dealers from Miami.”

“Are you sure this is going to work? What if they know who we are?” Dana shot her eyes at Carmen. “Sorry.”

“As I was saying,” she looked at Carmen and then looked away. “We’re going to give you fake names, different backgrounds, the whole nine. We want you in there to find things out and to find out if these three murders connect to Shane McCutcheon. Be careful of her handy man—Jennifer Schecter.” Dana handed them pictures. “Now, she’s the crazy one. She decapitated a man, but the charges were dropped because of there wasn’t any evidence.”

Bette entwined her hands on her desk. “We want you officers to be professionally as possible. We only get one shot at this. If you fuck up, you’re dead.” 

“So if you don’t want this, tell me now. I’ll find somebody else for this fuckin’ opportunity.” Dana stared at the two women.

“We’ll take it.” Helena said proudly.

“All right,” Dana handed them their folders. “Here’s some papers for you to go over, and we’ll call you when the meeting is set to meet with Shane McCutcheon. Dismissed officers,” Carmen and Helena stood up and walked out of the office.