Treya gave him a wary look. "You hope."

"All right," he conceded, "I hope."

"Why wouldn't you be?" Hardy asked. "How long's it been, anyway?"

"On Monday, it'll have been thirteen months, two weeks and three days."

"Roughly," Treya added pointedly. "Not that he's been counting."

Glitsky was coming off a bad year, one that had begun with a point-blank gunshot wound to his abdomen. For the first month or so after the initial cleanup, he'd been recovering according to schedule-getting around in a wheelchair, taking things easy-when the first of several medical complications had developed. A secondary infection that finally got diagnosed as peritonitis put him back in the hospital, where he then developed pneumonia. The double whammy had nearly killed him for a second time, and left him weakened and depleted through Rachel's birth last August until late in the fall. Then, suddenly the initial wound itself wouldn't completely heal. It wasn't until February of this year that he'd even been walking regularly at all, and a couple of months after that before he began trying to get back into shape. At the end of May, his doctors finally declared him fit to return to work, but Glitsky's bosses had told him that homicide's interim head-the lieutenant who'd taken Glitsky's place-would need to be reassigned and there wasn't an immediately suitable job befitting his rank and experience.

So Glitsky had waited some more.

Now they were in July and evidently something had finally materialized, but obviously with a wrinkle. "So what's to hope about getting back on Monday?" Hardy asked. "How could it not happen? You walk in, say hi to your troops, go back to your desk and break out the peanuts."

The lieutenant's desk in homicide was famous for its unending stash of goobers in the shell.

Glitsky made a face.

"Apparently," Treya said, "it's not that simple."