Composition in Black and White (part two) 1/
Title: Composition in Black and White (Part Two)
Characters/Pairings: Neal, Mozzie, June, Peter/El, Diana, Jones, Ruiz, Hughes
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing, off screen violence, angst, drama, amnesia, artistic license, bending of realistic time frames.
Disclaimer: Anything recognizable belongs to Jeff Eastin.
Word Count: 46,000~ (part 2)
Spoilers: Canon compliant up until 3x08 - As You Were. I tried to keep up, but then they overtook me. Sadness. Everything else can be forgotten, please. As hard as that may be. Set in the future, some 4 months shy of the end of Neal’s parole.
Summary: A painting is stolen from a private gallery down town, but that’s not all going on in New York White Collar. Peter is being toyed with, Neal is leverage, Jones is caught in the crossfire; and that’s just the beginning. Some things are connected, some are not; but before Diana can figure it all out, it all takes a turn for the worse and Mozzie might wind up being the only one who can save the day.
AN: Anything recognizable belongs to Jeff Eastin. Hopefully this wraps up all those damn plot lines I opened in part one. J I’ve been trying to get it all together, so I do hope you like it. Once again massive thanks to Aruna7 for the wonderful art. <3
xxx
SF
COMPOSITION IN BLACK AND WHITE (PART ONE)
Previously in part one: The red light swapped to green and Peter turned his gaze back to the road as he pumped the gas, focused in that moment on the road in front of him long enough to miss the black SUV speeding through the red light to his right until, with a grinding shriek of metal it connected with the rear of the Taurus. Peter’s head slammed sideways as the SUV drove forward and everything was wiped from his brain except the screaming of metal and the shouts of Neal and Jones and the momentum of the Taurus, forced sideways into the intersection by the SUV. It seemed to take an age before everything went still, and when it did, it was like nothing was moving at all.
Not even to breathe.
*** PART TWO***
The A&E at Lenox Hill was like a war zone even before Peter had reached a bed to be examined. There had been beeping and stretches of muted nothing tempered by the rise of fall of voices and the pounding of shoes on lino that was loud enough to send the thrumming pulse in his head into overdrive and his own mounting frustration through the roof.
Neal was gone.
Peter had a concussion, and a nasty one at that; Jones had three cracked ribs, heavy bruising and a fractured ulna, radius and collarbone and from what the pair of them could piece together from their own mitigated memories Neal had a gun shoved in his face and told to get out of the car.
It had been simple, it had been effective and it left them all clueless as to why it even happened.
And that was by far worse than the steady pounding in his head and the vacant ache through the rest of him lulled out by painkillers and the quiet calm of their private room. They knew nothing, and Peter wasn’t allowed within ten feet of doing anything to change that until he was discharged from the hospital and spent 24 hours at home.
And he was the lucky one. Jones was going to be laid up for at least a week before they even thought about releasing him, which left Diana on her own to face the onslaught of Neal’s abduction and the massacre their case had become.
Neal Caffrey, at that point, was considered a kidnapped asset to the Bureau. But there was a significant chance - some four months three days shy of the end of his parole - that that particular status could change.
And there was nothing Peter could do about it. Not yet.
Not when he was stuck in a hospital bed with his wife sitting by his side trying not to reach out and hold his hand for reassurance again. For all Elizabeth’s strength, things like this shook the foundations and he was happy to reassure her. He was fine, he was being kept for observation and the scratches on his hands and face would disappear in no time at all. His aching muscles would ease over the next few days and without any time at all he’d bear no evidence anything had even happened.
That was reassurance for Elizabeth. Peter wanted the reassurance Neal Caffrey was still alive. Not even Mozzie could give it to him.
And he made sure Mozzie didn’t know any more than he did. Or any less.
But as sure and as threatening and frustrated as he could be in a hospital gown with his wife in the doorway of his room staring him down every time he made a move to stand up, there was only so much he could do. Only so much he could be, and everything he was so used to doing, Hughes had banned him from for 24 hours.
The first 24 hours were critical and there was nothing Peter could do except two phone calls and a three-minute conversation between El and the paranoid little man Neal trusted indefinitely.
“Tell me you’ve found something,” Peter all but begged the small man, clutching the phone to his ear with a desperation that felt alien to him. If three years ago someone had told him that the level of trust he’d gain between Neal’s behind the scenes genius and himself, he would have laughed them into Medicare fraud.
“No can do, Suit, ” Mozzie said, sounding anxious. “Give me a few hours and let me get back to you.”
And there was nothing Peter could do but let Mozzie hang up on him. There was nothing Peter could do to stop the paranoid conman from doing whatever it was that he did, breaking as many laws in the process as he could find. But there was also nothing that Peter could do to help and the whole situation had his stomach in knots.
Peter wrangled his phone off El again half an hour later with a little help from a medicated Jones, who was just as concerned - if not quite as vocal - about finding out what the hell had happened as Peter was. But Diana had nothing; she had the bullpen on high alert and there was very little coming through. They were still working the scene of the crash. But apparently Kimberly Rice had a task force of her own being set up downstairs and she’d call if they found anything. But two hours later it was only Mozzie’s two minute phone call from an untraceable number that rang out and it was only to tell him he had nothing.
Stone cold nothing.
Peter knew in those moments, as his own concern mounted, that he should have stepped as far back from the case as he could. That was, after all, what Hughes had been trying to do by banning him; but all it took was a glimpse of his wife, sitting at his right with a stony look of calm on her face like she knew exactly what he was thinking, and she trusted him to fix it. He knew in that moment that regardless of whether Hughes even let him back into the office, there was no damn chance he was going to sit around staring at cold cases while Neal Caffrey was still missing.
No chance in hell.
***
When Mozzie had given in to Neal’s whimsical sense of caution and taken June out of New York and deposited her safely out of harms way right in the middle of Chicago, he’d tossed up more than once whether Neal was finally starting to crack.
He’d known his friend was under pressure more than ever, but it did little to console his guilt when he and June were interrupted at afternoon tea by a frantic call from one Elizabeth Burke.
Neal was missing.
Or, rather, Neal had been taken. Forcibly snatched. In that moment, all of Mozzie’s paranoia sang in chorus, but as he looked up across the table at June and saw her anxious expression the singing ceased. Neal was gone.
And he’d known something was wrong, and the bastard had sent both of them out of harm’s way.
He’d used June to get Mozzie out of town.
For a brief moment, Mozzie was pissed, but then it hit him once again.
Neal was gone. Missing. Taken.
“I need to go,” he said, trying not to sound terse as he looked back at June.
The older woman looked pale. Mozzie didn’t know how much she’d overheard, but either way, he didn’t want her going back to New York. Not when Neal had conned him of all people to ensure she was safely out of the way.
“Is he alright?” June prompted and for a moment, Mozzie floundered.
“He will be,” he said, hoping she’d settle for that and leave it be.
Mozzie didn’t know what concerned him more, that Neal had conned him or that June let him lie to her.
He knew she’d find out later. Whether she forced him to tell her or whether she called Elizabeth Burke herself, either way, it wouldn’t lie still.
But that didn’t stop Mozzie from kissing her on the cheek and running off back to New York and it didn’t stop June from trying to stop him, either.
Mozzie had lived with a sense of foreboding long enough that he tried to take it with a pinch of salt as often as he could. Unless he had reason to let himself be irrational and give in. Then he would. And he often did.
He liked the way different people reacted differently to something that made them uncomfortable. How they reacted to someone behaving in a way that made them uncomfortable. It was a fantastic way of discerning how much he could get away with around them.
Neal was usually unreservedly giving when it came to anything that came out of Mozzie’s mouth. No matter what it was, he always entertained what Mozzie had said, regardless of whether or not he agreed with it.
But that didn’t mean he’d give in to it. No, all it meant was that he’d listen and he’d say something, possibly pretend to agree and then be completely stupid anyway.
Of all the grifters Mozzie had met over the years, no one had ever been quite as passionately stupid as Neal. Or quite as often. It was one of the reasons it had made Neal so great, he gave in to the stupid ideas, and matched with the kid’s irrefutable skills and damn brilliant luck, it usually came good more times than it didn’t. It had, over the years, lead them into several instances of no return that had shook even their most structured of foundations. But they’d come good.
That was the main thing.
This time, Mozzie wasn’t so sure.
He’d known Neal over a decade and he thought he’d seen everything that could possibly happen to him. Neal had been arrested. He’d fallen in love. He’d fallen out of love. He’d been in and out of prison, more often than Mozzie wanted to keep count any more. He’d been framed and exonerated. He’d befriended a fed, he worked for the government. He’d been shot and saved and hung out to dry. He’d done so damn much and come through it all.
He’d even gone missing before. Wilkes had gone in for payback, but Neal had come through even that.
That fantastical luck of his.
But this time, this time Mozzie’s foreboding sense of caution had gone off the rails and for the first time in his life, he was suddenly terrifyingly certain that this may be the first time Neal might not make it out.
It was a terrifying thought that had kept him awake and twitching the entire flight home. He’d never been so anxious in his life and the sources had never been so quiet.
Or, rather, quiet in all the wrong ways.
The underground was awash with people whispering. All of it about Neal.
About the FBI’s conman getting nabbed so publically, so violently and the inescapable whispers that he’d had it coming for years now.
It had made Mozzie’s skin crawl.
But there was nothing he could do but keep his ear to the ground and pray.
The Suit was adamant, determined and frustrated on his end. Mozzie could understand the anxiety about being able to do nothing. He wasn’t chained to a hospital bed or under the glare of Mrs Suit; he was doing his hardest to find something, and he was still getting nowhere.
