He hears the creak of the door and footsteps first – even as the little one tip toes towards the back of the second floor – presumably going to Jay's room for a moment before returning to their own just minutes later. He thinks that they must have gone back to sleep as it grows quiet, but then the door opens again.
"Daddy?" Even as they move to the top of the stairs it's unclear if the tired whimper is coming from Ava or Alex – not having spent enough time with them to differentiate between the two yet, but he's thinking it's Alex.
Mouse looks at the large window overlooking the street – hoping that Jay will return in that moment to comfort his son. A small part of Mouse regrets the suggestion that Jay leave the twins with him, but reminding himself that he can handle this or call and interrupt Jay if he can't. With that he moves to the bottom of the stairs – just about to start walking up when Alex descends the first few steps.
"Uncle Mouse?" Alex whispers and Mouse just nods at first.
"Hey Bud." Mouse gives him his best attempt at a smile, despite the anxiousness that's growing within.
Alex eyes scan the room and then looks towards the kitchen as he takes another couple steps down. The tired pout on his face deepens when he doesn't see Jay. "Where's Daddy?"
"Uh…He just had to go run some errands." Mouse answers nervously, knowing that was a sorry excuse even for his current company.
"But it's night time." Alex's face scrunches in confusion as if that's the most ridiculous thing and Mouse nods again – telling himself that the little boy is definitely Jay's son.
"Did you have a nightmare?" Mouse inquires to curb his friend's son interest in his dad's whereabouts - hoping that he can help the little boy go back to sleep. He shivers ever-so-slightly with the simple mention of night terrors – not wishing that on his worst enemy much less a little kid, his nephew so-to-speak.
"Did Daddy tell you that?" Alex answers with a question of his own – leaving Mouse wondering for a moment if he's talking about now or his previous struggle with bad dreams. In either instance, Mouse nods to answer him as Alex finishes coming down the rest of the stairs and goes to have a seat on the couch.
"I didn't have bad dreams. I just had to go potty and when I got back to bed, I wanted to go back to sleep 'cause I really tired but I can't." He rubs his nose on the top of the plush dinosaur in his arms while he's talking, causing his words to come out a little muffled but Mouse still understands him.
"Well what do your Mom and Dad do to help you go back to sleep?" Mouse asks and he can hear Alex sigh.
"Momma cuddles and reads, sometimes she sings to us, and Daddy umm…Daddy watches movies with me that teach stuff." He explains and Mouse shakes his head to himself – knowing he won't be doing what Erin does to comfort her son, as he rounds the corner of the couch and sits on the other end.
"Movies that teach stuff?" Mouse voices quietly to himself, trying to think of what the little boy means. He repeats the words in his head, and tries to think of what he knows Jay likes to watch before realizing that Alex is referring to documentaries.
"Alright, lets see what movies your dad has saved on here." He says as he picks up the remote, and seconds after pressing the power button, apps pop up on the screen.
"It's the green square and I like the octopus one." Alex announces and Mouse is grateful that the five-year-old knows what he wants.
"Is this it?" Mouse questions seeing Alex nod his head enthusiastically when the cursor is moved over the ocean documentary.
"Thank you Uncle Mouse." Alex smiles, showing off his dimples – seemingly the only feature that the little boy got from Erin. They settle into a comfortable silence as the movie plays on and Alex falls asleep about a half hour in. Mouse chuckles to himself as the little boy curls into the arm of the couch with his bright colored dinosaur still clutched tightly against his chest. And with him back to sleep, Mouse allows himself to drift off too, completely unaware of the man looming outside the window.
The single shot is still echoing through the house – leaving a ringing in their ears and their hearts pounding in their chests. Zeke's growling is loud but also muffled as he continues to bite the shooter. The large dog thrashes his head back and forth causing the man to stumble to the floor and yell out in pain.
Erin steps forward and kicks the gun backwards to Jay before turning to face him. Her eyes travel up and down his body after he picks up the gun. She looks for any signs that he was hit with the bullet and he seems to do the same for her. It's not until she makes the second pass with her eyes that she notices his arm. The sight of blood beginning to spill from his forearm causes her heart to sink and her own blood to run cold - not taking a moment to truly see the size of the gash.
"Jay." She murmurs as she steps forward and takes ahold of his wrist to gently lift his arm up and assess the wound further.
