A/N: This is probably the only time an A/N will be at the beginning of the chapter.

1) This is a soulmate!AU in which everyone has a soulmark somewhere on their body. Some people go out of their way to cover it, some don't. It's a personal preference.

2) Soulmates aren't always romantic - they can come in a variety of relationships.

3) This is rated M for: mature language, potentially violent content, and sexual content. There is a clean version of the same story on my Quotev page.


Chapter One - I'm Legit, I'm No Counterfeit

Back, forth. Back, forth. Four long strides in one direction, a short, acute turn, four strides in the opposite. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Try not to dwell on the tiny clicking sounds I can hear in my earpiece. Repeat. Repeat.

I didn't like not being inside the bank vault, instead being told to sit outside and listen in with an earpiece, even though they were audible from just outside, where our equipment was set up. But I'm not on the bomb squad and have no official experience with explosives, so no, it's all, "Anderson, hang out out here until our boys are done, got it? No need to put you in danger."

Which, okay, was nice; but when we know there's an explosives device wired into the security deposit box that we were trying to break into, who the hell thought I'd be down for sending people in to deal with it while I paced around just past the foyer, twiddling my thumbs?

The agents standing at the foldable tables dealing with the equipment may be content to wait, but not me.

"Drop three," Jacksen reported from inside, wearing equipment, a special vest, and a mic. I heard an odd echoing of his voice because I heard the call both in my right ear on the earpiece and in both ears just from being several yards away.

Well, that was one pin fixed, and so far no fiery explosions yet. Although it wasn't in my luck, I had my fingers metaphorically crossed that no one would be hurt and we would get our evidence.

"Drop two," the technician said, spinning the dial slowly and listening through the metal with a stethoscope for the click of the dropping locks.

Supposedly, the Dutchman had been here less than a week ago, storing something away for safekeeping. With probable cause, we obtained a warrant to pursue the lead. Initial x-rays, a safety precaution, had revealed the explosives wired in. It was impossible to tell how strong they were from the way they were built, but in the spirit of being safe, we had evacuated everyone from the bank, bureau agents exempt.

The Dutchman: counterfeiter extraordinaire. We didn't even know the bastard's real name, we just called him "the Dutchman" so we'd have something to refer to him by. Counterfeiting is a big deal, but it's not really my thing. According to my boss, anything I put my head to is "my thing." My specialty is violent crimes. To my intense chagrin, I wasn't given the option of continuing in my specialty, instead being forced into the White-Collar Crime Division. I was displeased with my assignment, but then something that the Dutchman had tried to do had gone wrong, and several people ended up dead for it. Since then, even I had been putting attention towards this case, intent on solving it sooner rather than later. A white-collar crime had turned into a blue-collar one; my whining didn't have a place when people were being killed.

"Drop four," Jacksen called, followed by a soft, miniscule click through the earpiece and, "All pins down, preparing to open."

"Two, three, four," I repeated to myself to make sure I knew it in case it came up later. Then I paused and frowned. "Two, three, four." Years when I'd had an older phone where the keypad wasn't a touch-screen keyboard came back to me, and swallowing, because that couldn't be a coincidence, I lunged past the table and through the foyer into the vault, shouting, "Wait!"

I wasn't listened to. Jacksen tried to pull open the deposit box, and he set off the explosives inside. It could have been a much larger bomb, but it was still big enough to make my ears ring. There was no fire, and thanks to the strong steel safe, most of the explosion was contained in the wall. Despite that lucky aspect, there was still damage and risk to my agents. I shut my eyes from the light flash and coughed the next time I inhaled, breathing in plaster and dust.

"Are you okay?!" I shouted, daring to open my eyes to squint and see. My voice sounded off, but sounds were coming back into focus and volume. I heard alarms - a fire alarm from the inside of the bank - and voices from outside. The interior of the vault was cloudy with unsettled dust and fumes. My voice even sounded harsh, rough from breathing it in. "Are you hurt?!"

I kept moving to the left, arms out, reaching for Jacksen, whom I could hear loudly coughing. He hacked into his elbow. "What happened?" He asked, throat raw, doubling over. I patted my hand on his back when I found him and then grabbed his arm, turning to drag him out of the vault and into the open with the clearer air.

I didn't answer right away, too annoyed. Wasn't it pretty fucking obvious what had happened? He was told to wait, he didn't wait, and the bomb went off because it was a set-up. We were supposed to set off the bomb, and it wasn't meant to kill us; it was meant to destroy the evidence locked inside, leaving us without another lead and with a ton of paperwork and different explanations. Hughes was not going to be happy.

I pulled him out into the open. Smoke was drifting up towards the ceiling. Other agents were already there and a couple of them took the stunned technician out of my grip, helping him across the room. Although my throat and eyes stung, by now my ears had adjusted again, and physically I felt acceptable enough. I'd had it worse.

