The journey back to the office passed in silence. He looked as distracted as she felt and although she desperately cast around for something she could say to break the silence, nothing came to mind. They arrived on the 12th floor to find the rest of the team already assembled, ready for the case conference to start. She slid quickly into an empty seat making sure that she didn't catch anyone's eye and in particular, didn't catch his eye. She opened her note book ready for the meeting to start but instead of seeing the words written on the page she found herself remembering the feel of his hands on her body and the feel of his mouth on hers. The memories were so vivid she was sure she would start to blush and she was hugely relieved when the meeting started.
They were looking for a missing school girl, Jessica Davis. She had disappeared 24 hours previously, reported missing by her mother when she hadn't returned home from school. Initial investigations showed that the 'sweet, shy catholic school girl' her parents spoke of didn't actually exist. So far they had found evidence of drug taking, alcohol and several boyfriends that her parents knew nothing about, plus a recent sighting with a Manhattan bar owner, Jez Kerrigan, who was suspected of running a prostitution ring specialising in underage girls.
The meeting progressed as they looked at Jessica's phone records and ATM withdrawals. They pointed to the fact that she had travelled to Manhattan from Queens to meet someone the previous day, since which time the trail had gone cold. Of all the leads they had been following, the most promising had been the information that the back room of the bar owned by Jez Kerrigan was used by him to run his prostitution ring.
'Elena, how did you and Martin get on at Kerrigan's place'; Viv was standing at the white board capturing all of the information as it was discussed. She looked at Elena expectantly as a cell phone rang
Elena held her hand up apologetically as she answered the call. She listened to the message then closed the phone and stood up; 'I have to go, Martin will explain'; she left quickly leaving the rest of the team sat staring after her in amazement
All eyes turned to Martin
'Elena's daughter is ill; I'm guessing that was the school telling her that she's worse and to come and get her'
'OK, well what did you and Elena find out at Kerrigans place' Viv still had her pen poised over the white board
'Well, Elena thought she was going to have to go to the school so we thought it best to stay here in case they called'
'OK, well I can understand that, so who did go to investigate the bar then?' Viv sounded slightly impatient
'Sam and I did'
Sam didn't look at him as he answered Viv, just as she was sure he wasn't looking at her. She made a pretence of bending over to consult her notes so that she could let her hair fall over her face to hide any redness in her cheeks. Only when she was sure she wasn't blushing did she look up
Viv was looking expectantly as them, 'so what did you find out?'
Sam saw he was looking at her, his eyebrows raised, silently asking if she wanted to tell them or should he; she waved her hand at him and he grinned. She was mortified to feel the beginnings of another blush.
'Well we checked out the back room, it's definitely used by Kerrigan for something dodgy judging by what we found in there, and that was just the stuff in plain sight. We'll need to put some surveillance in place because it looks like something big is due to go down tonight.'
'OK, anything else?'
'Yeah, apparently if you mention Gino's name you get a great deal on a room at the local motel'
Sam jerked her head up; he was looking straight at her, his brown eyes laughing at the growing horror in hers.
Jack looked puzzled, 'how do you mean?'
Danny grinned mockingly at her as he explained, 'When we were leaving we, er, over heard him tell a couple that they should tell the desk clerk that Gino sent them. I'm guessing that they send a lot of people there and maybe that's where his underage girls go'
She met his eyes and knew he could see the relief in hers after the shock he had just handed her. The mocking expression on his face changed briefly to one of sympathy and she could almost hear what he was thinking;
'I said I wouldn't say anything………..'
She took a deep breath and tried to focus on the case again as Jack and Viv began to outline how they would go about organising the surveillance on Kerrigan; tried but failed, as the memories of how it had felt to kiss him, how it had felt when his hands had roamed over her body, refused to be pushed to the back of her mind. She knew she wanted to feel it all over again even though she also knew that it could never happen again. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to pay attention to Viv, to not look at him, to not think about how Danny, her friend, had left her feeling more alive, more aroused, than she had felt in longer than she cared to remember.
