SO sorry for the delay, I've been away all week and just got back :)
ANYWAY, I have two chapters for you... And in advance, I apologise.
ffedeline - I don't like them together either, I think Casey's trying to tame her and Dawson's not that kind of girl. The sooner they break that up the better.
ybster45 - glad you're enjoying it!
To the Guest - Glad you liked that! It was nice writing it too :)
I'm hope you all like Jones in this, I'm absolutely gutted that they killed her off. She had so much potential and they made a huge mistake in my eyes. I don't think that it sends the right message to the people watching the show either.
So Rebecca Jones lives on in this and I'm going to develop what I think her character could have been. Hope everyone's cool with that.
I'll stop talking now.
...
Shay's Point of View:
"Baxter won't talk." Antonio tells me over the phone. I was in the locker room getting ready for my shift when he called to give me an update. It's been two days since They... We... I caught Baxter.
"What happens now?" I ask, dreading the answer.
"He won't get off; he's going down for possession and obstruction of justice. We'll have to find another way to get Gabby back."
"We can't just let him get away with this, Antonio. He's an accessory to kidnapping. Can't Voight beat information out of him or something?"
"Believe me, Leslie. He's been pounding him pretty hard. Baxter's just playing with us. He doesn't care what happens to him. You're the only person who got him to speak and it wasn't anything to go on." He explains.
I walk around the locker room, looking down each aisle of lockers, hoping that nobody managed to sneak in without me noticing.
"Then let me talk to him." I order.
"You know I can't do that." I hear Antonio say, "You're not a cop."
"No, but I got the bastard to speak before! Can't you just say that I'm helping you with a case?" I ask him. He's silent for a few moments.
"Alright, but nobody can know. Not Voight, not even Kelly Severide. I could get fired for this." Antonio says, "Meet me after your shift."
Suddenly, the door opens and of course, Matt Casey walks in. He looks like he wants to talk.
"Uh... Mom I have to go." I say suddenly. I don't want Casey to know that I'm helping Antonio. He'll try and help and he'll just slow me down. I don't even want him to know that I'm on the phone to him or he'll butt in.
"What?" I hear Antonio question. I can imagine the confusion on his face.
"Don't worry dad, I'll come by after work. I have to go now..." I say cryptically, hoping that Antonio would understand. Thankfully he does.
"Ah... Okay." He says, "Listen, I'll text you a place to meet. Text me when you get here."
"Okay, I will do. See you later." I smile at Casey whilst hanging up the phone.
"You didn't need to stop on my account." He says to me.
"It's fine." I tell him, "What's up?"
"I was just wondering if you've heard anything. Detective Lindsay said that they can't get anything out of Damian Baxter so it's back to the drawing board."
"That's what I heard, too." I nod, trying to act natural. "Back to the drawing board I guess."
He looks at me and frowns slightly as if he knows that I'm hiding something.
"How are you doing?" I ask to diffuse him.
"Okay, considering." He says with a nod of the head.
I smile at him and things get awkward.
"So I'm gonna go... Go find Rafferty and do Inventory."
"Okay, well let me know if you hear from Antonio. I want to help find my girl."
I roll my eyes at him as I walk past him. I hate how he refers to Gabby as 'his girl'. He says it like he owns her. She doesn't belong to him.
I run into Jones on my way to the ambo.
"How you doing?" She asks me.
"Great." I say bluntly.
"So have you found anything yet?"
"Nope." I lie.
"You can't lie to me." Suddenly, I feel myself being dragged into the gym and she's standing in front of me with a disbelieving look on her face.
"You can lie to Casey, Chief, hell, even yourself but Leslie, I can see through you big time." She smiles, "What have you found?"
So I explain everything to her. I tell her about the alias, Laila Mendez and how I'm interviewing Baxter after work... I wasn't expecting her reaction.
"I'm coming with you." She announces.
"No you're not."
"I did a course on reading body language, I'll be able to do a psycho analyse on this guy for you."
I consider it for a moment and then realise that she could come in handy.
"Meet me at my car after work." I tell her, "Don't tell anyone what I told you."
She hugs me and I return it awkwardly.
Then she leaves the toilets and I look at myself in the mirror for the first time in days. I look awful. Bags under my eyes, pale... I barely recognise myself.
I've been thinking about what Jones said, about telling Gabby how I feel. But I can't. I have to find her and bury them again. She's so in love with Matt, and she's straight... It would ruin our friendship. When I find her, I'll act normal and find myself a nice girl at Molly's. Now that my lesbian night has been 'approved' by Herrmann and Otis, I'll find someone easily. I've done it before, I'll do it again. I'll be fine as long as she's happy... and alive.
