Keeping It in the Family (Linstead)

Chapter 109

"We'll take my car," Gonzalez said.

"Okay," Jay said easily, following her towards it.

Due to the covert nature of their work, the members of Intelligence were given a sizeable budget and a pretty free reign when it came to choosing their cars. For the past year or so Jay had been using a nice blue Lexus. He had chosen it as much with personal use in mind as professional. It was a perfect family saloon car. That also meant that it blended in well with the countless thousands of other family saloons that were out and about in Chicago every day, so it was good for covert use too.

Meanwhile, Gonzalez had a silver Ford Mustang. A powerful car like that was good for pursuit work, but not as covert as the Lexus, although he smiled when he thought that somehow she would manage to make running around the city naked look covert. It was funny to think of her as a six foot chameleon, but there was truth to it behind the humour. She had a natural talent for blending in that could not be taught, at least not to the extent that she was good at it. That was the main reason Lindsay thought of her as such an asset to the unit, despite the down sides and concerns that she also brought to the table.

"So, this isn't how I thought today would be starting," he commented once they were in the Mustang.

Gonzalez fired up the engine, which rewarded her with a throaty rumble. "You're telling me you didn't know ahead of time?" she asked doubtfully, looking at him for a second.

"I didn't," he said honestly. "Believe it or not, Er and I almost never talk about work when we're out of hours. Things work best for us that way. Although sometimes, like with the announcement today, a heads up would be nice."

"I see," she replied without much of a tone in her voice. She got the car moving, following Ruzek's Jeep out of the parking lot.

"How do you feel about Ruze getting the job as second?" Halstead asked.

"He was promised it before I joined the team, so who am I to argue? He's a good guy and a good cop, so I'm sure he'll do okay. Anyway, I don't think Lindsay sees me as a leader."

"Do you see yourself as a leader?" he countered, keeping his tone friendly.

She looked at him again, and he saw that she hadn't really thought about it that way before. She had probably figured that she should be considered for the position because of her seniority, but hadn't considered her suitability for it. "Maybe not," she admitted after a moment.

Halstead found the honesty admirable and reassuring. Honesty and trust were the two essential things for a partnership to work in policing, as essential as they were in a romantic relationship.

"Well, I'm looking forward to working with you," he said after a moment of silence between then. The silence had felt pretty awkward.

"Really? I feel like you wanted to get Burgess. I wanted to get Burgess. That girl is so good."

Halstead had to smile to himself. Not just honesty, but blunt honesty was on the table. That was fair enough as far as he was concerned. "Yeah, I was hoping I'd get Kim. But that doesn't change what I said. I am looking forward to you."

Gonzalez seemed to take that at face value. "Okay then. I'm looking forward to working with you too. Let's go see how someone managed to get their head caved in at a supermarket parking lot."

They travelled in silence for a minute or so. It was a slightly less awkward silence than the previous one.

"It's a funny old world, isn't it?" he said eventually. "I'm just thinking back to meeting you when Erin and I went under on the Martinez job. Remember saying to her, 'That bitch is not someone to mess with.'"

Gonzalez smiled. When she did it, rarely, it was a pretty smile. Halstead imagined it showed itself more when she was at home with Vega. He found himself thinking that he would like to get to know both of them a bit better on a personal level. They were just colleagues to him at the moment. Colleagues he liked, yes, but not friends. There was a difference.

"You were right, I'm not someone to mess with. I just happen to be on the same side as you. Although I will say this, what I've seen of Bayley since she came back with this whole deal to work as an asset of ours, she's changed. I think she's serious about wanting to make a happier life for herself. I don't dislike the woman on a personal level, which is what makes undercover work hard. She hates my guts now of course. I can live with that though."

"I get it," Halstead said sympathetically. Personally, he still considered Bayley Martinez a piece of trash and wouldn't have a problem telling herself to her face. But he could relate to getting close to people on a personal level on undercover jobs, only to have to reveal yourself as a snake in the grass when the operation came to a close and the subject was arrested. It was always a strange moment, with a feeling of satisfaction at a job well done, but also an unavoidable pang of guilt for the trust that had been broken with someone you had come to know quite well. In the Gonzalez/Martinez case, they had been together for years before the failed sting that had sent Martinez on the run. Thinking about that reminded him of something else. "Erin told me about that night she came home and found you in her house. You gave her a real fright. She never did figure out how you got in there either."

"I can get into most places," she replied with a cunning little smile on her face. "Anything that involves doing things on the quiet, moving in the shadows, that's what I'm good at."

Moving in the shadows came across as a pretty chilling way to put it. Not for the first time, he felt glad that they were indeed on the same side of the law. He decided that was enough of that. It was time to start focusing on the case at hand, since they were not much further from the supermarket they had been called out to. Cases like this were often tough to get started on. A body found by a presumably innocent member of the public and no witnesses on hand to report what had happened to the victim or who might have been responsible.

Before long, they pulled up at the police cordon at the entrance to the parking lot in question. Ahead of them, Ruzek was talking to one of uniforms out of his car window, telling them who they were and that they should be admitted to the crime scene.

Okay then, Raquel, let's see how you do some regular police work, Halstead thought.

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A/N: Thank you for all the comments and messages after the last chapter. I had a lot of guesses as to who Jay's partner was going to be, with some interesting reasoning. I figured since you guys convinced to keep the story going, the Intelligence side of things needed freshening up to keep it interesting. Giving Jay a very different partner to work with seemed like a good way to do that, and I think the reasoning for Erin to put him with Raquel and to put Kim with Deonna made a lot of sense.

And don't worry, we're still going to be getting plenty of Erin and Jay in this book. And while we're on Jay and Erin, I want to see some baby name suggestions from you guys! They have decided not to find out if they are having a boy or a girl ahead of time, so feel free to submit names for boys and girls. You never know, you might get lucky and have me prefer yours over what I already have in mind.