The Perfect Crime

Chapter 19: LOVE AND FLAWS

I saw that you were perfect and so I loved you. Then I saw that you were not perfect and I loved you even more.
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Detective Archer Finn sighed and switched off the TV. Watching the conference on Harleigh's case for the umpteenth time wasn't going to solve anything. In fact, it would only make him feel worse.

He stood up from the couch, pausing only when he heard his back crack. Damn. He was growing old very quickly. It was this case. This fucking case was making him age. Specifically, it was the lies. So many damn lies. Even the people he hadn't expected to lie to him had lied to him.

Thelma's parents, for example, had lied to him. They had lied about being Thelma's biological parents. Not that he had thought to ask the question directly. But when a police officer suspected that your daughter knew important information in an ongoing investigation, this was the kind of thing that you told the primary investigator. Right?

"Finally. Let's atleast do what we came home to do. Which is sleep. You can't keep watching that conference on repeat the whole night. Remember we have to be fresh for tomorrow." Emilia spoke up. She was lying on the couch with her eyes half closed.

Archer stifled a yawn with his hand. "Yeah sure. Let me first lock up."

Alea, Gabriel, Emilia and Callie waddled out of the living room like penguins. They had all dozed off through out the conference. Only Archer had stayed awake for the whole thing. He had been too stunned to sleep.

Archer locked the front door and entered the password for the security system. The system beeped along with every button he pressed and then double beeped to show that it had been engaged.

Next, was the rebellious back door located in the dining room. He usually closed that door last because it required a little more elbow grease. He fought with the door until he sweated. Fucking door.

"Can I help?" Emilia spoke up from the dining chair on which she was sitted, making him jump.

"Sure." Archer mumbled.

Emilia walked to the door and successfully closed it on the third try. She then looked at Archer and he felt the unexplainable urge to squirm under her burrowing gaze.

"I know it's a stupid question to ask but are you okay?"

No, he wasn't okay. He was on edge. His nerves were all over the place. He had seen his grandmother's dead body and he wanted a drink. He needed vodka. But he couldn't tell her this. "Is there more hot chocolate?"

"Yeah, I made extra just incase. Let me get you some."

"Thanks." Archer replied and Emilia smiled.

Emilia was pouring hot chocolate into a cup when she spoke again. "Thelma's parents —I mean foster parents— really fooled us."

Archer couldn't agree more.

Emilia put the cup infront of him and pulled one of the chairs so that they were seated side by side. "You think that guy who allegedly enrolled Thelma into foster care. What was his name again? Joe Warden? Yeah, that was the name. You think that is one of Matthias' aliases?"

"Yeah." Archer replied, taking a sip of the hot chocolate. He enjoyed the way it scalded his throat as it went down. It wasn't as good as vodka, though.

"What were Thelma's biological parents thinking when they made Matthias or Joe Warden or whoever the fuck he is the legal guardian of their daughter?" Emilia said.

"Maybe he wasn't as vile and disgusting back then. Or maybe they just didn't know who he really was." Archer didn't even know why he was defending Matthias.