Chapter 40

"I spoke to Robbery. All three vans were owned by Venture shipping. The offenders, hit the vans early in their route while the pig was fat. They got in and out fast. Seems like they know what they're doing," Jay tells them a few days later, analyzing the new case they've taken on. 

"And nothing on the van drivers?" 

"No, all three are clean. Nothing to suggest it was an inside job" 

"So..." 

"All right, our best lead comes from these blowups, taken from a nearby auto repair shop. Now, this? This is offender one. This guy's got $300 sneakers on. This is the one that beat down the driver. The driver said he was speaking English. He sounded local," he continues to say and places some photos on the board. 

"All right, boss, as far as I can tell, this is all about the opioids. But in this whole process they were some other meds taken," Adam says, who was first at the scene. 

"Other drugs?" 

"Mm-hmm" 

"All right, these pills distinct enough to ID?" 

"Not really... they all got the same manufacturer stamp, but that's about it" he replies, and Kevin's voice is heard from the other room. 

"Hey, Sarge" 

"Anything on the SUV?" Voight asks as soon as he sees him coming into the bullpen. 

"Yes, sir, they found it empty on a random lot in Humboldt Park, two miles away from the robbery" 

"Techs ran the GPS. The SUV was parked on a Back Of The Yards neighborhood for two days, one block from a known drug den, owned and operated by the Night Lords," Kim adds. 

"But you know what? I got a junkie unwitting that's actually pretty tight with some of these guys. He grew up with them. I could take a run at him" Antonio says. 

"Chase it" 

"Copy that"

Antonio was able to get in touch with his guy, who told him that the Night Lords have a large inventory of painkillers at the moment, which are being sold by someone named Eric Shawn. So Voight, who still didn't trust Antonio near any kind of pills alone, asked Adam to pretend to be the buyer to catch Shawn.

"Did you have fun with Annabelle yesterday?" Jay asks Emma while they're in the car watching Adam, who's waiting for Eric to show up. 

"Yeah. We went shopping, we ate ice cream... it was nice" 

"Good. It's really nice that she has you. Having so many brothers must be a little suffocating sometimes" 

"Yeah... You know she was asking about you, too," 

"Of course she did," Jay says with a proud smile on his face and Emma rolls her eyes, 

"How was your time with Will?" 

"It was good. He met Natalie's new boyfriend, and he maybe drunk more than he should have," he tells her, and before she can answer him, Adam's voice is heard on the radio. 

"Are you guys all set?" he asks them as soon as he sees a car approaching them. 

"Yeah, we got you, Adam," 

"All right, all right. This is Shaw; here we go" 

"This is not good" Emma announces some minutes later as soon as she hears Eric asking Adam to get in his car. 

"It's Adam's call. He hasn't used the distress signal yet" Jay tries to calm her down, but deep down he has an uncertain feeling too. 

"I don't like it," she says again while Shawn insists on going somewhere else. 4

"5021 Henry, do you have any patrol cars near 3400 Princeton?" she asks on the radio without waiting for a response from Jay. 

"10-4, I saw 922 coming off a traffic stop a block away" 

"Have them do a slow crawl down Princeton" 

Indeed a few minutes later the patrol car passes by and Eric cancels the deal, leaving Adam behind.

"Hey, guys" Adam's voice stops Emma and Jay as soon as they get back to the district.

"What the hell was that? What was that? I had the prick. I don't understand it," he tells them, and Emma shakes her head. 

"Had him? He wanted you to go mobile. We weren't equipped for that," Jay calmly tells him, trying to get him to see how dangerous it was because he agreed with Emma's action. 

"Had rip written all over it" Emma starts to say but Adam interrupts her. 

"All right, who made the call?" 

"It doesn't matter," Jay tells him again, but at the same time, Emma's voice is heard. 

"I did" 

"Yeah, you made the wrong call. You made it too early. Listen, when I'm in the middle of it and I use the distress signal, then we call it. If I don't use the distress signal ..." He accuses her and barely raises his voice, something that makes Emma's breath fasten. All of these are enough to make Trudy look at them. 

"I made the call, Adam. Move on," 

"I can't just move on. You jeopardized the case, we could now have some evidence about the offenders," he continues to blame her. 

"Let it go, bro" Jay tries to convince him. 

"Why Jay? Wouldn't you react like that if you were me? Or because she's your girlfriend, you cover her. You know she made the wrong call," Adam says angrily. 

"I'm not covering anyone. If she wouldn't do it, then I probably would have made that call. It was dangerous and we were alone" 

"Well that's not the first time..." Adam says again and this time Trudy is the one who interrupts them. 

"Hey, that's enough! Go upstairs now, Voight is waiting for you," she tells them, and they start to leave. 

"Hey, sunshine, are you all right?" she asks and Emma turns toward her with a smile. 

"Yes, Sergeant, don't worry everything is all right," 

"Always with a smile," Trudy murmurs as she watches the girl climb the stairs.

"So where we at with Shaw? Can we get this deal back on track?" Voight asks as soon as they gather upstairs. 

"Well, he just texted me a bunch of emojis that I never even knew existed. So, based on that, I'm guessing that the deal is off," Adam replies, looking angry at Emma. 

"Well, we are keeping the pressure on. Going from the top didn't work, so we start from the bottom. We catch one of Shawn's crew dirty and flip him. Does Narcotics know where the Night Lords are slinging these pills?" 

"There's a house in the Back Of The Yards, that's getting a lot of action. Walk-ups, hands-off, stuff like that" Kevin replies. 

"It's on the corner of Ashland and 54th. It's been up for demolition for about a year. Would you look at that? Look who it's registered to. Shaw's uncle," Kim adds. 

"Get eyes on that house. Let's go," Voight tells them, and once again they leave.

From sitting on the house they were able to catch a woman who, unlike all other customers had a paper bag full of pills instead of some dope. Her name was Gina Reilly, and while she had been taken to the station, she kept telling them that all of this what just a misunderstanding and that she wasn't a drug addict.