Ambulance 84, recently assigned to the 21st District police station, had been called to the abandoned factory, and had taken Sergeant Lindsay to hospital after the paramedics had treated her head injury as best they could at the scene.

While the rest of the Intelligence team had gone back to the station to make a start on the processing and interrogation of the suspect they had arrested, who so far had exercised his right to remain silent, Jay Halstead and Deonna Purrazzo had gone to the hospital, ostensibly to check on the boss. Halstead had a more personal reason to want to check on Lindsay, of course.

When they walked into the ER's entrance area, Halstead saw Sylvie Brett and Peter Mills, the paramedics from Ambulance 84, hanging around over on one side of the room. He knew they had expected someone from Intelligence to come, and were waiting to offer an update and their well wishes.

"Hey, how is she?" Halstead asked as he approached the paramedics.

Brett handled the question. "She's got a concussion. That was one heck of a blow to the head she took. Officer Burgess told me she never lost consciousness, which is remarkable. As you saw, she has a pretty nasty gash above her eye. She's been cleaned up and sutured. The doctor actually just left her room before you walked in. With the cut being quite close above her eye, she's getting quite a shiner and some unpleasant swelling. With a concussion, there will be headaches for a week or two, but overall she'll be fine, thankfully. You can find her back there." She pointed to one of the patient rooms towards the back left of the ER. The door was currently closed.

"Thanks, Brett," Halstead said.

"Sure. See you back at the 21st."

Halstead smiled at the two paramedics as they left.

"She seems nice," Purrazzo said.

"Yeah, you won't meet a nicer person than Brett," he said. He didn't add that rumour had it Atwater had recently started dating her. Purrazzo was too much of an Intelligence rookie to be included in the office gossip. What he actually needed at the moment was to get her out of the way so that he could talk to Erin in private for a minute, as his girlfriend instead of his boss. "Why don't you go find somewhere to get us a coffee."

"I thought we were both going to see Sergeant Lindsay?" she objected.

"That wasn't a request, Purrazzo," Halstead said, stiffening his tone just a bit.

"Of course. Coffee it is," she said, heading off to look for a vending machine.

With his understudy out of the way, Jay hurried over to Erin's room and went in. She was lying with her one good eye closed. The other was swollen shut, and on the way to turning a horrid purple colour. Above it was a line of sutures. At least the blood had been cleaned up.

"Hey, it's me," he said quietly, unsure if she was awake.

"Jay?" Her eyes remained closed and she sounded groggy.

"Yeah. How's the head?" Jay asked as he went over to the chair by the bed and sat down.

"I'm told I have a concussion, which explains why I can't remember what happened, and why I can't open my eyes because the light hurts too much. My head is pounding, even with whatever drugs they filled me with."

"I don't think you'd be opening one of them anyway."

A vague grimace was the closest Erin could get to laughing. "Not the time for jokes, Jay. Has the guy confessed?"

Her timeline was messed up too, Halstead realised. There had been nothing like enough time for a confession. The interrogation was probably only just starting over at the station. He decided not to correct her yet, realising that what she needed was rest. In time, the concussion would go away and her face would heal up. There might be a scar from the cut for a while, but hopefully it wouldn't be permanent.

"I don't know," was the answer he chose. "What do you remember about what happened back there?"

"Not much," Erin groaned. "I remember going inside, then... nothing. Wait. Burgess. Burgess was there. She must have saved me. I remember she said something about me not giving her a chance to show what she can do."

"Well, she had a point. But don't worry about that now. Rest up, and hopefully you'll be able to sleep off the worst of the headache. I'll come back and see you again after my shift."

"I think I'm a bit rusty at Intelligence work. This shouldn't have happened," Lindsay said vaguely. Nothing he had said seemed to have registered with her.

"I'll let you rest." Getting up, he was about to give her a peck on the cheek, but he noticed Purrazzo appear at the door, so he squeezed Erin's shoulder instead, getting a soft groan in response. With that, he left the room.

