Love Needed (The Love Is Series) by Talea Botha

Chapter 1
    Natasha sighed and tried to swallow the nerves that started to feel like they were choking her. This was the second time this week she was standing outside Cara's office. She shivered despite the heat of the day, but when Cara's voice on the other side of the stained glass door called her in she straightened her shoulders and pushed the door open with an air of confidence.
    "Take a seat, Tash," Cara was scribbling something at her desk and pointed toward the chairs on the other side without looking up.
    Natasha picked the chair closest to the window, sat on the edge with her back straight and folded her hands in her lap.
    Cara put down her pen and looked at her in silence for a while.
    "I had a meeting with Frank this morning. He was here to do the final reports on the Cullinan case. Do you remember the full extent of the reports you did on that?"
    "Of course I remember. I worked on that case for months."
    "The reason why I'm asking is that your reports don't add up. You have several large pieces of information missing."
    She shook her head, "that's not possible."
    'I reviewed the reports myself, and Tactics ran them twice before they sent them back to me. Do you want to tell me what's going on?"
    "I don't know what you're talking about! I don't understand how this could have happened. Could some pages have gone missing along the way? Maybe Tactics was careless."
    "The mistake doesn't lie with Tactics, Tash, your pages are all there, they're numbered, I checked. Nothing's missing except the actual information that I am forced to assume you omitted."
    Natasha started to shiver. This was serious. She didn't know what would happen if Upstairs found out but she didn't like to imagine the possibilities. It must have been Frank; she would have to talk to him as soon as she could.
    "Tash!" Cara's voice was sharp, "I'm talking to you!"
    Natasha blinked hard and shook her head. She didn't realize Cara had asked her a question.
    'I'm sorry, what?"
    "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"
    "Nothing's going on; I honestly don't know how it happened. I've never had any of my reports brought into question."
    "I'm worried about you Tash, and I'm saying this as your friend, not your boss. We've worked together for years and you've never been this absent minded. The things that Frank reported on are serious. I don't understand why you didn't say anything, even on the night, Frank could have pulled you from the field! That's what he's there for."
    "What do you mean pull me from the field? I don't understand."
    Cara squinted at her, "If anything upsets you, or gets to a point where you can't deal with it, you signal Frank and he pulls you out. That's the rule, that's why we send back up."
    "I know how this works! I've been doing it for years. There wasn't a reason for Frank to get involved, why would he pull me out?"
    Cara looked at her silently until she felt uncomfortable. She resisted the urge to fiddle and squirm and turned her gaze out the window. She suddenly felt so tired she could just fall asleep right there.
    Cara wanted to say something but she changed her mind. She wouldn't force the issue. Tash looked like she was about to faint despite how hard she was trying to act natural and in all the years they worked together she'd never seen her friend this way. She would run the reports again, speak to Frank, do everything she could before she notified Upstairs.
    "You can go, Tash, I'll see what I can find and we'll talk about it again once I've revised everything."
    Natasha got up and left the office.
    Cara sat back in her chair, deep in thought, and after a few minutes she picked up her phone and asked that Frank be sent to her office again. She needed to get to the bottom of what was going on.
    It didn't take long before Frank arrived. He was tall and muscular but he wore glasses, an ironic cliché.
    "What did she say?" he asked straight away, not waiting for an invitation to sit down.
    "She's defensive but she claims she