Thanks BTTWYA, Dragondancer and Jenmm31 for your reviews on the last chapter. I am so happy you guys are still loving this story!
Chapter 40
Adam checked his phone again. He had left Jess a message and a couple texts and still hadn't heard back from her. He could imagine how busy her shift was if she didn't have time to look at her phone. He slid the phone to the side and went back to updating his CI files.
He made it halfway through one before he looked at his phone again, then across the bullpen at Jay.
"Have you heard from Jess today?" he asked.
Jay glanced up from the report he was typing out. Adam noticed Jay didn't look disgruntled at hearing his sister's name coming from him.
Jay instantly reached for his own phone and looked at it. He shook his head. "What's wrong?" he frowned.
"Nothing," Adam said. He drummed his fingers against his desk, debating if Jess would welcome him dropping by the firehouse or think he was checking up on her. Which is exactly what he would be doing. He swiveled his chair toward Mouse. Before he said anything Mouse answered him.
"She's parked across from Holcomb Park," Mouse said. He frowned as he scrolled through the phone history. "She's been there over two hours."
"That's too long for a lunch break. And no way she's been on scene that long for an injury." Adam reached for his phone, but Sargent Platt's voice came up the stairwell.
"Ruzek," she said, reaching the top the of the stairs. "Jay, Chief Boden just called. Dispatch hasn't been able to make contact with Brett or Halstead."
They both were on their feet, opening desk drawers for their guns.
"There's already a squad on the way," Platt continued.
Voight, standing at the opposite end of the bullpen, hands in pockets nodded. "Let dispatch know Intelligence is en route. We're taking point." He nodded to Olinsky.
Atwater didn't say anything until he and Adam were in the car. He sped through another red light, not looking back to see if Dawson or Olinsky were still with them. Jay and Erin were right behind them.
"A million reasons they lost contact with the girls," Kevin said.
"How many of them are good?" Adam countered. Kevin didn't answer, but pressed the car faster.
The ambulance was parked in plain sight, sitting dark and silent, at the park. Adam saw the squad car parked next to it.
The older of the two patrolmen approached him as Jay and Erin got out of their truck.
"We've searched the park, there's no sign of them," he said. "We were about to start a canvass of the houses."
Jay nodded sharply. "Start with the north side of the street. Let us know if you get anything, no matter how small."
Adam was about to take the opposite side of the street when he heard the roar of large engines. He waited for the three trucks from 51 to round the corner and block off the streets.
"Did you hear something?" he yelled, jogging up to the closest truck.
Severide shook his head. "Then start knocking on doors," Adam ordered, aware his voice was sharp.
Severide's face was grim. He turned to the firefighters piling out of the trucks and yelled the order to them. "Squad, take the houses on the south side of the park, truck, engine, east and west blocks."
Adam went to the ambulance and looked in through the locked door. Jess' phone sat on the seat. A half eaten sandwich on the dash and a Coke in the cup holder. Brett's driver's seat showed the same.
Kidd approached with a set of keys to unlock the doors.
Adam stepped back, his blood starting to grow colder at the more he saw. Firefighters and cops knocking on doors with no information. Nothing on either phone. No sign of either of the paramedics. No sign of Jess.
He sucked in a breath, fighting for focus, struggling for control. He and Jess had made it this far. He couldn't lose her. His hands curled into fists, aching to hit something. He wouldn't lose her.
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She was getting married in two weeks. She was going home to Adam. This was not going to happen.
Jess shifted on the hard floor. The teen who had drawn them here leaned back on a sagging couch with two other teens, not much older. None of them glanced at her or Brett. One of them kept glancing toward the boarded up windows, the other young men, pulling his gun from his waistband and putting it back in place.
He pulled his gun again and Jess felt Sylvie stiffen next to her. They both tried to stay still, just like they had been doing for the past two hours. To keep from being noticed while a gun was in someone's hand.
The leader, the same age as the others, but clearly more hardened, paced the floor.
"You took our morphine, the fentanyl, all the drugs we had on us," Jess finally spoke into the room that was quiet except for the muted sounds coming from the television set on a box. The three boys on the couch didn't glance at her, the leader didn't stop his pacing. She felt Sylvie tense next to her, waiting for any reaction from their captors.
"You can let us go now," Jess said. "The longer our ambulance sits out there empty, the more likely someone will come looking for us." Please let them come soon, she prayed. She kept her voice even, not wanting to ignite the tension in the room.
The teen who had flagged them down finally looked over at them. His short blond hair was spiked up and a tattoo of a spider crawled across his neck. "Maybe we don't want to let you go. Maybe we want a payout." His eyes finally lit up with interest and he spoke to the leader. "How much you think CFD would to get their paramedics back?" he asked.
