CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE,
ring
ARIELLA COULD HEAR HER heart beating in her ears as she ran down the hallway of the hospital. There was yellow tape up and a group of officers, including Kim and Roman, standing next to the body, "Ross McCadden." Kim read all their minds as they stared at the white sheet covering the body in shock, "Six years on the job."
Adam ran a hand across his face, "He was my homeroom instructor at the academy." He informed them, "We were really good friends. I just talked to him." He took a breath and closed his eyes, "Somebody tell Jenny? Has his wife been notified, or..."
"Yeah. Street deputy and peer support team went to their house." Roman answered.
Ariella looked up at Antonio, who nodded. While Al and Kevin stepped into the hospital room where the intended target was now laying dead in his own hospital bed, Ariella an Antonio stepped away, quickly finding the security office in the hospital.
The security officer pulled up the footage and the two of them watched as McCadden was sat in a chair, standing in front of the other victim's room. McCadden stood up, his back to the shooter. He was completely unaware of the shooter, which gave the shooter the perfect opportunity to walk up and shoot him in the head.
"He never saw it coming." Antonio thought out loud.
"Horrible. Just... Horrible." The security officer shook his head. The video continued and showed the shooter walking into the hospital room and shot three times then walked out.
"Can you freeze that image?" Ariella asked. He froze the image, "Is this the only angle you have?"
"Yeah, that's it." The man nodded.
"All right, can you print this out please?" The man nodded at her request.
"Not a lot to go on. Sorry." He sounded sincere.
"We've started with less." Antonio sighed, keeping his eyes on the man frozen on the screen.
The door opened, and both Ariella and Antonio turned around to see who it was, "Hey." Adam greeted, "Voight's in the air on his way back from New York, wants everybody to meet at the district, two hours." He instructed.
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Two hours later, all of them were congregated in the bullpen, including the two detectives who had flown back to Chicago with Voight, Erin, and Jay, "All right, you all remember Detective Rollins, New York Special Victims." Amanda looked around and nodded, "This is Detective Amaro. They have full jurisdictional powers here. And together... We're gonna end this." Voight stated.
"All right, this pedophile ring, they're desperate, well-connected, and clearly they'll do anything to avoid being exposed. We found the body in New York, but the head of the snake is here in Chicago." Voight explained.
"Okay, so, Bob Clinton, he is our middleman from New York." Amanda stepped in, pointing to one of the pictures on the board, "Now, NCMEC tells us that he was getting victims from a youth center in Times Square. Now, a lot of the kids were actually funneled to New York from here in Chicago, and according to our talks with Clinton, there is a higher-up, a true shot-caller."
"Now, Clinton was gonna give us a name, but he didn't make it 24 hours in jail. Was shanked in the showers." Amaro added.
"We like Lewellen... for financing this whole thing. Ariella, Antonio, where we at with the shooter?" Voight looked over to the pair.
"Not much. Due to the poor quality, no matches in the face recognition database." Ariella shrugged.
"Best we got is male, white, around 5'9", dark hair, 170 pounds, give or take," Antonio added.
"So, patrol, you turn over every stone you can to get an I.D. on this guy." Voight looked over to Roman and Kim, who were standing toward the back of the bullpen.
"You got it, Sergeant." Kim nodded.
"Ruzek, Lewellen himself, where we at with that?"
"Got to all his main accounts. Nothing stood out except for payments to a Oakbrook Senior Community, Western suburbs. Comes in at, like, $5k a month." Adam explained.
"And that's relevant how?" Al posed a good question.
"Lewellen has no living relatives," Adam added.
"All right, Ruzek and Amaro, go check out this home," Voight instructed.
Adam grabbed his jacket and Amaro was ready to follow his lead when Trudy walked up the stairs, a solemn look on her face, "Some black badge covers in honor of Officer McCadden." She handed the badge covers to Nadia, who began passing them out to everyone.
"Ross was a husband and a father and one of my patrolmen. I assigned him to that hospital protection detail. He was supposed to be off the clock, but he needed the overtime for his daughter's tuition. So when you find the animal that killed him, and for whatever reason that animal doesn't come back alive, you call me. I'll dig the ditch." She said.
Ariella slipped the badge cover onto her badge and sighed, "All right. Let's hit it."
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"Sergeant?" Nadia stood up from her desk with a piece of paper in her hands. After Adam called from the Senior home with a name, she got right to work.
"Yeah." Voight walked out of his office.
"Matilda Hughes is an employee for the Department of Children and Family Services." She handed over the piece of paper, letting him read over it as she continued, "I spoke with her boss. She's not at the office, and she's not answering her cell. This is her home address." She pointed.
"Beautiful." He nodded.
"On it." Jay grabbed his jacket, and wordlessly, Voight looked over to Ariella, who quickly got the message and grabbed her own jacket.
"No pets. Always pays the rent on time. Nice lady." Matilda's landlord told Jay and Ariella as he walked them down to Matilda's apartment.
"When's the last time you saw her?" Jay asked.
"Maybe three days ago." They both reached for their guns, "Maybe she's just of town." He suggested.
"Let's find out." Ariella nodded, and he made quick work of unlocking the door, "Stay here." She told the landlord.
"Matilda Hughes! Chicago police!" Jay shouted as he checked the first bedroom,
"Clear."
"Clear," Ariella announced before they both made their way into the living room. Once they got there, they slowly lowered their weapons once they saw Matilda Hughes laying dead on the carpet, a bullet hole in her cheek.
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The crime scene crew was wiping the whole apartment for anything, "So?" Voight walked into the apartment, hands in his pockets.
"Couldn't find any other evidence linking her to Andrew Lewellen. Her computer and cell are missing." Ariella informed him.