I threw my left arm up when someone again asked what had just happened. All of the pins had dropped, why had the bombs gone off anyway? I knew they had to have brains to get into the bureau; the least they could do was use them. After wiping my brow with my sleeve, I slammed the side of my fist into the wall loudly.

"I said 'wait,' and no one thought to listen to me! Argh!" I slammed my fist to the wall again, this time with a little less force. I was more conscious of the aching in my hand when I did it the second time.

"Hey, babe, take a pill," the voice of a new arrival to the scene called out, growing louder marginally as its owner approached me from the front of the bank.

My shoulders relaxed slightly but my back remained rigid. That was the voice of my second-favorite person in the world, and the first-favorite person I'd like to see at a crime scene. I would like my first-favorite person in the world to stay away from crime scenes and explosives, thank you.

Supervisory Special Agent Derek Johnson appeared in front of me right as he was needed, gently laying an open hand on my shoulder. Warmth radiated through my jacket where he touched, heat from his skin traveling through.

Okay, so, my first-favorite person in the world? Katherine Anderson, my younger sister in all but blood. I share a house with her. I'm closer with Kate than I ever was with my biological family before New York. Second-favorite person in the world? Derek Johnson, my older brother in the same way. The difference is that Derek is far more used to these situations and actually works in the bureau with me, so of course I'd rather have him at a crime scene than Kate.

Calling me 'babe' wasn't him hitting on me; he called Kate and I both 'babe,' although he had more cutesy nicknames for Kate along the same lines. For me, it was usually either 'babe,' 'Mick,' a sarcastic 'Princess,' or something far less endearing. Although people used to look twice when they saw us interacting at a far more familiar level than most partners in the FBI, they got used to it, in large because when Derek and I took a case, we went right for its throat. We had one of the highest success rates, no matter which division we were working in.

I could not just take a pill. He didn't quite understand the extent of my frustration, and I fully intended to remedy that. "That is thousands of hours of overtime and frustration and coffee and pain to get another solid lead on the Dutchman, and the evidence is blown up!" I shouted. I am typically very vocal about my displeasure. Most people who know me in the bureau, again, have gotten used to it. I'm extremely good at my job, so they'll deal with it for the edge.

"How did you know it was going to blow?" Derek asked, needing to be informed. I knew I'd have to explain it at some point, and I was inclined to tell him while I was venting anyway.

"Half of my life is spent on my phone," I said through clenched teeth. My devices stored a large portion of my entertainment, work, and socialization factors. "I text and type on my keypad too much, and on a keypad, three-two-four can spell out 'FBI.' This is a high-profile, incredibly intelligent criminal. It wasn't a coincidence."

"He knew we were coming," Derek said aloud with a soft sigh.

I looked down when I nodded and bent my neck, intending to look at Derek's shoes while I gave myself the few seconds' time to calm before I started to yell at people who really weren't at fault for what had just happened. Instead, I saw a small flicker of light reflecting on a piece of debris caught on my blazer, and I huffed.

"You think? Oh, look, there's debris on my jacket." I raised my voice to be heard by everyone. "There is debris, from the explosion, on my jacket." I turned around from the wall and from Derek and held my arms out in invitation. "You wanna tell me what this is? Anybody?" Because whatever it was, it was a tiny, tiny piece of the evidence we'd been trying to retrieve. Irate, I continued, "How many of you went to Ivy Leagues? Stanford? Harvard?"

Most of the agents started to tentatively raise their hands like middle school students. I rolled my eyes. For a team of elite agents, they sure didn't know how to keep their heads down and their supervisors calm - oh, wait, that wasn't their job.

Oh, well.

"No, no, no, don't raise your hands." With my own hands, I gestured for them emphatically to put their arms down. They complied far faster than they had been willing to put their hands up in the air to begin with. "I am pissed, do not draw my attention." It was like knowingly poking a bear.

I looked around. Jacksen was still shocked, being handed a paper cup of water to soothe his throat. One of the recording techs was wincing as she heard the replay of the bomb in her ears. None of this was supposed to pan out this way. I felt defeated now that the Dutchman had managed to pull another one over on my people.

I hated that I had to feel some measure of gratitude towards him for not arranging a blast large enough to kill.

I turned my attention back to my brother. "Okay, you're not even supposed to be here right now." Not that I wasn't glad he was - I mean, praise the Lord that he was here as I needed him, but he was supposed to be working on papers today. While I ran the operation, Derek was supposed to be taking care of everything related to the bank as it was temporarily put out of service. It was originally just going to be out of commission for the morning, but now it looked like it would be a bit longer. "What's going on?"

Derek looked at me carefully, seriously. I got the impression he was trying to decide for himself if I was in an okay enough mind to handle anything else.

Exasperated, I sighed. He should know full well that now that I knew something was up, I absolutely wanted in. I would not rest until I knew why he was here.

"What?"

