✯Season 4, Episode 13✯
Gloria Burgess looks around the center she works and lives at. Helping these girls has given Gloria the lift purpose she's been looking for since she was young. While her younger sister Kim was able to find her way within the CPD and Nicole has her family that she cares for, Gloria had turned on a completely different path.
Despite a good childhood, Gloria turned to drugs and drinking after spending years being compared to her sisters. No matter how good she did in school or how many activities and sports she participated in, nothing was as good as Nicole or Kim.
After years of not talking with her family, Gloria is now working with troubled teenage girls who are in worse spots in their formative years than she ever was. She'll do anything to protect as many of them as she can. Anything.
"Hey, where's Sam?" Gloria asks one of the girls, Tonya.
"Taken care of," Tonya tells her, "I have a client waiting for you, one of Sam's regulars."
Gloria sighs, nodding, "I've got it. Do your homework before you lose phone privileges."
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"Reminder: today let's strive to be aware of even the smallest choices we make. If we choose to make better choices, we will have a better life," Is heard over the loudspeaker the next day as Gloria watches over some of the girls during class.
"Gloria? This is Ryan. Ryan, Gloria. Gloria is your supervisor, she'll take you around, tell you how not to get fired and maybe make a difference," Michael introduces the two.
"Okay, cool," Ryan nods, shaking Gloria's hand.
She looks to Vince to handle the rest of class before she addresses Ryan, "Follow me, I'll talk as we go."
"All right."
Gloria fixes a poster as they walk, "Where are you coming from before this?"
He almost mimics Gloria as he fixes a crooked picture, "Graveyard shift at my uncle's auto lot."
"How'd you end up here then?"
"He's on the board here. He figured me smoking pot and banging his secretary in used station wagons no longer counted as work," Ryan tells her, setting off alarm bells in her head as she studies him.
"Right. So this floor is mainly classrooms. We've got 72 residents right now. Age ranges from 12 to 17. Most girls are here about a year while they figure out the medications and therapy that work for them, they get transferred to a lower level placement," She looks into one of the day rooms, "This is one of our day rooms. It's got a time out room attached. The cafeteria, therapy, medication rooms, all upstairs with the dorms."
"Okay, got it," He nods while a few of the girls walk out of a classroom.
"Who's this boy scout?" Tonya asks.
Gloria shakes her head, "Tonya, where are we supposed to be?"
She ignores Gloria, "This should be fun to watch."
"The answer is study hall. Now," Gloria steadies her with a glare.
"Yes, ma'am," Tonya sasses before her and the other two walk away.
Gloria looks to Ryan, "You'll get used to that. Every minute of their day is scheduled, lean into the structure. Bad days and things happen in down time."
He nods, "Right, right."
Sighing, Gloria nods down the hall, "Let's head to the cafeteria. The food's....edible."
Ryan snorts, "That's better than what my high school cafeteria was like."
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Gloria spots Michael talking to two uniformed officers, probably about Sam when she's on her way up to the dorms for a quick rounds.
"All staff report to a fight in the cafeteria immediately."
Turning around, Gloria sprints back to the cafeteria where there's yelling when she spots Ryan, "Know restraints?"
He scoffs, "No."
"Improvise," Before turning on her heel and moving to seperate as many girls as possible.
When she sees the girls are still moving towards each other, she puts two her fingers to her mouth and whistles, causing everyone of them to look at her, "Anyone who makes another move gets docked. Settle down, now!"
All except for Ellie seem to calm down, so her and Ryan move Ellie into one of the isolation rooms where Ellie can hit the walls or the floor without doing too much damage.
"Let me out! Let me out!" Ellie screams as she hits the wall.
"Ellie, you know I can't do that until we settle down," Gloria speaks in a calm voice, "If we need to leave-"
Ellie starts advancing towards Gloria but Ryan holds an arm out in front of her and pushes Ellie back, "That's not gonna work."
She screams again and heads toward Ryan before he holds her, "Hey, Ellie," Gloria moves so she's face to face with Ellie, "Do I need to get a nurse?"
When Ellie doesn't clam down, Gloria looks to Ryan, "I'm getting a nurse."
