Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The household apartments weren’t very creative in their name, but they were well designed. Four towers, five stories tall, connected to each other at the top by a community garden. They had an open concept floor plan and large floor to ceiling windows. Right now though Sandra didn’t care how well planned the apartments were she just cared that she had finally made it home to hers.

She kicked off her shoes and let herself fall against the door with a heavy sigh. What a week it had been and it was only Tuesday. There had been a prison break at the Cubes and they were still trying to get numbers on how many inmates had escaped. But right now it looked like at least two dozen high-level offenders were out roaming the city streets. The public was breathing down their necks to fix it and to top that all off it looked like the escape plan was the work of InSyndicate. The parabolic pulse charge, the grenades, the multiple files that had been wiped, it was all part of their MO. It was all so frustrating. The police barely knew anything about them except that they obviously had access to a large supply of resources and people, and that they always seemed to be one step ahead of her and her department.

Sandra was broken out of her thoughts by a loud bark. She opened her eyes as a rough collie made his way over to her.

Smiling she knelt down to pet him. “Sorry, Rufus, I’ve been away so much soon you aren’t going to recognize me.”

Rufus’ tail wagged happily from the attention before he moved to wall next to her, nudging his leash that was hanging there.

“All right I’ve been cooped up inside all day too.”

She quickly switched out her business suit for fitness ware and a pair of well-worn running shoes and went over to the small park nearby. With having to be so close to the precinct in case of emergencies finding a real green space to go to in the inner city was rare. Sure there were trees sticking out of the glass and concrete on almost every block, but finding a place with grass and plants that hadn’t been stuck there in a neat organized row? That was something else. It reminded her of home in a way.

She ran with Rufus along the pathways for a solid hour and then picked up a wrap on the way back to her apartment from a vendor on the corner.

She had just started eating when her phone rang.

“Maldonado.”

“Now is that any way to greet your old man?”

“Sorry, Dad, I didn’t check who was calling before I answered.”

“And why does your voice sound like that?”

“Because I’m eating you caught me in the middle of dinner.”

“I don’t believe this, doesn’t check her phone ID to see that her dear old dad is calling and then talks to him while eating at the same time. Is that the kind of daughter I raised?”

“Considering you had me on a horse before I could walk and always let me test your homebrew I’d say that is exactly the kind of daughter you raised.”

He chuckled. “You know me too well, Sandra, so how are you?”

“Tired and busy, what about you?”

“Lonely and bored.”

“What all the eligible ladies in town aren’t beating down your door?”

“No, they’re too busy planning Leona’s retirement party.”

“She’s retiring!? Who’d she teach the pizza recipe to?”

“I can’t tell you that under penalty of death.”

“Oh, come on it’s only the best kept secret in town.”

“And it’s going to stay that way. Of course you are a detective you could look into it.”

“Department doesn’t have the resources for me to use to my personal whim. Not that I’m not tempted to though.”

Her dad laughed.

“I meant just you yourself could look into it by coming to her retirement party. Beth and Julie will be there.”

Sandra smiled at the mention of her childhood best friends. It had been too long since she’d talked to them.

“When is it?”

“A week next Sunday.”

“I’ll try to be there. It’ll be good to see everyone again. Maybe I can even make it up early on Saturday and we can cook dinner together you and I. It’ll be just like old times.”

“I’d like that, sweetheart, I’ll talk to you soon and I love you.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

She hung up and headed up to her apartment. Once inside she set her phone on the charger on her nightstand, brushed Rufus, and got ready for bed.

***

Sandra snapped her eyes open with a start. The clock on her bedside table told her it was 2:55AM. She lay there for a moment unsure of what had awoken her; until she saw the stream of light spilling across her bedroom floor from the restaurant sign across the street. Her blinds were open. The bright lights from the street kept her awake so she never slept with them open.

Never.

Her heart rate accelerated, but she stayed where she was, watching and listening.

Rufus growled as two shadows suddenly fell across the floor. A hand came up shoved the covers back. She struggled to get up as another hand grabbed her wrist. Still she managed to get her feet under her and stand up on the bed, and was helped as Rufus bit the man holding her on the leg.

His grip loosened and Sandra yanked her arm free. Using that momentum she smashed her elbow into the man behind her.

He yowled and stumbled back, allowing her to turn around and kick him swiftly for good measure. Unfortunately at that same moment her other assailant got free spraying Rufus with a chemical that sent him whimpering away, before he swiftly collapsed on the floor. Then the man turned and grabbed her by her hair, yanking her backwards, and spraying the chemical directly at her too.

Sandra gagged as her nose filled with the noxious odor. She coughed and fell sideways, and then the world went black. That was fortunate for her because she couldn’t feel the pain as the one man she had jabbed and kicked retaliated by jamming a device into the back of her neck until he hit bone.

Chapter Text

Wednesday turned out to be cloudy in the city. There was a 58.89% chance of rain. While the headlines screamed about escaped inmates and rising crime it was still starting out as an average day for many.

Officer Loeb had barely pulled his car out of the precinct parking lot for his shift when the radio sparked to life with his first call of the day.

“Unit 525 what is your status?”

“Beginning routine patrol of the Western District.”

“Be advised we have a noise complaint at 4600 Hemlock Avenue unit 502.”

Loeb nodded to his MX.

“Show us responding.”

His MX did and Loeb rolled his eyes as he turned the cruiser down the proper street for the short drive to the specified building. His first week out on a patrol with a partner during a crime spree and he got to deal with someone who forgot that apartment walls were thin.

Still Loeb thought of himself as a good cop so he did his job properly even when it wasn’t very glamorous. He arrived at the apartment building and made his way up to the offending unit. As he came down the hallway he could hear why the neighbours were complaining. There was a dog barking, and it was loud, shrill really, and incessant.

He knocked on the door.

“Sir or ma’am it’s the police. We’ve had a complaint about your dog.”

No answer.

He pounded on the door and called louder in case they couldn’t hear him over the barking. He still received no response.

Well he couldn’t just leave the situation like this.

“Can you find out who lives here?” he asked his partner, kicking himself for not thinking to check that before coming to the door. Still maybe he could get a cell number and call the person or persons before getting the manager to barge in.

“The apartment is listed to a Sandra Maldonado.”

Loeb’s eyes widened. “Maldonado? As in Captain Maldonado?”

The MXs lights flashed as he checked his database.

“Confirmed. The addresses match. This is her residence.”

Well that certainly changed things. But Loeb took a deep breath and told himself to remain calm. Just because this was the captain’s place didn’t mean there was anything to worry about. She had probably just rushed out this morning and forgotten something for her dog. They had all been busy since the prison break it could happen to anybody. He had to treat this like any other situation and follow protocol.

He tried the door one last time. Still no answer so he called her cell.

“The comm you are contacting is not available.”

It was hearing those words that sent a chill down his spine. The captain always had her phone with her and she always answered it.

He doubled checked the number and tried again, still nothing.

“Do you have her locator chip in your database?”

“Yes.”

“Can you find her?”

“According to her chip she is within the residence.”

“Is she moving?”

“Negative.”

Now all bets were off.

Loeb got his gun out from the holster on his belt. “All right call it in, ten double zero officer down and get us in there!”

***

Richard Paul walked down the precinct hallway looking smug. John walked behind him looking dejected.

“Don’t look so down, Kennex, if you’d been in on time there would have been sprinkles left in the doughnut machine.”

“Yeah and if you hadn’t ordered double sprinkles there would still be some.”

“You know what they say the early bird gets the worm, or in this case the best doughnut,” Richard said, and finished off said double sprinkled doughnut.

John looked ready to give a nasty retort as Dorian walked over to John’s desk looking exasperated. Any further arguments were swiftly shut down though as Valerie came running over to the three of them.

“Guys, we just got a call in for a ten double zero.”

“Where?” John asked, yanking his coat off the back of his chair.

“Over on Hemlock Avenue the household apartment building…It’s the captain.”

Richard paled and John was suddenly very glad he hadn’t eaten a doughnut, because he thought he might be sick.

“You’re sure?” he asked, as a million thoughts started running through his head. His eyes glanced up at Sandra’s office in the hopes of Valerie being wrong.

The room was dark and empty.

“Positive.”

“Who called it in?” Richard asked.

“Officer Loeb.”

John and Richard took off down the halls at full sprint to their cars as Dorian called the officer on site.

“Officer Loeb, what is your status?”

“The apartment has been cleared. I’ve-I’ve secured the scene …oh god.”

“Please remain calm we’re four minutes out!”

Chapter Text

John and Dorian arrived at the apartments and the first thing John noticed was that there was no ambulance at the scene and no EMTs. That was not a good sign. But John knew the first rule about being a cop: do not jump to conclusions. In the time it had taken them to respond to the call Sandra had probably already been taken to the hospital.

Richard pulled up next and the group dashed up the stairs to her unit. As they reached it though John’s brain seemed to go blank and he just started clinically going through the motions; his body cold and rigid as he came through the police tape.

He saw Rufus contained within a shield. There were dark red stains on his fur. Loeb and his MX stood there waiting for them.

“Officer Loeb, what’s going on?” Richard asked.

“Her locator chip said she was here and not moving. I came in, found her dog, swept the place, and when I entered the bedroom I…excuse me…”

Loeb ran out of the living room then and the next sound John heard was him being violently sick in the bathroom. Richard went in to check on him and John started checking over the apartment.

Nothing looked out of place at first glance. Dorian found her gun in a locked safe in the closet. John could see an expensive tea set on her kitchen counter, making robbery an unlikely motive. Drawers hadn’t been over turned, nothing had been knocked over. If any kind of struggle had occurred it hadn’t been in here.

John went back to the bedroom, with Dorian close behind him, the strong smell of iron filled his nose as walked down the short hallway. As he came inside the room it became very clear why Loeb had gotten sick.

The bedroom was covered in blood.

Bloody paw prints had been tracked across the floor. High velocity spatter could be seen on the walls, and there was a large pool of it that had soaked through the bed sheets and pooled on the floor.

Dorian knelt down to examine the pool, his hand shaking.

“Dorian, if you want to get a lab box…”

“No, no I can do this.”

