Lives in the Balance

Hank Voight walked into the station and made a beeline for the front desk, pocketing his cell phone. "Trudy, I need to borrow your phone a minute."

His desk sergeant pushed the landline phone towards him and said with a 'by all means' shrug, "Go right ahead, Hank."

Hank picked up the receiver and dialed a number and listened to the repetitive ringing. Grumbling to himself, he put the receiver down, "Busy."

"Hank, did you hear what happened?" Trudy asked him.

This was never good. "What?"

Trudy leaned over her side of the desk and told him, "Olinsky helped a couple patrolmen catch some lunatic terrorizing passersby on the way to work this morning."

"No kidding," Hank said in a somewhat amused tone, "Good for him."

"Yeah," Trudy replied, "They got jammed up on the way in but they should be here any minute."

"So what exactly was this guy doing to scare everyone?" Voight asked her.

Trudy just opened her mouth to answer when her eyes widened and looked to the entrance, Voight turned around and saw Olinsky coming in ahead of the patrolmen, carrying a hockey stick in one hand and a cheap Halloween costume hockey mask in the other, while they wrestled in a guy who looked like he hadn't bathed since last Halloween, and it'd probably been as long since he shaved.

Voight eyed these two items skeptically and in a nonchalant tone asked his friend and partner, "Taking up hockey?"

Alvin inhaled and exhaled slowly and shot Voight an irritated look and told him simply, "This city just keeps getting weirder. At this rate we're going to outdo New York."

"Yeah?" Voight asked, eyeing the hockey stick again, and in a simultaneously deadpan and cynical tone he added, "If this keeps up we might have to call in the Ninja Turtles."

Olinsky turned to one of the patrolmen and handed him the two items and told him, "Get this into evidence, and get that fruitcake locked up already."

Nothing could ever get Voight to involuntarily crack a smile, though this little incident came close, and he turned to Trudy and told her, "There are some days I love this job…" he looked back and added, "Others not so much."

Trudy cracked a smile at his comment, and told him, "I'll see you around, Hank."

Voight merely nodded as he headed to scan in for upstairs.

Voight less than subtly slammed the receiver back down on the phone. He'd tried calling the same phone number five times already, and it was too early in the morning for there to be a logical explanation for there being no answer any of those times.

There was a knock on his door though Erin was already standing in the entranceway.

"Hey," she said.

He looked up at the woman he regarded as his surrogate daughter and responded, "Everything okay?"

The corners of Erin's mouth slowly turned up in a forced half smile and she replied, "Just fine…you?"

He offered a slightly less forced smile in return and told her, "I'm starting to reconsider my position on if paranoia is ever unjustified."

The half smile dropped from Erin's face and she asked him, "What's the matter?"

Voight leaned back in his chair and said to her, "You remember my friend, Paul Lynch, remember a while back I had to go chasing his granddaughter around New York City?"

Erin nodded. "Yeah, what about it?"

"I've been trying to call Paul all morning and there's no answer," Voight told her, "The granddaughter's still staying with him, her boyfriend too last I understood, somebody's always at the house."

Erin was already considering what this likely meant and it wasn't good, she asked Voight, "Want some backup?"

"Yeah," Hank answered as he got up, "I don't want to take all of Intelligence out on something that might just happen to be a wild goose chase. I'll get Olinsky and we'll move out."

Two squad cars pulled up outside of Paul Lynch's two story home. The block was already a pretty empty one as it was, half the houses on the street were vacant and had been for years, there wasn't anyone around to tell them what was happening. Voight, Olinsky and Lindsay stepped out in their vests, guns drawn, and assessed the situation.

"Car's here," Voight called from the driveway.

Alvin looked up to the front porch for any signs of trouble and called back, "Door's open!"

The three people from Intelligence cautiously made their way up the stairs and showed themselves in, ready for anything, or so they hoped. Entering the hallway, Voight looked up the stairs but didn't see anything, he pivoted around with his gun drawn and checked each side of the hall before advancing to the dining room. From there he was able to see into the living room and saw two people on the floor, bound and gagged and unmoving.

