Detective Eric Lenin was not exactly thrilled to be getting called to a crime scene before five in the morning. In fact, he was about as far away from thrilled as one could get. He wasn't scheduled to even be at the precinct until 8 today, but apparently one of the overnights was sick and they figured that it was close enough to shift change that they would just call in someone who was due to start with the next tour, just to keep things consistent.

It didn't help that his partner's car hadn't started, so he wouldn't even be at the house until later since he lived all the way out in Staten Island, plus, what Lenin had been told about this case so far made it sound like a couple of bored patrol officers on midnight tour were a little too sleep deprived and making something out of nothing. Quite literally all he had been told about this new case was that a couple of officers had found a pool of blood in an alleyway, with a smaller spot of what they thought was blood down a side alley, and they 'had a bad feeling about it.' Well, he also had a bad feeling about his mother-in-law's tater tot hotdish, but he still forced himself to eat it when she served it. He was hoping the first officers on the scene would be able to give him something more than a bad feeling once he spoke with them, or else this was going to be a very long day.

As he pulled up to the scene on Newel Street, he noticed that it wasn't a flurry of activity like he usually encountered at a scene. The early morning hour likely helped keep any gawkers away, but that was likely to change as the neighborhood woke up. There were a few patrol cars parked around the block, their occupants standing at the edge of an alley that was blocked off by police tape. He noted a CSU van parked a little further up as well. They had likely just gotten there, like him, since Lenin could see the techs just starting to grab stuff out of the back.

He pinched his nose to wake himself up a little as he walked toward the alleyway to see what he was dealing with. If this did end up being nothing more than a couple of officers who let their imaginations get the better of them, he was going to personally rip them a new one.

One of the officers standing at the edge of the alley stopped him as he approached. "I'm sorry sir, this is a crime scene, you're going to need to go around."

Lenin fumbled in the inside of his suit pocket, still not quite awake, and found his badge. He flashed it at the officer who gave him a once-over and a nod and waved him through. Once on the other side of the tape, Lenin took a glance around, trying to see if there was someone who was in charge or if he was only dealing with a bunch of patrol officers at the moment. He landed on a couple of officers who were standing off to the side, just inside the alleyway. The older one had a grim look on his face, while his partner, who looked like she couldn't have been out of the academy long, was talking a mile a minute to him.

Lenin headed over in their direction. Given that they weren't redirecting passersby or appear to be doing anything else, it was most likely that they had been the ones to call this in. As he approached the two, he could hear the younger officer's rapid fire pace become even quicker. Great.

He cut in as she paused for a breath in between words. "Excuse me, I'm Detective Lenin. Are you two the ones who called this in?"

The older officer, Ramos according to his shield, gave him a nod. "Yes sir, my partner, Officer Jones, and I, were first on the scene."

Perfect. He could get this 'bad feeling' straight from the horse's mouth. "Can you tell me what brought you out here? And why you wanted CSU and a detective? From what I was told, one of you 'had a bad feeling' about what you found and apparently the sergeant felt that was reason enough, but I'm going to need a little bit more information than that."

The younger officer, Jones, glanced at her partner before looking at Lenin. "We were headed back to the house to get some coffee after 4 when dispatch radioed and said that they had a call about a potential assault or welfare check at this location. It was a slow night, so we figured we would just clear the call and head back. When we got here, we found a puddle of drying blood about 15 feet in. Ramos here called it in to the sergeant while I cleared the rest of the alley and looked for a victim. I found a side alley that branches off between the buildings to the street and when I went to clear that, found another, smaller spot of blood. My partner said we needed to secure the scene and call for CSU and detectives, so that's what we did." Jones wrung her hands together, almost like a kid afraid of getting in trouble, after she had finished.

Lenin let out a sigh. "Okay, so you two secured the scene and you saw no sign of anyone at all?"

Officer Jones nodded her head. Lenin and the two officers stepped to the side as CSU bustled past them to start taking pictures and collecting evidence for the lab. "Alright, so you didn't find a victim, just a little bit of blood. Not to sound callous, but why did you call me and CSU for this when it was probably just a street fight?"

Based on the look the two shared, Lenin was willing to bet that Officer Jones shared his opinion of their current situation and her partner, Officer Ramos, was the one with the 'bad feeling.'