Dorian knew he could never let his emotions get in the way of his job, but that was easier said than done now. Captain Maldonado wasn’t just his commanding officer she was special. Dorian had checked his record he knew she was the one who had put in the order for him to be John’s partner. She could have requested another DRN to be put back on the force, but she had chosen him specifically. She had believed in him. He had wanted to ask her why, but there never seemed to be a proper time to do so. Now there never would be.

Slowly he took a sample and injected it into his skin. Then analyzed it as quickly as he could and sent the data off to Rudy.

He looked up at John.

“It’s hers.”

The little flame of hope John had held onto was snuffed out then. No one could have survived losing that much blood.

The next question was then, where was the body? Why had they taken it with them? Was it a they who had taken her? It could have been just one person.

“There are traces of Fentenyl oxide in here,” Dorian said as he scanned the floor.

“Probably how they knocked out Rufus.”

Dorian looked at him quizzically.

“It’s her dog’s name.”

Not wanting to explain that John set about talking a close inspection of the room. Unlike the rest of the apartment he could tell this room had seen action, and not just because of the blood. The bed sheets had been thrown back and there were pictures that were askew on the wall by the window, like someone had fallen into them.

Checking the bedside table he found a pair of glasses and a clock still there, but her phone charger was on the floor.

“Her phone is missing.”

“It’s still on I’ll start tracking it.”

“You get any prints or DNA?”

“Nothing usable.”

CSI came in then to do a more thorough sweep of the room. After letting them scan their shoes to rule out any trace particles they might have tracked in by accident the pair went out into the living room where Loeb, looking less shaken, stood by Rufus who was still contained.

“Officer Loeb, you okay?” John asked.

“I’m so sorry. It’s my first homicide, Detective, and I…I just never thought…it was just a noise complaint.”

“It’s all right we’re going to do our jobs and find out who did this. You’ve given your pre-limb report to Detective Paul right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Then I need you to get her dog to our labs to be looked over for evidence.”

“Yes, Detective.”

“Get McGinnis on it she’s the best.”

“Of course.”

With the help of CSI Loeb left with Rufus and Richard came in.

“What was in the report?” John asked him.

”Not much. He came here investigating a noise compliant. Found her dog barking his head off and her locator chip in the bedroom. The front door was locked when he entered. No sign of forced entry.”

“Looks like the only struggle took place in the bedroom. Whoever did this probably came through the window. Anyone see anything?”

“I’ve got three teams checking the other buildings and canvasing the block, but we’re not getting much from the neighbours either, most of them aren’t home. I still have to finish this floor though.”

Richard would have continued, but his phone went off.

“Paul,” he said and moved away.

Dorian’s face lit up in bright blue patterns then.

“Anything you want to tell me?”

“It’s Rudy he wants a larger blood sample.”

“Does he have something?”

“Not yet that’s why he needs a bigger sample.”

As Dorian went back into the bedroom Richard finished his call and came back to John scowling.

“I’ve got to get out front, someone tipped off the press, people want answers.”

Normally John would have started off some banter about how Richard should find someone prettier to do it, but instead he just nodded.

“Okay, I’ll help finishing up with the neighbours.”

“Thanks.”

Dorian came back and he and John went down the hall as Richard went downstairs to start dealing with the horde of reporters and gawking onlookers that had gathered in front of the building.

John knocked on the last door to be checked and a man answered.

“Well it sure took you guys long enough to deal with that dog,” the man said, and then peered out to see the cops going in and out of the apartment. “Sure seems like a lot of you for one mutt. Got nothing better to do?”

“Sir, we’re investigating an attack that happened to your neighbour and we’d like to ask you some questions.”

“Something happened to that police lady? Knew it wasn’t safe living near her.”

John’s jaw clenched and Dorian thought he’d better ask the next set of questions.

“Did you see or hear anything unusual today or last night, sir?”

“Well I did hear something last night. Sounded like a yell.”

“Was it a woman?”

“No, it sounded like a man.”

“When was this?”

“Around two, three in the morning maybe.”

“Did you investigate the sound?”

“No, I don’t stick my nose into other’s business unless their yappy dog interrupts my beauty sleep.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope.”

“Okay if you think of something, no matter how insignificant, please call us,” John injected, and handed over a card.

The man took the card with a sigh.

“You cops sure take care of your own don’t you?”

“Well it makes sense right?”

“How?”

“Someone attacked a police officer in her own home. Do you think they’d hesitate to hurt a civilian?”

John let that question hang in the air and went to meet up with Richard.

“Should the public be taking extra precautions, Detective?”

“The public should always be vigilante, but please no one panic-”

“How do you expect people to remain calm when a police captain has just been murdered?”

“I expect people to be rational and not twist my words for sensationalism. To reiterate we have no body at this time, but we have reason to suspect a homicide has occurred at the scene. We will begin checking leads and anyone who has any information is asked to come forward.”

“Detective Paul, what do you say to people who think you and your team are too close to the case? That since she was your captain you can’t be objective or fair?”

Richard glared at the reporter. “We’re the detective and investigations division. A crime has been committed here and we’re going to investigate it. No further questions.”

Richard turned away from the reporters and cameras and joined John in the lobby.

“Please tell me you’re having better luck than I am, Kennex.”

“I’ve got Loeb taking Rufus in for testing. See if anything was left on him. Neighbour said he heard something around two or three in the morning.”

“Okay at least that’s something. I sent Stahl the surveillance footage so she can start trying to piece together what happened.”

“Dorian, have you gotten a lock on her phone?”

“I’ve currently tracked it to a position in a wooded area just north of the city.”

“All right,” Richard said, “you two find that phone. I’ll get back to the precinct and start running down leads, if we get any.”

John and Dorian walked back to the car and as John slide into the driver’s seat that was when his brain finally seemed to get off autopilot. He just sat there trying to figure out why before realizing that the silence of the car was his answer. There was no phone call. No familiar voice asking him what he had for her. No clipped command for him to check something out and there never would be.

She was really gone.

It was then that the numbness John had felt since walking into Sandra’s apartment was replaced with rage.

Chapter Text

John had the pedal of the car pushed as far down as it would go. The red and blue lights flashing, the siren going, weaving the car in and out of traffic with little regard for the safety of other drivers or himself.

“John, perhaps I should drive.”

“I got this,” he said through gritted teeth and yanked the car onto the appropriate exit.

***

By the grace of Dorian’s scanners and the lack of heavy traffic they arrived at the wooded area in one piece, the bumper had been dented, but it was still on the car and that was good enough for John. He slammed the door closed and looked over the spot of trees and uneven roadway.

“Scan the area,” he told Dorian and started to do so himself.

He checked if the road had any fresh tracks besides theirs. If he could spot her phone before Dorian did; if he could find any more blood.

“Her phone is ten metres west by that tree.”

“Let’s go.”

He stomped over to the area Dorian had pointed to.

“John, we could disrupt evidence if we aren’t careful.”

John just kept going.

“We have to remain calm.”

“I am calm!”

“John, please I understand-”

John stopped then whirling around and throwing his had up in Dorian’s face.

“No, no don’t tell me you understand. Don’t tell me you know what I’m going through, because you don’t! You can’t! You can never understand how this feels!”

John regretted those words the instant they left his mouth, but he was too worked up to take them back. Instead he turned back around and walked until he found Sandra’s phone lying in the dirt. There were smudges of dirt on it too indicating that it had probably been tossed there from a vehicle. He stared at it and started thinking that maybe that reporter back at the apartment was right after all. Maybe he was too close to her and he shouldn’t be working the case. But John knew he had to. Sandra had always stood by him, supported him, she bent the rules for him. He owed it to her to bring whoever killed her to justice.

“It’s clear,” Dorian said stiffly.

Putting on gloves John picked up the phone and then nearly dropped it when it started ringing.

He flipped it over and checked the caller ID.

The name Daniel Maldonado came up and John’s heart sank. He didn’t want to have to be the one to break the news. Still he answered the call.

“Hel-”

“Sandra! Oh thank god I-”

“No, no, Mr. Maldonado, this is John, John Kennex. Do you remember me?”

“Uh…yes, yes of course, John, I’ve…I’ve been watching the news. I-how could this happen? I just talked to her last night-”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know for sure around eight thirty nine o clock, we talked for fifteen minutes maybe, what’s going on, John? What happened to Sandra?”

“She’s…she disappeared from her apartment. We suspect foul play, but we don’t have anything more right now.”

“I heard you-the police don’t have a body.”

“We don’t.”

There was silence for a moment and the next question was spoken very softly, tinged with the desperate hope of a man wanting to be wrong.

“But you don’t expect to find her alive, do you?”

“No.”

The phone went silent against except for the sound of heavy breathing. John let Daniel have time to get himself together.
Eventually he spoke again. “John, you bring my daughter home to me. I want to put her beside her mother.”

“I will,” he promised. His desire to get Sandra justice burned anew. “Thank you, for your information and I will call you when we get anything new…do you want to come here? I can have someone be with you.”

“No…no thank you I just really want to be alone right now.”

“All right, and I promise you we will catch the people who did this.”

“I know you will, because I will make sure you do.”

Then the call was disconnected.

John turned to Dorian.

“That was her father he knows me I…”

“You don’t have to explain. After all I wouldn’t understand would I?”

“Look, Dorian, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just…well you never forget your first.”

Dorian didn’t answer and John bagged up the phone and they went back to the car. It was once they were inside that Dorian's curiosity finally got the better of him.

“John-”

“I’m sorry I really am. I shouldn’t have-”

“No you shouldn’t, but I want to know, what did you mean by her being your first?”

John sighed. “Check her record 2035 and forward, check who she worked with.”

Dorian quickly scanned her record and was shocked when he saw that her partner then was now his. Suddenly John’s anger was starting to make a lot more sense.

“She was your partner when you first joined the force.”

“It was more than that she was my training officer. She showed me the ropes when I was nothing but a cocky rookie. My dad was the reason I became a cop, but she’s the reason I became a good cop. You should have seen her in the field, Dorian, she was amazing. She was thorough, professional, even better than Pelham.”

John rubbed at his eyes.

“And I just never thought I’d have to go through losing another partner. Not her, not like this.”

“I’m sorry.”

John folded his arms on the steering wheel and took a moment to deal with his grief, and Dorian leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

He was made to feel, but it was times like this that Dorian wished, just for a moment, that he could be a little bit more like the MXs. It was proven that people experiencing grief often became angry, but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with the words John had hurled at him in anger even though they both knew he didn’t mean it.

