Chapter 39

"He was hitting on you," Jay says as they leave the restaurant, referring to their waiter, and Emma laughs. 

"No, he didn't" 

"Yes, he did. Did you see the way he looked at you?" 

"No, I didn't notice. Maybe if I go back..." she playfully says and pretends to return to the restaurant, but Jay's hand stops her. 

"Oh, you're not going anywhere," he announces and kisses her.

"You're cute when you're jealous," Emma continues to tease him as they walk holding hands. 

"I am not jealous" 

"Yeah, say it until you believe it" 

"You're unbelievable" 

"You love me" 

"Yes I do," he tells her with a grin and brings her hand to his mouth, leaving a sweet kiss on her knuckles. 

"You know, I never thought you'd be so romantic" 

"Well I hadn't found the right girl to be romantic with"

 And indeed never before had Jay felt the way he felt with Emma, and of course never before had anyone made him feel so carefree. But his smile stops the moment he reads the message Kevin had sent him and Emma looks at him worried. 

"Jay, what is it?" 

"Someone shot Blair. Kim found him a while ago," he announces, and without saying anything else, they return to the car and head to the address Kevin sent him.

"Blair Williams, 32 years old. Born and raised in Connecticut, wealthy family. He studied politics at Princeton and moved to DC shortly after graduating," Emma tells them the next day when Blair is now dead. 

"Spent his whole career as a political consultant. Good reputation too. He's been in Chicago the last two months working for Kelton. He was found last night at 10:18 p.m., two GSWs. So far nothing on Forensics or Ballistics yet," Jay continues. 

"Hmm okay, Blair got any link to drugs? Any priors?" 

"Yeah, believe it or not, he got popped for possession at 17. He got pulled over on a traffic stop and the cops found seven grams of cocaine on him," Kevin replies, and Kim takes the papers out of his hands. 

"All right, so he didn't get charged with intent to distribute?" 

"No, apparently his parents had pretty good lawyers," 

"I ran through Blair's texts and calls. Um... mostly business, personal texts, but there is one that stands out, as being a little strange. It was a conversation with a burner phone. Looks like Blair was trying to buy something. Blair to the burner: "Will give you a good price" The burner responds: "Meet me at 8 p.m. in the Green Lounge" Adam reads aloud. 

"Sounds like a drug deal to me. Green Lounge, that's that bar outside Englewood, right?" Antonio asks as Adam gives Kim the files. 

"Yeah, lots of drugs and lots of fights" 

"Roll on it" 

"You got it, boss"

Adam and Kim managed to find a security camera at the back of the bar that Jay and Emma checked out. After searching through footage, they discovered that Blair got into a car that was registered to the City Fellowship in Englewood, which was a church. 

"Jay?" Emma says on their way to the church. 

"Yeah?" 

"I don't know what happened with Blair, but don't ever do this to me. Don't ever make me press any of your wounds to stop the bleeding and pray for you to live. Please," she tells him, and Jay hears the fear in her voice. 

"Emms" 

"I know you can't promise me that nothing bad will ever happen because our job is what it is, but..." 

"But I promise you I will do anything to make sure that something like this doesn't happen," he continues, and Emma smiles sadly at him. 

"Do you think Kim will be all right?" he asks her some minutes later. 

"Yeah, she's strong. I mean, if someone can overcome this, that person is Kim" she replies with confidence, 

"Come on, we're here"

Outside the church was the car they saw in the video, but inside it, they found the reverend Dennis bleeding on the floor.

"I think he was bleeding out for a while. There are no witnesses, no phone. The shooter probably snatched it," 

"Looks like Dennis might have known the shooter. He was in the back making tea when it happened. No signs of a struggle" 

"Yeah, there were four casings, which means the shooter missed twice at close range. So he was not a professional," Jay and Emma inform Voight as soon as they return to the station. 

"Hey, this guy Denis? Are we sure that he's a legitimate reverend?" Kim asks, and everyone turns towards her. 

"Yeah, he was ordained," 

"Well, Blair wasn't religious. So I have no idea why he was meeting with a revered," 

"Uh, Ballistics came back as a match. 9mm that killed Blair killed Dennis too," Emma informs them as soon as she checks her phone. 

"Okay, maybe he is a political donor. They were meeting to maybe talk about the election," Kim assumes. 

"I ran that theory up the ladder. No one from Kelton's staff recognized the name," Antonio replies.

"Did they know if Blair had any enemies?" 

