It was Monday morning, and police cadet Katja "Kate" Perssen was driving in from the suburbs in the shiny new Jetta her parents had given her as a present for graduating police academy. Although she was newly assigned to the sex crimes unit, until she finished her training Kate was mostly working in the office writing reports and doing clerical work, so she was dressed appropriately to the task: she wore a white blouse that fit snugly against her 34D chest and presented just a bit too much cleavage, as well as a turquoise skirt (similar to her eye color) that ended a couple of inches above the knee. Her long golden-blonde hair fell loosely around her shoulders and she wore a shiny gold cross on a slim but sturdy chain around her neck.

Dressing provocatively came naturally to the 20-year old beauty, and would be a valuable career asset in her chosen line of work; Kate knew her superiors and male coworkers were counting the days before they could turn her out on the streets in fishnet stockings to lure the desperate guys who'd offer money for sex with her into arrest. The idea of shaking her tits for random perverts had an appeal (maybe more than she cared to admit to herself), but what Kate really wanted to do was detective work: tracking down leads, interrogating thugs and solving mysteries. Unfortunately, she sighed to herself, that sort of work was years down the road. There would be alot of chilly nights on street corners between now and then.

Kate's daydream was interrupted as she exited the interstate highway onto Washington Avenue, an arterial road through a bad part of town a few blocks from the police station. As she waited at a red light, waving a scruffy weirdo with a begging cup away from her window, Kate noticed a slim young black man pass her on the right side riding a bicycle. She squinted at the distinctively marked blue and black bicycle, immediately recognizing it as police property, the sort of vehicle used by the bike patrol squad in the tourist areas and by the beaches.

The light turned green, and Kate followed the man on the bicycle down Washington Avenue until he abruptly turned into an alley just before Madison. The cadet pulled her Jetta to the side of the road and, grabbing her purse and cellphone, she walked into the alley. Kate did not have any weapons, or even a police radio, but she did have her badge and given that it was morning did not feel that she was entering a potentially dangerous situation. Nonetheless she glanced around warily before approaching the bicycle, now parked abandoned midway down the alley.

Kate triumphantly took hold of the bicycle, property once stolen, now recovered thanks to her initiative. The blonde looked up and down the alley but could not see the suspect. She examined the bike and found it in excellent condition, concluding that it must have been taken only recently. Kate retrieved her notebook from her purse and made a notation of the number stencilled on the carriage, then decided to phone the police station, asking for the garage. When she relayed the number, Kate learned that the bicycle had been signed out on Saturday morning by a member of the bicycle squad for normal patrol duties.

"And it hasn't been returned almost 48 hours later?" Perssen pressed him. "And it wasn't reported missing? Isn't that a little odd?"

"Not really," the bicycle custodian replied indifferently. "Alot of times members take them home with them at end of shift. Sometimes we don't see them for days."

"Who was the member assigned to this unit?" Kate asked briskly, trying to sound professional.

"Uh, a cadet," the custodian sneered with a slight chuckle. "Melissa O'Neal. Assigned to beach patrol." Kate recognized that name. "Missy," as she preferred to be called, was in Kate's class at police academy. She was very pretty, with bright green eyes, wavy reddish-auburn hair and an athletic but feminine physique. She was also something of a southern belle (from Mississippi, if Kate recalled correctly) with a lilting accent and conservative values. Some whispered that the O'Neal family had been fabulously wealthy until the end of slavery, and even that Missy was herself racist.

Whatever Missy's personal politics, Kate knew her to be very dedicated and could not fathom how her bicycle had come to be here without her reporting it missing. For now Kate had a stolen property case to solve, but she thought that it may be something far more significant. She was excited to do what sleuthing she could before bringing the case to the attention of the proper authorities...