Happy Wednesday everyone - who's excited for the new PD episode tonight?! I hope we get a few more Linstead scenes :D
I hope you guys enjoy this chapter - I promise that's everything's going to get better eventually! Please read and review, and enjoy!
Chapter 25
"She's gone, Jay. Can you help me find her? My husband's called all of her friends as well and no one knows where she is!" Elise started crying into Jay's chest. Jay was as shocked at seeing her as he was at Maddie being taken. He would probably be in her condition if Peter had been taken, but he was suddenly beginning to feel angry at whoever had done this. He put pressure on Elise's shoulders so he could look her in the eye.
"Okay, listen to me, my unit is gonna find her, and she's gonna be okay," Jay said, trying his best to calm Elise.
"Is there anything else I should do? What am I supposed to do while you all look for her?" Elise asked.
"You're going to come upstairs with me and sit in the break room while we start looking into possible leads, okay? We'll figure this out."
"Okay," Elise said quietly. Jay held Elise as they walked back up the stairs to Intelligence. When Jay and Elise reached the top of the stairs, Jay said, "Sorry guys, your day isn't over quite yet."
"This is Elise?" Voight said, "Your older sister?"
"Yeah," Jay said, "Her daughter Maddie's been kidnapped and she's asked me, us, to help find her. So will you please help?"
"Of course," Antonio said, "Hi, Elise, I'm Detective Dawson. Let me take you to the break room, okay?"
"Okay," Elise said, looking back at Jay before following Antonio down to the break room. He approached Erin, who was standing in Voight's office doorway to make sure Peter stayed inside. "Both Halsteads, my office," Voight said quietly. After Erin and Jay were inside, Voight shut the door and declared, "I'm happy to help your sister, Jay, but your two are too close to this so I don't want either of you working this."
"You've got to be kidding me! She's my sister," Jay said.
"I understand that, but I don't want you getting so emotionally involved that you make a mistake. So you're both off the case, end of discussion. I'll put out the Amber Alert right now."
"Hank," Erin said, "Why doesn't Jay take Peter home and I can stay and talk to Elise? I'd be happy to help with that."
"Okay," Voight said, "You okay with that, Jay?"
"Fine," Jay said, "But promise me that you'll do everything you can?"
"I promise," Voight said, "We'll update you if they find anything."
"Alright. See you later, Erin," Jay said, giving Erin a quick kiss, "Come on, Peter, time to go home for dinner."
"Yay! Can you make mac-and-cheese, daddy? Please, daddy, please?" Peter asked happily.
"Since you asked so nicely, yes I will," Jay said, trying his best to put on a good front for his son. "Erin, you're sure you'll be okay?"
"You mean with me being pregnant?" Erin said with a raised eyebrow. "I'll be fine, I'll see you both later, okay?"
"Okay, love you," Jay said.
"Love you too," Erin said, and headed for the break room after leaving Voight's office. Voight gave the rest of the unit a briefing based on the info that Mouse had managed to pull in the five minutes since Elise had come upstairs while Erin sat down across from Elise.
"It's Erin, right? I remember when we had dinner," Elise said.
"That's right," Erin said with a small smile, "Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?"
"Some water would be great, please," Elise said quickly.
"Alright," Erin said, and after coming back to the table with two bottles of water, she asked, "Could you tell me a little bit about what happened today? When was the last time you saw Maddie?"
"Yeah, okay," Elise, taking a deep breath, "The last time I saw her was when I dropped her off at school this morning. I watched her walk into the school building right before I drove off. I told her that I'd pick her up from after school care because I was working the afternoon shift today. So, I drove to her school around an hour ago to pick her up, and they said she never checked in after school. I talked to a couple of her friends but no one had seen her since the end of school. I can't call her because her phone's off."
The last part of Elise's explanation made Erin stop writing notes, and she looked up and asked, "What's Maddie's phone number?"
"Let me look it up real fast, it's kind of sad I can't remember it myself," Elise said, pulling out her phone and scrolling through her contacts. "Here it is…310-435-8974."
"Thanks," Erin said, "This helps a lot. I'll be back in just a sec, okay?"
"Okay," Elise said, "Erin?"
"Jay headed home, right? With your son?"
"Yeah, our boss didn't want him working this case because you two are siblings," Erin said softly.
"Okay, but your son's doing okay?"
"Yeah, he's doing well, thank you," Erin said, "And I'm sure once we find Maddie, she'll be doing just great as well." Erin left the break room and shut the door. Everyone was around Mouse and the white board as he taped up pictures of Elise and Maddie and an aerial map of the elementary school campus. "I can't believe it," Erin said, "Peter wasn't at school today because it was a day off for the kindergartners. Good lord."
"So the rest of the school had class today when Peter was off?"