Ramos straightened his shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. "That was my call sir. I thought that what we found in the alley, in addition to what we encountered on our way here and the conversation we had with the reporting party, when put together, suggested that something bigger might be in play here."

Now that was interesting. Lenin rolled his head towards Ramos, cracking his neck in the process. "You spoke with the person that called this in?"

Ramos nodded. "Yeah, she was headed to work when we arrived, but told us she was the one that called 911. Her bedroom window faces the alley, and she noticed the pool this morning when she was getting ready to go to work. Apparently last night she woke up late to the sounds of people fighting, but she thought she heard police breaking it up, so she went back to bed. When she woke up this morning and glanced down here, she thought she might have imagined hearing the police, so she called it in just to be safe."

Lenin rubbed his hand over his face. "Did you get this woman's contact information so I can speak to her myself?"

Ramos nodded and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. "Yes, here's the information I wrote down while we were speaking with her. Name is Kenna Johnson, she's a respiratory therapist at St. Mary's, lives in the building. Said she'll be at the hospital until 5 this afternoon, but you can contact her after that."

Lenin grabbed the paper from Ramos' hand, giving it a brief scan before tucking it into his own pocket for later. He was about to go start looking around the scene when the rest of what the man said registered in his brain. "Wait a minute, you said that you two ran into something while you were responding to this that might be related, right?"

Ramos gave him a nod.

"Okay, well, do you care to share what that was at all?" Lenin gestured around at the rest of the alleyway. As far as he could tell, even with what the reporting party had told them, there weren't a whole lot of red flags being thrown up right now.

Ramos cleared his throat. "Right, sorry. While we were enroute, we saw an RMP parked outside a closed bodega a few blocks away. We stopped to check it out, since most of the tour should have been back at the house at the time. Car was abandoned, sir, locked with two patrol hats inside. When Jones checked the hood, it was cool, suggesting that the car had been there for a while."

An abandoned patrol car was never a good sign. Plus, Ramos did have a point about it being odd for other officers to be in this sector during midnight tour. During the day, beat cops were all over the precinct and while they may be assigned a sector, that didn't necessarily mean that they always stayed there. If a call came in and they were the closest officer, they responded. But during midnights, it was more of a skeleton crew, and it was fairly uncommon for officers to venture out of their sectors unless they were backing someone else up or headed back to the precinct.

That gave him a bit more of an understanding of why Ramos would have had a bad feeling about this. "Do you know who was supposed to be in that car at all? Call it in?"

Jones nodded, shifting her weight from side to side. "Yes, sir. Once we were unable to locate the occupants of the RMP, we proceeded to this location. I called dispatch in route to check who had signed the vehicle out, but the dispatcher was a little bit cranky and told me that they were too busy to deal with that kind of thing and to stop playing detective."

He raised his eyebrow at that. Odd. Maybe someone was having a bad night. "Did either of you investigate it any further?"

Ramos shook his head. "Dispatch said the car probably had mechanical troubles and it had already been dealt with, plus we still were on our way to this location, so I told Jones here to let it drop and we would follow up on it once we cleared the call."

Okay, this was getting concerning and Lenin was beginning to understand why Ramos had wanted to bring more people in. His own partner had picked a hell of a day to have car troubles. "Alright, thanks you two. I'll reach out if I need anything else."

Both officers nodded and headed towards the tape on the opposite end of the alley, where a crowd was beginning to form. He walked towards where CSU was taking pictures of his lovely puddle of blood and taking samples for testing.

Lenin stopped a little way behind where the techs were busy at work on the main event when a faint glint caught his eye. It was coming from just underneath a nearby dumpster, easy to miss if the light hadn't hit it just right. He crouched down and pulled a disposable glove out of the inside of his suit jacket to get a better look at it.

A syringe with a needle attached to it. Could be nothing, just left behind by a local druggie, but he was starting to develop that same bad feeling that Officer Ramos had. Something had happened here, and he wasn't liking where his brain was leading him.

"Hey, can I get an evidence bag over here?" One of the CSU techs scurried over, taking a picture of the needle in his hand before carefully taking the barrel of the syringe from him and placing it in a cylindrical evidence tube.

