Erin took a slow deep breath, raised her gun in front of her, then nodded at Jay. He nodded back then kicked in the rusted front door.
"Chicago PD!" She boomed as she moved with precision through the door and down the narrow hall. The stench of urine and cigarettes filled her nose but she shut them out, focusing on assessing the hallway for threats. The floor was littered with garbage, dirty clothes, and half empty food containers. A movement caught her eye on the floor and Erin pointed her gun in the direction it came from. A scraggly rat leapt out from its hiding place and scurried past her. She refocused on the doorway ahead.
She felt Jay fall in behind her as they stepped carefully through the debris. They moved in sync towards the dimly lit doorway. They could here whimpering.
"Chicago PD!" Jay called.
"Don't come in here or I'll kill her," a man's voice called out.
Erin moved to one side of the door frame and tried to peak around it while keeping her body tucked out of sight. She caught sight of a man, mid thirties, long dark hair, five ten, about two hundred pounds. He was definitely their suspect. The man had his back pressed to the wall and held a petite woman dressed in a frayed bathrobe against him, her hair was dirty, she looked like she hadn't slept in days and she had bruising up the inside of both arms. She was crying and whimpering. Erin suspected she was coming down off some kind of high. The man held a gun to the woman's head.
"Christopher James," Erin called.
"Get out of here or I kill her," James shouted.
Erin glanced at Jay to see if he was on the same train of thought as her and he nodded his agreement, moving back in behind her. In the six months they'd been living together they'd only become more in tune with each other. Erin took a step into the room.
"Put the gun down James," Erin commanded.
"I'll kill her," he shouted.
"Then I'll kill you. Let her go and everyone walks out of here," she countered.
"Yeah with me in cuffs," James scoffed.
"Well what do you expect after what you've done," Erin said, trying to keep her voice even.
"You don't know shit. You got shit on me," he spit at her.
"We have security footage of you dumping the body James," Jay said, almost sounding bored. They didn't want to rile him up further.
A movement out the side window caught the suspects eye. Jay and Erin saw it too and Jay moved to get a better view.
"Uniforms," he said quietly to Erin but James had seen them as well and became more antsy.
"Tell them to back off or I kill her," James threatened, tightening his hold on the woman.
"No please," the woman whimpered. James pushed his gun harder into her head.
"Shut up Stacey," he threatened her. She only whimpered more.
"Easy James," Erin soothed. "Don't make things worse for yourself."
A flash of metal sent a burst of light though the room. Erin glanced at the window, the uniforms were now up on the back deck approaching them and looking for sight lines. The sunlight was reflecting off them and into the room.
James freaked out, screamed at them to stop. Erin tried to calm him while Jay radioed for the uniforms to stop their approach. James' adrenalin escalated further. Erin focused her gun on James head and watched his body language. She felt Jay shift to gain a better position on James. They continued to try and negotiate with him. They needed him alive to help their case. The woman screamed, sending James over the edge and he pulled the trigger. A loud crack filled the room followed immediately by a second one from Jay's gun. James body recoiled back from the force of the bullet cutting through his shoulder. His hostage fell to the ground. The uniformed officers burst into the room, firing at James, despite Jay shouting for them to hold their fire. James fell to the ground. Jay approached James while Erin covered him. Jay kicked James gun away and checked for a pulse. He shook his head no at Erin before waving the uniforms in.
"Both gone," he said to them. "Secure the rest of the house." He barked, unimpressed with the way the situation had unfolded.
"Yes sir."
"You good?" Jay asked, walking towards Erin as she lowered her gun.
"Yeah, not how I wanted this to go down," she sighed.
"Me either," he said, regret filling his voice.
"Detectives! You're gonna wanna see this," one of the officers called.
Erin and Jay quickly followed the sound of the officer's voice down the basement. It was dark, damp and cold and just as littered with filth as the rest of the house. They both pulled out their flashlights and moved towards the officer. He nodded at them and pointed to the far corner.
"She won't come out," the officer said softly.
