Jamie had never felt such a deep level of panic and fear in his life as he swerved through the start of the early morning traffic on his way to the precinct. Not when Joe died, not when the Templar had tried to kill him, not when the Sanfinos had put a hit out on him, not even when Vinny had been shot and died in his arms. None of that compared to what he felt now, knowing Eddie was missing.
He should have known something was wrong as soon as he heard his phone start ringing next to the bed, but his sleep-addled brain hadn't even registered that Eddie wasn't passed out next to him until Captain McNichols had said his name. He knew, as soon as she used his first name, that something had happened, and that had been the moment it clicked in his head that Eddie wasn't lying there. And as soon as the captain had said that she was missing and no one had heard from her since late last night before what was supposed to be the end of her tour, his stomach had dropped through the floor.
As Jamie had started stumbling around the bedroom, grabbing random clothes off the floor and throwing them on so he could get down to the house and find out what the fuck was going on, he had instantly started berating and blaming himself for not noticing something was wrong earlier. He had stayed up until 12:30 waiting for Eddie to get home, but eventually had to go to bed since he was supposed to be in at eight the next morning. He had called her multiple times once she hadn't shown up by 12:20, figuring that she had caught a late collar and was stuck filling out the paperwork past end of tour. Normally, she would send a text, but Eddie also tended to forget about it if she was busy and she had never answered his calls. That should have been his first warning sign that something was wrong, but he had been too tired to see it for what it was and had chalked it up to her being busy and not hearing her phone ring.
Now, Eddie had been missing for hours and no one had noticed until just a little bit ago, something that Jamie blamed himself for. He should have woken up at some point last night when he realized that Eddie wasn't lying half on top of him, but he had been so exhausted from the last case that he had been passed out cold. Jamie knew that people would probably tell him that it wasn't his fault, but his brain said otherwise. If he had just noticed something sooner, tried harder to get a hold of her, called the house to make sure she was okay (even though she would've hated that), maybe Eddie would be here, at home with him, instead of wherever she had been taken. Maybe it wouldn't have taken so long for someone to notice she was missing.
He swung his car into an open spot just outside the precinct, throwing it into park and locking it out of muscle memory, before sprinting up the stairs to the main entrance. Jamie blew past the precinct front desk without a second thought, beelining his way to the captain's office. Not much had been said on the phone, which told him that whatever was going on was bad.
He had gotten the customary alert from 1PP on his way here and when he'd glanced at it for a nanosecond, had seen all it really said was that two officers had gone missing on tour late last night and were currently unaccounted for. Jamie wasn't sure if he was grateful for that or not. It meant that details were still coming in. But it also could mean that things were worse than he imagined, and they were just biding their time to give notification to the families in person, so they didn't find out through an impersonal mass text alert. So he didn't find out that way.
Jamie could feel the eyes of multiple uniforms on him, but they barely registered in his brain as he knocked once on the captain's door before entering. The blinds were drawn on all of her windows for privacy, which couldn't be a good sign either. All that was going through his mind were the different things that could be happening to Eddie right now and the things that he hadn't said the last time he saw her. Things he might not get the chance to tell her again.
Captain McNichols was on the phone with someone, but she waved at him to sit down in one of the two chairs in front of her desk as she ended the conversation. The look on her face was grim as she turned to face him, clasping her hands together on her desk and searching for the words to start.
"They're dead, aren't they? Eddie's dead, and you just asked me down here to tell me in person instead of over the phone."
Captain McNichols sighed and shook her head. "We don't know, not for sure. There's been no ransom note, no threats, no taunts, nothing so far. We have no reason to believe either of them are dead right now, so it's going to be treated as a missing persons case until we have reason to believe otherwise."
Jamie dropped his head into his hands, letting it rest there for a few seconds before slowly dragging his hands over his face as he looked back up at the captain. That was something. But there had to have been a reason McNichols hadn't told him anything over the phone other than that Eddie was missing. Sure, Jamie had hung up as soon as she had said as much, but she also hadn't sounded like she was about to share much more information either.
"Okay, so what do we know then?"
McNichols gave him a look. "First, there will be no we in this investigation, Sergeant Reagan. I need to make that crystal clear to you right now. You know as well as I do that if you get involved in this investigation in any official capacity, it could render the whole thing as fruit of the poisonous tree and the DA's office would be forced to decline prosecution. That being said, you can still be involved and assist, but you need to do so as a civilian. Understand?"
