Keeping It in the Family (Linstead)

Chapter 98

It had taken until the third night shift at the safe house for Halstead to do the unthinkable. He had sat down to have a conversation with Bayley Martinez, mainly just to have something different to do in order to break up the monotony. Meanwhile, Ruzek and Purrazzo were at the table in the kitchen, playing some kind of card game with each other.

"Got to thank you for this. Just how I wanted to spend my week," was Halstead's opener when he sat down on the couch next to Martinez, who turned off the TV that she hadn't been paying attention to in the first place. He expected a retort full of attitude, something like, 'None of us would be in this situation if it wasn't for you.' But that wasn't what happened.

"It's not the most fun I've had either," she said glumly.

"What's your problem? Since we got here, you've made a point of not giving us any attitude. It's totally out of character."

Martinez looked at him. "Have you ever reached a point in your life where you realise you're not happy with the way it's going?"

Halstead decided to go with it, since she seemed to at least be making an effort to be civil. "Yeah, I have. There was a period of a few years where I just lived. Didn't feel like I had a purpose, and I wasn't happy."

"What changed?"

He figured he might as well be honest. She wasn't an idiot, so he was sure she knew that the relationship she had seen between him and Lindsay while they had been undercover hadn't been faked. Things like that could be picked up on.

"Erin came back to Chicago," he replied.

"Yeah, I could tell you guys were together," Martinez said, immediately confirming his suspicions. "Love and companionship where what you lacked?"

Halstead realised that what she was actually saying was that she lacked those things, and that was why she was unhappy. "They're what you lack. That's what you're trying to say to me."

"They're what I did lack. When I went into witness protection, I was miserable. Lonely, living in a shitty house, doing a shitty job. I wanted my life back, and I wanted someone to share it with."

"And you engineered your way into getting your life back, as you put it. I'm still not sure how you managed that, but you've definitely pissed some nasty people off. That's why I'm sat here in this dump instead of at home with my family."

"Family? You guys have kids?" Martinez asked, reacting positively to the revelation.

"I'm not talking to you about my family. Seems to me there's something you wanted to say to me, so say it."

She sighed. "You don't have to be like that. I get that we've gone head to head, and you and everyone on your team doesn't like me. I only insisted on being an Intelligence asset to needle you all, as I'm sure you've figured out. But now, I'm not going to do that anymore. Since Kevin took on the assignment to be my handler, or whatever you call it, we've gotten close to each other."

I knew it, Halstead thought. Atwater had been sleeping with her, probably for some time. What surprised him a bit was that he felt kind of positive about the news, although with her fondness for mind games, he had to worry about his friend too.

"Kev's been through a lot in his life, Bayley. Don't play games with him. He's such a good guy, he deserves better than that."

Martinez looked away and sighed again. "That's fair enough, I know why you've said it. You're thinking, 'This bitch has her claws into him. She's going to manipulate him, chew him up, and spit him out.' But I'm not going to do that. Like I said to you before, I realised how much I needed some genuine happiness in my life. Kev provides that happiness, and I make him happy too. I'm not asking you to like me. I'm never going to like you either. But we can stop being enemies."