Lenin walked over towards where the lead lab tech was working with their blood puddle. "Hey, what's your take on this so far?"

She glanced up at him as she placed a vial containing a sample of the blood in her kit. "Well, I'd say we've got just under a liter of blood here, so whoever your victim is, they're not going to be doing great. Most likely, if the bleeding hasn't stopped yet, there's a very real chance that they're dead or at least in hypovolemic shock. I've got a sample of the blood, so I'm going to send it back to the crime lab and have them run it stat. Hopefully your victim is in the system somewhere and we can find out who they are."

He gave her a nod. "Great, thanks. Let me know as soon as you get something, all right?"

She gave him a smile as she headed back towards the CSU van. "Of course."

He could see the Crime Scene Unit still wandering around the alley, taking pictures, and starting to sift through the piles of garbage that were lying around. It would be a while, and so far, he hadn't seen anything to give him any idea of what had happened here, so maybe he could follow up on that abandoned patrol car quick while they were still photographing and documenting the scene.

Lenin ducked under the crime scene tape and walked back to his car to drop off his jacket, the notes the responding officers had given him, and to grab his phone, which was sitting in the cupholder. Standing outside in the rapidly gathering heat, he dialed dispatch to see what exactly was going on with the abandoned RMP that Ramos and Jones had mentioned.

The phone rang for a few seconds before someone picked up. "Dispatch."

"Hi, this is Detective Eric Lenin out of the two-nine. I'm calling to see which officers are assigned to a certain patrol car that looks like it was abandoned?"

There was a dramatic sigh from the other end. "Look, I told those other guys it was probably nothing to worry about earlier and to stop playing detective and let it be. We've been getting swamped with calls from all over the city all night, most of them welfare checks due to the heat. I don't have the time or patience for you to be wasting my time on a prank." The dispatcher's voice sounded oddly superior, as if they thought that Lenin was just some dumb cop with nothing better to do with his life. I wish.

This was obviously the same person that had spoken with Jones earlier and blown her off when she had asked about the same thing. "Okay, well, for your information, I am a detective and I need to know who was assigned to that patrol car. I want to make sure that nothing's wrong and there isn't a need for a 10-13."

There came a snort from the other end and when the dispatcher spoke, they sounded annoyed. "Listen, don't be dramatic. We haven't had a 10-13 go out in a while, especially not tonight. I think I would know about that. Now, I have real calls to send out, so why don't you get back to doing your job, detective." There was a faint click and the call disconnected.

Lenin stared at his phone. There was no way dispatch had just hung up on him. And he was certain that whoever he had been talking to hadn't just implied that he was lying and meddling in other cops' business. He felt his anger starting to simmer. They didn't have time for someone at dispatch to be copping an attitude. At worst, he might be looking at two cops in serious danger, at best, there had just been a miscommunication and the cops who were supposed to be in that vehicle were fine.

He hit the redial button and listened to the phone ring once. Twice. Then it picked up again, this time with a different dispatcher. "Dispatch, how can I help you?"

"Hi, this is Detective Eric Lenin from the two-nine. I need to know which officers were assigned to patrol car-" He checked his notes. "- 699748 out of my precinct please?"

Thankfully, this lady didn't shut him down right away like the previous dispatcher had. He heard the faint sound of clicking before she responded. "I'm sorry detective, but it looks like I don't have access to that information. Let me get my supervisor, one moment."

There was a faint click, and then elevator music started to play in his ear. Lenin ran his hand over his face as he glanced back at the entrance to the alley, where a crowd was starting to form as residents of the neighborhood woke up. He glanced at his watch as the elevator music continued to play in his ear. 5:27. Just about an hour since the original 911 call had come in and Ramos and Jones had responded. Which also meant that his lieutenant would be in in a few hours, along with a fresh tour of cops, the captain, and most importantly, his partner.

There was a faint click in his ear as the music cut off, then restarted, then- "Hello, is this Detective Lenin?"

He let out a rush of breath. Finally, someone who might be able to tell him something. "Yes, this is. The woman I was just speaking with said she didn't have access to the records of what officers were assigned to what cars and whoever I was speaking with before that hung up on me and the original officers who called it in. Can you help me with that?"

