Metro’s Office of Professional Accountability was freezing cold. Someone had turned the air-conditioning on full, complete overkill considering the still moderate temperatures outside.

It took all of Taylor’s self-control not to shake. She didn’t want to give the wrong impression, didn’t want Captain Delores Norris to think she was scared. She figured the air-conditioning was a trick they used. Anything to make themselves feel more powerful. Price didn’t seem affected, just crossed his left ankle over his right knee and sat quietly, obviously lost in thought.

Taylor hadn’t had much contact with the OPA since David Martin’s death, only a standard investigation a month ago when she’d been forced to discharge her weapon into the killer called Snow White. That was fine by her. The officers of the OPA weren’t ever very popular with the rank and file. They couldn’t afford to be chummy, had to keep themselves separate, above reproach. No fraternization.

When the ISD became the Office of Professional Accountability, Fitz had immediately christened them the Oompas. Homicide had gotten a good laugh out of that, the name drifted through the ranks until it was almost second nature. Taylor figured everyone called the OPA crew the Oompa-loompas. Behind their backs, though. Never to their face.

When the new OPA captain had been tapped three months ago, the unit’s nickname became more prescient, and Taylor often wondered if their Chief of Police actually had a sense of humor. The new captain’s name was Delores Norris, and she couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. She beat Metro’s minimum height requirements by being black and a woman, moved quickly through the ranks and ended up as the head of the most hated department on the force. Her diminutive physical presence only perpetuated the nickname, and it didn’t help that she had slightly bowed legs that forced her body into a swaying walk. As she waddled down the halls, a faint strain of Oompa, Oompa could be heard. Taylor didn’t know how the woman stood being the center of so much derision.

Especially now. At the moment, Taylor was the target of the Oompa’s derision, and she didn’t feel at all amused by the situation.

Delores Norris sat high, back straight as an arrow, the cloth of her starched uniform jacket not touching the back of the chair. Her hair was cut short, close to her head, with wiry gray curls around the temples. She read a report in front of her, tapping her pen along the manila edge. Every third second, she looked up at Taylor over bright red plastic half-moon glasses and shook her head slightly. After what felt like an hour of this scrutiny, Norris closed the file, set the pen alongside.

“So, Lieutenant. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am to see you in my office today. You’ve had an exemplary career with Metro, one worth watching. I’ve been keeping my eye on you, young lady.” Her accent was odd, not foreign, but strange, like she was covering a severe lisp. She put emphasis on the wrong words, making the cadence of her voice grating.

Taylor felt like an errant schoolgirl. Making fun of the Oompa was easy when you weren’t face-to-face with her principal’s scowl. Taylor just nodded weakly, not sure what the woman wanted her to say.

The Oompa stared at her a moment longer and Taylor swore the woman’s lip twitched. Damn her, she was enjoying watching Taylor’s discomfort. The realization simply served to piss her off. She sat straighter and looked the Oompa in the eye. She’d done nothing wrong, she wasn’t going to be made to feel she had.

“You realize, Lieutenant, that these are extremely serious times for you. The videotapes of you having—” she stopped here, sniffed as if smelling an exceptionally foul turd “—having relations with your fellow officer are one thing. We’re going to have to deal with these charges separately. What’s most germane to this particular discussion is the video of you shooting your fellow officer. In cold blood, I might add. This is looking very bad for you, my girl.”

God, the woman’s ridiculous enunciation and emphasis made Taylor want to scream. Instead, she spit, “Oh, sure, let’s just skip over the fact that we all know that isn’t the truth and that I shot David Martin in self-defense. He was trying to kill me. Might I add the grand jury agreed with that assessment, as did your office?”

“Taylor,” Price warned.

Taylor clenched her teeth together. When she didn’t speak, the Oompa jumped in.

“Well, Lieutenant, I must say that the video is quite damning.”

Taylor didn’t ungrit her teeth. “The video has obviously been doctored.”

“So you claim, Lieutenant, so you claim. But that’s not such an easy thing, now is it? Stepping on your peers on your way up the ladder wasn’t enough for you?”

“What?” Taylor swung her gaze to Price, who was sputtering with indignation.

“Captain Norris, I resent that implication. Lieutenant Jackson’s record is spotless, she earned her way into the position. You are completely out-of-bounds here.”

“Am I, Mitchell? You’ve had this girl’s back covered for years. Perhaps it’s time to let her stand on her own, spread her wings, and see if she can actually fly.”

“I don’t see that this is the time for metaphor, Delores. We’re talking about the career of one of the most decorated officers in the department, a woman who has the respect of the troops and her management.”

There was no question of the implication of Price’s statement, and Taylor fought to keep the smile off her face as the Oompa’s head began to explode. The painfully proper elocution vanished.