Erin followed the beam of light with her eyes. There in the corner amongst boxes and bags, a small child was huddled on an old dirty mattress. They had been expecting the woman in the house, she'd been identified as James girlfriend but this child was a complete surprise. Erin looked back at Jay before pocketing her flashlight and slowly approached the child. She crouched down in front of her.
"Hey sweetie, I'm a police officer. My name is Erin. I know you're scared but I promise you're safe now. What's your name?" Erin gently coaxed the little girl.
"Lily," she barely whispered.
The girl sat shivering with her arms wrapped around her knees, eyes clouded with fear. Erin took off her sweater and wrapped it around the girl's shoulders, being careful to move slowly so as not to startle the girl.
"That's a pretty name. How old are you Lily,"
"Five," she murmured.
Erin continued to speak softly to the little girl until finally she reached out her hand to take Erin's. As soon as the girl stood her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted. Erin quickly moved to catch her before the girl's head hit the concrete floor.
Jay shouted up for the emt's that were tending to the bodies upstairs to come down. They quickly assessed the girl and loaded her into the ambulance. With the rest of the team now on site Voight allowed Jay and Erin to follow the girl to the hospital. There was a chance she may have seen something that could help their case.
When they arrived at the hospital Maggie directed them to the waiting area. "Nat's just assessing her now. I'll let her know you're waiting for an update," they both thanked her and went to find a seat.
/
"What about this one?" Erin asked, showing Jay a picture on her phone.
"Really? You like that?" He scoffed.
"What's wrong with it?"
"It's so, I don't know, fussy." He scrunched up his face in disgust.
"It's elegant," she countered.
"Yeah like I said, fussy." He laughed.
Erin rolled her eyes. "We have to make a decision."
"Why? What's wrong with the one we have?"
Erin just stared at him.
"I mean the one we have works. Why spend the money on a new one?" Jay asked dismissively. But he couldn't completely hide the teasing smile that threatened to spread across his face.
"Funny, when I said that about the sixty inch tv you wanted to buy six months ago..."
"That was different," Jay stated plainly, interrupting her.
"How?" Erin turned to look at him accusingly.
"We use the tv. Everyday," he said with a smile, remembering how she'd put up a fight about the new tv until he'd spent the night teasing and pleasuring her body until she said yes. Maybe he'd get lucky and she'd turn that tactic on him. His smile widened.
"Listen freckles," Erin began in mock seriousness, but Dr. Manning walked in, motioning for them to join her. Jay cringed. He was still pissed at his brother for telling Erin about that nickname and he hoped Natalie hadn't heard Erin use it.
"How is she?" Erin asked.
"Dehydrated. Malnourished. There's some signs of old injuries. I'd say she's had it pretty rough. A couple things on her blood work I didn't like so I've ordered more tests. We should know more tomorrow." Natalie informed them.
Erin's blood boiled. Nothing set her off faster than people who hurt kids. "Can we talk to her?"
"No. She's still unconscious. I doubt she will wake before morning. Why don't you head home and come back then. I'll have more to tell you by then." Natalie suggested.
"Ok Nat, thanks." Jay nodded.
"Any word on any family?" Natalie asked.
"Not yet. Mouse texted me awhile ago. He did some digging and we haven't been able to locate any relatives. Mouse said he wasn't able to find a birth certificate for her either," Jay explained.
"Alright, well, let us know if you locate any next of kin, in the meantime we've contacted DCFS."
Erin and Jay nodded and said their good byes.
After heading back to the district to work what was left of their case for a few more hours now that their prime lead was dead, Hank sent the team home.
"Do you think they kidnapped her? I mean James had his hand in all kinds of pies," Erin asked, concerned, on the drive home. They still hadn't located any of Lily's relatives and they were beginning to suspect that perhaps she wasn't Stacey or Christopher James child.
"Maybe? Mouse said he'd run her description through the missing persons database. And we got the okay to run DNA on both Christopher and Stacey. Hopefully tomorrow she can tell us more about herself. And maybe we'll get lucky and she'll know something about what James was up to. We gotta catch these guys before anyone else gets dumped in the river." Jay answered.
"Yeah," Erin said, distractedly.
Jay looked over at her and smiled softly. He could practically read her mind. Kids like this always tugged on her heart strings and she'd do whatever she could to help this kid.
