Part 25

Holly ran towards Chris as she spotted him in the ER. "Where is she?" She demanded when she was a few meters away.

Chris pointed and watched as Holly just went past him and into the cubicle he had indicated. He looked back the way Holly had come and spotted Oliver making his way over.

"How is she?" Oliver asked as he eyed the closed off curtain. He really wanted to be back there as well but he understood that Gail needed Holly right now and he would just have to wait a few more minutes before seeing with his own eyes that Gail was actually okay.

"Suspected broken ribs and definite concussion." Chris said as he looked down at his notes. He'd managed to catch a quick word with the doctor treating Gail and had been reassured that as bad as it looked Gail was very lucky her injuries weren't life threatening. "She might have some internal bleeding that they want to check on. Probably broken cheek bone, broken nose, oh, and a fractured or broken wrist. They're just waiting on the x-ray films to confirm all of that."

Oliver took it all in. That was a pretty bad beating. "Any more word on Nash?" He asked, he'd kept his radio on silent on the ride over because he hadn't wanted Holly to overhear so had no idea if there had been any new developments.

Chris shook his head. "She gave a good description of the suspects and of the car so we should hear something soon. Everyone's out looking."

Oliver gripped his vest at the neck and shook his head. "Man, this sucks."

Chris fidgeted.

"What?" Oliver asked wondering what was bothering his partner now. They were all worried about Traci but they needed to be here for Gail so they'd have to leave the search for the others.

"Frank called my cell phone. He wants a statement from Gail as soon as possible and for her to get back to the station as soon as she's released." Chris explained uncomfortably.

Oliver scowled, from what Chris had told him of Gail's injuries the blonde wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. "Did you get any kind of statement from her?" Maybe they could take that back to Frank.

Chris shook his head. "She just kept asking if we'd got Traci and cursing every time she moved the wrong way or when the EMT touched her."

Oliver sighed and glanced around. He spotted a set of chairs nearby and moved over to seat himself down. They weren't going anywhere until they knew more about Gail's condition and got to speak with her themselves.

Frank was just going to have to wait.

xxxxxx

"Oh, Gail." Holly whispered as her hand went to her mouth at the sight of her girlfriend on the hospital trolley. She already had a gown on and lines of fluid running into her from an IV drip. She looked so pale laying there as a nurse adjusted the settings on one the machines beside her.

Gail knew that voice, and with all her effort she opened her good eye and searched for the owner.

"Hol." She whispered as she spotted Holly stood at the bottom of her bed. She lifted her good hand and reached for her making Holly move around and grip her hand.

The nurse looked at Holly and tried to give her a sympathetic smile. "We're going to be taking her for some more checks soon and then the doctor will come back and let you know what's going on."

Holly nodded absently, her eyes staying on Gail as she shifted over to her head and let her hand stroke through Gail's hair gently. Holly blinked tears from her eyes as she took in Gail's swollen and bruised face. A combination of a swollen cheek and broken nose meant one of Gail's eyes had closed over from the tissue damage surrounding it.

"Oh sweetheart." She whispered before dropping a kiss as gently as she could to Gail's relatively injury free forehead.

Gail tried not to cry as she tightened her grip on Holly's hand but couldn't stop tears leaking out as she struggled with the pain of breathing. "They took Trace, Holly. They took her." She told Holly as her bottom lip trembled in distress.

"Shhh, just rest right now, baby." Holly said softly trying to soothe her girlfriend's grief. Getting more worked up and upset was only going to cause Gail more pain. Inside though, Holly was devastated by the news that whatever had happened to cause this much damage to Gail had also resulted in Detective Nash being taken. "I'm sure everyone's doing their best to get Traci back okay, you just concentrate on you right now, yeah?"

Gail closed her good eye and did her best to nod, but the tears just kept escaping past her eyelids.

Holly glanced up when the screen was pushed aside and three men stepped into the cubicle with the nurse. She figured Gail was about to be taken for those other tests and quickly pressed a kiss to Gail's lips, ignoring the split lip. "I'll be right here when you get back, I promise." She whispered before stepping back and watching as her girlfriend was wheeled away from her.

With Gail gone now, Holly took a moment as she stood there in the empty space to wipe her eyes and compose herself. Oliver had been right, Gail was battered and bruised but unless the scans showed something serious that wasn't apparent during physical checks then the blonde would make a full recovery in a few weeks, longer if the wrist break was bad, but still, Gail would recover.

