Chapter 15 - December in the summer kills the heart

Alicia sat in the ambulance that Sylvie was driving back to the firehouse, Erin and Jay were right behind them in their car. Jay was clenching his fists, his anger growing while he thought about the guy that not only was putting dozens of girls in danger, but also was the same guy who hurt the woman he cared so much about; Alicia's thoughts on the other hand were circling around what Wes could have done to be a suspect of Intelligence.

At the fire house, Erin told her to change. "Come to Boden's office, we explan to him why you need to come with us."

She felt like she stood right next to herself while she got into the changing room, removed all her clothes except her underwear and got into her jeans, boots, oversized long-sleeve and her leather jacket. It has been a colder day, not yet winter but not summer anymore, but she didn't feel the temperatures, as if her body had gone into autopilot and didn't register such unimportant information anymore. Everything felt muffled and muted, from the sensation of the fabric while she changed to the sounds in the building.

"Hey", she heard Casey's voice behind her, "everything alright? I saw Lindsay and Halstead follow you guys, but Brett doesn't know anything either."

Alicia grabbed her bag. "Um yeah, so, I talked to Jay… to Detective Halstead, that my ex is in town and turns out they're looking for him, so, it's nothing really, I guess I just need to help find him", she shortly explains, well aware that this doesn't explain much at all.

So it was no surprise Casey looked at her confused, his eyebrows furrowed. "But, you're not in trouble?"

"No." Not yet.

His face relaxed. "Okay then… if you need anything, just reach out. Call us, we're all here for you, okay?"

Alicia nodded. "Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate you guys." She cleared her throat, trying to swallow the knot.

A minute later, she knocked at Boden's office and was asked in.

"Chief." She stepped in, barely able to look him in his eyes. She didn't know how many more worried gazes she could take.

"Barnes. These two detectives have just told me why they need you. I wish I could help you in any way. You're excused from this shift entirely, no need to come back to work after this is done. And if you need more time, you let me know."

She nodded. "Thank you, Chief."

Boden looked at the two detectives. "If that is all, I'd like to have a minute with my paramedic."

Jay agreed. "We wait outside." His fingers touched her arm briefly while they left the office.

"Just one thing", Boden started, "this fire house is not only a workplace for us all, but also a home."

Allie nodded eagerly. "I am well aware of that, Chief. Casey just said the same when he saw Halstead and Lindsay bring me in. I appreciate it. A lot."

Boden looked at her for a couple of seconds without saying anything. "Tell me, that guy you could identify, what about him?"

Alicia was tempted to play dumb, ask what he meant, but she already knew Boden looked right through her. She sighed. "He's my ex. It was a pretty toxic relationship and a few days ago I found out he's in Chicago, even though he doesn't live here, has never been here. That's how I'm connected."

"I have to say, I don't like you being involved. For the simple reason that I don't want you to be in danger and I wish you wouldn't have to testify or whatever you have to do. I just want you do know that you've got a family here and we will support you. I guess there is not much we can do about this man, but if you need support in any way, or someone to talk to, we will do everything we can."

Do. Not. Cry. "Thank you, Chief. I…"

"Just… call me when there is something new. Keep me updated. That's all I ask for."

Alicia nodded, blinking the tears away. "I will, Chief."

"Dismissed. Good luck." She shook his hand that he offered her and rushed out of the office before she could change her mind and leave the building out the back and just run away.

Sometime later, Alicia followed Jay and Erin up into the bullpen. She had used the drive to the District to push back her tears. It wasn't the first time she did that, and by the time they have arrived, she felt a numb kind of calmness.

"So I at least get to see where you work", she joked while following them up to an open area with multiple desks. Nobody was there, except for Hank Voight and a guy she didn't know, looking on a computer screen.

Before she could get an answer from Jay, Voight stepped towards her and shook her hand.

"Allie, thanks for coming in. You're in contact with Weslowski?"

She shrugged. "Not really, He tried to get in touch with me, that's all."