Derek shifted and looked out away from us to make sure we were out of earshot. Whatever it was, he didn't want anyone else around to find out, making me anticipate his explanation even more.

When he looked back down to me in all solemnity, the creep of apprehension had set in. What if it was bad? What if something was wrong? What if something had happened to Kate? My what-if game began to drive me nuts before it had even been more than five seconds, so by the time he finally answered me, what he said was one of the things I least expected.

"Neal Caffrey escaped."


Derek caught up to me in the hall while I was on my way to my office, intent on getting to my computer before someone else decided to drag me aside and test my ever-waning patience. I could only communicate the events that made me want to scratch someone's eyes out so many times before someone would end up dead. Derek, however, knew that if I was going to kill someone, I wouldn't kill him, and therefore never felt particularly bothered about talking to me when I was prepared to falcon-punch someone through a building.

No. Of course, my temper wouldn't be permitted to assuage through time and coffee. Instead, Derek fell into step beside me, with ease from his slight height advantage and years of practice doing so. He handed a paper file over to me, level with my chest. It wasn't a very big file.

I took it, because I hadn't done anything rude to him that wasn't understandable lately, so he would probably fence away anything I didn't actually need to see. I trusted his judgment when we weren't in prank wars. While I was still turning it upside-up in my hands to open and read, I asked, "What's this?"

Derek sighed, put-upon and bereaved. He had a bad habit of pretending that helping me was such hard work. "The file that the US Marshals sent to formally request your help."

"My help?" I flipped the page open and was confronted with a photograph in one of the quadrants of the top sheet. … It was a mug shot of a prisoner in orange, a slight shadow of stubble on his face, almost unrealistically blue eyes, and wavy, dark brown hair that curled and cut off at the back of his neck.

He was handsome, except for the whole mug-shot, wearing-prison-clothes thing. A lot of criminals are aesthetically appealing, but it turns out that a lot of law enforcement agents don't appreciate certain jokes being made about it. Suffice to say I've learned not to grin and say to anyone but Derek or Diana that I'd like to climb a killer like a tree. That joke went over badly once, and one time was all it took to teach me that lesson.

"Specifically?" I added when I saw his general information. Neal Caffrey was on the photocopy in what looked like a scanned signature, along with his sex, race, date of birth, emergency contacts (none listed), circumstances of arrest, sentencing, and arresting officer. Finally, there was his conviction, charges, and unconfirmed allegations.

None of them suggested they were at my preferred pay grade, so while the name definitely rang a choir of bells, what with him having been an FBI's Most Wanted and all, it didn't seem like his escape from prison should have been passed to me as soon as anyone was aware that it had happened.

"The director of the New York branch has asked for you to handle it specifically," Derek confirmed, looking to see how I was taking it. He glanced at the file but then looked away and waved halfheartedly to a passing agent, but neither his heart nor his head were in it.

"But why?" I asked aloud, making a face. "I was never on the case. Caffrey was caught by someone else." I skimmed my eyes back down to find his case information. "Someone named Peter Burke in the Boston office's White-Collar Crime Unit," I clarified. I hadn't heard of the name, but I'd corresponded with the various white-collar divisions of the bureau before. White-collar crime was going back to the argument over what I specialized in, the kinds of cases I should have been taking. Being sent after Caffrey was like getting an unofficial promotion, but after the huge step down I'd been forced into taking, that meant very little to me. "And for that matter, why am I wanted for this? Caffrey's nonviolent and I have no history with him."

"You're also experienced with profiling," Derek reminded me. I could see how that was relevant, but firstly, I didn't need to be reminded of something I obviously knew, and secondly, I was far from the only psychological profiler around. I've been trying not to profile people quite as much unless they're across from me in an interrogation room. When I start doing it to family and friends, it changes how I interact with them. Kate always knows when I'm looking at her too closely.

"So are you," I countered, because before coming to New York, that had been the entire reason he worked for the bureau. He and I had both landed blue-collar jobs until the year previous, but unlike me, Derek had requested the transfer to the WCCD.

"With an iron will…"

"Have you seen yourself around criminals?" We were both stubborn to a fault, and we liked to have control and intimidation on our side.

"... Who knows New York almost too well…"

"We both know big cities."

Big cities, to me, were ideal. I loved them, went to them every chance I got, except for the times I traveled for cases. Derek grew up with his family in Chicago, joining the Chicago police department before he was employed by the bureau, and then he'd been based in DC until we met.

Derek had one more point to make, and by now he seemed sheepish, so I figured that this was the real one I'd been waiting for. "... And if you catch Caffrey again, then he doesn't have to contact Burke."

My mouth formed an 'oh.' "Who isn't in-state," I finished so that he didn't have to spell it out. "Got it. Paperwork and administration for a temporary transfer for what may only be a manhunt." Well, that was it, I supposed. I appreciated being used for my intellect, but everyone knows I'm great firepower.

