Y/n's POV
Mornings were always one of my favorite parts of the day. For one, shift hadn't started yet, so there was no case to stress over. And two, it gave Jay and I a little personal time. Today, I was woken up by a kiss on the cheek from Jay, whose chest was pressed up against my back.
"Morning," Jay mumbled.
I smiled and turned over to face my husband. "Morning." Jay grinned as well and leaned in to press a kiss to my lips. I relished the feeling of kissing him and melted into his body, causing Jay to wrap his arms around me.
"You know what today is, right?" Jay questioned. "DO."
"I can't remember the last time we had a day off together," I confess.
Jay laughed. "I know. You want some coffee?"
"Mm, not right now," I answer. "What I want is to just lay in bed with my amazing husband for a bit, and then maybe you could make us some pancakes for breakfast."
"I could get down with that," Jay admitted and kissed me again. After laying in bed for awhile, Jay got up to make us some breakfast, and I threw on one of his shirts before making my way out into the kitchen. Jay glanced up from the stove and caught sight of me throwing my hair up into a ponytail, which caused him to smile. "Is that my shirt?"
"Uh, yeah. Why?" I ask.
"No reason. You look cute," Jay stated. Just then, my phone buzzed, and I picked it up from the kitchen table to see who had texted me. "Who is it?"
"Hailey," I reply. "She said we've got a case."
"Ugh," Jay groaned. "But it's our day off."
"It was too good to be true. I'm gonna go get dressed. You finish those pancakes," I exclaim and head back into the bedroom. At the scene, Jay and I met up with the rest of the team.
"This is the Clarton home, husband Ray, wife Helen, daughter Becca. I talked to the rest of the block. No one's seen them in at least two days," Hailey told us.
"And that's odd?" Voight questioned.
"To our neighbor, Jessica, yeah. They were homebodies," Hailey clarified. "She said she just spoke with Helen to get together the next day. She called both their cells. No one's answering."
"I checked the phones, and they're shut off," Jay added.
"And her car's in the garage. There's cardboard boxes upstairs. Empty suitcases. They might've been packing," Adam suggested.
"Hey," Kim spoke and poked her head in through the front door. "I've got something weird." Kim led us outside and over to a police car where a computer was sitting. "So I ran the name and social the landlord gave me, Ray Clarton. The problem is, Ray Clarton died four years ago. He's using a fake name on everything. Utilities for the house, credit card, car, all registered to a dead man."
"What about the wife?" I quiz.
"She's not on paper anywhere, and I got no hits on a Helen Clarton in Chicago matching her descriptors," Kim responded.
"The little girl, Becca, she's 12. She must be in school," Hailey offered.
"She's not. She's not registered with CPS or a private school. I ran missing persons too, and I got nothing," Kim admitted.
"So dig into the name, Ray Clarton, and see who had access to steal his identity. Let's do a full forensics search. Let's find out who the hell this family really is," Voight said.
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"Forensics came back. The blood in the master is two days old and belongs to a female. DNA doesn't match anything on file, but the tech said as long as the blood came from an adult, the amount of blood is not enough to positively indicate a death," Kim informed us.
"The fingerprints off all the men's shoes in the Clarton house ID'd Ray's real name. Meet Ray Aimes. We've got a hell of a sheet for him. He's lived in 14 different states the past 20 years, multiple fraud investigations, two domestics when he was younger," Adam listed off. "It looks like he mostly deals in Ponzi and pyramid schemes."
"What about the girls, Helen and Becca?" Hailey asked.
"Their prints weren't in the system. Ray's not legally married, but the DNA found off of the toothbrush in the home confirms that Becca is Ray and Helen's child," Adam disclosed.
"And she's never been enrolled in school?" Jay questioned.
Adam shook his head. "I checked everywhere that Ray lived. She's never been enrolled in school, never been to a doctor, nothing."
"I'm guessing there's abuse in this family," Hailey hypothesized.
"So you're thinking domestic?" I implore.
"It makes sense. Ray has a history of domestic assault," Hailey pointed out. "He beats Helen too bad one day, throws them both in the car, and takes off before he was planning to."
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've got a pop," Kevin announced. "Ray Clarton's debit card was used at an ATM downtown yesterday right after they went missing."
