Atwater stood between Adam and the door. "You are not going in there."
"Kev, man get out of my way."
"No." This was exactly why Halstead had sent Atwater into the observation room with Ruzek.
"I am warning you Kev, back the fuck off."
"Ruzek." He put his hand on his chest and Adam looked down at it and then back up at his partner. He was a bundle of pure hatred and rage and Kevin knew that nothing would stop him if he got close to this guy. "Bro, I am not letting you through."
Adam poked him hard in the chest. It was no easy feat as Atwater had size and weight on his side but Adam had never been scared of him and wasn't about to start now. "You heard that?"
"Of course I heard it and man I know you are beyond pissed but come on that prick…" He pointed through the window to where Simon was sitting, blood trickling down his face. "…Is not worth losing your badge over."
"He was talking about Polly." Adam screamed at him, thumping his own chest angrily. The agony in his voice stunned Kevin a little. "Polly. My Polly, that's my daughter he was talking about."
"I know. Ruz, I know and he's going to pay but you are not going to be the one that does it. I am not going around to your house to tell Kim and Polly that you are in jail because you killed some piece of shit over some photos and a sick comment. Not when they need you the most." Kevin was surprised this case hadn't been taken off them yet considering how close everyone was to it and they were about to find out if they could stay on the right side of the line. He was a little grateful that Halstead was now in charge, he was a little more straight down the line compared to Voight who probably would have had him in the cage or down at the silos by now, particularly after that comment.
"It's Polly. That's my baby." Finally Adam faltered, his voice broke and Atwater saw him start to stumble. He didn't like watching his best mate fall apart in front of his very eyes. How he had managed to stay on his feet for the past few days didn't surprise them at all. When Adam got his teeth into a case he didn't stop until he felt like he had done everything he could. This wasn't the same and at some point they knew he had a breaking point.
"He didn't touch her. He didn't touch her." Kevin repeated several times until he was sure Adam heard him.
"But he wanted to." And this was it; this was his breaking point and no one was going to blame him for that. It would have broken anyone.
Watching Simon being interviewed had been a harrowing experience. He denied everything until the facts were laid out in front on him, the sad sadistic smile slowly fading when he realised his game was up but not before he virtually dug his own grave.
The photos that they uncovered of most of the girls were not particularly disturbing, not in the way they showed those girls being exploited, he was obviously very careful about that but there were a lot of them, starting pretty much from when Janice started seeing him, of Abbey and her friends. There were photos of them getting dressed up for parties, hanging out at the beach or by the pool. It was the way he cropped some of them, focussing on various girls and zooming in on them and their bodies that was sickening. Those photos of Polly pushed Adam well over the edge and she was in a lot of them. He didn't need to see close ups of his daughter in a bikini or in shorts, they made his skin crawl and took him to a place he didn't know existed within him.
It wasn't like he hadn't seen her wearing those clothes himself and while he did raise a few eyebrows with some of the stuff that Polly wore he just let it go, she certainly wasn't the worst dressed he'd seen and her clothes weren't overly revealing but she did like to show off her legs and her seventeen year old figure. However, when you saw those photos on a computer of a Paedophile that was something else.
The photos of Abbey on the other hand were quite frankly, horrific. The poor girl had been through hell and it had taken everyone a long time to get their head around them and they knew that she had a very long road ahead of her.
Halstead had thought long and hard about letting Adam see them before the interview and letting him watch. He had even called Al, Adam's initial mentor and confidant over the years for his advice. This wasn't any old case, although they had dealt with plenty of paedophiles in their time, this was affecting one of their own and Jay wanted to make sure he got this right.
Adam pushed past Atwater and instead of turning towards the interrogation room he headed towards the locker room. The banging of the lockers told anyone on that floor at the moment that Ruzek was an angry man and the locker room was an 'enter at your own risk' environment right now. No one judged him or blamed him, how could they? They wouldn't have acted any different had they been in that situation.
"Where is he?" Al caught Kevin as he came down the hall. Al was quite possibly the only person he wasn't going to push away. He'd repeatedly baulked at Atwater's attempt to talk to him, despite him being his best friend and partner. He'd kept things strictly professional with Halstead refusing to be drawn on the personal side of this case. He wanted to be involved every step of the way, he wanted to know what was going on so he didn't need his boss to worry that he couldn't handle it or was in danger of over stepping the line. He held him self in check and it was physical and mentally exhausting.
Al could get through all that and Adam could just be himself and spill all his fears and it would stay between the two men. Over the years Adam had told Al things that had never seen the light of day again. That's what Adam needed, he needed someone to be there for him and Al had always been that person.
He had to be strong for Kim, he had to be there waiting when Polly wanted to talk to him, he worried about Angus and the effect it was having on him but right now, after hearing that abhorrent man spew that shit out in the interrogation room Adam needed someone to be there for him.
"Follow the noise Al." He pointed to the locker room.