But the worst thing was, it didn’t even have anything to do with Keller and no one else seemed to know anyone who would want to send both Peter Burke and Neal Caffrey little white cards with numbers on them.
Not that Mozzie could pretend even to himself that this had anything to do with Keller anymore. When Neal had mentioned it Keller had been a reasonable bet. It made sense. Keller and Neal couldn’t sit still, always prodding at each other until the other one struck out and Keller had struck out more than his fair share in the last few years. While Neal had been certain it wasn’t Keller sending the notes, Mozzie hadn’t been so sure.
Now he was.
After what had happened to Neal, he knew for certain.
Keller wasn’t an exhibitionist. Well, he was. But not in the way that meant taking Neal the way they had. Keller was the type to leave threats. To force Neal’s hand, because he knew that would work. If Keller had wanted Neal, all he need have said was ‘you for her’ and pointed at June and Neal would have disappeared in an instant.
Especially when he would have done the exact same thing.
But this just wasn’t Keller’s style. This felt like a message. The only thing was, Mozzie still wasn’t sure who the message was for quite yet.
But that seemed like the key. If he knew who it was for, then he’d have an angle to play at. To look at. To press until it gave. If it was for Peter they had an angle to play with. Neal was just leverage. If the message was for Neal, well, there was nothing to do except find him, and fast, because there would be no other way to get him back in one piece. Let alone alive.
He just had to figure it out. Find the angle and apply pressure until it buckled and gave him everything he wanted.
And he would press until they gave everything they had.
He’d give everything he had, if it meant getting Neal back.
He wasn’t going to lose him this close to the end of his parole. This close to freedom.
***
Neal was gone.
Peter’s memory was patchy, coming in stops and starts. Morse code in the screech of metal and the shatter of glass, the echoing shouts from Jones and Neal. The groan of tyres and the painful resonating silence that followed right up until there was the sound of the car door behind Jones being forced open and a short sharp barking voice that melted all together and made no sense to Peter, but seemed to make a lot of sense to Jones who started shouting and twisting in his seat, and most of all to Neal, who painfully pried himself out of the car.
But not before glancing at Peter.
Peter couldn’t remember if he saw the car before it careened into them, but he remembered the look on Neal’s face as he was pulled the last of the way out of the broken Taurus and disappeared.
The scene melted into darkness and Peter blinked himself awake.
The hospital was still awash with quiet noise and far away lights that were still close enough to illuminate the open doorway. The bed creaked as Peter awkwardly tried to turn over and winced as his shoulder protested. He could hear the rush of cars outside and the quiet snore of Jones’ heavily medicated sleep.
But all he could think about was the sounds still reverberating in his head, the sound of the car door being pried open, Jones’ muted shouting and then that last searing look as Neal had looked at Peter as he was dragged away.
How had he forgotten that look?
Peter sighed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His whole body ached and a part of him relished the feeling, knowing what he had been through and how much he could have lost.
But at the same time it was a constant reminder of what was missing.
They were all here for one reason - someone had wanted Neal.
And it made no sense.
The gallery job had nothing to do with Neal. The forgery itself had been good, Neal had said so - it was the aging that had made it easy to pick. But they’d solved that. It was the reason behind one forgery and one theft that still eluded them.
But that had nothing to do with the letters. Or had it?
Not that the letters made much sense either. They made even less sense than taking Neal for his skills. If that had been the reason, causing a car accident wasn’t really the best cause of action if they wanted to make him work afterwards.
At least with the letters there was already a sense of unease about them. It had been keeping Peter awake all week. But it was confusing at best. There had been two letters, one and two respectively. If they had been marks then surely his would be first.
He was number one.
But then, Neal had been followed. Peter hadn’t noticed a tail, and he’d kept a weather eye out ever since Neal had mentioned his. It made no sense that the threats would count up, but then count down again. Especially if it was just him and Neal.
There wasn’t enough that they’d done that could lead to something like this. Not that he could think of. This was personal, and he still couldn’t figure out whether it was personal for him or Neal.
Nothing seemed straightforward.
And it was driving him nuts.
And hurting his people.
And there was nothing he could do but lay up and wait it out until he was allowed to do something, either. That was worse. There was nothing he could do until the day after tomorrow.
Nothing authorized at least. Diana had come around after she’d finished up at the office to give them a run down of what she’d found. But there was a massive difference between being the one in charge, the one leading the investigation, knowing everything when it was found out, as it was found out, instead of being laid up and getting a run down over things you couldn’t control that heavily affected people you cared about.
He’d promised both Reese and Elizabeth that he would sit back for 24 hours after his release, but then he was back on the case and he was going to figure this all out if it was the last case he worked.
***
Mozzie had contacts. He knew Rusty, who knew Kelko, who knew Marco in Queens who swore that some bloke in aviators had come around asking for hired muscle a week and a half ago and after a tense forty five minutes, it ended up being a completely useless lead.
Which was something new.
Usually his contacts paid up. Usually someone somewhere was willing to talk, for a fifty here, a Franklin there or God forbid the promise of a favor somewhere else. Over the years Mozzie had built up a collection of well to do’s, people of illicit nature with a soft spot for the right sort of question.
This time he couldn’t seem to ask the right question because no one was paying up. No one had word on why a bunch of heavyset thugs would drive through an intersection, take out two feds and kidnap Neal Caffrey. No one was talking.
There were plenty of whispers, and none of them favorable. A lot of them made Mozzie want to smash something which wasn’t an urge he had felt very often in his life and one he didn’t like in the slightest. What he didn’t like more, was his best friend missing and hurt and the fact no one was talking about it except to keep the story going and make their own opinions known without actually having to face up to it.
Because while the underbelly could be cold, they were also well versed in this type of thing. Neal had been taken. Kidnapped. Abducted. And unless Neal was a magician, there was little chance he was coming back, regardless of what the feds did.
When that sort of effort was made, the victim wasn’t found unless it was meant to be that way and the knowledge was climbing up and down Mozzie’s spine like a spider or the hand of God.
And it wasn’t like Neal lacked the skills to escape. He knew how to take care of himself; he was smart. He was the best pick pocket this side of the equator. He had nimble fingers and a light touch. He could pick next to anything and he could do it all talking nine to the dozen and charming everything in a three foot radius. Mozzie had seen Neal do some amazing things over the years. Some stupid boneheaded things that seemed to work out, too; but as the day dawned, some fourteen hours after his best friend was dragged out of Peter Burke’s smashed car, Mozzie’s hope was starting to dwindle, and it was that fact that terrified him. In all the years that Mozzie had known Neal, he’d never once given up on him, thought that the kid wouldn’t come good - and that was after four years in Supermax. That was after his boneheaded escape going after Kate. That was after his deal with the feds and his strangely beneficial relationship with the Suit.
After everything, Mozzie felt the cold hand of doubt take hold as he watched the sun rise over the car yard as he stared down at the bent-in-half Taurus. The early morning light glinting off shredded metal and broken glass; illuminating the horrifying dark stains in the backseat of the smashed in Ford.
And Mozzie’s phone remained painfully silent.
***
Diana had made her last stop by the hospital at ten when she’d left the office; it had been nearly eleven by the time she’d made it home. By the time she’d escaped the hospital, Elizabeth was glad to be seeing the back of her. Peter had been growling. Poor Jones had thankfully been knocked out on the good stuff for the last half hour before she’d been able to make her escape and the attending nurses were wearing frowns that seemed to have set permanently into their faces. But for all their grumbling annoyance about their situation, there was nothing that Peter or Jones could discern that she hadn’t already and no look the hospital staff could give her or Peter that the pair of them couldn’t return.
The evidence had been there, as simple and straightforward and completely as unhelpful as it could be.
They had been driving back from the scene, when Peter had put his foot on the gas to take them through the intersection, where they only made it half way across before a black SUV ran the light and drove into them with the force of a freight train, pushing the Taurus across the intersection and nearly bending it in two. Peter had been lucky to escape the way he had. Jones had been a miracle.
There was nothing they could say about Neal.
Jones had been the last one to see their consultant and at the very least, Jones had assured her - and Peter, time and again - that Neal had left the car wreckage himself. He’d been standing.
They’d got into a black sedan and that was it. There was nothing else he could give. No one else at the scene could give any hints to license plates. The cameras within range were useless and grainy and at just the wrong angle to give anything more than what Jones had already told them and a terrifying view of the crash.
She had the probies searching for better footage. Registration numbers for black European made sedans in the New York area. For links to Neal, rumours from fellow CI’s that the time had come for Burke’s golden boy to be picked from the tree.
Rice had her people downstairs running through their intel, checking for anyone they knew who might be capable of something like Caffrey’s abduction was currently residing in the city. Diana had Morrison going through Mandy Brenner’s financials, trying to trace back the money she’d received for her part beyond anything than yet another shell company. Fenley was running task with Forensics and seeing what possible information they could get out of Luccson’s hideout and the abandoned SUV used to take out the Taurus. Blake was keeping tabs on the notes, trying to follow the couriers lead just that little further than Peter had managed. Diana had as many bases covered as she could think of, but it was exhausting. It had been an exhausting night, and she had followed it by coming in early; she’d been there since seven, the facts had been revolving around her head again and again to the point where she’d given up on sleep around five and there had been no other place for her to go.
She had no idea how anyone else in the unit had slept. How Peter had slept. Or Elizabeth.
Hell, even Mozzie.
Peter had passed along the small man’s number but she hadn’t even had to call him, a conspicuously Mozzie like text had come through the afternoon before and another one at eight that morning.
Even Mozzie had nothing and was making her restless.