"So, you haven't spoken to him?"

"No, not really. He called me a few times. I don't know how he got my number."

Jay stepped in. "Allie, we need your phone. So, we can ping his if he calls again. Was it the same number?"

She shook her head. "No, two different ones."

The guy she didn't know stood up from his desk.

"Allie, that is my friend, Mouse, he's our tech guy", Jay explained.

"Nice to meet you. Can you give me your phone?"

Straight to the point. She unlocked it and gave it to him. "What now?", she asked.

Voight put his hand on her shoulder and walked her towards a room with a round table and a kitchen unit. "You tell us everything you know about this guy, while they prep your phone. We have no idea where he is, so we need to get a location, somewhere we can grab him. If he called from different numbers, it means he uses burner phones."

She nodded towards the white board she saw while they were walking into the kitchen room. It had a picture of Wes, three photographs of women and some text on it. "I wanna know what he does. Why you want him."

Voight gave her a fainted smile, while both sat down and got out of their jackets. "Sure you do. Right when…"

"No. Now." She folded her arms and looked up to Jay who put a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. He didn't look at her. If he was surprised by how drastically she had changed from shaken up to stone cold, he didn't show it. Voight looked at Jay who started speaking.

"Okay, so, the OD's we all have been dealing with the past days, are connected to a bunch of guys grooming girls. They start a relationship with them, hook them on drugs, pills, anything. It looks like they use the girls for sex and drug deals. They have to transport the drugs for them."

Hearing that the guy she slept with years ago was now purposefully doing that and worse to other girls, felt like a punch in the gut. She could physically feel the pain in her stomach and tried not to flinch.

"Does that sound like the guy you knew?", Voight asked.

Alicia buried her face in her hands for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts through her anger. "Looking back at it, I'd trust him to do such things. He took drugs when we were dating. He was manipulative, focused on sex. It all sounds like him. He is an asshole but damn good at hiding it."

"Any idea why he came to Chicago?"

"No idea."

"Can you give us a few names, people he associated with, friends who used drugs with him?"

She grabbed the piece of paper he gave her and wrote down every mutual friend they had back then. "One of them, Monica, I'm still in contact with, occasionally. We were the only ones in that friend group not using. What else do you need me to do", she asked, and gestured to the office where Mouse was prepping her phone.

"We wait for him to call you. All you have to do, is keep him talking so we can track his phone and know where he is. Maybe he even tells you something we can use."

"What if he wants to meet me? I can imagine he'd want to."

Jay attempted to speak, but Voight cut him off. "To be honest with you, that would we the best opportunity for us to grab him. Because tracking his phone is one thing, knowing for sure he'll be somewhere, a much better option. Do you think you could do that? We would wire you, listen to every word you guys speak, a dozen cops around you to waiting for him to say something so we can get him. Do you think you can do that?"

"Hell, I'm ready."

Alicia could tell by the look Voight gave her that he saw right through her. "You know you only have to talk to him. This isn't revenge, it's an arrest."

"Yes."

A few moments of silence passed, Voight looking at her observant, while Alicia starred right back.

Voight sent out Jay. "Give us a minute."

"Sarge…"

"Ask Mouse how long this takes, go."

Jay, obviously unhappy about that, obeyed and left the room. Once they were alone, Voight asked her one question. "Did WEslowski hit you?"

Alicia fought back the urge to look down. "No. But there's other forms of violence. Look, I know what you're thinking…"

"Do you?"

"But I wanna help. I have to, I know that. Do I want to see him again? No. Do I want him in jail? Yes. I will do what I have to, not a single thing more."

Hank Voight nodded. "I understand that very well, and believe me, we do too. So tell me, until Mouse is ready, how come that you're a paramedic?" He now smiled and Alicia relaxed a bit.