"I'm ok Erin, it's just a flesh wound." Jay whispers loudly and she just shakes her head with the soft, worried expression still present on her face.
"Get this fucking dog off me." The man demands as he kicks Zeke, while still writhing in pain on the floor of the entryway, just inside the front door. He stops kicking when he realizes it's only making the dog tighten his grip, the crunching sound of what they can only assume is a bone breaking in the guy's arm is audible even over the dog and the man's yelps.
Still Erin focuses on Jay, leaving her dog to hold the perp as she goes to retrieve a towel. She's only gone from the room for less than a minute, but when she returns she finds Jay with his phone pressed between his ear and shoulder as he attaches a pair of handcuffs to the railing of her stairs.
"Zeke out." She states sternly to get her dog to release and he does, backing away from the stranger but with his dark brown eyes remaining locked on him as the dog goes to stand beside his owner. Blood mixes with the canines saliva and falls from his jowls in dark pink drool beads, landing on the floor in almost inaudible thuds.
Jay restrains the other man's uninjured arm by securing the other cuff around the wrist. "He shot at my girlfriend and I once before our protection dog disarmed him."
Jay rolls his eyes at whatever the dispatcher says or asks him next.
"Me and her are both federal agents. Yes, he'll need an ambulance and no to animal control." Jay fires off the answers to the dispatcher's multitude of questions.
"What? That fucking dog needs to be destroyed, he broke my arm." The stranger yells hoping that the dispatcher hears what he has to say.
"He broke your arm because you shot at us." Erin rebuttals with extra sass as she bends at the waist a little to pet Zeke on the head and praise her dog. "You're a good boy Zekey."
She pulls her hand back when she feels something wet and sticky. The blood can be seen from the top of her hand, the red liquid staining the skin in between her fingers. Then she flips her hand so her palm is facing up, and sees even more. It's too much to be from the shooter's wounds – especially since the blood is on top of her dog's head.
She squats next to the anxious canine, quickly finding where the blood's coming from. There, in the middle of his left ear, is a hole from the bullet piercing through the triangular cartilage on top of the dog's head. The verbal cue for Zeke to sit is given before Erin goes to retrieve his leash and another couple towels one for the dog, another for Jay and one for the shooter as he's bleeding on her floor.
When she returns again, they can hear the sirens approaching. She clips the leash to Zeke's collar and ties the other end around the support beam behind the couch. She hands Jay another towel and looks at his arm when he pulls the first one away, seeing for herself that it is a superficial wound.
"I'm fine Erin." Jay whispers sternly, hoping that she'll believe him this time. She nods, but he can see it in her eyes that she's still worried. The moment between them ends as the other man attempts to sit up a little straighter. Erin moves to squat beside him and she can feel a burst of air as Jay hurriedly comes to stand protectively behind her, as if the stranger still poses a threat with one arm injured and the other handcuffed.
"Agent Lindsay, right?" He implores and Erin simply nods with an icy glare.
"You don't know me, do you?" The guy asks next and it causes Erin to furrow her eyebrows in confusion as she finishes wrapping the towel around the man's bloody arm.
"Other than the asshole that just came to shoot at me and my boyfriend, no…Am I supposed to know you?" Erin shoots back as she goes to apply pressure to her Zeke's ear while the man just snickers as he looks at the towel on his arm.
"Figures someone like you – someone so unforgettable – wouldn't remember someone like me or Lance." He shrugs and Erin becomes even more tense with the mention of her former colleague.
"Lance?" She questions quietly to herself as she mulls over those words again in her head while the man nods.
Then it clicks for her. "Wait, you were a CI of his. Um…Conan – no, Cornelius."
"Your name is Cornelius?" Jay jokes and the other guy glares up at him.
"That's uh…unfortunate." Jay adds with a chuckle as he shakes his head and takes a small step back as if hearing the man's name lessened the threat he posed a little more.
"I told him that I had something - some intel for him and he told me that you two got him fired and then asked if I could help him with something." Cornelius explains and Jay shakes his head in disbelief.
"So he hired you as a hitman for us? Was that your attempt to kill us?" Erin wants some clarification because she also doesn't believe what she's hearing.
"If I was here to murder you, you'd be dead." The man replies earnestly.
