Five Lessons in Blood: Lesson Four

It's not exactly a conversation Renee was looking forward too, but seeing the way in which Myra refuses to let the world fall away beneath her on hearing of Charlie's death, it's like losing him all over again.

And it makes her hate herself all the more for the deception she's pulling on everyone.

"Yeah, he's dead. But I still talk to him a lot. You want to give him a message?"

But Myra deserves more respect for her mourning than that. She went to a lot of trouble to fake her own muging to attract the man she loved to ask him for help, and Renee can't let that woman know that she, Renee, has the contact denied to his lover. She deserves the chance to let Vic Sage go, which Renee cannot have for herself.

But you haven't been back to the bar for weeks, is it months now? Why, Renee? Why are you avoiding the place? Is it because you can't tell Huntress about Kate? Or Elicia? Is it because you can't let either of them distract you from the mission? Is it because you're ashamed of what you're doing?

If Hub City were known for one thing, it wouldn't be that the original faceless detective hailed from there, but that it's a seething cess pit of crime and corruption. Apart from Myra and the ghost (sadly not literal) of Vic Sage standing over everything, Renee would feel almost at home here.

In most respects, given the city she originally called home, that really would be damning with faint praise, but Isadore O'Toole, the Chief of Police is like an old friend. Like a lot of her old friends, for that matter.

"That thing in the news about the cops being murdered, that much is true. This guy, he cuts 'em up, takes their shields. But it's Hub City and the whole damn country knows we're a cess-pit, so it ain't like anyone gave a damn.

"The thing is, the dead cops? They're my cops. The ones I trust. The ones that ain't on the take or abusing the badge. It's taken me years to get this department this far, and now some nutjob is tearing it apart. Seventeen in three weeks.

Yeah. Definitely familiar.

His cops. The honest ones. She remembers being a part of that minority. Harder in many ways than being a gay Latina, a lot of the time.

This guy is going down, if Renee has to go down with him.

(Corrigan)

She just has to work out how to trap him.

"Your cops, you said," Renee says, her voice hard and all business. It's easy, behind the mask. "The honest ones. Who's the most honest cop in Hub City, chief?"

"...you gotta be kidding me."