Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Carlos stepped out of the elevator with a couple of other officers he knew, the hallway of the downtown headquarters building full of uniformed and plainclothes cops. Officers. Senior staff. Seemed like half the department had turned out for this.
He stopped at the door, and a sergeant with a clipboard said, “Name and badge number?”
“Carlos Ryson.” He gave his badge number.
The sergeant handed him a cotton swab in a sealed package. “Take a swipe of your cheek, slide it back in the package, and turn it in.”
“Testing for Elysium?” No doubt there’d be trace amounts in his system, something the test would surely show. Still, he didn’t like the idea of everyone he worked with knowing he’d failed the test even by a small margin.
“Everyone who got dosed yesterday is going to come up with a positive. We need a headcount of who was affected.”
“Right.” Carlos tore the package, swabbed the inside of his cheek, and handed over the sample as instructed.
“Thank you.” The civilian employee took his package with a gloved hand and checked off his name. She passed it to a medic, who squeezed two drips of the testing compound onto his swab.
“It’s pale. Put Ryson down as a two.” The medic looked at him. “Low dose of Elysium in your system. How are you feeling?”
“I don’t like being the victim,” Carlos said. “It’s why I’m a cop.”
A slight smile tugged at the medic’s lips. “That seems to be a recurring theme this morning.” He lifted his chin. “You can have a seat.”
“Thanks.” Carlos turned to the room, a podium at the front and rows of chairs with about forty or so cops already seated. He found an open spot, looking around for Detective Wallace so he could get an update about the second murder investigation.
The officer beside him leaned over. “Did you pass?”
“No, you?”
The guy smirked. “No.” He held out his hand. “Britton.”
“Ryson.” He spotted Halstood a few rows ahead of him, sitting with a couple of the third-shift guys.
“All right, everyone.” The uniformed officer who took the podium had dark skin, his features indicating he had Indian heritage. “If you’ve been living under a rock, or you’re still high and can’t remember, I’m Chief Deepak Chaudhary. Your boss.”
Several officers around him chuckled.
“You’re all here because you got dosed with Elysium yesterday to some extent, or you were involved. It’s been confirmed, the compound in those canisters was comprised of elements present in the narcotic Elysium as part of a more complex substance.”
He gripped the sides of the podium. “What we believe is that a group, or individual, directly attempted to undermine first responder infrastructure. Honestly, we’re lucky it wasn’t a massacre.
We believe they may have been testing the compound with plans to further deploy it across the city.
There have been some calls to shut down the city, put us on lockdown, and get more police presence in the streets, but no one wants to incite civilian panic. ”
Carlos couldn’t believe that was even an option. If it got to that point, he would do what he could to perform his duties. His job was to follow orders and enforce the law in a way that kept people safe, rather than putting them in danger. But that was a whole other level of crazy.
Chief Chaudhary continued, “So now we know it was Elysium, or a derivative, every officer will be carrying Elcam in case of an overdose. We’ve requisitioned doses for each of you and ask that you don’t hesitate to use them if you believe you’ve been affected again. Got it?”
A ripple of “Yes, sir” moved across the room.
“The creators of the Elysium app have contacted the city with a statement. They believe they may have been hacked.”
Someone snorted.
Chief Chaudhary noticed it and tipped his head. “Right. The statement says plainly that they believe the hack changed their base code, allowing whoever infiltrated their servers to push out suggestions to users.”
Someone swore.
Carlos agreed with the sentiment but wouldn’t have put it like that.
The chief said, “Of course, the app’s creators refused to even identify themselves or provide law enforcement with access to their tech for us to do our own investigation. But they did admit they may have been hacked. They are attempting to close the breach and shore up their security.”
Criminals who’d built an app that enhanced the user’s experience with the narcotic Elysium didn’t want law enforcement to gather the evidence necessary to bring charges? So surprising.
Carlos almost rolled his eyes.
The group who created and ran the app, and others like it, referred to themselves as The Underground.
A web-based collective who had more than just the app Dreamers used in their portfolio, they had their fingers in a lot of illegal pies—all kinds of companies—that made life lucrative for them.
Of course, they didn’t want to give that up simply because it was the right thing to do.
Despite extensive investigations, no one had even identified a single member of the collective.
But if the group had access to the darker side of society, maybe they were the ones who could find out for him who the Mother was.
Once she was identified, he’d know if Luci really had been captured—or worse—and discover her fate finally.
He still had to touch base with the FBI agents doing surveillance on that house.
Carlos hadn’t forgotten about it, but he had other pressing matters right now.
Enough that he wondered if the Lord needed him focused elsewhere and watching out for Eliana, trusting that He had Luci’s situation under control.
Is that it, Lord? Do I need to trust You with it, rather than trying to solve the problem myself?
He prayed down the list of things forefront in his mind, clearing his head of the kind of worry that left him floundering about what to do next.
Chief Chaudhary continued, “Each of you needs to check in with your sergeant and touch base about your duties for the next week, but we can’t afford to have everyone on a desk.