"I found two coffee machines. One wouldn't take any money, the other had no cups in it," Purrazzo complained as they started walking towards the exit. "Anyway, we're leaving? I didn't get a chance to speak to Sergeant Lindsay."

"She needs to rest. She's pretty out of it with the concussion. The best thing we can do right now is get back to the station and help the team make an airtight case on this bastard. Let's not forget, he didn't just assault Lindsay, he's a serial killer. We need to put him away for life."

"Yes, sir," Purrazzo said as they walked outside into the cold, heading for the parking lot. "You know what I don't understand?"

"What's that?"

"Why he was either dumping or going back to a body in broad daylight. He must have known there would be police around. It seems like it was only that news helicopter showing up that scared him into going back to his van."

"Good question," Halstead said, giving her a hint of praise with his tone. "That's been on my mind, too. We're assuming this our guy of course. We don't know that yet. Hopefully we'll get some answers when we get back to the station."

When Halstead and Purrazzo walked back into the Intelligence room, only Olinsky was there, sitting at his desk. He looked up when they entered.

"How's Lindsay?" was his opener.

Halstead handled the answer. "She's going to be okay. She has a concussion and a nasty cut with a bunch of sutures in it. She was pretty out of it, so I left her to rest. Having me talking at her wouldn't have helped anything."

"Lucky Burgess showed up when she did back there," Olinsky said.

Having heard their voices, Zelina Vega walked through from her office. Halstead repeated his update on Lindsay to her.

"Where's everyone else?" Purrazzo asked.

With Lindsay out of action, Olinsky was temporarily in charge of Intelligence. He had an order for them. "Ruzek's interviewing the suspect. Atwater and Rose are observing. We have the suspect's name and address thanks to the plates on the van. His name's Randy Orton, 1125 St. Louis. Get over there and search the place. Take Atwater and Rose with you. You'll find them at Interview Room 3."

"You got it," Halstead said.

"That's a shame. I would have liked to observe the interrogation," Purrazzo said to Halstead as they went back down the stairs out of Intelligence. It reminded him that she and Rose were regular patrol officers, albeit the cream of the crop. They got to arrest suspects and bring them in, where other officers or detectives took over. Interrogation was something they needed to be shown in order to learn how to do it well.

"There will be time for that," he said. "This isn't the movies, where the good guys get a full confession from the bad guy in the space of ten minutes. There will likely be multiple interviews across several days. You'll get your chance to observe. Maybe I'll even get you in the room at some point."

"Wait, seriously?" Purrazzo cried excitedly.

"I said maybe," Halstead said wryly as they approached Interview Room 3, and the observation room next to it. He opened the door to the observation room and spoke to Atwater and Rose. "You guys are with us. We're going to search the house."

"He hasn't said a word yet," Atwater said as he and Rose walked out of the room, complying with the new order without question. The group headed for the station's front entrance.

"Not one?" Purrazzo asked.

"Nope. He lawyered up right away, then he's just sat there. Haven't even heard a 'no comment' out of him," Rose said.

"That's actually very unusual," Halstead said.

"Yeah, I was just explaining that when you showed up," Atwater said. "You'll almost never get someone who says nothing. Denials or 'no comments', yes, but not total silence. It does probably mean this is our guy, though. If there was some misunderstanding or a supposedly innocent explanation such as he discovered that second body and ran because he's scared of cops, we'd have heard it by now."

"Good point," Purrazzo said.

It was Jay Halstead's first time mentoring another officer. The satisfaction he got from seeing the young and talented Deonna Purrazzo learning came as something of a surprise to him. If Kim Burgess truly couldn't have her job back, he wanted Purrazzo to be the one to get it. And that was nothing against Amanda Rose, who he was sure was also a great prospect. She wouldn't have been invited into the trial program if she wasn't.

Exiting the station, it was time for the two pairs to split up and head for their cars.

"The address is 1125 St. Louis," Halstead said in case Atwater and Rose didn't know. "We'll see you over there."

Atwater nodded. "See you there. Let's see what this animal's place tells us about him."

A/N: Thank you to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter.

What do you think the team will find at the suspect's house?