The Good and the Bad

Shouldn't Have Been Alone

Chapter Fifty

*~*~*~*

"Can I park before you throw yourself out of the car?" Antonio scoffed as he turned off his car before climbing out, rushing to keep up with Scout as she moved towards the house. It had been just an hour earlier that the pair had been called in, alerted to the fact that Burgess had been shot on duty while doing house calls with Roman and a K-9 officer.

"Do it quicker and sure," Scout pursed her lips as she made her way into the house, her eyes scanning over the older home without truly taking much in. "Voight!"

"Good, you're here." Voight nodded at the detectives as he made his way down the hall.

"Yeah," a frown pulled at Scout's lips, her eyes narrowing at her sergeant. "Mind sharing why we weren't called in earlier? One of our own was shot, Sarge. Isn't that all hands-on deck?"

"Your kids were held at gunpoint, Keltner." Voight turned on his heel to look at the woman. "Be happy that I gave you a couple of hours."

"Okay," Antonio cut in, not putting it past his girlfriend to start a fight in the middle of a crime scene. "Heard the place was rigged with traps?"

"Yeah, bomb unit did a sweep of the place. Back door was linked to an improvised napalm grenade," Voight shared as they heard footsteps coming up behind them. All of them looking at Erin in surprise, the woman having shared the news of her new assignment to the team just hours earlier.

"I thought you were officially detailed to task force," Antonio commented.

"I pushed it a day," Erin shrugged before eyeing the gun resting beside her on a mount. "Shooter was waiting for her here."

"There was no shooter," Voight shook his head.

"No shooter? Who pulled the trigger?" Antonio asked the obvious question.

"The buzzer was rigged to the trigger of the gun. Burgess depresses the button..." Voight explained.

"So our killer is what, some kind of brilliant tech whiz?" Erin frowned at the set up.

"No so sure if they're brilliant." Scout pursed her lips as she eyed the gun beside her.

"So, what? You'd be able to set this up?" Erin arched a brow at the other woman.

"Doesn't seem too hard. I mean, have you seen what's out on the internet nowadays? I could learn to rig a gun to the doorbell, build a bomb, lace food or clothing with various toxins, and a dozen other felonies with a simple internet search." Scout spoke casually, her words only causing the other three to look at her with looks of disbelief-- even the tech that was still processing the doorway.

"How is it possible that your house hasn't been raided by the police?" Erin questioned.

"Easy. Use the free internet at coffee shops," Scout flashed a large grin. Voight only shook his head at the woman before he headed back outside, Erin following just behind him. The Keltner woman's brows furrowed slightly as she looked back at her boyfriend. Only then seeming to notice the look disbelief shining in his eyes. "What?"

"After all this is over, you and I are gonna have a chat about the dos and don'ts of using the internet." He patted her on the shoulder.

*~*~*~*

"Positive ID on our victim in the tub-- Luther Markov, seventy-three years old. Retired Dean of Psychology at Central Chicago University." Antonio announced to the rest of the team the next morning. Markov's photo already resting on the whiteboard alongside pictures from the scene. "He's divorced. Family isn't local. Nothing in his background. He was a model citizen."