Beautiful Crime

The Sea

7 The Sea (Title by Kat Frankie)

19 hours earlier:

"Where is it? Where? I need to see it..."
Halstead's voice boomed through the district lobby, before he had even reached the front desk and thereby Trudy's location.
Usually she would have answered him with a sarcastic line like: '...and good evening to you, too Detective!'
But not tonight.
Even though she considered herself an experienced police officer, who had seen and heard enough of the world's tragedies, this one was a bit close to the bone.
Without answering she clicked her fingers for one of her colleagues to take over the front desk and took the stairs up to Intelligence's quarters herself, Halstead and Upton upon her heels. She could have just told him to ask his team, as they were currently in possession of the phone with the fateful picture of Halstead's wife, but somehow Platt wanted to be involved and stay close to the detective, when he first laid eyes on it. When the reality would sink in that this was really happening and the tiny bit of hope that it could still turn out to be some kind of sick joke, would forever be crushed.
Not that she was planning on hugging him or anything. Not that Jay would have wanted that, but maybe there was something else Trudy could do.
Sometimes Halstead still reminded her of a lost little boy, in times like these at least.
Maybe this special forlornness and vulnerability about him was what made Trudy secretly act like a mother hen around him, all was it mostly tough love that she was providing. Or maybe she just regretted having teased him yesterday at noon, when the detective's luck had obviously been more fragile than anyone could have known.
When they reached the bullpen no one addressed them, only eight pairs of eyes were watching Jay, Hailey and Trudy with palpable uneasiness. Were they all still in shock?
"Who sent it? How did you get it?" Jay seemed to have found his voice again, asking her to give him all the relevant pieces of information, as Trudy took the device from Atwater's desk.
The detective was practically breathing down her neck, unable to exercise patience:
"The usual - underaged teen dropped off a package with a patrol officer out on the street, said to give it to you. We had it checked for explosives, found none, opened it et voilà... It's clean, except for this one message and picture, no fingerprints, no nothing... I'm so sorry Jay..."
Her voice almost broke on that last note, at the sight of Jay's eyes instantly widening with terror and fury at the same time as she handed the phone to him...

***

When she came to she had a rusty, metallic taste in her mouth. Like blood. Her own blood.
Rianne quickly checked where it had come from by running her tongue over her mouth. Her lip was definitely split and hurt like hell, and her nose felt a little sore too. In fact her whole head was throbbing madly. A groan escaped her.
She blinked her eyes a few times, trying to find her bearings in the total darkness around her, touching herself as thoroughly as it was possible with her hands still bound, checking for more pain and injuries. Suddenly she was terrified that they had maybe decided to kill her after all - to let her die a slow and painful death. But then she remembered why she was this desoriented: He had hit her in the face!
First with his head and then his fist. With full force. That same S.O.B who'd nearly raped her earlier. He had come back and when Rianne had demanded to talk to the one in charge, the one she thought she knew, who's voice she believed to have recognized, if her mind wasn't already playing tricks on her, he'd laughed:

"He can't help you now! And don't be so sure he doesn't want you dead, bambina..."

And then he had knocked her unconscious.
How much time had passed? It was impossible to tell. What else had they done to her? For a split second the panic was back, choking her, making her numb and her eyes burn. An anguished sob escaped her mouth, but after a few deep breaths Rianne quickly tried to remind herself to check the facts:
As far as she could tell she was unharmed, split lip and pounding head put aside. Also she found that she wasn't shivering so badly anymore. It felt like someone had put some kind of space heater next to and a blanket around her, so: They wouldn't kill her! They didn't want her to die of hypothermia... At least not yet... They needed her for something, so they had to keep her alive for at least a little while longer.
Funnily enough Rianne didn't know if that calmed her down, or worried her for what was to come "after". After they'd gotten what or who they really wanted...