When Peter had been abducted two years ago her blood had been pounding and she’d had something to focus on. She’d known the protocol and she’d forced herself calm. She’d been forced to take care of Neal and that had been enough to keep her well occupied. This was proficiently more violent, more dangerous. This wasn’t about a game between Neal Caffrey and an old backgammon partner who had been cornered by his current predicament and his ominous history. This time they didn’t have a suspect yet. They had no motive, no hint or history or anything except the very real knowledge that whoever had Neal was ready to use as much force as necessary to get to him, and they had no qualms about other people getting in the way. It had been the Taurus and the sheer luck of the impact that had saved Peter and Jones’ lives, not the instruction of the guys driving the car.
This was a very different situation and she was having a hard time looking at it as objectively as she’d like.
But the first move after any use of brute force during an active case was to check for any possible hints that their suspect would go to any sort of length to get the case stopped, or at least postponed and theirs had their mysterious benefactor hanging overhead. It made sense, but Diana knew that her anxiety about finding a man who simply couldn’t be found, was all due to the seriousness of the situation at hand. Normally she’d take up the challenge, but her boss was in the hospital, so was Jones, and Neal Caffrey - the fourth wheel, was damn well gone and given the nature of his abduction he was hurt too.
Her team had been pulled apart by the stitches and she was in charge of getting it all put back together again and a small part of her was panicking. Was breathing hard and rocking back and forth in the forefront of her mind, constantly reliving the sight that had confronted her just hours ago. The screaming of onlookers and the echoing space of a moment where she just didn’t breathe at all as she stared at the Taurus, nearly bent in half. Glass crunching underneath her boots as she ran from her own car towards the wreck. The whole scene had smelt like burnt rubber and car fuel, her heart had been pounding, pounding, pounding in her ears as she’d run forward, shouting something - anything - and then she’d stopped outside the car and Peter’s face had been -
Diana stopped herself, forcibly making herself take a deep breath in and relaxing her grip on the coffee pot.
Peter was fine.
Jones was fine.
Neal was -
“Diana! Black sedan, European make - they took Caffrey.” Jones’ face was scrunched up in pain. Diana reached for her phone.
“Agent Berrigan?” Diana jumped as Blake tentatively called her name. She turned and nodded towards the young agent.
“Yes Blake?”
“This just arrived.” He held up an evidence bag. He looked uneasy, like he was scared of her. A lot of the probies were. But Blake had been with them for a good three years now, surely he had to know better. He wasn’t even a Probie anymore. All the same, he looked a little wary as he held up the evidence bag. She suspected Neal had been planting lies about her in the young agents heads and cultivating them over months, if not years. He’d enjoy that. In a small way, she enjoyed the idea of it too.
That small reflective thought disappeared immediately as she focused on the small piece of white card clutched in Blake’s fingers. Even from where she was standing, Diana could make out the single word typed out on the front.
Three.
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Pass that here.” She reached out to take the note off Blake and she stared at it for a moment before she looked back up at the junior agent.
“It was addressed to Agent Burke,” Blake said quietly. Diana nodded.
“Blake, I want you to bring up a list of every case Agent Burke has closed. Look for anything involving suspects with prior links to Neal or Luccson. Or any of Luccson’s associates. Anything that looks promising, I don’t care how obscure. Look for anyone who has ever made any sort of threat towards Peter or the Bureau. Any connection to using notes or threats ahead of time. Find anything, I don’t care how long the list is, we can narrow it down from there. Go.”
Blake nodded and was off even before Diana had a chance to glance back at her coffee mug. Not that she needed it any more.
Right then, she had to talk to Hughes.
If this had something to do with the notes, Neal might not be the only one in danger.
***
Peter didn’t take well to the third note arriving. It had been addressed to him, and when Diana had turned up at the hospital and held it out to him, his whole expression had darkened. Given their circumstances, she hadn’t expected it to be possible.
“Find me a doctor, Diana. Do whatever you have to get me signed out. I don’t care if it’s AMA, I’m coming back to the bureau with you.”
Diana nodded. She had sort of been expecting it the entire drive over and Hughes had simply sighed when she’d mentioned showing it to Peter. Yesterday, 24 hours had been compulsory leave at the very least, now they both knew there would be no stopping Peter.
“You can deal with Elizabeth, Peter. I’m having nothing to do with that conversation.”
“Good choice,” Jones called from his bed across the room, he didn’t sound quite lucid, but given the state of him, it was fair enough.
“That woman’s just as scary as my Grandma, and no one messed with Grandma,” Jones murmured, slurring over his words. He was half asleep and medicated out of his mind, but Diana couldn’t help but grin.
“I’ll be back,” she said, bowing out just as Peter started climbing out of bed and reaching for his bag of clothes. Diana was surprised to find them there. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Elizabeth had taken them with her when she’d left. But then again, Elizabeth had been married to Peter for almost fifteen years, she probably knew him better than anyone, and nearly everyone knew Peter wasn’t going to let this lie. That was even before the third note had shown up.
But with it, this became a hell of a lot more calculated. With the third note and it’s circumstances, it made the arrival of the first two all the more important. From the looks of it, considering when they arrived the notes actually did have something to do with their missing Kandinsky’s. Not that there was anything extenuating to prove it. All they had was the basis that the first note had arrived Tuesday morning; hours after the heist had taken place; the second after they’d hauled Mandy Brenner in for questioning and the third after Neal’s abduction. They weren’t concrete points along the timeline, but they were enough for Hughes, and enough for Diana. The whole thing was a mess and they needed to figure it out and fast. Neal didn’t have very long. Given the circumstances of his abduction, he was hurt and without attention… Diana didn’t even want to think about it.
Walking out into the hallway she moved down to the nurses’ station and leant on the table.
“I need everything that’s required to get Peter Burke released right now, consent forms, AMA, whatever is necessary. Right now.”
***
When they got back to the Bureau, Peter found himself a little overwhelmed for just a second as he walked through the glass doors and into mayhem. The bullpen was alive with movement. The desks on both sides of the room were stacked high with files, phones were ringing, agents leading back and forth between their desks and the coffee machine. Hughes was in the conference room with Blake and Agent Rice and with Diana right behind him; Peter made a beeline for the three of them, if a little slower than he’d like, his muscles stiff and sore.
But if the bullpen was busy and dramatic, the conference room was a step in the other direction but not in any way less resolute. It was quiet and somber, but there were no less files surrounding Blake, and the look of determination on Hughes’ face as he and Rice stared down at a shared file was palpable.
“Sir,” Peter said as he entered, Diana still right behind him. The three of them turned their attention straight to him and Peter could feel their eyes on the bruise down his face. He couldn’t blame them; he’d stared at it himself as he’d dressed back at the hospital. It was impressive and he understood why the pounding in his head was so pronounced, even with his share of painkillers. All the same, it was irrelevant. The bruise was what he had escaped with. Their attackers had escaped with Neal. Neal was more important than the state of his face.
“Jesus, Burke, you look horrendous,” Rice said and behind him Peter felt Diana bristle.
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind for my modeling shoot next week. What’s everyone doing to find my CI?”
Peter knew he was out of line, a little too gruff, a little too demanding. Especially given the state of the office.
“Now, now, Burke, we’ve got this under control.”
“If we had this under control, Caffrey would be back by now.”
Or he wouldn’t have been taken at all.
Involuntarily, Hughes’ words from Monday morning echoed in Peter’s ears.
“Unless Forensics can find something Peter, there’s nothing more we can do. The courier lead went nowhere. As unsettling as it is, all we can do is wait it out. ”
Unless Forensics found something. There had been nothing to find, because nothing had unfolded yet. Step one hadn’t yet been called in.
But now, now they were three steps in and three steps behind and he’d be damned if they were going to get any further. Not when they’d lost Neal already.
“So what are we doing to get him back?”
***
Clinton had never been very good at staying still. When he was a kid his grandmother had to stay home to take care of him when he was ill because otherwise he simply wouldn’t stay in bed. He’d never taken to it well and as Day Two started to bleed back into focus he felt the niggling anxiety step in. Peter had been gone four hours; Clinton had slept for most of it. But now he was awake, he was uncomfortable and his whole side ached in this pulsing continuum and the worst part of it all was knowing how useless he had suddenly become. Each breath came with a jarring wince across his chest and already his arm itched under the plaster cast on his arm. Six weeks before they could entertain the possibility of having it removed. It was all laid on thick and his brain felt wooly and useless.
He was channel surfing like a pro when he heard someone’s footsteps cease in the doorway and when he glanced over he met the gaze of Elizabeth Burke. Her expression wasn’t tight or annoyed as he thought when he followed it over to Peter’s empty bed.
“He’s not here.”
“I know,” she said, turning her attention to Clinton and walking over.
“He called me while Diana drove him back to the bureau.”
“Ah,” Clinton said, nodding and eyeing her.
“Why are you here? Can I ask?” he said, hurriedly. His slight embarrassment seemed mute when Elizabeth laughed at him lightly.
“I came to see you.”
“Me?”
“Yes you.”
“Any particular reason?”
“No. Just thought you could use the entertainment,” she said, sounding offhand, but Clinton understood her perfectly.
“I don’t know what they’re doing,” he said, somberly. Elizabeth nodded and Clinton’s realization jolted. She wasn’t here to find anything out; she was here because he couldn’t.
She was sneaky.
“I know, it’s not a pleasant feeling, Agent Jones,” she said with a tight smile, like she knew he now understood.
“There’s plenty unpleasant feelings on my plate at the moment, Mrs Burke. One more can’t hurt.”
“Does it?”
Did it?
“Not quite yet. Maybe later, when I’ve used up all my visitation cards.”
