Grace & the Windy City (Chicago P.D)

Chapter 4- Eight Different Ways

Later in the week on a freezing Chicago morning, Grace left for school from Adam's apartment all bundled up. As she took a sip from her latte, she crossed the street and headed towards the L train station when a car came speeding right at her.

"Hey!" Grace ripped off her headphones and spun around, spilling her latte everywhere. "You kidding me?"

The driver lazily apologized and then drove off down the street. Grace chucked the now empty cup into a garbage can, then answered her buzzing phone.

"Hello?" she answered in a huf, "...no I'm ok...how can you tell?...Well, I almost got hit by a car just now...ok...yeah...yeah? I can whip something up by Friday...ok, see you then, bye."

"Voight," Bob Ruzek greeted the Sergeant. The two of them were meeting at an old-school Chicago pub in River West where Voight was already waiting for him. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm following up on the call from a while back. How have you been?"

Bob shrugged, "I'm doing alright. Would be nicer if the ex left the state, but..." he joked.

Voight gave him a friendly grin to make him think he was on his side. "I spoke to Grace recently. She's living with Adam for the time being, you know that?"

Bob nodded, "She's going through a teenage girl phase. It'll blow over."

"I don't think teenage girls tend to move out unless something is going on at home."

"What can I say, this divorce did a number on her and this is her way of taking her mother's side without having to move all the way out of Chicago."

Voight placed a bulky paper bag on the table and slid it towards Bob, who opened it up.

"What's this about?" he asked, defensively.

"Pay off your bills so you don't need to spend your nights babysitting a drug dealer. This has gone on long enough and I can see it going south about eight different ways. Get out, use the cash to fix whatever damage you made and be a good father."

"Stay out of it, Voight."

"You've got one chance to get ahead of this, Bob. Take it." Voight reminded him as he sat up and walked out, leaving Bob to consider the depth of what he was doing.

Towards the end of the day, Adam found some spare time after closing a case and printed off a series of documents on his father's private security clients. Since the summer there'd only been two, and one was a club owner like Grace suggested.

"Hey, boss." Adam nodded good evening to Voight as he walked to his office.

"Good work today Ruzek. Jay, I need your undercover report handed in by the end of shift."

"All done, Serg," he replied. "Molly's tonight?" he asked everyone.

Erin nodded. "I'm in."

Kev looked up from his computer. "I'll be there too. Ruz?"

"Uh..." he thought for a second as he looked over the documents, "I'm gonna rain check tonight. I think I'm staying home with Grace. Ah, there she is!"

Grace smiled in a sort of nervous-smug way as she walked up the stairs, with everyone's eyes on her. Adam got up and cleared his throat. "Hey, how was school?"

"Same old." she shrugged.

"This is Erin, Jay, Alvin, Antonio and Kevin. This is Grace."

"Nice to meet you guys." Grace said hi and was met with handshakes and welcoming smiles from the unit. Adam told them briefly what was going on with his family at the hotel crime scene a week prior, so they were all sensitive to what Grace was going through.

"I'm starving, shall we?" Adam asked Grace.

Adam opened his apartment door and let the two of them inside. He set a thick folder filled with documents down on the kitchen island.

"Have you spoken to dad lately?" Grace asked.

"I told him he had one week to get out of the job," Adam began. "That was 5 days ago and nothing."

"So what happens now?"

Adam shrugged, "He has til the weekend. After that...I'll have to roll on him for more details about this club owner, try to leave him out of the report."

Grace hung her coat up in the closet, "So it is a club owner he's working for?"

"Yeah didn't I tell you?" Adam asked, surprised.

"Not until five seconds ago," Grace said. "Why don't you just arrest the guy?"

"It's not an official police investigation yet, there's no evidence other than what you speculated."

"Can you start one?"

"Grace, you don't get it," Adam said in a stressed tone, "Once this goes down on paper it could ruin dad's career. I'm as angry about this as you are, but we need to give him a few more days. He'll come around. This is about money, not about you."

Grace looked defeated, "He said it would be over soon, I just hope he's right."

"When did he say that? Did he come around here?"

Grace shook her head, "He called when you were out late last weekend and told me he was in some hot water, but it would blow over soon enough. He was mad at me for telling you about what happened, can you believe that?"

"It's a waiting game at this point. This whole thing is hurting his pride, you know that," Adam scratched his head, not knowing what else to add. "Hey, your phone is going off."

Grace took it out of her jean pocket and checked her messages.

"Who's blowing up your phone?"

"Becca, she's going on about some party," she placed her phone down on the counter, the screen facing down. "Pizza time?"