There was a faint typing sound on the other end of the line and when the supervisor, whoever they were, spoke again, they sounded concerned. "Certainly. But you said that someone hung up on you when you called about this earlier?"

Details, details. He could honestly deal with the problematic dispatcher later, but it wouldn't hurt to pass the information along. "Yes, and based on the conversation, it was the same person who hung up on two officers who were calling with the same question about an hour ago. But that's a problem I can deal with later. Right now, I need to know who signed out patrol car 699748 from the 29th precinct."

There was the sound of clicking on the other end as they typed the car ID into whatever system was used to track it. "Of course, I'll address the problem after this, Detective. Hmm, let me see, 699741…744… here we go 748. Alright, looks like an Officer Luis Badillo signed that out for patrol yesterday afternoon around 4:30." There was more clicking. "That's weird, according to the records from Fleet Services, the vehicle wasn't returned at the end of tour last night."

Lenin felt his blood run cold. "Did Officer Badillo or his partner report back to their command that they encountered car trouble and the location of the vehicle?"

"No, it just has the vehicle marked as still out for tour here in the system."

Oh, this was not good. This was very not good. "Alright, thank you for all your help."

He hit the end call button before the person on the other end had the chance to respond and immediately dialed into the precinct. Hopefully, this had been an oversight on Badillo's part, but he was developing a bad feeling that it wasn't. There were too many things that weren't adding up.

The phone rang once, then the desk sergeant picked it up. "Two-Nine, this is Sergeant Smith."

"Hey Sarge, this is Detective Lenin. Can you tell me if Officer Badillo returned his radio at the end of his tour last night? Sounds like he was supposed to be off around midnight?"

There was the sound of paper shuffling on the other end of the line. "That's weird, doesn't look like he did. Odd, Badillo is one of my top guys, he usually doesn't forget about little stuff like that."

The different pieces were starting to add up in Lenin's head and he did not like the picture they were painting. "Okay, who was Badillo's partner last night? Did they return their radio?"

There was the sound of the sergeant flipping through the papers on his desk, likely trying to find the old roster. "Let me see, here it is. Looks like Badillo was back to riding with his usual partner, Eddie Janko, last night. She's been out for a little bit now, good to see she was back." There was the sound of more paper shuffling. "Hmm, now that's even more odd, looks like Janko didn't return her radio at end of tour last night either."

Shit. The more he learned, it seemed the worse this got. "Do you know if anyone saw Badillo or Janko return to the house at the end of their shift last night, Sarge?"

"Hang on, let me check. I started at midnight, so they could've very well been gone by the time I got here." There was the sound of more holding music as the sergeant put him on hold, presumably to ask around the house.

About five minutes later, after Lenin had watched three different CSU techs come out of the alley to load blood samples and other assorted evidence into their van, the music clicked off as the sergeant got back to him. "Sorry detective, it sounds like no one saw either of them come back to the house last night at tour change. Tedesco did say he saw Janko's Porsche still outside a little bit ago though and they didn't file anything for end of tour. Should we be concerned?"

He grabbed the back of his neck, watching as a few of the uniforms herded a couple of pedestrians away from the tape. "I'm honestly not sure yet, Sarge, but it's starting to look that way. Do you have a record of the last time anyone contacted them at all? Or where their last call was at?"

"Yeah, one sec." He heard the phone get placed down, followed by the sound of the sergeant checking the system. "All right, says here that last time we heard from them was… a while after eleven last night? That can't be right. Shows here they were responding to a possible 10-34 between buildings 150 and 152 on Newel Street. We just sent people out there for something else a little bit ago."

Lenin bit back a curse at the information. So, two officers had essentially been missing all night and no one had noticed. That was just fantastic. He started walking back to the alley and was about to respond to the sergeant on the other line when there was the sound of a commotion. A uniform came out of the alley and frantically looked around before spotting him "Detective Lenin, you need to see this!"

He broke into a light jog, quickly ending his conversation with the sergeant. "Listen, Sarge, I've gotta go, looks like we might've found something. I'll update you when I get back to the house."

As soon as he had ended the call, he broke into a full sprint down the block and immediately ducked under the tape into the alley. The techs and officers who had been helping clear the area were all gathered near the dumpster where the needle had been found. As he approached, it seemed like no one was moving, which couldn't be good. He shoved his way through the crowd towards the front. "Excuse me, let me through, out of the way."

