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emotional to see a dead body.
    Harper wanted to laugh.  Really, she had been with the FBI for several years before she changed jobs.  They had never seen a ritualistic killing of a child—she had—and it still haunted her.  However, break her—never.  She was the master of internalization. She put on a front, or as most people said, she channeled her ‘Inner Mistress of a Bitch’ too well sometimes.
    That was her nickname around the department, one she was sure the LT started— the miserable son of a bitch .  Ever since Harper started, the muther fucker had been trying to get into her pants.  Although she didn’t see it, she apparently was attractive.  How shit like that seem to matter when you smelled like a corpse at the end of the day, she didn't know.  So she didn’t put on makeup, or do her hair, unless she was going out.  Which meant maybe once a month, she had moved to San Diego only six months before, and she had met very few people and since she hung out a bunch of janky-ass pricks, it meant for a lot of lonely dinners.
    She looked around the steel gray room and shook her head, there were a variety of boards that were for the current cases.  She frowned as her eyes landed on one she hadn’t seen before—a woman.  As she walked closer, she saw her husband had died in the service, and she and her child were alone.  Jesus, a child all alone in the world.  She looked at the notes, the hit looked professional.  Harper wondered how she had missed this coming in.  She should have been read in, but once again, she saw the old boys club raising its nasty head.
    Harper walked to her desk and flopped down in her chair, whatever, they would come around, or she would kick their asses.  She planned only to give them a few more months before she did it.  Harper was working out, getting ready to take one of them down during training.  That will make them shut their mouths if she bitch slapped one of them in the training room.
    Harper was five foot four with long red hair, her mother before her death referred to her as her little pixie.  She would roll her eyes, but she secretly liked the reference.  Her father had been a retired SEAL, she knew exactly what it was like growing up in a home where your father had seen so much it had hardened him.  She loved him, and when he died, she had been ripped apart.  But she had also seen the effects of PTSD without having to serve. 
    Shaking herself, she didn’t allow time to wallow in her private life.  Even though she had nothing to do, she wouldn’t let them catch her daydream.  Busy work, was what she was good at. 
    Harper was busy until the end of her shift, not that it mattered, she had not really accomplished anything other than answering calls and sending messages.  Kicking one of their asses was sounded better and better all the time.  She gathered her duffle and began to walk out the door when the phone rang.  She paused and let her chin sink to her chest.  Damn, almost got away .  Knowing her luck it would be the asshat telling her she needed to stay until he got back to the office.
    “ Sergeant Bret,” she said briskly into her phone.
    “ Sergeant, we have a case that needs immediate attention.  A cabbie called in, said he had a guy in his back seat acting crazy.  He was taking him to the base hospital.  He is hallucinating and he has blood on him, the guy can’t tell him why.  We may have a homicide somewhere.  We need someone to go the hospital, everyone is already out,” the desk sergeant said.
    “ Send the details to my phone.  On my way,” Harper said and hung up the phone and walked briskly to the door and yelled down the hallway to the secretary she was on her cell.
    Harper smiled, finally a call all by he rself with no one breathing over her shoulder.  The rush was starting, wondering about the man, and what he could have done.  Maybe he committed a murderous rampage and she would catch all the cases, it would take her