Baby Jane Doe. Julie Miller

things to discuss. Have a seat, Eli.” Oblivious to his misguided interest in her, the commissioner gestured to a sofa. “May I call you Eli?”

      “In private.” The smart remark was out before sense could stop it.

      Instead of putting him in his place, she laughed. “Touché.”

      Eli unbuttoned his jacket and opted for a straight-backed chair at the conference table before he relaxed his guard any further and completely screwed up what was left of his day and career. “So, why am I here? I believe your exact words were I need to see you.”

      “I like a man who’s direct.”

      “I like a woman who’s direct.”

      With a decisive nod, Shauna set down her mug and retrieved an unmarked file from her desk. “Just so you know, I’ve cleared this with Captain Chang.”

      “Cleared what? Is this about yesterday?”

      “As a matter of fact, I asked him to lose any paperwork regarding your involvement in yesterday’s shooting. For now, if anyone asks, we’ll say the incident is under investigation. We can throw speculation onto the guards or even myself as the shooter.”

      Eli’s gaze narrowed as she returned. “I’ve got nothing to hide. Taking down Mr. Trench Coat was a clean shoot. My report will say as much.”

      “Taking down Richard Powell was a hell of a shot. KCPD has had him on their person-of-interest list as a hired gun for several months now.” She circled the table. “But forget your report. I need you on the job, not confined to a desk. As far as anyone outside this office knows, you weren’t even at that bank yesterday.”

      “Why the cover-up?”

      She pulled out a chair and sat across from him, concentrating for a moment on placing the file folder just so on the table in front of her. But there was no hesitation in her expression when she looked up at him. “What I’m about to ask of you won’t be easy. It won’t make you very popular with your colleagues.”

      He inclined his head toward her desk. “You read my file. Does it look like popular matters to me?”

      “Deep down inside—somewhere—it matters. That’s why I’ve hesitated to recruit anyone for this assignment.”

      Ignoring the compassion she offered and denying any truth to her insight, Eli laced his fingers together and leaned onto the edge of the table. “What’s the job, boss lady? What do you need me to do?”

      He’d wanted direct. “Are you familiar with the Baby Jane Doe murder case?”

      “I’m a cop and I live in Kansas City. So, yeah, I’m familiar enough.” Relieved to have something to focus on other than the way Shauna Cartwright seemed to see a lot deeper beneath the skin than he liked a woman to, Eli eased back in his seat. “Murdered African-American girl. About a year old. I’ve heard the grisly details in the locker room. The body found separately from the head. Tossed in the dump. My sister’s the M.E. who did the autopsy. There was no sign of sexual trauma, though the COD was physical abuse. Poor kid was too young to have dental records or fingerprints to ID her. I’ve followed the news stories. How people were keeping their own kids locked in at night, how they blamed the department for taking so long to arrest anyone. I know the D.A.’s office is hashing out the preliminary motions for Donnell Gibbs’s trial right now.”

      “So you are familiar with the case.” She sighed wearily, as if the details were far too familiar, maybe too personal, for her. “My first priority when I took over for Edward Brent was to put together a task force dedicated to the investigation. Actually, it was Edward’s idea, before his first stroke. He was afraid of civil unrest. Lynch mobs. Untrained citizens arming themselves against a child-killer. I organized the plan, selected the investigators and put Mitch Taylor in charge. The task force gave me Donnell Gibbs.”

      Eli nodded. “Now the city’s calmed down, the killer’s on trial and we’re all heroes here at KCPD again.”

      “I want to reopen the case.”

      A beat of silence filled the room.

      “Are you nuts?” Putting Donnell Gibbs on trial for Baby Jane Doe’s murder had finally staunched the wound that had hobbled KCPD for more than two years. Even Eli could sense the city’s massive sigh of relief. “Shauna, you can’t—”

      “I’m reopening the case.” She ignored his accusatory slip of decorum and pushed the file across the table, offering Eli the most unpopular job in all of Kansas City. “And I need a man like you to do it.”