"We won't let anything else bad happen to her Erin," Jay reassured her.
She smiled wearily. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm exhausted."
"I know. Me too," Jay stretched his hand across the centre console and squeezed her leg. "You want to pick up take out?" He offered.
Erin nodded. They stopped and grabbed food before heading up to their condo. Erin sighed with satisfaction when they came through the door. She was glad to be home. She kicked off her boots and headed towards their room.
"I'm gonna grab a quick shower before we eat," Erin offered over her shoulder.
Jay stared down at Erin's discarded boots that had mostly made it onto the boot mat. He fought the urge to straighten them in line with all the other shoes lined up neatly there. The sight took him back four months.....
Two months after moving in together they'd had their first blow out. Jay had tripped over her boots for the third time that week and had finally snapped. He was convinced she did it deliberately to push his buttons.
"Damn it Erin, you're gonna kill someone. Do you have to be such a mess? How hard is it to put the boots on the mat?" He'd vented in frustration.
One look at Erin's face and he instantly regretted it. He watched hurt morph to anger on her face.
"Maybe you should stop being such a compulsive neat freak," she barked at him. "Maybe I'm a grown woman and can put my boots any damn where I please. And don't even bring up the bathroom again. The world isn't gonna end just because I didn't stand my boots up or put my eye liner away Jay. We're not in the army. You say I'm the one with control issues? Maybe it's you. Maybe you should just get over yourself and stop trying to change me."
She'd stomped off to their room and slammed the door. Jay stood blinking at the empty space where she'd been. Sure he'd seen Erin's anger before, he watch suspects cave like babies after one of her tongue lashings. But he'd never been on the receiving end and he was at a loss as to what to do next.
He wasn't being unreasonable. Was it so hard to put your shoes on the mat? How would she feel if he actually tripped and broke something? And why couldn't she keep the bathroom counter clean? He needed to use that space too. He was not compulsive! He was not going to let her throw this in his face like it was his issue.
He decided to give her some space to cool down so they could discuss things rationally. When eleven o'clock came and went and Erin still hadn't emerged Jay decided to go check on her. He'd slowly opened the door to find the room dark. He heard Erin's soft breathing and realized she'd long since gone to sleep. He knew waking her would just make her even grumpier so he'd quietly discarded his clothes in the hamper and carefully climbed into bed beside her.
She hadn't spoken to him for two days after that. She'd left early for work and managed to find excuses to partner up with other members of the unit. She came home late, clad in sweaty workout clothes, deliberately putting her boots in the middle of the hall floor and walked straight past him to their room at night despite his attempt to make conversation. It further enraged him but he kept silent. Finally he couldn't take the childish silent treatment any longer and decided to have it out with her.
On the next evening Jay jumped up as soon as he heard Erin's key in the door and stood in the front hall making it so she couldn't pass him. She'd been startled by him standing there when she opened the door and almost dropped the bags she was carrying. Instinctively Jay reached out to help her.
"Thanks," she muttered.
"Of course," he replied. "What's this?" He asked referring to the bags of hot food.
"A peace offering," she shrugged at his raised eyebrow. They stared at each other for a moment before Erin sighed. "I may have over reacted," she confessed, staring at the floor.
All the fight went out of Jay at her pseudo apology.
"I maybe could have found a nicer way to say something," Jay conceded.
Erin looked at the boots on the floor. "Maybe I can try not to kill you with my boots."
Jay smiled. "And maybe you could keep your stuff on your side of the bathroom counter?" He offered tentatively.
She smiled back, "Maybe."
"I don't want to change you Erin. I just don't want to break my neck."
"Maybe you should look where you're walking then," she'd said with a cheeky grin, letting him know she was trying to lighten the mood and move past this.....
Jay smiled now at the memory of the make up sex they'd had that night and gently nudged Erin's boots to the side. She had made an effort since then not to kill him with her boots and her makeup mostly stayed on her side of the bathroom counter since then. He wouldn't let this get under his skin. He knew tonight she was too distracted by their little mystery girl who lay unconscious in the hospital.