The Perfect Emma

Chapter Thirty-Two

Grayson Todd

For the rest of the workday, Sabrina attempted to occupy Grayson by telling him stories of her adventures on patrol after he'd been promoted, but Gray only half paid attention. He tried to be interested, but everything the IAB agent had told him was stuck in his mind. All of his cases were under review. All of them. Not just the Ghost Killer murders, all. Of. Them. And Emma's case was going to someone else. There was no way on this green Earth that she was going to be comfortable with that. Gray was mostly concerned about that not only because Emma would be in distress, but her distress would not benefit the case at all. They needed her cooperation if they were going to get Aaron convicted, and she wasn't going to cooperate as well as they needed her to if she wasn't comfortable doing so.

It was difficult balancing his understanding of the necessity to review cases Aaron was involved in, with his frustration of being tied to Aaron and having to clean up after him, out of no fault of Gray's own.

Sabrina seemed to notice his disengagement and frowned at him. "You're really beat up about this, aren't you?"

"Yes, Sabrina," he murmured in response, not interested in attempting to hide it. "You don't....You don't know what it's like to be told that you're a bad person just because you know one. I've been betrayed just as much as anyone else in this building. I am losing my case because of it."

"Hey." She reached out and touched his shoulder. "I know I've only been a detective for a day, but....I get it. I do. It's not fair. But, it'll be okay. You're a good cop, I know you are. You always were when we were together at least. You have nothing to worry about."

Gray shook his head. "I'm not worried about myself. I have nothing to hide. What I am worried about is this case, and if Aaron walks free because I'm forced to sit on my ass...."

"He won't, Gray," Sabrina murmured. "He won't."

He wanted to believe that. He really did. But until Aaron was in police custody, he wasn't going to.

When it was quitting time, Sabrina offered to hang out, but Grayson politely declined. He knew it was because she too had been familiar with his mental issues, but he was a lot better with that now than he'd been when they were partners on the beat. He didn't need a babysitter, and he didn't want company at the moment. At least, not from someone as talkative as her.

Arriving home, Gray had forgotten that his apartment was clean, and was slightly surprised, before remembering. Deciding that maybe it would be wise of him to attempt to keep it that way, at least for a small while, Gray hung up his blazer instead of tossing it around like he normally would.

Yesterday had been strange. Emma's presence had prompted Grayson to actually think about his actions regarding his home, and that was new for him. He was used to not having to think about it, to being able to just throw things around, and not worry about what anyone thought of it. He'd been able to sit on the couch for hours at a time and be disinterested in life as a whole.

But yesterday he'd had another human being in his apartment for the first time in a long time, and it had shifted his paradigm.

He wasn't sure how to feel about it, if he were honest.

But, now that Emma wasn't here tonight—which bothered him, and though he told himself it was because it was against her will, there had to be more to it than that—Gray decided that some things were safe to put back to normal. Such as his pictures.

Gray went to both picture frames and stood them back up carefully, though making sure not to look at either of them for too long. Doing that didn't usually do him any good.

After doing that, he made himself a Hot Pocket and sat down with his laptop to, hopefully, polish off some things. As soon as he logged into the PD's servers, he was notified of his newly restricted access to things. Gray laughed sarcastically and snapped, "You're fucking kidding me."

Thanks, Hannah.

Bitch.

Taking a deep breath, he just noped out of that. The one thing that had the certainty of keeping him sane while at home—more work, ironically—had been, more or less, taken away from him too.

Fantastic.

With nothing much else to do with himself, Grayson ambled himself over to the couch, his stomach now full, and sat there, attempting to control how annoyed he was with everything. It must've been around eleven o'clock when his phone started ringing. He looked at it with slight disgust before picking it up and looking at who was calling.

....Zach?

Uh-oh.

"Hello?" Gray answered, furrowing his brows.

"Grayson," Zach replied, sounding very serious. "Is Emma at your place?"

Well that...was an odd question. But, it did raise up a pretty big red flag. "No. Why?"

The man was silent for a heartbeat. "....Shit."

"Zach, what's going on?" Gray answered, getting to his feet.

The captain sighed, hesitating. "The man we had standing outside her apartment checked in and...she was gone. I was hoping she was with you, but...."

Gray frowned. That would've made it worse. "If she was here, Westbrook would have my head on a spike," he responded, putting a hand on his hip. "I wouldn't risk that."

"No, but Emma might."

That was a fair point. "What do you want me to do, go out and look for her?" He didn't know what that would help, other than Hannah's case against him. "I'm in enough trouble as it is, Zach. If I turn up with Emma...."

"I know," Zach replied. "I know. But you know that I trust you, even if Agent Westbrook doesn't. I'll take the fall."

"Zach...."

"Just do it, Detective."

Grayson sighed, grabbing his keys and heading for the front door. "Alright," he muttered, slipping on his shoes. "But y'know what, I'm getting real tempted to go up to Westbrook and say I told you so—"

Upon opening the door, Gray stopped and stared down at his feet.

Sitting on the floor just outside his apartment was Emma.

It took him a moment to recognize her again, because she'd turned her hair back to blonde, a color he hadn't seen on her in over a year. But, it was better than having her look like Rosie all the time. She blinked up at him, looking frightened to hell, and murmured, "Hi...."

"Gray?" Zach asked, concerned by Gray's abrupt silence.

The detective shook his head quickly, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Uh, yeah. Yeah. Um. Zach?"

"What is it?"

"I...think I just found Emma."

Zach was quiet a moment. "So. She did. Show up at your place."

Gray sighed. "Mm-hm." He wanted to let Emma in, to get her out of the hallway and somewhere both safe and that she was comfortable with. But he'd been iffy already in just going to look for her—letting her in would surely end up with him having his ass handed to him by not just Hannah, but the entirety of the IAB. "What do I do?"

"Let her in."

"Zach—"

"I will take the fall. I am your captain, Detective. Now do what I say."

The detective grimaced. But...he did what was asked. Hanging up with his captain with an exhale, he reached down to help Emma off the floor and murmured, "Come on then."