"Then tell us, Cornelius what were you sent here to do? Scare two FBI agents? Try to persuade us to get Lance's job back? What did he ask you to do for him?" Jay interrogates and the other guy shakes his head back and forth.
"To distract you." Cornelius gives them what he perceives as a frightening smile but neither Jay nor Erin seem fazed by it.
"From?" Jay questions before someone else walks to the house and interrupts the conversation. But both Erin and Jay continue to think over the man's words and what he meant.
"Is the dog put away?" A uniformed police officer questions as he stops at the front door, still wide open.
"He's tied up right here." Erin tells them as she points down at Zeke while keeping pressure on his ear with her other hand.
"And you're both Feds?" The second officer asks causing Jay and Erin to nod their heads and Erin even grabs her badge as proof, before replacing it in the lockbox with the gun she brought down from upstairs.
Jay removes the handcuffs from Cornelius' wrist and even helps the male officer get him up on his feet.
"He said that you took his job from him - the most important thing in his life. He didn't want you dead - no, he wanted the both of you very much alive so you knew exactly how it feels to have something precious to you taken away." He tells him and then he's escorted out of the house and walked over to the ambulance.
The female officer takes Erin's statement, while Jay stays unmoved from his spot by the stairs with Cornelius' parting words on replay in his head. He gives his statement and the wound to his arm is photographed along with where the bullet ended up in a stair before it's extracted from the wood and put into an evidence bag. It goes both quick and slow and once the last of the cops and agents leave, so do Jay and Erin.
She's not paying attention - zoning out as she stares out the passenger side window until she feels him hit the brakes, causing her body to lurch forward. Her eyes look at him before following his line of sight to the object in the middle of the street. First she thinks it must be road kill, some poor wild animal that lost it's life after a run in with a car. But the thought is quickly pushed out of her head as Jay parks and turns off the truck, unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out to retrieve the object. All color drains from her face when he picks it up, and the bright orange belly of the stuffed toy is illuminated by the head lights. She mindlessly unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out of the truck too. They're only a half block away from his house and with one more look at their son's stuffed dinosaur, she takes off – finding his front door unlocked and slightly ajar. Jay's only seconds behind her - not caring about the truck in the moment - though if he thought about it he'd realize the vehicle couldn't be stolen too easily since the key fob is in the pocket of his jeans.
He runs into the house, waking up his best friend as he immediately yells Alex's name. His feet carry him straight up the stairs like Erin, he glances into his son's room and then goes to his own room. He frantically looks under the bed and in the closets before going back to Alex's room and then Ava's, somehow not running into Erin, but hearing her call out to their son from somewhere on the second floor. Jay rushes back down the stairs.
"Have you seen him?" Jay questions his best friend.
"Alex?" They hear the panic in Erin's voice even from upstairs as she moves back into the hall and moves to Ava's room when their daughter cries for her mom.
Mouse nods as he starts stumbling over his words. "He was having trouble falling back to sleep, so he came looking for you-"
"Jay!" Erin yells next as she rushes down the stairs with Ava held tightly in her arms.
"I can't find him." She adds once she gets to them.
"I…I didn't even hear him get up. I - we just put on the ocean documentary and I fell asleep after he did. He was just right here." Mouse stutters as he looks at the couch where Alex just was a short time ago.
"The door was open when I ran over here." Erin adds, still somehow forming coherent thoughts even though the two men can see that she's far from ok, she's distraught to put it lightly - her breathing is labored as her whole body aches to have her little boy back where he belongs with her, his sister and Jay.
"Cornelius, right before the officers took him outside, he said that Lance wanted to get back at us - to take the most important thing to us, away." Jay recalls out loud and Erin shakes her head, and pinches herself to see if she can wake herself up from this nightmare.
"Greg check my security cameras and the neighbor's too." Jay orders while he dials 9-1-1 for the second time tonight.
"My son's been taken." Jay tells the dispatcher before she even has a chance to say anything - the same one who took his earlier call. And those words said out loud make it real for Erin, sobs instantly wreck her body as her arms tighten even more around Ava who seems either too tired, or maybe too young to truly grasp what's going on around her or the severity of the situation. But she feeds off her parents emotions, the energy they're emitting causing her to cry too. She nuzzles her face into her mom's chest and wraps her arms around her neck.
