A meeting in her boss' office

“Yep. Calloway wants to see you in his office about some sort of field work. See?! Ain’t that nice news?”

“They actually are!” Nancy nodded, working hard to suppress a grin so Ben wouldn’t see how much of a relief his news was as she rose to her feet. Her mood was lifted in an instant. “Thanks, Baines!”

“My pleasure,” Ben Baines grinned, giving her a pat on the shoulder and turning around to walk away before adding, “Oh, forgot to mention: Schmelzer is in the office with him.”

With that, he quickly left the room as Nancy froze for a second, then sighed deeply. Just as quickly as he had lifted her spirits, Baines had smashed them down, something that she knew he would take great enjoyment from and she shot him a dark glare as he walked away from her.

Detective Ryan Schmelzer. A cop of the old school in the worst possible way. A corrupt weasel by all accounts, he was infamous among the ****. Word around the water cooler was that he had something heavy on someone very high up, as nobody else could figure out why else he was still on the ****. His solving rates were mediocre, he ditched the paperwork and seemingly couldn’t spend a day on the **** without breaking the rule. While other people had a loose attitude towards regulations and were still regarded well by their colleagues, that wasn’t the case with Schmelzer. Especially among the female part of the **** he was avoided at all costs as the most glaring weak point of his character seemed to be his 50s-style misogynism, treating women like secretaries (at best!) while having little concept of personal space. Nancy herself had made some unpleasant experiences with him at an office Christmas party, where she had suddenly found herself cornered by an **** Schmelzer, who tried to **** a kiss on her. A carefully aimed knee to the groin had settled that situation for the moment, but ever since Nancy could feel him stare at her with renewed, greedy lust.

She didn’t know what a meeting with Calloway and Schmelzer would contain, but she knew that she would likely prefer a mountain of paperwork to whatever was in store for her. Taking a deep breath, the curvy Latina grabbed the white blazer from her chair’s backrest and quickly put it on to cover her bare arms before she made her way towards Calloway’s office, already cursing her luck.

Knocking on the office’s glass door, she could already see by the look on her superior’s face that he was hardly happier than her to be in the same room as Schmelzer, his forehead furrowed and the corners of his mouth tightened. He briefly looked up at her and waved her in before focusing back on the person sitting in one of the two chairs opposite his desk, his face showing barely concealed disdain.

Schmelzer turned in his chair as Nancy entered the room, interrupting his sentence to grin at her. He was a slim, wiry man in his late forties, his best days behind him. The long blonde hair was retreating in the front and thinning in the back and while a scruffy beard covered a part of his narrow face it did very little to make him more attractive. What really bothered her though was the look in his black eyes as he glanced at her. She immediately felt naked, suppressing the impulse to pull her blazer tighter as she stepped into the room.

“Captain!” she nodded as she sat in the empty chair next to Schmelzer and Calloway replied by returning her nod. They exchanged a look that told each other that they both didn’t like this.

“McKenna!” Schmelzer grinned, his posture way too relaxed given he was sitting at a higher-ranked officer’s desk, dressed casually in his trademark plaited shirt and faded blue jeans, “You look great!”

“You wanted to see me?!” Nancy directed at her Captain, ignoring Schmelzer’s compliment and his leering stare, keeping her gaze fixed on her superior.

“Yes, McKenna!” Calloway’s handsome face was twisted into a frown and she knew that he wasn’t comfortable with the subject of the meeting, “Thank you for coming. I asked you here, because we need your help with a case.”

Nancy cocked an eyebrow, not bothering to hide her reservations.