Lt. Leroy Powder has moved to the Missing Persons department after years on nights. What an opportunity to improve departmental procedures and provide a better service to the people of Indianapolis. If only the Indy Police Department would staff the place properly.

Instead they send him a wheelchair-bound sergeant. OK, she's a public hero because she took a bullet for her partner and has refused to retire. So she's tough, but she's still on wheels. How does that qualify her to find a missing wife or identify a woman with amnesia?

In Hard Line, winner of the 'Falcon' in Japan, Powder makes do. But he doesn't like it. And he doesn't have to be quiet about the way Missing Persons is being short-changed. And, meanwhile, a series of cases becomes more complicated than they first appear to be. As does Powder's relationship with his son.