I Am Morgan

Chapter 29: Joyriding

"That was Lasky down at headquarters," Casey holds up his cell phone. "It looks like McLeod is making her final decision today about which house she's gonna close next."

"And?" We all look at him expectantly.

"He thinks it's between us and Firehouse 17." Casey tells us.

"Oh, man." Cruz breaths out. "This has got to be weighing pretty heavy on the Chief."

I just wanted to remind everyone, today is election day for the union presidency. Polls will be open all evening starting at 5:00 P.M, so I urge you all to exercise your right to vote, unless you plan on voting for Greg Sullivan, in which case, forget what I just said." Mouch declares.

Herrmann waves me over to sit at the round table next to the kitchen with him, Otis and to my dismay Dawson. "Listen," he says. "Otis and I have been going over this and going over this, and we think that we need to involve the cops at this point, you know, in an official capacity."

"I told you guys I'd take care of it. Antonio is--"

"Okay, no offense, but I feel like we need to go beyond Antonio at this point." interrupts Otis.

"Reach out to the higher-ups, get somebody with a little bit more juice." Herrmann explains.

"I think maybe you guys just might be overreacting a tiny bit." I speak up for the first time about this situation. "If we just stick to the plan and pay what he wants--"

"Overreacting?" Herrmann frowns, "says the who had glass shattered in her hair. Did you have something in your eye, or did you see Game Day explode into smithereens? Listen, if Arthur's willing to go that far with them, you don't think he would do the same to Molly's?"

"Has anyone seen Severide?" Shay walks into the room.

"No."

"Nope."

"No."

Chorus' around the room.

"So messed up," she rolls her eyes. "I had to take the bus here."

A man in an ugly brown suit enters the station and heads into Chiefs office, all of us staring after him until he emerges yet again and the four of us Molly's owners are taken into the briefing room with in.

He speaks to us about Game Day and the fire and the progress our bar is having compared to theirs.

"Wait," Herrmann stops him. "So you're saying we're suspects in this?"

"Unbelievable," I mutter at our luck. My luck. When it rains, it pours. Everything is going wrong right now.

"Is it?" Detective Helling asks. "An old bar goes up in flames, you three buy the place at a great discount, I'm sure, fix it up. Then Game Day comes along. Suddenly, business ain't so good. They call the cops on you. You call the fire marshal on them. That's what we call an escalation. From there--"

"Did we have a professional rivalry with Game Day? Absolutely." Herrmann admits. "But would we ever consider in a million years torching the place? Absolutely not! We're good 'salt of the earth' people. You ask anyone."

"Okay. Just wanted to let you know where we stand." the detective replies. "I'll come back with some follow-up questions if I have any."

"Hey, Clarke, have you seen Severide?" I ask him as I walk out the briefing room and see him walking past. Shay said he didn't give her a lift and I still haven't seen him. It's not in his nature to miss work.