The Little Grave (Detective Amanda Steele)

“A new guy?” she parroted. Surely he was joking.

“And I suggest you make it work. You might be the former police chief’s daughter—”

“And good at my job,” she cut in, now longing to be out from the shadow of Nathan Steele. She’d kept her maiden name after marriage because for the longest time she’d wanted to be her dad, and his name was powerful as she worked up the ranks. After Kevin’s death, there had been many times she’d wished she’d taken his surname, James.

“Sure, but you need to play by the rules like the rest of us,” Malone said, disregarding her interruption.

And he didn’t need to lay them out to her. At every homicide it was desired to have a primary detective and a number two. Maybe she should be grateful she’d gotten along solo as often as she did. “Okay, fine, have it your way. But what am I supposed to do now? Sit around and wait for the new guy to show up?”

“His name’s Trent Stenson, and you won’t need to wait for long. I was going to tell you in the morning, but it seems like Christmas has come again, or early, however you want to look at it.”

“Yippie,” she mumbled, picturing some backwoods type in a cowboy hat and chaps with grass hanging out of his mouth, but a face popped into her mind. “Wait. You said Trent Stenson?”

“Uh-huh. You know him?”

To say that she knew him would be stretching it, but she’d met him at a barbecue Becky had hosted one summer several years ago. He had boyish good looks—blond hair, blue eyes—but his starry-eyed approach to life made him seem younger. He had been a uniformed officer with Dumfries PD at the time and had rambled on about how he’d helped the FBI with a serial-rapist-and-murder case. He declared then that he wanted to be a homicide detective for Prince William County PD one day. Guess some people had stars to wish upon and grant their dreams.

“Amanda?” Malone prompted.

“I’ve met him.”

Malone smiled. “Yeah, small world, law enforcement is round here.”

Trent had been so cheery and just the thought of being around that… “I don’t know if this is a good idea. And you said he’s new to the department.”

“Sure, and as you just said, you’re good at your job, so you’ll be a good mentor for the kid.”

She hardly felt qualified to be anyone’s mentor, and “the kid” was probably only a couple of years younger than she was.

Malone went on. “For the record, Stenson is now officially your partner.”

“Let me guess. He’ll take over Turner’s old desk?” Russell Turner didn’t deserve the badge and had been a huge pain in the ass, though his true failing was his outright bigotry against people of color. There was no room for that in any capacity, on any force.

“Why not?”

Some days it felt like everyone was sitting on everyone else. “No reason,” she said.

“Good, it’s settled. And I also want to make it clear that I’m giving the lead on this case to Stenson.”

“The lead,” she blurted out. “To a rookie detective?”

He raised his eyebrows, the arches serving like upward-pointing arrows. “On paper,” he added, holding eye contact with her. “It’s the only way I can get this to fly. As it is, I’m not going to advertise it.”

“You want me to be his number two? Report to him?” She didn’t do well with being managed, let alone by an underling.

“You report to me. The rest is just on paper—for this case.”

She took a few deep breaths. “Fine.”

“So we have an understanding?”

“Yes, we have an understanding,” she mumbled.

Malone turned his head and put his left ear near her mouth. “Can you say that again? I didn’t quite hear you.”

“I’m on board,” she said, raising her voice.

Malone cringed and pulled back, cupping his ear. “No need for that. I’m doing you a favor here. And I’m not deaf—or at least I wasn’t.”