Author's note: Please note the precautionary change in rating.
Dov sighed as he poured himself another cup of coffee. It had been a long day of reviewing Perik's tapes, and reading reports of his interactions with other inmates. So far their search had turned up nothing, but they still had a few more months to sort through.
Chris came up beside him, grabbing a cup for himself.
"You know, you could go home." Dov suggested, seeing the dark circles under his eyes. "Didn't you just finish a night shift?"
"Yeah, but I don't think I could sleep." Chris yawned. "That freak's still out there. I might not be able to do much for Gail… but I can at least help with the investigation."
They were quiet for a moment, both of them fixing their coffee. Two officers walked by them, their radios crackling with a report about a gunshot.
"That's not too far from here." Dov frowned.
Chris shrugged. "Single gunshot in a suburban neighbourhood? Probably just some kids with firecrackers or something."
They took their coffees back to the office, settling down for another few hours of reviewing. Dov was getting frustrated that every lead had been turning into a dead end, and knew everyone else was feeling much of the same.
"Detectives?" a hesitant voice asked from the doorway. Dov paused the recording, pulling off his headphones.
"Fox, what can we do for you?" Dov asked. He'd only interacted with Gail's rookie a handful of times, but Gail had told him that the kid was good.
"I was wondering if you needed a hand. Since Officer Peck is off…" he asked timidly. "Staff Sergeant Shaw said that it would be okay with him."
"Pick a computer." Frankie grunted tiredly from behind Dov. "Epstein, get him set up with some tapes."
As Dov set Curtis up, his phone rang. He was confused when he read the caller ID.
"Hey Holly, what's up?"
"Hey Dov, do you know if Gail's left your place yet? She's supposed to meet me at my apartment, but she's not here and her phone's off. "
"No idea." Dov frowned. "I thought she was with Traci."
Beside him, Chris gestured for his attention. "Gail texted me like 15 minutes ago, she was borrowing my truck to go to Holly's." he said in a low voice.
A spark of concern ignited in Dov's stomach. "Chris says she took his jeep 15 minutes ago, she should be there by now."
Holly's tone echoed his concern. "Yeah, there's a black jeep like halfway down the block, but no one in it." Through the speaker, Dov could hear an approaching siren.
"Holly, where do you live?" he asked slowly, gesturing at Frankie and Luke for attention.
The address Holly gave matched the street of the gunshot they'd heard in the report. "Dov, what is going on?"
Dov covered the receiver with a palm. "Gail might be missing, and a report of gunfire went out for the address she was supposed to meet Holly at." He said urgently to the detectives.
"Peck was carrying a gun." Luke responded, running a hand through his hair. He swore, banging a fist on the desk. Frankie just looked sick.
"Okay, Holly. I don't know what is going on, but we are going to figure this out, okay? Just stay where you are."
"Dov, a cruiser just pulled up. Don't tell me this has something to do with Gail."
"Guys." Chris interjected, swivelling his screen around to face them. On the monitor was a traffic cam. The video showed the gritty footage of a blonde woman fighting a hooded figure, before being dragged into a grey minivan. When the man's hood fell, they could see a beard and a darkened patch on the right side of his face. A black eye.
Dov swallowed. "Holly, we're on our way. Just stay put." He repeated hoarsely, before hanging up.
Gail was taken.
A headache was all that Gail knew.
She groaned, keeping her eyes shut as she tried to find enough moisture in her mouth to swallow. Her head felt thick, and heavy.
'God, how much did I drink?' she thought dimly. But she didn't feel hungover. She felt dizzy, shaky, and hot and cold. She could feel her body trembling slightly. It felt familiar, but what was scaring her was just how disconnected she felt.
Disconnected. Like she was…drugged.
Gail's eyes flew open. The room was unfamiliar, small with wooden walls. The bed she was lying on was incredibly uncomfortable.
Her memory came back to her slowly, as her panic built. She had been driving to Holly's… no she had gotten out of her car and was walking. And then… nothing. She couldn't remember.
'Because in your last moments, I know you will think of me.' Perik's voice whispered in her ear.
Gail tried to thrash, her panic fully taking hold. Her limbs weren't responding properly, barely lifting when she told them too. Her chest felt like she was having palpitations.
"Ah, you're awake." A man's voice said. Gail turned her head to see someone walking towards her, his steps echoing loudly on the wooden floor.
"Where… am I?" she managed, her tongue thick and her words slurred.
"Don't you worry about that." The man soothed, standing beside the bed. "You're here, with me Gail. That's all you need to know."
Gail felt sick as she felt the bed dip beside her. She tried to ignore the haziness she felt in order to analyze everything, reverting to her training and paying attention to every word. Details might just save her life.
