#halstead sister

She hurried up the walkway and knocked firmly. “Chicago P.D., open up, please!”

A few seconds, though they felt like minutes, passed before the porch light flicked on.

The lights of the next house turned on as well, and a woman stepped out onto her porch, hugging a robe around herself. She looked around, confused by the number of officers in the park.

“What’s going on?” she asked raising her voice to be heard.

Without hesitation, Adam walked toward her, pulling up a picture on his phone.

“We’re searching for a missing girl” he said calmly. “This is the last place we were able to trace her. Have you seen her, ma’am?”

He held up the screen, showing Becca’s picture.

“I’m sorry, no,” she said, her voice tinged with worry. “But an elderly man lives in that house. I don’t think he has anything to do with it… do you?”

“We’re just trying to get any footage that might help us find her. Do you have a Ring camera or any other security system facing the street?”

“Oh, absolutely,” the woman said.

Adam nodded and followed her inside, casting a quick glance toward Burgess, who was still knocking on the neighboring door.

The door opened slightly for Kim, an older man peeking out, confused and uneasy.

“Can I help you?” He said with a shaky voice. 

“Sorry to bother you at this hour, sir. Detective Burgess, Intelligence Unit,” Kim said, flashing her badge. “We’re looking for a missing girl. I noticed you have a camera facing the street, we need to see the footage.”

The man hesitated, glancing past her toward the flashing lights down the block.

“Uh… okay. Do you have a warrant?”

“Sir, you’re not in trouble, and I’m not accusing you of any crime. We have a missing juvenile,” she replied, steady but urgent. “Time matters in cases like this. If your camera caught anything tonight, it could help us find her and bring her back to her family sooner.”

The man looked toward his neighbor and noticed she was also talking to a cop, then nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, you can check it. Come in. My son installed it for me, I just don’t know how it works.”

“Thank you,” Burgess said, already stepping inside. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.”

Meanwhile, Becca kept walking through the cold, second-guessing every turn, no longer certain she was heading anywhere at all.

“I don’t remember this,” she muttered to herself, trying—and failing—to stay calm. “But we haven’t visited Mom in a while… maybe things have changed…”

Her feet were frozen, red and aching, but at the same time she could barely feel them. She wondered if taking off her wet socks would help, but she kept them on. She didn’t stop moving, because stopping meant getting colder.

“If I go back the way I came… maybe I can find Will’s house?” It was difficult to articulate, she was shivering from the cold. “No… no, I don’t think so. I’m really lost now.”

That thought brought back a memory, something familiar. A line from Alice in Wonderland, one of the books Mr. Olinsky had sent for her through Jay.

She had memorized it back then, when she’d felt just as lost as Alice. She muttered it under her breath, trying to keep her eyes open:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

The girl let out a weak breath. The exhaustion was taking over; she could fall asleep at any moment.

“Yeah… not the same,” she stuttered through the cold.

“We’re losing time. We should be moving now!” Jay insisted.

“Easy,” Olinsky said calmly.

“This is where you received her last call from,” Platt added trying to ease his anxiety. “There has to be something, anything.”

Jay forced himself to breathe. He was good under pressure, always had been. It was one of the things that defined him in the field, no matter how bad a case got, how messy or violent, he stayed sharp, focused and in control.

But this was different. This wasn’t just a name on a file. The cracks were there, impossible to hide in the way his hands wouldn’t stay still, the way his eyes kept darting, searching for something that wasn’t there. In the sharp edge of his voice every time he spoke.

The same questions kept rolling in his mind over and over again: What if she was hurt? What if she was alone somewhere, scared, calling for him? What if he was already too late?

He had worked in so many cases like this one… What if it was already too late?

He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and with that movement, his flashlight shifted and caught something in the grass.

“Hey, what’s that?” Olinsky asked.

It was shiny.

Hailey spotted it from a distance, her heart instantly picking up speed. She crouched down to pick it up and Jay stepped closer.

For a second, he didn’t react. He bent down and picked it up with shaking hands.

It was a bracelet. Small and delicate. It was familiar. He knew it, but didn’t want to admit it, still, his body reacted.

“This is hers.” he said urgently.

“Becca never takes it off.” Hailey pointed out.

The weight of that realization hit all of them at once.

“It’s good,” Voight argued, controlling his tone. “It means she was here. And there’s a chance she still is. So let’s move.” His tone increased in some sort of anger. 

But at that exact moment, their radios crackled. It was Burgess:

I’ve got something on the footage.

