“You think?”

The older detective eyed her suspiciously. “You don’t look so hot this morning.”

That was an understatement if she’d ever heard one. Evangeline had been up half the night with the baby, and she looked and felt like a hundred miles of bad road. But lack of sleep was the least of her problems. With the impending anniversary of Johnny’s death, she was finding it harder and harder to emerge from the dark cloud that had hovered over her since the funeral.

A year ago, her life had been as close to perfect as she could imagine, and now it lay in ruins, the joy and sunlight replaced by a cold, gray loneliness. Happiness was a concept she barely remembered. Now she awakened each morning to the stark reality of a future without Johnny. Sometimes she felt so hopeless and lost, she had to pull the covers over her head and weep before somehow mustering the strength to swing her legs over the side of the bed and begin another day without him.

But Evangeline’s lifestyle didn’t allow for a breakdown. She was a cop and a single mother. She had her and Johnny’s son to think about, plus all the responsibilities that her job entailed. Lives were on the line. She couldn’t afford the luxury of wallowing in despair, no matter how much she might wish to.

Mitchell was still sizing her up. “You’re not gonna faint or something, are you?”

She gave him a thin smile. “Have you ever known me to faint?”

“And that, in a nutshell, is your problem, girl.”

“I didn’t realize I had a problem.”

“You don’t always have to work so damn hard to prove how tough you are.”

Oh, yes, I do.

But all she did was shrug.

She knew that wasn’t the end of it, though.

Mitchell had that fatherly look on his face, the one that signaled he was about to impart a necessary but unpleasant truth.

He nodded toward the officers. “They’re not the enemy, you know.”