“Does your arm?” she asked, softly. Clinton fixed his gaze on her. She was looking at him arm, the cast resting against his chest, there was the edge of mottled bruising sneaking up from between his shirt and his neck and he knew she’d seen that too. Perhaps she was here for more than just comforting him in the wake of being useless.
“The cast is the worst of it where that’s concerned. It itches. It’s the rest of me that’s the problem otherwise,” he said, his voice light, but all the same, Elizabeth reached out to smooth the corner of his blanket.
“He was alive when they took him, wasn’t he?” she asked and Clinton sighed. He nodded.
“He was. They got him out of the car and all I remember is that he was standing.”
“Do you think he’s alright?”
“I think Peter will bring him back,” Clinton said, determined. He knew he hadn’t answered her question and he knew so did she.
All the same it was answer enough for the pair of them. It was answer enough that he could give.
“I’m glad you’re all right Clinton,” she said, looking up at him, reaching out to hold his hand and gently squeezing it.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said softly, squeezing back.
***
June had never really given up her old contacts; many of them went back too far to give up on each other now. Especially when most of them were her age or older still. Mostly quite a few of them were simply good old friends. But with them all there was an old camaraderie they maintained and honored, and - like her - they all had some contacts with the young ones as well, protégé’s or the occasional straggler in need of a little guidance they kept in their own little black books. Neal was hers and a unique breed, being a well rounded young rebel merely picking the wrong (or perhaps the right) woman to shine his smile at. She’d been a mark, until he’d realized that he’d become the mark instead and hadn’t even realized it. He’d doffed her husband’s hat then and bowed down to her, still wearing that cheeky grin and it had been more than enough. He’d been living upstairs ever since and the boy had become more than just a link to that old world, he’d become family and that made this much more personal as she let the waiter boy push her chair in. The restaurant was crowded and the chatter was dull and unimportant.
Mathias was always late, it had been a part of his charm twenty years ago and it was something the man hadn’t lost. Nor had he lost a single strand of hair on his head. It was salt and pepper and his eyes still had that sparkle, all but destroying the otherwise brutal expression his face seemed to settle into when he wasn’t smiling.
“Well, well, Ms June,” he said as he approached the table, pausing to take her hand and kiss it briefly. He’d always been a smooth talker, most of Byron’s friends had been. He’d also refused to call her anything but Ms June since they’d met. The joke had always been he was in denial she was already taken, but the joke had melted away when Byron had died if the name never had. He’d never tried anything on her; he hadn’t when her husband was alive and he hadn’t since Byron passed and that was regardless of whether or not June had known about Marie and the kids. But the rules had always been family was family and it stayed out of the way.
Except when it couldn’t.
“Mathias,” she greeted, watching him as he settled into the chair opposite her. His hair was slicked back and the cufflinks and rings on his fingers glinted in the restaurant lighting.
“How you been, Ms June?” he asked, fixing her with his sharpest gaze. He always gave her all of his attention, he always had. But that didn’t mean he didn’t know exactly what was going on around him at all times.
He always had a grasp on the bigger picture. It was why she called him. Why she knew if anyone could come though, it would be him.
“No good, dear. A dear friend of mine was taken, just the other day, Mathias. I would like him returned to me. I was hoping you could help.”
Mathias’ mouth tightened just a bit and June settled back in her chair.
“Well how about you pay for lunch, Ms June and I’ll see what I can do about getting that boy back to you.”
June nodded.
“Thank you, old friend,” she murmured, hoping that he couldn’t see the knot of anxiety that was still twisted in her gut.
She just wanted him home.
Was that too much to ask?
***
In those first few hours of restless searching he spent back at the bureau, Peter became very aware of just how competent his team was, and not just the immediate agents like Diana and the group of probies they had around the place. It went further than them, much further. The clerks and assistants not only put up with his short temper, but they were also efficient and intuitive and Peter had never really been prouder to work with them all, which was astounding, even to him, or rather - especially to him, given their closure rate anyway. But that was Neal’s influence. No matter what Peter could say about his motives Neal had the ability to make everyone feel involved, make them feel special. He made friends everywhere he went and he had a memory on him that never ceased to astound Peter. He knew everyone’s names in the office, their kids, their partners and hell, even anniversaries and birthdays. He no longer restricted his attentions just to Peter and the team, but he kept his net broad and cared for his catch and it seemed, in turn, they cared back.
Neal had spent the last few years really settling in. There had just been this point where Peter had been sure that he’d cornered Neal and Mozzie. There had been a rumor of a painting lost for a hundred years turning up in Manhattan and he’d been sure that he had them. It hadn’t been a painting off the manifest, but in the end, even the Manet had turned out to be a forgery and Neal had just looked at him like he knew Peter had suspected him and he’d just taken his hat off and put it in the bottom drawer and there it had stayed. It had felt like a chess move, especially when the hats stopped coming to the bureau. The vintage suits didn’t change, but there were no hats and no leads and Neal had just seemed so grounded that Peter had stopped looking. They’d never really talked about the sentiment. Elizabeth, however, had talked to Neal quietly one day and that night, once Neal had gone home and they were in bed, Peter looking over case files and El reading another book - his wife had simply started speaking. She didn’t look up from her book, and her voice remained quiet and controlled.
“He wants to stay, Peter,” she’d said. “He doesn’t want to run. He wants to stay.”
And that had been that.
Peter had forced himself to stop, then. Forced himself to accept Neal’s words to his wife for what they were.
He didn’t have any proof the treasure still existed except the inkling feeling Neal’s words had an underlying message he’d used Elizabeth as a conduit to deliberately avoid, but Peter was also certain that Neal wasn’t going anywhere. He was comfortable in the life Peter had offered him and that had swelled a balloon of pride in Peter’s chest that he couldn’t pop.
Not at least until they’d started working a case involving a break and enter involving a Matisse that seemed to escalate before the day was out into a kidnapping and then a horrifying moment of uncertainty. Peter had ended that day pacing up and down the corridor at Bellevue Hospital and raging at himself.
Neal had chosen to stay, and it had almost got him killed.
And now, while the clock was counting down to the end of Neal’s parole, fate had taken another stab at the kid and hadn’t missed.
And now, now there was more to do than pacing up and down a corridor, but all the same he felt just as helpless now as he did then. The difference was, this time, he had something to do, an aim instead of just leaking time and hope. But this time, while there were dozens of people actively looking for Neal, wearing away hours and hours of false leads and their own time, hope was thin and fading and time kept ticking away, like grains of sand falling between his fingers and all he could hear was the pounding in his chest and the screeching cries of metal and rubber as the SUV connected with his car.
Peter shook himself, sitting up straight and trying to quietly quell the shakes tingling down his fingers.
So this was how Neal had felt, after Kate died. After he almost did.
Peter closed his eyes for a moment and took a long deep breath in, his hands flat on his desk.
Calm.
Controlled.
That’s what he needed to be in order to get this done right. Get Neal back to them, but he was currently having a hard sight getting there.
He was so lost in his head that he jumped when he heard Diana’s soft knocking on his open door. He looked up and frowned at the look of concern on her face.
“Anything new?” he asked and her look turned to a sigh. She had a folder in one hand.
“You sure you should be here, Boss?” she asked quietly. Peter leant back in his chair. It had been hours since she’d picked him up from the hospital, and that question had been lingering on her lips all afternoon. He’d seen in more than once, in the frown of her lips, the crease in her brow, the narrowing of her eyes, the hesitancy on her tongue. It had been there, but it was only now, she asked.
“I have to be,” he said and she nodded, standing tall and squaring her shoulders. It was all she needed.
“Fenley came through. He’s been going through security camera’s facing the street in the surrounding mile radius and found the SUV driving past a technology hub two blocks away. They were running a full high definition security camera out their front window as a display model. They picked this up off the footage.” She set the folder down on Peter’s desk in front of him and he opened it. Inside was a series of photographs of a man’s profile, he had a sharp jaw and a army razor cut and a dark tattoo climbing up his neck from under his jacket that despite the good quality video, was distorted by the distance.
“Forensics are trying to clean it up and get a better look at the tattoo, but based on their calculations from the intersection tapes, he’s about 6”1. We got a reasonable look at him when he got out of the SUV. We’re running the picture through the identification database, but I doubt we’ll get a hit soon. It’s more than likely he’s got a record, but it’ll still be a miracle.”
“One we can’t rely on. That’s good work, Di, let me know if they get anything else.”
Peter glanced idly up at her but couldn’t hold it. She was peering down at him oddly and he was having a hard time not staring at the photographs. He couldn’t remember him at all. Even from his dream, there was nothing. It was just the crash itself, nothing after. Nothing - at least - beyond that searing look from Neal.
“Has Blake found anything?”
“He’s looking. We’re looking.”
“Make sure he looks at anything where Neal and I were involved. Focus on anyone who’s been released recently. Anyone with violent connections.”
“We’re looking, Peter. We’re looking through everything. If it’s there, we’ll find it.”
Diana’s voice had all the conviction the statement needed, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes as he looked up at her, and he knew that she understood. This was hard on all of them and he knew he was forgetting he wasn’t the only one who cared. Everyone did.
How selfish.
Peter sighed and leant forward, rubbing his eyes. It was dark outside and the whole place was lit up artificially, glaring and bright and he was tired. Bone weary and sore. They’d been here for hours. Pouring over statements and possible leads and endless dead ends and they were getting nowhere.
He looked up at Diana.
“You should go home, Di, get some sleep.”
She smiled, tapping the folder on the desk.
“You doing the same thing, Boss?” she asked and Peter sighed again, glancing down at the bull pen. There were still agents down there, working through it all. There would be all night through.
“Yeah, yeah I am,” he said quietly, turning his gaze on the smiling photo of Elizabeth sitting on his desk.
