Chapter Two

Without a Trace

Sharon Goodwin glanced up as there was a knock on her door. "Come," she said as she leaned back in her chair and adjusted her glasses. Having expected it to be a member of staff she was mildly surprised to see Doctor Halstead's brother Jay and his partner Hailey Upton as they entered and closed the door behind them.

"Miss Goodwin," Jay acknowledged.

Sharon immediately sensed something was off. Curious she leaned forward in her chair, looking from one detective to the other.

"We're sorry to bother you but we needed to speak directly to you. Our sergeant is missing. We have called every hospital, every shelter clinic, every place we can think of but still come up empty handed," Jay said.

Sharon may have seemed calm and collected but deep down she was shocked and worried. "I assure you, Detective Halstead, if Sergeant Voight had been brought in here, I would have called you without delay."

Hailey and Jay shared a sigh of relief. At least he wasn't in the morgue. Unfortunately, that meant he had simply vanished from the face of the earth and they had no clues or leads about where to look for him.

"Thanks, Miss Goodwin," Hailey replied kindly. "We appreciate that."

The head of patient services rose and walked around the desk to follow them to the door. "I'll alert Maggie and ask the ED personal to keep their eyes open," she assured them. "Just promise me that you'll give me a call if you find him somewhere else."

"Of course," Jay replied.

Sharon watched the door close behind the two detectives and let out a deep breath. She considered Hank a friend, maybe not a close friend but an ally, someone she could trust within the police department – someone she went to for help when she needed it. Knowing Voight, she also knew he was capable of taking care of himself. To think someone had hurt him was unsettling.

OOOOOO

Mouch glanced up in surprise as he saw his wife walk through the door to Firehouse 51.

Herrmann grinned and patted him on the back. "See? Even Trudy comes by to check on you."

Platt's interest peaked as she popped her head into the pause room. "Something happened?" she asked with slight concern.

Randy shrugged casually. "No big deal."

"No big deal?" Herrmann echoed. "You could have gotten killed by that maniac earlier."

"I am not in the mood for riddles," Trudy said, her tone harsher than she intended. It was just that she couldn't worry about both her husband and one of her best friends at the same time.

"We responded to a hit and run accident, except the guy hadn't run yet. He tried to run over his wife again with us on the scene," Brett filled in. "Some squad cars took off after him. I hope they found the idiot."

"It's a good thing firefighters are geared up the way they are," Herrmann spoke up sourly.

Randy took a look at his wife's face. "You didn't know, did you?" he asked.

"No, I am sorry," her face registered shock, annoyance and anger – all in that order – as she fixed him with a glare. "Why didn't you call me?"

"No need. I was all right," he reasoned softly.

"I can vouch for that," Emily Foster said kindly. "He's got a few bruises but that's all."

Trudy nodded her thanks. "Is Chief Boden in?" she asked.

OOOOOO

Atwater and Ruzek watched as the garage opened and Voight's black, supercharged Dodge Durango SRT drove in. It was weird to see a Labtech exit the vehicle.

"Found anything?" Kevin called.

The squatty McCarty made his way over and shook his head. "Not yet. We're speeding things along as fast as we can."

"Well, you've got to know something," Adam pushed. "Are there unknown fingerprints? DNA traces? Something?"

McCarty looked at him. "Look, this is an unmarked police car. Except for Voight, there are a number of people who has stuck their feet on the carpets, touched the panels and textile of the seats with their hands. You are no exception. We need to isolate the prints first, write most of them off, before we can zero in on something that is out of the ordinary. But even then, we might come up empty."

Adam sighed in frustration.

OOOOOO

"Trudy," Boden acknowledged.

"Wallace," she said. "I discovered the team has had a trying day."

He leaned forward and sighed. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. I am just happy all my staff is alive and kicking. Do you know if the idiot was detained?"

"I can look into that for you," she promised. "However, first I need a favor from you."

He seemed curious. "Sounds reasonable. What can I do for you?"

"I need to know if there have been any victims reported in the various fires throughout the city yesterday or the day before that. I can do a lot with CPD records but I can't access CFD files."

"Okay, but anything suspicious do get reported to you guys," Boden reasoned.

"And a lot of information is lost in translation or left out simply because no one thought it was important enough to mention," she pointed out.

His eyes narrowed as he studied her. "Missing someone?" he guessed, thinking it was some lowlife who'd gotten the better of the police department and escaped their clutches.

Platt suddenly looked rattled but the expression fled her face almost instantly and in a calm voice she said; "Hank Voight."

That revelation was far away from what he had expected. "What?" he heard himself ask.

"Deputy Superintendent Miller called yesterday and asked where Voight was since he didn't show up at their meeting session. No one has seen him since the day before, walking off shift."

"You know, Hank strikes me as a guy who can stick his hands into a hornets' nest without getting stung."

She nodded enigmatically. "Voight disappearing into the night in itself might not be cause for concern but he would never intentionally miss budget meetings and strategical planning with the brass."

Boden glanced down at his desk, realizing she was right.

