"Monsieur DeChaney, I completely understanding your desperation of finding your wife, but I assure you we are looking as best we can," Sergeant Lamar insisted. Raoul Glared at him with death in his eyes. "Without any more information, we can search no faster. You're completely sure that there is no one you can think of that would want to steal her away or hurt her in any way?"
"None but a mad lunatic that is surly dead," Raoul answered gruffly. It had been two weeks since Christine had gone missing, and he had been frantic every day since the morning he had found her missing from her sick bed. He had hardly slept, and when he did, the bouts were fitful, filled with nightmares of finding Christine dead, injured or otherwise, forcing him to keep himself awake with drunkenness. When he was sober, he found himself glad he was not a physical drunk, and he found himself just as bitter sober as when drunk. Although he had found that drunkenness tended to pass time more quickly when he could do thing but sit in his house and hope, pray, and wait for news of his beloved. At first he had argued valiantly that he should be allowed to help the search, but the Sergeant had insisted that he would do nothing be get in the way. After much shouting on his part, and much insistence from the sergeant, he had resigned bitterly to his home, which stood empty and cold without his fiancé.
"Surely we should at least look into the idea of this lunatic being alive," the Sergeant replied, sitting behind his desk of polished a, a pen ready to write notes in his hand. He was a well built man, but not particularly tall. Raoul himself topped his height by a head, and often found that at least when he spoke to this man he was able to look down on him and feel that he was in control in the slightest. Although that slight feeling that he was in control was brushed away easily when they matched eyes, the sergeant's cold green ones biting into his own soft blue. This man was a hardened one that had faced one too many horrors, and it reflected in his emerald orbs vibrantly. His hard face, more often then not set in a grim expression told any that might object to his ideas that he was not one to be trifled with. Raoul shook his head in answer to the man's last comment.
"A mob had searched his home thoroughly after Christine and I escaped it. He would have been forced out to the streets, and he never would have survived there. He knows nothing of the real world, and I can see none taking in the deformed creature," he explained. The Sergeant's sharp eyes registered something.
"Ah, the Phantom of the Opera," he said, interest for once sparking in his tone. He was well fit for his job, but his lack of interest was quite evident. "I have heard about this infamous man. A genius, is he not?"
"Was," Raoul corrected. "He was a genius, mostly in music. Although Christine told me that he was well versed and gifted in architecture as well." The Sergeant nodded, and then frowned.
"But surly, Monsieur, of he was a genius, he could have found himself a way to hide away?" he suggested, biting the tip of his pen.
"A genius he may have been, Sergeant, but a person gifted in communing well with people he was not," Raoul objected.
"He seemed to have trapped you fiancé well enough in a mental trap," the Sergeant answered considering. Raoul now shook his head feverishly.
"He ensnared her easily enough, but he knew many things about her past and used his gift of music to weave a spell around a musical girl. It was much easier then one may think. Christine, as dearly as I love her, does have a fantastical mind at times. It took me quite a while and to the point where I was almost too late to save her before convincing her that he was not, infact, her father's spirit come back to guide her."
In a way, Raoul so adamant against this idea not because he truly was firm in his belief that the Phantom was truly dead, but because he could not, would not accept the idea that the Opera ghost could come back to haunt them. Not after he had risked so much, his life included, to save Christine from his grasps, and he didn't' know if he would win this time if pitted against the man. It had been Christine that had disarmed the creature with a kiss, and though he refused to allow himself to accept the idea that the Phantom had come back to retrieve his prize, he could at least convince himself that if it was at all possible, it would once again be Christine that could save herself more efficiently then he.
The Sergeant sighed heavily, observing the man before him. He was fighting valiantly against the thought that this Phantom could be the culprit of this crime, and in his experience, the most unwanted answer was usually the solution to the crime. But without the employer's permission, they could not take action.
"So you will not give me allowance to look into the idea that this Phantom might be the kidnapper?" he nudged, peering up at Raoul in the candle light. An odd expression crossed his face, then smoothed out,
"It would be fruitless, Sergeant," he answered. "Keep looking as you are-"he held up his hand to cut short the sergeant's objection. "With or without any leads, Sergeant. Continue as you are." The sergeant leaned back heavily into the chair.
"Very well, Monsieur," he answered. "It is your choice. I have another heavy case that I am working on. Sickening, what the world will do."
"And what is so heavy, Monsieur?" Raoul asked out of politeness. The Sergeant sighed again.
"Ah, a group of men, all interconnected one way or the other through family blood or marriage. A heavy history of rape and molestation and a few murders are sprinkled along the family lines committed by the men. It's all too suspicious. I've decided to make it a self granted case. No others will take it, especially since two other Detectives that have turned up dead when researching the family history." Raoul shuddered, and turned quickly to take his leave.
"Be careful then, Sergeant," he answered. "Good day."