As soon as he reached the front, he stopped cold. Lying near the wall of the apartment building were four different items in a pile, none of them a welcome sight. One was a smashed phone, one a gun, and the other a crushed radio. The fourth item, what had likely gathered the little crowd behind him and was the reason they had come running to find him, was a shield and name plate, covered in blood. It was hard to read in the light, but he could make out the name of the shield's owner underneath all of the blood. Badillo.

"Son of a bitch." He stood up and realized that no one had moved. "All right, I want this photographed, then I want it bagged and tagged. And get some units and techs going over this place with a fine tooth comb." Everyone scattered, jumping to attention now that they had some direction on what to do, and got to work.

Lenin turned to the tech standing nearest to him. "How did we miss this the first sweep?"

The man shook his head. "It was hidden behind that piece of cardboard. One of the other techs went to check behind the dumpster and when they moved the cardboard to get a better view of the space, they found it."

Lenin nodded his head and dismissed the man. He surveyed the alley, trying to get a better idea of what had happened. Janko and Badillo were both good cops, so he knew that whatever had happened had almost certainly been an unexpected attack. He also knew that if neither of them had returned to the house and Janko's car was still at the precinct, with their RMP a few blocks away from the scene, something had more than likely happened to her as well.

He reflected back on what the sergeant had said. Last anyone heard from them, they were responding to a potential 10-34 in this alley. Given that the witness had told Ramos and Jones that she thought she heard someone yell police, it was likely that both officers had been here, at least initially.

Lenin scanned the alley again. If they had come upon the assault and the perps hadn't had weapons, they likely would've taken off running as soon as Janko and Badillo showed up. That would've given the perps two exits to flee to and if they had taken off down the side alley, then one of the partners probably would've gone around to try and cut them off.

As he was considering this possible scenario, he heard someone call his name again. He headed over to the side alley, where the shout had originated from, and found a uniform and CSU tech crouched between a dumpster and a pile of trash.

When he saw what they were looking at, it felt like everything froze for a second. It was the same four items as had been found in the main alley. A cracked cell phone, weapon, smashed radio, and a shield and name badge covered in blood.

The CSU technician was busy snapping pictures, so he couldn't get close enough to read the name on the badge, but he had a sinking feeling he knew whose it was. He turned to the nearby officer and raised his eyebrow, asking for an explanation. "Well?"

He saw the man's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "We found it under a few layers of trash, all of which have been bagged. There were a couple of used syringes nearby as well that have been bagged as evidence, although we aren't sure if they're relevant." Lenin knew this officer had been on the job for at least a few years, but the man still looked like he was about to be sick. "Figured after we found the other ones out in the main alley, it might be worth it to do some digging back here, since Jones found some blood over here too."

Lenin gave him a nod. "Well, it would appear you were correct in that assumption. I think I speak for all of us though when I say that I wish you were wrong though."

Another swallow. "You would be correct sir."

He turned to the tech, who had finished photographing the items and was starting to bag them up as evidence. "Can you read the name on that badge at all?"

She nodded as she carefully placed the badge in an evidence bag, blood smearing as it came into contact with the inside of the bag. "Looks like it says Janko, Detective."

Lenin was unable to bite back the curse this time. "I was hoping it wouldn't, but I figured. All right, get a rush on all the evidence here, we've officially got two missing cops. It's going to be top priority."

The technician gave him a nod and sealed the bag shut, setting it in the kit off to the side before continuing to the rest of the evidence in the alley.

He directed the officer to help her in any way she needed before rubbing his hands over his face. He needed to call this up the chain of command, but he really didn't want to. He knew that it was going to be all hands on deck for this one, but something was still niggling at his brain.

Lenin glanced at the spot where the two alleys met, turning the information he had over in his brain. In many ways, this was just so odd, for a couple of officers to just disappear into thin air without a trace. Then it hit him. A set up. The original 10-34 call that Janko and Badillo had been responding to must have been set up to get them there, then to separate the two partners. Although he had no idea why or even how the person responsible would've known who would respond, that was the only feasible explanation he could come up with.

