AN: hey kids, you want some fanfic?

The house is gaudy and extravagant in the worst way, expensive, Sharon is sure, but it's an eyesore the likes she's never before seen. She slips her sunglasses down her nose as she takes step after step after step up the stairs that lead to the front door, she's tries to appear sure in her footwork, but the bricks that makeup the stairs aren't secured efficiently and her stiletto pumps are not handling it very well. Tao is at her side, and after a particularly jarring wobble and she's intensely grateful for the hand he places on her back.

Provenza waits at the top and Sharon has the petulant desire to have been able to see him huff and puff up the stairs, she grins just thinking about it, she turns her head down to hide her amusement. "Finally!" he says, all hot air, as she and Tao reach him.

"So sorry to have kept you waiting," Sharon says, her voice the epitome of calm, of professional politeness, she's perfected that voice her whole career.

Provenza gives her look, one eye narrowed in suspicion, from behind her thick black sunglasses she almost gives into the urge to roll her eyes, "What do we have?" she asks instead, hands in her pockets as she strides through the front door and into a foyer that is even uglier than what she'd anticipated.

And there she is, right on the open stairs.

"Mellissa Straught," Sanchez chimes in from the upper landing, broad shoulders and barrel chest leaning over the railing as he looks down at them, as Sharon grabs the sunglasses off her face she remembers when one of her sons had thought he could jump from a very similar height and escape unharmed. Needless to say he could not, she raises her hand, sunglasses dangling from her pointer finger and thumb, "Please don't do that," she calls.

Sanchez throws her a crooked grin and straightens up, and she pretends not to hear the mocking huff of air Provenza exhales.

"Mrs. Straught's teenage son found her, ma'am" Sanchez continues, glove clad hands flipping through a notebook.

At the prospect of more stairs Sharon wants to shuck off her designer shoes, but she diligently climbs to Buzz's side, green eyes sliding over the bloody form of the former Mellissa Straught. The cause of death seems straightforward when Sharon is so close, the knife is still lodged in the unfortunate womans throat.

The 'teenage son' turns out to not be a day older then thirteen, thin as a rail, he has a strong chin and hair that reaches his collar, it is the same color as his mothers. Sharon takes one look at him, and turns on her heel, Flynn walking behind her is suddenly met with glaring green eyes as he backpedals to stop himself from walking into her.

She gestures towards the boy, "Where's his father or other legal guardian?" she asks.

Flynn shrugs, "Sent Sykes to do the notification."

When she glances over her shoulder, the child is watching her with red rimmed brown eyes. There is fear in his eyes.

"Jason!" a voice barks, so loud that Sharon visibly starts as a bear of a man comes in through the patio doors. Sykes follows after, her mouth open as it often is when she feels unsure, and her eyes following the man as he crushes the boy to him in a hug that's almost violent.

"Mr. Straught?" Sharon asks, at that the man turns, one arm still wrapped around the boy she now can see has his eyes, the man is tall and broadly built, with muscles that bulge and a grim line for a mouth. His brown eyes roam over her, from hair to toes and back up, it's unsettling and insulting, but his wife is dead so she says nothing.

The man turns his head from her and leads his boy to Flynn, holding out a hand for Flynn to shake he introduces himself, "I'm Davis Straught."

"The husband, the husband, oh and let's see, the husband," Provenza sing songs from his desk, flipping idly through a folder that Sharon is sure has no relevancy to their current case.

"The front door was forcibly opened, ma'am," Sanchez says, placing on the whiteboard a picture of the victim, "there was evidence of a struggle, leading from the den to the stairs."

"The knife belongs to the set in their kitchen, Captain," Tao chimes in, "no prints, killer wore gloves," he said, wiggling his fingers in the air.

She looks down to the folder in her hands, the autopsy report. At thirty nine Mellissa had a left a good looking corpse, the woman had more drugs in her system then seemed realistic, she'd been a model in her younger years, before the birth of her son. Sharon looked into the smiling hazel eyes of Melissa Straught's driving license photo and wondered if she'd been a good mother before her untimely death.

"Sharon?" Rusty's voice prompts her to turn; the smile on her face is small but genuine as Rusty steps closer to her. For a moment it feels almost like instinct to give him a hug, but she refrains and says instead, "How was school?"

He shrugs, "Fine."

She places the folder she'd been reading down on Sykes desk, hand on Rusty's shoulder she leads him towards the break room, she's in dire need of something edible and she's never known a growing boy to turn down food. They make their way in silence, his shuffling feet a stark contrast to the sounds of her heels.

"How was it really?" she asks, in her no nonsense voice, her Captain voice.

With a sigh, Rusty looks away from her, "It sucked," he vehemently declared.

"Why?"

He clears his throat, shifty eyes looking at her, down to the floor, to the ever closer breakroom, and then finally back to her, "It just did," he finally says, with such a pleading look in his eyes, saying just stop, leave me alone, that she lets it be for now.

Its two in the morning when her phone rings, the sound jarring her from a peaceful slumber, at first uncomprehending she sits up and can only squint into the darkness. Her phones lightened screen beckons her from her dresser, she rises, intent on catching it before it wakes Rusty, forgetting the clothes she'd uncharacteristically left on the carpeted floor of her bedroom. She lands with a loud oomph as her knees hit the ground, but she drags herself up enough to grab the phone before she sits back down on carpet, eyes half open as she stifles a yawn as she answers with a "Captain Raydor."

Flynn's voice comes through the line, unmistakable, "Jason Straught is missing, Captain."

DISCLAIMER: Don't own, wouldn't mind, but don't.