I fully admit that the last chapter was crap, but please please please forgive me, and bear with me. I am writing all of the stories you see on fanfic during break at School, and I know I should never compromise the quality of my work, but I AM SO SORRY! Hopefully, this chapter is a little less rushed, and a lot better than the last!

CI-KiteWolfling-NYPD

"Ok, kid, you know the drill.." Ell threw over the hood of the car at me as he slammed the drivers ride door shut, "At the first sign of trouble you split!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know!" I muttered mutinously. Elliot was in a dangerous mood, and wasn't all that thrilled about having to take me along to the Cashman manor to make an arrest. If he could have had it his way, I would be sitting in the car but…ah..well…I wasn't all for that. I knew better than to push the guy, however, so as we walked up the lengthy driveway to the monster house, I stayed at least ten feet behind him.

"I don't even know how I got landed with you for the afternoon, at any rate!" Elliot snarled, and I winced. OK, he was REALLY mad. It was only once in a while that he got mad enough to treat me like a little kid on a ride-along as opposed to a partner.

Maybe there was more to this Erik Cashmere guy than meets the outrageously large house, and ornamental cats hanging on the porch as we stepped up.

"Erik Cashman!" Elliot demanded, pounding on the door to the manor, "Open up! Police!"

There was no response. I glanced sideways at Elliot. I dearly wanted to say, "Well, maybe he heard us coming and stepped out for a little walk." But in the mood Elliot was in, I would likely get punched through the door.

"Follow." Elliot commanded, walking around the veranda until we came to the backyard. The feeling that this was an old retired guy escalated when I saw all the interesting bird baths and bird houses scattered about, not to mention the rather….unique sculptures.

Once again I held my tongue, regarding questions about our guy, and took a few steps back as Elliot picked up a softball sized rock from the rock garden surrounding a pretty pink stone fountain.

"Stand back." He ordered, striding towards one of the manors many picture windows. He drew his arm back, and before I could form a word of protest, he swung it around, and smashed the window.

Long, spidering cracks appeared on the glass, lancing to and fro. The window had cracked, but was not broken. Elliot growled something to himself, took a step back, and winged the projectile at the cracked window with the speed of a major league pitcher, and the finesse of a butcher.

CRASH!

"There she goes!" Elliot said mildly, as though what he had done was perfectly normal, not to mention legal.

I glanced around the large fenced in backyard rather nervously, just waiting for some eccentric neighbor to leap out of nowhere with a broom or something, yelling, "What in tarnation are you kids doing?" There was no such thing, but I still felt that I had to say something.

"I bet they heard that back at the station house, Ell!" I grumbled, turning. He wasn't there.

"Elliot?"

He stuck his head out of the house. Evidentially he had snuck in when I was out on weird neighbor patrol.

"Normally I would tell you to stay outside," He said flatly, offering me a hand as I awkwardly tried to pull myself into the house through the window, "But I have a feeling that your violent reaction to that idea would be heard from over a mile away."

"Fuh-nee…" I said, coming to rest inside what appeared to be a pantry to the house of some kind. I stepped gingerly on the broken glass, which was scattered everywhere in a bizarre pattern, "And gee, that was sure the most subtle way to get in here…."

"Shut up!" Elliot demanded. He pulled his gun from it's holster, and opened the door to the rest of the house, me tagging along at a safer distance.