Voight nodded approvingly. "Roll on it." So we got footage of Ray and Becca taking money out of an ATM, but right after that, they were taken by a man wearing a baseball cap. This case was getting weirder the deeper we dug, and hopefully, we could fine the family before something bad happened. "All right, who is this man? Someone from Ray's past come back to haunt him? Maybe Ray conned the wrong guy, end up over his head?"
"I've got no large deposits on Ray's financials," Kim responded.
"And nothing pops on the video," I add. "The clothes are generic. We can't even make out Ray's."
"It really doesn't help we know next to nothing about this family," Jay said.
"Yeah, I re-interviewed the neighbors on the block. Nobody knew where they worked, where they were from, their family, nothing. We have zero details on them," Kim spoke.
"Ray and Helen are good," Jay noted.
"Yeah, but you learn how to be that way. To shut people out, be invisible, you learn it. Becca's only 12 years old. Maybe she hasn't learned how to do that just yet," Hailey proposed. Hailey and Jay went to re-examine the Clarton house, and while there, they got important information from Annie, the girl who lived next door. Apparently, her and Becca were best friends, but they had to hide their friendship because of Becca's parents.
"They used flashlights. Anytime that Becca wanted to see Annie, she'd shine a flashlight through Annie's window. Annie would wake up, she'd go downstairs, unlock the door, and Becca would come over. Two nights ago, the night that the Clartons disappeared, Becca shined a light through Annie's window. And Annie said she saw a man in the house," Jay told us.
"Did she get a good look at him?" Kevin asked.
"No, he disappeared through the house. Annie also said that the man put the family in a station wagon," Jay shared.
"Well then lets find the station wagon," Voight demanded. Those of us in the bullpen nodded and headed to the tech room to search through footage, hoping to find something that would lead us to the Clartons.
"It's a Mercury," Hailey exclaimed and entered the room. "I showed Annie a dozen models and she pointed right to it." All of us began typing away at our computers, trying to find a Mercury in any of the video we had.
"I've got one," Adam chirped. "It was real close to the Clartons' house, 11:23 p.m., heading northbound on Western."
"Yep, I've got him again," Jay confirmed. "11:29, Western and Franklin."
"And those plates are hot. They're stolen," Adam added.
"Get those plates out on an all-call," Voight ordered.
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"We get the station wagon pulling in here, and then we lose him," Jay spoke as we all gathered on a street.
"He probably ditched the car and swapped it. Let's fan out," Voight said. Adam and I went one way, walking down the street towards some abandoned buildings.
"You see anything?" I question and take a look around.
Adam shook his head. "Nope. Nothing." Just then, Jay came over the radio.
"Guys, we've got something by the underpass. We're calling in the crime lab," Jay stated over the radio. Jay and Hailey found the body of Helen Clarton. Her teeth were all missing, and her fingerprints were burned off. However, we did have security camera footage, and it was enough to run through facial rec, so now we had our guy. His name was Alejando Hermanez. We had an address, and Hailey and Jay went to scout it out. When they brought Hermanez back though, I could tell something was up, and when I asked Jay about it, he said that Hailey searched Hermanez' house illegally, and she also grabbed him when their orders were to wait. This case was affecting Hailey differently than all of us, and I had a pretty clear idea why.
"We can break him. He's messing with us because he knows we don't have enough," Hailey muttered.
"All right, what else do we have?" Voight asked.
"His phone's clean. Nothing on cams," Kim replied.
"His car's GPS shows movement earlier this morning," Adam added. "Hermanez drove to a PO box in Humboldt Park. I confirmed with the staff that Ray owns a PO box there. Hermanez accessed the box. He left with that bag. Two blocks later, it looks like he made a physical exchange."
"All right, do we have any other leverage?" Voight quizzed.
Kevin nodded. "His financials are pretty clean, but he does make one deposit each month to a long-term care facility. Other than that, I don't have any-"
Hailey cut Kevin off. "We can use that. Hermanez is probably paying for family. We know he doesn't have any documented family in the U.S., so they must be illegal. So we confirm their non-citizenship, and we threaten him with ICE."
"There's no guarantee he'll talk for that," Voight pointed out. "And we can't threaten him unless we know who it is he's paying for and ID their citizenship."
