Alison ran around the kitchen, grabbing a cup of coffee.
"I thought you weren't going in for another hour," Greg said, handing over her glasses. She took them, sticking them in her back pocket. "You know that's how you broke your last pare." She ignored the comment taking a bit of toast.
"I have to go. Stella called; we go another teen girl missing." Greg tilted his head.
"For the baby ring, you've been worked for the past few months." Alison nodded.
"Only this one backed up their email, so I might be able to acutely be able to find her." Greg handed over her bag.
"Then get going. I'll see you at the lab later." Alison kissed him and headed toward the door, then stopped.
"I don't have my bridesmaid dress yet." She looked over at Greg. "The wedding is this week." Greg held up his hands.
"Erin already said that she would pick your dress up." Alison rolled her eyes.
"Normally, I would be annoyed with her but not today." With that, she ran out of the apartment, pulling out her phone. "What can you tell me about the missing girl." She heard Stella pulling up information.
"Her name is Jennifer Fox. Her father is a cop and has been helping us with this case. Making this disappearance strange." Alison got into her car.
"Do you think that this was a personal thing?"
"That's the only thing that explains it. She does match the other victims. The daughter of a cop seems very strange to me."
"I'll take a look at her computer. Maybe she left us something we can work off of."
Greg walked into Erin's office.
"What's this? I hear about an issue with our murder case." Erin looked up at him taking her glasses off.
"The witness is disputing the report the officer took at the scene." Greg flinched.
"Eddie was the officer." Erin let out a deep breath.
"Yes, and one of them is not telling the truth." Greg pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Alright, this isn't terrible. We have other evidence." Erin gave him a long stair.
"Not enough to get a conviction."
"So you need that eyewitness testimony, or this guy is going to walk." Erin let out a deep breath.
"Yes, and right now, I believe him more than Eddie." Greg raised an eyebrow.
"Seriously." Erin lifted her hands.
"What is with you all? Yes, whenever one of you walk into this office, you are cops, not family." Greg looked at the door frame where he had been leaning and stepped back into the hallway.
"Eddie is a good cop, Erin. She has good instincts and often sees things that no other cop would. She has no reason to add that information into her report. Think about it. It's not like she is going to get a promotion over this. She isn't getting a good old slap on the back. She isn't even going to testify on the stand. She was there to take the report and handed it over to the detective." Erin crossed her arms.
"Are you done?" Greg took a deep breath stepping into the office.
"Yeah." Erin smiled.
"You do a better job fighting for Eddie than Jamie." Greg laughed.
"That's because I'm not a lawyer." Erin pointed at the garment bag on a coat hanger.
"That's Alison's dress." Greg walked over, grabbing it.
"Thanks for picking it up."
"Did she show it to you?" Greg looked at the black bag.
"No way." Erin smiled.
"I'm just surprised she's wearing it."
"Eddie asked her to."
Alison's hands flew over the keys as she searched the computer for information. Detective Fox was pacing behind her with Stella and Mac standing at the doorway.
"Have you found anything yet?" Detective Fox called out. Alison flinched slightly but quickly returned to her work.
"From what I can tell. They have been luring girls in the promise of them becoming models." She said.
"That doesn't make any sense. Jennifer didn't want to be a model. She wanted to be a journalist like her mother was." Alison turned around in her chair to meet his gaze.
"I think that's why she did this. She wanted to crack the case and write a story about it. I've found some of her early drafts. It's pretty good. She also has a list of people that she was hoping to interview. But it looks like most of them turned her away. I think that's why they started reaching out to her. She thought she was going to get more evidence on her, but they were…." Alison clamped her mouth shut, remembering that she was talking to a victim's father.
"Eliminating a potential threat." He said.
"That's what you're thinking." Alison held up her hands.
"But I think that they weren't planning on her being so smart." His eyes lit up.
"What do you mean?" Alison turned back to her computer, pulling an image up on the screen. It was a map of the city with a red dot on it.
"What's that?" Mac asked, getting closer.
"That is the location of Jennifer's second phone."
"Second phone?" Detective Fox asked.
"From her note, she anticipated them taking her phone, so she bought a second one in hopes of using it as a tracking device. Like I said, she's very smart." Mac patted the back of her chair.
"Great work Al. You stay here. We'll go check the location out."
"Acutely, I'll come with you. Adam can keep an eye on the tracker. If there are computers at this location, you'll want me out there." Mac looked over at Stella then gave a slight nod.
"Alright."
Greg got in the car next to Eddie.
"What are you doing here?" She asked, lowering her binoculars.
"Same thing as you, I'm guessing." She looked back at the building she was parked Infront of.
