Chapter Eighty Six: Sound of Silence

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,

Simon and Garfunkle - Sound of Silence

The Squad Room was silent as the Intelligence Team watched Detective Erin Lindsey tack three familiar pictures to the incident board under the bold black heading of victims. The first image was of Maggie, it was the photograph they had on file for employee I.D card here at the precinct. Her broad smile lit up her pretty features making her look like a kid at Christmas and Jay couldn't help feeling a pang in his chest as he looked at it. He remembered that day vividly, her grin had been infectious as she practically skipped her way into the precinct along side of him. He remembered wondering what she'd been so happy about, she'd taken a demotion and would have to start climbing the career ladder all over again because of a mistake she had made saving his life whilst she was undercover. He hadn't realised at the time that her demotion had represented a fresh start for her. A chance at the life she wanted instead of the one that had been dictated to her from an early age.

Next up was Antonio, his picture was placed carefully alongside Maggie's image. It was another identification card photograph, from earlier on in the year. His dark eyes stared back at them, crinkling at the edges as his lips curved into a slight smile. Jay cast a glance at the other man's empty desk, acutely aware of his friend's absence as he dragged his gaze back to the board once more. He was struggling to get a handle on the violent emotions that were whipping up a storm inside of him. It had been a long time since he had felt like this, his world was kiltering out of control, the same way it had when Lonnie Rodiger had walked free. His chest felt tight, his shoulders heavy with a sense of urgency as he perched himself on the edge of his desk, his hands clasped together tightly.

The final image was of Kayla, the young paramedic who at some point or another had treated every single one of them. Out of the three people on the board she was the person fighting for her life in Chicago Med. The bullet was still lodged in her chest meaning they had to wait until the surgeons were finished before they could collect it and they were already running out of precious time. Whoever had taken Maggie and Antonio had had them for over two hours now and Jay forced himself not to think of what could happen in that time.

"So what do we know?" Voight's gravelly voice broke through the silence drawing the entire room's attention back towards him as he stood next to the board, a dry wipe marker in his hand.

Atwater flicked through his notes from the first crime scene before vocalizing them.

"We believe that Maggie was snatched first from the church car park. It looks to be a blitz attack, the perp slammed her head so hard against the driver's side window it broke the glass." he fed back to the group grimly. "There were no signs of a struggle on her part but there were drag marks leading towards an empty parking space near where Kayla was found. Unfortunately the paramedics were in and out of that area before we got there so it's gonna take some time to narrow down tread marks or a shoe print, however the lab has promised to put a rush on it."

"We found her phone on the scene, the last message was sent at 21:08 to Antonio." Ruzek continued, a pen dangling between his fingers as he spoke. "Kayla, we think was collateral damage. Maggie's brother Gabe, told us she found Maggie's keys on the seat next to where Maggie had been sitting and went to take them out to her. We think she stumbled on the abduction as it was taking place. We've sent the keys to the lab, Kev noticed that there was blood and what looks like skin on the ridges. If we're lucky Kayla may have managed to get some DNA on the perp, it could also have been why he shot her."

"Do we have any news on her?" Al asked breaking into the conversation sullenly, his arms crossed over his chest as he reviewed the room from his usual vantage point.

"She's still in surgery." Burgess responded from her position near Antonio's desk, her arms were crossed firmly over her chest as if to ward off anymore bad news. "Roman will call if anything changes."

"Antonio was definitely taken second." Voight informed the rest of the team. "We found his phone at the crime scene and it looks like he stepped out of the deadzone around 21:35. His phone would have been pinging like crazy at that point, we know he read the text message from Maggie but his notifications after that were untouched."

"The security lights around the gym had been intentionally broken so he would have been stepping out into the dark, there's a lot of places to hide around there." Jay said knowingly, rubbing the back of his neck in agitation. "I think we can assume that he was subdued in some way, probably a Taser, the impressions in the snow indicated he hit the ground hard before he was dragged to a vehicle waiting nearby."

"The church and the gym are pretty close to one another so this could have been done by one person." Erin broke in as she reviewed the timeline thoughtfully."Anything on the vehicle?"

"Maggie's brother reported seeing a navy blue van parked in the church parking lot during the dance. He said it was a Mercedes, one of the more recent ones with Illinois plates. He noticed it because he was looking out for one of the kid's dads after the kid had a meltdown." Ruzek said flipping through his own notebook. "I've got Mouse running it down now."

"What I want to know is, how did he know where the two of them were going to be?" Al pointed out.

"I have the answer to that." Kim informed them, holding up her hand for a brief second to draw Voight's attention to her. "I had the same question so I took a peek underneath both Maggie and Antonio's cars and found GPS tracking devices fixed to the underneath. I've passed them onto Mouse to see what he can get from the data."

"Nice work." Voight said, bobbing his head at the newest member of his team before addressing the room once more."Who do we like for this?"

Erin blew out a long breath as she shifted through the files on her desk.

"The list is extensive." she said frankly. "And that's not including the undercover ops the both of them have run. Stone handed over his files from the Cooper case that Antonio's been working this week, they caught the suppliers and the guy they paid to kill Cooper. None of them had the ability to pull this off."

"What about the brother?" Al said, his forefinger tapping against his grizzled lips as he stared at the board in thought. "Cooper had an older brother, he came in a few times wanting to speak to Antonio. I hear he exploded the last time when Platt told him he was unavailable."

"It's a start." Voight said before he cast his weighty gaze around the room before he crossed his arms over his chest. "I want more on the brother before we shift our focus. We need it ASAP. I don't think I need to explain to any of your what's at stake here."

Hi guys apologies for the wait but this week has been manic due to an awards ceremony that we rung this time every year. Thankfully it's all over now!

Also this month I will be taking part in CampNano, is anyone else thinking of doing it?

Anime: I just want to hug Roman all the time, he's so tough on the outside but I think you catch glimpses of vulnerability during the series I would love to see explored more. Group hug with him and kay's dad is defo in order I think. Lol I always think Kayla would literally be stuck on trying to help whoever she can even in that situation, it's in her DNA. I am gonna keep my mouth shut just in case I give away too many spoilers.

Lauren: I can not say either way. I think it's only fair to see what's going on with everyone else in the story. I also love writing the different reactions especially when you have such rich chars to play with. Fingers crossed that you like what's going to be coming up in the story.

Nat: I just want to hug Sean and Phil because they are these guys who are used to responding and reacting and handling everything life shoots their way but in this circumstance they are powerless and it's a horrible place to be for the two of them. You'll have to keep your fingers crossed for these two because I'm not sure how lucky they will be.

Phoenix: I find if you stick to canon too much it can be a little boring, like your basically rewriting the series but in your own words and by this point I was happy following some canon but I wanted something big to happen to the two of them and I also wanted to try writing something in a way I hadn't before. So this helped me with both goals.

Soccer: I make no promises, you'll have to wait and see.