The Perfect Emma

Chapter Twelve

Grayson Todd

Grayson stared at the computer intently as facial recognition worked on the frame. It was slow, disgustingly slow, but it was nearly finished.

And it was definitely worth it.

Emma Mabel's face came up onto the screen, the words "Match Found" flashing beneath it. Gray smacked his desk and said, "Hell yes."

Beside him, Aaron grimaced. "I'll...send out the BOLO," he murmured, clearly surprised that this had even amounted to anything. To be quite honest, Gray was too. But he was just glad he'd found something. He'd found Emma.

Now the challenge was not losing her.

While Aaron squared away the BOLO, Gray kept his promise to Lily and called her back. She answered the phone with record swiftness. "Detective!? Did you get anything?"

"You were right, Lily," he told her with a slight smile. "It's Emma."

"Oh my god, really?!"

"Really."

The woman laughed joyfully. "So does that mean you found her? She's safe?"

Aaand here was the catch. Gray exhaled. "Unfortunately no. We have a lead, but we have to follow it first. You know I'll keep you posted."

"BOLO's out," Aaron muttered, and Gray nodded as he hung up with Lily. "And now we wait."

"And now we wait," Gray agreed, crossing his arms. "You'd better call the husband."

Aaron cleared his throat and nodded. "Mm." While he was doing that, Gray bent over and started to submit all this to evidence through the computer, and adding it to Emma's case file. He was very chuffed with this.

Gray looked up as a beat cop came through the room, looking annoyed and muttering under his breath as he carried some paperwork. "Bad day?" Aaron joked at the patrol officer, after hanging up with Mr. Mabel.

The man groaned. "False alarms," he said, shaking his head.

"What happened?" Gray asked, standing straight again. "Or—what didn't happen?"

"Anything," the officer replied. "Dispatch sends us out to this Chinese place off of Main Street in response to some silent caller. We get there and the woman with the phone says she didn't even call; some other lady asked to borrow her phone."

Grayson and Aaron looked at each other, before turning back to the patrol officer. That sounded like where Emma was last spotted. "Did whoever called say anything?" Aaron asked, him and his partner arching identical brows.

The cop flicked a hand dismissively. "I dunno, something about not trusting partners. Whatever. It was a waste of time."

The two detectives glanced at each other again. "Maybe not," Gray murmured slowly. Lily had said she saw Emma in the car as it was driving away from that very Chinese restaurant. Already it was clear that her kidnapper was taking her out in public. If it was Emma that called 911 and told the operator that partners weren't to be trusted....

Grayson had to be right.

The Ghost Killer was a fucking cop.

"What do you mean?" the beat cop asked slowly, cocking a brow himself. "It was probably some jackass—"

"No," Gray cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Who asks to borrow a phone? Somebody who doesn't have one. Somebody who isn't allowed one."

"You think it was our vic?" Aaron asked, staring at Gray.

Gray nodded, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt like he shouldn't be saying these things out loud anymore. The man he'd been hunting for seven years may or may not have been under his nose the whole damn time. It...probably wasn't a good idea to share case details anymore.

Fuck.

Emma, because he was going to assume it had been Emma, had apparently—according to this patrol officer—said not to trust partners. But if not their own partners...who on Earth could they trust? The whole reason LA police officers had partners, every one of them, was to have one person that they were supposed to trust.

And now they couldn't even trust the whole damn department.

Gray was about to take his findings to Zach, but then it occurred to him that what if Zach was the killer? It could've been anyone. Literally anyone. Jesus.

"You alright, buddy?" Aaron asked, touching Gray's shoulder.

"I...." Gray started quietly. Then he furrowed his brows. He had been a second away from brushing this off, from deciding it was a better idea to keep it to himself and investigate on his own, but instead he got angry. There was no fucking way he was going to let this Ghost use his cases against him. Gray wouldn't be blackmailed into keeping this quiet.

No. Instead he decided to grab this killer by the balls.

"I think our suspect is a cop," he said confidently, scowling. "And if Emma turns up dead, I'll know I'm right." Pointing at the patrol officer, he added, "Can you get me the woman's number? The one whose phone was borrowed?"

The other man nodded, appearing confused, but willing to oblige. Let the detective waste his own time with it.

"Good. Thanks." And with that, he turned on his heel and headed for Zach's office. Whether Zach could be trusted or not didn't matter. Gray couldn't solve this case terrified of his coworkers. And if Zach didn't do anything about the suspicion, Grayson would. He was sure Internal Affairs would take him very seriously if he presented his evidence right.

Zach was more than surprised to see Gray, but he knew that something had to be up for the detective to be here. "What is it?"

Grayson went up to the desk, sat down, and leaned over it, prompting Zach to assume this needed to be even more private than a closed office. "That footage you got?"

"Mm-hm...?"

"It caught Emma Mabel."

Zach pinched the bridge of his nose. "The woman you've been looking for, for what, more than a year now?"

"Yes. Apparently, around the same time, there was a 911 call from around the same place. A woman telling dispatch that partners were untrustworthy. The phone was borrowed."

Zach put his hand down then, looking interested. "You think the call and the footage are connected?"

Gray nodded. "I'm almost positive. But I won't know for sure until I talk to the owner of the borrowed phone."

"Well then do that, what're you talking to me for?"

The detective shuffled, glancing to the side. Then he stared at Zach, an intense expression on his face. He'd be lying if he said that he didn't feel somewhat betrayed knowing that the Ghost Killer was more than likely a cop. "I think she was taken by an officer. And I think that same officer is the Ghost Killer."

Zachary frowned, sitting up a little straighter. "That's a very serious thing you're suggesting, Todd."

"I know, but Zach—think about it." Gray put his hands on Zach's desk imploringly. "This murderer has eluded us for years. He leaves nothing behind, and how do you suppose he can keep doing that if he doesn't know exactly what we look for? If he's not law enforcement, or at least hasn't been before, then he's spent a ridiculous amount of time doing his research. It's too coincidental to ignore."

Zach rubbed at his jaw in thought, a slow look of irritation forming on his face. "That...makes more sense than I would like it to." He sighed, shutting his eyes and touching his temple. "Okay. Um. You...talk to the person the phone was borrowed from and....We'll go from there. This is....Fuck."

Fuck indeed.

The whole of LAPD was going to turn on itself if officers started taking this seriously.

Don't think about that yet, Grayson. Focus on talking to phone woman. After having touched base with Zach, Gray returned to his desk, where the patrol officer had left a phone number.

Moment of truth.