Partners in Crime; A Jay Halstead Fanfic

What Could Have Been

"All right, so why didn't he get charged with intent to distribute" I ask. 

"Apparently his parents had pretty good lawyers" Kevin responded. 

"I ran through Blair's texts and calls. Mostly business, personal texts, but there is one that stands out as being a little strange. It was a conversation with a burner phone. Looks like Blair was trying to buy something. Blair to the burner, 'Will give you a good price.' The burner responds, 'Meet me 8 p.m. The Green Lounge'" Adam read aloud. 

"That sounds like a drug deal to me. Green Lounge, that's that bar outside Englewood, right" Antonio asked. 

"Yeah. Lots of drugs, lots of fights" Adam replied. 

"Roll on it" Voight said.

Kim and Adam went to the Green Lounge, and out back, they found a camera. After searching through footage, Hailey and Jay discovered that the man Blair was with got into a car that belonged to the First City Fellowship in Englewood, which was a church. When they got there, they found the car that was in the video, but when they got inside, they found Reverend Dennis bleeding out on the floor.

"There were four casings which means the shooter missed twice at close range. So he was not a professional" Jay informed us. 

"Hey, this guy Dennis? Are we sure that he's a legitimate reverend" Kim asked. 

"Yeah, he was ordained" Jay replied. 

"Well, Blair wasn't religious. So I have no idea why he was meeting with a reverend" Kim said. 

"Uh, ballistics came back as a match. 9mm that killed Blair killed Dennis too" Hailey stated. 

"Okay. Maybe he's a political donor. They were meeting to maybe talk about the election" Kim suggested. 

"Antonio and I ran that theory up the ladder. No one from Kelton's staff recognized the name" I say. 

"Did they know if Blair had any enemies" Jay asked. 

"None that stood out as anything more than political divides. I mean, all they said was Kelton is really pissed that he's way behind in the polls, that everyone was pretty much drowning in it. Except for Blair. He had been talking about a new opportunity he had, but no one knew what he meant by that" Antonio explained. 

"Guys, listen to this: if this brother's a man of God now, that was not always the case. He's got three drug charges. Full name: Dennis Reed, spent a decade of his life running drugs for the G Park Lords before he found the church" Kevin said. 

"Maybe it was never a full turn. Just faith as a front. A church is a good place to funnel money" Antonio said. 

"Maybe he's still dealing, he meets Blair somehow, they see a chance to make some money, do some business, a new opportunity. Then someone swoops in and kills them both to end the sale" Adam suggested. 

"All right, let's just take it step by step. First let's confirm that Dennis was still actually dealing. And search Blair's hotel. I mean, if these two were moving heavy product together, they were wearing damn good masks for the world. Let's peel them back" Voight said.

.............................................

Adam and Voight were currently investigating a lead, Antonio and Kim were dropping some things from Blair's hotel off at CPIC, and the rest of us were just sitting around the office. As I was making a fresh pot of coffee, Jay wrapped his arms around me from behind and placed a kiss on my neck.

"I missed you this morning" Jay said.

"Sorry. I promised Chloe and the kids that I would have breakfast with them sometime this week" I say.

"It's okay. I get it. They're you're family, so it's only fair that you spend some time with them" Jay said.

"So" I say and turn around to face Jay. "About that wedding question earlier."

"How about we talk about that later, after the case" Jay suggested.

"Sounds good. Oh, and can I just say that you look great today" I say.

Jay smiled and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him. "Like, on a scale from 1 to 10, how great" he asked.

"I'm going to go with 100" I say and lean up to place a quick kiss on his lips.

"Uh, guys? Sorry to interrupt" Hailey said. "But Voight and Ruzek got a lead. Some guy named Nate Lewis. We're going to go check him out."

"All right. Thanks for letting us know" I say.

At Nate Lewis' house, the team found some drugs. And in his car, they found a 9mm gun, which was the same type of gun that killed both Blair and Reverend Dennis. So, Voight and Jay were interviewing him. However, it seemed like Nate had nothing to do with anything, so we were at a dead end. Right now, it just looked like Blair was in a drug deal gone wrong.

"I know what this case looks like, but it's not about drugs. Blair's vice was politics. He won every campaign that he ever worked on and he was going to win this one too. He played hard, probably dirty. Now I'm thinking that the 20k that we found in his trunk probably had to do with something political" Kim explained. 

"Yeah, so the question is, what could Dennis know or have in his possession that was worth 20k to Blair" Voight asked. 

"Probably something to do with Price" Kim suggested. 

"Kim, I'm not trying to go against you here, but we dug into Dennis. We know he and Price knew each other, but we didn't find any questionable or illicit connections between them. We ran Dennis through Kelton's background, his campaign through Price's. Nothing hit" Antonio said. 

"What about his daughter, Jasmine? Blair was looking into her. He did a full background check" Kim mentioned. 

"All right, Blair was digging into Jasmine. Why don't we do some digging of our own? See if there's anything real there" Voight said.

..........................................

"Did you talk to Jasmine" Kim asked Voight. 

"I did. She admitted to dating Dennis for a few months. They partied more than they should have, but according to her, that's about it" Voight responded. 

"So we still don't know what Blair had on Jasmine or Ray that was so valuable" Hailey said. 

"If Blair found something, he found it doing opposition research, right? Let's do the same. Just focus on the two, three months Jasmine dated Dennis. But listen, we soft-shoe this, okay. Anybody asks, it's just for background. None of this goes in the report yet" Voight said.

We kept digging through all of the files we had, including social media posts. Finally, we found something. There was a girl Jasmine used to be friends with named Anna Welk. She overdosed on cocaine the same month Jasmine dropped out of college. We also found a video that showed Anna overdosing, and Jasmine was there with her. Instead of calling an ambulance, she called her father, Ray Price. Ray ended up confessing to the murders of Blair and Dennis, and he also admitted to planting evidence in Nate Lewis' car. Now, the case was over.

At our apartment, Jay and I sat down on the couch. There had been some things I wanted to discuss all day, and now was finally the time.

"So, the wedding question" I say.

"Right. The wedding question" Jay said.

"You told Chloe you didn't want to answer it" I say.

"Yeah, and for good reason. Look, Yn, I love you a lot. You mean the world to me. It's just, I like the way things are going right now. I don't want to mess anything up. Trust me, if I could, I'd propose to you right here and now, but it's not the right time. One day it will be though. I can promise you that" Jay said.

"I wasn't expecting you to propose soon anyways. Besides, I like the way things are going right now too" I say.

"Good. What do you say we order some Chinese food and watch a movie" Jay suggested.

"That sounds amazing. Lets do it" I say.