"Well, a year or so after we both met, I was adopted by a woman and her son, whom she had adopted as well, and I had to move and got out of that friend group and that really helped me turn my life around. Well, it got turned around for me I feel like. And I just had this feeling to do something great and help, you know? My adopted mom's best friend is a nurse, and I was working along side her for a week. And I remembered that when I got rejected by police academy and so I became a paramedic." She grinned when she saw his surprised face. Before he could answer, Erin came rushing in. "We got an incoming call. You ready, Allie?"

Alicia jumped off her seat and ran out with her. She sat down at Mouse' desk, who stood next to it, alongside Jay. Her heart was beating so hard she could not only hear it but also feel it.

"When I give you thumbs up", Mouse said looking at his computer, "I've got him, until then you have to keep him talking."

She nodded and answered the call with shaking hands. "Hello?" She was surprised herself how calm her voice sounded.

"Hey, Allie."

"Carl. Why the hell do you keep calling me?", she asked and grabbed the nearest pen laying on the desk to fidget with, spin it between her fingers. She knew saying his real name and not calling him Wes would annoy him.

"Why not? I'm just checking in how you're doing." It wasn't hard to tell that the lightness, the happiness in his voice was completely fake. He wasn't the type of guy to check in on others.

"Sure", she sarcastically answered, "why don't you cut the crap and tell me why you're in Chicago."

"You know?", he said, and the surprise in his voice was artificial she let out a laugh.

"My roommate told me you knocked on my door, so I figured."

She didn't make a sound, but Alicia could feel Erin's eyes on her heavy.

"Yeah, she's really pretty. What's her name?"

Allie inhaled sharply. "Her name is 'if you ever come near her, I will kick your ass so hard you will have to get onto a plane to get back to Chicago'." She didn't yell, but her voice was hard and firm.

"So she's your girlfriend? Or did a guy fuck that courage into you?"

Alicia held that pen in her hand so tight she could hear the plastic break. "No, you made me switch to girls only." She saw Mouse giving her thumbs up, her job was done. But she wasn't done with Wes. "Look, this is pointless, we broke up years ago, do what ever the hell you need to do in Chicago and then get the fuck out, alright?"

Wes chuckled. "That's the thing, darling, I have some business here to do, so I thought we could… meet some time." Meet, yeah sure.

"No, Wes, we won't." She looked at Hank, who gave her a sign to keep going. "So, you still sell pills to students to keep them awake to party? Can't do anything better?"

As usual, he wasn't easy to provoke. He laughed and said, "See you around, Alicia. I guess since we live in the same city now, we might run into each other sooner or later." It sounded more like a threat than a suggestion. He was good at that.

But he gave her nothing so far! "Wes, wait!" But he had already hung up. She dropped the phone to the desk as if it was red-hot. Wes, wait? This bastard had made her say that after all. She was doing good in this conversation, but still he made her beg for him to wait. She felt like the anger was squeezing her lungs, making it hard to breathe.

"What an asshole", Mouse commented.

"He showed up at your house, and talked to Nadia?", Erin asked.

"Can we do this later?", Jay asked harshly, she could feel his hand on her shoulder. She ignored them all and looked at Voight. "Can I get some air?"

He gave her a reassuring smile. "Sure, of course. Take as long as you need."

Alicia basically fled out of the bullpen, running down the stairs and out of the building. The chill air was uncomfortable but made it easier to breathe. She shivered, asked an elder cop, who stood there smoking, for a cigarette and smoked it within a few minutes. It helped her calm down a little, but she still felt shaken up. She didn't want to go back in.

Jay came out the door, and she felt a sudden relief. He had her leather jacket and helped her into it. She thanked him with a cracking voice.

"I don't know what to say", he admitted.

"Then hold me."

Without hesitation, Jay wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths, taking in his scent.

"I'm not letting him hurt you", he mumbled against her hair.

"You can't promise me that."

"But I can promise to try everything to get that bastard as soon as possible."

After a bit of hesitation, she decided to keep her answer to herself and not say it out loud. You better hurry then, because if I get to him before you, I don't know what I'll do to him.