Jamie gave her a curt nod. He knew deep down that what the captain was saying was true, he'd studied multiple cases while in law school where solid evidence was thrown out because of tiny mistakes or oversights, such as a victim not being Mirandized before confessing or evidence being obtained just before the judge actually signed the warrant. That didn't mean it didn't grate on his nerves.
"I understand, Captain, I do. But right now, all that matters is finding Eddie. And her partner. And I can tell that there's more to this than I've been told so far."
Captain McNichols studied him before apparently deciding that it was as good as she was going to get from him. "Alright then. Details are still murky, but from what I've been able to gather, it sounds like your wife and her partner were last heard from after 11 last night when they radioed in that they were responding to a potential assault on Newel. Nobody noticed that they never came back to the house until two officers on midnight tour were called to that same location around 4:30 this morning by a local resident who was concerned about what they thought was a puddle of blood in the alley."
Jamie turned the information over in his head. "Wait a second. You're telling me that they were missing for nearly five hours and nobody in this entire precinct noticed?"
McNichols' face turned stony. "I've been working on getting to the bottom of that, believe me. It's unacceptable. From what I've been able to gather so far, it sounds like the patrol sergeants were switching off a little before midnight and since the midnight sergeant didn't know who was due back from tour and who was just starting, he didn't realize they were missing until the detective called."
That at least explained a little bit of why it hadn't been caught right away. "But that's not everything, is it?"
McNichols shook her head. "When the officers were on their way to the call this morning, they noticed what looked like an abandoned patrol car a few blocks away from where Janko and Badillo's last call was, although they didn't realize it at the time. They encountered the caller, who stated that she thought she heard someone yell 'police' last night but wasn't sure. When the officers reached the scene and confirmed that it was, in fact, blood in the alley, they called it in and had CSU and a detective sent over. It took a while, but eventually, when Detective Lenin was starting to suspect that we might have some missing officers, the Crime Scene Unit found Officer Badillo's phone, abandoned weapon, and his radio, which had been destroyed. They found Janko's in a side alley off of the main one, same case. Phone, weapon, and smashed radio." She paused, as if contemplating whether or not she wanted to say what else had been found. "We also found both of their shields, covered in blood."
Jamie felt the blood drain from his face. Eddie was a fighter, and if they had found all of that, it meant that she had at the very least been knocked out when they took it off her. Not to mention the blood on her badge. It might not be hers, but given the circumstances, he very much doubted it belonged to someone else.
The captain watched his reaction, seeming to gauge her next words to him carefully. "The detective on the case believes that the puddle of blood that prompted the initial 911 call this morning belongs to Officer Badillo. His badge and belongings were found nearby, while Janko's were in an alley off to the side. They likely split up to cut off a perp who was running, but we can't theorize anything beyond that. The crime lab is running the evidence now."
Jamie felt like he was in a snow globe that someone had just violently shaken up. All of the information he had just received was floating around in his head, but it was like he didn't know what to do with it or how to put it together. And mixed in with it, like he was rubbing salt in his own wound, were images of Eddie. Smiling at him, laughing, making smart-ass comments across the dinner table.
He shook his head and tried to focus. The text. "Does my father know? I got the department text, but it didn't say hardly anything."
McNichols shook her head. "If he doesn't yet, he will soon. Lieutenant Gormley said it was best if he told him in person for this." She studied him, as if gauging how much she wanted to tell him. "Their identities were withheld so that we could notify you and Officer Badillo's family first. Each precinct is going to have a briefing for the officers ending and those coming on to tour around eight. They'll identify Janko and Badillo then. I'm not sure what other precincts are doing, but I'm extending all tours out of the two-nine until we find them."
Jamie gave her a weak smile. "I appreciate that."
McNichols returned the gesture. "They're our own. And this department won't rest until they're found."
Jamie moved to get up, already planning his next move to get onto one of the search parties, when the captain stopped him.
"Before you go anywhere, the detective on the case wants to speak with you. He should be back by now."
He froze. There wasn't time for this. He needed to be out there, looking for Eddie, getting her back. "Captain- "
She cut him off before he could say anything more. "Reagan. I know that you want to be out there looking for her. Believe me, I do. But right now, the best way you can help her is by answering the questions the detectives have for you. You might not even realize something you know could help us find her. Detective Lenin is handling the case, he's one of the top guys in the squad. Once you've spoken with him, then you can join the search, as a civilian. But not before."
Her words left no room for argument, so Jamie gave her a brief nod before opening the door. As soon as he stepped into the hallway, he felt the attention of several officers focus back on him, but he kept his eyes straight ahead, not looking any of them in the eye, and heading for the stairs. The faster he got through this interview with the detective, the quicker he could be out on the streets, helping look for Eddie.
