On that December night, Alexa was riding on a political wave of congratulatory remarks. The day before, it had been announced that she was being promoted to captain and would finally be able to drop the word "acting" from her title of Detective Division commander.

For two years she'd been running the Detective Division that supervised three hundred plainclothes cops. In L. A. only captains can head police divisions, but she took over the job as a lieutenant and the "acting" adverb had been haunting her authority like an asterisk. With her appointment to captain came full-fledged membership in the department's double bar club.

I watched as a few of the more aggressive career assassins mingled and schmoozed, wearing big, deceptive grins. They cruised the party like ocean predators, their dangerous personalities barely visible, only the hiss of their dorsals giving them away.

"You ready yet?" I asked Alexa, trying for the third time to get us out of there. I'm a line officer, a Detective III. I don't mix well at these things. Because I was uncomfortable, I wasn't drinking alcohol, so I wouldn't inadvertently insult somebody who could later decide to wreck my career.

"In a minute," Alexa said, turning toward a florid-faced commander named Medavoy, who ran the Special Operations Support Division. I knew he had actively opposed Alexa's appointment to captain, but you'd never know it as he congratulated her, gave her a big, expansive hug, and told her she was the absolute best. The putz.

I wandered off to find a backwater as the music changed and the annoying strains of the Chipmunks singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" began to claw relentlessly at my brain.

"Shane?"

I turned to find Sally Quinn, my partner from Homicide Special.