How It Should Have Been

Chapter 7

The rest of the week went by fairly quickly. The carjacking case assigned to them was solved in a few days, and the suspects, a father-son duo, were looking at a 20-year sentence. Kim was enjoying her free time with Makayla, and Intelligence loved spending their time after shift with them. She had one more week at home before going on desk duty. Adam finally gave up trying to find out more about that night, as he let the whole Roy topic at rest. He spent most of his free time with Makayla and Kim, raising suspicion between Jay, Hailey, and Kevin about whether the two officers were back together. The tension between Adam and Kevin seemed to disappear, and they took shifts dropping Makayla off at school. Things between Hailey and Jay eased up as their silly banters continued to flow. They spent almost every night at Hailey's apartment, enjoying home-cooked meals and lazy mornings. Jay had noticed tensions between Voight and Hailey but never pressed on the topic. No one, not even Kim, spoke about Roy. They all decided it was best to move past that case.

Friday morning, Hailey sat inside the office of Dr. Sandra Palmer, the department psychologist. She sat quietly gazing at the painting in front of her, trying to distract herself from why she was here. Hailey had been putting off this meeting for as long as possible. While the others finished their mandatory sessions earlier in the week, Hailey pushed it off, hoping her anxiety would decrease. But now, in this room, her anxiety was back. She was fidgeting in her seat, her leg bouncing rapidly. She was playing with her hair tie on her left wrist. She wanted to get out of here, back to the district. Although she believed therapy was good for people, she never believed therapy could help her. How she got through trauma was by avoiding it. Since her childhood, she would deal with her fears and bad memories by not thinking about the situation. And sometimes it worked, but other times she wasn't too lucky. Hailey was quickly interrupted by her thoughts.

"Detective Upton."

She looked away from the painting and smiled at the woman sitting in front of her. "Sorry, what did you say?"

Dr. Palmer smiled. "I was asking why you came here."

Hailey scoffed. "Because our boss thinks we need to see someone after what happened."

"Well, what happened?"

Hailey looked at Palmer, annoyed. She already knew why Hailey was here; this was a way of starting a conversation. "A week ago, my team and I were working on a case, trying to find the man responsible for killing young girls he was trafficking. And in the process, one of my teammates was kidnapped."

"This teammate was your friend, correct?"

"Yes."

"So it must have affected you deeply when your friend went missing?"

Hailey shifted her gaze back to the painting and sighed. "It's not the first time someone from Intelligence was abducted. In fact, a few years ago, Officer Burgess and I were kidnapped during a case, and the rest of the team found us."

"So you never doubted whether you would find Officer Burgess this time?"

This felt more like an interrogation than a therapy session, and the doctor was starting to get on her nerves. She always believed that Intelligence would find Kim in time, and they did. So what was the big deal? "I have never doubted my team's capabilities in finding a missing officer. I have seen the members of Intelligence work twice as hard to find a missing member in past situations. So I knew the same thing would happen now with Kim missing."

"Past situations meaning when your partner, Detective Halstead, was kidnapped?" Hailey froze. What did that have to do with anything? What happened to Jay was over a year ago. How was opening up that case, gonna help her move past Kim's abduction? "It must have been hard when your partner was kidnapped and then shot, almost losing his life? Someone you care deeply about, trust so much. You must have blamed yourself for what happened?" The doctor was getting on her nerves. She was tempted to walk out of the session, but she stood still. How was this supposed to help her? How was it going to help her?