It wasn’t just that though. Learning what Maldonado had been to John did help put everything into perspective, but it also brought up feelings Dorian knew he should really let go of. He couldn't though, because it hurt so much. Unlike him John had a past. Being with Maldonado had shaped who he was and John could remember that clearly; and that made Dorian angry, because he could never know something like that again.

Dorian tried to think about the life he had had before John woke him up and, like the many times he had tried before, found nothing. He didn’t know who his first was anymore. He didn’t know what it was like to lose a partner not the way John had. So in way he knew John was right he couldn’t understand that, but he had still known Maldonado as his captain just as John had. He knew how much she cared about her men and the people of the city. He knew her smile, he could remember every word of every conversation she’d had that he’d been present for. He would indeed always remember her.

Right now Dorian had no idea which feeling of loss was worse.

Chapter Text

The mood when John and Dorian returned to the precinct was somber. Not just for them but for everyone. People walked around with their heads down and avoided her office like the plague. As the team gathered in the conference room no one sat down, Dorian surmised that it was because if they all stood up the fact that one of those chairs was never going to be filled could be ignored.

“Okay what did you guys get off the phone?” Richard asked them.

“Nothing useful,” John responded shortly.

At that point Richard wanted to take the phone back from CSI and take it to Maya ‘Bananapants’ Vaughn on some crazy hope that she would tell them everything the evidence was telling them was wrong.

“All contacts from her phone or computer were either professional or with people too far away in location to have committed the crime. There are tracks on the road where we found her phone possibly from a van or SUV, but the tire treads are a common brand not easily linked to any specific model.”

“Did the lab get anything back on Rufus?” John asked.

“They did get DNA but the sample is small. It’ll take time to process it.”

“So one more dead end then,” Richard announced, the frustration evident in his voice.

John put his hands on the table and forced himself to keep it together. “Okay let’s go over what we do know. What’s the timeline?”

Valerie pulled up the surveillance footage.

“According to our records she left here at 7:15pm last night. Security cameras show her getting home at 7:30. She left her apartment again at 7:42 and cameras pick her up in the park a block away with Rufus. She was there running for an hour bought a wrap from a vendor on the corner and came back.”

“Her father said he talked to her between 8:30 and 9:00pm and that was the last call to her phone until this morning when Loeb called twice and then her dad started calling again when news of the attack broke,” John said.

“The neighbour we talked to said he heard something that sounded like a shout between 2 and 3 AM,” Dorian continued.

“The cameras were killed at 2:36am and came back on 3:17am,” Valerie confirmed.

“According to her records her phone then travelled to the spot where we found it at 4:02am.”

“So they killed the cams and ditched the phone and now they want to do what?”

“John, you keep saying they did it. Why do you think there is more than one assailant?” Dorian asked.

“Because Maldonado is-was a third degree black belt. She could kick seven different kinds of ass including mine.”

Richard choked out a laugh. “Now I’d pay to see that.”

John glared at him. “My point is you want to overpower her you’re going to have better odds going two on one.” He pulled up the crime scene photos on the monitor. “There are clear signs of struggle in her room. See here? The pictures were moved on her wall. Like someone taller than her fell into them. ”

Valerie furrowed her brow. “There’s something wrong with this scene too.”

“What do you mean?”

Valerie came over to John and enlarged one picture of the bedroom.

“There’s no void.” She pointed to a spot on the floor. “See there’s an empty space here where Rufus was and the blood stains on his fur are hers, but if the assailants shot her blood should have hit them too and there should be an empty spot where they were standing. But from what CSI has been able to piece together the blood spatter continues in an even 360 degree pattern around the room. Also the pooling of blood on the bed and floor indicates her head would have been at the foot of the bed, consistent with some kind of struggle, but given the time frame there isn’t enough time for her to have lain there and lost so much blood.”

Richard snorted. “So we have a crime that was apparently committed by Harry Houdini and David Copperfield. We have a phone that went for a joyride in a vehicle we can’t track and no other leads, so now what?”

“Do you have a list of the inmates who escaped the cubes?” Dorian asked.

“It came in thirty minutes ago,” Valerie answered.

“Anyone on there who could have been holding a grudge against her?” John asked.

She shrugged helplessly. “Take your pick. Almost everyone was either from a case she oversaw or someone she personally arrested. She’s been an officer for twenty years. And with the possible connection with InSyndicate well she was the first one out and shooting at them during the assault.”

John’s eyes narrowed. “They have to be behind this the timing’s too perfect. A prison beak and then a police captain is attacked the press will spin into a sign of the apocalypse and the public will panic.”

“Why take her then?” Valerie asked. “If this is about discrediting us, why not leave her displayed, as a sign of strength or power to intimidate us?”

“Perhaps they will still do so in a more public space.”

Everyone went quiet at that morbid prospect and then John spoke up.

“Okay CSI needs to keep going on the crime scene and figuring whose DNA they found. In the meantime we have to find these guys. I’ll go to the cubes see if we can find out who the inmates were talking to. Find the connection between them and InSyndicate.”

“I’ll coordinate all drone and stat surveillance, cross reference with the escapees’ priors. If they fall back into old behaviour maybe we can catch them in the act.”

Valerie received a message then, checked her phone, and sighed.

“Well someone already acted. We’ve got a report of an armed bank robbery in South Kelvin.”

“I’ll assemble a team and get down there,” Richard said.

Valerie nodded. “Okay I’ll report all this to…I’ll report all this to no one.”

Awkwardly John and Dorian left, but Richard stayed behind as Valerie collapsed into a chair.

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“No! I just keep expecting her to come around a corner any minute. Every time I finish doing anything I keep waiting for her to ask for an update. At least you get to be away from here and the constant reminders of her!”

Valerie buried her face in her hands and let out a sob.

“I’m sorry, Richard.”

“It’s all right we’re all on edge.”

“No, no it’s not all right. I’m supposed to be able to keep it together she trusted me,” Valerie said, trying to stop her tears and failing. “She-she was the first person in my life to ever push me. She challenged me. For once just being a chrome wasn’t good enough I had to be more and I loved that.”

Richard knew how that felt. When he came over from Vice freshly divorced, with a daughter who despised him for driving away her mother, and raw from the IA investigation. Maldonado had taken him in and turned him into a proper cop again. She hadn’t seen him as a lost cause even if Richard himself had at the time. Instead of saying that though Richard just sat down in the chair next to her and hugged her tightly as she cried.

Outside the door Richard’s MX pressed his hand against the glass so it was frosted and they could have privacy.

Chapter Text

The very first thing Sandra became aware as the darkness faded away was that, judging by how much her back hurt, she couldn’t be dead, but she sure wished she was.

In addition to her back her head was pounding, and there was a dull aching pain at the back of her neck. She opened her eyes and then immediately shut them again as the glow of the bright lights on either side of her head made her stomach roll with nausea. Distantly she heard voices as she struggled to push passed the pain and focus on her surroundings.

“She’s awake.”

“Go get him.”

There were footsteps and the sound of a door swinging shut.

Sandra cautiously opened her eyes again. They adjusted to the light that time and she glanced around. She noted the walls of concrete, lack of windows, and the low ceiling; probably a basement. She was on some kind of device that was lit from behind. There were metal extensions from it on either side of her head and above it as well. She looked down to see that she was bound to the device by her wrists and ankles.

Across from her a computer sat unused on a desk that was cluttered with items she couldn’t identify. Beside the desk a man sat in a chair, moving it lazily on its worn out wheels. He got up and walked over to her with the ease of someone in total control of the situation.

The smug look on his face was all too familiar.

“Ethan Avery.”

“My, my how the tables have turned, Captain.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Well I’d tell you, but after all the work it took to get you here I want to enjoy myself. I wasn’t expecting a woman of your age to put up such a fight.”

He reached up and touched his fingers gingerly against his swollen eye; as his shirt shifted with the movement Sandra could see the bruise on his shoulder where she’d kicked him.

“Of course a narcissist like you would hate to lose your precious face. Pity you can’t make any more of them now.”

Avery raised the gun he held and pointed it directly at her head.

“I’d watch what you say. You aren’t barking orders from a desk here.”

Sandra glared right back at him.

“Don’t threaten me with that. If you just wanted me dead you would have killed me already.”

Avery smirked and pulled the gun back.

“You are perceptive, Captain.”

He turned his head to the door on the far side of the room.

“Get him in here!” He shouted.

The door swung open again and banged against the wall.

A middle aged Asian man was dragged inside the room. Sandra didn’t recognize him, but she did recognize the man holding him.

“Lynch.”

He smiled at her. The deranged look was made all the more sinister by the way his long unkempt hair was falling into his eyes.

“I really should be thanking you, you know,” he said. “You meet so many interesting people in prison. You learn so many things about how justice really works. And I realized I was wrong. I shouldn’t have tried to take out Detective Kennex.” He eyes narrowed at her, filled with loathing. “I should have gone after the one who ignored his psych evaluation.”

He threw the man roughly into the vacant chair and approached her.

“I won’t make that mistake again.”

He stopped next to Avery and together both men loomed over her. Their faces were ghoulish against the harsh light of the machine casting unnatural shadows.

“We need information,” Avery said.

“I’m not telling you anything.”

“We know that, so he,” Lynch nodded to the unnamed man, “is going to make you tell us.”

Avery swiftly turned around grabbed the collar of the man’s shirt and pressed the gun hard against his temple.

“Remember we’re watching.”

With that Avery and Lynch left and Sandra was alone with the stranger. For a long while he just sat hunched in on himself in the chair, his breathing ragged and slow. Then he slowly started to work. He started up the computer. The device Sandra was trapped on started to hum with power. The man came up to her than and began placing electrodes against her head, his hands trembling as he did.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I have a family,” he answered, his eyes wet with tears.

“We can help you.”

He gave a hoarse laugh. “You can’t even help yourself.”

When all the electrodes were in place he went back to his chair. On the computer screen graphs and strings of numbers were being displayed, monitoring Sandra’s vitals.

“I’m a recollectionist. Have you had any kind of procedure like this before?”

“No.”

“I see. It will be easier for both of us if you relax.”

The computer beeped as her heart rate spiked in protest.

The man sighed and picked up a needle off the desk.

“Please don’t help them.”