"Scoping out Leo Morris." Greg handed her a cup of coffee. Morris was the witness in the case that changed his statement.
"Oh." She took the cup of coffee. "I didn't fudge the report." She said, turning back to the looking out the windshield
"I know." He did the same.
"You know."
"Yeah, I'll tell you what I told Erin. You're a good cop, and you had no reason to lie on that report." Eddie glanced over at that.
"You said that." Greg shrugged his shoulders.
"It's the truth. Everyone at the lab agrees that you make our job easier. You see things that others don't, and you're not afraid to tell us if something feels off." Eddie's eyes dropped to her hands. Shaking her head, she turned back to him.
"I wish Erin saw it that way." Greg waved his hand.
"I've been where you were, believe me. And I was marrying Alison. So, I think you might have it easier than I did in the Erin department. But know this, she is no-nonsense in the office. She treats you the same way she treats Danny and Jamie in that office."
"I didn't know that." Greg smiled.
"That's the Reagan way they live and breathe their jobs. It can be hard sometimes, but at the end of the day, they're the best. They don't let the rest of us skirt by. They push us to be the best with them."
"Thanks."
Alison walked around the warehouse. They had found an abandoned car in front of it. Jennifer's cell phone was in the car, but no sign of her or her abductor. Mac walked over to her.
"You have a thought on your mind." He said. Alison turned to look at him.
"We have searched this scene to the best of your ability, right." Mac took a deep breath.
"Yeah, we weren't even able to pull up any heat signatures in the building."
"What if they aren't where we were looking." Mac tilted his head.
"What do you mean?" Alison rubbed her wrists.
"What if they aren't at this scene."
"We know they aren't" She shook her head, pointing at the police tape.
"What if our field is too narrow." She gestured around them. "We are assuming that she was taken into the building that the car was closed too. But there are about 6 empty warehouses here. She could be in any one of them." Mac was ignoring her, his eyes fixed on something. She turned and froze.
"I suggest we start with the building that has smoke come out of an upper vent." Alison pulled her gun.
"Well, there's one way to find out."
There was a knock on the door to his office, and he looked up to find Eddie standing Infront of him.
"Hey Eddie, have a seat." He pointed to the only chair that wasn't covered in reports.
"Wow, Jamie wasn't kidding about you guys having a lot of paperwork." Greg closed the file. He was working on adding it to one of the piles.
"That's just because Alison is out of the lab working a scene. Most of those are test results or approval requests." Eddie nodded, looking around the office. "So, what did you want to talk to me about." Eddie handed over a piece of paper.
"I was able to find this." Greg grabbed it, looking over the bank statement.
"Is this for the guy we were watching?" She nodded.
"Yeah, and look, someone deposited 10,000 dollars into his account two days before he went to go talk to Erin." Greg nodded, pulling up the report on his computer.
"This is great, but why haven't you taken it over to the DA's office. Antony should be able to help you get this guy to flip." Eddie fidgeted slightly.
"Do you think Erin will believe me?" Greg looked over from his computer.
"With this and the guy flipping for sure. I heard that Jamie went and talked to her." Eddie looked down at her hands.
"I told him not to." Greg raised an eyebrow.
"But did you want him to?" She took a deep breath.
"I think I handled this wrong." Greg made a not on the bank statement then handed it over to her.
"Then take this over that and get it sorted out." Eddie took it.
"Thanks, Greg."
"That's what family's for."
Alison sat on the edge of Flack's desk, looking at the teen girls being reunited. Apparently, Jennifer had started the fire in the vent in hopes of someone seeing it. She and the other girls had been taken by an adoption firm. One of their IT experts had been the ones to wipe their computer. In all, they had found 4 girls. Jennifer and one of her friends. Two other girls had gone missing 7 and 3 months ago. The other girls had been taken to the hospital where they were to meet their family's. It was going to be a shock seeing them now pregnant. But at the end of the day, they were alive. Jennifer and her friend had been checked out at the scene and then taken back to the station by Jennifer's Dad. Now they were just waiting for the rest of their family's to arrive.
"Penny, for your thought." Alison looked over at Flack, who sat next to him.
"You don't want to know my thoughts." She said, her eyes locked on Jennifer. She was sitting in her father's chair, holding onto his hand. If Alison wasn't mistaken, she hadn't let go of it since the two of them had been reunited.
"You wish that you had been able to get out like her." Alison closed her eye smiling.
"I guess It's pretty obvious."
"Only to someone that helped look for you." Alison looked over at him.
"Thank you, Flack. I don't know if I ever told you that. But thank you for helping find me." Flack shook his head.