The twitchy one on the couch shook his head. "We need to get out of here. Cut our losses and go." He started to reach for his gun again.
The sound of noise outside drifted in past the boarded up windows. One of the boys on the couch got up to look through a space between the boards. He swore under his breath. The others got up to look, their movements jerky and nervous. The tension in the room ratcheted up as they jostled one another to look.
The spiked hair one snapped at the leader. "Green's right. We need to cut out."
The leader gave him a shove that sent Spiked Hair into a wall with a thud. "I'll tell you when he's right," he snarled. But he looked over at the women and narrowed his eyes before going back to the window.
Jess glanced at Sylvie. She cut her eyes to their jump bags, abandoned with their contents spilling across the scarred wood floors. She scanned the contents until she saw the vial, blue letters across the side. There were a handful of needles scattered around.
The teens moved to another window for another view. Jess didn't take time to debate. "Beta blockers," she whispered in a low voice and quickly grabbed for four needles, passing two to Sylvie. She managed to get the vial of the heart medication, glancing at the teens. She palmed it behind her when they looked back at her and Sylvie.
Sylvie shot her a look as soon as the group turned away from them.
Jess shook her head in answer. She didn't know what else they could do. But she wasn't going to sit here and wait for them to decide to cut their losses with her and her partner. She saw the pistols sticking out of their waistbands. They may not be the most sophisticated thieves, but their lack of experience and indecisiveness could be more dangerous. Add in the nerves that were starting to get the best of them, and it would be lethal soon.
She quickly drew up two vials and passed it to Sylvie to do the same. Sylvie did it without hesitation. They left the covers off the syringes and hid them in their hands.
The boys turned back to the medics.
"Who called the cops? And your firefighter buddies?" the leader demanded. He stormed over to them, panic widening his eyes wildly. "How did you call them?" He gave Jess' leg a solid kick and Jess tightened her lips against crying out.
Annoyance flared with the pain in her leg. She had made it through Afghanistan, the streets of Chicago with drug dealers, gotten clean, and now it was some idiot kid who threatened everything she had finally found.
"The firehouse wasn't going to just ignore its medics disappearing for hours," Sylvie said. Jess could hear the tension of the last two hours corded in her partner's voice.
They could hear the knock on the house next door and Atwater's deep voice was recognizable.
Jess adjusted her grip on the plastic syringes in her hand. "Why don't you guys let us go? Or you guys just walk out the back? Leave like nothing happened here."
One of the boys looked like he liked that idea. "Let's go," he said, his voice too loud and too shaky. "Let's get out of here."
The leader grabbed his arm to stop him from heading toward the back of the house. "Did you see how many cops are out there? You think they're going to just let us run down the alley? You think these two aren't going to tell them exactly what we look like?"
Jess tightened her grip on the syringes. She knew the medication she was holding could be fatal. She wasn't sure how she was going to be able to stab it into one of these boys and let him die. Sylvie was holding her breath and Jess knew her partner, her friend, was having the same doubts.
And then the leader had a hand around Sylvie's arm, yanking her roughly to her feet. Green, the one who kept pulling his gun, grabbed at Jess and hauled her up. Jess bit her lip against the bruises she could feel forming on her arm from his iron fingers.
"We take them for insurance," the leader said, pulling his gun.
A sharp rap against the front door cracked through the room like gunfire and the boy holding Jess jumped.
"Chicago PD! Anyone in there?"
Adam's voice. It was enough to steady Jess. Until the teen holding Sylvie spoke again.
"We go out the front door. We shoot down any pig in our way. As soon as we're clear, these two get bullets in the head."
Jess' heart froze at the panicked words spilling out of the kid's mouth. Adam. They were going to shoot Adam.
"Anyone in there?" Adam called again, pounding on the door. Jess knew what was coming next. He and Atwater would breach. They would make sure no one was in here before they moved onto the next house.
Their captors looked at each other and pulled their guns. Jess could see their hands shaking. She could also see the stark determination in their eyes.
"Jess," Sylvie said quietly.
Jess nodded with the barest movement of her head. She slid one of the syringes forward, readying her grip.
"NOW!" Sylvie yelled.
The sudden shout startled the teens. Jess plunged the needle into the kid's neck, as close to the corded veins she could get, right into his blood stream. She pressed the plunger, sending the drug in. She and Sylvie had only a second of shock-fueled grace before the two who weren't being heavily dosed with beta blockers lifted their guns. The shots mixed with the sound of the door being kicked off its hinges.
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