“How dare you imply that I don’t have the respect of the troopsss! Why, I’ll have you know that I’ve been commended no lessss than four times for my devotion to this department—”

“Delores.” Price leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. “I’m not implying anything about your career path. I’m just saying that in addition to being an excellent officer, Lieutenant Jackson has forged the respect of her peers through exemplary fieldwork, as well as years of investigative practice. She’s an asset to this organization. She tells me that the video was doctored, that she did not shoot Detective Martin in cold blood, and I believe her. I’ll fight you to the death on this one, Delores. Trust me on that.” Price’s fury was barely contained. He ran a hand over his bald head, where beads of sweat were starting to form.

Taylor was shocked. She couldn’t remember ever hearing her boss tell a superior to fuck off, but he’d just done it. And the Oompa knew it. She darkened to an unhealthy puce and returned her red glasses to her face to cover her discomfiture. She finally cleared her throat and looked at Taylor again.

“Well, my girl, that was an impassioned plea on your behalf. Suppose you tell us what happened that night.” She flipped on a tape recorder that sat at her elbow. “For the record, of course.” The Oompa smiled, and it was a nasty thing to behold. Still four shades of angry, she looked like a possessed Potato Head doll. The Mister version, not the Missus.

Taylor shook that image from her head and looked to Price, who was frowning, obviously still upset. He nodded, twisted a finger through his thick mustache. “Taylor, tell us exactly what happened. Don’t leave anything out.”

Taylor sat back in her chair and blew out a breath. She had a few choice things to say to Delores Norris, but she’d have to bite her tongue. No sense getting into a pissing match with the woman who had a say in her eventual sentence. She nodded at Price, took another deep breath, and began.

“Okay. Trust me, every single detail of that night is etched on my brain. It’s not like I could forget.” Taylor brought up that evening from her memories, forehead creased as she recited the story.

“I was trying to decide how to tell Captain Price what I’d discovered. I must have picked up the phone ten times in ten minutes. I knew how bad this looked, knew it was going to ruin careers. But it had to be stopped.”

Taylor hit redial, heard the call connect and start ringing, then clicked the off button and returned the phone to her lap. If she made this call, there was no going back. Being right wouldn’t make her the golden girl. If she were wrong…well, she didn’t want to think about what could happen. Losing her job would be the least of her worries. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.

She set the phone on the pool table and went down the stairs of the cabin. Stepping into the kitchen, she opened the door to the refrigerator and pulled out a Diet Coke. She laughed to herself. Like more caffeine would give her the courage to make the call. She should try a shot of whisky. That always worked in the movies.

She snapped open the tab and stood staring out of her kitchen window. It had been dark for hours, the moon was gone and the inky blackness outside her window was impenetrable, but in an hour the skies would lighten. She would have to make a decision by then.

Taylor turned away from the window, eyes unfocused. There was no other way. She couldn’t, wouldn’t compromise herself for that fool. An unfamiliar sound brought her back to the moment. It sounded like the transformer at the base of her driveway, a deep electronic humming. A fraction of a second later there was a loud crack, then the lights went out. Her heart pounded and she chided herself. Silly girl, she thought. In this section of Bellevue, the lights blew out all the time. Nashville Electric Service had a crew on call for this area twenty-four hours a day. It sounded like a simple power surge had caused the lights to blow. Now stop being jittery. You’re a grown woman, you’re not afraid of the dark.

She reached into her junk drawer and groped for a flashlight. Thumbing the switch, she cursed softly when the light didn’t shine. Batteries, where were the batteries?

She froze when she heard a different, softer noise. She went on alert, all of her senses going into over-drive. She strained her ears, trying to hear it again. Yes, there it was. A scrape, just off the back porch. She took a deep breath and sidled out of the kitchen, keeping close to the wall, moving lightly toward the back door. Her hand went to her hip and found nothing. Damn it. She’d left her gun upstairs.

The tinkle of breaking glass brought her up short. The French doors that led into the backyard had been breached. It was too late to head upstairs and get the gun. She would have to walk right through the living room to get to the stairs. Whoever had just broken through her back door was not going to let her stroll on by. She started edging back toward the kitchen, holding her breath, as if that would help her not make any noise.

She didn’t see the fist, only felt it crack against her jaw. Her eyes swelled with tears and before she could react, the fist connected again. This time, her teeth exploded into her mouth and blood sprayed from her lips. She spun and hit the wall face-first. The impact knocked her breath out. She felt the intruder grab her as she started to slide down the wall.

He moved fast, lightning quick. Now that he had his hands on her, she had the advantage, she knew exactly where her attacker was. She started to turn and duck, but a hand on her shoulder pushed her face-first into the wall. Fuck, that hurt.

She fought back with everything she had. She could tell it was a man, not just because of his strength but also from the telltale hardness pressing into her lower back. Great, he wasn’t going to be satisfied with just beating her up, he wanted to get his rocks off too.

Not if she could help it.

