End of the day

Con keeps a hand on his wounded shoulder as he relents and follows the others grudgingly. Though Nate’s comment about quitting brings a few chuckles, Con’s face remains stiff, finding no humor.

As they get to the car, Con wills himself not to feel the pain in his arm as he’d done so many times before. There was a bigger pain…a deeper pain that was much harder to ignore.


“He did what?! Oh, for crying out loud.” Reese rubs his temple where a headache is forming as he speaks with Wyatt who is on his way with the others back to TJY. “No, I guess leaving the poor bloke there is the best decision. Most likely in that part of town there’s so much crime, it’s not going to mean much and they’ll assume it’s gang oriented. I’ve seen cases there where they haven’t even done investigations anymore.” He sighs. “Alright, well, yeah, get back here and we’ll set up a station to work on those locations. Thanks.”

Reese hangs up the phone just to have it ring again. “Yeah, hello? Oh, hi, Katie.” He listens for a moment. “Down by the lake, huh? Interesting. Yeah, I’ll have the guys check it out. They’re on their way back here now with several possibilities, so I’ll add this one to the mix.” He pauses, contemplating all he should say. He wanted to keep Katie informed so there would be no surprises. “I just finished talking to Wyatt. I guess there was a shooting down at the house and Con was hit in the shoulder. Sounds like their man tried to run and Con gunned him down…that’s as far as I’ve gotten with information. Con turned in his gun and ID this morning...I’m not sure how all this is going to turn out, Katie…just keep praying, will ya?”


“Good land, Con!” Reese meets the four men on the floor as they make their way into TJY.

The whole side of Con’s shirt was by now soaked in blood, the pressure from his hand doing little good from the front, and nothing from the back.

Con barely reacts. “Rick here?”

“Yeah, in his office,” Reese points. “Get yourself down there.” Once Con is out of earshot, he turns to the others. “We’ve got to keep a handle on him before anything else happens. In the meantime, I’ve got a table set up over here with several maps of the city. Have at them.”


“Well, this is nice.” Rick starts to clean the bullet wound after Con has pulled off his shirt. “In one side and out the other. At least I don’t have to dig anything out like I did the last time.” He points to a scar only inches from the new injury. “That one took me three hours.”

Con grits his teeth. “Just patch this one up.”

Rick raises an eyebrow at Con’s impatient tone. “Alright, tiger, settle yourself down.”

It takes a while for Rick to finally stop the bleeding and sew up both sides of the wound, taping a bandage over it. When bringing a sling though, Con refuses. “I’m fine.”

“Conrad Gibbs!” Rick throws his arms in the air. “When will you learn to take care of yourself? Every time you come in here, you walk right back out as if you’re fine!”

“So when will you learn that I really am?” Con grabs his bloody shirt and tosses it in the trash. “Don’t worry though – this was the last time you’ll have to do this.” Exiting Rick’s office, he goes to his own where he has a spare change of clothes, and grabs a fresh shirt.

Rick looks after Con in bewilderment. He’d heard that Con was on the case of Jamie’s disappearance, but something really must have gotten under his skin to be acting like this. And what had his last statement meant?

Con joins the others at the table of maps, staring down at the streets and markings. They had to find Jamie before it was too late…this was their only chance.


“Hey, Hero.” Jason enters Katie’s room wearily. It was late evening, and he was exhausted. Tossing his jacket aside, he sinks down in the chair next to Katie’s bed, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “I’m here for just a couple hours to get some rest. We’ve been pouring over maps all day and have had men out scouting locations the last several hours. We got two possibilities…one is a warehouse, and one is that house you discovered. Reese wants to make sure we know the location before barging in…so we’re hoping to get that figured out soon, then we’ll have to wait until daylight to go in, unless we want to make it a suicide mission. Of course, Con did a good enough job on the last incident, the idiot.”

Jason takes a deep breath after his long spiel, his eyes still closed. “He won’t even take a break – hasn’t slept a wink and is starving himself until this thing is over. Right about now, I think I’m the only one who knows his reasoning though. Did you know he and Jamie were getting serious?”