As he headed up the stairs, Jamie had an odd sense of déjà vu. He had been in so many of these situations before, getting that late night call, telling him that another person he loved was gone. His mom, his grandma, Joe, Linda, even when Vinny had died. But he had never in a million years imagined that he would be in this situation regarding Eddie.
Once Jamie had reached the detective squad, he paused to look around, searching for this detective he needed to talk to. It wasn't like they had their names just sitting on their desks and he had no clue which one Lenin was. He'd never worked with the man before. The only upside right now was that there weren't a lot of detectives in, with the few that had been working the night getting ready to go home and those who were on day shift not in yet.
He was about to ask one of the detectives who was getting ready to leave where Lenin was when a man stepped out of the sergeant's office. He couldn't be much older than Jamie and had a frazzled look about him, like he had had a few too many coffees already this morning. He noticed Jamie standing at the entrance to the squad room and started walking over.
"Sergeant Reagan, I'm Detective Lenin, the lead detective for your wife's case. Let's step into my sergeant's office here to have a chat." Detective Lenin gave Jamie a stiff smile and led him over to the office, shutting the door behind him and drawing the blinds.
"I know that you're probably wondering why we're in here instead of at my desk, so let's just get that out of the way first. This case is going to become highly publicized once word breaks about your wife. I can't control that, and neither can you. It's just a fact of the matter, what with your father being who he is and how this happened. But I want us to be able to talk freely, without you feeling like there might be outside ears listening in or if there are things that you feel are best kept confidential. Okay?"
Jamie gave the man a nod. He was at a bit of a loss for words right now, with all of the information that he had gotten in the last thirty minutes swirling around in his brain.
Detective Lenin seemed to be satisfied with his response and gestured for them to sit in the chairs in front of the sergeant's desk. "Alright, I just want to open by saying that we're going to be looking at everything for this. Both your wife and Badillo, to see if there's a possibility that one of them was a target and the other was just a wrong-place-wrong-time sort of deal. My partner is going to speak with Badillo's parents once he gets in later this morning. First things first though, when was the last time you saw Officer Janko?"
"Eddie." Jamie's voice came out raspy, as though he hadn't used it in years. "I know that all she is to you is Officer Janko, but for the sake of this conversation, can we please just call her Eddie?" His voice gave a little crack at the end, a brief chink in the walls he was trying to put up. He couldn't bear to think of her as a victim, not yet, and he knew that she wouldn't want him too either.
Detective Lenin gave him a nod. "Of course. When was the last time you saw Eddie?"
"Probably would have to be yesterday morning. I had to be in by nine and she was on night tour, so she was on duty by the time I got done around five or six, although I wound up being here until later."
The detective gave a nod, pulling out a notepad to start taking notes. "How was she when you last saw her? Did she seem upset, anxious, concerned about anything at all?"
Jamie hesitated, choosing his words carefully. That was a loaded question. "Eddie was fine, no more stressed than she had been recently. She was, uh, being vetted to possibly get promoted to detective and move over to Special Victims, so she was pretty stressed about that." He smiled, thinking about how excited Eddie had been the day she had gotten the news that she was under consideration for the promotion. She had practically broken down the door in her excitement and had been talking so fast he'd needed her to repeat what she said twice to actually understand her words. "It's her dream job, so she really wanted everything to go well."
Lenin jotted that down in his notes. "Did she seem concerned about anyone that she encountered in the process at all?"
Jamie shook his head. "No, at least not that she told me about. Eddie was trying to play everything close to the vest with that, since she was afraid too many people knowing about it would jinx things and she wouldn't get the promotion. The only people that knew outside of SVU were me and the captain I think."
"From what I've heard about her, that seems like it would be the perfect place for her. Alright, what can you tell me about her relationship with her partner?"
"They were solid, trusted each other to have their back. She's been partnered with Badillo for a few years now, they seem to get along pretty well."
Lenin nodded. "So, there were no hard feelings between the two of them that you know of?"
Jamie frowned. "No, nothing more than the occasional disagreement about how hard they should go after a case they stumbled on, if that's what you're getting at. They're both a bit stubborn if they want to be. She would go out for drinks with Badillo every once in a while, but not recently."
"And did Officer Badillo know that Eddie was being looked at for a promotion?"
"Not as far as I know. Like I said, she wanted as few people to know as possible."
Detective Lenin nodded. "And how was the relationship between you two going? Any sort of trouble going on?"
Jamie felt alarms start to go off in his head at the question. "We were good, everything had been going great lately. What are you trying to get at here, Detective?"
