“You’re asking me to do your research?” Aiden asked incredulously. “We have people who do that, who check out sources and facts, Roselyn. I’m a busy guy.” He didn’t want to be too hard on her, but if that was all she wanted then he wasn’t going to give up the better part of his spare time to do her fact checking for her. Unless this was some sort of prank the others in her section had put her up to.
Even so he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to this story she wasn’t telling him and when she waved the file in front of him, threatening to take it away he snatched it back – flicking through to find something that would give him an angle he could pursue.
“No...no...there might be something here.” He said, leafing through the pages. “Ah, here...one of the victims was a geneticist. There could be something here. Unsolved murders of scientists, does the police department care? Does Axis turn its back on its best and brightest?” He said out loud. Aiden liked a good murder mystery as much as the next person. Science writing was all well and good but it tended to be a bit dry unless someone exploded. A personal interest story wrapped around science with a chance to return to the dead woman’s work? That was award material, especially if he could get the police department to re-open the case.
“Ok, I’ll check this out for you, Roselyn.” He said, giving her a smile. “Thanks for tossing this my way.” He read on a little further, frowning. “God. She had a kid. Poor thing missing, presumed dead. There really are some sick fucks around, aren’t there?”
If the story revolved around child sexual abuse rather than science there was no way he could publish it, but maybe he’d get a by line on Roselyn’s story should she choose to go with his research. From the look of this file a murder/kidnapping by some child molester did look likely, but Aiden had learned not to trust what seemed obvious, and if it was the obvious then if this pushed the police to re-open the case he’d sleep safer at night knowing the bastard who did this was being hunted.