Taking a deep breath Holly went to find Oliver and Chris. Now she wanted answers, Oliver hadn't mentioned anything to her about Traci being taken.

xxxxx

Luke stood with his arms folded across his chest as he waited for Frank to finish reading his report and statement of his part in the incident this morning.

Frank read through it for a second time before glancing up at his detective. He then placed the sheet down onto his desk and sat back in his chair pondering his next choice of words.

"So?" Luke asked impatiently.

"You stand by every word of this?" Frank asked him.

Luke blinked and shifted where he stood as Frank eyed him. "It's what happened."

"And you think you can justify leaving Nash at the scene?"

Luke frowned. "We had our suspect and we found our weapon, I needed to get back here for the interview to wrap the case up." He explained. "Traci volunteered to wait on Peck, I never asked Gail to take off like that."

"But wasn't she chasing down a suspect?" Frank asked.

Luke sighed and put his hands at his hips. He really wanted to get a move on with his interview before his suspect demanded a lawyer. "Look, the fight outside the suspect's house wasn't planned for but she shouldn't have took off after that guy, we had who we came for right there."

Frank clenched his jaw. It was clear from Luke's statement who he thought was to blame for the disaster going on right now with an officer in the hospital and a detective missing.

"She wasn't to know that though, was she." Frank pointed out.

Luke huffed and shook his head. Just before he could continue his point Dov knocked on the door and entered Frank's office grinning. "We got Nash back!" He told the pair happily.

"She okay?" Frank asked quickly.

Dov nodded still wearing a stupid grin on his face. "Not a scratch, but they're taking her over to General just to get her checked over." He explained, having heard it over the radio moments before he raced up here to inform Frank. Out of the three guy to have taken Traci, two were in custody and one would be a DOA, but none of that was as important to Dov as having Traci back safe and sound.

"That's great news." Frank replied, finding a grin of his own from somewhere before he caught sight of Luke out of the corner of his eye and was reminded that this mess would still have to be explained even if they did have a good outcome now.

Frank looked back at Dov and scowled at him. "You done with your statement yet Epstein?"

Dov straightened and dropped his smile. "No, not yet Sir."

Frank gestured Dov out of his office. "Then get back to it SIU are going to want to see it as soon as they get here."

"Yes Sir." Dov replied and scurried out and back to his desk, his grin returning as he went.

Luke blew out a relieved breath at the news and closed his eyes for a brief second before looking to Frank again. "That's great about Traci, but I really need to get this interview underway so if that's all?"

Frank made him wait a moment longer and then his office phone started ringing. He figured that it was one of his officers calling to update him on Traci's safe return. He waved Luke away. "Then you best get on with it, because SIU will want to speak to you first."

Luke didn't seem overly concerned and just gave his boss a nod before taking off out of the room.

Alone now with his ringing phone Frank braced himself before picking up the receiver. "Hello?"

It wasn't one of his officers.

"Stable with non-life threatening injuries, some broken bones I think. Concussion." He explained. "I am aware of that Superintendent, I have statements being prepared and an interview room already set aside." He explained as he then listened to Elaine Peck reply. "That's unlikely to happen today given her head injury."

He listened to her again and then pulled Luke's statement back over and skimmed to a section that spoke about Gail. "Then you might like to get here before SIU do and take these statements out of my hands."

That received a very curt reply and left him with a dial tone at his ear.

Sighing again he slowly replaced the receiver and shifted in his chair as he looked out at his officers that were involved in Callaghan's operation this morning, all working on their own version of events at their desks.

Another knock came at his door and Sam walked in. "You wanted to see me?" He asked carefully. Technically he wasn't even supposed to be at work as he hadn't been cleared for desk duty yet never mind active duty. He was only there because he had wanted to see Andy for a late breakfast or early lunch if she wasn't busy, but then Gail's call had come in and there was no leaving until he knew Traci was found.

"Come in Sam." Frank said and gestured for his friend to take a seat. When Sam was seated and looking at him expectantly, Frank leaned onto his desk and clasped his hands together. "What I need you to do is to get over to the hospital and see if you can speak to Gail."

Sam hiked both his eyebrows up. There was no way he was going to be allowed to take Gail's statement.

Frank sighed then pushed Luke's statement over to Sam so the other detective could read it. "I need you to talk to her, just talk, unofficially."