It would be a lie to say that I just wanted to focus on the Dutchman case. After our evidence exploded, finding new material and writing reports was going to be a pain in the ass, and catching Caffrey, even if it wasn't my usual job, would at least be a victory that I could feel good about before I went back to slowly driving myself into the ground.

I looked over his picture again. I didn't think it was possible for me not to recognize him; pretty, yes, but also someone I'd seen before, again from his status as one of the most wanted men in America. The general public wasn't a fraction as familiar with him as the bureau was, because he wasn't as much of a public threat as blue-collar criminals. No, Caffrey was much smarter, much more subtle, and much more elusive… until a little over four years ago, when he was caught by Burke and eventually sentenced.

"Neal Caffrey," I said aloud, trying his name on my tongue. I liked it, the easy way it passed my lips and the smooth sound to it. "Sentenced to prison for four years on charges of bond forgery. Suspected for…" I did a double-take when I realized that the list continued, and I turned the page to see the end of it. My mistake was that there was more than one page of said list. Without continuing through to find the end, I looked at Derek. "Okay, how many pages of accused charges are there?"

Derek chuckled, his laugh low and even and pleasurable to hear, smooth like honey and familiar like family. "This guy may not be your preferred paygrade, but you can't tell me your interest isn't caught."

Damn Derek Johnson for knowing me so well.


I wasn't comfortable with how comfortable I was in prisons the majority of the time. Being surrounded by convicts should probably put me on edge, but instead it was nice to be around the cons who were trapped behind metal bars, not allowed out of their cells without supervision and schedule.

It was nice to think that there were probably a few in here because of me.

A security guard by the surname Thompson, who was responsible for this block of the prison cells and whom had discovered Caffrey was missing, led me down the line towards the escapee's prison cell. I stayed in the center of the walk with Thompson just behind me. One of the first things I learned was to stay out of reach of the bars when in jail.

"Caffrey walked out of the E-block staff room dressed as a guard, and no one stopped him on his way out." The forger had broken out of Sing Sing, a super-max security facility, and by far the most secure prison in the state, and to walk out in plain sight made me both impressed and curious to know more about the man who had managed to pull it off. "Where did he get the guard uniform?"

The key to understanding how to catch him would be to understand him, period. How he operated, why he escaped, what his plan had been. I didn't need to know his shoe size or his IQ, but putting myself in his shoes (not literally, he was still wearing his shoes, probably) would give me a better insight.

"We order our uniforms from a supply company on the internet," Thompson answered.

Ah. Ordering the uniform would be pretty helpful. Caffrey was permitted internet access, so he could have gotten online to order it under his name. If it was just fabrics, then it would have passed the security tests and been delivered straight to him.

"He paid with card?" The question then became how he kept access to his credit card. He could have memorized the account and card numbers, but his assets were supposed to have been frozen while he served his term in jail.

Thompson didn't reply immediately. When a few seconds had passed, I stopped and turned around, bent my elbows, and put my hands on my hips, glaring. Thompson scratched at the back of his neck. "He, uh, used my wife's American Express." I sighed and glowered. For one, it was irresponsible to let an inmate get the opportunity to nick something from your person; for two, why the hell did he have his wife's credit card in a penitentiary, anyway? I bet he thought something like what could possibly go wrong when he made that decision. "We're tracking the number in case he uses it again," he said, offering what he hoped would make up for the poor choices made to begin with.

I shook my head, turning back around and finding the number to double-check the cell. The empty one to my right was Caffrey's, and I walked inside confidently to look around.

"He won't," I stated assuredly. Caffrey was far too smart to try something like that twice.

Caffrey's cell was small and mostly empty, but one of the walls was covered in graffiti from tally marks drawn in black. There had to be hundreds- no, over a thousand, one for every day, counting down his release which was still supposed to be a few months away. The blanket was pulled up on the cot, a small stack of books from a prison library at the end of the bed, a music player and small lamp along the edge of the table.

I used my hand as a comb, separating my fingers and raking my hand through my hair from front to back. My fringe, which I had grown out just as long as the rest of my hair, fell with gravity when it was pushed back, and stayed out of my face.

"How did he get a card for the front gate?" I asked, standing beside an unfinished set of four tallies, lacking the diagonal fifth across.

Gingerly, I pressed my thumb against the side and unwillingly envisioned Caffrey standing where I was, holding his marker, scratching out lines on the wall and counting down to the day he'd be released, the chains removed. I couldn't imagine being trapped in one place so small for so long with so little control. I would have lost it after a couple of months - forget almost four years.

"We… aren't sure."

Thompson's reply seemed to fade into the background while I rubbed the pad of my thumb against the dark markings, letting myself imagine being caged here like a bird. What would I do, aside from being driven insane? Sleep a lot, I imagined, to pass the time. Read; which explained the books. I looked to them when I thought of it, taking my hand away from the wall. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a classic, was nearer to the bottom of the stack.