"It looks like he opened the door for this guy." Mouse tells them as he turns his laptop towards them.
"Can you track the car?" Jay asks - not surprised to see the guy - Lance hiding his face with a hat and hood.
"Hello?" They hear Will say as he walks in the door, clearly confused when he finds them in differents stages of distress.
"Whats going on?" The older Halstead asks once he gets closer to them.
"Alex was kidnapped." Mouse's voice is hushed as if to not upset either Jay or Erin further.
"He was what?" Will all but yells, causing Ava to flinch and cry harder as she reaches out for Jay who cautiously takes her from her mom.
Erin goes back upstairs and yells for Alex some more - hoping that he's just hiding somewhere in the house. She actually prays that he just fell asleep in an odd place where he can't hear her - despite the tiny part deep down inside of her that tells her he's not here. There's no telling how long she continues to search, but she realizes it must have been a while as Jay comes upstairs after talking to the police downstairs.
"Erin." Jay whispers, but she doesn't respond as she looks in the back of their son's closet.
"Erin." He says a little more stern to get her attention, and she looks at him for a brief, blink and you miss it moment. But he still sees the brokenness in her red rimmed, bloodshot eyes - the hope continuing to dwindle. "They closed off a five mile radius, split the force with some searching the perimeter while the rest are starting here."
"We should be out there looking for our son, if...if he's hiding he'll come out for us." She stutters and he nods as he cups the back of her arms which are crossed over her chest.
"Erin." He tries to calm her despite the fact that he's struggling to hold himself together.
"He'll recognize our voices, he'll come back to us. Having a bunch of strangers yelling his name might scare him away." She continues - ignoring him trying to talk to her.
"They said it's best if we stay here with Ava in case Alex is brought back or if Lance reaches out." He tells her when he thinks she's done talking.
"One of us should be out there, and if you don't care to then I-"
"Don't you dare accuse me of not caring." His voice has a sharpness to it with the statement. They're both scared and heartbroken - they're both feeling an array of emotions, but he won't just brush off such an insinuation. He lets his hands fall away from her arms as he backs away from her a little.
She stops for a minute - recognizing even in the moment that she was wrong to say that. Her eyes meet his with a silent apology - knowing farewell that he cares and loves both of the twins just as much as her. And when he stares back at her and gives her a nod of his head to let her know he heard her without saying a thing, she can see everything she's feeling reflected back in his eyes. "I want to join the search, but I agree that at least one of us should-"
Erin nods - not even needing to hear the rest of his sentence. "I'll stay here with Ava just in case."
Jay just nods again, he steps towards her and cups the back of her head. He looks into her eyes again before he leans in and presses a lingering kiss to her forehead then he turns to walk out of the room.
"Jay." She whispers, waiting for him to face her again. "Bring our baby home."
Then he's disappearing out of the room, only for him to come back in with two uniformed officers just seconds later.
"What's going on?" She questions with the confusion and worry evident in both her voice and the expression on her face.
"Ms. Lindsay we're going to need you to come with us to answer some questions." One of the officers informs them.
"Like hell she is, what's going on?" Jay defends as he backs up until he's standing directly in front of her - feeling her hands fist the back of his shirt while he plants himself in between her and the officers.
"It's protocol to question the parents when a minor goes missing."
"You already questioned her and me. And now you're just asking for her which we know means something new is causing you to suspect her. So what happened that caused you to shift your focus?" Jay questions their motives and the officers both nod.
"The gentleman downstairs informed us of your girlfriend's drug addiction, are you aware of that Sir?" The same officer adds and Jay nods.
"Yes, and I'm going to inform you that she's been clean for years before our children were even born." Jay admits next and the female officer sighs.
"Sir-"
"Call me Sir one more time and I promise you, you'll regret it." Jay warns as he looks over his shoulder at Erin and then back at the officers. "Now if you'd excuse me, I'm going to go look for my son, I expect the same from you and for you to leave my girlfriend - the mother of my children alone."
"Yes S-...Yes Agent." The officer that's been doing the talking says, giving one more look to Erin before he's retreating from the room.
Jay turns around and kisses her head again. "I love you. I'm going to bring him home."
"You too." She whispers back and he nods before actually leaving and Erin goes to check on Ava, who's back to sleep in her bed.