Lenin held up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm just trying to get as clear of a picture as I can of everything that could be relevant to the case."
"Well, if you're asking if either of us was having an affair, I can tell you right now the answer is no. I would never, and neither would Eddie. Not with the way we grew up," Jamie snapped back, eyes narrowing.
"Okay, okay, I didn't think that was the case, but I had to ask. You know I have to ask this too, Jamie, but where were you between eleven last night and five this morning?"
Jamie tried to quell his anger that had started to boil at the detective even thinking he would look at another woman and now inferring that he might have had something to do with her disappearance. Eddie was the only person he had eyes for, it had been that way for years now. She always made things infinitely better with her wiseass remarks or her random tangents she would go on during conversations. And he knew that she would never even think of cheating. After her dad had made her lie to Lena about his affairs when Eddie was growing up, he knew she would never even consider it. She'd seen the damage it did in the long run.
Biting back his fury at the indignity of even needing to answer this question after what Detective Lenin had just implied, Jamie responded. "I waited up until nearly 12:30 this morning waiting for Eddie to get home. When she wasn't back by 12:20, I tried calling her several times, but she never picked up. I figured she was just tied up with something here and forgot to let me know she was running behind." He blinked back the tears that were threatening to pool in his eyes as he thought back to just six hours earlier. "I went to bed at 12:30 because I had to be in early this morning, and I didn't wake up until the captain called me a bit ago. I should've realized something wasn't right though. Maybe if I had just kept trying to reach her, someone would have realized that they were gone earlier and not five hours later."
Detective Lenin shook his head before looking back up at him. "There's no way you could have known, Reagan. Don't go blaming yourself for things out of your control." He glanced down at his notes. "I'm sorry, but I had to ask. Now, can you think of any enemies Eddie might have?"
Jamie shook his head, pulling himself back together from his momentary weakness and refocusing. "None that she explicitly mentioned to me or seemed concerned about. I'm sure there's a few perps she's put away who probably aren't her biggest fans, but I as far as I know, Eddie hasn't had any threats recently. If she had, that would've been the first thing I told you about. A few low level drug dealers that her and Badillo have arrested as repeat offenders maybe, but I don't think those guys would be stupid enough to do this."
Lenin nodded, writing down a note to check Eddie's recent arrests and recent parolees. "What about you?"
Jamie frowned. "What about me?"
"Have you had any recent threats made against you? Any perps that you would be concerned about if they got out of prison? I'm thinking that there might be a possibility that your wife was taken as some sort of retaliation against you."
Jamie ran his hand through his hair in frustration. If Lenin wanted to know who might have beef with him, it would probably be easier for Jamie to give him a list of who didn't. He had put away hundreds of perps throughout the years. And that was just him. There was also a fair amount of people out there who he was sure were angry with his father as the PC for whatever reason. It was a leap, but some of them were wacky enough that they might have gone after Eddie to get back at his father. After all, Jamie had had a hit taken out on him as a way to get revenge on his father at one point. Eddie was the only reason the hitman hadn't been able to finish him off.
"I've put away a lot of guys who've made threats. Most of them are still in prison. The others were low-level. None come to mind as a major concern right now. But if you're thinking that this might be some sort of revenge on someone besides Eddie, feel free to look through my past arrests. While you're at it, I would advise you to contact 1PP and see if they've received any recent credible threats against my father. I had a hit put out on me a while back because a perp wanted to get back at him, could be the case again."
Lenin frowned at him. "Seriously?"
Jamie nodded his head, remembering that day all too well. The absolute fear in Eddie's voice, the way that she had hugged him to her as if she never wanted to let go, a feeling he returned. The conversations that followed. "Yeah. The only reason I'm still alive is because of Eddie. She saved my life."
The expression on Lenin's face softened just a bit. "I see. Is there anyone else that might potentially have enemies that would target Eddie then? Besides you and your father?"
Jamie chewed on his lips. Eddie would be furious if she knew where his thoughts were going, but he could live with that as long as he got her back. "Her dad, Armin Janko, is an ex-con. We haven't seen him in a while now, but he stayed at our place for a few days after he got early release. It's a long shot, but someone might still have a problem with him. He screwed a lot of good people over."
Lenin nodded, jotting down Armin's name on his slip of paper. "What about her mother? Would she have any enemies? Or your brother?"
Jamie shook his head. "No, Lena's a socialite type. If she had any enemies, I would think it would be some of Eddie's exes. She has a pretty fierce vetting process, but otherwise I can't see anything relating back to her. And Danny's got plenty of enemies, but I doubt any of them would go after Eddie to get back at him. I hate to say it, but they would probably go after our dad or my nephews first."
