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home.”
     
    Jane was caught off guard by Weyler’s remark. Between the nightmares and booze binge, she’d conveniently forgotten about her ailing father. “Yeah, that’s right. How did you . . . What? Is there a direct line from that hospital to Headquarters?”
     
    “You can blame his old detective buddies for that direct line.”
     
    “Well, he’s not recovering from the heart attack and stroke as they had hoped.” Jane tried to act like she cared. “And the whole failing liver thing, that’s not helping matters. So, he’s pretty much . . . screwed. I’m meeting Mike tonight at his house to figure out what to do with all the furniture and the other shit.”
     
    “I’m sorry,” Weyler said.
     
    “Hey, it is what it is,” Jane said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Look, I—”
     
    “Is he able to get around?” Weyler questioned, pressing further.
     
    Jane was growing uncomfortable with Weyler’s interest in her father.
     
    She rested her right elbow on the arm of the chair and pressed her fingers against her right temple, next to a scar—just one of her many battle wounds—that was partially hidden under her hairline. “To be honest with you, I don’t know. I went to see him once and he was asleep so I left.” Jane let out a deep breath.
     
    Weyler scrutinized Jane’s demeanor. “Are you alright, Jane?”
     
    She knew she wasn’t but she figured she could fake it. “I’m fine, boss.” The words echoed with a disingenuous tenor.
     
    Weyler leaned forward, seriously concerned. “What’s going on?”
     
    Jane regarded Weyler with a forthright look but it fell like a glass curtain across her face. “Nothing’s going on that’ll prevent me from moving forward with solving the Stover case.”
     
    Weyler’s penetrating stare was relentless. “Part of my job is to watch over you people, make sure you represent DH with intelligence and mental coherence. You have the intelligence part down in spades. It’s the mental coherence part that concerns me.”
     
    Jane fell back into the chair, her eyes now meeting Weyler’s glance with conviction. If she could get out of his office and start focusing on the case, she was sure everything would resolve itself. “Look, I’m under some stress, okay?” she said, her voice shaking. “First day back and all. It’s to be expected, right?” Jane was trying to convince herself more than Weyler. “But once I get back in the swing of it—”
     
    “You get the job done better than anyone. But it seems that lately, you are displaying actions that create some questions by other officers.”
     
    Jane couldn’t hold back any longer. “When that car blew up on my watch, I did everything possible to get Stover’s kid out. If trying to break a fucking window to rescue a little girl is considered insane or whatever those pricks want to say, then so be it! I’m your best detective! You just admitted it! So don’t talk to me about sanity! Fucking sanity is overrated!” Jane leaned back in her chair, teetering on the two back legs. There was dead silence. That’s when she could hear the sound of her shallow breathing fill the room. She wasn’t about to back down or take her eyes off of Weyler, no matter how much she wanted to look away.
     
    “Are you finished?” Weyler said calmly.
     
    “Yes . . . sir,” was all Jane could manage.
     
    “Then I must inform you that, until further notice, you are on suspension.”
     
    Jane’s mouth went dry. Weyler’s declaration was like a hard center punch. “I’ve never been suspended in my life! There’s gotta be a way to work this out!”
     
    “I might be willing to reconsider if you agree to that psych counsel.”
     
    “That’s blackmail!”
     
    “It’s not blackmail, Jane. It’s just me making sure you follow the rules.”
     
    “Let me get this straight. I play DH’s game, go for this psych counsel and tell them whatever they need to hear . . . just like Chris did? And then I