"Yeah, something about the kindergarten teachers getting an extra planning day," Erin said quickly. "Anyway, here's what I got from Elise. She last saw Maddie this morning when he took her to school, and told Maddie that she'd pick her up from after school care, only to show up and find out that Maddie never checked in and no one's seen her since the end of school." While she gave everyone a few seconds the digest, she turned to Mouse and said, "Elise said that she tried calling Maddie's cell but that it's either dead or off. This is the number, can you try to ping it?"
"On it," Mouse said, running off to the basement with the piece of paper Erin had given him.
"Alright, next step, try to get ahold of someone in the administration. Even though it's Friday, hopefully someone's still in the office. And reach out to anyone you know around the school and call a few of the other kid's families in Maddie's class. See if anyone saw anything suspicious. Let's get to work!"
As Voight headed back to his office and everyone else returned to their desks, Erin sat back down in the break room with Elise and said, "I'm going to call the school office to see if anyone's still there, see if I can get official confirmation that Maddie was in school today."
"Well, you already have the number," Elise said, "Today was one of those off days for the kindergartners, wasn't it? So Peter wasn't in school?"
"That's right," Erin replied as she hit "dial" on the contact page for the Cedar Grove Office. After a few rings, Erin heaved a sigh of relief when someone picked up.
"Cedar Grove Elementary, this is Anne, how can I help you today?" Anne asked.
"Hi Anne, this is Detective Halstead from Chicago PD," Erin said bluntly, "I'm wondering if I could get some attendance information for Maddie…" she trailed off as she looked at Elise, not being able to remember Maddie's last name.
"Maddie Delanie," Elise clarified.
"Maddie Delanie," Erin repeated, mouthing a 'thank you' to Elise as Anne said, "What's the reason?"
"We're investigating her abduction," Erin said quickly.
"Oh, good lord, I'm so sorry," Anne said, "Let me pull up her records for you, just give me one sec."
"Thank you," Erin said. After a short pause, Anne said, "Okay, Maddie Delanie was marked as present at 9 this morning and after her lunch recess, so she would most likely have been here the whole day."
"Most likely?" Erin asked.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure if there's any way I can confirm that anyone saw her at the end of the day unless you find someone who saw her. I'm sorry, but I can't help much more."
"That's alright, I appreciate the info on the records though," Erin said. "Wait, Anne, does the school have security cameras?"
"Yes, there are a couple, but I'll have to put you through to the district security office if you want to gain access to those."
"Okay, could you give me the number for the district security office?"
"Sure, it's 310-819-0042."
"Ok, thanks, goodnight Anne," Erin said, hanging up.
"Did you find out anything?" Elise asked.
"She was present in class after her lunch recess, but since teachers don't take attendance at a later point there's no way to confirm that she was there the whole day."
"But someone would surely have noticed?" Elise asked.
"Which is why I'm positive that she was there the entire day," Erin said. "I'm going to go talk to one of the guys in the unit and I'll be back soon, okay?"
"Alright," Elise said, "And Erin?"
"Thank you for what you're doing. All of you," Elise said gratefully.
"It's what we do," Erin said, smiling a little before she exited the room. As she moved to the front of the room, she announced, "Any progress yet?"
"Not yet, unfortunately," Voight said from behind her. "Anything from the school?"
"Apparently she was present when attendance was taken after her lunch recess, but since Elise got no calls, she must have been present until the end of the school day. I'm going to give the number for the security office to Mouse so he can see if he can gain access to any security footage from the campus."
"Alright," Voight said, "Well Mouse is coming up right now, so you won't have to go too far. Mouse, what have you got?"
"Well, unfortunately whoever has Maddie's phone has either smashed it or yanked out the SIM card because I can't locate a signal," Mouse replied with a slightly depressing tone. A couple of people sighed as they looked to their boss for the next step. When Voight saw that everyone was looking at him, he said, "Alright, everyone, keep doing what you're doing, I'll talk to Platt about getting some food, and Elise's husband will be here in a little bit, just FYI. Mouse, take the number Erin has and try to get some security footage that will be useful." Erin's phone began to ring and she said, "It's Jay, I should take it."
"Go ahead," Voight said, and Erin went out into the stairwell as she hit "Answer."
"Hey," Erin said.
"Hey, how's it going so far?"
"Not well, unfortunately. Mouse can't track Maddie's phone and no one's got any leads yet. We're waiting on Mouse to get security footage but we don't have anything else yet."
"Oh God," Jay said, "Well, keep me posted, I'm about to take our little monkey to the bathtub. How are you both doing?"
"We're both doing okay, although I haven't been thinking about baby #2 very much since Elise showed up," Erin admitted as she put her hand on her stomach and looked down at her belly, noticing that she was almost showing. "I feel terrible for her – I would probably be in a worse state if it was me."
"Thank you for being there. Just keep doing everything you can, okay?"
"You know I will," Erin said, "Talk to you later."
"Sounds good, love you Erin," Jay said.
"Love you too, Jay. Bye," Erin replied, hanging up as she headed back towards the unit and the case.