He started bouncing his knee, anxious for their little interview to be over so he could get out on the streets and start looking for Eddie. "Look, do you have any other questions, or can I go start help to look for her now?"
Lenin eyed him. "Just a few more, Reagan, then you'll be free to go. Is there anyone outside of either of your families or the precinct that Eddie was close with at all that we might want to talk to?"
"Rachel Witten, she was Eddie's old partner and they're still good friends. She's training to be a social worker with Human Services."
Lenin nodded. The man seemed to sense that Jamie was holding something back and was debating how hard he wanted to push. "Okay, I'll reach out to her, see what she knows. There might be an old arrest that they made as partners that may be involved. Is there anything else that you can think of that would be relevant to the case? Or that I might need to know?"
Jamie hesitated. It wasn't necessarily relevant to the case and the detective didn't necessarily need to know, but given the fact that they had found Eddie's badge covered in blood, he would likely find out anyway when the blood analysis results came back from the lab and her hCG levels were elevated. "Look, this is off the record, okay? It's not related to whatever happened to Eddie, so it doesn't go into your notes, you don't put it anywhere in the case file, nothing. It stays between the two of us. This is just me letting you know all the factors at play."
Detective Lenin frowned, putting his pen down and setting his notebook on the desk. "Okay, Reagan, I'll do my best. But if what you tell me does become relevant to the case, I'll have to include it."
Jamie paused. He really didn't want to share the information, it was something that he and Eddie had wanted to announce when they were ready, but this forced his hand and besides, Lenin was going to find out whether Jamie was the one to tell him or not as soon as the blood analysis came back. "Okay. Look, Eddie's pregnant. It's not relevant to your case with her disappearance, but it's going to come back in the toxicology and blood panel that I know you're having the crime lab run."
He watched the detective's face shift to one of surprise. Whatever he had thought Jamie was going to tell him, it obviously wasn't this. And while he regretted not being able to share the news with someone outside of the two of them on their terms, he knew that it would have come out during the investigation eventually.
Lenin opened his mouth a few times, obviously uncertain of how to proceed with this information, so Jamie leaned forward, trying to convey the seriousness of his situation. "Please, Detective, our families don't know yet. Eddie wanted to wait until she was in the clear before telling anyone, but I know that it's going to come back in those panels, so I'm asking you to please just keep this information to yourself." His voice was pleading, begging in a way that Jamie almost never did.
Lenin nodded his head. "I'll do what I can, Reagan. Why wasn't she modified though?"
Jamie grimaced. "Like I said, we wanted to make sure she was in the clear before telling anyone. Eddie didn't want to put in for modified duty and then lose the baby, so she held off. They said that the baby was doing great, everything was perfect, at her scan on Tuesday, so we were planning to tell our families this weekend and then she was going to request to be modified first thing next week."
He purposely left out the reason why Eddie had been putting it off. There had been two miscarriages before this one, and she had been scared that as soon as they told anyone else, she would lose this baby too. The first one had been over the summer a couple of years back and it had made her terrified to try again. Jamie had respected her wishes and tried to get her to focus on other things, work on their relationship instead to keep her mind off the loss, but it had still been months before he felt like he truly got his Eddie back.
The second time was just before he had been shot by Andre Castillo. She had been eleven weeks along when he came home from tour to find her curled up in a ball on the couch, not saying a word, just staring blankly ahead. He'd known something was wrong as soon as he came in and found Eddie sitting in the dark. He hadn't taken more than a few steps inside when she had hollowly told him that she'd lost this baby too.
Nothing more needed to be said as Jamie slid onto the couch beside her and wrapped Eddie in his arms, whispering that it wasn't her fault. Sometimes these things just happened. It seemed she had been waiting for him to say something, because she had started sobbing as soon as the words left his mouth. They had spent the night on the couch together, with Eddie eventually crying herself to sleep in his arms. She had banged out sick for the next three days and Jamie had played it off as though everything was fine at work and when he went to Sunday dinner that week, even if he was hurting from the loss just as much.
Of course, then he had gone and got himself shot, nearly paralyzed, which hadn't necessarily helped either. After his family had all come and gone, relieved that he was going to be alright, they had had a conversation about everything that had been going on recently, from the miscarriage, to McNichols telling them that one of them needed to transfer out, to his own mortality. Eddie had been, understandably, emotional and had told him that he didn't always need to be the hero, before telling him about the proposal to their problem with McNichols. After that, they had both decided that if they were meant to have kids, it would happen, but if not, then it was what it was. Jamie didn't think he could bear to see the devastation on Eddie's face again if they kept trying and it didn't happen. If it was just going to be the two of them, he was okay with that, as long as she was by his side.