She twisted hard, coming face-to-face with his chest. She threw a punch but he grabbed her fist, wrestled her back against the wall. He got his hands around her throat. She struggled against him, quickly realizing that he wasn’t there for a rape and a beating. He was there to kill. Since he was overpowering her, she went limp. She lolled bonelessly against him, surprising him with the sudden weight. She took that moment to push off the wall with her right leg and shove with all her might. It created some space between them, enabling her to slip out of his grasp. She fell into the living room, crashing into the slate end table, opening a bloody gash on her shin.

Her attacker lunged after her. Taylor used the sturdy table to right herself and whipped out her left arm in a perfect jab, aiming lower than where she suspected his chin would be. She connected on target and heard him grunt in pain. Spitting blood out of her mouth in satisfaction, she kicked him in the stomach and felt the whoosh of his breath as it left his body. He fell against the wall as she spun and leapt to the stairs. He jumped up to pursue her, but she was quicker. She pounded up the steps as fast as she could, rounding the corner into the hall just as her attacker reached the landing. The lights snapped back on, blinding her for a brief second.

The gun was on the edge of her pool table, next to the phone, right where she had left it when she went downstairs for a soda. She was getting careless. With everything that was happening, she shouldn’t have taken for granted that she was safe in her own home.

Her hand closed around the grip of the Glock. She palmed the nine-millimeter, spinning around to face the door just as the man came screaming through it. She didn’t stop to think about the repercussions, simply reacted. Her hand rose. Using instinct instead of taking aim, she put a bullet right between his eyes. His momentum carried him forward a few paces. He was five feet from her when he dropped with a thud.

She heard her own ragged breathing. She tasted blood and raised a bruised hand to her jaw, feeling her lips and her teeth gingerly. Son of a bitch had loosened two molars. The adrenaline rush left her. She collapsed on the floor next to the lifeless body.

The throbbing in her jaw brought her back. The sky outside was brightening, the morning light highlighting the horrible mess in front of her. She must have been out for a while. Rising, she took in the scene. The man was collapsed on her game room floor, slowly leaking blood on her Berber carpet. She idly eyed the stain.

“That’s going to be a bitch to get out.”

She shook her head to clear the cobwebs. What an inane thing to say. Shock, she must be going into shock. How long had they fought? Had it been only five minutes? Half an hour? She felt like she had struggled against him for days; her body was tired and sore. Never mind the blood caked around her mouth and the gaping slash across her shin. She put her hand up to her face. Her nose was broken again. Damn.

She eyed the man. He was facedown and canted slightly to one side. She slipped her toes under his right arm and flipped him with her foot. Maybe there was some adrenaline left in her system. The shot was true; she could see a tiny hole in his forehead. Reaching down, she felt for his carotid pulse, but there was nothing. He was definitely dead.

“Oh, David,” she said. “What were you thinking?”

“I still have the scar on my leg from the coffee table.” Taylor brushed tears out of her eyes and swallowed the lump in her throat. She shifted, coming back to the present, shaking the past away. She stared at Delores.

“The grand jury heard this story. They felt I’d acted in self-defense. I did act in self-defense. Your office cleared me of any wrongdoing. Whatever you’ve seen on this tape is a lie. It’s been doctored. The electricity had cut out during the attack and came back on. Surely that would give a gap in the tape. It would be easy to fill in the blank.”

The Oompa squiggled off her chair. Standing, she was the same height as Taylor was sitting. She looked Taylor over.

“We’ll be the ones who determine that, Lieutenant. There has also been a complaint filed against you for harassment and unlawful detainment. It seems you had an unpleasant conversation with a possible witness. He says you drew your weapon. Is this true?”

Crap. God damn Tony Gorman. She’d underestimated him.

“That’s not exactly what happened.”

“We’ll see. I think you’ve crossed one too many lines, Miss. I’m sorry, but while we investigate, you’re going to have to turn in your badge and gun. We have to do this by the book. You are on an unpaid suspension as of this moment, and the investigation into your actions will tell us what really happened the night of your fellow officer’s murder. It’s hard to manipulate a videotape, despite what television might tell you. And we’ll be looking into the harassment charges as well.”

“What?” Taylor asked, as Price said, “You can’t suspend her for this! She’s done nothing wrong.”

The Oompa smiled her crooked smile and held out her hand. “Oh? I think killing a fellow officer in cold blood qualifies as wrong, Captain. I think threatening witnesses qualifies as wrong. I can suspend the lieutenant, and I just did. The public would have my head if they thought we were covering this up. Your weapon and badge, Lieutenant.”

Taylor struggled to shut her mouth. She wasn’t going to help herself by reacting any more than she already had. The Oompa had it in for her, she realized that now. And that could be deadly for her career. Without looking at Price, who was shouting curses at Norris, she stood. She towered over the Oompa, who didn’t blink, just raised her hand higher.

Taylor unsnapped her Glock from her hip holster and set it in Norris’s tiny little palm. Then she removed her shield from her belt and set it gently on top of the service weapon. She swallowed and the roar sounded in her ears. Her heart started to pound, and she heard nothing else. She turned smartly on her heel and marched from the OPA offices.