one looking at him like he was a brownie sundae.” Nathan stuck his tongue out at her. “Back to what you’re missing, Brian…” He smirked at Toni. “Unless you really miss seeing your doctor and plan to die of food poisoning this week, you probably should forbid her from stepping foot in your kitchen.”
“Hey!” Toni set her hands on her hips and frowned as Nathan continued to grin at her. “I sent you to the ER one time and you continue to hold a grudge about it. How is that fair?”
“Toni, no one should ever have to go to the ER after you feed them. That’s bad,” Nathan responded.
“ER?” Brian asked weakly. Suddenly the fact that breakfast smoldered in the sink didn’t seem to be such a bad thing. That seemed preferable to his stomach at this point. “Okay, so I take it you don’t actually cook?”
Toni blushed again. “Um, it’s probably not my strongest skill?”
Nathan snorted.
“Okay.” Brian ran his hand across his face. Coffee, he needed coffee. He’d been up half the night fantasizing about Toni and her creamy, toned thighs wrapped around his waist. As he looked through his fingers, those thighs were on full display in her teeny, tiny sleep shorts. Her nipples perked up as if begging for his attention. His mouth went dry. He pulled his hand from his face and tugged the hoodie down so maybe it would camouflage his erection.
Nathan saw the move if his cocked eyebrow was anything to judge by. Damn.
Yeah, coffee. He needed coffee.
Frantically, he searched the counter for his pot. Relief flowed through him as he saw that it was already full of hot glorious, dark liquid. Thank God. He needed something to go according to plan this morning.
Chapter 4
As Brian looked disbelievingly toward his partner later that same morning, he began to wonder again why he’d thought it was a good idea to get out of bed this morning.
“What do you mean the DNA evidence has disappeared?” He ground his molars, trying to contain the anger coursing through his system.
“Exactly what I said. We have record of the evidence leaving here to go to the lab. The lab has no record of it ever arriving.” Eddie threw his file down on the desk, as irritated as Brian about the debacle.
“Who was the last person that we know touched it?”
“Joe down in forensics processed it in-house. He packaged it up and sent it through our shipping company to the laboratory. It never arrived and checking the shipping company’s records, there’s no record of it. It’s just disappeared.”
“I suppose it’s too much to hope that maybe we have more of the samples.”
Eddie’s answer was a simple roll of his eyes.
“Yeah, I was afraid of that.” Brian pressed his lips together, mentally going over the evidence in the case. The DNA would have helped, definitely, but they still had a strong case without it so it wasn’t like this screw up was a death blow. It just made things a bit more difficult for the prosecution.
“I’m going to go talk to the pick-up courier for the shipping company who worked that day later this afternoon,” Eddie added. “They said he would be in the office after lunch and we’ll see if we can track down where the samples went missing.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”
* * *
As Brian expected, Eddie came up with a big fat nothing at the shipping courier’s office. They’d run through the evidence again this afternoon with the DA who was on the verge of bringing up all the charges.
Brian glanced down at the clock on his computer before he shut it down. He’d worked late, but that was okay. It was probably better for him to avoid interaction with Toni for the next couple of days for his own sanity especially after their morning in the kitchen. By his estimation, she would already be asleep when he got home. The computer monitor went dark and he grabbed his suit jacket when his cell phone rang. The caller ID said “Unknown
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