The Perfect Emma

Chapter Six

Grayson Todd

Well.

That was one way to spend dinnertime.

Hours had passed by the time Grayson and Aaron were able to leave the crime scene, but their work was far from done. Back at the LAPD, they had to corroborate what they knew with what the first responders knew, and with what the morgue was starting to know. Not to mention, filing the police reports. Gray was so focused on getting things done, he barely noticed how much time had passed, until Aaron had poked his shoulder. Gray pulled himself from workaholic mode and looked over at his partner, who was wearing a disbelievingly sympathetic expression. "What?"

"You know it's almost midnight; right?"

Blinking, Gray turned his head to look at the clock on his computer. Eleven o'clock. Oh. So it was. A hand came up to rub at his eye and cheek tiredly. As if in response to his return to the land of the living, his stomach gurgled loudly.

Aaron shook his head with a chuckle, patting Gray's back. "You haven't eaten all day, have you?"

Gray hummed his confirmation.

"Get something to eat, pal," Aaron murmured, standing up. "And get some sleep. I'm gonna head out, alright?"

"Yeah," Gray responded quietly, waving his partner off. At this rate, he was inclined to just eat something from the vending machine and sleep at his desk. He was going to have to be here in the morning anyway. So what if he didn't change his clothes, technically. It wasn't like he ever came to work in anything but a dress shirt, slacks, and blazer. Nobody would notice.

Probably.

Aaron might.

But who cares.

Hoping nobody on night shift would notice him, Gray pushed himself up from his desk, sighing a little in discomfort, and moved for the breakroom. After sitting hunched over a keyboard and notepad for hours, his back and neck ached. He knew Aaron would probably scold him for eating nothing all day and remedying that with a bag of Doritos, at midnight, but quite frankly Gray had run out of shits to give. It was late. He was tired. And he would eat what he wanted okay.

He returned to his desk with the bag of Doritos and munched with his eyes closed, feeling them start to stay that way. Ugh. It took all his strength not to fall asleep before finishing the chips off, and he did, he just sort of...crossed his arms on the desk and rested his head there. It wasn't the first time he'd slept at work, and probably wouldn't be the last.

What he hadn't expected was to be awakened by his phone ringing.

Gray jolted, eyes wide, before relaxing and rubbing his face. He hadn't fallen asleep in the best position, and everything hurt again as he sat up too fast. Only a few others had arrived to work just yet, and chuckled at him softly. "Rise 'n shine, Todd," somebody joked, sipping their coffee.

Shaking his head, Gray answered the phone, and tried to keep the sleepiness out of his voice. "Hello?"

"Detective?"

Grayson cleared his throat, clenching his eyes in the hopes of ridding the bleariness from them. "This is Detective Todd. With who am I speaking?"

"Arthur Mabel, Emma's husband?"

Finally gaining some sense, Gray furrowed his brows and pulled his notepad closer, shifting his phone between shoulder and ear. The man sounded quite distressed. "What can I help you with, Mr. Mabel?" Gray asked, concerned.

"It's Emma she—she didn't come to bed last night and she's not home and her ring is outside and I think she's been—"

"Slow down, Mr. Mabel," said Grayson gently, getting into the database and looking for the Mabels' home address on his desk computer. "Tell me what happened exactly."

"Uhh," Mr. Mabel murmured, taking a deep breath and swallowing nervously. "I—I woke up this morning, and Emma wasn't next to me. I thought she'd fallen asleep on the couch, b–but she wasn't there either. I looked outs–side, and—and the curtains were open and the door was cracked. Her s–slipper and her ring—her w–wedding ring—were left on the deck. She's gone, Detective, I don't—I don't know what to—"

As the man was explaining in panic, Gray had written down the address, gathered himself up and left the station, not even leaving Aaron a note. He would call him in a second. "I'm on my way, Mr. Mabel. You didn't touch anything, did you?"

"N–no," the distraught husband replied. "I looked around, but I didn't—I didn't touch anything."

"Good. Now I need you to leave the deck and go back inside, Mr. Mabel. Can you do that for me?" It was perfect that Mr. Mabel hadn't touched anything, but Gray didn't want to take his chances. The man could easily shed hair or skin onto the scene and compromise its integrity by just being there. "Just stay inside until I get there, Mr. Mabel. Okay?"

"Okay. Okay," Mr. Mabel responded nervously.

Grayson hung up with Mr. Mabel to call Aaron, who picked up sounding wide awake. "Hey Gray, what's up?"

"I don't know," Grayson replied honestly, beginning to drive for the Mabel residence. "I just got a call from our witness's husband—he's saying that she's gone missing."

"The woman from last night? What was it, Emma?"

"Mm."

"What's he mean, 'gone missing'?"

Gray blew out his breath. "Dunno. I'm on my way to their address. Meet me?"

"On it, brother."

Hanging up with Aaron, Gray set his phone aside and focused on the road. He hoped that nothing was wrong. Of course, it would result in a tremendous waste of his time, which was annoying, but he was more concerned with the wellbeing of his witness. It wasn't often that Ghost Killer murders had witnesses, not so soon after a body was dumped, for lack of a better word. Not to mention, Gray would feel personally responsible for having forced Emma to stay at the crime scene. If something had happened to her, he was inclined to blame himself.

Arriving at the Mabel home, Grayson knocked on the door, a serious expression on his face. Mr. Mabel answered soon after. "Oh thank god, Detective," the man murmured, wasting no time in leading the detective to the spot in question around back. Not long after, Aaron arrived as well. "This is where it happened," said Mr. Mabel, standing back and gesturing. "Whatever happened."

Both detectives took their phones out and took pictures from multiple angles. Aaron held a latex glove out to Gray, who took it gladly and slipped it on. The men crouched and took pictures of every bit of evidence.

"Gray."

Grayson looked up from inspecting the wedding ring, then got up from his crouch to look at what Aaron had found. "What is it?"

"The wood's splintered—as if someone was thrown against it." The man made a face. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Mm," Gray hummed in agreement. "Looks like there's skin on the ring too; torn off, most likely." He sighed. "I'll call it in. You get CSI out here. They can do more with this than we can." Aaron nodded, before stepping away to make the call. Grayson closed out his phone's camera and called up Dispatch. "This is Detective Grayson Todd, badge number 32521—I need to report a suspected kidnapping." After giving them the address and as much information on Emma he knew, Gray hung up with Dispatch and turned to Emma's husband.

"...So?" the man murmured hopefully.

Gray sighed. "We're going to do everything we can to find your wife, Mr. Mabel." Unfortunately, given Emma's relation to the Ghost Killer murder yesterday, and now her sudden disappearance, Grayson had a bad feeling she was the criminal's next victim.

Which meant it was only a matter of time before her body was found too.