“I said it would be easier, you didn’t listen.”

He put his hand hard against her shoulder to keep her from twisting away and pressed the needle into her skin.

Sandra gasped at the pain and her last thought before the world went black again was that her people would find her. She just had to hang on until they did.

Chapter Text

Sandra could smell burning toast.

Leaving her teddy bear on her pillow she got out of bed and padded barefoot downstairs. The hardwood floor creaked as she peeked around the corner and saw her dad in the kitchen. He was covered in specks of flour, as was the counter, and a good portion of the floor.

He turned around and forced a smile at her.

“Hey, Sweetheart, I was just making breakfast.”

Sandra wrinkled her nose and stared at the charred pieces of toast that were smoking on the counter.

“It looks yucky.”

He sighed. “I know.”

It had been a long lonely month.

The sympathy food items everyone had given him had finally run out so he wanted to try to make things the way they used to be for his daughter. But while it may have been out dated thinking it was also a fact that Daniel Maldonado simply sucked at cooking. Majel was always the one with the flare for flavours and trying new recipes. He was the one who could be trusted to chop things, use the blender, and boil pasta water.

None of that was good enough now though, and Daniel still wasn’t sure how to be mommy and daddy all by himself.

Sandra pulled up a chair and stood on it so she could see over the counter properly. Standing next to him she examined the mess in the bowl that was supposed to be pancake batter.

“You’re supposed to fold the eggs in.”

“I did!” He exclaimed.

“But you didn’t take the shells off.”

“Oh.”

“Can I do it? Mommy was showing me how.”

Sandra lowered her eyes. Her fingers traced little paths in the flour on the counter.

“Sandra, it’s okay to miss mommy I do too.”

“I know, but can I still help you? I can be like mommy and you can be my assistant. It could be our new thing.”

Her dad wrapped his arms around his little girl and hugged her tightly.

“I’d like that.”

They started everything over. Sandra worked the batter and got it in the pan. Her dad helped her flip them over and with both of them watching the next batch of toast it came out edible. Then they sat there at the table with their stack of pancakes, none of which were remotely the same size, and their darker than normal, but not burnt toast.

It still felt wrong though, and not just because of the chair that would be forever empty. Majel liked to be in touch with the world spiritually. She liked to play the flute, and listen to chimes, and whale songs. Without her it was too quiet. Sandra’s dad wasn’t about to try and twist himself into a pretzel doing Yoga or anything like that, but he was thinking of something else that might help.

“Sandra?”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“What do you think if we got a dog?”

***

The world moved on. The bright autumn leaves crunched under her feet as Sandra, now twenty-three, rushed into the local pizza joint.

“You’re late again.”

“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes and worked to get her jacket off and her uniform shirt on over her clothes.

Leona glared at her. “If I don’t know any better I’d think you weren’t taking this job seriously.”

Sandra sighed and she raked her hands through her hair and pulled it up into a messy ponytail. “I was at a job interview where you’ll be happy to know I got another ‘thank you for coming we’ll be in touch’, and we all know that’s code for you blew it get out of my office.”

Sandra finished with her hair and tied on her apron. Scowling she checked the bill, grabbed the pizza, and headed out to the table.

“I’m gonna be slinging pizza here for the rest of my life!”

“The best pizza!” Leona called after her as she went out into the dining room.

***

“What the hell was that!?”

The door banged again the wall and Sandra went limp as the machine stopped. Her breathing was heavy and she shivered as sweat began to cool on her skin. She closed her eyes, focused on calming her breathing, and listened to the men argue.

“We need information not her life story!” Lynch shouted.

In rare show of nerve the recollectionist slammed his hand on the desk.

“She’s never done this before! I have to ease her into it otherwise I’ll risk permanent brain damage and then you won’t be getting anything!”

Sandra shivered again and it wasn’t from the chill of the room. They had seen that? Had heard that? Those moments were private and yet, and yet somehow they were able to see her memories. As disturbing as that was Sandra’s mind started trying to quickly work out how she could use any of this to her advantage. It was obvious from his previous exploits that Lynch didn’t care about women, and Avery was completely obsessed with her love life or lack thereof as he saw it. Perhaps she could give them something and stall them at the same time. There was no way Lynch wasn’t broadcasting this. Avery certainly dealt in secrets and cover ups, but not him. Lynch thrived on putting on a show and Sandra knew sex sold and the more viewers she got the better chance she had that the video would be spotted.

The machine started up again and this time Sandra relaxed and focused.

***

The TV had been turned off and the popcorn bowl had been abandoned on the couch. Sandra was on the floor her boyfriend Marty on top of her, his curly black hair falling into his face as he kissed her.

She giggled as he gave up trying to undo the buttons on her shirt and slid his hands underneath it instead.

She leaned back and managed to work the buttons of his shirt loose until the cross he wore dangled freely between them.

Marty stopped what he was doing.

“I can’t do this,” he said.

“Yes you can-“

“No, Sandra, your dad’s home.”

“He’s asleep we’ll be fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

She kissed him hard and Marty kissed her back his lips moving hungrily against hers. She started rubbing her hips vigorously against his and then Marty abruptly dropped her.

“I gotta go.”

“Marty, wait!”

He got to the door of the room before she managed to turn him around and get her arms around him.

“Sandra, seriously-”

“One more kiss goodbye then.”

He tilted his head down and she kissed him, then kissed his jaw, then his chest. Then her hands moved to the zipper on his pants.

“Sandra!”

“What?” she asked innocently, while pulling his pants down.

He put one hand on her arm and pulled her back up.

“Look if we’re really going to keep doing this I think we should make a commitment to each other.”

“Marty, I’ve already told you I’m not ready and this is not the time I want to talk about it.”

“Well I do.”

“Marty,” she said warningly.

“I mean it I think we should get married.”

Sandra pointed her finger in his face.

“You say that word one more time and I swear I’ll scream.”

“Marriage.”

True to her word she screamed and her dad came running into the living room sporting black underpants and a baseball bat.

“What the hell is going on!?”

“I’m sorry Mr-”

“Get out!”

“I was just leaving!”

Marty stumbled out of the house with his pants still down around his ankles. Buster the family dog barked at him as he rushed to his car.

“Goodnight, Mr. Maldonado!”

“Run, Marty!”

There was the screech of tires as Marty pulled out of the driveway as fast as he could. Sandra glared at her dad and buttoned up her shirt.

“What did you do that for, Dad?!”

“Oh, my only daughter screams in the middle of the night excuse me for responding!”

“I was fine Marty was just being stupid.”

“Then don’t make the beast with two backs under my roof and I won’t bother you!”

“I’m not a child I can handle this!”

“Well handle it somewhere else!”

“I’m trying!”

She stormed upstairs to her room, slamming the door behind her. Sandra pressed her back against the door and slid down to the floor, feeling like an overgrown teenager. Well that’s what she was, wasn’t she? She asked herself as the rested her arms on her knees.

She looked at the degree hanging on the opposite wall, mocking her with her lack of accomplishments. Her dad had agreed to let her live at home while getting it. It had seemed like a great idea the time; a way to save up money for life after her post-secondary career. The life she was still waiting to lead. She got up and went over to it, tracing her hand over the frame. She had been so proud of it once. Now over a year after graduating it was becoming a source of shame.

Turning away from it she flopped down on her bed and thought about what Marty was offering, a marriage, security, he wanted kids and she did too, would it really be so bad? Then she started thinking about her friends. Julie was going to grad school next term. Beth was starting her own business. They had plans that didn’t involve getting together with a guy just because he had a steady job and she loved him. It seemed everyone she knew was getting their lives in order.

What was wrong with her that she couldn’t do the same?

Chapter Text

“I want you to focus on your precinct.”

Sandra’s vision went double as the machine kept going.

“Your fellow officers.”

A hand was on her shoulder again and there was another prick of a needle.

“What do you remember about John Kennex?”

***

“How many o’s in obvious?”

“Two.”

Sandra peered around her feet that were currently propped up on her desk as she filled out reports to look at her partner.

“You were second in your class at the Academy right?”

“Yeah, and it was a big class,” John said around a mouth full of doughnut.

“Uh huh.”

Before the banter could really get rolling Captain Deckard shouted at them from across the room.

“Kennex! Maldonado! Get your feet off the desks and back to work! I’ve got one for you to roll on!”

“Yes, Captain!”

John brushed the crumbs off his uniform and Sandra checked the APB the captain had just sent her.

“What have we got?”

“A patrol car tried to flag a suspect down for speeding. He fled and got his car to an apartment building on Adison and Fourth. When officers pursued him inside he shot through his apartment door and now it’s a possible hostage situation.”

“What were the chances our last one of the day would be an easy call?”

“None of them ever are.”

John sighed.

“So what are you gonna do with all the overtime we’re logging?” he asked.

“I’m thinking of adopting a dog. What about you?”

“I’m going to buy a yacht.”

“What the hell are you going to do with a yacht?”

“The same thing I do with that new car I bought, nothing.”

***

The ride to the scene was a quiet one as they listened intently to the radio for any updates. They arrived at the scene just as the sun set and were met by another unit.

“I’m Sergeant Maldonado this is my partner John, Detective and Investigations division.”

“Mallory and Gannon, 18th division.”

“What have you got?”

“Suspect, goes by the name John Johnson, has barricaded himself in the apartment on the top floor, that corner one. When our officers tried to approach he shot twice. They managed to get out with minor injuries. Says he has a woman in there and if we don’t back off he’ll kill her.”

“Did you evacuate the area?”

“Per standard procedure two block radius, but we couldn’t clear the building itself.”

Sandra looked up where a drone was flying up to the window.

“Have the drones gotten anything?”

She got her answer as shots rang out from the building and the drone dropped, hit the pavement, and burst into flames.

“I don’t see anybody leaving!” Johnson shouted out the window.

The officers ducked behind their vehicles for cover.

“We’re not going to get him out of there like this he can hold up in there till we all die of old age!” John announced.

“If I don’t see a car pull out in the next sixty seconds the girl dies and so does everyone in this building!”

“Any bright ideas, John?”

John peered at the building from a space between the cars. “This is a modified complex from the old industrial zone right?”

“Think there’s a chance they still have their old fire escape around back?” Sandra asked.

“It’s possible, if we can get up there we might be able to access the apartment from a window on the far side.”

