Shaken

Chapter 8- The investigation begins

Upton stood at the board, staring at the pictures of smiling kids. It was depressing. So far CFD had pulled 24 kids from the rubble, 17 were D.O.A and the other 7 were in critical condition, including Piper Halstead.

Hailey turned to face her colleagues. She couldn't help but feel how empty the room was now that Jay and Erin's desks sat empty.

"So here's what we know," Upton pointed to a blurry surveillance image on the board, "at 9: 42 a Blue truck with a covered bed parked on the grass, near the school. About 3 minutes before the bomb went off a tall white male with light hair was seen exiting the truck. Atwater, Rojas, what were you guys able to find on surrounding street cams?"

"We may have gotten a lead." Rojas said, glancing down at her file. "So this guy is pretty much a ghost, we didn't catch him on any surveillance except for a camera on the corner near the school."

"Wait. Why is that a lead?" Ruzek asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"Because the reason we didn't catch this guy on camera is because almost all the surveillance cameras within a one mile radius of the school were down for maintenance this morning." Atwater explained.

"Wait. Aren't maintenance workers the only ones who can access that kind of information?" Kim interjected. "So does that mean our bomber is a city employee? Or maybe someone who is connected to a city employee?"

Hailey quickly wrote the information on the board. "Ok we need a list of every person who has access to that information, and find out who might do something like this or knows someone who might do something like this."

"Me and Adam can go get the list." Kim volunteered, standing up from her desk.

Upton nodded, "Ok, Atwater and Rojas keep digging through surveillance footage, Has the school sent over any records of threats yet?"

Kevin clicked around on his mouse, "It looks like they sent them over about 20 minutes ago".

Vanessa nodded, her nose buried in her desktop, searching through records "We'll get right on them." She spoke, giving her head a slight nod.

Hailey nodded, "Let me know what you come up with."

She started to head back to her desk when Adam stopped in front of her.

"Do you have any updates on Piper's condition?" He asked, a concerned look on his face, "I tried reaching out to Halstead, but he hasn't responded to any of my texts or calls.".

Upton shook her head, "I'll reach out to Erin and see if I can get any more information, but I get the impression from her text that they don't know too much either."

" Ok, Thanks." Adam responded, giving her a grateful smile, before walking out of the room.

Hailey made her way back to her desk. As she sat back in her chair, she couldn't help but let her eyes drift back to the whiteboard. There was something so chilling about the pictures of these happy kids, kids whose lives were drastically changed by some maniac with a bomb. She gazed at Piper Halstead's photo, placed under the "critical" column on the board. She felt a pang of residual shock in her chest.

Adam wasn't the only one concerned for Jay and Erin's little girl, they all were. They had all grown close to her over the years, to the point where they had become like aunts and uncles to her.

Upton pulled her phone out of her pocket and began texting Erin.

*Hey any updates yet?* she texted.

Three dots popped up in the corner of the screen, Erin was typing.

*We just met with Doctor Manning.*

Hailey rested her elbows on her knees and quickly responded *Oh yeah? What did she say?*

*Piper's going to need surgery on a severe fracture in her right shoulder and another severe fracture in her right leg (I think Natalie said it was her tibia). Then she has something called a flail chest, which some people can recover from with just the help of a ventilator, but the doctors are already pretty sure she's going to need surgery.* Erin replied.

*How is she right now? Is she in surgery?*

*Yes they are trying to repair a ruptured kidney*

*Poor Piper..... Did she give you a prognosis?*

*Too early to tell. Regardless she's got a difficult road ahead.*

Hailey glanced up at Piper's picture again. She once again got that feeling in her chest but this time there was something else. Was it sadness? Anger? Pity?

She glanced back down at her phone and started to type., *Is there anything I can do to help you and Jay out, maybe make things easier ? Anything you need from home that I can grab so you can stay at the hospital? Do you guys want me to bring you Lunch or something?*

"Hey Hailey, we got something!" Rojas exclaimed from her desk. Hailey's eyes remained glued to her phone, watching those three mesmerizing dots in the corner of her screen.

A text from Erin popped up *Lunch sounds great*

"Hailey!" Rojas said louder.

This time Hailey's head shot up and she dropped her phone in her lap, "What? Sorry, I was texting Erin for an update. What did you find?"

Vanessa leaned closer to her screen and clicked around with her mouse. "Listen to this threat the school got last friday: 'You will pay, all of you will pay a terrible price. Soon you will learn that meddling in other people's families and lives will blow up in your face. Soon you are the ones that will be in pain, and I will watch idly by as you sit in the rubble trying to pick up the pieces. You are the reason for your own demise. Next week you will see what I can do to you.', reads a bit like a cartoon villain if you ask me."

Hailey chewed on her lip, "I mean the wording seems to hint at a bomb, mostly "blow up". Did the school ever check it out or report it?" she asked

Atwater shook his head "We can't seem to find any record of it being taken further than the school's administration office."

"Do we have a name of the person who sent it?" Upton looked to Kevin, who shook his head.

"The email account that sent it was created with a fake name, so it's going to take a little more time for me to dig up any info."

"Ok. Let me know if you find something." Hailey said grabbing her coat, "I'm going to drop by the hospital to drop off some lunch for Erin and Jay, and Update Voight on the case"

"Have fun. Let Erin and Jay know we're thinking about 'em," Atwater said as Hailey began walking down the main stairs.

Upton gave him a big thumbs up before continuing her trek. Quickly she pulled out her phone to respond to Erin.

*Done. On my way now. What do you guys want to eat?*

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A/N

Hi! Hi! Hi! I finally updated!!! I would like to apologize for this taking so long, school has been an absolute nightmare this past month so my free time to write has been insanely limited.

Unfortunately I do think that weekly updates are going to be a bit unrealistic considering my class load and again the limited amount of free time I have now.

Because of that I am thinking that bi-weekly updates may be an easier fit for me, so I think next chapter I'm going to be trying that out to see how it goes.

As always I would love to hear from you, any feedback/ suggestions/comments you have please please feel free to share. Seriously I love getting them so much.

Also, speaking of suggestions, if you gave any suggestions on previous chapters but you haven't seen them show up in the story yet, Please trust me when I say I am working on fitting them in , I just haven't gotten to the perfect point in my chapter yet. But I promise I am seriously working on adding them in.

Once again, THANK YOU so much for reading my story, it seriously means the world.

Love you all so much❤❤❤ ! Stay safe out there 😷!