This was the kind of story that seemed to make the news these days, part of the routine and fabric of the city that everyone else in the country called L.A. Lena was twenty-nine and hadn’t had sex in two years either. With no one on the immediate horizon, she didn’t consider her quandary a laughing matter.

Her cell phone rang. She looked at it on the table, recognized the caller on the LCD screen, and opened it. It was her partner, Hank Novak, calling at 6:00 a.m. They worked out of the Robbery-Homicide Division. Lena guessed that Novak’s call had nothing to do with an immaculate conception in Santa Monica, or getting laid by Jesus.

“Hope you’re rested,” Novak said.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she said. “What’s up?”

She grabbed her pen. She could tell from the gravelly tone of her partner’s usually smooth voice that he hadn’t been up for long. From the sound of the wind in the background, he was on a freeway somewhere rolling at high speed.

“Nine thirty-eight Oak Tree Lane,” he said. “West L.A. Page forty in my fifteen-year-old Thomas Guide. Take Sunset out to Brooktree Road and hang a left. Looks like it’s a block past the entrance to Will Rogers State Park. Oak Tree’s off Brooktree about a quarter mile down on the right.”

“Sounds like a lot of trees,” she said.

“I thought so, too. The house you’re looking for should be the third one on the left. By the time you get there, it’ll probably be easy enough to spot.”

She was writing everything down on the masthead of The Times, becoming concerned because Novak was spitting his words out and seemed all tanked up. He’d never acted this way before, but then, they were still getting used to each other.

Lena had worked out of the Hollywood Division until two months ago, when she was promoted to the elite Homicide Special Section under a new mentoring program established by the LAPD. She was the youngest detective at the table, one of only two women in RHD, and had been fast-tracked up the line because there was yet another chief in town and he wanted to change the face of the department one more time. Although she hadn’t been chosen for her sex, she knew that to some degree her gender would always be in play as long as she remained a cop. But it was her age that had given her the boost this time, and her promotion had been one of many across the board. The average age of the department had slipped to just twenty-five. Everyone knew that cops were leaving the city in droves, headed out of the combat zone for greener pastures, and that those who stayed had their eyes on retiring with a full pension before they left town. The new chief understood that the institutional memory of the department was in serious jeopardy. And he was right. Although Lena had earned praise from her commanding officer and quickly risen as an investigator in Hollywood, her experience was limited to two years working narcotics and burglary, six months ferreting out white-collar deadbeats in bunco forgery, and only another two and a half years at the homicide table. Investigating a murder meant dealing with a lot more pressure. It still felt new. And Novak, due to retire sometime in the next couple of years, had been given the task of trying to bring her along as quickly as he could.

“What’s the name on the mailbox?” she asked.

“Brant,” he said. “Nikki Brant.”

Novak fell silent, and she couldn’t get a read on him.