"Hey." He found Adam slumped against the lockers, his knees drawn up to his chest and his head tilted backwards, staring into space. Al didn't need take a minute to gauge Adam's likely mood, it was written all over his face and evident in his body language.
"Al?" he rolled his head to the side and smiled weakly. Why wasn't he surprised to see him? "Who called you?"
"Halstead." Al sat on the bench in front of him and leant forward and cradled his head as it fell into his lap. "Let it go Kid." He had never stopped calling Adam 'Kid' in all the years they had known each other.
Eventually he lifted his head, sat back a little and ran his hands roughly up and down his thighs to try and steady himself. "I've never wanted to kill someone as much as I want to kill this guy. What he did to Abbey? It's revolting, it's unforgiveable but he had photos of my girl and that feels so much worse now."
Al grabbed the back of his neck and looked deep into his pain filled eyes. "You have every right as a father to feel like this."
"What he did to Abbey was so much worse, I mean he was raping her constantly but I feel so fucking wild right now because he had some photos of Polly and made some depraved comment about her." That had finally made Adam snap, and in a big way. The smug way he stared at the mirror knowing full well that Adam was probably watching showed his true colours and he was basically the lowest form of pond scum.
Simon had never had an issue with Adam, they actually got on reasonably well whenever they met up but he was cornered and his adrenaline was causing him to lash out at anyone who came near him. Adam was just in the wrong place, he was a cop and the cops had him bailed up and he could see his life was over as he knew it. He wasn't stupid, he knew what happened to sexual predators in jail and he was going to get no favours now.
He didn't see the face plant from Halstead coming but he felt the blood trickle down his face from his broken nose. It was probably just the beginning.
"Polly is your daughter and as much as you, as a human being and a cop want to protect the innocent people in the world from fucked up scum like this there is no one more innocent than your own child. Don't feel guilty about caring about your family Kid. Don't feel guilty about wanting to keep them safe. No one, and I mean no one would ever begrudge you feeling like this after hearing someone talk about their daughter like that."
Al held him as he sobbed his heart out.
Long after Al left him Adam splashed some water on his face, took one quick look in the mirror and groaned. He looked like shit; he looked like he'd been crying. He looked weak but he couldn't hide in here forever. He had a job to do and then he had to go home and face his family, he had to face his daughter, who he wasn't even sure liked him at the moment and tell her that a sick son of a bitch had photos of her. And he had to break his wife's heart.
But he was gutless, he couldn't do it and by the time Atwater dragged him out of the bar and poured him through his front door he could barely stand and Kim was beyond pissed.
"Burgess, cut him some slack." He helped Kim get him into the spare room. There was no way she was putting up with his snoring and moaning all night because when he was this drunk that was exactly what he would do. She made him drink some water and take a couple of Advil and put a bucket beside his bed in case he spewed, which he rarely did she must admit and closed the door. She'd be happy not to see him until tomorrow. He was too drunk to even comprehend how angry Kim was at him so yelling at him was pointless, he probably didn't even realise he was home.
"Kev, I don't mind him stopping for a few drinks but he can barely remember his own name."
"He needed to let off some steam, I can guarantee he'll be regretting it tomorrow."
"Oh you can count on that." Kevin cringed a little, his mate was in deep shit and he was glad he wasn't going to be around to see the fallout. When Kim was pissed at Adam everyone knew it, even Adam would willingly admit that he was to blame for the vast majority of Kim's moods. Kim could well and truly hold her own and Adam knew how to push her buttons. This wasn't deliberate though; he'd just reached the end of his tether.
"It's been a tough day few days."
"Really?" Kim bit back at him sarcastically. "You don't think I know that? Why now? What happened today?"
"I think just listening to Simon admit to what he did to Abbey was the final nail. We closed that case, he's going away for a long time and that part of it is over. He held it together until then." Atwater chewed his bottom lip nervously.
"So it has nothing to do with those photos?"
"It's been a long day Burgess, it's been a long few days."
"What aren't you telling me?"
"Kim." He rested his hands on her shoulders. "You know what it's like when you finally put someone away and close a file." He tried to reassure her but knew that he was failing miserably. "This case wasn't just any case either, this was Abbey and it involved Polly. I know he's been getting a hard time from Polly as well. He's struggling with that, you know he is. You'd be proud of how he's handled it all, don't chew him out too much."
Atwater just hugged her tightly and when Kim stuck her head in on Adam he was already snoring so she tried to push it to the back of her mind.
It was more than that; she knew it. She could see it on Kevin's face. Something happened today to push Adam over the edge and not knowing what it was scared her and that made her angry. He knew how stressed she was about everything when he left this morning, knowing that they were talking to Simon today. She got a few messages from him through the day and a quick phone call but that was it.
Kim tossed and turned all night, she hated not having Adam beside her and she hated that she had no idea what was going on with him. What was so terrible that he felt the need to get blind drunk rather than come home and talk to them?
It kept coming back to the same thing…..those damn photos.