Sam snorted after he had read through Luke's account of events and tossed the sheet back onto Frank's desk. "He shouldn't have left the scene." Was Sam's main issue with what he had just read.

Frank kept his own views to himself. It didn't really matter what he thought, it would only matter what SIU made of it.

But Sam wasn't done giving his opinion. "He didn't wait for Gail to get back from chasing down a suspect then ordered everyone else back to the station and then chose to leave Nash on her own to wait for Gail." He summed up from Luke's statement. "That's a shitting move anyway you look at it."

"He had his prisoner and a smoking gun, it might have been poor judgment but he claims to have called Gail back." Frank said pointing out another part of Luke's damming testimony.

"What's Dov say, or Mac, or O'Donnell?" Sam asks referencing some of the other officers that had gone with Callaghan and Nash for the arrest and house search.

"Still waiting on their statements."

Sam got up as he shook his head. "Let me go try and speak to Peck and if I'm lucky I might catch Nash as well."

Frank nodded. "Remember it all stays off the record."

Sam offered one of his best grins to his boss as he reached for the office door. "I feel a little twinge coming on with this wound, I should probably go get it checked over." He told his friend.

Frank grinned. "You go do that." His grin faded when Sam left and almost knocked Elaine Peck over as she stalked towards his office.

He stood as the Superintendent entered and then locked his door behind her.

"Well?" Elaine asked giving Frank a hard look. "What is this that I need to see?"

Without a word Frank picked up Luke's statement and handed it over to his boss.

Elaine didn't like the way Frank was looking at her but she took the offered paper and started reading.

It didn't take her very long to find out what the issue was. She glanced at Frank and lifted an eyebrow.

"She ignored his order to stand down and placed her team in a sticky situation when she failed to return and they'd made their arrests. A crowd was starting to gather and they left the scene to return to the station." Frank summarised.

"And left my daughter on her own."

"And felt like he had to leave a detective at a volatile scene to wait on her."

"Hmmm." Elaine glanced back down at the sheet in her hands. She didn't like what she was reading. She didn't like it one bit.

She put the statement down after checking the name. "Perhaps I should speak to Luke myself."

"He's in interview right now and will be until SIU pull him out." Frank replied. He also didn't think talking to Luke further would do any good, he wasn't going to recant anything he'd wrote down.

"Then I guess I'll have to go see what that daughter of mine has to say for herself." Elaine said before spinning around and stalking back out of Frank's office.

Frank waited for her to disappear before slumping back down into his seat.

It was going to be one hell of a shift.

Just as Frank picked up his phone to call ahead and warn Sam about Elaine's impending arrival, another knock came at his door. He looked up with a resigned expression expecting it to be SIU only to find one of their IT guys there with a grim look on his face.

"You better come look at this." The guy told Frank urgently and pointed down to one of the desks. As Frank looked over he returned the receiver and stood as he saw the crowd already gathering around one of the computer monitors.

That was never a good sign.

He stood and came around his desk to the door. "One of the guys securing the scene had it brought it in just now. It's from a kid that was off sick from school. Filmed most of it from his bedroom but when things started heating up he came out with his older sister, she's the one that handed it over." The tech explained as he walked with Best down to the desk he'd been using.

The crowd parted after a hard look from Frank and the tech took his seat back and pressed play on the footage.

"There's almost no sound but…" The tech said then everyone that could see watched as the shot panned erratically from the ground to a squad car to someone kicking a blonde haired police officer, clearly Gail, as she curled up on the ground with her back up against the front wheel of the car as she tried to shield her head from the impact of the kicks.

The perpetrator was an African-American male in a t-shirt and dark baggy jeans.

The same male that Oliver had dropped off in their cells almost an hour ago.

It was jerky footage but they could all clearly see Gail had her jacket and vest off and was doing everything she could just to protect herself, but as she covered her head the guy started kicking hard at her gut, stomping down several times with the heel of his foot.

"Jesus." Someone muttered from the side.

Frank swallowed, unable to take his eyes from the screen. "How much of this do we have? From when to when?"

Now the tech grinned as he turned to Frank. "It's not complete coverage, but it starts from a fight outside, across from the kids house, to when Officer Peck got the guy subdued and called it in."

Then it might be better than statements from both Nash and Peck.

"Shut it off and bring it to my office. Now."

xxxxxx

AN/

See, no one died or anything!

To those that are interested this story is about... maybe, kinda, sorta, halfway through? So, yeah, make of that what you will.

Thanks for reading!