Chapter Three | To Be a Stranger


Imogen paced in front of the flatscreen TV. A muted old black and white western cast bright light and shadows around Jay's silent apartment. The diclofenac pills that Will and Dr. Rhodes had sent her home with took a bit of the edge off but pain was easier to deal with than her restlessness and the shaking in her hands.

Jay had only been gone a couple of hours. Pulling out her cellphone, Imogen began to scroll through her social media that she hadn't touched in five years. But it took only a couple of minutes before she shut it off again. With a frustrated shout, she threw it into the couch cushions. Her hands shook. Imogen shoved them into her pant pockets. She didn't want to see them. She'd seen enough of the shaking when she'd taken a shower.

Her stomach growled and she paused in her pacing. Focus on the sensation. Imogen closed her eyes and tried to imagine what she would've done five years ago if she had the pick of all Chicago for dinner. It had been simpler then. She'd never had to do undercover work longer than a couple of weeks. Those were like playing a high stakes game of Pretend.

Opening her eyes, she turned away from the silent TV and towards the kitchen. She didn't know what she wanted. Maybe Jay had something in his fridge that would be easy to make.

The stainless steel handle of his double door fridge cooled her sweating palm as she grabbed it. Imogen paused. She took a deep breath and then opened it. It was sorely understocked and besides, none of it looked appetizing except the bottles of beer in the right hand door.

Maybe he'd have more in the pantry. She shut the fridge, but the rest of the kitchen didn't have much else. Soon enough she found herself in the middle of a dimly lit kitchen, her abdomen burning and restlessness coursing through her.

She turned back to the fridge. She needed to eat something. But as she reached out to grab the door again, trying to convince herself that maybe she'd missed something inside, she noticed a business card stuck on the left door with a bit of tape. Molly's.

That sounded familiar. A quick Google search later and she realized why. She'd always steered clear of it while undercover as it was a bar frequented by First Responders. None of her contacts wanted to be ID'd and neither did she. Jeremy had always...

Imogen took a deep breath. Don't think about them. They hadn't been real friends. They'd been criminals. She slipped her cellphone back in her pocket and looked around the empty apartment. She needed to get out of here.

She abandoned the sling the hospital had sent her home with and instead slipped on one of Jay's sweatshirts. It fell a few inches too long but she didn't care. Imogen ignored the pain as she ordered an Uber and made her way back down to the street.

In her head, she ran down a list of the items on her body: cell phone and credit card, ceramic dagger in her right boot, and a couple hundred in twenties she'd had on her since the operation ended. She could feel the chilly breeze through Jay's sweatshirt but ignored it. Instead she focused on her surroundings.

To her right and across the street, a woman walked her two huskies at a brisk pace, joggers lined with reflective strips. They were coming closer. Neither the woman nor the dogs spared Imogen a glance. There were also fifteen empty parked cars in view, potentially more. One car still had its engine and lights on. Imogen tried her best not to let her imagination get away from her as she waited for the Uber.

A blue Corolla pulled up a couple of minutes later. Imogen checked the license plate against the app. Once she confirmed they matched, Imogen slipped inside. The driver, a middle aged woman with blonde hair and four freckles on her right cheek, turned around in her seat to say hello. Imogen smiled back.

By the time they reached Molly's, Imogen knew far more about her driver than she ever wanted to. The woman was Marie Beckerman, defense lawyer, who apparently drove for Uber on her way home from work not for the cash but the fulfilling experience. Imogen gave as little information back as possible and lied about most of it. She had no desire to be part of this woman's quest for good company through a rideshare app. Instead of Imogen Adler, detective, she was Sylvia Connors, sommelier, dating a medical student at Chicago Med. Hopefully Ms. Beckerman would have fun with that.

She shut the door with a pleasant smile and goodbye. While the Corolla drove off towards Wicker Park, Imogen turned away from the street. She'd been dropped off a few blocks down from Molly's to walk the rest of the way. Safer. Less traceable. Her hands stopped shaking.

Pedestrians, cars, and even a couple of cyclists passed her by as she walked to Molly's. She looked at them, wondering what was going through their minds. What lives did they lead? Her arm hurt like hell. But she ignored all the pain in favor of studying everything else.

Molly's looked nice enough. As she passed the side, she looked up at the windows above her head splashing warm light out onto the street. A few more feet and she could see inside through windows closer to the ground. It looked busy. That would make it easier to slip in.

The door had been made of some kind of mahogany or oak wood, carved with great care. It fit in well with the older stonework around it. She took a deep breath, winced at her ribs, and then went inside.

