Chapter 9:

"Hello Jay."

God, those words seemed so icy coming out of her mouth.

"Bunny." He forcefully responded.

"Why did I have to find out from a customer at the bar that Erin was in hospital, and none the less seriously hurt?" She scolded him.

"I'm sorry Bunny but you weren't exactly at the top of my lists of priorities at the moment."

"How dare you! I am Erin's mother. I should have know!" Her eyes were fixed on him.

"Some mother." He mumbled quietly under his breath. But not quietly enough.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Her eyes had this darkness in them that he had only seen her use on Voight.

"It means that you were never really her mother. A real mother never allow her daughter to take drugs and pull her down into a hole and try to keep her there. Voight was a godsend and you were just jealous that he was a better parent to her than you could ever hope to be." Jay was angry, furious, he could hardly contain his anger towards her.

"You have no idea about Erin's childhood. I love Erin and gave her everything I could. All the money I could spend on her I would."

"And the rest would buy your drugs." He interrupted.

"Alright I get it, you don't like me. But she is my daughter and I at least deserved a phone call."

Jay just looked at her. How could someone like Erin with such a beautiful heart, come out of someone like Bunny. He didn't want to argue with Bunny anymore. He just wanted to be there for Erin.

He sat down next to her in the uncomfortable hospital chair. He just wanted her to wake up so he didn't have to think of Bunny standing behind him.

"What are the doctors saying?" She spoke, breaking the silence.

"She had a major bleed in her abdomen and she had a collapsed lung but she is expected to make a full recovery."

"Oh thank god! I was so worried on the drive over here. I couldn't imagine losing her." Bunny said as she walked to the other side of Erin's bed and grabbed her hand.

He couldn't believe. She was worried about losing her daughter but she had given Erin drugs when she was a teenager and turned her into an addict.

"What's that." Bunny asked as she broke his train of thought.

"What." Jay spat back.

"Is that an engagement ring?" She said as she pointed to Erin's hand.

"Yeah it is." Jay responded, smiling as he spoke.

"Wow, you two really don't like to keep me in the loop." She sounded annoyed but Jay didn't care. He took a certain pleasure to Bunny's annoyance.

"We hadn't told a lot of people."

It was quiet for a moment. Jay enjoyed the sound of silence but it was quickly interrupted with Bunny's voice.

"When is she going to wake up?"

"Not for a while." He reluctantly responded. He just wanted to be alone with her but Bunny wouldn't stop talking.

"Why don't you go home and get some sleep and I'll call you when she wakes up." Bunny offered.

He smiled back at her. "I'm not leaving her." There was no way that Jay was going to leave Erin alone with Bunny.

"Alright, well neither am I so we are just going have to tolerate each other."

He turned away from her and looked back at Erin. God she was beautiful. The moment he saw Erin that first day of Intelligence, he knew that he wanted to get to know her more. But then he got to know her a little bit deeper, piece by piece. That changed his mind from wanting to get to know her to wanted to marry her and send the rest of his life with her.

3 hours had passed when Ruzek ran through the door.

"Jay we got something." He quickly blurted out. Jay looked back at Bunny with a concerned look on his face.

"You go, I'll stay with her. I promise that I will call if anything changes." She responded to his look.

He was hesitant but if this was a major breakthrough with the case, he knew that he had to help.

"The second something happens you ring me."

"I promise."

Jay ran out of the room with Ruzek down the hall and followed him to where the team had set up in a hospital conference room which Ms. Goodwin had supplied them with.

"What have we got?" Jay asked as he ran to the table. Alvin stepped forward.

"The guy you were talking with before the explosion, Shaun Petersmith, well it turns out that he is getting paid $100,000 a month by an unregistered account. We got one of the tech's back at the district to see if they could track where the money was coming from and just our luck they got a name. It's registered to a Kyle Johnson, we ran his name and came up with a rap sheet as long as you can get, with multiple counts of fraud, assault, and even 5 restraining orders taken out against him, one from his mother, father, sister and his twin brother. The other is from someone called Mary Callaghan. We ran her name, turns out that she was his counsellor from his first run in prison. She took it out on the grounds of him stalking her. The week after the restraining order was passed, she was found dead in her bathroom. He was the prime suspect but they never got enough evidence to lock him up."

"Yeah but what does this have anything to do with Petersmith." Jay interrupted.

"Turns out Mary Callaghan was engaged to one Shaun Petersmith." Kevin answered.

"So why was he paying Petersmith?"

"Our initial thought was that he was trying to relieve the guilt by giving Petersmith money but then we went through Mary's financials, she was getting $100,000 a month from an unregistered account." It was Burgess' turn to answer. "Mary Callaghan worked in the same building, doing the same job as her fiancé."

"Petersmith took over from his wife." Jay finished.

"Luckily, Petersmith is still alive so we can question him when he wakes up but he won't be available for questioning for a little while, he's in with his lawyer." Alvin said.

Suddenly Jay's phone started to ring. It was Bunny. He quickly answered.

"What's going on?" Jay quickly spat out.

"She's awake."