Within seconds, the team regrouped inside the house, crowding around as the Ring camera video replayed on the screen.

The image was grainy, but they all recognized Becca’s silhouette as she entered the frame on the sidewalk just outside the park.

“That’s her,” Jay said, leaning in closer. “No doubt.”

She was walking slowly, tired, her phone pressed to her ear, glancing around like she wasn’t sure where to go next.

Lost.

“She’s scared,” he added with a lump forming in his throat. He didn’t have to see her facial expressions to know that. 

“Play it again,” Voight ordered.

They watched as she hesitated, then turned.

“She saw something.”

“Wait,” Adam said with the second device in her hands and they all switched to the neighbor’s camera for a clearer angle. “I think I have her in this one too.”

A man entered the frame, walking toward Becca… too close to her.

Jay’s expression hardened.

In the video, Becca froze, then ran. The detectives went still as they watched the man take off after her.

Just like that, they were gone, out of frame.

“That’s him.” The neighbor pointed at the screen of her phone. “He lives a few houses down.”

“Which house?” Jay didn’t wait. He was already moving.

“Jay—” Hailey called after him, but he was gone.

Al tried to physically stop him, but it was useless.

The door burst open as Jay stepped out into the cold, the rest of the team rushing after them.

Adam didn’t hesitate—he followed right behind him without a word. He didn’t need to ask questions or be told what to do. He remembered that kind of desperation all too well—the way it took over, the way it made everything else disappear. The kind that made consequences feel irrelevant, that pushed you forward no matter what. He wasn’t about to let Jay go through that alone. There was no time to lose, he knew that. Right now, it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission, and he wasn’t going to let his friend down. 

“House down the block,” Adam said, catching up. “Blue porch light.”

Jay didn’t answer. They simply moved fast, in sync.

Detective Halstead pounded on the entrance once, then forced it open.

The man was already at the other side of the door, probably awake from all of the noise. 

“Hey!” he shouted, startled and backing up. “What the—?”

Jay grabbed him by the shirt, shoving him back and slamming him against the wall.

“Where is she?” he snapped.

“I don’t—what are you talking about?!” the man stammered. "Who are you?"

"We're the police" Adam threatened with his badge.

“You followed her!” Jay shouted.

“We saw you, where is she?!” Adam added, pulling up Becca’s picture on his phone. 

“That girl?!” the man said, panicking. “I do— I do remember her..."

“You made the wrong choice.” Ruzek continued. “She’s one of us, family.”

"I was trying to help her!”

“Adam, that’s enough,” Kim warned, stepping in.

But Jay shoved him harder.

“She looked lost, I swear…she ran away!”

They didn’t listen.

“You dared to touch her, where is she?!” Jay barked, his voice breaking now.

“Jay!” Upton warned. 

Jay’s fist tightened. For a second, it looked like he was going to swing. 

“Halstead!” Voight’s voice cut through the room, sharp and controlled. The sergeant stepped in closer, his eyes locked on him. 

Jay froze.

“Don’t do something stupid,” Voight said firmly. “You’re not thinking straight.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice, but not the intensity.

“I get it. I do. But if you lose your head right now, you’re no good to her.”

Jay didn’t answer, his chest was rising and falling too fast. His blood was boiling.

“...And if you can’t get it together,” he added, sharper now, “I will pull you off this, no hesitation, son.”

That landed.

Jay let go and the man collapsed against the wall.

“She was scared,” he said. “She ran toward the main road. No shoes... I was trying to help her.”

Olinsky grabbed his shoulder. “Come on, kid."

Jay closed his eyes. Everything was spinning. Too many directions. Not enough time. He started to feel dizzy. The noise around him blurred: voices, movement, questions, all of it fading into something distant, like he was underwater. It wasn’t anxiety or panic. It was all the pent-up anger and fear he had been carrying inside him, mixed with the weight of guilt pressing down on his shoulders. 

“Chuckles,” a soft voice called tenderly.

He didn’t know how he had ended up outside on the street again, with Trudy Platt standing in front of him.

“They got a call from dispatch,” she continued. “A woman reported a lost girl. Matches Becca’s description, also no shoes, disoriented…”

Jay didn’t hesitate and came back to his senses. 

“Where?”

Voight stepped in beside him, already moving, locking eyes with him for a second.

“You’re riding with me.” He demanded.

For a fragment of seconds, Hailey didn’t move right away. Her eyes stayed on Jay, following him full of concern. She could see the storm he was barely keeping contained.

Jay gave a tight nod to the boss.