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Chapter 36- Building Puzzles.
Sam cornered Jerry in the hallway when they passed each other, just to ask if there was any new developments with Sarah's case.
It became a ritual, something he had done often, and it would stay that way- he'd never grow tired of asking. Whenever Jerry was here at Guns and Gangs, he'd ask. If he saw Jerry at the barn, or the Penny or even at his own house on a poker night, Sam would ask him.
He knew even before asking that Jerry's answer would be the same "No".
And it was.
Again.
It had been months since her death, and they were no closer to finding anything than they had been when Sarah first went missing.
Sam walked away from Jerry after thanking him again, feeling like there was nothing he could do to stop his sister from becoming a number- a cold case file, when she deserved so much more. When he still needed closure.
Seated at his desk, Sam tried to immerse himself in his work, but today was harder than most had been. It was just one of the days that he allowed the guilt and sorrow to consume him.
His phone rang, his mind pulled from sad thoughts to concentrate on his reactions as he answered after seeing that it was Phillip from the labs.
"Swarek"
"Hey Sammy, got your results. It matches a guy named Marco Sylvano. Small time dealer, assault, armed robbery, and a string of small time offenses. A real piece of work".
"Thanks Phil" Sam said hanging up.
Sylvano.
The name rang a bell, but Sam couldn't place it, and it wasn't a common name.
Andy's feet were tired even though she hadn't been on them at all really today.
She spent her shift mostly sitting, but doing what she could to keep busy.
She thought, she doodled on paper, she sent Sam a string of smiley faces for no reason.
She'd had a good day.
Sam was still at a crime scene when Andy's shift was over, but he had called and told her that Noelle would take her home instead of her having to wait around the barn for him to come and get her.
That was the thing about his office being somewhere else, she didn't get to see him on shift.
But it was probably good for their relationship. Too much of a good thing could be a really bad thing.
He had another UC go missing and this one was one that he was working on himself. He hadn't hidden it from her, that he was out in the streets instead of his office and she appreciated the fact that he was honest about it, but she still worried about him.
Arriving home, Andy started dinner and grabbed a load of laundry to stick in the washer while she waited to hear from Sam.
She went and had a long soak in the tub and got dressed before going downstairs to the kitchen to smell that dinner was just about ready. It made her stomach rumble. The baby had a good appetite, but Andy never ate for two as everyone always joked- she was only eating for one and a quarter.
Moving into the laundry room Andy stopped when she stepped into a puddle of water, coming straight from the washing machine. The water was seeping out rapidly, the entire floor under a thin layer of the clear liquid.
Great.
Grabbing towels Andy threw them down on the waterlogged floor before she dared to tread over them cautiously in a bid to reach the leaking machine.
She hit the killswitch and turned it off, closed the taps and started mopping up the mess.
She was still busy doing just that when Sam arrived home a while later, his face showing that he was less than impressed when he found her on her knees trying to dry the water up that had filled the gap between the machine and the cupboard next to it.
"It wasn't me" Andy said holding out her hand so that Sam could help her up.
"So it was the machine?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
Andy nodded and slapped Sam's arm playfully before wiggling her eyebrows and telling him "It's full of laundry".
Andy left Sam to check the machine while she went back upstairs and started finishing dinner off.
Twenty minutes later, Sam emerged into the kitchen his hand holding something.
"Did you find him?". Andy was hesitant to ask about the missing UC, but she knew that the sooner they spoke about it, the sooner it wouldn't intrude in their home.
"Um, yeah. He got loaded and went home, to his real house". Sam said shaking his head. Some people just shouldn't be put under. But the guy had made an honest mistake after he spent the previous night partying it up with his mark, and went home to his cop house rather than his cover apartment.
"Fix the washer?" Andy said between bites of her celery stick. She had this thing for celery later, and ate it with every meal. Or just walked around munching on it. Before she had fallen pregnant she wouldn't touch the stuff, but seeing as she craved it now she ate it willingly.
"Yeah, about that. I didn't know it eats flash drives" Sam said holding one up.
Andy dropped the celery stick, her face paling. She had so forgotten that Frank gave it to her, what if it was important? She was in so much trouble right now.
"Wow, I totally forgot about that. I think I left it in my pocket after Frank gave it to me to bring to you".
She had the knack of forgetting things lately, it was termed 'pregnancy brains'.
"Frank gave you this flash drive? This specific one?". Sam's face turned to stone as he asked her the question, Andy nodding.
"The one Sarah mailed to him at the barn before she went missing?".