So, when they had found out about this pregnancy towards the end of May, there had been a carefully controlled level of excitement about it. Eddie's doctor had wanted to keep a close eye on her due to her past history, so they had been going to weekly appointments to make sure everything was okay. It had been a bit of a game of logistical gymnastics and Jamie hadn't been able to go to all of them, but at the last one on Tuesday, Eddie's doctor had said that everything was going great. Jamie still had the printout of the sonogram tucked into his wallet, right next to a picture from their wedding day.
He was pulled from his thoughts by Detective Lenin clearing his throat. Jamie pulled his gaze up from the floor, slow to meet the man's eyes, unwilling to let him see the pain and fear roiling inside. He needed to stay strong, like he always had. He was the rock that others leaned on in the family and he was going to remain that way. At least until he got Eddie back. Then, and only then, would he allow himself to break down.
Lenin gave him a look. "I swear to you Reagan, I'm going to do everything I can to get them both back to you. You have my word."
Jamie nodded. "Thanks, detective, but I think if we're both being realistic here, all that matters is getting Eddie back. I don't know what happened in that alleyway, but it's more likely than not that she's already lost the baby. I just want Eddie back where she belongs."
Detective Lenin gave him a sad smile. "Never say never, Reagan, but I get where you're coming from. I'll start running down leads here, you take a sec to just let everything sink in in here, okay? I don't think you've allowed yourself to actually process everything that's happened yet, and I doubt you want it all to hit you while you're out there on the streets. You can hitch on to a search party as soon as you're done."
With those parting words of wisdom, Lenin opened the door and stepped out of the sergeant's office, quietly shutting it behind him and leaving Jamie alone. He dropped his head into his hands and stared at the floor, the full reality of the situation sinking in now that he was alone. Eddie was gone, missing, and had likely lost their baby again, something that would destroy her now that he knew she had allowed herself to hope again and just when the job had started to fall into place too.
As he focused on a loose thread in the carpet, Jamie thought back to Tuesday morning. How peaceful it had been, like the calm before the storm.
Eddie had had her sixteen week appointment that morning. The doctor had said that everything was going great, their baby was measuring good and was about the size of an avocado. The heartbeat had been strong and fast, something that they had quickly learned was a good sign, and when the sonographer had pulled up the image of their baby on the ultrasound, Eddie had grabbed his hand with a vice-like grip. Neither of them had been able to tear their eyes away from the screen. The sonographer had just smiled knowingly and printed out a few copies of the image for them to take with them. On their way out, Jamie had noticed that Eddie had tear tracks running down her face and had pressed a kiss to the top of her head, whispering that he loved her and she was going to be a great mother.
Of course, with Eddie being Eddie, she had been ravenous after her appointment and Jamie was only too happy to oblige when she said that she wanted a nice, big, gourmet cinnamon roll. They had found a little café on the way back to their apartment and stopped for a late breakfast.
Eddie had looked gorgeous, positively glowing with her blonde hair down in waves as she bounced like a little kid when she received her desired cinnamon roll and made a beeline for a small table near the window. Jamie had followed her after collecting his smoothie, smiling as she took a massive bite out of her pastry.
"Oh my god, that is a-maz-ing," she groaned, dropping her head back before giving him a smile. "What?"
Jamie smirked and took a sip of his drink. "Nothing, just admiring my beautiful wife, who is apparently very passionate about her pastries. And who is absolutely glowing, I might add."
Eddie blushed, ducking her head a bit. "Wow, you're laying it on thick today. But not entirely off-base, I will say. I do look pretty good." Her smile dropped a bit. "This is the furthest we've ever gotten, you know?"
"Hey, hey, don't go down that road, Eddie. You've got to be positive." Jamie reached across the table and grabbed her free hand, giving it a comforting rub. "The doc said everything is looking good, you're coming into the clear and she didn't see anything that would make her concerned either."
Eddie bit her lip and put down the half-eaten cinnamon roll. "I know, I just can't get everything that could go wrong out of my head." She gripped the hand that Jamie had placed on top of hers. "What if something happens again? Or I screw up on the job and lose the baby because of it?"
"You can't be thinking like that Eddie. The doc said it's uncommon to lose the baby once you're out of the first trimester, which you have been for a month now. And you're one of the best cops I know, and besides, you might not be on the street that much longer anyways if everything with SVU goes well."