Crowd noise hit her like a wave. There had to be at least thirty people, many of them at tables along the right hand side. The bar itself lined the left, manned by an older gentleman with a muted plaid button down shirt. He leaned across the polished wooden bar, chatting to a couple of other guys sipping at beer. One was Latino, bald and heavier, the other, slightly paler with nearly black, scruffy hair.

Imogen liked the place. She couldn't help but smile at the massive Blackhawks banner along the right wall. There was a lot of Blackhawks merch around, and as she turned to look left, a flatscreen TV rolled highlights of the latest game, a Hawks and Blues matchup. Normalcy.

"Hey there! Welcome!"

She turned away from the hockey game and realized the bartender was looking at her, along with his two friends. Imogen flashed him a polite smile, balling her hands into fists inside the pockets of Jay's sweatshirt to keep them from shaking. Part of her longed to play this like another undercover op. A short one, just for the night. But she liked this place and if Jay frequented, she figured it would be a bad call to lie from day one to these people.

"Don't think I've seen you round here before," he said. The man walked towards her behind the bar. "I'm Christopher Herrmann."

"Adler. Imogen," she corrected. Imogen looked around at the fairy lights hanging above and the warm wooden interior. She liked it. "It's a nice place."

Herrmann broke into a wide smile. "Yeah, thanks! Firehouse 51's proud of it. How'd you find it?"

"A friend told me about it. It's been awhile since I've been to Chicago," she said. "I don't think this was here last time. What can you tell me about it?"

She hoped this Herrmann would ignore her mention of her "friend" in favor of talking up his bar. She'd guessed correctly. It didn't take long before she got the whole history of how he and a couple other firefighters including the black haired man she'd seen him talking to earlier, Otis apparently, had bought it after a fire and restored it. In the years since it had become a gathering place for cops, firefighters, and medical personnel from around the city.

No wonder Jay had their business card on his fridge.

"So, what's your friend?"

Imogen looked up at him over the pop she'd been sipping. Couldn't risk alcohol after hospital meds, unfortunately. She frowned. "Pardon?"

"Cop, firefighter, or medical?"

"Cop."

Herrmann grinned. He had started cleaning glasses while Otis tended bar. "You one too?"

For a moment, Imogen wrestled with her answer. It irritated her more than she wanted to admit that he'd figured it out. She was better than that. She'd spent six months undercover in a crime syndicate. How had she already lost her touch?"

"How did you know?"

He refilled her drink. "Only people I know who give their last names first are first responders or soldiers."

Even when the person didn't know her name, her name still gave her away. Imogen silently cursed herself. But she just smiled and offered a small laugh, hoping he'd believe that and not see past it to her frustration.

Imogen nodded. "Ten years in law enforcement," she said.

Her phone buzzed. Imogen apologized to Herrmann as she pulled it from her pocket. Text from Jay asking for an update. She typed back a quick "doing okay" before turning back to the bartender. But another text came in.

"Two word answers make me nervous."

"I'm fine, I swear. Get back to work, Jay."

"Voight's got me doing paperwork right now. Not much to work on."

"Don't whine. I'd take paperwork over waiting to be let back on the force any day."

"Everything good?" said Herrmann.

Imogen looked up from her phone. He watched her closely as he dried the last of the beer glasses. She took a deep breath through her nose, trying to ignore the pain that shot through her side, and nodded.

"Yeah. It's just my friend."

"Where are you visiting from?" he said.

Imogen shook her head. She took another drink and tried to think of what to say. "I just moved back here. I was working in DC for a while."

Kind of true. True enough for the time being with everything classified and nothing she wanted to revisit with a random bartender. Before Herrmann could say anything else, though, he was called away to help another set of customers. Otis had his hands full.

She turned her attention back to the TV. The Blackhawks highlights had ended, replaced by a Canucks-Kings game. Imogen focused on them. Hockey had gotten her through a lot, both before the deep cover operations and during them. She still remembered going with a group, Jay included, to a Hawks game while still a patrolman. Some sort of benefit night. That had been one of the best days of her life.

By the second intermission, the bar had emptied out. Only about twenty people had hung around. She checked her phone. Nearly 1am. She'd not gotten any more texts from Jay and Herrmann had been busy cleaning. The pain in her arm radiated from the sewn up bullet wound all the way down to her fingertips and across her shoulder to her sternum.

Tossing two twenties onto the bar to cover the appetizers and pop, plus a generous tip, Imogen bid Herrmann a quick goodnight and called another Uber. He told her not to be a stranger. An interesting choice of words. Imogen wondered what that even meant to herself, a stranger in her own body these days.

Thankfully, the Uber driver on the way back didn't insist on talking. By the time she'd been dropped off a few houses down from Jay's, she just wanted painkillers and sleep. Exhaustion crashed over her. She practically fell onto Jay's couch, ice packs for her arm and ribs, and NHL Network muted on the TV.