Seeing Nurse Gretchen in the hall, Gloria waves them over before entering the room again where Ryan's against the wall and Ellie's looking at him like prey, "Let's go Ellie. Move. Come on, you know I'm trying to help you."
Ellie studies her for a second before nodding and leaving with Gretchen. Ryan leaves the room before Gloria spots a card on the floor. Picking it up, she reads Detective Jay Halstead, Intelligence Unit, 21st District. Ryan's a cop?
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During her break, Gloria makes her way into the 21st District and up to the front desk, "Hi, I need to speak with Detective Jay Halstead? I have information on Sam Wells."
The Desk Sergeant looks up, "I'll lead you up there," Before heading to the set of stairs on Gloria's right and buzzing in, "Halstead, someone here with information on the case."
Jay's face almost pales when he sees who it is, "Glo-"
"Gloria?" Kim asks from Gloria's right, "Wh-what are you doing here?"
"How do you know her?" A raspy male voice asks Kim.
"She's my older sister."
"Yeah, I also work at Brady's. Same place Ryan dropped his actual card today," Gloria holds out Jay's business card, "Now, want to tell me what the hell's going on."
The raspy male turns to her, "You can tell me why one of the girls in your care tried prostituting herself to one of the men she thought was an employee there like it was common practice?"
Gloria looks to Jay, "Ellie came onto you? When I was getting Gretchen?"
He nods, "Yeah. She said it was standard practice. Gloria, I saw you in action with the girls today. You are the only one they listen to. Like, actually listen. What happened to Sam?"
Looking to the side, Gloria sees Sam's picture up on the whiteboard, along with information about the drugs that were found in her system and time of death, "I-look, these girls trust me. I do any and everything to protect them. They all know they just need to say a word and I'm there. I can't break that trust."
"A girl's dead," A woman sitting at a desk with the name plate Erin Lindsay tells her.
"I know. Trust me, I know I failed. However, there are 70 other girls that I am trying to help. Girls who aren't trading favors but are actually getting the help they need. If I break that trust, more than just Sam dies," Gloria tells them, shaking her head.
Kim tries reasoning with her sister, "Gloria, please. Sam needs you."
Gloria takes a deep breath, "I can't outright tell you without jeopardizing lives. However, I can make sure Jay's cover stays and he can find out for himself. I want this person to be caught. More than anybody. But if I snitch, they know that the best way to get me back is to hurt the other girls."
Hank, the man with the raspy voice goes to argue but Jay nods, "Deal."
"What?" Kim asks him.
"One of the girls was having a panic attack for 30 minutes today. Once Gloria showed up, she calmed down and was able to focus. She got smiles from a lot of the girls. If this is how we help everybody, then lets do it. What can you give us to start with?"
Gloria thinks back to the tour, "Look into everyone you met today, even briefly. You met the killer today. I've got to go, there's a 14 year old coming into detox and I need to be there."
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"What can you tell me about Vince?" Jay asks her as they stand in the cafeteria.
"He's no ringleader. I keep him watching over groups and not spending alone time with any girls. Trust me, who you're looking for is a lot more open about their opinions," Gloria tells him, "However, if you were to get him to admit to some things, I wouldn't mind seeing the bastard go to jail."
Jay almost smiles, "You've got an angry streak. You ever been in a place like this before?"
Gloria shakes her head, "Nah. By the time I needed a place like this, I was over the age of 18."
"From what Kim's said, you guys had a pretty good childhood."
"Kim was the baby of the family. Nicole, the oldest. I was the middle kid. Everything that went wrong, I got blamed or I wasn't succeeding like Kim or Nicole. I always had room to improve. That pressure got to me, and next thing I knew, I was working a corner and shooting up."
Jay looks at her, "How'd you stop all of that?"
Gloria looks down, thinking of what she does to keep most of the girls safe, "I do what I have to, not what I like," She spots Beatrice, one of the newer girls start to bang on the table, "Bea! Knock it off," On her way over to the girl.
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Gloria sees Michael stopping Voight and the others from the 21st from entering, so she opens the door, "Do what you need to."
Michael looks at her, "That's not your decision, Gloria."
"Michael, we both know it is," She lets the cops enter.
They line up the girls all along the walls and separate the staff. Gloria grabs Ellie and they head to the station when one of the girls yells, "Ellie! What'd you tell them, you stupid little bitch!"
