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missing persons files.”
    “Yeah.”
    Rick drove to the station, put Tracker at his desk with orders to stay, and found his way to the showers. He moved quickly to the locker room, stripping off the morning’s clothes and stepping under the hot spray of the shower. As the water beat down on his sore left side, he breathed a sigh of relief before turning his face to the spray. He soaped liberally and washed his hair, wondering if he’d ever get the smell of the muck from his body.
    Out of the shower, he toweled, glancing only briefly at the scar that ran over his hip and down his thigh. He dressed and found Bishop at his desk on the phone. Tracker stared at Bishop, who looked at the dog and held up a hand as if to say, “What?”
    Don’t let him off the hook, T . Suppressing a smile, Rick poured a coffee.
    Bishop raised a brow at the dog and then turned back toward his desk as Rick approached. “The medical examiner says it will be a day at least before she has an evaluation but she’s making it top priority.”
    “Great. What about Missing Persons?”
    “They’ve sent some folders and are digging out the rest.” Bishop nodded toward Rick’s desk to a stack of manila folders that had to be forty deep. “Files of missing children who fit our rough description and our most recent time parameters. Basically the last thirty years.”
    Rick sat and flipped open the first file and read. Tanya Logan, age four, missing for eleven years. He glanced at the image of the child’s smiling face. “Going to be a long day.”
    “Give me half. Let’s see if we can narrow it down to at least a short list.”
    “There’s no telling if our victim is in these files. No telling if a report was filed.”
    Bishop unfastened his cuffs and carefully rolled them up, revealing muscled forearms sprinkled with dark hair. “Agreed. But we still got to do the work.”
    He handed over half the stack. “I’ll do whatever it takes to catch this bastard.”
    Detective Deke Morgan, Rick’s brother, arrived as he opened the first file. The frown lines in Deke’s forehead and around his eyes were deeper than normal and the graying at his temples had thickened. He wore his customary dark suit and white shirt and simple black cowboy boots polished to a high sheen.
    A perpetual frown deepened as Deke studied the stack of files. “Good, you’re on the case. Let me know when you have something.” Deke had given Rick the nod to join homicide, but if he’d shown any favoritism in that moment he’d not shown any more. He’d chew Rick’s ass as quickly as Bishop’s or any other member of the team. He was all about equal opportunity when it came to doling out crap.
    “I thought you were on vacation.”
    Deke’s frown softened for a split second. “I was. I’m back. What’s going on with the case?”
    Rick shifted as the tension snaked up his back. “We’ll let you know if we’ve any kind of hit.”
    Deke rubbed Tracker’s head. “I’ve had that reporter, Susan Martinez, calling. She got wind of the story and wants in.”
    Memories of the reporter hounding him after the shooting set Rick’s teeth on edge.
    “I know you don’t like Martinez.”
    “I can deal if she can help. I just don’t trust her.”
    Martinez and her crews had been on the scene as rescuers were loading him in the ambulance. Later, after surgery, she’d found him in his hospital room and asked for an interview. He’d been pissed at himself and worried for Tracker and he’d said a few choice words. She’d not scared easily but in the end had left him. She’d covered the shooting extensively, showing the dash-cam footage and interviewing other officers. What was his critical mistake? All agreed he’d made no mistake. The job came with hazards. Few of those quotes had made it on air.
    “If you don’t give her some information, she’ll find some,” Deke said. He glanced toward the coffeemaker as if he needed a jolt.
    The line between cop and brother was