Chapter 30

"Oh, God, what happened here?" Kim asks when they get out of their cars, and everyone looks at each other. 

"Sarge, what's going on?" she asks again as soon as she spots Voight and everyone goes towards him. 

"Officer-involved death," he replies. 

"Rizzo?" Kevin asks though everyone knows the answer. 

"You all should probably get back to the district," their boss tells them again. 

"Ruzek was involved? Where's Antonio?" Emma asks as soon as she sees Adam talking with a few people from IRT. 

"I called him off," 

"I thought he was on his way here," 

"He wasn't here," he interrupts her abruptly, making her stop talking. 

"All right, you can all head back to the district. I don't want any of you logged in on the crime scene, you understand?" he tells them again, and they all leave.

"Have you seen Jay?" Emma asks while they sit at their desks doing nothing, just waiting for some news. 

"I think he went to the locker room," Kevin replies, and Emma smiles, thanking him. 

"Hey partner" she almost whispers as soon as he sees Jay sitting on the bench staring into the void. He jumps when he hears someone close to him. 

"It's just me. It's okay," she reassures him, and he calms down immediately. 

"What's going on?" she asks him as he sits next to him and he shrugs his shoulders. 

"Remember when you said this morning that you had a bad feeling? I've got the same now," he replies, and Emma touches his arm, managing to relax him. 

"Just like you told me, everything's going to be okay. Come on, Voight's going to be here any minute," she says, and they go back to the bullpen.

Indeed, shortly afterward Voight climbs the stairs. 

"Hey, are you going to explain what's going on now? Where's Antonio?" Kevin asks. 

"Antoniο's taking some time off," 

"Time off? He was on his way there" 

"Antonio is gonna be taking some days with his family. Ruzek is dealing with an officer-involved death investigation. And that's the last this team will discuss it" he tells them sternly. 

"Sarge is he..." Kim asks but Voight interrupts her. 

"You never have to explain something you didn't say or hear. Is that understood?" 

"It is, but I wanna know if Antonio's gonna be okay," Kim explains, and everyone is waiting for an answer. 

"Yeah, he will be. He just... he just needs some time," Voight replies sadly, and before they can ask anything else Platt shows up. 

"Uh, I'm sorry to interrupt whatever this is. There's been another carjacking downtown. Northside, broad daylight. This time the victim died. She was 18. Brennan's requesting you take this one," she informs them. 

"All right, you heard her. Let's go do our jobs," Voight tells them, and everyone obeys, taking on a new case while Adam was still under investigation. Tough days were coming up again for everyone.

A few days later, they managed to solve the case while Adam was still under investigation, and Antonio was still in rehab struggling with his addiction. 

"Why do they always make uniforms so uncomfortable?" Adam asks the rest of them when they gather in the fundraiser. Tonight's event was in support of Brian Kelton, one of the candidates for mayor and also former police and current Superintendent of the CPD. 

"I think they're doing it on purpose," Kevin replies. 

"Emma, what do you think about them?" Adam asks her. 

"I like them," she replies and immediately blushes when she realizes how intently she looked at Jay and thought about how attractive he looks in blues. Luckily for her, before anyone could answer her, Kelton shows up in front of everyone and they turn to hear his speech. Everyone except Jay, who was stealing glances at his partner. 

"Before I begin, I want to greet acknowledge the rank and file. Let's show them how we feel," Kelton says, and everyone applauds. 

"Thank you. I may have just seen Sergeant Hank Voight crack a smile. That's real police, best of the best," he continues, pointing to Voight. 

"What is he doing?" Kevin whispers and the rest shrug their shoulders. 

"Now, my opponents talk about unifying Chicago. That's a noble word, unity. But unity to my opponents means working with gangs, creating programs to... help gangs, and that's just not what Chicago needs right now, nor is it anywhere on my agenda. Coddling criminals will do nothing to help the law-abiding citizens of Chicago. To be clear, I don't want to work with gangs. I'm gonna crush them," he ends his speech and everyone applauds him.

"I don't know if I like him," Emma says as soon as they come out to the door and Jay holds his breath, pretending to be shocked. 

"Emma Spencer, there is a person you don't like? I didn't expect that from you," he tells her, laughing as he goes into the driver's seat. 

"I don't know. He is kind of creepy" she explains making him laugh even more. 

"Units in 18 and units on the citywide, reports of shots fired coming from the inside a residence at 224 East Scott," a voice from the radio is heard. 

"Oh, that's around the corner" Jay tells her, and Emma looks out the window at their boss. 

"Hey Sarge, shots fired a few blocks out," she announces, and everyone's headed that way. Of course, the fact that the two detectives are in the same car together doesn't go unnoticed by Voight, but he decides not to say anything.

At the residence, Bernie Hoffman, who had just been at the fundraiser, was lying dead in the living room while his wife was terrified in the bedroom. 

"What do you got?" Voight asks later after he managed to calm the victim's wife. 

"Well, wife's jewelry box was rifled through and a few drawers were tossed. No sign of Hoffman's cell phone, I looked high and low," Adam replies. 

"And the techs swabbed Mrs. Hoffman for GSR, she's clean. They also did a quick test on the thirty-aught-six, it has not been fired," Jay adds. 

"And the cell casings are from a 9 millimeter," Adam says again. 

"You know, there is no sign of forced entry, so either the offender pulled off some kind of ruse, or Mr. Hoffman knew the attacker, was having a meeting where things went south," 

"Well, I'd say really south. His jaw is broken," Adam says, and now looks at the body. 

"Well, we know what kind of people Bernie represented. Start with his clients," Voight tells them, and they go out to meet the others. 

"I got a neighbor that saw a gray Honda idling outside at the time of the shooting. Two African-American males inside didn't get a good look but said they seemed suspicious," Emma tells them as soon as she sees them. 

"Well, they could have just been looking for a parking spot,"

"Well, what about PODs or shot cams?" Voight asks.