“All right Mallory pull your men back but keep spotters on the window and the exits. We’ll take your car around the block it’ll be more obvious. And talk to the suspect, keep him distracted.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

She and John got in Mallory’s unit and started driving it down the block and Mallory’s voice bellowed up to the window.

“All right, Johnson, you win we’re backing off there goes the first car.”

They made it around the block without being spotted and found the fire escape right where it should be.

“Looks like we just bought our first piece of daylight.”

Running over to the stairs and grates made of old heavy black metal John boosted Sandra up and she dropped the ladder for him to follow.

“Think you can handle this after all that sugar, John?”

“Hey I'm a growing boy especially when I’m standing next to you.”

Sandra rolled her eyes.

“Why do I put up with you?”

“Because you like me. And I’m going to reap all the rewards of this from the day you make captain.”

Sandra snorted. “The day I make captain is the day I quit the force. Can you imagine me in a business suit?”

“No, but I can imagine you giving your favourite partner his pick of desks when you’re the top dog.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

John smirked.

“Would you care to make that an official bet, future captain?”

“You’re on.”

They grew serious as the got to the top floor and moved over the thin ledge that protruded out from the building.

“We can’t hold our guns we’ll need to be able to keep a strong grip.”

“Won’t be safe for us to use them anyway the walls dividing the units are too thin. Bullets could easily pass through and hurt innocent bystanders.”

“Doing it the hard way it is then.”

“Press yourself close.”

John nodded and they moved quietly along the ledge, neither one looking down to the four storey drop that awaited them if they took a wrong step. They made it to the window and got on either side of it.

“Ready?” Sandra whispered.

John locked his eyes with hers and she knew he was.

Together they pushed the window open and Sandra rolled in first, John close behind.

“Police!”

The situation got complicated quickly as there was a second man in the apartment and he rushed at them. Sandra dodged him, but he managed to sock John in the face. As they fought Sandra got to the man by the other window. He shot at her, but thankfully missed. She lunged and got his wrist, twisting it until he dropped the gun. She swept his leg and got him on the ground. As he tried to scramble for the gun she kicked it away got hers from the holster and pointed it directly at his back.

“All right keep your hands where I can see’em!”

She checked him for weapons and removed two knives and another empty gun. Meanwhile John got the other man subdued.

“Keep your hands above your head!” he shouted.

They got the suspects cuffed and found the woman being held hostage crying in a closet.

“Ma’am, we’re police officer we’re here to help,” Sandra said, gently coaxing her of the apartment as John put his jacket around her.

They got her outside and to the EMTs as the two suspects began to argue.

“I told you this was a stupid idea, Johnny!”

“Oh shut up! I didn’t hear you coming up with anything better!”

“Well I can’t believe you got taken out by a dame!”

“Hey, buddy, the 2010s called they want their narrow minded sexism back,” John said as he stuffed the suspect into the back of the car.

“Thanks,” Sandra responded as she got Johnny into the other side of the car.

John grinned.

“Nobody messes with my partner.”

She smiled as John pressed his fingers lightly against his nose.

“Is it bleeding?” he asked Sandra.

“No, just swollen.”

“I can’t believe he got me that good.”

“It’s because you fight like such a rookie, Kennex. I keep telling you if you aren’t in a position to use your gun then keep your hands up.”

***

The case ticked on into the small hours of the morning as Sandra and John dealt with the two quarreling suspects through questioning and booking.

When all statements had at last been made they left the interrogation room and Sandra’s ears perked up at a loud growl.

“Was that you or did the machine just break?” she asked John.

“That was me I’m starved. What time did we have dinner?”

“We didn’t.”

“Well that explains it.”

Sandra went down to book the evidence as John ran out for a sandwich. When she was done dropping everything off she looked over the seemingly shelves of evidence. For cases solved and not solved; for those cases awaiting trial, and those cases for which the verdict at trial hadn’t been what they had hoped for.

“Why the long face?” John asked as he came back with his long overdue dinner.

“Nothing just thinking about how this sometimes feels like digging a hole in the sand. You clear away a few criminals only to have more rush in to replace them.”

“Well then we dug a lot today and you know what? We caught the guys and nobody got hurt. I call that a good day’s work.”

“Yeah, sometimes, most times, we do good.”

John pulled out a bag from his pocket.

“Hey, the sandwich shop was closing up and let me have my pick of what was left, you want some?”

Sandra furrowed her brows at the really stuffed looking sandwich dripping sauce onto the sides of the bag.

“What’s in it?”

“Chicken, turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, peppers, onions, avocado, mustard, relish, and mayo; all on a toasted garlic roll.”

“It sounds like a heart attack on a bun.”

John shrugged and smiled. “What can I say? I’m a man of fine taste.”

“And I’m desperate, give me half.”

Eating their sandwich with one hand they got back at the reports they had left to do before the call and the stack of new ones. They finally finished up just as the sun came up.

The pair passed Edward Kennex on the stairs on their way out.

“Morning, John,” Edward said.

“Good night, Dad.”

Chapter Text

“More recent memories, what do you know about Detective Richard Paul?”

***

Richard Paul was a good cop. The key word there being was. When he transferred to Sandra’s division he was nothing short of a broken man. From what Sandra could gather there was some incident that involved his partner, a lengthy investigation, and disciplinary action. There may have been other things as well in his files, but thanks to IA even she wasn’t privy to them. Adding to that the change of his last name from Vice’s files to what he registered with for her division it was a big indicator that his personal life wasn’t exactly on track either. Then to top it all off he had transferred to the squad at a rather awkward time, all the rookie officers had finished their training and were out doing patrols. Promotions had gone thorough and all open positions filled several weeks earlier, leaving him the lone new person in a place where everybody was already familiar with everyone else.

Not helping matters was John’s less than pleasant demeanor towards Richard. Apparently his idea of making a new co-worker feel welcome was to put salt in his coffee.

Still Sandra hadn’t found a reason to reprimand Richard at all, because despite a growing list of colourful insults between him and John he was still a professional. He filed everything properly and on time. He obeyed regulations; and the most promising thing was that he was doing well with MX partner pilot program. He had no complainants about working with a robot and she had no complaints about his efficiency in doing so.

Sandra still had her concerns though even if she couldn’t voice them. Just looking at the man’s eyes she could see that the drive wasn’t there. That fire, that need, to be doing what he was doing was non-existent. It had to have been there before no cop agreed to go undercover for perhaps weeks at a time, never see their family, or look like a homeless gang member when they could, if they didn’t love the job. She was concerned that Richard took to his new partner because he didn’t have to connect to a human being. To put his trust in someone who couldn’t betray him.

Despite all of it Sandra still knew Richard was a good man though. It was just a hunch she would admit, but Sandra always trusted her gut, and if she could just help him find that drive again somehow she knew he could be not just average, but one of the best detectives on her team.

Her hunch thankfully was confirmed for her the day Richard came into work with his eight year old daughter half asleep in his arms.

She watched from her office as Richard put her down in his chair, pressing his hand to her forehead and frowning.

He MX stared at the display of affection. “Detective, why have you brought your offspring here?”

“Her name is Angelica and she’s sick.”

“Yes, she currently has a fever of .8 degrees. A common symptom of infection, she should be resting.”

“She is.”

“It would be more beneficial to her recovery to be in a reclined position such as a bed.”

“Yeah, but I need to be working in order to keep her in that bed. Not to mention a roof over her head.”

“She cannot come with us while we are on duty.”

“I know that.”

John came by then and raised an eyebrow at the scene.

“Since when did we start running a daycare?”

“Buzz off, Kennex.”

Sandra cleared her throat and Richard spun around to face her, John took that moment to sneak off to the break room now that his ban from it after the salt incident had been lifted.

“Detective Paul, see me.”

Richard told his partner to monitor his daughter and then followed Sandra into her office.

“I wanted to put you in charge of a tactical team today, Paul. With the unveiling Lumocorp is planning less than a month away I want several teams to be on standby that day in case anything happens. However, in light of your daughter-”

“Captain Maldonado, I know I was wrong to bring her here and I am so sorry, but the school can’t take her with a fever and I couldn’t find care. I’ll do anything to keep this off my record please I-”

“Richard, calm down I’m not going to write you up.”

“You’re not?”

“No, I wanted to tell you that I’m still putting you with them and that I’ll watch your daughter today.”

“You will?”

“Of course bring her here.”

Richard did and they got her settled on the couch in the office. Sandra pulled out the blanket she kept for when shifts ran longer than they should and let Richard tuck it in around Angelica.

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You can thank me by putting in 110% effort to your job rather than the 90% I’ve seen you do so far.”

“Captain, I’ve been doing my job-”

“You’ve been doing an adequate job and no more. I’m concerned that you haven’t engaged with your fellow officers since joining this division and that I’ve apparently made such a bad impression on you that you thought I would write you up for circumstances that were beyond your control.”

“Didn’t stop Mulroney from doing it,” he muttered.

“Richard, this is not Vice and I am not Captain Mulroney.”

Richard straightened up and looked at her directly. “Believe me I know that.”

“Do you? Because you seem to put your trust in an MX more than anyone else here.”

“He’s my partner. We’re supposed to look out for each other.”

“You trust your life to a machine based on logic and algorithms. So, how do I know you trust me?”

“You should know that because I am trusting you with the one thing more important to me than my life. Besides I saw how you handled that group on their field trip here two weeks ago. I know you’re good with kids.”

Sandra’s eyes softened and she nodded in understanding.

“All right. Get your team together and get out there you’re still on the clock, and I’m not paying you to flatter me.”

Richard smiled.

“Yes, Captain.”

***

The rest of the morning was relatively uneventful as mornings went so Sandra received a shock when she looked up from checking her phone to see two bright green eyes staring at her.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Captain Maldonado,” she said, coming over to check the little girl who squirmed under her touch and pouted in a very familiar way.
Sandra fought the urge to smile, she was daddy’s little girl all right.

Sandra shifted her weight as Angelica curiously reached for the holster on her belt.

“Sorry those are for cops only.”

Angelica pouted again and glanced around the office.

“Daddy says cops help people you don’t look like you’re helping people.”

“Well as captain it’s my job to look after make my men and make sure they can help people. I help the people of this city indirectly.”

Angelica pointed to the officers walking around the floor outside the office.

