Tony caught a flash of red hair rounding a corner just as he was about to give up looking for her. Leah, hold up! It's Tony!. He trotted after her and was relieved to find she'd waited for him.

he gave her a smile, but it did nothing to change the rigid set to her stance. Where're we headed?Shooting range. The words were clipped and she took off, angry strides moving her to her desired location.

Tony's long legs kept him alongside her easily. Mind if I join you?As long as you know how to keep your mouth shut.You know, you're going to have to talk about it sometime. He tried to keep a smile on his face, keep his part of the conversation light.

Her gaze slid over to him. I subscribe to the shoot first and ask questions later' philosophy.

Pinned with her icy gaze, so similar to Gibbs', he held up his hands in mock surrender and said nothing more.

They reached the range and silently prepared themselves to shoot. Leah spoke only when necessary to the supervisor running the range, asking if there was any possibility of using a Wesson .357 for practice. When the supervisor apologetically informed her that it was not permitted, she sighed disgustedly and requested the ammo for her Beretta. Tony watched as she expertly loaded clips for practice firing and pocketed them, then they moved to their assigned lanes.

Leah sighted down the target and cleared her mind of emotion. She began to shoot her target patterns, ones that she used to test her speed and accuracy. Squeeze, breathe, squeeze, breathe; she fell into the unconscious rhythm of target shooting, tension flowing out of her and down her gun barrel with each shot.

Tony shot several rounds into his target; his score had been steadily improving and he was working on distance. He glanced at Leah's target, amazed to find her shooting at the maximum distance. He stopped and watched her shots as she fired in some sort of complicated order at a steady pace. Finally he knew she had to stop, her magazine was empty. But there was only the barest pause as he heard the familiar sounds of the exchange of clips. Then she continued on with her steady fire, stopping after another dozen shots.

Belatedly, Tony locked and laid his gun down.

The targets were retrieved and he couldn't help but comment on the thoroughness of her bullet-ridden one.

It's what I do, Tony. She lifted one shoulder in acknowledgment of his admiration. One of my skills is pistol marksmanship. I have one of the highest ratings on the police force. I had one of the highest ratings here, too. In fact, that's part of what all this mess is about. If I had really been allowed to do my job, maybe the rest wouldn't have happened. She began to fold the paper target and looked up at him after a lengthy silence.

I'll wait for the whole story. Okay? Every time he learned something new about this woman he realized that no matter how drop dead gorgeous she was, she was way too much for him to handle. Something in the way she'd uttered her last few words made him think he was very glad not to have been part of whatever that case had been.

Shoot one round for scoring? The attendant's tinny voice crackled over the speaker.

Leah looked at Tony. You want to?Sure, what the hell. Tony picked up his weapon and changed clips, hearing Leah do the same next to him.

Holding his pistol, locked and loaded, pointed up and downrange he called, The word echoed from beside him and the response from the attendant came a moment later.

Unlock your weapons. Begin!

The command to cease fire was unnecessary as both had emptied their weapons before time had expired. Both placed the weapons down and reported clear and the attendant came out to check the targets for scoring.

Hey DiNozzo, pretty good, you're up another ten points! He moved over to Leah's target. While it would have been impressive to say she put all fifteen bullets through exactly the same hole, it wasn't quite that. There were 4 tightly packed bullet holes over the heart, and it appeared that all fifteen bullets had made their entrance through those holes. The fact that she did it at the maximum distance made it all the more impressive.

Detective Hecht, you could give some of our instructors lessons! Fabulous grouping!

Leah shrugged diffidently and the two gathered up their detritus, turning in their practice clips and unused ammo. She looked at the tall man next to her and said, Come on Tony, I can't put this off any longer. Let's go find Kate and that pain in my ass and get this over with.