One thing that did seriously suck about my job – the hours. Unlike some people, I would have killed to have been put on second or even third shift.

I was so not a morning person, and when my alarm went off at the ass-crack of dawn, I hit it with a whimper, wishing I could stay in bed until it was a more reasonable hour. Another six or seven hours should do it.

But that wasn’t going to happen, so after hitting the snooze button twice, I rolled out of bed and hit the floor. Literally. I did forty push-ups, then went to my back and did double the number of sit-ups.

My brain was marginally more awake after I stumbled out of the bathroom a few minutes later, in search of caffeine and food. I’d shower after I’d taken care of those two crucial needs.

The coffeepot, on a timer, had already produced glorious coffee and I nipped a cup off before putting a bagel in the toaster. Coffee and a bagel with peanut butter – the breakfast of champions.

I poured a second cup of coffee before I was even finished with the bagel. The second cup went into the shower with me. Some people might think I had a caffeine problem. I didn’t see it as a problem.

Even though I’d told Malcolm the job was going the other day, I couldn’t help but feel a rush when I walked into the precinct. Malcolm hadn’t been exaggerating when he talked about how I’d been working for this my whole life.

I was nowhere near close to the end goal, but I was one step closer, and it mattered.

My partner was in the bullpen talking to a couple of other officers, and when he saw me, he waved me over. Milo Lorenzo was a decent cop, and I appreciated the fact that I’d been assigned to him when I was hired. He wasn’t overly ambitious and didn’t have pie in the sky dreams about shooting for homicide or anything else, really. He’d told me he was quite happy being a beat cop, and I could either follow in his footsteps, or he’d do the best he could with me, then boost up to the next level once that time came.

I was still a new cop, and for now, I came with training wheels. Some of those training wheels had the name M. Lorenzo on them. I wasn’t resentful of the fact. I was a cop’s daughter and understood the chain of command, but man, did I want to be ready for that next level.

“About time to go get our assignments for the day,” Milo said, passing me a cup of coffee.

The first few weeks we’d worked together, he’d been quiet to the point of terseness, but we’d adjusted to each other and had an amicable enough working friendship.

I suspected he’d thought I use family connections to smooth my way. If only he knew that I wished fewer people knew of those family connections. I didn’t want my way smoothed.

“Look at that…she’s got you trained and fetching coffee,” one of the uniforms said with a smirk in my direction. “If I had a new cop working with me, she’d be the one fetching my coffee.”

“Maybe that’s why they don’t put new cops with you, Martin,” I replied, taking a tentative sip of the steaming brew. “They’re trying to kill that good ol’ boy system where the little lady is the one to fetch the coffee while the big, strong men sit around and talk business.”

A couple of the guys hooted.

But Shane Martin just stared at me over the rim of his own coffee cup. “Hey, if a system works…why fix it?”

I ignored the comment, refusing to let him draw me into one of his petty little messes. He loved to cause problems, then pass it off like somebody else was responsible.

When I didn’t rise to the bait, he opened his mouth to try again, but Milo cut between us. “Come on, red. Need to get in there for the morning briefing. See you losers later.”

Most of those losers trailed along after us, including Shane Martin, who took up the table behind me along with his partner, Lenny Higgins. The two of them muttered and whispered throughout most of the meeting, making it hard to pick up on everything that was being said, but I focused and tuned them out.

Once we had our assignments, we hit the doors, heading to the parking bay where the cruisers were all parked. On the way out, we bypassed a familiar face standing with a couple of detectives, and I waved.

I could have gotten by with that, but Milo spotted my big brother Carl, and he had to stop and chat for a few minutes.

It seemed that he couldn’t miss a single chance to talk with my big brother. Whether he’d always been like this, I didn’t know, but Milo knew all about the ins and outs of the precinct, the good politics and the bad. Maybe it was just good politics for him to stay on the good side of one of the desk sergeants. Although he didn’t go out of his way to be that friendly with all of them.

Granted, if he did, we’d have a hard time getting out of the precinct.

“Have a good shift,” Carl said, drawing the conversation to a close and nodding at me before he walked off.

He seemed to understand my desire to keep my relationship with him at a minimum when working. I didn’t want anybody thinking I’d gotten where I was because of my name, because of my dad or my brothers.

“Everything okay with you and your brother?” Milo asked as we climbed into the car.

Puzzled, I glanced over at him. “Everything’s fine, why?”

“You barely said two words to him.”

“I usually don’t. Not at work, at least.” I shrugged it off as I reached for my seatbelt. Once I was buckled in, I picked up the clipboard with our street assignments, but Milo just started the car and left it in idle.

“Why is that?” He frowned at me, clearly puzzled.

“Because…” Blowing out a sigh, I met his eyes. “You know what it’s like to be the new girl who’s got a retired daddy for a cop and two older brothers who are also cops, walking into the precinct on day one and having everybody stare at you, and cops like Martin muttering about how if it wasn’t for Daddy, you wouldn’t be where you are?”

“Seeing as how I’ve never been a girl…can’t say I have. Plenty of cops have to prove themselves, Sinclair.” He shrugged. “You know. You’re a good cop, though. You can take a few seconds and talk to your brother.”

“I know I’m a good cop,” I replied mildly. “And I know I didn’t sleep with anybody or ask my brother for any favors to get where I am. But some of the guys we work with haven’t figured it out yet. So, I’m not going to rub it in their faces that one of the desk sergeants is my brother.”

“Hey, hey…” Milo’s face darkened. “Who says you’ve been sleeping around? Is it Martin?”

I made a face at him. “Don’t worry. I handled it.” Tapping my finger on the clipboard, I tried to divert him. “How about we get to work?”

The stupidity of some people never ceased to amaze me.

We currently had one of the finest examples of human stupidity in the back of the cruiser, and the car reeked to high heaven.

She was drunk off her ass at ten in the morning and crying uncontrollably because we were taking her to jail.

That tended to happen when you’re driving drunk and weaving all over the road.

Again, it was ten in the morning.

The hour didn’t seem to matter to our girl, though. Apparently, she worked the night shift and had decided to go home, get plastered, then go for a drive.

She’d uttered a few words about a piece of shit boyfriend, so maybe love was to blame for this. Love and stupidity. Who knew?

What I did know was that she’d drank way too much, freaked out at the idea of getting arrested, and just a few minutes ago, she’d puked in the back of the car.

“You’re going to make me clean it out, aren’t you?” I groused, glaring at Milo from the corner of my eye.

“Grunt work,” he said cheerfully. “You’re the newbie here. You get to do the grunt work.”

“Bite me,” I said with a sigh.

Behind us, the girl’s sobs rose to a miserable pitch, and I half-turned. “Pipe down back there.”

“I can’t go to jail!” she sobbed, leaning forward and staring at me with beseeching eyes. “You don’t understand. I’m a nurse. If I get arrested, it can mess up my license.”

“You should have thought about that before you went for a drive,” I said, unconcerned.

“Bitch!” she spat out.

I got a face full of her rancid, post-vomit breath and turned away. One thing I had yet to completely adjust to was the variety of smells I had to cope with on the job. Body odor was just one of them. An alcoholic binge combined with vomit breath was something I’d rather never smell again, but there was no doubt it would make a repeated appearance in my future.

We reached the station in near record time, and once Milo had her out, he turned the keys over to me, giving me a beatific smile. “Going to beg for mercy?”

“Just get out of my face,” I said wearily. Once he was gone, I turned to the car and sighed.

And to think…this was the job I’d been working for my whole life.