She studied him and gave him a half-smile. "I know what you're trying to do here and I'm going to let you get away with it this time. I think that the interview and training has been going really well. I have one more tomorrow afternoon, then they're going to make a decision."
Jamie feigned innocence and gave her a smile back. "Well, there you go. One more day, then you've got a couple of tours back at the house this week. If you're super worried about it, you could put in your request to be placed on modified duty Thursday afternoon."
Eddie shook her head. "No, I want to do at least one more tour with Badillo before that. I was thinking maybe next week though? And that we could maybe share the news with your family this Sunday at dinner and my mom on my next day off?"
Jamie grinned. He had been wanting to tell his family for the past month, since Eddie had cleared the first trimester, but she had wanted to hold off out of fear of another miscarriage and having to walk back the excitement. He thought that they'd been doing a good job keeping it on the downlow, with Eddie pretending to sip her wine at dinner without actually drinking any and him actively trying not to hover, but both his grandpa and Erin were starting to get suspicious. Erin had straight up asked him if he and Eddie were having problems last Sunday while they had been doing dishes together.
He clasped her hand and gave it a kiss. "I think that's a great idea. They're going to be so excited. Except Erin. She's going to be so pissed at me."
Eddie let out a laugh, breaking the solemn air that had started to hover over their table. "I can believe it. I saw her interrogating you in the kitchen last Sunday, it looked intense. Your sister can be scary when she wants to be."
Jamie rolled his eyes. "You have no idea."
She gave him an award winning smile and gripped his hand. "We're going to be parents."
He returned it. "We're going to be parents."
Eddie gave an excited little bounce in her chair before dropping his hand and returning to her cinnamon roll, devouring it with gusto. Jamie kept the smile on his face, glad to see that she was finally starting to work through the fear and anxiety she had had throughout the entire experience and embrace it. And now that they were finally going to tell their families, it just made everything that much brighter.
Jamie was drawn back to his current reality as a few tears managed to slip through his defenses. He shook his head and swiped at his eyes to get rid of any stragglers. He couldn't think about that or what could've been now. That wasn't going to be his future anymore, so he couldn't allow himself to think about that, not yet. All that mattered was getting Eddie back safe. Then, once she was safely back in his arms, would he allow himself to break down and grieve what could have been.
He shook his head and rubbed his face a few times, trying to focus. The captain had said that Lieutenant Gormley would be notifying his dad personally and he trusted that he would let Danny, Erin, and Pops know. Right now, Jamie belonged on the streets, searching for his wife and her partner. The rest of the family would find out eventually and besides, that wasn't his biggest concern at the moment.
He took a deep breath before standing up and facing the door, getting himself ready for the prying eyes that would be locking onto him the moment he stepped outside. He was suddenly grateful for Detective Lenin's foresight in having their interview in here instead of out in the squad room. Jamie stepped forward and opened the door, heading for the stairs so he could go find Eddie.
Frank Reagan knew that whatever had happened to his two officers was likely a lot worse than the initial alert had indicated, although that message hadn't exactly given him the warm fuzzies either. He had been woken up by the sound of his phone buzzing, followed shortly by a message from Sid telling him that the details were still coming in, but that they would meet in his office at 0700. Jim had immediately messaged him as well, saying that his detail would be outside at six thirty sharp to pick him up, leaving Frank with about twenty minutes to get ready.
As soon as he arrived at headquarters, he noticed the flurry of activity going on. There were officers all over, seeming to carry out a hundred different things at once, something that was rarely seen in this building. He noticed one of the lieutenants from Threat Assessment frantically talking on the phone as he ducked into his office, something that triggered the alarm bells in his head to start going off even harder.
The entire ride here had been silent. Jim had been quiet, stating that he had not been informed of any particulars beyond what the initial message had said and that Gormley had messaged him to let him know that the case was time sensitive and that he would debrief him at 1PP shortly.
Once he walked into his office, he knew it wasn't good. Sid, Garrett, and Abigail were all standing in front of his desk, speaking in hushed tones. Never a good sign on a normal day, worse on one like today.
Frank took a seat in his chair, noticing that the others mimicked his move, but weren't meeting his eyes. "Well? Sid, care to share what's going on out there?" He gestured at the man to get them started.