“I’m right behind you.”
***
Next
Characters/Pairings: Neal, Mozzie, June, Peter/El, Diana, Jones, Ruiz, Hughes
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing, off screen violence, angst, drama, amnesia, artistic license, bending of realistic time frames.
Disclaimer: Anything recognizable belongs to Jeff Eastin.
Word Count: 46,000~ (part 2)
Spoilers: Canon compliant up until 3x08 - As You Were. I tried to keep up, but then they overtook me. Sadness. Everything else can be forgotten, please. As hard as that may be. Set in the future, some 4 months shy of the end of Neal’s parole.
Summary: A painting is stolen from a private gallery down town, but that’s not all going on in New York White Collar. Peter is being toyed with, Neal is leverage, Jones is caught in the crossfire; and that’s just the beginning. Some things are connected, some are not; but before Diana can figure it all out, it all takes a turn for the worse and Mozzie might wind up being the only one who can save the day.
AN: Anything recognizable belongs to Jeff Eastin. Hopefully this wraps up all those damn plot lines I opened in part one. J I’ve been trying to get it all together, so I do hope you like it. Once again massive thanks to Aruna7 for the wonderful art. <3
xxx
SF
COMPOSITION IN BLACK AND WHITE (PART ONE)
Previously in part one: The red light swapped to green and Peter turned his gaze back to the road as he pumped the gas, focused in that moment on the road in front of him long enough to miss the black SUV speeding through the red light to his right until, with a grinding shriek of metal it connected with the rear of the Taurus. Peter’s head slammed sideways as the SUV drove forward and everything was wiped from his brain except the screaming of metal and the shouts of Neal and Jones and the momentum of the Taurus, forced sideways into the intersection by the SUV. It seemed to take an age before everything went still, and when it did, it was like nothing was moving at all.
Not even to breathe.
*** PART TWO***
The A&E at Lenox Hill was like a war zone even before Peter had reached a bed to be examined. There had been beeping and stretches of muted nothing tempered by the rise of fall of voices and the pounding of shoes on lino that was loud enough to send the thrumming pulse in his head into overdrive and his own mounting frustration through the roof.
Neal was gone.
Peter had a concussion, and a nasty one at that; Jones had three cracked ribs, heavy bruising and a fractured ulna, radius and collarbone and from what the pair of them could piece together from their own mitigated memories Neal had a gun shoved in his face and told to get out of the car.
It had been simple, it had been effective and it left them all clueless as to why it even happened.
And that was by far worse than the steady pounding in his head and the vacant ache through the rest of him lulled out by painkillers and the quiet calm of their private room. They knew nothing, and Peter wasn’t allowed within ten feet of doing anything to change that until he was discharged from the hospital and spent 24 hours at home.
And he was the lucky one. Jones was going to be laid up for at least a week before they even thought about releasing him, which left Diana on her own to face the onslaught of Neal’s abduction and the massacre their case had become.
Neal Caffrey, at that point, was considered a kidnapped asset to the Bureau. But there was a significant chance - some four months three days shy of the end of his parole - that that particular status could change.
And there was nothing Peter could do about it. Not yet.
Not when he was stuck in a hospital bed with his wife sitting by his side trying not to reach out and hold his hand for reassurance again. For all Elizabeth’s strength, things like this shook the foundations and he was happy to reassure her. He was fine, he was being kept for observation and the scratches on his hands and face would disappear in no time at all. His aching muscles would ease over the next few days and without any time at all he’d bear no evidence anything had even happened.
That was reassurance for Elizabeth. Peter wanted the reassurance Neal Caffrey was still alive. Not even Mozzie could give it to him.
And he made sure Mozzie didn’t know any more than he did. Or any less.
But as sure and as threatening and frustrated as he could be in a hospital gown with his wife in the doorway of his room staring him down every time he made a move to stand up, there was only so much he could do. Only so much he could be, and everything he was so used to doing, Hughes had banned him from for 24 hours.
The first 24 hours were critical and there was nothing Peter could do except two phone calls and a three-minute conversation between El and the paranoid little man Neal trusted indefinitely.
“Tell me you’ve found something,” Peter all but begged the small man, clutching the phone to his ear with a desperation that felt alien to him. If three years ago someone had told him that the level of trust he’d gain between Neal’s behind the scenes genius and himself, he would have laughed them into Medicare fraud.
“No can do, Suit, ” Mozzie said, sounding anxious. “Give me a few hours and let me get back to you.”
And there was nothing Peter could do but let Mozzie hang up on him. There was nothing Peter could do to stop the paranoid conman from doing whatever it was that he did, breaking as many laws in the process as he could find. But there was also nothing that Peter could do to help and the whole situation had his stomach in knots.
Peter wrangled his phone off El again half an hour later with a little help from a medicated Jones, who was just as concerned - if not quite as vocal - about finding out what the hell had happened as Peter was. But Diana had nothing; she had the bullpen on high alert and there was very little coming through. They were still working the scene of the crash. But apparently Kimberly Rice had a task force of her own being set up downstairs and she’d call if they found anything. But two hours later it was only Mozzie’s two minute phone call from an untraceable number that rang out and it was only to tell him he had nothing.
Stone cold nothing.
Peter knew in those moments, as his own concern mounted, that he should have stepped as far back from the case as he could. That was, after all, what Hughes had been trying to do by banning him; but all it took was a glimpse of his wife, sitting at his right with a stony look of calm on her face like she knew exactly what he was thinking, and she trusted him to fix it. He knew in that moment that regardless of whether Hughes even let him back into the office, there was no damn chance he was going to sit around staring at cold cases while Neal Caffrey was still missing.
No chance in hell.
***
When Mozzie had given in to Neal’s whimsical sense of caution and taken June out of New York and deposited her safely out of harms way right in the middle of Chicago, he’d tossed up more than once whether Neal was finally starting to crack.
He’d known his friend was under pressure more than ever, but it did little to console his guilt when he and June were interrupted at afternoon tea by a frantic call from one Elizabeth Burke.
Neal was missing.
Or, rather, Neal had been taken. Forcibly snatched. In that moment, all of Mozzie’s paranoia sang in chorus, but as he looked up across the table at June and saw her anxious expression the singing ceased. Neal was gone.
And he’d known something was wrong, and the bastard had sent both of them out of harm’s way.
He’d used June to get Mozzie out of town.
For a brief moment, Mozzie was pissed, but then it hit him once again.
Neal was gone. Missing. Taken.
“I need to go,” he said, trying not to sound terse as he looked back at June.
The older woman looked pale. Mozzie didn’t know how much she’d overheard, but either way, he didn’t want her going back to New York. Not when Neal had conned him of all people to ensure she was safely out of the way.
“Is he alright?” June prompted and for a moment, Mozzie floundered.
“He will be,” he said, hoping she’d settle for that and leave it be.
Mozzie didn’t know what concerned him more, that Neal had conned him or that June let him lie to her.
He knew she’d find out later. Whether she forced him to tell her or whether she called Elizabeth Burke herself, either way, it wouldn’t lie still.
But that didn’t stop Mozzie from kissing her on the cheek and running off back to New York and it didn’t stop June from trying to stop him, either.
Mozzie had lived with a sense of foreboding long enough that he tried to take it with a pinch of salt as often as he could. Unless he had reason to let himself be irrational and give in. Then he would. And he often did.
He liked the way different people reacted differently to something that made them uncomfortable. How they reacted to someone behaving in a way that made them uncomfortable. It was a fantastic way of discerning how much he could get away with around them.
Neal was usually unreservedly giving when it came to anything that came out of Mozzie’s mouth. No matter what it was, he always entertained what Mozzie had said, regardless of whether or not he agreed with it.
But that didn’t mean he’d give in to it. No, all it meant was that he’d listen and he’d say something, possibly pretend to agree and then be completely stupid anyway.
Of all the grifters Mozzie had met over the years, no one had ever been quite as passionately stupid as Neal. Or quite as often. It was one of the reasons it had made Neal so great, he gave in to the stupid ideas, and matched with the kid’s irrefutable skills and damn brilliant luck, it usually came good more times than it didn’t. It had, over the years, lead them into several instances of no return that had shook even their most structured of foundations. But they’d come good.
That was the main thing.
This time, Mozzie wasn’t so sure.
He’d known Neal over a decade and he thought he’d seen everything that could possibly happen to him. Neal had been arrested. He’d fallen in love. He’d fallen out of love. He’d been in and out of prison, more often than Mozzie wanted to keep count any more. He’d been framed and exonerated. He’d befriended a fed, he worked for the government. He’d been shot and saved and hung out to dry. He’d done so damn much and come through it all.
He’d even gone missing before. Wilkes had gone in for payback, but Neal had come through even that.
That fantastical luck of his.
But this time, this time Mozzie’s foreboding sense of caution had gone off the rails and for the first time in his life, he was suddenly terrifyingly certain that this may be the first time Neal might not make it out.
It was a terrifying thought that had kept him awake and twitching the entire flight home. He’d never been so anxious in his life and the sources had never been so quiet.
Or, rather, quiet in all the wrong ways.
The underground was awash with people whispering. All of it about Neal.
About the FBI’s conman getting nabbed so publically, so violently and the inescapable whispers that he’d had it coming for years now.
It had made Mozzie’s skin crawl.
But there was nothing he could do but keep his ear to the ground and pray.
The Suit was adamant, determined and frustrated on his end. Mozzie could understand the anxiety about being able to do nothing. He wasn’t chained to a hospital bed or under the glare of Mrs Suit; he was doing his hardest to find something, and he was still getting nowhere.