He knew her name. "You kidnapped a cop. You know that, right?"
The man chuckled. "Oh, I know. But regardless of your day job, you're still just a woman." She flinched as his hand touched her hair. "A beautiful, blonde woman." He murmured.
Her judgment may have been better if she wasn't looped up on drugs, but as it was Gail wasn't able to stop her retort. "You're an idiot. They're going to come for me." She bit out harshly.
The man's face darkened, and he struck her hard in the face. Gail couldn't help crying out, tasting blood from her lip.
"Shut up, bitch." He growled. "Perik was right, you do have a mouth on you."
"What do you want?" Gail asked. Her eyes flitted around her, searching desperately for something, anything. Anything that could be used as a weapon. But there was nothing, and her arms were still too heavy to fight back.
Amusement crinkled the man's good eye, the one that wasn't blackened. "You, my dear." He hissed with his salami breath in her face, before hitting her again.
Gail tried to scream, rolling uselessly away from him onto her side. She heard the man laughing as he landed hit after hit on her, the pain burning through the drugs she was on to daze her even more. She felt his hand pull roughly at her shirt as he straddled her, forcing her on her back. The shirt began to tear.
'No!' her mind cried desperately, and she felt tears spring to her eyes. 'Not this, anything but this… please god…' Gail managed to bring an arm up between them, but the man batted away her flimsy attempt at self-preservation like it was nothing.
The man had finally ripped her shirt free when a phone rang, making him pause.
"Fuck." She heard him grunt, before roughly tying the shirt around her head to gag her. "Stay here." He ordered.
'Like hell I will.' Gail thought as she heard the man answer the call, stepping outside of the room.
She needed to find a way to bring attention to herself. Since the cell phone was obviously not an option and she wasn't able to run, she needed to find something else.
Her attention was caught by a camera and tripod in the corner, but more importantly the slim black laptop sitting next to it on a small table. It was across the room, but it was probably her only chance. Gail gritted her teeth, forcing her body to roll towards the end of the bed.
It was hard. Her limbs felt like they weighed a million pounds, and her body kept whispering to her that she should relax and rest on the bed for a bit. Gail tried to sit up in order to slip off the end of the bed feet first, but couldn't quite get herself up all the way. After a couple attempts, she settled for just rolling off the bed onto the floor.
She hit the rough floorboards hard, with a loud thump. Chest heaving, Gail listened for any sign of discovery.
"No, I told you Peter. I specifically booked this weekend off." The muffled voice of her captor came through the door. "Isn't there anyone else? I get that Millbourne is a pain to work these days… wait, how long's the shift?"
Satisfied that she hadn't been heard, Gail began the arduous journey crawling across the dirty floor. She had almost made it when she heard the sound of the door open.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the man shouted. Terrified and unable to fight back, Gail could only curl herself into the fetal position as the man kicked her hard.
"God, what a pain in the ass." He grumbled, his footsteps echoing away from her. "You're lucky Gail. I got called into work for a few hours, so you get to stay here and enjoy the cottage for a bit until I come back."
Gail watched him fiddle with something in the kitchen, before coming back with a syringe in hand. A fresh wave of terror ran though her, but all she could do was scream muffledly through the gag and flail uselessly as the man crouched over her. He swore as one of her hits got him in his bad eye, but kept holding her down hard to stick her with the needle.
"You'll get what's coming to you, bitch." He huffed, grunting as he picked her up, slinging her over his shoulder. He flung her onto the hard mattress, Gail's head barely missing the wooden headboard.
The world was beginning to darken again as he pulled out a length of rope from a bag, and Gail lost consciousness as she felt him tie her wrists tightly above her head.
"Even with the partial plate from the cam, there's still over 200 grey minivans registered in the GTA alone." Frankie said frustratedly. "And that's if it's even his."
Luke turned away from her to stare at the whiteboard. "Okay." He groaned. "So we're looking for a male, white, six foot, with dark hair, full beard, and a black eye who was driving one of the most common minivans in the last twenty years. We know that he's had enough access in Millbourne to get sedation information from Perik, and to slip him a razor. But he hasn't made an appearance in a single tape or report that we've read, and any guards matching his description have been cleared of priors and have solid alibis. He was also at Toronto Gen. a week ago to steal narcs from EMS, but there's been no patient there that matches his description or injury that we can find. His victims appear to be random, the only constant being blond hair and jogging – likely for convenience for the abduction."
"We know he has little to no medical training." Frankie continued when he paused, leaning her forehead against her palms. "His source of ACP has dried up, likely from a veterinary clinic somewhere in the past year. He leaves no trace at the scenes, and we don't have enough priors to draw experience from for timeframes. If he's like Perik, it's 24 hours. But his first vic had injuries from up to 48 hours before her death."