"Jay, what do you need me to do?" Will approaches him as soon as he gets downstairs.
"You can either help look for my son, or you can leave, but this time don't come back." Jay shrugs as he grabs his phone, gun and a flashlight.
"Jay I-"
"Save it." Jay tells him as he nods at Mouse.
"You got anything?"
Mouse shakes his head. "Nothing yet."
"Call me when you do." Jay says as he walks out the front door of his house.
He only makes it a few feet to the right of his house before his brother catches up and steps in front of him. "Jay listen, I know that you're pissed but you have to admit that she could be a part of this - a part of the reason Alex is missing."
Jay just huffs at that while moving to go around Will but he stands in his way again causing Jay to snap and push his brother against the garage.
Nothing more is said between them, Jay giving his brother a cold stare and then he's walking towards the street where he found Alex's toy a little bit ago.
There's a heaviness in his chest - intensifying as he takes a break from staring at the screen of his laptop and once again looking at the empty space beside him on the couch. It's been hours since Alex was taken - one hundred ninety seven minutes since he was first told to look at Jay's security cameras but it feels like it was just seconds ago that Alex was here, picking his favorite documentary to watch. While at the same time, the guilt has been eating at Mouse - knawing away at every part of him and making him suffer so that he feels like that little moment was days ago.
He doesn't know how he slept through it - how his best friend's little boy could have been mere feet away when he was snatched from the front porch without making enough noise to wake him. He thinks that over again and pulls the security footage back up - watching once before replaying it while zoomed in, then again and again. When he first watched, he thought that the guy - Erin's former partner - picked Alex up and muffled any noise he may have made by cupping the back of the little boy's head and pressing his face into his shoulder as he carried him to the car. But now that he's looking closer and paying more attention to the man's movements, Mouse can see the guy pull something from his pocket as he points at Alex's dinosaur with his other hand. Once Alex is looking down at the stuffed animal, he sees the kidnapper press something into the side of Alex's neck and seconds later his limp little body is being carried away. That's when the laptop dings - signalling a notification from the program he has scanning for the car and he immediately calls Jay.
The phone rings - blaring in the otherwise silent room. She doesn't even register the noise at first - her mind too busy with thoughts of her little boy. Every memory of him from the first time she held him as a newborn to his soccer practice just yesterday - each one playing like movies in her head even as she reaches for her phone. She wipes at her cheeks, looks at Ava asleep on the bed and then quickly over at the twin's babysitter, who just got here a little bit ago after getting the Amber alert message about Alex. The younger woman gives her a small, sad smile just before Erin's glancing at the screen. A whole different emotion ripples through her body seeing the caller ID. Her finger is pressed into the green circle so hard the screen turned white beneath the pressure. She takes a couple steps away from her daughter's bed, before deciding to step out of the room entirely.
"Where is he Lance?" She tries to keep the tremor out of her voice, hoping that he'll stay on the line longer if she seems unbothered - even though that couldn't be further from the truth.
"I don't know what you're talking about Erin. Where's who?" He states - having the audacity to play dumb. Erin bites her bottom lip, becoming more worried with even the slightest possibility that her son is with someone else. She races down the stairs, gaining Mouse's attention and then pointing to her phone still pressed against her ear. He nods before bringing something up on his laptop with his own phone held between his ear and shoulder.
"I think she's on the phone with her partner." Mouse whispers to the person on the other end of his call, who she assumes is Jay. Then Mouse points at the computer and she leans down to see what he needs before she types her number in and then presses enter to get the program to begin tracing the call with Lance.
"Can you at least tell me he's ok?" Erin asks next, needing to know that her little boy is as ok as he can be given the circumstance.
"Who Erin?" Lance teases knowing that he's already getting to his former colleague.
"Mouse, what's going on?" Jay asks still on the phone with his friend, and being able to hear the disparity in his girlfriend's voice even while on a different call.
"I'm tracking the call, but another traffic cam just picked him up heading South on Lighthouse Drive from a few minutes ago." Mouse answers, and he can actually hear when Jay accelerates his truck - the engine revving and the tires screeching against the road as he picks speed in hopes of catching up to the car being driven by his son's kidnapper.
"Can you hear what he's saying to her?" Jay still manages to listen in on the other conversation.