"Hey, knock it off," Gloria tells her, "Everybody must comply with the cops. No room for arguing."
All the girls nod in understanding, trusting that Gloria is there to help them.
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Gloria sits next to Ellie in the interrogation room, acting as her guardian so she can talk to Jay and Hank.
Jay sits on the edge of the table as he looks to Ellie, "Hey, all you got to do is tell him what you told me."
"I, um...three nights ago, I was sleeping and I heard something. I knew Sam was out working, and I thought she must have gotten back early. So I went to check."
As Ellie hesitates, Gloria nods, "It's okay. Take your time. No one here is rushing you."
Ellie takes a breath, "We have to leave Brady through Tonya's dorm room. So I went there. I went to the back room, and there was blood. It was-the staff van was pulling into the drive. There was just so much blood."
"Did you see who was driving the van?" Voight asks.
"No, but I know who it was. She's been forcing us to keep most of the staff happy, to go out, forcing us to make money. Sam just couldn't handle it anymore, and she knew that. She knew Sam was gonna talk, she was going to talk to Gloria the next day, so she killed her."
Gloria tips her head back. If Sam had come to her and asked for an out, Gloria would've gone to the cops. The minute one of the girls asked for it all to stop, Gloria would make it stop.
"Who killed her?"
"Tonya. Tonya killed her," Ellie says.
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Sitting in the bullpen, Gloria messes with her phone, debating if they needed the extra evidence or if Tonya was dead to rights. Pulling up the messages between her and Tonya, Gloria looks up when Jay and Voight enter and everyone starts debriefing.
"Crime lab's been sweeping the entire facility. Olinsky and Burgess just tested with luminol. They found trace evidence of Sam's blood in Ellie's belongings."
"So what?" Jay asks, "That could be planted."
"There's also footage," Erin tells him, "Ellie goes into Tonya's room at seven pm. Doesn't come out until midnight, so she was in there for the time of death."
Gloria shakes her head, "No, no. I know Ellie and I know Tonya."
"Unless you can give us some evidence to the contrary, the evidence points to Ellie," Lindsay argues with her.
"There's a classroom that Tonya has unlimited access too. Behind a brick in the wall is a phone and all the money made. You'll know it's the right phone, because there will be a copy of these messages on it," Gloria hands the phone to Jay, "From Tonya to me."
Jay scrolls through the messages, "These are times, addresses, names. You were a working girl for Tonya?"
Gloria sighs, "Look, I'm the only female supervisor on staff with direct access to the girls 24/7. Tonya knew I was bound to find out so she approached me first. Said if I truly wanted to help the girls there, to protect them, all I needed to do was what I've always done. She then looked to a new comer, a 13 year old, and said, otherwise, I just move on to the other girls. Whenever I could, I'd take every single meet. Making sure that none of the girls were needed. However, there was a certain...audience that I didn't appeal too. I tried everything to make it so Tonya left them alone. Obviously not good enough. Does this help you?"
Jay looks to Voight before nodding, "Yeah. It does."
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Watching all the girls be moved out of Brady, Gloria sighs.
"What's your next plan?" Voight asks from behind as he moves to stand next to her.
"I don't know. If this has taught me anything, I'm truly only useful for one thing."
"That's not true. Halstead told us that he was impressed with how you truly helped and cared for all these girls. Ellie told us that she knew you'd stop it all. All they needed to do was say stop. We used to have this woman, Nadia, who worked as our civilian administrative assistant. We haven't filled that position yet. You start tomorrow."
Gloria looks to him, "I have a record."
"So do I."
She laughs, "Everybody's okay with it? A former prostitute who kept the identity of a killer from them?"
Voight smiles at her, "They knew you were protecting those girls. Kim advocated heavily for you. She knew that you were doing the best with the hand you were dealt. And Halstead, he sung your praises."
Gloria wipes a tear away, "Then I will see you tomorrow."
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AN: First chapter!! Yay! I wasn't sure how I was going to like this, but I do.
There wasn't much of Kim and Gloria interactions but there's still time for that.
QoC: What are you looking forward to the most?
Thank you for all of the votes and reads and comments!!