Did he see the green, the color, the bloom, the blue? She doubted it. He looked diminished, she decided. Worn and lessened by the burden of grief. Could he be a cop now? Think like one, stand like one? She wasn’t sure. She glanced at the commander, standing beside him. The stance was support, friendship, shared loss. She would need them both to step back from that loss, to erect a distance of objectivity to give her what she needed. Or to step away completely. She walked in. “Commander. Captain.” They both turned. On MacMasters’s face she saw that quick spark that was hope. Survivors, she knew, needed answers. “Is there any progress, Lieutenant?” “We’re pursuing some lines,” she told MacMasters. She moved toward her desk, around the murder board she’d deliberately left up.
