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“Most women don’t see it that way,” Ramirez said.

“I’m not most women. But frankly, one reason a lot of women don’t stand for any teasing is that some men don’t know when teasing crosses the line to harassment. If I had to work day in and day out with them, I might be more careful. But I don’t, so I can afford to push the line a little.”

“What is your line, Anita?” He was standing just a little too close for comfort.

“I’ll let everyone know when they’ve reached it. Don’t worry.” I stepped back from him, giving myself the distance I wanted.

“You’re mad at me.” He sounded surprised.

I half-smiled. “Believe me, Detective, when I’m mad at you, you’ll know it.”

“Detective. Not even Ramirez. Now I know you’re upset. What did I do?”

I looked at him, studying that open, honest fact. “Why didn’t you tell me what Marks said about me? What he was telling the other cops about me? It could carry a death sentence.”

“No way was Marks going to push that through, Anita.”

“You still should have told me.”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged. “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

I frowned. “I guess not.” But I wasn’t happy with his answer.

He touched my arm again, every so lightly. “I didn’t believe that Marks could get you arrested. I was right. Isn’t that enough?”

“No,” I said.

He let his hand fall away from me. “What good would it have done to tell you? You’d have worried for nothing.”

“I don’t need my feelings protected. I need to feel that I can trust you.”

“You don’t trust me because I didn’t tell you everything that Marks said?”

“Not as much as I trusted you before.”

The first hint of anger hardened his eyes. “And you told me everything that happened in Los Duendos? You didn’t hold anything back about your interview with Nicky Baco?” His eyes weren’t kind now. They were cool and searching, cop eyes.

I looked down once, then fought to maintain eye contact when what I desperately wanted to do was duck my head and say, aw shucks, you caught me. Push me into a corner, and I usually get angry. But somehow looking into his deep brown eyes, I couldn’t pull up much moral indignation. Maybe it was having no moral high ground to stand on. Yeah, that might be it.

“I didn’t kill anybody, if that’s what you’re implying.” It was one of my usual comments with less than my usual force.

“That’s not what I’m implying and you know it, Anita.”

There was something familiar, almost intimate about the conversation. We’d known each other for two days, and yet we interacted as if we’d known each other much longer. It was unnerving. I didn’t usually bond this quickly with people or monsters.

But if it had been my longtime police friend Sergeant Rudolph Storr himself standing in front of me, I’d have lied. If Nicky Baco got a whiff of cops, he’d back off, and he’d never trust me again. People like Baco don’t give second chances when it comes to the police.

“Baco knew you and Rigby were outside the bar, Hernando. He has the entire area wired with magical . . .” I waffled my hand back and forth, seeking the right word “. . . wards, spells. He knows what happens in his streets. If I go back in with police as backup, no matter how distant, he won’t help us.”

“Are you so sure he can help?” Ramirez asked. “He may just be stringing you along, trying to find out what you know.”

“He’s scared, Hernando. Baco is scared. Call it a feeling, but I don’t think much frightens him.”

“You’ve just told me you’re withholding information from an ongoing murder investigation.”

“If you wire me up or insist on sending someone undercover with me, we’ll lose Baco. You know I’m right on this.”

“We may lose Baco, but you’re not right,” he said, and the anger was back. A frustrated anger that I’d seen before in other men that I’d known longer and in more intimate ways. That anger that I can’t just be a good girl and play by their rules, and be what they want me to be. It made me tired to hear that thread in Ramirez’s voice after only two days.

“The most