But the worst thing was, it didn’t even have anything to do with Keller and no one else seemed to know anyone who would want to send both Peter Burke and Neal Caffrey little white cards with numbers on them.
Not that Mozzie could pretend even to himself that this had anything to do with Keller anymore. When Neal had mentioned it Keller had been a reasonable bet. It made sense. Keller and Neal couldn’t sit still, always prodding at each other until the other one struck out and Keller had struck out more than his fair share in the last few years. While Neal had been certain it wasn’t Keller sending the notes, Mozzie hadn’t been so sure.
Now he was.
After what had happened to Neal, he knew for certain.
Keller wasn’t an exhibitionist. Well, he was. But not in the way that meant taking Neal the way they had. Keller was the type to leave threats. To force Neal’s hand, because he knew that would work. If Keller had wanted Neal, all he need have said was ‘you for her’ and pointed at June and Neal would have disappeared in an instant.
Especially when he would have done the exact same thing.
But this just wasn’t Keller’s style. This felt like a message. The only thing was, Mozzie still wasn’t sure who the message was for quite yet.
But that seemed like the key. If he knew who it was for, then he’d have an angle to play at. To look at. To press until it gave. If it was for Peter they had an angle to play with. Neal was just leverage. If the message was for Neal, well, there was nothing to do except find him, and fast, because there would be no other way to get him back in one piece. Let alone alive.
He just had to figure it out. Find the angle and apply pressure until it buckled and gave him everything he wanted.
And he would press until they gave everything they had.
He’d give everything he had, if it meant getting Neal back.
He wasn’t going to lose him this close to the end of his parole. This close to freedom.
***
Neal was gone.
Peter’s memory was patchy, coming in stops and starts. Morse code in the screech of metal and the shatter of glass, the echoing shouts from Jones and Neal. The groan of tyres and the painful resonating silence that followed right up until there was the sound of the car door behind Jones being forced open and a short sharp barking voice that melted all together and made no sense to Peter, but seemed to make a lot of sense to Jones who started shouting and twisting in his seat, and most of all to Neal, who painfully pried himself out of the car.
But not before glancing at Peter.
Peter couldn’t remember if he saw the car before it careened into them, but he remembered the look on Neal’s face as he was pulled the last of the way out of the broken Taurus and disappeared.
The scene melted into darkness and Peter blinked himself awake.
The hospital was still awash with quiet noise and far away lights that were still close enough to illuminate the open doorway. The bed creaked as Peter awkwardly tried to turn over and winced as his shoulder protested. He could hear the rush of cars outside and the quiet snore of Jones’ heavily medicated sleep.
But all he could think about was the sounds still reverberating in his head, the sound of the car door being pried open, Jones’ muted shouting and then that last searing look as Neal had looked at Peter as he was dragged away.
How had he forgotten that look?
Peter sighed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His whole body ached and a part of him relished the feeling, knowing what he had been through and how much he could have lost.
But at the same time it was a constant reminder of what was missing.
They were all here for one reason - someone had wanted Neal.
And it made no sense.
The gallery job had nothing to do with Neal. The forgery itself had been good, Neal had said so - it was the aging that had made it easy to pick. But they’d solved that. It was the reason behind one forgery and one theft that still eluded them.
But that had nothing to do with the letters. Or had it?
Not that the letters made much sense either. They made even less sense than taking Neal for his skills. If that had been the reason, causing a car accident wasn’t really the best cause of action if they wanted to make him work afterwards.
At least with the letters there was already a sense of unease about them. It had been keeping Peter awake all week. But it was confusing at best. There had been two letters, one and two respectively. If they had been marks then surely his would be first.
He was number one.
But then, Neal had been followed. Peter hadn’t noticed a tail, and he’d kept a weather eye out ever since Neal had mentioned his. It made no sense that the threats would count up, but then count down again. Especially if it was just him and Neal.
There wasn’t enough that they’d done that could lead to something like this. Not that he could think of. This was personal, and he still couldn’t figure out whether it was personal for him or Neal.
Nothing seemed straightforward.
And it was driving him nuts.
And hurting his people.
And there was nothing he could do but lay up and wait it out until he was allowed to do something, either. That was worse. There was nothing he could do until the day after tomorrow.
Nothing authorized at least. Diana had come around after she’d finished up at the office to give them a run down of what she’d found. But there was a massive difference between being the one in charge, the one leading the investigation, knowing everything when it was found out, as it was found out, instead of being laid up and getting a run down over things you couldn’t control that heavily affected people you cared about.
He’d promised both Reese and Elizabeth that he would sit back for 24 hours after his release, but then he was back on the case and he was going to figure this all out if it was the last case he worked.
***
Mozzie had contacts. He knew Rusty, who knew Kelko, who knew Marco in Queens who swore that some bloke in aviators had come around asking for hired muscle a week and a half ago and after a tense forty five minutes, it ended up being a completely useless lead.
Which was something new.
Usually his contacts paid up. Usually someone somewhere was willing to talk, for a fifty here, a Franklin there or God forbid the promise of a favor somewhere else. Over the years Mozzie had built up a collection of well to do’s, people of illicit nature with a soft spot for the right sort of question.
This time he couldn’t seem to ask the right question because no one was paying up. No one had word on why a bunch of heavyset thugs would drive through an intersection, take out two feds and kidnap Neal Caffrey. No one was talking.
There were plenty of whispers, and none of them favorable. A lot of them made Mozzie want to smash something which wasn’t an urge he had felt very often in his life and one he didn’t like in the slightest. What he didn’t like more, was his best friend missing and hurt and the fact no one was talking about it except to keep the story going and make their own opinions known without actually having to face up to it.
Because while the underbelly could be cold, they were also well versed in this type of thing. Neal had been taken. Kidnapped. Abducted. And unless Neal was a magician, there was little chance he was coming back, regardless of what the feds did.
When that sort of effort was made, the victim wasn’t found unless it was meant to be that way and the knowledge was climbing up and down Mozzie’s spine like a spider or the hand of God.
And it wasn’t like Neal lacked the skills to escape. He knew how to take care of himself; he was smart. He was the best pick pocket this side of the equator. He had nimble fingers and a light touch. He could pick next to anything and he could do it all talking nine to the dozen and charming everything in a three foot radius. Mozzie had seen Neal do some amazing things over the years. Some stupid boneheaded things that seemed to work out, too; but as the day dawned, some fourteen hours after his best friend was dragged out of Peter Burke’s smashed car, Mozzie’s hope was starting to dwindle, and it was that fact that terrified him. In all the years that Mozzie had known Neal, he’d never once given up on him, thought that the kid wouldn’t come good - and that was after four years in Supermax. That was after his boneheaded escape going after Kate. That was after his deal with the feds and his strangely beneficial relationship with the Suit.
After everything, Mozzie felt the cold hand of doubt take hold as he watched the sun rise over the car yard as he stared down at the bent-in-half Taurus. The early morning light glinting off shredded metal and broken glass; illuminating the horrifying dark stains in the backseat of the smashed in Ford.
And Mozzie’s phone remained painfully silent.
***
Diana had made her last stop by the hospital at ten when she’d left the office; it had been nearly eleven by the time she’d made it home. By the time she’d escaped the hospital, Elizabeth was glad to be seeing the back of her. Peter had been growling. Poor Jones had thankfully been knocked out on the good stuff for the last half hour before she’d been able to make her escape and the attending nurses were wearing frowns that seemed to have set permanently into their faces. But for all their grumbling annoyance about their situation, there was nothing that Peter or Jones could discern that she hadn’t already and no look the hospital staff could give her or Peter that the pair of them couldn’t return.
The evidence had been there, as simple and straightforward and completely as unhelpful as it could be.
They had been driving back from the scene, when Peter had put his foot on the gas to take them through the intersection, where they only made it half way across before a black SUV ran the light and drove into them with the force of a freight train, pushing the Taurus across the intersection and nearly bending it in two. Peter had been lucky to escape the way he had. Jones had been a miracle.
There was nothing they could say about Neal.
Jones had been the last one to see their consultant and at the very least, Jones had assured her - and Peter, time and again - that Neal had left the car wreckage himself. He’d been standing.
They’d got into a black sedan and that was it. There was nothing else he could give. No one else at the scene could give any hints to license plates. The cameras within range were useless and grainy and at just the wrong angle to give anything more than what Jones had already told them and a terrifying view of the crash.
She had the probies searching for better footage. Registration numbers for black European made sedans in the New York area. For links to Neal, rumours from fellow CI’s that the time had come for Burke’s golden boy to be picked from the tree.
Rice had her people downstairs running through their intel, checking for anyone they knew who might be capable of something like Caffrey’s abduction was currently residing in the city. Diana had Morrison going through Mandy Brenner’s financials, trying to trace back the money she’d received for her part beyond anything than yet another shell company. Fenley was running task with Forensics and seeing what possible information they could get out of Luccson’s hideout and the abandoned SUV used to take out the Taurus. Blake was keeping tabs on the notes, trying to follow the couriers lead just that little further than Peter had managed. Diana had as many bases covered as she could think of, but it was exhausting. It had been an exhausting night, and she had followed it by coming in early; she’d been there since seven, the facts had been revolving around her head again and again to the point where she’d given up on sleep around five and there had been no other place for her to go.
She had no idea how anyone else in the unit had slept. How Peter had slept. Or Elizabeth.
Hell, even Mozzie.
Peter had passed along the small man’s number but she hadn’t even had to call him, a conspicuously Mozzie like text had come through the afternoon before and another one at eight that morning.
Even Mozzie had nothing and was making her restless.