“So you’re like their mom?”

Sandra chuckled. “Some days it sure feels that way.”

She got Angelica to eat a small lunch and managed to eat something herself too. Then Angelica went back to sleep on the couch and Sandra went to a meeting. It lasted a half hour longer than it was supposed to and she rushed back to her desk to get started on a new stack of reports.

She made it through two of them before her new office mate distracted her.

“What are you doing?” Angelica asked as she got up from the couch to wander around and look at the assortment of photos and items Sandra kept on her desk and cabinet.

“Reports.”

“Oh, can I help? I got a B+ on my last report about the rebuilding of New Pittsburgh.”

She smiled. “No, these reports are just for me to do.”

Angelica nodded and was engrossed by the photo of Rufus for a few minutes before trying to peer around Sandra to see her computer screen.

“Captain, Ma’am?”

“Yes?”

“Do you spend all day writing reports?”

“Not all day, why?”

“Cause it looks really boring.”

Sandra laughed.

“Well in that case, would you like to see where we keep the guns?”

“Yes!”

“You can look, but you can’t touch.”

So Sandra took her on an impromptu tour of the precinct and when Richard return from his shift Angelica held the official title of captain’s assistant; and she went home feeling better, and with her own ID badge she helped make with the 3D printer down on the second floor.

Chapter Text

“No, it’s not enough I need more! What about Detective Valerie Stahl?”

***

Detective Valerie Stahl was efficient, punctual, and according to her co-workers was pleasant to be around. Her record was spotless.

Sandra hated her on sight.

Well to be fair hate was the wrong word, distrustful was better. She was a chrome and chromes didn’t become police officers. It was a life that was beneath them and they made that known anytime she or her officers had to engage with them for any type of investigation. So, it occurred to Sandra early on that Valerie Stahl could have been sent by InSyndicate or some other crime organization to sabotage the department. Now had she been able to get out of her own head and realize that just because Officer Reynolds from Internal Affairs was still coming over on a regular basis and grilling her over ever decision she made in regards to the ambush, who she talked to, what she authorized, didn’t mean that Stahl joining the department had any connection to that event. Correlation did not equal causation and if she did want to bring down the PD from the inside out there were far better positions to get to achieve such ends.

So, had she been listening to reason Sandra would have been told she was being paranoid, but that voice of reason had been in a coma for over seven months.

Instead of being open Sandra was cold and distant to her newest detective, not hostile, but certainly demanding. She made sure she triple checked everything. Every case that had little evidence and no suspects went to her. Surprisingly though Valerie seemed to thrive on it. She worked overtime without complaints. Sandra would often come in early to find Valerie already there hunched over her desk. Every time she cracked a tough case her eyes would light up and she would walk around with a huge smile for the rest of the week. Sandra didn’t know what to make of it.

Everything came into focus though on case #4927.

“Mister Addison is under investigation for fraud and embezzlement from Seymour, the company he worked for, for nearly two decades. It’s going to be our job to track back the growing money trails, and to track down Mister Addison since he has fled the area since the investigation was opened.”

Everyone at the meeting was onboard and tasks were quickly delegated. The case took an interesting turn however when Valerie knocked on Sandra’s office door a few days later.

“Captain Maldonado?”

“Yes? What can I do for you, Detective?”

“I wanted to inform you that I need to be moved off the Addison investigation.”

“May I ask why?”

“I have a personal connection with the case.”

“I see, was there a reason you didn’t come forward with this when the case was first opened?”

“I thought I could handle it and I didn’t believe I was going to be summoned to court.”

Valerie handed over a tablet and Sandra checked over the court summons.

“Can I ask what your connection to him is? And if it will impact the case?”

“He’s my father.”

Valerie made no further comments and left her office. With little choice in the matter Sandra made an official note of it and Richard took over the case. Valerie went over to the cold case unit in the meantime. The integration of MXs into mandatory partners went better than expected, and Sandra bought a holographic dartboard and stuck a picture of Reynolds on the bull’s-eye.

***

When Mister Addison was finally tracked down he had his day in court and Sandra was there for it. Still unsure of Valerie she wanted to watch the proceedings and because of the court summons she expected Valerie to be a witness.

“The state calls Valerie Stahl to the stand.”

Sandra didn’t expect that though and her eyes went wide in surprise. She was a witness for the prosecution? The fact that Valerie no longer shared her last name with him, a background check revealed she’d had it legally changed when she was nineteen, was clear evidence that they weren’t close, but this was something else.

Sandra watched as she came to the front of the room. She noticed right away that Valerie was wearing her dress uniform. Her commendations pinned to her chest.

“Please state your full name for the record.”

“Valerie Stahl.”

“And what is your profession?”

“I am an intelligence analyst with the Metro police department.”

“What section?”

“Delta, detective and investigations divisions.”

“Thank you, now, do you recognize this house?”

So it went on, Valerie was asked about her upbringing, her schooling at Mendel Academy, her extra-circular activities. They asked her the kinds of people her father knew and if she ever questioned where all the money came from to do everything she did.

She answered that her childhood had been typical and anytime she had asked about money she had been told not to worry about it. She said she had never looked at her father’s financial statements until it was part of her job to do so.

“You’ve stated that you attended the Police Academy with your own finances.”

“That’s correct I did.”

“Is there a reason you no longer accepted money from Mister Addison at that time?”

“There was money for me to become whatever he thought was proper for me. There was no money for me to be what I wanted to be.”

“I see. No further questions, your honour.”

“The defence may now cross-examine,” the judge said.

“The defense has no questions at this time, your honour.”

The lawyer made to sit down, but his client suddenly slammed his hands on the desk and stood up.

“How dare you?”

Addison glared at Valerie, his knuckles white.

“How dare you be here and say those things after everything I’ve done for you!”

“You didn’t do anything for me. Everything you did was for you! I was someone you could show off at family functions. I was a trophy to you!”

“Your mother and I gave you everything you could ever want!”

“You gave me everything you wanted! Made me do everything you thought I should. No one gave me a vote on who I wanted for parents!”

There was a sob from the woman in tears behind Addison in the gallery.

“We gave you the best life possible and you throw it away to become some enforcer of draconian law! You should have been a doctor, a lawyer, anything that you were designed for!”

“I didn’t ask to be born like this!”

Valerie’s yell was empathized by the harsh bang of the gavel.

“Order! Both of you will sit down right now or I will hold this entire court in contempt!”

They did, their glares at each other stony and cold.

The judge ordered a recess and when everyone came back in Valerie made sure to sit down where her father and mother could see her, and Sandra sat down beside her in a show of solidarity.

When the case went to the jury Valerie never looked at her father as he was led away. As the courtroom began to clear out though she did approach her mother, Sandra stayed close, but didn’t interfere.

“You drove him to this,” her mother said. “He wanted you to have the very best, to be the very best. Everything was for you.”

“His actions were his own I didn’t make him do anything.”

She looked over her daughter, scorn evident at the uniform she wore.

“I’m so disappointed in you.”

Valerie glared back at her.

“Well I’m disappointed in having a criminal for a father and an enabler for a mother.”

With that Valerie walked out with her back straight and her head held high. Sandra kept in step beside her.

The moment they got out into the hallway though she slumped down, Sandra caught her arm and held her steady.

“You holding up okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it was just…draining.”

“Well you did great in there.”

“Thanks.”

They sat down in chairs that had been set up against the wall.

“Do you need any personal time?” Sandra asked, realizing it was high time she stopped treating Valerie as an enemy and started treating her like any of her other officers.

“No, I want to work to keep busy I just…we haven’t spoken in so long. This was supposed to make it all final and I-I really thought it would be easier.”

Sandra pursed her lips. She didn’t want to say she knew how this felt, because she couldn’t. Her father loved her for her, not so he could brag about her accomplishments to everyone. And he wasn’t the one likely to get ten to twenty in the cubes. “It’s okay to mourn a relationship you want to have rather than the one you do.”

Valerie shook her head and snorted. “Next you’re going to tell me that working through this is unhealthy.”

Sandra shrugged. “It probably is, but join the club burying problems in work is a favourite past time of mine.”

That time Valerie smiled.

“After today though you really should focus on something less stressful. I was planning to watch the Knights game tonight. I saw the jersey you wore under your jacket during the season opening game I know you’re a fan. Why don’t you come by later? You aren’t allergic to dogs are you?” Sandra realized what a stupid question that was the moment it left her mouth. “Of course you aren’t, sorry.”

“It’s okay. Actually it’s kind of nice, no one’s ever asked me something like that before, but I shouldn’t ruin your night.”

“You wouldn’t be ruining it, here.”

She got out her phone and gave Valerie, her address.

“If you want to stop by feel free.”

Valerie nodded numbly and they left the courthouse.

Chapter Text

Night was beginning to descend on the city. Not that the precinct was showing signs of slowing down though. It had been a long day for everyone there and it was still going. The shock of what had happened to Captain Maldonado had slowly faded and the grief had been stamped down under the grind of trying to get justice done. Getting justice for her however was turning into, to put it simply, a mess. Not because people were too close to the case as the reporter had questioned of Richard that morning, but because of the simple fact that she wasn’t there to keep things in order. She was the one to prioritize cases, to assign the best people to certain tasks, to keep everyone focused and help different investigations make connections between them if there was any. That was her job and there was no one to truly fill it in her absence. Valerie was doing her best, but even with her enhanced genetics keeping the fatigue at bay and remembering several things with perfect accuracy it was hard. She didn’t have clearance for most things and with the captain’s case not gaining any ground at all that just made everything more emotionally taxing.

She, John, and Dorian were gathering in the conference room to compare notes, sitting down now out of sheer emotional and physical exhaustion. Dorian and John’s trip to the cubes had turned up a couple of suspects that ultimately had them chasing down a bunch of dead end leads. Surveillance and drones had managed to pick up some of the escaped intimates, but they were petty criminals with no apparent connection to InSyndicate and no apparent skills that they might want.

The only positive at the moment was that Richard and his team had managed to track down the bank robbers and had just finished interrogating them.

“What did you get?” John asked as Richard came into the room.

“The same thing we got all day: nothing. The guy clamed up and is waiting on his lawyer.”

“What about the girl? She remained silent too?”

Richard shook his head. “Oh no, she sang like a love struck canary, but nothing about the captain.”

