⋆° დ ༄ UNTIL THERE WAS TROUBLE
chapter three. promise.

Sam pops open a pill bottle and puts a couple aspirin in her mouth, and taking a big gulp of water, then rests her hands on the counter and sighs.

"Mom...mom!" Wyatt says, sitting at the counter. Sam looks up, brushing her hand through her messy black hair and says, "What?"

"Baseball tryouts are today"

"That's great, sweetheart. I'm sure you're gonna do amazing"

"So, I'm gonna be home late"

"Me too" Denise says, walking into the kitchen, setting her bag on the ground, before sitting next to her foster brother. Sam raises an eyebrow and says, "Why?"

"Dance tryouts"

"That's awesome, Dee. I'll tell Lucy when she gets here"

'Beep, Beep'

"Bus is here"

"We're sophomores now, Sammy. Why can't we walk, it's not even that far" Denise asks. Sam sighs and says, "Fine, but be careful please"

Denise smiles and says, "Cool" before hopping off the chair, grabbing her bag, along with Wyatt.

Sam sighs, dragging her feet behind her, and walking up the stairs to her room to get ready for work. Jay leans on the doorframe of their room, holding Gracie on his hip and says, "You came in late last night"

Sam continues to look through her dresser for a shirt and says, "I did"

"Kelly said you went to the cemetery to see your mom. Where'd you go after that?"

"Molly's"

"Okay. Do you want to talk about anything?"

"Not really" Sam says, grabbing a shirt and a pair of jeans from the dresser and walks into the bathroom and shuts the door. Jay sighed and looked at his daughter and says, "What are we gonna do?"

Gracie lifts her hands up in the air, because she doesn't know what's going on and Jay chuckles, kissing her cheek and walks back into her room.

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Sam sits at her desk, playing with her hands and making small tares into a piece of paper on her desk as Antonio stands at the whiteboard and says, "So our Jane Doe is Latina. Mid to late 20's. Negative on the prints. Nothing in our databases. M.E. is still processing the body"

"But it appears she was a drug mule?" Kim asks.

"Yeah, and they had a problem recovering the product, so they gutted her like a farm animal"

"Dope's worth more than the carriers" Adam says.

"Rigor puts time of death between 6 and 8 last night. Crime scene techs found very little blood on the scene, so she was killed someplace else, and then dropped here" Upton says.

"Why's homicide passing this off on us?" Voight asks. Antonio shrugs and says, "I said we'd take it"

"Mmm. I bet Homicide was real sorry to see this one go. Alright, send out patrol to canvass the neighborhood where the body was found. Check POD cameras, missing persons. This young lady didn't just fall from the sky"

"I got a C.I deep in with these cartel guys." Al says.

"Good. Oh, Antonio, Burgess...You two are gonna partner up now" Hank says, walking to his office, "Sam, my office"

Sam sighs and gets up from her desk and walks into the Sergeants office, who closes the door and says, "Everything okay?" walking to his desk to sit down.

"Yup"

"Really?"

"Yes, okay? Are we done here?"

"Listen, I know you're upset about Erin leaving.."

Sam scoffs and says, "God, it's not all about Erin leaving, okay? How about I don't care, huh?" then she opens the door and walks out and heads for the locker room.

As Jay gets up from his desk to go follow her, Brayden stops him and says, "Let me go, first"

"Uh, yeah. Sure" Jay says, hesitantly.

Brayden walks into the locker room and sits on the bench next to Sam and says, "You okay?"

Sam scoffs and says, "If one more person asks me that, I'm going to scream"

"You know we're all here for you"

Sam looks at her friend and says, "And I don't care"

Brayden grabs a hold of Sam's face, wiping the tears away from her eyes and says, "Yes, you do. You care more than you should, more than anyone I've ever met. You put everyone before you, not even caring about yourself, which you need to do more of"

Sam tares away from Brayden's hold and says, "And I said, I don't care anymore"

"Then if you don't care anymore, walk away."

"What?"

"You heard me. Walk away from this job, from your family. If you don't care anymore, you'd do it"

Sam gets up from the bench and walks away from her partner.

~~~

Hank and Sam walk into interrogation after the team had picked up a guy who was picking up one of the drug mules.

"So, Willy, the woman you were going to pick up, she had a key of heroin in her gut" Hank says, taking a seat in front of the man, while Sam leans against the light blue wall and looks through a file.

"I don't know what you're talking about. But I was just gonna give her a ride."

"Yeah? Were you gonna give her this kind of ride?" Sam asks, placing photos of their dead victim in front of Willy.

"No, no. I had nothing to do with that. No way you could prove it"

"Oh, you'd be surprised what we can prove." Voight says, leaning forward on the table, "especially when it gets leaked that you've been feeding us information."

"But I'm not"

"You probably ought to tell that to your bosses after we toss you. I'm sure they're reasonable men" Hank says, making Sam chuckle.

"I take them to hotels, give them laxatives, and wait for the balloons to come. That's all I do"

"Expect sometimes they don't, and clocks ticking, right? Got 100,000 dollars worth of heroin stuck in some nameless girls belly. Why not just slice her open?"

"Wouldn't happen like that"

"No? How would it happen?"

"Cut the other way. Drugs are here. You don't slide across. You slice down then take them out. She's not a mule"