"How long was she working at DCFS?" He asked.
"15 years," Jay answered.
"And how long was Lewellen paying for her mom at the home?" Voight asked.
"Almost as long,"
"So she was funneling kids to New York through DCFS." Ariella thought out loud.
"I think that's the theory to beat right now, yeah." Voight nodded.
"She's not the shot-caller, though. Lindsay's brother Teddy said it was a white male that was in charge." Jay added.
"This is gonna end bad, I just know it." Ariella sighed.
"I'm getting everyone else over to her office at Child Services. We need to turn this place inside-out." Ariella and Jay snapped their gloves off and followed him out of the apartment.
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"All right, DCFS employee funnels kids to foster parent, who, with the financial help of Lewellen, funnels kids to New York, where this guy photographs and organizes the abuse. Now, is this hired muscle? The man in charge?" Jay pointed to all the pictures on the board as he spoke.
"Well, we're still looking for Amy Kleinpass and Chris Sepka, believed to be abducted." Amaro handed the files around of the two missing kids who were in the care of one of the foster "parents".
"These are all the people that are in Matilda's office. Already interviewed about half of them, but none of them had a clue what she was up to." Kevin shrugged.
"What about the guy Matilda was seeing? Gary Miller." Voight asked.
"Nothing. i got her phone records and there's no ingoing or outgoing to a Gary Miller at all. I checked her cloud, too, and there's nothing."
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Jay, Amaro, Adam, Al, and Voight chased down the shooter from the hospital while everyone else suited up to break down the door of a different house, one they all hoped Chris and Amy would be in, "Breach the house."
"Chicago P.D.!" Kevin shouted, kicking the door in and they all followed him in. They made their way up the stairs to the second floor of the house.
"It's clear," Kevin whispered, following them up the stairs after cleaning the first floor.
"Okay." Antonio nodded, "Hit it." He nodded to the last door in the hallway with a lock on it. Ariella took the hammer out of the pack on his back and handed it to him.
"Chicago P.D.! Anybody in there?" Kevin shouted.
"Help!" They heard a little girl shout from inside.
"Hit it!" Antonio shouted, and Kevin wasted no time in breaking the lock off.
They all rushed into the room and went in different directions, but it didn't take long for them to find Amy tied to a chair with zip ties on her hands, "Amy?" The girl nodded, "Okay, darling... Listen, you're gonna be all right, okay? It's okay." Rollins reassured her.
"Get a box cutter." Erin bent down next to her as she spoke to Kevin, "Hey, we're gonna get these off you, okay? We're the police; You're okay." She reassured and she seemed to ease
"Amy, honey, is Chris Sepka here?" Ariella asked, bending down to her level.
"They took him yesterday," Amy responded.
"Who's they?" Ariella asked.
"The guy that lives here, the big guy. You've got to get him. He's really mean." She panicked.
"We got him, okay?" Erin nodded as Kevin walked back into the room with a pair of boxcutters.
"Just hold still for me, okay?" Kevin quickly cut the ties, "There we go."
"All right, let me see." Erin winced as she saw the red marks on Amy's wrists from where the ties had been, "You okay? It's okay. Oh..." Erin was startled when Amy lept from the chair and into her arms, "It's okay; You're safe. It's okay. You're okay." She did her best to comfort her.
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"Hey, guys." Erin walked up the stairs, Teddy beside her, "This is Teddy." She introduced, "I'm gonna catch my boss up to speed, all right? You can take my desk and I guess, if you need anything, you can ask Ariella." She pointed over to Ariella, who smiled and waved.
He nodded and waved back, looking stiff and nervous as he took a seat at Erin's desk, "How's it going, Teddy?" Jay asked.
"Oh, you know..." He shrugged. Jay took at his own desk and Teddy's eyes drifted around the room before they landed on the board with all the pictures, "Oh, my God." His eyes went wide.
"What is it?" Ariella asked as they all followed his line of sight to the board. He stood up and made his way to the board, all of them looming over him.
"That's him." He pointed to a picture on the board, "That's the guy who's in charge."
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After Teddy's positive identification, they were able to arrest the boss at DCFS who had been the shot-caller of everything, and someone they had interviewed before. He had then given up the location of where Chris was. True to his word, they found Chris in the basement of the house laying on a dingy bed.
As they drove back to the precinct, Adam's phone dinged, "McCadden's wife and kid are here." He announced. As they pulled up, there were lines of cops standing outside in lines. They got out and made their way to the front.
"Hey." All of them got in line. When Platt opened the door and saw everyone lined up, she looked about ready to cry.
"Attention!" Platt shouted and they all straightened up, "Present...Arms!" They all saluted. The officer's wife walked down the path of officers to the car and immediately hugged Adam, who opened the car door and escorted both her and her daughter inside, "Order...Arms!" They all dropped their arms as the car drove down the street.
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"We're going for drinks, you guys in?" Jay asked Ariella and Antonio as they all packed up and got ready to leave.
They shared a look before smiling, "I think we'll pass, but thanks." Ariella shook her head.
"You sure? Ruzek's buying." He offered.
"Raincheck?" She offered, "I think we just want to go home and hug Luca." Jay nodded.
"See you guys tomorrow." He grabbed his jacket and left with the rest of the guys who were heading to the bar. Ariella sighed as she slipped her jacket on.
"You okay?" Antonio asked.
"Just really wanna go home." She grabbed her bag and grabbed his hand.
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note.
i know, i skipped an episode. there are just some episodes i don't want to write, i can't explain it. anyways, i hope you enjoyed! and i will see you soon my loves 💕💕
SHOW: chicago pd:
season two, episode seven
"they'll have to go through me"
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