Sweet little girls, six and seven. Petra had allowed herself to become attached to them. Pretending…

Petra had endured a hysterectomy at a freakishly young age.

Toward the end, when Ms. Caballera was laying on the pressure big time- calling Ron ten times a day, talking dirty to him, e-mailing him bikini shots, begging- he’d been a basket case, crippled by conflict. Finally, Petra shoved him in the right direction, and he took leave from his Sheriff’s Homicide job in order to sort things out and flew to Spain with the girls.

To Petra, Spain had always meant art. The Prado, Degas, Velasquez, Goya. She’d never been there. Had never been out of the country.

Now, Spain meant over.

Ron called Petra once, breaking into sobs. So sorry, baby, so, so sorry, but the girls are so happy, I never realized how unhappy they were…

The girls had always looked okay to Petra, but what did she know about kids, barren thirty-year-old spinster that she was.

Ron stayed in Spain for the summer and sent her a consolation gift: stupid little carving of a flamenco dancer. Castanets and all. Petra broke off the limbs and tossed it in the trash.

Stu Bishop, her longtime partner, had bailed on her, too. Resigning a promising career to care for a sick wife. Oh, that spousal obligation.

Soon after, she switched to the night shift because she couldn’t sleep anyway, felt in synch with the special poison that scented the air when Hollywood streets turned black.

Comforted by the sorrows of people in a lot worse shape than she.

During the ninety days of the no-guys phase, she caught three 187s, worked them all solo because staffing was thin and she didn’t protest when the nightwatch commander raised the possibility. Two were easy-solves that had gone down on Hollywood ’s east end: a liquor-store clerk shooting and a knifing at a Latino dance club, multiple witnesses all around, both files closed within a week.