"Hank is tough, I give you that," Trudy said thoughtfully. "He's like a damn cat but I swear, one of these days he's used up all of his nine lives."

"I'll see what I can do, Trudy," Wallace promised.

OOOOOO

Randy, seated in his beloved armchair, glanced up from the newspaper in his lap as Trudy walked into the house. "You are home early," he noted.

"Just here to pick something up, then I am off again," she replied curtly.

"Trudy?" he called after her. "What's going on? I saw you earlier at the Firehouse. I saw the look on your face."

She came over and sat down on the armrest next to him and sighed. "Hank is missing," she revealed. "No one knows where he is."

Mouch's eyebrows shot up in the hairline as he craned his neck to look at his wife over the rim of his glasses. "Someone's messing with Voight?" he said, then gave a low whistle. "They don't know what they're doing."

"I am worried, Randy," she said seriously.

OOOOOO

Daniel Charles grew curious as he walked down the empty corridor to the service elevators. One of his patients had just been found when he was about to escape through the service entrance. Not that he'd consider his patient credible. The young man was highly unstable, saw things no one else saw. However, there had been something in his voice when he talked about the service elevators; what he saw inside. It seemed to terrify him. Now, Daniel knew that the mind was a powerful thing and that people sometimes envisioned things no one else could see. The guard who'd chased him half across the hospital and finally got him back to the ward muttered something about unimaginable imagination but the psychologist was sure that this time there was something that didn't add up for real.

It was late, he'd shrugged into his coat, had his back slung over his back, ready to go home but before he did that, he needed to take a look in that service elevator just to still his curiosity.

"Hey, doc," one of the regular janitors greeted him kindly with a jovial smile as he neared.

"Gary," Daniel acknowledged with a frown. "Is there something wrong with the lift?" he asked curiously.

He made a face. "It's probably nothing. You know, these old cars, they get stuck from time to time. Usually nothing to worry about. I got a dressing down from Doctor Wigham down in the morgue for not attending the matter earlier but as I told him, there are two service elevators. He said the refurbishing crew had occupied the other one and – well – he wasn't pleased."

Daniel huffed, taking the other man's statement into consideration, wondering if some of the builders had scared his patient earlier. "What seems to be the problem?" he asked.

"It's stuck between this level and the one beneath us. I've tried everything but it just won't respond to any command so I am going to do it the old-fashioned way – I am going to manually pry the doors open and see what the problem is."

"Anything on the cameras?" the psychologist asked.

"No, no. The board never installed any cameras in these; said it would be too pricy. They reasoned that every delivery truck was overseen by staff and that security footage outside of it on every floor was enough should something happen."

"Huh," Daniel grunted in surprise. He stood back as the janitor pried the heavy doors open and did a double take, blinking as the doors finally slid open; not sure if what he saw was real or a figment of his imagination. He blinked again but nothing had changed.

"Holy crap!" Gary said, upset as he took a step back. "What the hell?"

Doctor Charles felt prickles on his skin and the hair on the back of his neck rose as he forced himself to take a step inside the large car of the service elevator. He stared at the heap of tangled unconscious people stacked on top of each other and the blood smeared on the walls.

The janitor and doctor shared a dark and uncomfortable look before Daniel managed; "Gary, call Goodwin and the police – right now. I'll page Doctors Halstead, Marcel and Choi."

Gary nodded faintly, all the color draining from his face as he set off to contact security, Goodwin and the police.

Charles took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves, trying to assess the situation clinically. He reached out to try and deduce if the men and women were dead or just unconscious. His hand trembled as his fingertips made contact with the clammy skin of a young woman who lay pinned between two older men. He let out a quivering breath – not realizing he'd been holding his breath in the first place – as he felt a faint beat. The psychologist took a step back just as Halstead and Marcel rushed around the corner.

"Shit," Will blurted as he saw the people, laying haphazardly over one another, to form some kind of human cone. The ones he could see had a ghostly parlor, the skin looked clammy and some of them had arms and legs twisted in very uncomfortable angles.

"What happened?" Marcel asked, his voice raised and upset at what he was witnessing. "Are they alive?"

Doctor Charles nodded. "I think so. This woman is definitely alive."

There was a small space left in the elevator car around the human heap, allowing them to walk around to the back. Will took three steps and froze, then he knelt next to a very familiar figure who lay beneath the rest of the pile; the only thing visible was his face, a shoulder and an outstretched arm. The doctor hesitated for a moment.

"What is it?" Crockett asked as he saw the troubled look on his colleague's face. When he didn't answer right away the surgeon tried again. "Will?"

"Voight?" he whispered, feeling a chill down the back of his spine as he reached out to touch the police sergeant. "Hank!" he called sharply. "Can you hear me?"

Stunned, Daniel quickly made his way around the human pile and came to stand next to Halstead as more medical personal came to render assistance.

"Oh my God," Sharon whispered as she covered her mouth at the sight that greeted her.

"He's alive," Will said but he never took his eyes off Voight. He sneaked a hand in his back pocket and fumbled with his phone. "I'm calling Jay!"

OOOOOO

To be continued