Keeping It in the Family (Linstead)

Chapter 27

"Adam," Kim said, urging him to settle down.

"Give it a bit of time, it'll be okay," Halstead said. With that, he left the office to head for the shooting range.

A few minutes later, Halstead entered the range equipped with his pistol and some ammunition, wearing the stupid safety glasses and ear defenders that they made people wear. He could never understand the point when safety glasses and ear defenders were obviously never used out in the field. But rules were rules, even when they were stupid.

There was an area for assault rifle practice, and an area for pistols. Halstead saw that the couple of people practicing with their pistols were men, so he walked down towards the assault rifle area. Sure enough, he found Purrazzo at one of the lanes.

Standing a few feet back for safety's sake, he stood and watched her work. Firing three round bursts, she was peppering the inner ring on the pop-up target's heads and hearts. Her groupings were so good that they ended up making large holes in the centre rings. On a range, it wasn't possible to shoot any better. He could have almost matched it, but not quite. It was safe to say that if she ever needed to make a shot while working a case, she would make. That was a large reason why she had edged out Amanda Rose for the Intelligence gig.

Eventually, Purrazzo ran out of ammo. When she was done, she made sure her gun was safe, then took off her ear defenders.

"Hey," Halstead said over the noise of other people's gunfire.

Purrazzo turned and smiled when she saw him. "Oh, hi. Didn't know I had an audience. Usually I charge for shooting lessons."

"Very funny," Halstead said dryly. "Those were good groupings though."

"Thanks. Are you going to have a go with that pistol?"

"Yeah," he replied. Suddenly, he felt a little under pressure. The woman he was mentoring was going to watch him do something that she was better at than him. He wanted to hit those centre rings like he never had before.

They proceeded down to where pistols were allowed to be used, and Halstead stepped into an empty lane.

"Good luck," Purrazzo said from a few feet behind him. There was a bit of smugness about it that Halstead didn't like. So long as the attitude was restricted to the shooting range, he supposed he would let it slide.

To his immense satisfaction, Halstead shot well. All but two of his shots found the centre rings.

"Not great, but not terrible," Purrazzo said after he took his ear defenders off.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied, only partially feigning grumpiness as he made his gun safe

"Don't worry, I won't mention it again. Do you know what we're doing today?"

"I don't. But Sergeant Lindsay is probably in by now. Let's go and see."

"I hope it's not watching that awful porn again. Think I saw my lifetime's worth of bondage yesterday," she grumbled.

Halstead stopped and looked at his partner with slightly raised eyebrows.

"I pissed you off, didn't I?" Purrazzo said regretfully. "Sorry, I was just trying to have a bit of fun."

"I'm not bothered about that. We can needle each other a bit, that's fine. It's what partners do. What needs to stop is the whining about what we have to do. Intelligence is like any other police work – sometimes the jobs you get given to do are shit. But regardless, we do what Sergeant Lindsay tells us, without complaint. Can I assume you don't have a problem with that?"