10 He's Different

"So what did you want to talk about?" Ray asked as he sat down opposite of Harold at his desk.

"What do you think of Abel?" he asked, cutting straight to the point. The one benefit of his desk being positioned at the back of the office was that not many people could her the conversations he had easily.

"He's a bit different, but he's good at what he does. He's experience over me makes him want to take the lead more often than not and he can be a bit bossy about. Not exactly like everyone else we work with here." Ray answered honestly after he had thought about it.

"That's exactly what I thought too. I can't place my finger on it, but there's something different about him and I'm not sure if it's good or bad." Harold replied. He'd only interacted with the other detective for a few minutes, but he could sense there was something about him that didn't feel right.

"I'm not sure it's anything to be worried about. He's been good at his job thus far and maybe takes it a bit too seriously, but I think it'll be good good for our teamwork." Ray replied, standing up, he patted the older man on the shoulder.

"But since you've hardly ever been wrong before, I'll keep a close eye on him and see what happens. I should be going though. There's still quite a bit of work that needs to be done and I can't afford to waste too much time before news gets out more than it already has about what happened."

"Alright, just keep me updated and let me know if anything happens. It's been a few years since they brought someone in outside of our distract to work for us and I'm sure that's also why I'm feeling unsettled by it."

"You think that something big might be going on in our area and the higher ups don't want us to know?" Ray said this part in a lower voice to make sure no one else could hear what was being said, but he'd hit the nail on the head.

"Something like that, but don't say anything to anyone else." Harold replied also making sure to keep his voice low.

"No worries. I'll do a great job on my first assignment as detective and treat you to something nice when this case is over." He told The older man as he got ready to leave, he stopped though and turned back around with as sheepish smile.

"I forgot, can you give me Abel's cellphone information? I forgot to get it off him while we were together." Harold laughed at this.

"I can see that a shift in position can't cure that forgetful nature of yours." he teased before reading off the cellphone information.

Ray knew that he wouldn't need it right away but wanted to have it ahead of time in case he found something out and needed to touch base with him.

If they could get everyone interviewed before the workday was over, they would have enough fresh information to go over the following morning.

Abel ended up finishing his interviews before Ray did. Mostly because he already knew what focused questions he wanted to ask in order to look for certain reactions.

All most everyone he interviewed, a total of six people reacted in almost the same way when they heard the news regardless of if they were client or colleague.

They all had something nice to say about her though he didn't miss the fact that most of her clients appeared to be women rather than men. It made him wonder if it was her own choice or one that was forced into her.

He didn't come across any new leads that he thought might be important. Two of her colleagues suggested he might want to investigate an argument that had happened two weeks prior between Victoria and someone else that they weren't sure of who it was.

Honestly, it frustrated Abel as he had been hoping to get some good progress made before he was done. Luck didn't seem to be on his side however.

Once he had left the last client's house and was back in his car, he looked over all the notes that he had taken in case there was something that he had missed.

He tried to keep all his interview notes organized by the type of information he got rather than from each individual interview. He felt it made it easier to go back through the information later when he needed to find something important.

to his annoyance though, he felt pretty certain of the fact that Ray most likely didn't organize his interview notes in the same manner which would make them hard to compare later on.

He didn't get very far in his review of everything when his phone started ringing and he got a call from a number he didn't recognize.

"This is detective Gray speaking." He said as he answered the phone. There was silence for a moment or two before he heard Ray's voice on the other end.

"Hey partner. Sorry for the sudden call. I asked Harold for your number as I realized I didn't get it before we parted ways.

"Why are you calling me?" Abel asked wanting to cut right to the chase rather than chatting.

"I think I found a person of interest to talk with. They agreed to come in for further discussion tomorrow." Ray explained and Abel could tell by his tone that he was excited about the matter.

"Is that what you called to tell me?" Abel clarified, not coming across as excited as Ray had hoped he would.

"There's that but I also wanted to let you know since it's almost time for the work day to be over, you don't have to come back to the office unless you want to." he explained.

"I see. Thank you for your consideration." Abel responded.

"I have a bit more work that I need to complete, but if I don't need anything when I'm done, I won't bother coming back to the office for day."

"Sounds good! And don't forget to think about whether you want to meet for dinner this weekend or not."

"I won't, thank you. Goodbye." Abel ended the call. He didn't mind the consideration but at this point all he was really focused on was finding the missing pieces that he need still.

Before getting back to looking over the notes, he decided that there was one more call he needed to make in order to call in a favor he felt would help him with his current trouble. Even If the person didn't owe him a favor, he was certain that she would still be willing to do what he asked.