Hailey's POV

Hours passed and every single person we asked all had the same answer.

Nobody had seen Charlie.

"Maybe we're in the wrong area," Jay told me as we prepared to call it, "Maybe she's hiding out in Ruzek's area or something?"

I nodded, still doubtful though, "Yeah, maybe."

Just then, my phone went off with a text from Rojas.

Somebody thinks they saw her by Ashburn.

"Jay," I stopped in my tracks, "Somebody thinks they spotted her in the Ashburn area."

Jay furrowed his eyebrows, "Isn't that a community area?"

"That's also where Harris wanted to meet up," I said, just realizing the coincidence.

"We should get going," Jay told me, getting in the car.

I nodded and quickly hopped in as well before Jay started the engine and started driving off towards Rojas' area.

As Jay drove, he glanced over at my hopeful face before looking back at the road.

"Don't get your hopes up," He said and I turned my gaze away from the window so I could look at him.

"What?"

"We don't know that they actually saw her. It could have just been a false alarm. I mean, there are plenty of teenage girls with brown hair and brown eyes," Jay said bluntly, "It could be a false alarm."

I shrugged, "Well, maybe it is a false alarm, but we need to be hopeful right now."

"Look, I just don't want you to get your hopes up about finding Charlie just to find out in the end that the person didn't actually see her and only saw someone who looked like her or something," Jay told me.

"Thank you for your concern, but your concern right now shouldn't be about me getting too excited about possible false alarms," I said coldly, "You should be concerned about finding Charlie."

"Where did they see her?" I asked Rojas as soon as Jay parked the car.

"They think they saw her," Rojas told me as I got out and started walking towards everyone who had gathered here as soon as Rojas had texted us the closest thing we have to someone spotting Charlie.

I bit the inside of my lip, "Did they say where they think they saw Charlie?"

"Not really," Rojas replied, "Apparently just around."

"We couldn't get anything more out of him," Atwater added.

Voight nodded, "So we split up. Ask more people, scout around. We make sure everyone here knows who to look out for and that Charlie isn't still hiding around somewhere here. Got it?"

Everyone nodded and we each took another photo of Charlie before walking off. I decided to head to the park since there were a quite few parents there with their kids. Perhaps they've seen Charlie around at the park.

"Excuse me, I'm with the Chicago PD," I said as I approached a dad a sitting on the bench watching his kids play on the playground, "Have you seen this girl around?"

I showed him the photo of Charlie and the dad leaned closer to get a closer look.

"I don't know, not that I remember distinctly anyways," The dad told me, "I don't really remember random faces too well."

I wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not so I didn't reply with a snarky remark. Plus, what good would that do.

"That's okay, just keep an eye out for her," I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

"What did she do?" The dad asked me. "I mean, should I be worried about bringing my kids to the park?"

I was starting to get sick of people assuming that Charlie had done something wrong but I tried to remind myself that if I was in their shoes and the police approached me about someone, I'd assume that they had committed a crime.

But I knew I wouldn't have done that.

"She's missing," I said shortly, "And we just want to find her safe and bring her back home."

As I was saying those words though, I knew that we wouldn't be bringing her back home unless we were flying her back to Winnipeg, which wasn't what we were going to do.

"Oh, okay," The dad nodded, "I'll keep an eye out."

"Thank you," I nodded, hearing the genuinity in his voice. He was a parent, he would never want it to be his kids missing. Nobody wanted it to be their kid missing. I wondered how Charlie's dad was feeling right now?

His daughter was missing and he couldn't do anything but wait.

Wait and see what the verdict would end up being.

For all he knew, Charlie could be dead.

For all I know, Charlie could be dead.

But I can't think like that. I can't think that Charlie's dead because that's not going to do anything.

I thanked the dad one more time and moved on to the other parents in the park.

Everybody said the same thing that the dad had told me. They hadn't seen her, not that they remembered anyways. I was frustrated but not at them. I could understand why they might not be sure about whether they had seen Charlie or not.

I was just frustrated with everything going on.

I was trying so hard to find Charlie and she making it so hard.

I was ready to leave the park and find a different place to ask around when I spotted a person walking around and figured that while the answer would probably be the same as all the other ones I received today, why not give it a shot?

"Hey! I'm with the Chicago Police Department," I said as I approached them from behind, thinking that they would turn around to face me so I could ask about Charlie.

Instead, they dropped their head, which was covered with a hood and started briskly walking away from me.

"Hey!" I shouted but they didn't stop. They actually quickened their pace if anything.

Immediately, I jumped to the conclusion that they were hiding something from me since I had told them I was police. Maybe drugs.

Probably drugs.

"I just want to ask some questions," I told them, "They're not even about you. I just want to know if you've seen this girl."

I thought that would put some ease into their mind but apparently it didn't because they broke out into a run.

"Hey!"

I started running after them, pursuing chase.

I was fast. I was a detective who worked in Intelligence, I had to be fast.

But this person was also fast.

I couldn't understand why they were running. Whatever they were hiding must be pretty bad if they ran even though I said I only wanted to ask about a missing girl.

They sharply rounded a corner and I slid slightly on the gravel, slightly surprised by the sudden change of direction.

Finally, I managed to get close enough and grabbed the handle of the backpack they were wearing and pull them back. I then realized the loophole in that plan as the runner started to struggle as they pull their arms out of the straps of the backpack.

"I just want to talk," I repeated what I had first told them but it didn't do anything so I grabbed their shoulder.

Suddenly, the back of a fist came flying at my face as they threw a backward punch. The fist hit my cheek and finally I decided to put an end to this and grabbed the person's shoulders before pushing them down onto the grass at the side.

"Why'd you run?" I asked and the person continued to struggle against my grasp, "I don't even want to talk about you."

The person was lying on their belly on the grass while I maintained a strong hold on them, keeping them down. When they didn't say anything, I flipped them over so that we would be face to face.

I let out a big gasp when I saw their face and my hands instinctively flew off of them out of shock.

"Charlie?"