The Perfect Emma

Chapter Two

Grayson Todd

"You do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the case now pending before this court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

"I do, Your Honor."

"Detective Todd," said a severe-looking woman, slowly stepping towards him. Here we go, the detective thought to himself, attempting to keep his expression flat, and refraining from rolling his eyes. Already he could tell that this attorney was going to try to psych him out. They always did. "Can you tell me what this is?" The attorney produced a piece of paper, likely with a picture of some evidence on it, and the detective resigned himself to a fact;

It was going to be a long trial.

It wasn't a very particularly riveting case, quite boring in fact, but he had a feeling the jury was going to take forever to make a decision, simply because the evidence was both inconclusive, and seemed to point directly at the prime suspect at the same time. To be frank, he would be glad when it was finally over. He was so done with this goddamn case.

"Christ, I was starting to hope he'd murder me next," fellow detective Aaron Matthews muttered as the two men were leaving. "Weren't you bored, Gray?"

"Yes," Gray replied, rubbing at his face. "The sooner this damn trial ends, the better."

Detective Grayson Todd hadn't been a detective much more than three years, but he'd been a cop for the last six, and out of all things about his job that he loved, sitting through a trial and giving his testimony was not one of them. For one thing, attorneys were constantly trying to get him to say something opinionated, which was against his role as an unbiased officer of the law. His job was to present the evidence; nothing else. What he thought about said evidence couldn't be admitted to the court—only what the evidence directly suggested.

And while he found it relatively easy not to let his opinions leak into his testimonies—usually—that didn't stop the lawyers from trying.

"If it ever ends," Aaron muttered. Gray wholeheartedly agreed. "Don't forget, we're back here next week."

Gray groaned. "I feel like I'm testifying for more cases than I solve."

Aaron laughed and clapped his partner on the back. "Ain't that the truth."

When Gray had first become a cop, he hadn't realized that Los Angeles was one of the few cities in the country where police partnerships were mandatory. He had figured if he was going out with backup, it would be whoever was available. When he was literally assigned a work partner, he'd been surprised, but he didn't mind it. When Grayson was promoted to detective ahead of his first partner, Aaron became his new one. Over the last three years, the man had become his best friend.

He certainly made working in Homicide easier.

When Gray was promoted, his superiors had considered sending him to Vice, or Special Victims, but he'd insisted upon Homicide. It had been a tough call between that and Missing Persons, but the reason Gray had become a cop in the first place was the fact that his wife had been murdered. She'd been kidnapped first and went missing for three months, but ultimately she was murdered, and ultimately Grayson chose Homicide.

And though he didn't regret it for one day, it never got easier seeing bodies all the time. He genuinely wondered how the medical examiners managed.

At least having a court date got him out of work today. Of course, knowing his luck, there would still be a body for him to look at.

"So how're you spending your day off, hm?" Aaron asked curiously.

Gray blew his breath out. "Dunno. Sitting around until Dispatch calls and says 'psych, you've got a case', probably."

"Pffft. You're such a cynic."

The man smiled a little. "One of us has to be. We can't both be good cop."

"Since when am I good cop?"

"Since I'm cynic cop, apparently."

Aaron rolled his eyes and shoved Gray a little. "Cynical doesn't make you bad cop, Gray. You're definitely a better good cop than I am."

Gray flashed him a smirk. "You saying you'd rather be bad cop?"

Aaron shrugged. "Alright, here: you're good cop and I'm the slightly less good cop."

"Yeah, okay," Gray replied, shaking his head. He pat Aaron on the shoulder, as they reached the parking lot, and said, "I'll see you later, man."

"Knowing this city? Sooner than either of us would like," Aaron responded. Gray snorted at that, unable to refute it. Heading over to his own car, he remembered the days when his beat cruiser was better than this. Unfortunately, detectives don't really get fancy vehicles; too flashy and obvious. Bad for stakeouts. Police cars are already pretty obvious, so they can afford to be better models. Oh well.

Not the point.

Going home was almost always a bittersweet thing. On one hand, it wasn't often Gray got to go home and stay home. It was always a dice roll whether he would even make it through the night without getting called in for something or other. On the other, he lived absolutely alone. And without anyone or anything to occupy himself with, it wasn't unheard of for Gray to start falling into a pit of crushing depression. Unfortunately, he was good at hiding it, and thus good at avoiding being told to seek help.

And as he arrived back home, letting himself into his apartment, he could tell; it was going to be one of those nights.

Sitting down in front of the television, Gray attempted to keep his mind from going to a dark place by taking his laptop and going over case notes. He still had to file something for a fairly simple open-and-shut he and Aaron had picked up last week. Aaron was one of few people that at least had an idea what Gray did and felt when by himself, and so had learned without being told that it was best for Grayson's own sanity to let him handle at least most of the paperwork. It had never been a spoken agreement, but Gray appreciated it nonetheless.

Not for the first time, he considered getting a pet, but he was mostly afraid it wouldn't help him very much. Ever since losing his wife, it had been difficult for him to get attached to things. Obviously, animals weren't people, but Gray would rather not change anything than risk not properly taking care of something in his responsibility to take care of.

Eventually, there wasn't much left for him to nitpick in the case files.

Which left him with nothing to do again.

Gray shut his laptop and glanced up at the television, catching a glimpse of a picture of his wife sitting on the table. Rosalind Todd had been one of the most beautiful women Gray had ever met, and that wasn't even talking about her appearance. And she had died far too young. It had become Grayson's life mission to find the man who'd done that and put him behind bars. So far, however, it wasn't going so well, and yet more women had suffered the same fate as his Rosie. Every so often a woman would go missing, and every so often she would turn up again dead, and looking quite different than she had before.

Whoever he was, he liked to turn his victims into short-haired brunettes.

Rose had already fit that description. The logic behind it was practically nonexistent, but the fact remained that Gray was a widower because of this murderer, and so were a few others. Hence the desire to become a cop and take him down.

And the thing was....As if it hadn't hurt enough that his wife had been killed...she'd been pregnant too. It wasn't until her body turned up that Gray even knew.

Oh, fantastic.

Hello darkness my old friend.