He stepped out of the alley into the quieter side street to call it in. Everyone dreaded when they heard a 10-13 go out over the radio, but he had no idea what the call would even be for a situation like this. Not to mention, Janko was also a Reagan, which meant word would likely travel even faster. He let out a sigh as he looked at his contacts. Usually he would call his lieutenant, who would decide how to pass it up the chain of command from there, but this seemed like something bigger. He also knew that his boss was unlikely to answer his phone this early anyways. The man slept like the dead and more than once, when people had been calling the boss, they got his wife instead because he wouldn't wake up and his phone kept ringing.

He eventually let out a sigh and called the house. Sergeant Smith would at least know who to contact, likely the captain, and would be able to put the word out at the 7 am roll call too.

Paula McNichols had had better starts to her day. First, she was woken up by her phone ringing before six in the morning, then her desk sergeant from the overnight shift told her that they had two missing officers, then he told her that the missing officers were supposed to be off duty at midnight, and nobody noticed when they never reported back. Then, just to put the cherry on top, she got to the precinct as quickly as she could, and Smith told her that their two missing officers were Janko and Badillo.

Everything was just snowballing from bad to worse from what she could see. Based on what she'd gathered so far, word hadn't gone out department wide yet because the officers on scene had just identified the badges and the detective, Lenin, had been working backwards through a muck of information to the same conclusion when the blood-covered badges were found, without his partner for some reason.

All of which culminated in her sitting here, in her office, at 6:10 in the morning, staring at two different personnel files with two very different emergency contacts she needed to notify. She had sent Detective Lenin to notify Officer Badillo's parents of his disappearance and was going to deliver the notification to Jamie Reagan herself. While she certainly didn't get along with Janko all that well, she still respected the woman as a cop. As far as Janko's husband went, she was on decent terms with Reagan, and this was something that she figured was better to find out as close to the source as possible, instead of hearing it through the department grapevine.

That brought her to her other predicament. Technically, as soon as she had gathered all the relevant information, she should have reported this straight up the chain of command by calling 1PP. But McNichols knew that as soon as she notified 1PP of her two missing officers, a department wide alert would go out to every officer, both on and off duty, and Reagan didn't deserve to find out his wife was missing that way. No one did.

She skimmed through Janko's personnel file, verifying that her husband was her emergency contact (not that she doubted he was). They may have had different approaches to how to handle things on the job and Janko might have a bit of an issue with the chain of command at times, but that didn't mean that the two women hadn't come to respect each other. She just wished that this wasn't a notification she had to make.

She reached for her phone, slowly typing in Reagan's phone number to make sure it was correct, well aware that she was about to blow the man's world apart. As soon as the last digit was hit, the phone started dialing and then she heard it start to ring. She knew that Reagan likely wasn't quite awake yet, he had been working a long case all week from what she'd heard, so she was surprised when it picked up after less than two rings.

There was the sound of some thuds on the other end of the line, the phone likely having fallen off the end of the table, before a voice came over the line.

"Reagan," came the scratchy, half-asleep voice.

McNichols took a deep breath and transitioned into captain mode. She decided that it would be best to address him by his first name, given the grim nature of the news she was about to deliver. "Jamie. This is Captain McNichols."

The voice on the other end of the line was suddenly wide awake. "Captain, has something happened to Eddie?"

She could hear the barely concealed panic in Reagan's voice and to be honest, didn't blame him. He'd been on the receiving end of too many of these notification calls. "I'm afraid she's missing, Reagan. It might be best if you came down to the house. I wanted to notify you before 1PP knew and a department wide alert went out. The detective on the case is going to want to talk to you as well."

McNichols could hear Reagan already moving around, getting ready to leave. "I'll be there as soon as I can, Captain. Thanks." There was a click, and he was gone.

She let out a sigh and stared blankly out her window. Reagan had been notified and she trusted Lenin would handle Badillo's parents with grace. Now, the only thing left to do was call 1PP and let the powers above her know.

Slowly, she started to dial the number for 1PP. The phone rang a few times before it sent her through to the overnight operator. "Thank you for calling One Police Plaza, you've reached the afterhours line. How may I direct your call?"

"I need to speak with Lieutenant Sid Gormley right away."