When Peter had been abducted two years ago her blood had been pounding and she’d had something to focus on. She’d known the protocol and she’d forced herself calm. She’d been forced to take care of Neal and that had been enough to keep her well occupied. This was proficiently more violent, more dangerous. This wasn’t about a game between Neal Caffrey and an old backgammon partner who had been cornered by his current predicament and his ominous history. This time they didn’t have a suspect yet. They had no motive, no hint or history or anything except the very real knowledge that whoever had Neal was ready to use as much force as necessary to get to him, and they had no qualms about other people getting in the way. It had been the Taurus and the sheer luck of the impact that had saved Peter and Jones’ lives, not the instruction of the guys driving the car.
This was a very different situation and she was having a hard time looking at it as objectively as she’d like.
But the first move after any use of brute force during an active case was to check for any possible hints that their suspect would go to any sort of length to get the case stopped, or at least postponed and theirs had their mysterious benefactor hanging overhead. It made sense, but Diana knew that her anxiety about finding a man who simply couldn’t be found, was all due to the seriousness of the situation at hand. Normally she’d take up the challenge, but her boss was in the hospital, so was Jones, and Neal Caffrey - the fourth wheel, was damn well gone and given the nature of his abduction he was hurt too.
Her team had been pulled apart by the stitches and she was in charge of getting it all put back together again and a small part of her was panicking. Was breathing hard and rocking back and forth in the forefront of her mind, constantly reliving the sight that had confronted her just hours ago. The screaming of onlookers and the echoing space of a moment where she just didn’t breathe at all as she stared at the Taurus, nearly bent in half. Glass crunching underneath her boots as she ran from her own car towards the wreck. The whole scene had smelt like burnt rubber and car fuel, her heart had been pounding, pounding, pounding in her ears as she’d run forward, shouting something - anything - and then she’d stopped outside the car and Peter’s face had been -
Diana stopped herself, forcibly making herself take a deep breath in and relaxing her grip on the coffee pot.
Peter was fine.
Jones was fine.
Neal was -
“Diana! Black sedan, European make - they took Caffrey.” Jones’ face was scrunched up in pain. Diana reached for her phone.
“Agent Berrigan?” Diana jumped as Blake tentatively called her name. She turned and nodded towards the young agent.
“Yes Blake?”
“This just arrived.” He held up an evidence bag. He looked uneasy, like he was scared of her. A lot of the probies were. But Blake had been with them for a good three years now, surely he had to know better. He wasn’t even a Probie anymore. All the same, he looked a little wary as he held up the evidence bag. She suspected Neal had been planting lies about her in the young agents heads and cultivating them over months, if not years. He’d enjoy that. In a small way, she enjoyed the idea of it too.
That small reflective thought disappeared immediately as she focused on the small piece of white card clutched in Blake’s fingers. Even from where she was standing, Diana could make out the single word typed out on the front.
Three.
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Pass that here.” She reached out to take the note off Blake and she stared at it for a moment before she looked back up at the junior agent.
“It was addressed to Agent Burke,” Blake said quietly. Diana nodded.
“Blake, I want you to bring up a list of every case Agent Burke has closed. Look for anything involving suspects with prior links to Neal or Luccson. Or any of Luccson’s associates. Anything that looks promising, I don’t care how obscure. Look for anyone who has ever made any sort of threat towards Peter or the Bureau. Any connection to using notes or threats ahead of time. Find anything, I don’t care how long the list is, we can narrow it down from there. Go.”
Blake nodded and was off even before Diana had a chance to glance back at her coffee mug. Not that she needed it any more.
Right then, she had to talk to Hughes.
If this had something to do with the notes, Neal might not be the only one in danger.
***
Peter didn’t take well to the third note arriving. It had been addressed to him, and when Diana had turned up at the hospital and held it out to him, his whole expression had darkened. Given their circumstances, she hadn’t expected it to be possible.
“Find me a doctor, Diana. Do whatever you have to get me signed out. I don’t care if it’s AMA, I’m coming back to the bureau with you.”
Diana nodded. She had sort of been expecting it the entire drive over and Hughes had simply sighed when she’d mentioned showing it to Peter. Yesterday, 24 hours had been compulsory leave at the very least, now they both knew there would be no stopping Peter.
“You can deal with Elizabeth, Peter. I’m having nothing to do with that conversation.”
“Good choice,” Jones called from his bed across the room, he didn’t sound quite lucid, but given the state of him, it was fair enough.
“That woman’s just as scary as my Grandma, and no one messed with Grandma,” Jones murmured, slurring over his words. He was half asleep and medicated out of his mind, but Diana couldn’t help but grin.
“I’ll be back,” she said, bowing out just as Peter started climbing out of bed and reaching for his bag of clothes. Diana was surprised to find them there. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Elizabeth had taken them with her when she’d left. But then again, Elizabeth had been married to Peter for almost fifteen years, she probably knew him better than anyone, and nearly everyone knew Peter wasn’t going to let this lie. That was even before the third note had shown up.
But with it, this became a hell of a lot more calculated. With the third note and it’s circumstances, it made the arrival of the first two all the more important. From the looks of it, considering when they arrived the notes actually did have something to do with their missing Kandinsky’s. Not that there was anything extenuating to prove it. All they had was the basis that the first note had arrived Tuesday morning; hours after the heist had taken place; the second after they’d hauled Mandy Brenner in for questioning and the third after Neal’s abduction. They weren’t concrete points along the timeline, but they were enough for Hughes, and enough for Diana. The whole thing was a mess and they needed to figure it out and fast. Neal didn’t have very long. Given the circumstances of his abduction, he was hurt and without attention… Diana didn’t even want to think about it.
Walking out into the hallway she moved down to the nurses’ station and leant on the table.
“I need everything that’s required to get Peter Burke released right now, consent forms, AMA, whatever is necessary. Right now.”
***
When they got back to the Bureau, Peter found himself a little overwhelmed for just a second as he walked through the glass doors and into mayhem. The bullpen was alive with movement. The desks on both sides of the room were stacked high with files, phones were ringing, agents leading back and forth between their desks and the coffee machine. Hughes was in the conference room with Blake and Agent Rice and with Diana right behind him; Peter made a beeline for the three of them, if a little slower than he’d like, his muscles stiff and sore.
But if the bullpen was busy and dramatic, the conference room was a step in the other direction but not in any way less resolute. It was quiet and somber, but there were no less files surrounding Blake, and the look of determination on Hughes’ face as he and Rice stared down at a shared file was palpable.
“Sir,” Peter said as he entered, Diana still right behind him. The three of them turned their attention straight to him and Peter could feel their eyes on the bruise down his face. He couldn’t blame them; he’d stared at it himself as he’d dressed back at the hospital. It was impressive and he understood why the pounding in his head was so pronounced, even with his share of painkillers. All the same, it was irrelevant. The bruise was what he had escaped with. Their attackers had escaped with Neal. Neal was more important than the state of his face.
“Jesus, Burke, you look horrendous,” Rice said and behind him Peter felt Diana bristle.
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind for my modeling shoot next week. What’s everyone doing to find my CI?”
Peter knew he was out of line, a little too gruff, a little too demanding. Especially given the state of the office.
“Now, now, Burke, we’ve got this under control.”
“If we had this under control, Caffrey would be back by now.”
Or he wouldn’t have been taken at all.
Involuntarily, Hughes’ words from Monday morning echoed in Peter’s ears.
“Unless Forensics can find something Peter, there’s nothing more we can do. The courier lead went nowhere. As unsettling as it is, all we can do is wait it out. ”
Unless Forensics found something. There had been nothing to find, because nothing had unfolded yet. Step one hadn’t yet been called in.
But now, now they were three steps in and three steps behind and he’d be damned if they were going to get any further. Not when they’d lost Neal already.
“So what are we doing to get him back?”
***
Clinton had never been very good at staying still. When he was a kid his grandmother had to stay home to take care of him when he was ill because otherwise he simply wouldn’t stay in bed. He’d never taken to it well and as Day Two started to bleed back into focus he felt the niggling anxiety step in. Peter had been gone four hours; Clinton had slept for most of it. But now he was awake, he was uncomfortable and his whole side ached in this pulsing continuum and the worst part of it all was knowing how useless he had suddenly become. Each breath came with a jarring wince across his chest and already his arm itched under the plaster cast on his arm. Six weeks before they could entertain the possibility of having it removed. It was all laid on thick and his brain felt wooly and useless.
He was channel surfing like a pro when he heard someone’s footsteps cease in the doorway and when he glanced over he met the gaze of Elizabeth Burke. Her expression wasn’t tight or annoyed as he thought when he followed it over to Peter’s empty bed.
“He’s not here.”
“I know,” she said, turning her attention to Clinton and walking over.
“He called me while Diana drove him back to the bureau.”
“Ah,” Clinton said, nodding and eyeing her.
“Why are you here? Can I ask?” he said, hurriedly. His slight embarrassment seemed mute when Elizabeth laughed at him lightly.
“I came to see you.”
“Me?”
“Yes you.”
“Any particular reason?”
“No. Just thought you could use the entertainment,” she said, sounding offhand, but Clinton understood her perfectly.
“I don’t know what they’re doing,” he said, somberly. Elizabeth nodded and Clinton’s realization jolted. She wasn’t here to find anything out; she was here because he couldn’t.
She was sneaky.
“I know, it’s not a pleasant feeling, Agent Jones,” she said with a tight smile, like she knew he now understood.
“There’s plenty unpleasant feelings on my plate at the moment, Mrs Burke. One more can’t hurt.”
“Does it?”
Did it?
“Not quite yet. Maybe later, when I’ve used up all my visitation cards.”
“Does your arm?” she asked, softly. Clinton fixed his gaze on her. She was looking at him arm, the cast resting against his chest, there was the edge of mottled bruising sneaking up from between his shirt and his neck and he knew she’d seen that too. Perhaps she was here for more than just comforting him in the wake of being useless.