~~~

"According to the girl, all the mules are around 15" Kim says, as she and Sam walked back to the bullpen, "the DOA looks closer to 30"

"And if there were drugs inside her, they would've cut down, not across, apparently"

"You know what else the cartel doesn't do? Rape drug mules" Hailey says, with a file in her hand, making Brayden and Antonio get up from their desks and walk over to the group, "just got the M.E report. The DOA had significant vaginal tearing and the cause of death was strangulation"

"So the slice across her stomach?" Antonio says.

"Must've been done after the fact"

"Hold on, you're saying that someone raped her, killed her, cut her open to make it look like she was a mule?"

"Who's gonna cry over some anonymous Latina drug runner?"

Kim hangs up her phone and says, "patrol just found bloody clothes in an alley near where the body was dumped."

Voight points to Dawson and says, "hit it"

~~~

After searching the apartment where the victim stayed after finding a fake ID in a dumpster, the team finds her son hiding in a closet.

The intelligence team is now back on the unit surrounding the whiteboard and Dawson says, "Alright. Gloria Morales, she came from Guatemala six months ago with her son Oscar. There's no order crossing so she entered here illegally. Landlady thought she worked at some factory. Said she paid her rent on time"

"We canvassed the neighborhood. Nobody wanted to talk" Hailey says.

"Yeah, they're freaked out. They think anybody with a badge is trying to deport them." Brayden adds.

"Hey, the M.E. ran those clothes from the dumpster." Atwater says, walking onto the unit and over to Adam's desk, sitting on the edge with a file in his hand, "now the blood in the dumpster definitely matches our DOA, but they couldn't find any other evidence on the clothes."

"What about the blood on the jeans in the apartment?" Jay asks.

"Uh, that blood matches.." Kevin says, reading from the file, "a pig. Yeah. More precisely pig, cow and lamb, believe it or not"

"Maybe she worked at a restaurant?" Adam suggests.

"Okay, I ran the old bus card that we found at the apartment." Kim says, also walking onto the unit, "she took the 127 blue line every day to West 132nd."

"Alright, so let's run every business within a mile radius of West 132nd. Let's find out where she worked." Hank says.

"Uh, there's only one large company around west 132nd" Jay says, looking at his computer, "it's Bukowski meat packing company. They specialize in lamb, pig and cow products"

"Boots on the ground. Hit that factory"

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"Policia!" Antonio shouts, showing his badge as the team follows behind him into the meat factory. Hailey and Kim hold up pictures of Gloria Morales and the officer asks, "Gloria Morales! Did she work her?"

All the workers look at them and Jay says, "Hey, look, we're not here to arrest anybody. Just help us out"

As the team goes around asking the workers if they know her, everyone shakes their heads no.

"They're not gonna talk to you. They're scared of cops" a worker says. Sam holds up a picture of Gloria and asks, "do you know her?"

"No" the guys says, shaking his head, "sorry" then he walks away.

"Hey! What the hell are you guys doing barging in here like this? You gotta be frocked to be in here. I'm gonna get fined!" The guy yells, "alright, everybody back to work! Basta! That's it! Breaks over! Come on, come with me"

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"I ran Michael Bukowski's alibi" Sam says, walking onto the bullpen with a file in hand and tosses it onto Adam's desk, "he was at the thirsty raven from 6:30 till 9, just like he said"

"I mean, the crime techs already went through his room and his car. So far, we can't even connect Michael to Gloria" Kevin says.

"What about the father?" Dawson asks.

"His story's pretty tight, too. He was at home all night with his wife. He's got video surveillance to back it up" Adam says.

"Any luck with Lucia?" Dawson asks, as the group sees Voight walk onto the unit.

"Nope. She's on a plane back to Guatemala."

"What? Wait" Dawson says, getting up from his desk, "you said you were gonna talk to someone"

"Turns our Lucia was deported three years ago. Came back illegally, which is a felony. Automatic deportation. I tried. Okay, any new evidence?" Hank asks and no one says anything, "okay, kick the Bukowski kid. We got nothing on him. Or anyone else for that matter" then he looks at Dawson, "next time you grab a case from homicide. let's make sure it's one we can solve"

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After Dawson and Platt talked with Oscar more about the night Gloria was killed, he described as overweight, bald, Latino as the man his mom got into the van with.

The intelligence team heads to Frank Lopez's house with their guns drawn. Sam slams her fist on the door and shouts, "Chicago PD!"

Then the door flies open and Frank walks out and says, "is this about the stolen truck?"

"It's about Gloria Morales" Jay says.

"Who's she?"

Jay grabs his wrist to pull him forward then cuffs him saying, "why don't we go for a ride? Maybe it'll jog your memory"

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Sam and Jay get off of the truck to head to the morgue when Jay stops her and says, "Sam, I need you to talk to me"

"There's nothing to talk about" Sam says, continuing to walk towards the building when Jay catches her arm. "Sam, I'm your husband. I need you to talk to me about whatever's going on inside your head"

"I'm not ready, Jay. Okay? So just leave it alone" Sam says walking away.