"None that stood out as anything more than political divides. I mean, all they said was that Kelton is really pissed that he is way behind in the polls, that everyone was pretty much drowning on it. Except for Blair. He had been talking about a new opportunity he had, but no one knew what he meant by that," Antonio tells her. 

 "Guys, listen to this: If this brother's a man of God now, that was not always the case. He's got three drug charges. His full name is Dennis Reed, spent a decade of his life running drugs for the G Park Lords before he found the church," Kevin informs them as soon as he comes to the bullpen. 

"Well, well, well" 

"Maybe it was never a full turn. Just faith as a front. The church is a good place to funnel money" 

"He's still dealing, he meets Blair somehow, they see a chance to make some money, do some business, a new opportunity," Adam suggests. 

"Then someone swoops in, kills them both to end the sale" 

"All right, let's just take it step by step. First, let's confirm that Dennis was still actually dealing. And search Blair's hotel. I mean, if these two were moving heavy product together, they were wearing damn good masks for the world. Let's peel them back," Voight tells them.

A few hours later they managed to find a new lead, a guy named Nate Lewis. At his house, they found some drugs, while in his car they found a 9mm gun, which was the same type of gun that killed Blair and Reverend Dennis. Nate, however, didn't know anything about all this, leading them to conclude that all this was done for drugs, something that Kim didn't believe.

"I know what this case looks like, but it's not about drugs. Blair's vice was politics. He won every campaign, that he ever worked on and he was gonna win this one too. He played hard and probably dirty. Now I'm thinking that the 20K we found in his truck probably had to do with something political," Kim tells them the next day. 

"Yeah, so the question is what could Dennis know or have in his possession that was worth 20K to Blair?" Voight asks. 

"Probably something to do with Price" 

"Kim, I'm not trying to go against you here, but we dug into Dennis. We know he and Price knew each other. But we didn't find any questionable or illicit connections between them. We ran Dennis through Kelton's background, his campaign through Price's. Nothing hit," Antonio tells her. 

"Jasmine Price. What about his daughter, Jasmine? Blair was looking into her. He did a full background check," Kim informs them. 

"All right, Blair was digging into Jasmine. Why don't we do some digging of our own? See if there's anything real there," Voight tells them, and they start their new research.

"Did you talk to Jasmine?" Kim asks Voight after a few hours when he returns to the district. 

"I did" 

"Did she admit to dating Dennis?" 

"Yeah, they dated for a few months. Partied more than they should have, but according to her, that's about it," 

"So we still don't know what Blair had on Jasmine or Ray that was so valuable," Emma says. 

"If Blair found something, he found it doing opposition research, right? Let's do the same. Just focus on the two, three months Jasmine dated Dennis. But listen, we soft-shoe this, okay? Anybody asks, it's just for background. None of this goes in the report, yet" Voight says.

And just as Voight asked them, they checked all the files that existed, including social media posts, and eventually, they managed to find something. They discover a girl who was once friends with Jasmine. This girl's name was Anna Welk, and according to a video they found, she died because of an overdose the same month Jasmine dropped out of college. The video showed that while the girl was overdosing Jasmine and Dennis were with her, and instead of calling an ambulance Jasmine called her father first. It turned out that Price's wife was the one who killed Blair and Dennis, wanting to protect her family. However, Price ended up confessing to the murders, and he also admitted to planting evidence in Nate Lewis's car.

"Hey, Sunshine" Jay's voice makes Emma jump. She is in the break room, resting her hands on the sink while trying to calm her breath. 

"Hey" she finally tells him and tries to smile at him but Jay realizes something's wrong 

"Hey, what's going on?" 

"Nothing. Where are the others?" 

"Voight, Adam, and Kevin went to get Price," he tells her and closes the door behind him. 

"Emms, talk to me" 

"Everything's fine, Jay" 

"Is this about the video?" he asks her referring to the video that showed the girl overdosing and falling to the floor with a seizure. Of course, he understood that something like this brought buried memories to the surface. Emma sighs at how well he knows her and eventually nods. 

"Come here," he says sweetly, hugging her. 

"You're safe now. I've got you," he reminds her, kissing the top of her head. 

"Thank you" 

"Anytime... So, if I remember correctly, we didn't finish our date the way I'd like, and you have to somehow repay the fact that that waiter was staring at you with his drooling," 

"Oh, I think you mean you have to repay for the fact that you were jealous" 

"Oh shut up," he tells her, and they laugh.

Life is easier with Jay Halstead, Emma thinks and follows him out of the room.