...
After a very long, tedious shift, Rebecca and I make our way to an industrial estate to meet Antonio. It would have been bearable had I not been put on shift with Rafferty. She's a good friend; she just doesn't say the right things. Bless her.
I hear the door open from behind me and I see Antonio emerge from a stairwell.
"I told you not to tell anyone!" He protests.
"She's my... assistant. She's trained in body language. She can tell when he's lying and all that. She won't tell anyone..." I explain, "And she's not coming in the room with me."
"Fine, let's go. He's ready for you. " He leads the way up some stairs and into an office. Jones introduces herself to him and asks how he has access to the building.
"Rented this building when I was under cover... Nobody's taken over yet so I figured we could make the most of it. He explains, then he looks at me, "You'll be in there on your own, but don't worry. We'll be on the other side of the door watching you on a cam. He's in cuffs so he can't touch you. You want a code word for me to come in?"
"No." I say slowly, "I'll be fine."
He sits Jones down in a chair by a laptop and then takes me to a room and I'm met with a severely beaten version of the man I met a couple of days ago. Damian Baxter looks up at me and shows me a broken smile. Antonio leaves the room with a 'good luck.'
"Hey, sexy." He smirks, "Good to see you again. You held your ground the other day. I like that in a woman."
"So do I." I say bluntly. I sit down at the table and glare at him.
"You just need a guy to straighten you out, princess." He tells me with a glint in his eye.
I can tell that I'm losing this battle... So I stamp on his foot under the table. He cries out and I laugh at him.
"You're going to tell me what you know about Victor Ramsey." I order him, "And then you'll tell me where my best friend is."
"I don't know what you're talking about." He jokes, "Who is Victor Ramsey?"
"Don't play games with me, Damian." I warn him, "I'm not going to stop until I find her and I don't care what happens in the process."
He raises his eyebrow at me and laughs. I open a file that Antonio left on the table and I see crime scene photos. There's a dead woman in the photographs and I recognise her as Laila Mendez. I did some digging when I had the chance yesterday and saw a resemblance between her and Gabby. I lay the photo's down in front of Damian and he laughs.
"Do you speak to your family, Damian?" I ask him. His eyes meet mine and I can tell he doesn't.
"Do you have a sister? A mother?" I push him.
"What's it to you?" He spits at me.
"Imagine if it was one of them in these pictures instead of Laila." I watch him carefully as he looks down at the photos. I feel like I'm getting somewhere and then he laughs at me.
"Nice try. You know I killed my girlfriend, right? With my bare hands. That's what'll happen to your friend, too." He remarks.
I launch myself over the table at him before I can stop myself. He falls to the floor and I hold his face in my hand. I squeeze his cut and bruised face as much as I can and ignore Baxters cries for help. I punch his face as hard as I can and then I grab his collar. Something changes in his eyes but I don't pay attention to it.
"GIVE ME ANSWERS." I spit at him. He nods frantically I jump from the floor. I pick him up and sit him back on the chair.
"Come on then." I order him after a few minutes.
"Senka Park is pretty this time of year." He says mysteriously.
"What?" I frown at him, "What are you talking about?"
"Nice houses in the area too. Mother always wanted to buy a house down by Senka Park. Where we could play in the park and hear the school bells ring. Ring. Ring. All the children go to recess." He smiles.
I hear a knock at the door and Antonio enters.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" He asks me.
I get up from my chair and leave the room with Antonio. Jones is still sat in the chair, watching Baxter on the cam.
"He's not talking sense, Leslie." He shrugs, "I think we broke him."
I know it's my fault. If I hadn't hit him again, he might not have gone weird on me. He could have told me where Gabby is. I
"I think there's more to it." Jones says, "Look at the way he's sitting. And then when we go back to when he told you about Senka Park, his eyes looked directly at you. He doesn't seem crazy."
"Nah, the guy had a screw loose anyway... Now it's a couple of 'em." Antonio says.
"What now?" I ask him.
"I don't know, but I doubt we'll get anything useful from him now." He smiles sadly at me, "Both of you go home and get some sleep. I'll get him back to the station."
We leave Antonio and go back to my car, where I hit the steering wheel repeatedly until my hands hurt.
"I think Detective Dawson is wrong." Jones says.
"Why?"
"He's a cop, more than that, he's the victims brother." She explains, "He's looking for obvious signs but I think we just got given a riddle."
"Antonio's right, Jones." I say to her, "I broke Baxter... We've got nothing."
I blew it.
And now we might not find Gabby until it's too late.