"No." Mouse answers simply as his focus remains on the screen of his laptop as Erin yells, not being able to keep a cap on her emotions any longer.
"You didn't seem too concerned about him while you were fucking the rookie." Lance counters to her last string of questions regarding Alex.
"What is this about Lance? Why did you take him? Just tell me what you want and I'll give it to you as soon as my son's back home." Erin tries negotiating, not realizing that Lance isn't falling for the trap.
"Do you even realize what my life's been like since you got me fired? The damage you've caused? I lost my job, my house, my pension, everything because of you. I can't even get a job as a fucking security guard. I'm never going to get back to the life I had and neither are you."
"Lance, please." Erin begs through her fingers as she covers her mouth, tears flooding her face as she thinks about what those words mean.
"Goodbye Erin." Lance bids before the line goes dead just as Mouse shows her the laptop. The phone pinged at the same time that a live feed, street camera caught the car turning into a public park entrance which is where the phone was when he hung up. She looks over at the twin's babysitter as she gets to the bottom of the stairs and shakes a set of keys in her hands. Once Erin's looking at her, she tosses the keys over and nods to the door - both to tell Erin to go and that she's got Ava. Erin nods and rushes out the door.
She sees Jay's truck almost as soon as she enters the park. Then she sees the car Lance has been driving, and notices that the tires are flat, no doubt Jay's work to ensure that Lance would have a harder time getting away if he tried. She hears some bushes rustling, but she can't be sure from which direction the noise came. So she decides to go to her left, not realizing that she walks right past Lance - hidden by some of the foliage along the side of the trail.
"Will, I've got him - I've got Alex." She hears Jay's voice shout and she goes to towards him, but she's quickly pulled back with a knife being pressed against her throat. She can still make out what Jay's saying, though he's much quieter than he was before, leaving her to believe that he must be talking to Alex or Will. Her eyes close, pushing her tears to fall as she listens to his hushed voice and waiting to hear her little boy one last time, but nothing comes from him, causing her heart to sink.
"Will!" Jay yells out in a panic before going back to mumbling to Alex. She can't make out exactly what he's saying, but she knows it's not good - she can feel it in her bones.
"Let's see Rookie try to save him, shall we?" Lance snarls from behind as he shoves her in the back to get her to start walking forward. They come to a stop just shy of the large fountain where some bushes are still keeping them concealed. Lance turns her head to the left so she can watch as Jay gently, but hastily removes the duct tape from Alex mouth the rest of the way.
"Come on Bub, open your eyes for me." Jay says as he puts his ear to Alex's chest and then lays Alex down on the ground to start CPR. He calls out to his brother again after giving Alex the first set of rescue breaths, but he still doesn't get a response.
"Now you know how I feel. That last day at the bureau - watching it all get ripped away." Lance talks into her ear, making her shiver with the chilling sentence.
"No." Erin whispers, her eyes still locked on where Jay is desperately trying to resuscitate their little boy.
"It's a shame it had to end like this." Lance adds without a hint of remorse. She can feel him tighten his grip on the cold blade that's now beginning to slice into her skin. But then he's gone - his presence practically vanishing from behind her as the blade falls to the ground with a loud clanging and next thing she knows she sees Will throwing punches at Lance who's laid out on the ground with one hand over his ear - presumably where Will initially hit him. Erin holds her hand around the front of her throat while grabbing the knife and then running over to Jay and Alex.
"Hey, Bubba, stay with us. Mommy's here now, too." Jay pleads as Erin brushes some of her son's short, soft hair back and then takes over giving him mouth to mouth. The sirens sounding in the distance are quiet in comparison to the ringing of their hearts pumping hard and loud in their ears - feeling as though they've become lodged in their throats. The commotion soon becomes louder as fellow law enforcement flood the scene, but neither Jay or Erin hear them - too focused on Alex as color begins to return to his face and he gasps quietly, but in the moment it seems loud enough to drown out everything else around them. They wait with bated breath for him to open his eyes next, but that doesn't happen - his beautiful green eyes, that match his dad's, remain shut and his breathing is shallow as the EMT's get him onto a back board and carry him to their rig where he's quickly hooked up to various machines. Both of his parents feel as though the drive to the hospital is the longest ride of their lives as their little boy's life remains hung in the balance.