As the Hummer came to a halting stop, it jerked me out of my thoughts. I had just admitted to myself that I, the self proclaimed pessimist, was falling for a man I just met.
I'm sure I'm insane. There is no other explanation for it.
Well...
"Don't even say it," I whispered praying that Ryan wouldn't hear me talking to myself. I looked over and saw him grabbing his kit from the back seat, and sighed in relief. Hearing my sigh, Ryan looked up at me.
I felt my heart skip a beat.
"Ready?" He asked with a slight smile on his lips.
"Yes," I replied a little more meekly than I had intended.
"It will be fine," He laughed as he got out of the car. I followed suit, and had to break into a jog to keep up with his fast pace.
"Hey," I called to him. "Some of us have short legs, and are wearing heels!"
He turned around to face me and walked to where I was standing. For some reason, I suddenly felt nervous.
"What?" I questioned as he continued to stare at me, I was feeling very self conscious.
"Just waiting for you to start walking again," He said with a slight condescending smirk. "You know so I can keep your pace."
I glared at him as I started walking forward trying to get way for his haughty comments, but I realized that I had no idea where I was going.
"Umm, Ryan?" I called as I turned around franticly searching for him, only to see he wasn't behind me.
Where is he?
I started to backtrack hoping he would be hiding around a corner to scare me, but he was no where to be found.
I started to panic.
I had no idea where I was, I would be lost and no one would ever find me. This isn't good. As a last ditch attempt, I called out for him again.
"Ryan, where are you?"
"Right here, geeze calm down," He said coming from out of no where.
I nearly jumped three feet in the air.
"Oh my God!" I said startled by his sudden presence.
"Ryan is fine you know," He said as he walked forward to meet me. "But if you insist maybe we could go with something more like brilliant or talented."
"Haha," I replied dryly. "I thought you left me here, you shouldn't do that to people who don't know where they are."
"I would never leave you." He said in a voice just above a whisper.
I looked up into his hazel eyes and saw that he meant it. I smiled and as I did he caught a piece of my wind blown hair and tucked it behind my ear. I shivered at the touch of his finger tips on my neck. He started to say something but we were interrupted by the bothersome voice of Eric Delko.
"You coming or not Wolfe," He said sounding annoyed. "Or you could just stand there and talk to her all day."
"Yeah yeah I'm coming," He called over his shoulder. Then he looked at me and said "Come on, you don't want to miss your first scene."
"Yeah, that would be a shame," I laughed and followed him as we walked beyond the yellow police tape.
"Ewww!!" I yelled as Delko came after me with hands covered in blood. "Stay away from me." I warned him, and I meant it, right now I did not want to be messed with.
It was bad enough that this was my first 'live' crime scene, but that fact that it was the bloodiest thing I had ever seen in my life did not make it any better. There was only one fatality, but she was decapitated! When Ryan and I walked inside I nearly ran back out. I only stayed because of the severe taunting I was receiving from Delko, and Ryan. I had no idea someone could bleed so much, and I was having a hard time coping with the whole thing.
So after Delko fished out our murder weapon from one of the many pools of blood, I did not need him chasing after me.
"Oh just leave her alone," Ryan said looking up from the photo he was taking. I shot him a thankful look and hoped it would be enough to keep Eric out of my hair.
"Ok ok," Eric said laughing. "But it is funny." And then he proceeded to make ridiculous noises as he waved his bloody hands in my face.
I wanted to slap him.
"I swear if you don't stop," I threatened. "I will get a restraining order on you, I have a witness." I said looking over at Ryan who seemed very amused by my threatening Delko.
"I'd do what she says Delko," Ryan said. "She looks like she means it." He shot me a glance and winked at me.
"Thank you," I mouthed and that was the end of it.
Processing the rest of the scene, which we now called the Erica Hines case because we found that to be the poor women's name, went by smoothly without any more distractions from Eric. The only distraction that I had was Ryan. I couldn't focus when he would look up and smile at me or if he stood just a little closer than normal.
What is wrong with me?
I was thankful when we arrived back at the lab, now I could focus on the case, I had to get away from my distraction.
My only distraction.
I said my goodbyes to Ryan and Eric as they went off to do whatever CSI's do and sat in my tiny office. I was glad to have time to think. I opened up the case file and looked at the information that I had, which was not a lot. Basically the only thing written down was the name of our victim, the murder weapon, and some estimations about time of death.
"Well this is great," I said as I threw the file to the side and sighed in agitation. I hated just sitting, I needed something to do. I sat for a moment twirling a stray piece of hair and decided that I should take a tour. After all, I never did get a formal one.
I got up from my chair and walked down the hallway back into the heart of the lab. I looked around and tried to figure out where I wanted to go first. I decided that it would be better to go to places I could see, so I wouldn't get lost. I continued to walk forward and looked into a lab where I saw a familiar face, and walked through the glass door.
"Hi," I said as I entered the room filled with all sorts of fancy machines. I didn't know what any of them were used for. The pretty brunette I recognized looked up with a surprised look on her face.
"Hi Lauren," Natalia said to me. "What brings you to DNA?"
Ohhh that explains the fancy machines.
"Well I was bored and thought I'd pop in and say hello," I said. "So I guess hello."
She laughed "Well hello to you too. How was the scene, I heard Eric was mean. Tell me what he did." She said sounding excited to get some dirt on Delko.