And marking it down with a marker… where's the marker? It would be hard to completely obliterate the habit of graffiti, and I was absolutely certain that some cells had graffiti far worse than some lines that only meant anything worthwhile in context. Why not let them have a marker? Besides, it's not like Caffrey just asked a guard if he would draw on the wallpaper pretty please every night.

I moved to the table. On the other side of the lamp there was a Sharpie permanent. I picked up the music player; it was a cassette player with something inserted, but the earbuds were missing. He probably took them with him… and left the cassette player?

I pressed the button on the side and the small tape popped out the front. I smiled, getting it, and picked it up by the side, turning around to show the guard.

"I bet he used this to restripe the magnetic strip on a utility card." Utility cards would be easy enough to pickpocket off of a guard - easier than a credit card, at least, and he'd already managed that. I waved the cassette player. "These shouldn't be allowed in here. CD players instead."

He leaned on the side of the cell door. "How do you figure?"

I smirked. "Because that's what I would do." Television, education, and experience had made a big improvement to my general knowledge. It was always fun to admit that I could think like criminals. It just pointed out to me that I chose to follow the law, to be good.

Thompson swallowed, looking at me like he was now unsure about me. I put down the cassette player by the lamp, more securely on the table. "He walked out the front door, hotwired a maintenance truck in the parking lot. We found it abandoned near the airport." I narrowed my eyes. That didn't seem like something Caffrey would do. It was too careless, too obvious. "The bureau and NYPD are beefing up security, just in case he tries to get out that way."

I hadn't dedicated years to catching Caffrey like Burke had, but I still knew him better than this guard apparently did. That was a disappointment, considering that the guard had been seeing the blue-eyed man every day for a long time.

"You won't catch him with roadblocks and 'Wanted' posters," I warned before he got his hopes up.

Thompson didn't acknowledge that, and instead kept giving me more details of how Caffrey had managed to sneak out. "He shaved his beard just before he escaped."

I frowned and turned to look straight at him again, standing beside the cot in Caffrey's chilled cell. I remembered a shadow on his face, but Caffrey had always been clean-cut and well-groomed.

"He didn't have a beard in his mug shots," I objected calmly, blinking at the man inquisitively.


Thompson took me to the tape room to see the security videos so that I'd know what Caffrey looked like before he had decided to go clean-cut again. I took the rotating, comfortable chair before he could, because the way I saw it, I was the guest here. Although I knew by now how security systems were operated, I let him pull up his own tapes on record.

Then I realized I'd have been wrong if I had tried to do it myself, because they didn't take videos - they took photographs. For every cell, there was a long, long document of timestamped black and white photographs of the inmate as they were walking away to a scheduled activity. The camera was looking down at them, but not to the point where it was hard to make out their faces.

Caffrey escaped before his photograph had been taken this morning, but the guard didn't need to be reminded of that. He went straight to yesterday's photo and maximized it with the keyboard until it filled the main monitor sitting in front of me.

I canted my head and looked curiously. Although his hair was recognizable, the difference between shaving and not shaving was a marvel in itself - the beard made his face look so different that it would be startling to see a before and after photograph. No wonder other guards didn't see him on his way out - they hadn't expected Caffrey to shave, and since they didn't know every single one of their coworkers, it would be way too easy for him to slip by as just another face.

"He's almost unrecognizable," I muttered, praising him for thinking this through. He blended in where he could - the uniform - and changed his appearance drastically where he wasn't permitted anything radical, like a haircut or color contacts or tattoos.

But if he had thought it through long enough to think to let his beard grow out…

"Yeah, I think that's the point," Thompson complained, disgruntled.

"Don't get smart with me. You're the one who gave him the means to walk out the front door." I leaned my head back far enough to stare evenly at him, knowing that it would put him in his place, before I motioned to the mouse with one hand, the other resting on my thigh. "Run the series back. He's been working on this for a while."

I settled back in the chair to watch while the guard clicked back. Then he decided it would just be faster to hold down an arrow key. As the days clicked by in reverse, Caffrey's beard slowly disappeared over the course of about six weeks. I waited with sharp eyes until I saw a picture that looked like he'd shaved.

"Stop it there," I said suddenly, as the conman looked clean-cut again in the still frame. "That's when he stopped shaving. I want the logs of everything that happened with any relevance to Caffrey that day."


I took the log book for myself to read and, as I opened it from the back (to see the most recent first), I complained about their lack of progression in technology.

"Don't you have these things digitized yet?" I whined in distaste, wrinkling my nose and pushing pages quickly, going backwards in the thick booklet. I kept scanning my eyes down the column for the inmate's name, searching for "Neal Caffrey."

It was then that I realized he was pretty alone in this place; as Thompson answered that no, they didn't use computers for their logs because those could be hacked and the records tampered with, also they were kind of working on funding issues, I managed to get almost a month back on the dates without seeing anything regarding Caffrey for visits.