~~~

"These two fit the description. Killed six months ago and three months ago" The M.E says, walking into the morgue, followed by Sam and Jay, and hands the detectives both folders, "both Latina, both sliced horizontally along the abdomen"

"Same weapon?" Jay asks.

"Same type of knife. Extremely sharp, clean wound. Like a butcher's blade."

"You said there was another woman that fit the description?" Sam asks, looking at the picture in her folder.

"Yeah, she was cremated a year ago"

"Uh, do you have any personal effects?" Jay asks.

"I think so. Homicide detectives never bothered to collect it" the M.E says, walking over to her desk and hands Jay a few evidence bags.

"Which woman do these belong too?" Sam asks, looking at the bag her husband was holding, which contained a necklace.

"Monica Delgado, the one who was cremated."

"Do you still have her photos?" Jay asks.

"Let me check" the M.E says, checking her computer.

"Do you, by any chance, know where these women were found?" Sam asks.

"Uh, one was found in a dump near 16th and Kedzie. The other two in some industrial park in little village."

"Let's run with the subway pass. Thank you" Jay says.

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Jay and Sam head to the subway to show passengers a photo of Frank Lopez, on Jays phone.

"Excuse me, do you recognize him?" Jay asks a lady, who shakes her head and walks away and after a few failed attempts they stop a guy, "Sir? Police. Do you recognize this guy?"

"No"

"What about her?" Sam says, holding up a picture of Gloria on the autopsy table.

"She's dead?"

"You recognize her?"

"I don't know her name but I used to see her hanging out on 18th and Ashland."

"Thank you" Sam says, as Jay walks away with his phone to his ear, "can we get your information. If you could write down your name, address, phone number.." then takes out her pad and pen for the guy to write in.

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After the witness ID got botched and there was nothing left to link Lopez to the murders. Hank goes to a little donut shop on Pilsen to visit Chicho, Monica Delgados brother to 'update' him on the case, meaning to tell him who the killer is so they could take care of it.

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Sam heads down to her Jeep in the police parking lot when Brayden catches up to her and says, "Sam."

Sam turns around and says, "What's up?"

"I'm sorry about what I said, but you know I'm right"

"Anything else?" Sam says, folding her arms over her chest. Brayden scratches the back of his neck and says, "I guess not. I just..."

"You just what?"

"I don't know. What we went through with Montgomery. I just thought you'd trust me more with whatever's going on inside your head"

"Why is it so hard for everyone to understand that I just don't want to talk about it. I've made it through this far in life without talking about things, why should I start now?"

"To make life a little easier"

Sam sighs and says, "I'm going to see my kids. Good night" then she hops into her Jeep and backs drives out of the lot.

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Sam walks into the house, hangs up the keys on the hook and shrugs off her coat and hangs it on the hook beside her keys and watches as her husband walks down the stairs, who says, "Just put Gracie to sleep"

Sam walks up to her husband and attacks him in a hug. Jay combs his fingers through her hair and kisses the top of her head and asks, "Is everything okay?"

Sam shakes her head no and says, "I'm sorry, Jay. I'm such a mess. Everything I touch burns, everyone that's around me gets hurt and I feel like such a complete burden"

"Hey, look at me" Jay says, and Sam lifts her head up with tears in her eyes, "You're not a burden, Sam. You're an amazing human being. Look at what we've done together. We have a house. We made a freakin' baby. We took in Denise, you found your son. We take criminals off the street as a job. And after everything you've been through in your life, I mean, I wish I was as brave as you" then he wipes away his wife's tears.

Sam sniffles and says, "really?"

"Most definitely"

"Thank you. And I promise, I'll try and talk to you more"

"You better" Jay jokes.

"I love you, Jay"

"I love you too gorgeous"

a/n:

AHHHHHHHH 💖😭