"In here!" he called to the others, and he lowered his gun and stepped in and saw that it was his friend, Paul Lynch, a man in his early 60s, and his granddaughter Jackie's 19-year-old boyfriend, Roger Murdock. Both men had been forced face down and had their hands tied behind their backs, their feet tied together, and their mouths taped shut.

Alvin and Erin entered the dining room and saw what Voight saw, they put their guns away momentarily and helped him get the two men untied. Voight rolled Paul on his back and ripped the tape off his mouth, the older man slowly took in a breath and blinked his eyes.

"What happened, Paul?" Voight asked him.

There was no way to tell how long they'd been like this, but Voight's friend was notably dazed from the attack and was slow in responding, when he finally did he just answered with a weak shake of his head, "I don't know."

Alvin jerked the tape off Roger's mouth and was in the process of untying the boy's wrists, but he wasn't talking either.

"Paul," Voight looked at his friend of many years and asked him, "Where's Jackie?"

The grandfather just continued to shake his head and reiterated, "I don't know."

Alvin rolled Roger onto his back and tapped his face to get his attention and said to him, "Who did this?"

Roger just shook his head, his eyes wide in horror as he recalled, "I don't know, they just busted in here."

Voight hovered over Roger and asked him, "Where's Jackie, Roger?"

The 19-year-old slowly shook his head and told them in a horrified tone, "They got her."

"Erin," Voight got to his feet, "Stay with them and call in an ambo," he turned to Olinsky and told him, "Let's check the rest of the house."

"Right," Lindsay answered and reached for her radio to get help.

Voight and Olinsky drew their guns again and made a quick sweep of the rest of the downstairs before clearing it and they headed for the stairs. Voight seldom lost his cool but he was already seeing red and he just wanted an excuse to pull the trigger on whoever was behind this. Upstairs the two men split up and took opposite ends of the hall, Voight pulled open the door at the end and saw it was the bathroom and saw that it has been the scene of a struggle based on the still full bathtub of now freezing cold water and the large splash patterns left on the linoleum that seemed consistent with a body being dragged out of the tub against its will.

Olinsky came to a closed door and tried the knob and found it was unlocked, and actually, just barely ajar, he threw the door halfway open and in a split second made out somebody in the room who turned and had something in hand and threw it towards him. He pulled the door shut again just in time to hear something shatter against it.

"Hank!" he called down the hall.

Voight spun on his heel and headed towards him, "You find her?"

"I think so," Alvin replied as he moved beside the door.

"Jackie!" Voight was across the hall in two strides and heard the sound of something else breaking behind the door, "It's Hank Voight, either open the door or I kick."

The sounds coming from the other side of the door suggested in no way that the 19-year-old girl was intent on doing what she'd been told.

"Cover me," Voight told Olinsky.

"You got it," Alvin replied.

Voight kicked the door in and charged Jackie and tackled her and pinned her to the bed. The girl that Voight had known for practically her whole life, had a wild look in her eyes like she didn't recognize him, and was making a bunch of animalistic grunts and growls and tried to fight him off of her. It was then while she was writhing around underneath him that Voight realized she was naked, not the first time he'd seen her like that, but this was a new one on him. He reached over and grabbed an extra sheet that was cast aside on the bed and covered her with it. By now some of the fight was starting to leave Jackie though she still put up a struggle against Voight, who kept part of his weight pinned against her to make sure she didn't get loose. She was still in a state that she might hurt herself or someone else, and Hank voted for neither if it could be helped.

"Ambo's on the way," Alvin stepped into the room and told him.

"Good," Voight replied without turning to look at his partner, "I think we're going to have to get all of them tested to see if they've been drugged."

Jackie resisted less against Voight now but she still didn't make any sign of recognizing him, instead she was breathing hard and heavy, in a couple minutes she'd likely work herself up into a case of hyperventilation. Voight stared straight into her eyes as they glazed over and there was suddenly a hint of recognition in them.

"Voight?" she weakly asked.

Hank offered a small, albeit grim smile, and raised one hand to lightly stroke her head and told her, "It's alright, Jackie, it's going to be alright."

Off in the distance they could hear the sound of approaching sirens. Hopefully now they could get some answers about what had taken place there this morning, though Hank could already tell he wasn't going to like any of them.