Sid exchanged a nervous glance with the other two. "We've got two patrol officers that never returned to their precinct at the end of tour last night, Boss. No one realized it until early this morning, when a couple of officers out of the same house got called to the last location our two missing officers were responding to a call at. On their way there, they saw an abandoned patrol car, which they tried to call in. Once they arrived, the person who called 911 told them that she had heard someone yell 'police' last night, about when our guys would have been there, but when she woke up this morning, there was a puddle of blood in the alley, so she wasn't sure if she'd actually heard that or not. The two responding officers called it in as soon as they arrived on scene."
Frank tapped his hands on his desk. "That's not all though, is it?"
Baker sighed. "No sir. Once CSU arrived at the scene, they eventually found the cell phones, radios, weapons, and badges that belong to our missing officers. Their radios were destroyed and-" She seemed to be hesitant about her next words. "The officers' badges were covered in blood, sir."
Frank bobbed his head, wrapping it around this new information and knowing that they must have been saving the worst of the news for last, based on the fact that Garrett hadn't spoken yet. Either he had nothing to add to the conversation at the moment, which was unlikely, or he had drawn the short straw and was in charge of delivering the heaviest blow. Not to mention that the entire room had the aura of a funeral.
He gestured to Garrett. "And what about you? I know that you've been saving the worst for last."
Garrett glanced at the other two before speaking. "Frank, the missing officers are out of the two-nine. Eddie Janko and her partner, Luis Badillo."
Oh. Well, that explained the grave atmosphere hanging over this room like a cloud. It also explained why his entire inner circle had been waiting for him with to arrive such somber expressions. "I see. What do we know so far?"
Syd lifted his hands. "What we just told you is about it. The detective on the case is still collecting information as we speak, and CSU is running the evidence from the scene as top priority."
Frank sighed. "Have the families been notified?"
The three in front of him all glanced at each other before apparently deciding Baker was the one to speak. "Jamie was notified as soon as they identified Eddie as one of the officers involved. Captain McNichols called him personally before she contacted Sid so he wouldn't find out through the department-wide text. The detective on the case notified Officer Badillo's parents at about the same time."
Frank clasped his hands together and thought. "I assume that this information will be released to all officers at morning muster today?"
Sid nodded. "Yes, sir. We just didn't want to send out any identifying information in the initial notification so that family could be notified first." He gestured at Frank.
That made sense. He studied his hands, allowing the information to settle in and planning what the next move would be, when Garrett spoke.
"This hasn't gone public yet, but it's safe to assume that someone is going to get a hold of the story as soon as officers are briefed at roll call. I'm going to reach out to my sources in the meantime, make sure that they haven't received any information we haven't."
Frank nodded. "Good, you do that. Sid, I want updates as soon as they come in."
"Right away, Commissioner."
"And Abigail," he turned to Baker. "Work with Threat Assessment to make sure that this isn't tied to some wack job that's targeting me and decided to go after an easier target."
"Of course, sir"
The three of them stood up and left, Garrett and Baker both throwing concerned glances back at him as the door shut behind them.
As soon as he heard the lock click shut, Frank let himself deflate. This was terrible news, almost as bad as when he had gotten word that Linda had died. Thankfully, Eddie was just missing, not dead, but there was no way of telling how long that distinction would remain.
He glanced down at the pictures on his desk, locking in on one from Jamie and Eddie's wedding day. It was a picture of himself with the newlyweds, and he had never seen his youngest look so happy, not even when he had been with Sydney. They were obviously in love and even though the picture was several years old at this point, he still saw that look in both of their eyes when they were at the house for Sunday dinner. Eddie was like another daughter to him at this point and knowing that she made his boy so happy was a great comfort to him. He knew that both Linda and Mary would have loved her. Hopefully though, they wouldn't be meeting her soon.
Speaking of which, he figured Jamie probably hadn't thought much beyond getting down to his precinct as soon as he'd gotten the call, which meant that no one else in the family was probably aware of what had happened yet. He wouldn't bother Nicky, Jack, and Sean yet, this was probably something that would be better left to their parents, but Frank knew it was up to him to notify Danny, Erin, Pops, and Joe.
He reached for the phone, dialing Danny's number from memory, and listened to the phone start to ring. Lord knew that Danny would want in on this case and it would be best to start with him and give his oldest all the details he knew so far before working his way down the rest of the list.
The phone rang three times before it was answered. "Reagan," came the groggy voice.
"Danny. I'm afraid something's happened."
Note: This is probably going to be the last chapter until next week, I've got a final exam on oncology medications Monday that I've got to prepare for, but I'll start working on the next chapter in my break time to get it up soon. Next up is Danny's take on things. I'm trying to write the story in a way that is similar to the flow of the episodes, with different character's views and roles, so let me know what you think so far please! I greatly appreciate all the reviews and support.