John‘s eyes narrowed and he stood up from his chair.

“Then push her harder,” he said coldly.

Richard glared at him and shot back, “not of all us got our interrogation skills from watching old Batman movies.”

“John,” Dorian warningly as John moved to stand in front of Richard.

But John wasn’t listening, the stress and fatigue beginning to take their toll on him too. “If it works it works and if you cared about the captain at all you-”

“You aren’t the only one who lost her!” Richard shouted.

“Richard, calm down.” Valerie was now on her feet and putting her hand on Richard’s shoulder.

Richard took a deep breath and stepped back to try and get himself back under control.

“Look, Kennex, you were her favourite that’s no secret, but don’t act like that makes you the only good cop here.”

Just then there was a knock at the conference room door and Rudy came in.

“Sorry to interrupt, everyone, but I have important news-”

John held up his hand.

“Hang on a second, Rudy. You really think it’s the same that what I-” he started, but Richard cut him off.

“I don’t think so I know so! The ambush ruined us, nearly ruined her and someone had to pick up your slack. To help her keep it together after everyone on your team was killed and she had to find a way to rebuild this department and our public image. She needed support and we gave it! You think those two years you spent parked on your ass were easy for her!?”

“Richard!”

“At least I didn’t have to transfer out of my department, Paul!”

“Guys!”

“Uh excuse me-” Rudy tried.

Richard and John glared at him.

“You stay out of this!”

“He might, but I won’t.”

Heads turned and jaws dropped when they saw that Officer Reynolds had come in the room.

“Officer Reynolds, we’re sorry we didn’t hear you come in,” Valerie said hastily, trying to salvage the situation.

Reynolds was having none of it. “That is exceedingly obvious. I can see why efficiency ratings are down when you have such a professional environment here.”

John and Richard, who not two minutes before were at each other throat’s now presented a united front, folding their arms and glaring at Reynolds.

“What do you want?” Richard asked.

“I’m here to inform you that IA, in light of recent events, will be stepping in and-”

“That won’t be necessary,” John cut in, working to keep the loathing out of his voice. “We’ve got this.”

“From what I just witnessed, Detective Kennex, you obviously can’t handle this.”

“Sir, it hasn’t even been 24 hours since the attack we’ll be fine if we could just get full clearance-”

“You won’t be getting anything, Miss Stahl, we will be bringing in a replacement for Captain Maldonado and they will have all the clearance necessary to do her job.”

“Will that replacement be you then?” Dorian asked.

“No, as I said I’m here to inform you of the situation and to monitor this department from now on. I am not here to assist in anything.”

“Then get out.”

The words weren’t yelled, but they might as well have been for all the anger they carried. Everyone’s eyes went wide in shock and they turned to look at Rudy. His eyes narrowed at Reynolds and his whole body tensed in cold fury.

“Excuse me, Doctor Lom?”

“You heard me we are doing our best with what and who we have and unless you are ready to stay here and buckle down with the rest of us you can leave or I will make you leave.”

“Are you threatening me, Doctor Lom?”

“If it will get you out of here any faster then yes I am.”

Reynolds opened and closed his mouth and then when he couldn’t think of any response he left the room. Everyone watched as he left the floor entirely and presumably the building to report back to his superiors.

Rudy let out a breath and braced himself against the table.

“Sorry that wasn’t what I came here for.”

Richard laughed. “Are you kidding? That was great!”

“Yeah, way to go, Rudy!” John exclaimed and slapped him on the back.

The congratulations were short lived as Dorian spoke up to try and get them back to the task at hand.

“You said you have something for us, Rudy?”

“Uh…yes, I’ve been going over the blood samples from the scene and I’ve made an…interesting discovery.”

“What is it?”

Moving to the front of the room Rudy got the screen positioned so it displayed several photos of the bedroom as everyone else resumed their seats.

“As you know the body recycles every cell. Everything is replaced over time to keep us healthy, but it doesn’t all happen at the same time. For example red blood cells have an average lifespan of about 120 days, but not every cell simply dies on that day and is replaced with a new one.”

“What are you trying to say, Rudy?”

“I’m saying that’s exactly what happened here. All these cells in the room are new. Every sample I tested from the bed, the floor, and the walls it’s all the same. If all this blood came from Captain Maldonado the cells should be of varying ages, some older some not.” He pulled up a slide of one of the samples he’d looked at. Showing the others the full and healthy cells collected there, not one damaged or dead cell in the bunch. “Everything looks this, and I didn’t even mention the fact that the white blood cell count is too low. If there had been such a dramatic drop in her count between now and her last physical she’d be in the hospital. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that this blood was manufactured.”

“But it’s hers,” John emphasized. “DNA confirmed it.”

“Yes, see here,” Rudy enlarged one photo of the bed. “There are two small blood droplets caused by gravity and they have cells of varying age and type. My theory is that whoever attacked her managed to extract stem cells from her, this blood came from that device, and then using perhaps a modified DNA bomb caused them to grow and replicate as blood cells. Then when it reached capacity it went off and did…well that.”

Richard looked at Rudy his mouth hanging open. “Wait so you’re telling us that the entire crime scene was staged? That she didn’t actually bleed out?”

“Exactly.”

Valerie was quick to back Rudy up. “It would explain why the blood travelled evenly throughout the room. No one, but Rufus was in there when the device went off.”

“But why would they stage the crime scene to look like something it’s not? Why go through all that effort?” Dorian asked.

“The same reason Glen Dunbar made copies of his victims, to hide her.”

John shoved his chair back and started pacing the room, the connection now crystal clear to him.

“That’s it. Don’t you see? That’s why they took her. This wasn’t about showing power, or taking revenge on her. It’s about getting information.”

“Kennex, what are you getting at?” Richard asked, unsure of what to make of his sudden burst of energy and enthusiasm.

“You said it earlier, Valerie, she has clearance that we don’t have. She’s a captain she knows procedures, tech, classified cases. She has intimate knowledge of each of us. The way we work a murder and a missing person’s case are entirely different and they used that against us. We’ve spent all this time trying to find someone who wanted revenge on her when there’s probably no connection like that at all. We’ve had drones scanning the wall, ditches, and old subway tunnels when we should have been checking basements and abandoned warehouses.”

“Why?” Dorian asked, having a sense of where John was going, but not wanting to crush the hopes of his friend.

“Because they need to be away from prying eyes. They need time with her, because she’s still alive.”

Before anyone could say anything for or against John’s outrageous theory his phone went off.

“Kennex.”

It was McGinnis. “Hey, Detective, we got a hit on the DNA from the captain’s dog.”

“Whose?” he asked, putting the phone on speaker so the others could hear as well.

“It’s Simon Lynch.”

Chapter Text

There was several seconds of silence before the group burst through the conference room door in a mad dash for their desks.

“Scour the darknet he’ll be broadcasting!” John yelled.

“If this was all about hiding her do you really think he’d record any of it?” Dorian asked.

“Two people at least are involved in this. Whoever he is working with might be good at secrecy, but Lynch isn’t. He has to gloat and goad.”

“Check every low grade site for recent uploads.” Richard broke in. “If Kennex is right and this is about getting information from her then letting it slip is the last thing InSyndicate wants. Lynch won’t have the resources for anything big and elaborate like last time. He’ll go for the quick and cheap options.”

The team agreed and tried their best, but it quickly became obvious that the task before them was a David and Goliath struggle. There were simple too many streams and sites to go through.

“This is getting us nowhere we need more manpower.” John announced.

“Who are we going to get?” Richard asked, frustration clearly evident in his voice. “Cybercrimes is backed up for the next month at least.”

“What about getting the original case files?” Dorian asked. “I could cross reference the old signals from his other streams and try to find a similar match.”

Valerie curled her hands to prevent her from throwing her arms up in exasperation. “No, I can’t get most of those case files, because I need clearance for that!”

“May I?” Rudy asked, and stepped towards her computer.

Valerie nodded and moved aside.

Rudy quickly had the screen filled with lines and lines of code. He manipulated them expertly, deleting some, adding others; his fingers flying over the keyboard as he worked. Then he pulled up the needed files. When he was asked for the security clearance he pressed his thumb to the screen and it lit up green in acceptance.

“You’re in.”

There was a moment of silence as the rest of the team stared at him.

Rudy cleared his throat and glanced awkwardly at the floor. “Just because I don’t hack anymore doesn’t mean I don’t keep on top of the latest techniques. Never know when it might come in handy umm…can we get back to work?”

They did. With the case files available Dorian scanned as fast as his processors would allow. His face was a blur of multicoloured lights, webpages shifted under his fingertips, as he struggled for a match.

“I think I’ve found it.”

He enlarged a page that had no video, only a black screen and a long list of vulgar comments.

“It’s audio only, the camera must have cut out,” he announced.

The group crowded around and listened to the sounds on the stream. Dorian made a note of a door slamming against a wall. The sound was absorbed quickly by the wall’s surface, 86.6% probability of concrete. Two sets of footsteps, hard surface, again most likely concrete. A warehouse maybe built before the wall went up…

“Are you quite finished rooting around in my head?”

No one dared to say anything. John may have been the first to voice the ridiculous notion that the captain was still alive, but everyone had felt the tiny flames of hope start to flicker as Rudy turned everything they thought they knew about the crime scene upside down. No one wanted to be the first to snuff that out and conform that that voice wasn’t really her.

They heard movement in the background and a new voice came on.

“We didn’t say you could take breaks.”

“That’s Lynch.”

Valerie glared at John and he shut his mouth. They pressed closer to the screen, hoping to hear more and figure out who the accomplice was.

“She’s resisting and it’s taxing enough when the person is willing.”

John’s eyes widened in recognition.

“I know that voice.”

Without another word he and Dorian made for the door.

“Where are you going, Kennex?!” Richard shouted.

“I’ve got a lead!”

Richard glared daggers after him and then turned back to Valerie and Rudy.

“Are we sure it’s her?” he asked, feeling safe in asking now that John had already gone and done something stupid first.

Before anyone could answer there was more from the stream.

“Of course you could just tell us what we want to know.” They heard Lynch say.

“I’d rather be tossed over the wall.”

The three of them glanced at each other relief evident in their faces, Valerie even managed a small smile.

“It’s her.”

