Authority || Lashton ✔️

1.0

Luke sat in front in the department break room. He rarely had lunch here, but Calum was sick and couldn't go out to their usual cafe with him.

The break room TV ceased its car commercials, and went back to the news. The news anchor sitting next to her partner. They both looked plastic, fake. It disturbed Luke how similar to Barbie dolls they were.

"Today we have breaking news for the small town of Apollo Bay. There has been a series of murders, and the police department have stated that this is connected to a case that was opened a few months ago when detectives came to the conclusion that this was a serial killer. The police department and mayor have agreed on setting a curfew for the town to follow to keep the murders from being as frequent. The curfew is as follows: No one is to be out past 12 am, before 6 am. They have also set up a tip line, which is 613-xxx-xxxx. If you know anything that could help them in their investigation, please call the tip line. Hopefully this horrible murderer will be found." She concluded.

Luke sighed, what a mess. He stood up and threw his half eaten bagel in the break room trash can. Walking out to see Chris there with a wide grin.

"What are you so happy about?" He asked, trying to not sound irritated and like an asshole.

"DNA results came in Luke...we've found our guy." Chris stated, the grin not leaving his face as Luke felt his stomach drop. He followed Chris to his office and looked at the computer, reading the information on the monitor. His heart stopping.

"Ashton Irwin- sleeping. Pfft yeah, more like murdering people every single night," Chris spat.

"Don't we need more evidence than that to establish a probable cause?" Luke asked, when in reality he didn't want to see Ashton in prison for murder.

"Luke these are scientific facts. I think the judge and jury will be both agree that this fucker deserves to be in prison."

"Maybe for the murder of Michael Clifford, but was his DNA found matched to any other of the Midnight Murderer crimes?" Luke knew that Ashton's DNA hadn't been at the other crime scenes, and Chris knew that too. Him asking the question was more of him indirectly telling Chris that this would only help them with one murder and not the others.

Chris glanced at Luke knowing that he was right, but he wasn't a good man. And would rather pin all the murders on one man, then continue struggling to find the actual murderer. This case had been going on for months, and he was sick and tired of it. But Luke, wasn't going to allow this, it was wrong.

Luke walked away before the conversation could continue, and walked over to his computer. He felt stressed, for Ashton had just returned to him and now he was going to be charged for murder. He knew his DNA was at the crime scene, but it didn't seem right. He trusted Ashton, his mind was factual and usually did not rely on gut instinct, so with any other murder investigation, DNA evidence would instantly click to a probable cause for him.

But, Luke was in love with the damn suspect. His heart was more powerful than his brain, and he simply couldn't accept that maybe Ashton wasn't as good of a person as Luke thought he was.

"Do you want to perform the arrest?" Chris asked from behind Luke, "Calum wants you to go with him."

It felt as if there was a rock in his stomach, but he simply stood up silently and walked over to Calum. Following him to the cop car, and hearing the sirens go on, as they drove to where Ashton was staying. An apartment complex he remembered as a teenager, going in to help Ashton with a math project when in reality he just wanted to spend more time with the punk.

Luke stood exiting the vehicle, as Calum turned off the sirens. He could see curtains from the various windows in the apartment building moving to watch who was getting arrested. People are so nosy. They walked into the building, and Calum was going to go to the land lord's office to ask what apartment Ashton was in. But Luke after all these years already knew, he remembered standing in front of the cream colored door as teen, staring at the faux gold number '49' on the door. He had knocked three times, and had nervously waited, holding a large white poster board.