I sighed loudly to let Thompson know what I thought of his reply. It's not like paper couldn't be destroyed, so his argument meant pretty little to me. There were companies that worked specifically to protect the integrity of computerized information, much stronger than the key-and-lock combination that protected the paper files and logs. I kept going back.

Finally I found something from forty days ago - Caffrey's name scrawled in hurried and messy print, and then a signature in the same penmanship in the next column.

"He had one visitor," I said, seeing Thompson's shadow on the table as he looked over my shoulder. Surreptitiously, I adjusted the glove on my right hand - the tall, lace-up style wasn't for practical use as much as it was an accessory. Gloves are some of my trademarks, because I am seen without them so extraordinarily rarely. These were black with long laces that dangled halfway down my forearms from my elbows, mostly covered up by the sleeves of my blazer and dress shirt.


Kate Moreau was a beautiful girl with dark hair past her shoulders, a soft, innocent-looking face, and a shapely, trim body. Other than that she was also probably a bit younger than Caffrey, it was hard to really determine much else about her from the limited angle of the black and white security film procured from the records.

The two sat on opposite sides of a thick glass partition to keep them separate, with a circular hole in the glass like at banks for the tellers so that they could speak. Caffrey was in prison orange which sat loosely across his shoulders, Department of Corrections in bold across his upper back. Kate - and every time I thought her name, I thought of my pink-streaked, pretty-eyed sister - was not too happy with him; judging from what I could see of him, he wasn't that pleased, either.

"You don't have an audio recording?" I asked Thompson thoughtfully. My voice wasn't considering because of my attentiveness to his response - it was due to that I was looking at both Kate and what I could see of Caffrey now, looking for either of their soulmarks. Maybe they were a couple? Then again, they could always just be friends and family. Either way, there were no tattoo-esque designs that I could see on either of them, so theirs were located somewhere underneath their clothes.

"Just the visual," Thompson confirmed, pages rustling dryly as he looked backwards in the log book to see where else Kate Moreau's name turned up. "She came back every week like clockwork."

"Well, she's not very happy with him this time."

On the screen, Kate rose abruptly from her side of the glass, resignation on her face. In dismay, Caffrey reached for the glass and pressed his palm flat against the surface, reaching as far to her as he could. Kate kept talking, and he visibly cringed, but kept his hand up to the partition.

"I'll call to get a lip reader in here." Thompson declared it like it was totally necessary and not arguable.

"Don't bother," I dissuaded flatly, watching the conversation intently. "Check you later, Neal. She's saying goodbye, angling herself away, crossing her arms, distancing herself." She looked like she wanted to leave as soon as possible, and it couldn't just be something he'd said then, because she'd been behaving like that since their visitation began. "He's reaching out, wants her to stay. He looks like she hit him because she's leaving."

Caffrey looked like an abandoned puppy. Even without an audio, I guessed with confidence that he was pleading with her. I'd seen him look charming, badass, and cunning in photographs, but I'd never seen his face show any kind of vulnerability. Not only did it feel like I was intruding, but it made something in my stomach flip.

He was pretty adorable when he wasn't busy looking like he was guilty of something.

"She didn't come back after this, did she?" I guessed, almost feeling sympathy for the poor man. He looked like his world was being taken away. I sucked on my lower lip.

Thompson answered behind me. "No. Her name never showed up again."

I tapped two fingers down on the table by the keyboard rapidly, three times in total. "That was the day he decided to break out," I stated, knowing it with the same certainty with which I knew that Kate - my Kate, not Caffrey's Kate - had glasz irises. "Probably to find her." I pointed to Moreau on the computer screen and pushed the chair away from the desk, giving myself the room to unbend at the waist and stand up.

Thompson rolled back in his chair and looked incredulous as I gathered my things - my phone and my credentials, which I had had to show the guard stationed outside the room before I was permitted in.

"What are you doing?" He asked, sounding stunned I was going to leave already.

I pointed haphazardly at the video still playing, but coming close to its end. "He's not the violent type." White-collar, not blue-collar. "I'm betting the first place I need to go is Moreau's last known residence."

"You think he'd be dumb enough to go there?" The guard snorted in disbelief.

I gave him a stern look. "I don't think he escaped for freedom. He escaped for that girl." I explained shortly, wondering why I wasn't more irritated. I suppose he just wasn't worth wasting the energy on. At least it meant I'd keep my cool and be level for talking to Caffrey. I didn't expect him to want to come back to prison, but I didn't think he would make a big raucous about it if he were caught, either. He hadn't when Burke had found the grounds to charge him. "Meanwhile, you should be checking out your security system and seeing about tightening up your game here."

As I pushed my chair back in, I let my sight wander back to Caffrey onscreen. He stood up as Kate walked off, done arguing, and said something to her back while she was leaving him. Again, there was a fluttering in my stomach of empathy.