So I told her what happened at the Hines scene today, and we laughed at how stupid Eric was. We talked out how the first scene can be scary, and she told me how she could relate to being the new girl and was glad to pass on the torch to me.
"Well, thanks," I said laughing. "It's quite an honor. I'd just like to thank all of the little people." I wiped away a fake tear and took a bow, which made her crack up even more.
"Ok, Ok," She said still laughing. "I have work to do."
"Oh," I said interested. "What are you working on?"
"Well most of the time when a killer uses a knife they cut themselves too, so I'm checking the blood for differences from the victim." She said.
"I see, I think this is my cue to leave," I said walking toward the door.
"I could show you," She said trying to get me to stay. "It's easy once you get the hang of it."
"I don't know," I replied hesitantly. "Science and me don't get along."
"Please," She said looking as sad as she possibility could, and I gave in.
Natalia showed me everything I needed to know about taking a DNA from pretty much any sample. At first it was confusing, but just like she said once you do it, you get the hang of it. Soon I was cutting Q tips and taking samples like a pro, and to my surprise I was having fun.
"And you said you weren't good at science," Natalia said. "Look at you go."
Just as the machine sputtered out the results of my DNA test, someone walked into the room with a hurried frenzy.
"Natalia do you have DNA result-- Lauren?" The voice I knew all to well as Ryan's said in a shocked tone. I turned to face him. "What are you doing here?" He looked bewildered, and it was incredibly funny.
"I'm getting DNA results," I said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Ok," He said still stunned by the sight of me in rubber gloves and a lab coat.
"Natalia was showing me a few things about what you guys do," I said hoping to clear up his confusion.
It worked.
Composure washed over his features. "Ohh, ok, well if she's showing you DNA, would you like to learn about Trace then too, I was on my way anyway and if you wanted to come with me--?"
"Trace?," I interrupted.
"Yeah, I'll show you come on." He said. "I have to drop these results off to Delko first though."
I hung up my borrowed lab coat and waved goodbye to Natalia as I followed him out the door.
"Have fun," Natalia called after us.
After Ryan brought the results to Eric, I followed him through the maze of hallways until we were standing in front of a little room of which I assumed was 'Trace'. Ryan opened the door for me and put on his own lab coat and gave me one to borrow again.
"So, what are we doing here exactly?" I asked him still confused about what exactly 'Trace' was.
"Well," He began. "This is where we come when we need to figure out what something is. We put it under a microscope or run it through a database, pretty basic stuff."
I glared at him when he smirked at the last sentence he said.
"I have no scientific training," I retorted. "But if you need to know all of the amendments to the constitution I can recite them for you."
He laughed, "Yeah I'll pass on that one."
"Your loss," I said. "27 is really interesting." Of course I was lying the 27th was by far the most boring of all the amendments.
"Anyways," He said looking at me from the corner of his eye. "We actually have work to do from the case this morning."
And then he started rambling on and on about how they found fibers in one of the blood pools and how it was most likely left by the killer and blah, blah, blah.
I yawned about halfway through his speech when he said, "I'm boring you aren't I?"
"What!" I said sarcastically. "No!"
"Ok fine," He said somewhat defensively. "I'll show you what I'm talking about."
He grabbed a slide and put it underneath the microscope and then pulled out a piece of the fibers he was talking about and ran it through the system. I waited, wondering what this all meant.
"Here," He said getting up and walking back over to me. "Take a look."
He nodded toward the microscope and I obliged. I took a look through the tiny holes of the eye piece and found myself staring at a magnified pile of blood.
"Umm, what am I looking for?" I asked confused.
"Ohh here," He came over to me and adjusted the microscope so that I could see the faint outline of a blue fiber.
"Do you see it?" He asked.
"Kind of," I replied.
He moved closer to me and adjusted the scope so that I could clearly see blue fibers in the blood.
"Now do you see it?" He asked and I was suddenly aware of his close proximity. He was leaning over my right shoulder.
"Yes," I whispered barely able to reply.
"This is what trace is for," I hardly heard him because as he spoke I could feel his hot breath on my cheek. I suddenly couldn't think, and my body was rocked with hundreds of tiny shivers that flew up and down my spine.
"Cool huh," He said and I pealed my eyes away from the tiny blue fibers. As I pulled away he stayed in his position. I looked up at him hoping he didn't feel the heat radiating from my face.
And then the computer beeped
Thank you computer!!
While Ryan looked at the screen studying the information on it, I was able to regain my composure, but my heart was beating so loud I was sure he could hear it.
Ok Lauren just breath, I'm sure he didn't notice.
A few minutes later, when my heart rate returned to normal, I was beginning to become impatient with his silence.
"What is it?" I asked eagerly "What does it say."
"It tells me the type of material that the fiber is." He replied very nonchalant.
"And what does that mean?" I asked hoping he would give me a better answer, and I was desperate to get my mind off of the feeling of his closeness, and the way his cologne smelled.
Pull yourself together women!
"It's a very rare silk fiber, and it can be traced easily because of that." He said shaking me out of my thoughts. He walked back to where I was sitting and crossed his arms while I spoke.
"So if we find the shirt, we find our killer?" I asked as calmly as I could trying to keep him from distracting me.
"Yeah, we got him," He said smiling for the first time since he received the new information.
And the best part was, he was smiling my favorite smile.
A/N: Thank you too all the readers! Yay you!! To my wonderful reviewers you rock and thank you so much. I would like to encourage everyone to review because the more reviews I get the faster I will update!!
Lulu 3