"What about Perik's autopsy?" Oliver asked, frowning.
Holly sniffed slightly from where she had been sitting with Traci. The doctor had adamantly refused to leave once she arrived at the station, arguing that she would stay out of the way of the investigation while interpreting the forensic evidence as much as possible to help. Being the best FP in the city, Luke had relented and allowed her to stay.
"Nothing physical that I could find." Holly responded, her voice rough. "I'm still waiting on the bloodwork though, Rodney is sending it to me the moment it's done. Probably in an hour."
"And there's nothing really from the scene where Gail was taken, the shot was called in from a neighbour who'd heard it but didn't see anything, and so far there's been no eyewitnesses that've come forwards. Epstein is having Diaz and the others canvassing the area, but all that's turned up is Gail's phone ditched on a sidewalk a block away. Clean of prints." Luke said.
"He would have had a significant amount of freedom to do what he did in Millbourne." Traci frowned. "Just because the warden swears that it's impossible an employee did it, doesn't make it true. Guards are generally the main source of goods flowing in and out of prisons, even if the prisons deny it."
"What are you thinking then?" Frankie asked.
Traci sighed, standing up. "I need to make a call." She muttered, walking out of the room.
There were two things that would make prison slightly more tolerable, Steve Peck decided as he lay on his cot. One was a reason to live, the other was a visitor. Hell, he'd even settle for a phone call about trivial bullshit. As long as it had nothing to do with his trial.
"Peck! Phone call." The prison's warden interrupted his thoughts.
Steve frowned as he sat up, watching the man gesture impatiently with his cell phone.
"On your phone?"
"Special circumstances." The man replied. What was his name again? Joe, Gerry? Steve couldn't remember. "It's a Detective Nash from 15 Division."
Joe/Gerry flinched slightly when Steve got up quickly to whip the phone out of his hand.
"Traci, hey. Thanks for calling." Steve tried for calm and apologetic, but inside he was bewildered. He wasn't expecting to hear from her anytime in the near future… possibly ever.
"Steve, listen." Traci sounded distressed. "Gail's been taken. We think it's another Perik copycat."
God. Steve took a deep breath through his nose, trying to calm the panic he felt at that statement. At that moment the only thing he could think of was the stricken look on Gail's face when he walked out of that warehouse, and the horrible way she had breathed his name. He never wanted his sister to experience that kind of pain again, she'd dealt with enough already. But now his sister was taken again by some maniac, and he couldn't do jack shit about it.
"When? What do you know?" he asked hoarsely.
"Not a ton." She admitted. "She was taken about two hours ago. We've been following this copycat for about a week, but the guy's like a ghost. We can't trace the drugs, the only picture we have of him is from a cam… Steve we've got nothing. All we know is that he probably works for Millbourne."
"Shit." Steve exhaled. "He's why Perik's dead, isn't he?"
"You heard about that?"
"Word spread fast. People have been freaking out, there's been lockdowns like three times a day. Security's been tightened, and now there's junkies detoxing in every block because their source was cut off."
Traci paused, Steve could picture her pursing her lips slightly as she thought. "We think he stole morphine and midazolam from EMS at Toronto Gen. He could be the source. What do you know?"
"God Traci." Steve groaned. "They all know I'm a cop, I don't know anything. Look… at least give me a description of your guy. So I can at least keep my eyes open."
"White male, six foot with dark hair and a beard. He has a black eye on the right side from a previous vic." Traci recited. "Look Steve, I know you want to help but you have to be careful…"
A distant alarm sounded from one of the other cell blocks, cutting her off. "What's that?" she asked.
"Another lockdown." Steve replied, as the warden told him that he needed his phone back. Steve held up a finger, telling him to wait. "Don't worry about me, Trace. Worry about Gail, you need to find Gail okay? Keep me updated." He said urgently into the phone.
"Now Peck!"
"Trace I got to go. Find her!" he pleaded, the warden finally snatching the phone out of his hand. The man hurried out of the cell, not noticing Steve jamming his shoe in the door moments before it closed. Steve waited until the man's urgent steps faded, before opening it slightly and peering down the hallway.
It was empty, for the moment. But then the alarm in his block began to sound loudly as well, meaning the hall would be filled with guards momentarily. Steve swore, about to close the door shut when he heard footsteps echoing in the other direction.
It was one of the janitorial people, he recognized the blue shirt. But more importantly, he saw the man's dark hair and beard. And the black eye.
Steve couldn't believe it was actually going to be this easy.
Author's Note: I promised you a happy ending, that hasn't changed. I promise.