***

Avery rolled his eyes and Lynch’s pathetic attempts at coercion and turned his attention to the man who could actually get them real answers.

“Get back to work.”

The recollectionist curled up in the chair and left his hands in his lap.

“You heard me.”

“Please it’s not safe. It’s far too much at one time.”

Lynch smirked and leaned in close to Sandra.

“Looks like you’re running out of time. A shame you were very pretty once.”

Then he closed the gap between them and kissed her.

Sandra’s body went still in shock, before her brain kicked back into gear and she bite him.

Lynch yelped and flew back. Avery shook his head in annoyance and shoved Lynch over to the other side of the room.

“We don’t have time for that. Get over there and do your job.”

Glaring, and wiping his bleeding lip, Lynch moved back to the table, picking up several items that had been dropped beside it.

“He is right though it is a shame that you won’t ever get your man now.”

“Since you’re so obsessed with it why don’t you get a man? In fact you and Lynch should get together, a psychopath and a sociopath. It’s a match made in hell.”

Avery struck her across the face with the gun.

“Shut up!”

Sandra grunted in pain and worked her jaw to make sure he hadn’t broken anything.

“No more games,” he hissed and went back to the recollectionist as Lynch finished snapping the collar around his neck. “Run it again.”

“No, I can’t! It’s too dangerous!”

Avery grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him from the chair.

“You do this and you do it now!”

“She’ll die!”

“Then let her die we’ll get what we need.”

Avery nodded and Lynch set the timer.

“You have two hours and then you die too.”

He dropped the recollectionist and then he and Lynch moved back towards the door. This time though they leaned against the wall next to it and stayed with them.

The recollectionist pleaded with Sandra. “Please,” he begged desperately. “Just give them what they want.”

“Even if I knew what exactly they wanted I wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“You’re trying to protect your family. I’m protecting mine.”

Her eyes moved over to where Avery and Lynch stood by the wall, glaring at them defiantly. Then the recollectionist gritted his teeth in resignation and fired up the machine one last time.

***

The gravel crunched under the tires as John hastily parked the cruiser and he and Dorian jumped out.

“John, we really should have given the others more information.”

“No time. We find him and we find her,” he dashed into the building, headed for a room he knew all too well.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot to start from as the room was totally bare.

“When was the last time you were here?” Dorian asked.

“I haven’t been here in over six months, but he wasn’t talking about moving shop then.”

Before he could say anything more his phone went off and John answered it; Valerie’s voice coming through.

“John?”

“Yeah?”

“Lynch just set a bomb. We’ve got less than two hours to find her, where are you?”

“The Koln Avenue District near the wall. That man with them is a recollectionist named Hiro Kanagawa, probably an alias, but that’s how they’ve being working to get information from her.”

“Did you get anything else?”

“His normal place of operation is deserted. We’ll check for clues and get back to you.”

He put his phone away and then Dorian took the unusual step of putting his hand on John’s shoulder.

“We’ll find her, John.”

John nodded and knelt down to the large outline left on the floor.

“They took the memory extractor.”

“I can’t trace it that machine won’t be licenced.”

“No, but it’s big and heavy not easy to move, someone would have to have seen something. You said the vehicle tracks from where we found her phone were from a large vehicle. My guess is they took the machine and him last night too. Send our coordinates to Valerie. Get her to check it with where we found Maldonado’s phone and her apartment. Find all the buildings nearby they might have taken her to, that would have had the space and power this place does.”

Dorian did, also sending along his own probabilities of older warehouses given the audio makeup of the stream. “Done.”

“All right you try to find any security footage of this place and I’ll start asking around.”

***

Valerie looked over city map displayed over the bullpen and the area highlighted between the addresses John had provided and sighed.

“That’s a lot of hiding spots.”

“And we can’t begin to evacuate that much of the city without knowing exactly where the bomb threat is or how much damage it might cause.” Richard glanced over to the stream, but the only sounds coming from it now were the humming of a machine and the captain whimpering in pain. “We can’t lose her, not when we’re so close.”

“You really think they’d risk blowing themselves up too?” Valerie asked.

“They’re part of a violent criminal organization with a lot of resources and infrastructure. They could have been told by someone higher up to leave no evidence behind. It’s certainly been done for less.”

“Yeah.”

Valerie pulled up the map on her screen and divided it up into six sections.

“I’ll alert emergency personnel and get them to block off the streets. We can at least keep more potential causalities from come in.”

Richard nodded and breathed in deeply through his nose

“Okay I’ll get every available officer and MX down there, establish a dragnet, and start searching.”

“Good luck; and, Rudy?”

Valerie looked over to where Rudy was frantically trying to pin down the location of the broadcast.

“Yes?”

“Work faster.”

As he left Richard clapped Rudy on the shoulder.

“You’ve kept a cooler head in worse, Rudy, you can do this.”

***

After more than hour John finally found a witness, a woman who worked in the laundromat across the street.

“Yes, I saw him very early this morning,”

“Was anyone with him?”

“Yes, another man, kept really close too, I said hello to them and tried to make small talk, but they were in a hurry.”

“Did you see where they went?”

“No, but Hiro did say something really weird before they left.”

“What?”

“He said his family was up in the Ferro district and that maybe someone should check on them, it was so strange.”

John knew why too. That district was beyond the wall. Was it possible he had been blackmailed? That his family he been threatened or worse kidnapped to make him cooperate?

“Before I had a chance to ask him what he meant the other man said they had to go and they walked away just like that.”

“All right thank you for your time.”

The woman left and before John had a chance to start worrying about yet another layer of problems and potential victims in the case Dorian came running up to him.

“John, I found footage of a black van leaving here at 5 am and heading south on Miller street. It turned down towards the old Wilhelm district before I lost it. But it’s an old manufacturing zone it’ll have the power and space for what they need. Detective Paul and his teams haven’t searched the area.”

“It’s a start.”

“That’s still a lot of buildings, John.”

“Better than nothing.”

Dorian and agreed and they had just pulled out when the results they were hoping for came though and Rudy voice came over the comm.

“John, I‘ve tracked the origin of the broadcast. It’s coming from the 400th block of the old Mackenzie warehouse.”

“We’re on our way!”

The cruiser sped up, lights flashing and siren blazing as John sped down the streets.

He cut the sirens and lights two blocks from their destination to avoid detection. He parked in an alley nearby and they approached, guns at the ready.

“Richard and back up are five minutes out,” Dorian whispered.

John glanced at his watch and winced knowing they had less than that before the bomb turned the whole area to rubble. “He’ll never make it.”

“My thermals are blocked I can’t tell where they are.”

“Any elevators?”

“The south side.”

“We’ll start there. You aren’t gonna lug that machine down a flight of stairs and risk breaking it if there’s a better way, especially with the captain in tow.”

They got inside and quickly cleared the basement floor until they came to the only closed door at the end of the hall.

“I can hear them.”

John squared himself. “I’ll lead.”

Dorian nodded and John swiftly kicked in the door.

“Police! Drop your weapons!”

“Get down on the ground! Everyone on the ground!”

Avery dropped the gun, Lunch hit his knees and the recollectionist dove for the floor. That only left Sandra still hooked up, her eyes rolled back, body jerking, and blood running from her nose.

“Sandra!”

John grabbed for the portable defibrillator in his pocket jammed it into her and the convulsions stopped.

Sandra’s eyes slowly refocused.

“John,” she rasped.

Meanwhile Dorian pulled the recollectionist up and steadied him against the desk. The bomb’s countdown still there in bright red as he worked frantically to disarm it.

With both of them distracted Lynn took the opportunity and ran out the door.

“Forget him!” John shouted. “Just deal with the bomb!”

He aimed his gun at Avery. “Don’t even think about trying anything.”

Splitting his concentration he kept one eye on Avery as his other hand worked the bonds on Sandra’s hands and feet.

The moment she was free Sandra collapsed to the floor, while John struggled to keep her upright.

“You guys really know how to cut it close don’t you?” Sandra managed.

“The bomb’s disarmed,” Dorian announced, as he undid the collar.

The moment it was released the recollectionist grabbed the table and overturned it, sending the computer and all of the other contents to the floor. He fell with the table and desperately reached out for anything he could and smashing them on the ground.

“No!” Avery yelled, and lunged for the discarded gun.

Sandra was the quickest to action. Grabbing the knife off John’s belt she slammed it into Avery’s knee. Avery screamed and collapsed to the ground. The gun fell to floor and John quickly kicked it away. Sandra got on top of Avery and pulled his hands behind his back.

“Give me your cuffs.”

John did and together they pulled him up off the floor.

The recollectionist stared at her, Dorian having managed to restrain him again.

“Why? After everything I’ve done to you?”

“Because I’m a police officer and it’s my duty to protect and serve people.”

Before anyone had a chance to respond back up poured into the room.

“Police! Everyone put your hands in the air!”

“All clear!”

Richard nodded and stood down, motioning for officers to cuff the recollectionist, taking him into custody along with Avery.

“Did you get Lynch?” John asked.

“Yay, we caught him trying to escape out the back.”

Richard looked at Sandra fully then not quite ready to believe they’d just done the impossible and she was really there alive and well.

Sandra assumed Richard wasn’t used to seeing her so unkempt and started wiping the blood off her face.

“Captain.”

“Richard.”

Richard stood there smiling and fumbling for words.

“I..I…”

His partner finished for him.

“He wishes to express gratitude for your safe return.”

Richard chuckled.

“What he said.”

“Thanks.”

John looked at him.

“Paul, about before I…”

He waved it off.

“Forget it.”

“What did you two do?”

“Nothing,” they answered simultaneously.

Sandra raised her eyebrows and frowned, making it clear she didn’t believe them.

“Okay, clear the building and take everything you can I need to know what I gave them.”

“Captain, you need to be in the hospital.” Dorian said as he put his coat around her shoulders.

“No, we need to figure out what they wanted me for,” she said, adrenaline and fear fading and the confident authority figure taking over. “Right now we have an opportunity to get the jump on InSyndicate and we have to take it. If they learn we’ve got Lynch and Avery there going to fold up whatever they were doing here and let those two hang out to dry.”

The others looked at each other and then finally nodded.

“Okay.”

“Good.”

With that officers began taking pictures, gathering everything up. Richard, John, Dorian all flanking Sandra as they walked out to put Avery and Lynch in the waiting cars.