"So we ID them," Hailey voiced.
"Well, the problem is, that's illegal. We can't contact ICE. We can't even ask about citizenship," Voight noted.
"You can as a private citizen," Hailey retorted.
"It's still illegal. I think you know that," Voight said.
"Okay, but it's also all we've got," Hailey argued. "This is a little girl. She hasn't been protected a day in her life. She doesn't know that she can be, that she should be. And if there's a chance that she could still be alive, then we protect her."
"We will. Just not that way," Voight declared.
"Sarge, it could work, and we've crossed worse lines before," Hailey brought up.
"Did you not hear me say no? Look, this is simple. Ray and Becca are somewhere. Wherever that is, there's gonna be a clear link to Hermanez. So find it now," Voight ordered. As everyone went their separate ways, I saw Hailey throw her jacket on and head outside, so I did the same and followed her.
"Hailey," I call out and walk next to her. "What's going on?"
"No one's gonna even know I went," Hailey murmured and stuffed her hands into her pockets.
"Yeah, what are you going to do with the information? How's no one gonna know when you use it in the interview room?" I ask.
"I'll figure it out when I get there. Look, there's a little kid missing," Hailey started.
"I know that," I interject. "But what's going on with you? You're spinning out. Are you gonna tell me you're not? You're gonna tell me it's fine? I know you, Hailey. You're my best friend. You're going to tell me that it's all good, then shut me out and go jeopardize your job some more. I don't know if it's Ray or Becca, or if this all reminds you of your past, but something's wrong. I just want you to talk to me so we can figure things out."
Hailey scoffed. "So you can help? What do you want to know? Why I'm crossing lines? Why I'm fine with it? Why I'm shutting everyone out?"
I shook my head. "That's not it at all. And if you would hear me out, hear everyone else out, then you'd realize that."
"All I want to do is help Becca!" Hailey exclaimed loudly. "What's wrong with that?!"
"Becca's probably already dead," I shout, my breath freezing as it hit the air. "I know that's not what you wanna hear, but it's most likely the truth. Look, Hailey, you've done this before, the crossing lines thing. And you were sent to New York to fix whatever was going on. I don't want to lose you again, possibly forever if you do something stupid like this, but all I can do is talk to you. I can't force you to make a decision. You're your own person. Just think about what you'd be doing, what you'd be putting at risk all for someone you can't even prove is alive." And with that, I turned around and walked back into the district.
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"Hey, Voight," I greet my sergeant. "Can we talk?"
"Is this about Hailey?" Voight questioned. I nodded, and Voight sighed. "Shut the door behind you." Just as I was about to close the door, Hailey walked in and placed a blueprint on Voight's desk.
"He buried them. We never saw Hermanez leave his property after the PO box because he didn't have to. Hermanez lives at the edge of industrial land in Hegewisch. His trailer is right where a factory was. Now the factory's gone, but that whole area is filled with underground storage tanks. Hermanez has three of them on his property. Hermanez left, went to the PO box, picked up the cash, dropped it off, came back. Jay and I were pulling up as he was walking to his shed with his gun. He was on his way to kill them. We just got there first. They're still there," Hailey claimed. So we went to Hermanez's property, and what do you know, Hailey was right. We found Becca and Ray in an underground storage tank. Ray was dead, but Becca was still alive. Later that night, I got a text from Hailey asking if I could meet her at her apartment, so I threw on my coat and went for a drive. I got there before her and waited by her door, and minutes later, she exited the elevator. "You came."
"You asked me to," I say. Hailey let me inside, and the two of us took a seat in the living room. "I'm uh, I'm sorry about earlier. What I said about Becca being dead, well, I shouldn't have mentioned it. I should have held out hope that she'd be alive."
Hailey waved me off. "No, you were right to question me. I was not thinking straight. What you said to me earlier, it made me realize that I was letting my past cloud my judgement. I just want to get back to being the cop I was when I first joined the unit."
I smiled lightly. "Well, I have been told that after Kim, I am the cop that sticks to the rules the most, so I think I could help you out. And of course, Jay would want in since he's your partner. I promise to help you get through this, Hailey. And that's a promise I intend on keeping."