"No thanks necessary. I'm just glad you're back with your family."
Greg stood next to Jamie and Danny as they waited for the wedding to start. The door opened, and the wedding coordinator stepped in.
"Is it time?" Jamie asked, walking up to her.
"Um, not the bride would like to speak to you." Jamie tensed.
"Me but the weddings about to start. Is she getting cold feet or something?" The woman shook her head.
"No, she doesn't want to talk to you." She pointed at Greg. "She wants to talk to you." Danny brushed into laughter.
"I did not see that coming." Greg ignored Danny walking over to Jamie and the coordinator.
"Don't worry, I'll see what's up and come right back. I don't want you waiting any longer at the end of the aisle than I did."
"That's because it took Alison an extra half hour to come out of her dressing room. I'm still surprised…." Greg didn't hear the rest of the conversation as the door had closed behind him. He followed the wedding coordinator.
"Do you know what this is about?" He asked; the woman shook her head.
"No, she just refused to start the wedding until she talked to you. The bridesmaids are getting ready in another room. I didn't want to tell them unless we needed to push things back." Greg nodded. Too bad he would have liked to have Alison there to convince Eddie to get married. If anyone was going to bolt before their wedding is would have been her. The wedding coordinator pointed toward the door, and Greg nodded. Walking over to it, he gave a small knock.
"Eddie, it's Greg. You wanted to talk to me." The door flung open.
"Is anyone with you?" Greg shook his head. Eddie still looked up and down the hallway before ushering him into the room and closing the door.
"I'm sorry about this, Greg, but I can't go through with this without telling you." Greg's blood went cold, and he started to black dots. "I've been thinking about this all week. Ever since you started helping me with that case."
"Eddie, listen I." She waved him off walked further into the room, her white dress swooshing on the floor. "I love Alison."
"Of course, you do. That's why I have to tell you." Greg held up his hands, stopping her pacing.
"Listen, if you don't want to marry Jamie, that's fine. I think it's a mistake, but you're an adult. But if you're backing out because of me, then…" the expression on Eddie's face caused him to falter in his words. Confusion mixed with sadness.
"Greg, it's not about the wedding."
Alison looked in the mirror, her eyes scanning the bridesmaid dress.
"You look beautiful, Aunt Al; stop fussing," Nicky said, walking over to her. Alison smiled at her.
"I'm not. I just want this thing to start." Nicky laughed.
"You weren't like that at your wedding." Erin walked over to them, placing her hands on Nicky's shoulders.
"That's because Alison has always been late." Erin smiled at her. Her eyes meeting Alison in the reflection. "Nicky, can you go see if they're ready for us. I think it's supposed to be starting soon, and I haven't seen Eddie yet." Nicky nodded, walking out of the room. Alison brushed the front of the dress, not meeting Erin's gaze. "I never thought I would see you like this." Alison looked up at that.
"It's not like I'm getting married or something." Erin reached, placing her hands on Alison's bear arms.
"You agreed to wear a strapless dress. When was the last you didn't have your arms covered? Your wedding dress even had sleaves." Alison instantly reached for her scared wrists knowing the others were still out in the open. Some that she had never let her family see.
"I knew Eddie wanted all the dressed to match, but she would never ask me." Alison took a deep breath. "It's just one day." Erin whipped her eyes.
"I'm so proud of you." Alison rolled her eyes.
"Come on, Erin, it's just a dress." Erin shook her head.
"No, Alison. It's normal. And that is absolutely beautiful on you."
Greg watched as Alison laughed with the rest of the family at the reception. She was holding Ethan swaying back and forth to the music. He had offered her his suit jacket, but she had turned him down. Her arms and scars out for all to see. But she didn't care. She was with her family.
"You look like someone kicked your dog," Danny said, walking up next to him. Greg didn't look at him. He couldn't look at him. "So, what did Eddie talk to you about."
"I told you she wanted to ask Frank to walk her down the aisle, and she didn't know if he would do it." Danny snorted.
"That might have worked with Jamie and Pop's, but I can tell you were lying. So, spill what's up."
"Now's not the time." Greg turned, walking away. Danny followed him to the hallway.
"No, you don't get to do that," Danny called out. Greg turned on him.
"I'm not talking about this here." He hissed, towering over Danny. They glanced down the hallway spotting some of the wedding guests. Greg turned, heading further down the hallway he needed to be alone.
"You might be able to pull that with anyone else in the family but not me, Greg," Danny called out to him. Greg stopped turning on him. He presses his shaking lips together.
"There were two." Danny's brow furrowed.
"Two what?" Greg forced the lump in his throat down.
"Alison was held by two people."