Buried

CHAPTER 1 | step one: open mouth insert foot

📎A/N. Thank you for making the decision to check out my story and giving it a chance.

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Kaitlyn Quinn was ready to scream. Not the 'Oh, I just saw a mouse' kind of scream. She was prepared to emit the type of scream that keeps you up at night. The kind that could make paint peel off the walls and your grandmother cross herself five times before taking herself off to church.

Two days tied to a desk doing paperwork, and she was ready to commit a crime worthy of the dangerous criminals she put behind bars.

"This is the last time I resolve three cases in the same week," Kaitlyn said, grumbling as she reached for yet another I65-32A Form.

Frustrated and desperate, Kaitlyn looked up at Mike, who sat across from her. "I'll pay you a thousand dollars to finish my reports."

"Sorry Quinn." Her colleague grinned as he stood up. "Can't. I'm off to Hartford – I've a lead on the Bryce case."

"Two thousand!" she called out as he grabbed his suit jacket, waved and waltzed out.

Kaitlyn glared at the stack of folders on her desk. She picked up the folder on top and resigned herself that, short of the building blowing up, she had no chance of getting back in the field unless she filed the relevant case reports with her boss. In triplicate.

Kaitlyn Mary Quinn was third generation law enforcement. Her father and his father before him had been highly decorated detectives with the Boston PD. It was a foregone conclusion that she too would follow in the family business, despite the high toll it had taken on them.

The FBI had recruited her straight out of law school, and after graduating in the top five percent of her class at the FBI Academy at Quantico, she very quickly made a name for herself as a cadet to watch. Towards the end of her probationary period, Kaitlyn had come to the attention of the FBI leaders when helping to track down a major lead in a high profile bank robbery case.

After that, she was transferred back to her hometown and had spent the last five years attached to the Violent Crimes Task Force Division. Special Agent Quinn had the highest close rate of the division and was the first choice to lead the team's high-profile cases. However, she was infamous for her aversion to paperwork.

Kaitlyn had been so focused on the daunting task that she failed to notice the floor she was on had become eerily quiet and empty. Realising something was amiss; she glanced around the bullpen to see where her colleagues had disappeared and spotted one of the support staff rushing past her desk.

"Tania, what's going on?" Kaitlyn asked.

"I'm not sure." The young woman threw a jacket over her shoulder as she passed. "Something about a story that just broke."

Kaitlyn rose from her desk and followed her to the break room with the nearest TV. A small crowd had gathered around the screen, blocking her view.

Frowning, she moved a bit closer. Being just shy of six feet, she towered over many of the other agents and could use her advantage to see what the fuss was all about.

Plastered across the screen was the image of a local news reporter. Behind him, the familiar sight of police tape cordoned off the crime scene. The key points of the story scrolled across the bottom of the screen, as the reporter described the crime that had played out in the background.