The both of us having someone important in our lives named Kate was making me draw some parallels and giving me feelings of kindness. Why couldn't her name have been something like Jessica or Jennifer, so I wouldn't be reacting sympathetically? He broke out of prison. He knew it would get him in trouble and he did it anyway.


I entered Moreau's apartment on my own, a piece in my ear and my gun at the holster. I hadn't felt like it was necessary to suit up with a bulletproof vest, because I didn't think Caffrey would be violent.

The apartment was empty. No furniture, no boxes, no personal effects. It looked like it had never been used. I wandered into what looked like it might have been used as a living room, with the door behind me and a large glass window in the wall in front of me. A kitchen was to my left, and… a convicted felon was sitting docilely to the right of the windowsill.

Caffrey leaned against the wall, his legs in front of him. One was bent at the knee and pulled halfway up while the other lay straight. Dressed in a white tank top and a long black coat over his torso, slacks and trainers on his feet, he looked like a strange mix between a professional and a civilian. His face clean-shaven and his hair intentionally mussed, I would be lying if I said he didn't look attractive. He spun a glass liquor bottle slowly in his hands, twisting it with deft fingers while he leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed.

My footsteps clicked softly, breaking silence.

"Kate's moved out," I said needlessly. I had the feeling that he had already noticed this. I was just unsure what else I was supposed to say.

Not this, apparently, though. Caffrey opened his eyes and held his head up again. He didn't even seem surprised that I was there, but he did look so frustrated and sad that I felt a little guilty for reminding him. He kept rotating his bottle. As the label turned to face me, I saw it was Bordeaux - a fancy wine. The upset on his face didn't compute with the idea of the criminal that I had developed in my head as a clever, witty, manipulative conman.

I swallowed and moved my hand slightly at my side, indicating his bottle. "Did she leave you a message in the bottle?" It seemed a little poetic.

He stopped spinning the wine. The glass never changed hues, like it was empty. "The bottle is the message," he replied after a beat, his voice soft, pitch a little higher than Derek's, but not by much.

"What's it say?"

His shoulders heaved slowly while he inhaled deeply, then clinked the bottom of the wine bottle down onto the floor beside his leg. "Goodbye."

There was a pause of silence between us. I think he was waiting for me to arrest him. I had the urge to go sit down next to him and keep talking. I knew I shouldn't do that, so instead I tried to figure out what would be appropriate to say.

"I'm sorry," I offered, knowing it was a useless condolence. Moreau was long gone.

He brought his arms up over his chest, crossing over himself protectively, and he leaned his head back again. Keeping his eyes on me with a razor-sharp intensity, he opened his mouth again, voice deceptively lilting and impassive. "Your job's to catch me, not to be my friend."

"Believe me, I know." I reached up and brushed my hair back. At the same time, I turned my head enough for him to see the earpiece I was wearing and the wire connecting it to my radio. "Hard to forget when my partner's in my ear, demanding that I ask if you're carrying." At that, Derek's voice fell silent over the line. Caffrey smiled slightly. I let go of my hair.

"I don't like guns." Caffrey replied to the subtle question.

"Doesn't mean you don't have one."

He smiled, this time more sincerely. His gaze lessened in intensity. He must've decided I was alright, or finished psychoanalyzing me. There was a weariness in his features, but he was calm for someone who had escaped to find their person had already run away and who was about to be arrested again. "I'm unarmed, Agent."

"I had her looked into." I stated. 'Her' didn't need to be specified in this instance; I meant Moreau. "There's nothing indicating where she went."

Caffrey looked forlornly to the Bordeaux bottle. "I missed her by two days."

Well, I couldn't say anything to change that or make him feel any better about the result - and I wasn't going to analyze why I wanted to - so I chose to take a more optimistic view. "But it took you less than six weeks to break out of a maximum-security penitentiary." Giving him my winning, charismatic smile, I added, "I'm impressed." I looked down to my shoulder and picked up my radio, holding it closer to my face like a phone. "Okay, you can send a team in. Identified, unarmed, nonviolent."

"Got it," Derek tuned in. "Coming up." Then the noise in my ear was absent again. I knew he was still there, listening to the discussion I had with Caffrey, but he wouldn't bother me unless he thought I needed to be bothered.

"Are we surrounded?" Caffrey asked knowingly. I bobbed my head in an unabashed nod. "How many?"

"Between the police, the bureau, and the US Marshals?" While he looked on in question, I pretended to consider. "Um, I think… approximately… all of them." That made him laugh. My lips quirked while I felt satisfied. "You're a big deal, Caffrey." He nodded proudly. Meanwhile, my smile faded, slowly dropping from my face. "You know they're going to double your sentence, right?" I said quietly with solemnity. "They'll add another four years."

He looked down to his legs again. "I don't care."