It’ll be on a case-by-case basis. And if your sergeant believes you’re overstating your ability to do your job—namely, if you’re pretending you’re fine—then you’ll be shifted to a desk whether you like it or not. No yahoos.”
Someone groaned, but Carlos actually respected that decision.
He needed personal time off, which he’d already scheduled, so he should be good to go in a day or two.
He typed out an email on his phone to that effect and sent it to his sergeant while the meeting wrapped up.
Hopefully, he’d have answers about Luci by the time he was due back on shift.
He saw a text from Eliana that everything was fine.
Everyone in the room started to disperse, so he sent back a thumbs-up.
Halstood caught him on the way out the door. “Some of us are going to watch the game at Smithy’s. Interested?”
Carlos looked at his watch. “Maybe next time.”
“Got it.” Halstood went back to his buddies.
A crowd had gathered in front of the elevator. Carlos’s sergeant replied before he managed to step on, riding down to the ground floor. He grabbed his duffel and checked out, marking himself off duty, and started walking through the front lobby, since it was closer to where he’d left his truck.
“Officer Ryson?”
He swung around to find the man, a short guy—five foot five tops—wearing slacks and a light-gray shirt with a shine to it. He wore transparent framed glasses and his hair was swept to the side. Clammy skin and a shadow of hair above his top lip.
“That is who you are, right?” The guy paused. “Carlos Ryson?”
Carlos nodded. “That’s right.” He had to step to the side while another officer walked a man in handcuffs past him, toward Holding.
“I’m Neil Lorne. I’m a journalist.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a phone, sliding a stylus pen from the side. “I’m writing a story about the Reverence Sisters Community. You were the one who found it, with all the residents missing. Correct?”
“I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”
A baby started crying, and the young mom in the corner stood, pushing her stroller back and forth as she waited.
“So there is an investigation.” Excitement lit the guy’s eyes. “For those looking into the disappearance of those women, do you know if they’re considering the rapture as a theory?”
Carlos blinked. “I wasn’t working. I was looking for someone. That’s how I found it. I can’t give you any details about the case because I don’t know them.”
“So this is personal for you?” Lorne noted something on his phone with the stylus.
“I’m not interested in being interviewed. But I have some questions for you if you know more than the basics about that group. Have you had any experience with them?”
“I caught the story because of the religious angle,” Lorne said. “Who’s to say their disappearance isn’t a result of the rapture? That’s certainly what the scene looked like.”
“You’ve been there?” State police should’ve locked it down until it was cleaned up.
Lorne blushed. “That’s not the real issue, is it?”
“If you know who they are, we might be able to find them. Otherwise, we have an unknown number of women and men who are simply gone, and no way to identify who they are.” The door opened and a wave of cool air rushed in, ruffling the collar of Carlos’s cargo jacket.
“I don’t know anything about the group other than what I found online in my research. I believe there’s a local woman who used to be part of them and—”
“She might not want to go on record. If they’re the kind of people I believe they might be, she’ll want to stay under the radar.” This guy didn’t need to put Faith Blackburn in danger.
“I can always list her as an anonymous source,” Lorne said. “How do I find her?” He held his pen poised, as if Carlos would give up the information.
Carlos shrugged. “How does anyone find anyone?”
He walked away while the guy sputtered, praying that Lorne didn’t make life difficult for Faith. Just in case, he sent her a message to give her a heads-up that this guy was sniffing around.
He slid into his truck and drove over to the museum so he could catch Eliana and give her a ride home.
After the past few days, he didn’t like the idea of her walking to the L train and arriving home on foot in the dark.
Nothing about this situation in the city sat right with him, but he had no idea how he could help resolve it.
Without finding out who had dosed people across the city with those canisters, there was no guarantee it was over.
His phone rang—from an unknown caller. But the number came up as the switchboard for the FBI office. He tapped the dash screen. “Ryson.”
“Yeah, this is Special Agent Laramee Fox with the FBI. You contacted us about a case we’re working involving the Reverence Sisters?”
“That’s right. I’m Chicago PD, but I’m looking for my sister.”
“So personal interest, not regarding what you found at their community?”
“Correct,” Carlos said. “And I know you have a house in the city under surveillance.”
“So far no one has come or gone. We’re beginning to believe it’s a bust.”
He figured she’d called him back because they were fishing for information.
“Could I get your sister’s information?” Fox asked. “We can add it to what we know.”
“Sure.” Carlos checked his mirror so he could change lanes, pull over, and send her Luci’s contact info.
“In fact, if you’d like to swing by the office, someone can take your full statement. Knowing the identity of at least one of the Sisters will help us make this case before we’re ordered to drop it.”
“I’ll come by now. I’m not working.”
“Great,” Fox said. “I’ll tell the front desk to expect you.”
Carlos told his truck to direct him to the FBI office in Chicago. As he drove, he noticed people on the streets kept their heads down and didn’t interact with each other. He spotted a woman who kind of looked like Eliana, but she would still be at the Shrine.
It seemed like everyone in the city was on edge after yesterday. All he could do was pray that a solution would come quickly.