1

      EXHAUSTED, Detective Blake Hammond dropped into the worn leather chair, leaned back and propped his polished brown loafers on the edge of the gray metal desk. He glanced at the clock hanging on the far wall and managed a tired grin, anxious to wrap up the long unproductive night of surveillance. In less than twelve hours he’d be on a 747 to the Hawaiian Islands. The most strenuous item on his agenda consisted of downing a variety of fruity rum drinks, while appreciating the view of sunbathing beauties intent on deepening their tans under the warm tropical sunshine.

      Life was good, and bound to be an improvement over the last month, which had been filled with long hours that hadn’t garnered a solid arrest. For the past two weeks, he’d been convinced the lead from a snitch was a dead end. A series of robberies in Los Angeles’s high-rent district had the lieutenant demanding a bust, but so far, Blake and his new partner, Lucas Stone, had turned up nothing. The robberies were clean, no forced entry and not a single print or scrap of evidence left by the perps.

      “You don’t have to gloat, Hammond.” Luke tossed a thin file near Blake’s feet. “It’s depressing to the rest of us grunts left behind to deal with the criminal element.”

      “I’ve earned the right to gloat,” Blake said with a chuckle, swinging his feet to the floor. “I haven’t had a vacation in over three years. For the next fourteen days the only surveillance I’m planning has to do with curvy, suntanned, string-bikini-clad bodies glistening with coconut-scented oil.”

      Luke dropped into the chair behind the desk adjacent to Blake’s. “Great,” he grumbled, reaching for the phone after shoving a lock of sandy-brown hair off his forehead. “I’m stuck partnering that blowhard bore, Pearson, while you’re scoping beach-bound Bettys. There’s just something unfair about that.”

      “You know what they say about life being fair,” Blake said without an ounce of remorse, glancing up as Lieutenant Forbes came out of his office.

      “Hammond. A minute,” Forbes barked. His salt-and-pepper eyebrows were pulled into a heavy frown Blake was certain didn’t bode well.

      Blake shot a look in his partner’s direction. Luke shrugged and punched numbers into the telephone keypad.

      “Close the door,” Forbes ordered when Blake walked into the lieutenant’s office. He perched on the edge of his desk while Blake propped his backside on the arm of the leather sofa that sat against the far wall.

      “I’m canceling your vacation.”

      Blake came off the sofa. “No. You’re not.” Let Forbes write him up for insubordination. He needed a vacation before he made a serious, and costly, mistake. The previous week he’d gotten a little too rough with a suspect. He didn’t