That caused Andy to choke.
"What?" She squeaked out. "Sam, he didn't tell me that".
"It's okay, where's your laptop?" Sam had already left the kitchen before she could answer.
Right now, she felt worse than she ever had.
Taking a calming breath Andy went looking for Sam and found him sitting on their bed with her laptop open on his lap, the flash drive already plugged in.
"Sam?".
He looked up at her, his face showing no signs of the misery or anger she was expecting.
Sam tilted his head to the side telling her that he wanted her to sit down next to him, so she crossed the room and did just that.
"I don't get this?" Sam said turning the laptop so that she could see the screen.
There were icons filling the screen but each one Sam opened gave random characters across the screen.
"She encrypted and locked the files, it won't work on here Sam". Andy said shaking her head.
Sam disconnected the flash drive, and unplugged it. He set the laptop down next to himself, stood up, kissed Andy's forehead and whispered "I've gotta go" before leaving.
Andy knew that he would if it had anything to do with Sarah, and she wasn't expecting anything less.
"There goes your daddy again, he's going to go be a hero and take down the bad guys" Andy said smiling at her stomach while her hand ran over it.
She wanted this baby to know just why she loved its daddy so much.
Sam found Phillip waiting for him after calling him and asking him to help. Sam was meeting him at the lab, and he had arranged for the guys from IT to be ready and waiting.
Jerry was there too.
Sam and Jerry had coffee while they waited, the hours flowing into night as the guys worked on the flash drive.
It took a while, but they eventually hacked Sarah's encryption and got the files to show as regular documents.
And it was all there.
What she was working on, names of people that were involved.
Everything.
One name on the list stood out, Sylvano.
Scrolling down to the bottom of the list Sam froze when the final piece of the puzzle slipped into place and everything came together.
Elliot Sylvano.
Son of a bitch! It had been there the entire time and Sam had been missing it.
This also meant that Elliot knew all about them. Lars, and him. Their families.
Grabbing his phone, Sam made the first call, Lars answering on the first ring.
"Sir is Andy okay?".
Typical, the kids first thought would be about his pregnant wife.
"Yeah, she's perfect. I um, I need you to pack a bag for a couple of days and go to the barn. Ask for Jerry, and only Jerry".
Sam was trying to keep his cool, keep his tone calm and collected but he knew that the kid would pick up on his underlying panic even though he was trying to suppress it.
"Sir?".
"Lars, just get the girls, pack a bag and go see Jerry. I need you guys to get out of the house now, Elliot's coming after you".
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose when he said that. They had all been through tough times, and judging by the strangled breath filtering into his ear right now, the kid understood that things were about to get worse.
He said goodbye after promising to call Lars in a few hours, then Sam called Oliver and asked him to go to his house with another cop of his choice and to wait for him to get home.
Calling Oliver in the middle of the night was something Sam had always dreaded actually doing,but he knew that Oliver would be there no matter what the reason was behind the call.
Oliver asked Sam if Nick Collins would be okay, and Sam had agreed because they were playing poker together with a few guys from Twenty-Seven. Besides Collins was a good guy, he'd had Andy's back a few times when she had been his TO and she ran into trouble. Sam respected and trusted Collins for that.
Next Sam called Andy trying to figure out how not to scare her before anyone got there. But calling was the better option- having cops show up at your door in the middle of the night when your cop husband wasn't home could send you into early labor.
"Hey you okay?" Andy whispered in his ear after a few rings.
'Yeah, good. Are you in bed?".
Andy giggled, he knew her too well. She had fallen sleep on the couch waiting for him.
"Figures" Sam chuckled.
"Can you um, Oliver's coming over can you turn some lights on and um make sure you're close to the lockbox?". He knew that by saying that she'd know that something was wrong. The only thing they kept in the lockbox were guns and spare magazines for said guns.
"Sam, what's wrong?".
"Nothing Andy. Just a precaution".
"Sam, what was on the flash drive?".
Sam didn't say anything other than "uh" before keeping quiet.
"Sam, you're scaring me and right now is not a good time for that so what was on the flash drive?".
He could hear her moving about, he could picture her turning lights on and checking that the doors and windows were locked, that the alarm was still on.
"Sam! Wait, Oliver's here".
What? He'd only spoken to Oliver minutes ago, Oliver would never have made it to his house in so little time. Not unless...
"Andy get out of the house" Sam yelled into the phone before running towards the door of the lab, Jerry hot on his heels yelling into his own phone.
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