“The cast is the worst of it where that’s concerned. It itches. It’s the rest of me that’s the problem otherwise,” he said, his voice light, but all the same, Elizabeth reached out to smooth the corner of his blanket.
“He was alive when they took him, wasn’t he?” she asked and Clinton sighed. He nodded.
“He was. They got him out of the car and all I remember is that he was standing.”
“Do you think he’s alright?”
“I think Peter will bring him back,” Clinton said, determined. He knew he hadn’t answered her question and he knew so did she.
All the same it was answer enough for the pair of them. It was answer enough that he could give.
“I’m glad you’re all right Clinton,” she said, looking up at him, reaching out to hold his hand and gently squeezing it.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said softly, squeezing back.
***
June had never really given up her old contacts; many of them went back too far to give up on each other now. Especially when most of them were her age or older still. Mostly quite a few of them were simply good old friends. But with them all there was an old camaraderie they maintained and honored, and - like her - they all had some contacts with the young ones as well, protégé’s or the occasional straggler in need of a little guidance they kept in their own little black books. Neal was hers and a unique breed, being a well rounded young rebel merely picking the wrong (or perhaps the right) woman to shine his smile at. She’d been a mark, until he’d realized that he’d become the mark instead and hadn’t even realized it. He’d doffed her husband’s hat then and bowed down to her, still wearing that cheeky grin and it had been more than enough. He’d been living upstairs ever since and the boy had become more than just a link to that old world, he’d become family and that made this much more personal as she let the waiter boy push her chair in. The restaurant was crowded and the chatter was dull and unimportant.
Mathias was always late, it had been a part of his charm twenty years ago and it was something the man hadn’t lost. Nor had he lost a single strand of hair on his head. It was salt and pepper and his eyes still had that sparkle, all but destroying the otherwise brutal expression his face seemed to settle into when he wasn’t smiling.
“Well, well, Ms June,” he said as he approached the table, pausing to take her hand and kiss it briefly. He’d always been a smooth talker, most of Byron’s friends had been. He’d also refused to call her anything but Ms June since they’d met. The joke had always been he was in denial she was already taken, but the joke had melted away when Byron had died if the name never had. He’d never tried anything on her; he hadn’t when her husband was alive and he hadn’t since Byron passed and that was regardless of whether or not June had known about Marie and the kids. But the rules had always been family was family and it stayed out of the way.
Except when it couldn’t.
“Mathias,” she greeted, watching him as he settled into the chair opposite her. His hair was slicked back and the cufflinks and rings on his fingers glinted in the restaurant lighting.
“How you been, Ms June?” he asked, fixing her with his sharpest gaze. He always gave her all of his attention, he always had. But that didn’t mean he didn’t know exactly what was going on around him at all times.
He always had a grasp on the bigger picture. It was why she called him. Why she knew if anyone could come though, it would be him.
“No good, dear. A dear friend of mine was taken, just the other day, Mathias. I would like him returned to me. I was hoping you could help.”
Mathias’ mouth tightened just a bit and June settled back in her chair.
“Well how about you pay for lunch, Ms June and I’ll see what I can do about getting that boy back to you.”
June nodded.
“Thank you, old friend,” she murmured, hoping that he couldn’t see the knot of anxiety that was still twisted in her gut.
She just wanted him home.
Was that too much to ask?
***
In those first few hours of restless searching he spent back at the bureau, Peter became very aware of just how competent his team was, and not just the immediate agents like Diana and the group of probies they had around the place. It went further than them, much further. The clerks and assistants not only put up with his short temper, but they were also efficient and intuitive and Peter had never really been prouder to work with them all, which was astounding, even to him, or rather - especially to him, given their closure rate anyway. But that was Neal’s influence. No matter what Peter could say about his motives Neal had the ability to make everyone feel involved, make them feel special. He made friends everywhere he went and he had a memory on him that never ceased to astound Peter. He knew everyone’s names in the office, their kids, their partners and hell, even anniversaries and birthdays. He no longer restricted his attentions just to Peter and the team, but he kept his net broad and cared for his catch and it seemed, in turn, they cared back.
Neal had spent the last few years really settling in. There had just been this point where Peter had been sure that he’d cornered Neal and Mozzie. There had been a rumor of a painting lost for a hundred years turning up in Manhattan and he’d been sure that he had them. It hadn’t been a painting off the manifest, but in the end, even the Manet had turned out to be a forgery and Neal had just looked at him like he knew Peter had suspected him and he’d just taken his hat off and put it in the bottom drawer and there it had stayed. It had felt like a chess move, especially when the hats stopped coming to the bureau. The vintage suits didn’t change, but there were no hats and no leads and Neal had just seemed so grounded that Peter had stopped looking. They’d never really talked about the sentiment. Elizabeth, however, had talked to Neal quietly one day and that night, once Neal had gone home and they were in bed, Peter looking over case files and El reading another book - his wife had simply started speaking. She didn’t look up from her book, and her voice remained quiet and controlled.
“He wants to stay, Peter,” she’d said. “He doesn’t want to run. He wants to stay.”
And that had been that.
Peter had forced himself to stop, then. Forced himself to accept Neal’s words to his wife for what they were.
He didn’t have any proof the treasure still existed except the inkling feeling Neal’s words had an underlying message he’d used Elizabeth as a conduit to deliberately avoid, but Peter was also certain that Neal wasn’t going anywhere. He was comfortable in the life Peter had offered him and that had swelled a balloon of pride in Peter’s chest that he couldn’t pop.
Not at least until they’d started working a case involving a break and enter involving a Matisse that seemed to escalate before the day was out into a kidnapping and then a horrifying moment of uncertainty. Peter had ended that day pacing up and down the corridor at Bellevue Hospital and raging at himself.
Neal had chosen to stay, and it had almost got him killed.
And now, while the clock was counting down to the end of Neal’s parole, fate had taken another stab at the kid and hadn’t missed.
And now, now there was more to do than pacing up and down a corridor, but all the same he felt just as helpless now as he did then. The difference was, this time, he had something to do, an aim instead of just leaking time and hope. But this time, while there were dozens of people actively looking for Neal, wearing away hours and hours of false leads and their own time, hope was thin and fading and time kept ticking away, like grains of sand falling between his fingers and all he could hear was the pounding in his chest and the screeching cries of metal and rubber as the SUV connected with his car.
Peter shook himself, sitting up straight and trying to quietly quell the shakes tingling down his fingers.
So this was how Neal had felt, after Kate died. After he almost did.
Peter closed his eyes for a moment and took a long deep breath in, his hands flat on his desk.
Calm.
Controlled.
That’s what he needed to be in order to get this done right. Get Neal back to them, but he was currently having a hard sight getting there.
He was so lost in his head that he jumped when he heard Diana’s soft knocking on his open door. He looked up and frowned at the look of concern on her face.
“Anything new?” he asked and her look turned to a sigh. She had a folder in one hand.
“You sure you should be here, Boss?” she asked quietly. Peter leant back in his chair. It had been hours since she’d picked him up from the hospital, and that question had been lingering on her lips all afternoon. He’d seen in more than once, in the frown of her lips, the crease in her brow, the narrowing of her eyes, the hesitancy on her tongue. It had been there, but it was only now, she asked.
“I have to be,” he said and she nodded, standing tall and squaring her shoulders. It was all she needed.
“Fenley came through. He’s been going through security camera’s facing the street in the surrounding mile radius and found the SUV driving past a technology hub two blocks away. They were running a full high definition security camera out their front window as a display model. They picked this up off the footage.” She set the folder down on Peter’s desk in front of him and he opened it. Inside was a series of photographs of a man’s profile, he had a sharp jaw and a army razor cut and a dark tattoo climbing up his neck from under his jacket that despite the good quality video, was distorted by the distance.
“Forensics are trying to clean it up and get a better look at the tattoo, but based on their calculations from the intersection tapes, he’s about 6”1. We got a reasonable look at him when he got out of the SUV. We’re running the picture through the identification database, but I doubt we’ll get a hit soon. It’s more than likely he’s got a record, but it’ll still be a miracle.”
“One we can’t rely on. That’s good work, Di, let me know if they get anything else.”
Peter glanced idly up at her but couldn’t hold it. She was peering down at him oddly and he was having a hard time not staring at the photographs. He couldn’t remember him at all. Even from his dream, there was nothing. It was just the crash itself, nothing after. Nothing - at least - beyond that searing look from Neal.
“Has Blake found anything?”
“He’s looking. We’re looking.”
“Make sure he looks at anything where Neal and I were involved. Focus on anyone who’s been released recently. Anyone with violent connections.”
“We’re looking, Peter. We’re looking through everything. If it’s there, we’ll find it.”
Diana’s voice had all the conviction the statement needed, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes as he looked up at her, and he knew that she understood. This was hard on all of them and he knew he was forgetting he wasn’t the only one who cared. Everyone did.
How selfish.
Peter sighed and leant forward, rubbing his eyes. It was dark outside and the whole place was lit up artificially, glaring and bright and he was tired. Bone weary and sore. They’d been here for hours. Pouring over statements and possible leads and endless dead ends and they were getting nowhere.
He looked up at Diana.
“You should go home, Di, get some sleep.”
She smiled, tapping the folder on the desk.
“You doing the same thing, Boss?” she asked and Peter sighed again, glancing down at the bull pen. There were still agents down there, working through it all. There would be all night through.
“Yeah, yeah I am,” he said quietly, turning his gaze on the smiling photo of Elizabeth sitting on his desk.
“I’m right behind you.”
***
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