Guide Her

Made a Wrong Turn

*District 21: Break Room*

Ana and Hank appeared in the doorway and found Erin with her head in the freezer. The Detective pulled out a frozen water bottle and held it to her throat as she turned around. The heat was at an all time high in Chicago so the younger woman wasn't surprised to see that the brunette had her hair pulled back for once.

What did slightly shock her, however, was that Ana wasn't wearing her usual leather jacket. She was just in a black t-shirt and jeans with both of her arms fully on display. If the female Sergeant were anywhere else, she would've never taken off said article of clothing.

But on the upper floor of 21, Ana was surrounded by only the Intelligence team and she knew they would never judge her or stare for long periods of time. Even then, everyone knew the jacket was just inside the Office, lying on the arm of the couch, waiting for it's owner to duck in and grab it should Trudy appear at the top of the stairs with anyone else.

"A/C went out in my building last night." Erin explained with a sigh. "It's like Dante's Inferno in there."

"Yeah, which circle of Hell?" Hank asked, jokingly.

"All of them." She chuckled, softly.

"How are things?" Ana wondered, gazing at her warmly.

"Great." Erin shrugged, moving to leave the room.

The brunette moved out of the way and shared a look with her husband before following after. She caught sight of Alvin messing with A/C unit, over by the window, and merely shook her head with a small smile.

"Okay, who's up?" Hank inquired, pausing just behind his wife who stood by the whiteboard.

"All right, Nathan Ward, 24 years old. He's an engineering student. His fiancée, Sarah Murphy, also 24. She's a special needs teacher in Northbrook." Adam informed, pointing to pictures on the board as Antonio stood up from his desk and crossed his arms. "Now, they have no priors, no convictions, no arrests. Between the two of them, they don't even have a moving violation." He listed, crossing his arms as well.

"We put out a missing persons alert for Sarah. In the meantime, Kot signed off on the emergency order for her cell phone, so Mouse is trying to ping it right now." Jay spoke up from where he was sitting on his desk.

"What about the car's GPS?" Ana wondered,

"That's gonna be a while. The guy at the tech lab was bitching about lack of manpower. I'm gonna stay on him." He assured.

"But what if it wasn't a carjacking?" Kevin chimed in from his desk. "I mean, maybe they just wanted to score. The car was three blocks away from 290. . .that's the heroin highway."

"Yeah, but dealers don't assault their customers." Antonio pointed out. "Suburbanites are their bread and butter."

"Yeah, and we didn't find any drugs or paraphenalia in the car." Jay added.

"Paraphernalia." Antonio corrected, stressing the third syllable and looking down at his notepad. "There's an R in there. A lot of people miss it."

"Okay, Hooked on Phonics. You want to step outside?" The younger Detective joked.

"Let's go." The elder agreed, getting snickers from everyone.

A certain Commander chose that moment to appear at the top of the stairs and ruin everything,

"60. 60!" Emma yelled, while Ana immediately rushed inside the Office and threw her jacket on over her shoulders. "That's how many shootings we've had this week. 12 of them fatal. I'm not gonna worry about political correctness here or my own convictions. What we have is a white woman missing in the heart of the black ghetto. We're gonna assume the worst: she's been abducted. Do what you need to do to find her. Just do it carefully." She instructed while pacing up and down the center aisle. "Chicago already has enough of a PR nightmare."