Nocturne 040 – Scions 02 - Patrice Michelle - Insurrection by Silhouette Nocturne

patience. She was so tightly wound, her shoulders and upper back ached. “Good afternoon, Ryan. Tell me you’ve got something.”
    He chuckled. “Gotta love a woman who gets right to the point. If only you’d agree to go out with me, I think we’d be well matched…”
    She pictured Ryan’s handsome open face, his broad smile, his sweet Southern accent. He definitely had a certain charm about him, but she had a rule about getting involved with her coworkers. So what does that make Landon? she asked herself. A sexy, melt-every-bone-in-my-body, mistake, even if he hadn’t worked with the NYPD in three years.
    “Ryan, you know my rule—”
    “Rules are like piecrust, darlin’. They’re made to be broken.”
    Her lips quirked. “Quit flirting. Were you able to make heads or tails of that ash I gave you?”
    “You’re breaking my heart.” Sobering, he continued, “Not really. The rain broke it down a good bit. I don’t know what you were thinking handing me a hair clip. This evidence is as tainted as they come. I was able to decipher silver and DNA traces for male, female—presumably yours—
    and…” he paused. “Do you have a dog?”
    “Why?”
    “I also found DNA in this trace that resembles canine structure.”
    Kaitlyn’s heart stuttered. “You did?”
    “This is just conjecture, not definitive evidence. You never did say, do you have a dog?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Didn’t you say you found this in a pile of burned ashes? It could’ve been a dog someone burned. The male DNA might’ve come from your boyfriend handling your clip.”
    Kaitlyn snorted. “Nice try, Ryan. I’m not divulging any juicy tidbits about my personal life.”
    “You can’t blame a guy for trying.” he said, completely unapologetic.
    “Thanks for checking out the trace for me.”
    “Next time I’m going to be smart and ask for a date first, then I’ll agree to undocumented evidence analysis.”
    “And now I’ve been forewarned.” As soon as she hung up her phone, it immediately rang. Her boss was calling. She picked up the phone. “Hi, Ron.”
    “I’ve got a free minute. Come to my office.”
    Her stomach tensing slightly with excitement, Kaitlyn saved the computer file she was working on and locked her terminal before she picked up the case file folder and headed down the hall to her boss’s office.
    Rapping on the door jamb, she walked inside Ron’s office. As she seated herself in the chair in front of his desk, he lifted his reading glasses up on his balding head and lowered the file folder he’d been reading.
    “I’m glad you asked to see me. I was going to talk to you today about the case I assigned you.”
    “Oh?” Kaitlyn tried to sound as casual as she could, but her gut knotted. There was something in his tone. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what Ron was about to say.
    Lowering his glasses to the desk in front of him, Ron cleared his throat.
    “I’m reassigning you to another case that has a higher priority.”
    Kaitlyn’s stomach pitched. “What? I thought this case was a high priority.”
    “There are other cases that need our attention. We’re short-staffed as it is.” He picked up the neat paperwork in front of him and stacked it neatly once more. The man was avoiding her gaze. That wasn’t a good thing. What happened to that spine of steel he seemed to have? Those high career aspirations?
    “Did someone get to you? Were you threatened?” she tensed and sat forward in her chair.
    His gaze jerked to hers and his brown gaze narrowed. “No one threatened me, and I don’t appreciate the insinuation that I could be intimidated.”
    She slid her report onto the desk in front of him along with a handwritten note at the top of the shipment itinerary she’d copied last night. “But we could have a solid case if we could just catch them in the act.”
    Ron quickly skimmed her writeup and the note. When he turned and slid the papers into his shredder, hitting the on