Even now, with Caffrey only a few feet away from me, I didn't see a soulmark. It's not something I typically looked for on sight, but I was curious why he would risk so much for someone who had clearly made the decision to leave him. Thinking of his soulmark made me touch my own lightly, pulling at the strings of my laced gloves over the inside of my wrist.

"Is she your mate?" I asked, as polite as was possible to ask.

"Does it matter?" Despondently, he stretched out his bent leg and then crossed both in front of him. "I can't find her."

"I've seen a lot of smart people do stupid things for their soulmates," I answered, both insulting and complimenting him in the implications of the sentence. "I'm curious."

He shifted and accepted the vague, short explanation. "She's not my mate," he said. "She's my sister."

But… Caffrey didn't have a sister, according to everything we knew about him. Then again, the first time the bureau had ever found something about Neal Caffrey was when he was eighteen. He'd probably changed his name to account for his complete nonexistence until his eighteenth year. Who was to say Moreau wasn't family from before? Or even not blood related family, but a sister of sentiment, which I of all people should understand.

"Not legally," I said mildly, prompting an explanation tactfully.

"No… not biologically, either." He leaned forward and pushed on the floor with his hands, standing up gracefully and arching his back as he stretched. The jacket pulled snugly across his frame. After he was on his feet, he left the bottle down on the floor, seemingly forgotten, and he looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something.

I shrugged. "I don't know what you want to hear from me. I'm not legally or biologically related to most of my family. Doesn't mean I wouldn't do something stupid for them, though." I admitted. If I was in Caffrey's position, I supposed I might have been tempted to do what he had done to try to find my Katie.

With this parallel sense of relationship, I met his eyes again, sharp and - yes, now a little surprised. "Fess up to how you did it, tell them you were trying to stop your sister from leaving," I advised, "And maybe a jury will take pity on you."

He raised one eyebrow inquisitively. "You think I'm getting another trial for this one?"

"If you push for it, you can," I replied with certainty. He was going to be sentenced based on new charges from his most recent escapades. Since he wasn't being charged on the same grounds, it opened himself up to an entirely new due process. "It's a constitutional right."

While I was talking, his eyes fixated on me. At first I thought he was looking past me, but then I realized he was staring at my shoulder. He put his arms up so his hands were about level with his head and he stepped closer, light and self-assured. Standing up straight, he was a few inches taller than me, but he wasn't close enough yet that I needed to tip my head back to meet his eyes.

When he started reaching for me, I raised my eyebrows warningly. He gave me this look, like c'mon, you should know better, and continued without pause, other hand still up. To my chagrin, he delicately pinched a reflective piece of debris caught on my blazer that I had almost forgotten about.

Thanks for reminding me about that, I thought sarcastically, but didn't say it.

Lowering his other arm, he held up the debris between his fingers. "Do you know what this is?" He questioned.

I doubted that he did, but I played along, because why not? There were going to be agents here in just a moment to cuff and book him. "A very, very small piece of evidence from an explosion. I was pulled off of my case to find you."

"You think you'll catch him?" He cocked his head.

"I caught you, didn't I?" I retorted swiftly. According to his arresting officer, Caffrey liked to use words to play games. I would be disappointed in myself if he outwitted me. "People are caught by making mistakes. All criminals make mistakes. Some just make them later rather than sooner."

He considered that, but then seemed to dismiss it. "What's it worth if I tell you what this is?" He referred back to the debris again and stepped closer so there was barely a foot of space between us. Never one to back down from what was possibly an intimidation tactic, I held my ground. "Is it worth a meeting?"

Making eye contact with him again was a mistake, because when I saw the hopefulness and the edge of excitement in his eyes, there was no way I could've passed up whatever deal he was trying to make. Was he excited because he knew something I didn't, or was he pretending to be excited to play me? Either way, if he could give me a lead on the Dutchman case… well, I'm not going to belittle his intelligence, because he has proved that he is far from a novice criminal, but as long as he pays for what he did, why couldn't he be treated as a reasonable person? If he were a civilian, I'd be willing to look into his advice without further thought.

But, of all things he wanted to make a deal for, he wanted a prison visit? "You want me to visit?" I asked skeptically. He just met me. Did he even know my name? Probably not.

"Hallway clear!" The voice of an officer shouted from outside the apartment.

With limited time, Caffrey seemed more urgent, pressing the matter with predatory concentration. "If I tell you what this is, right now, will you agree to meet me back in prison in one week?" What could he want that he thought I could supply him with? Through a visit in prison? Obviously it wasn't for socializing. "Just a meeting," he reiterated, seeing my cynicism across my face. "That's all."

Well, agreeing to visit him wasn't the same as agreeing to whatever he wanted from that point on, so what harm could it do? At worst I'd be irritated next week; at best, I'd have a new lead on the Dutchman, whom I was getting really sick of.

"Okay," I agreed.

Caffrey grinned in success, and he moved his hand back towards me, handing me the evidence. In retrospect, it was probably irresponsible not to hand in my jacket for evidence when I realized there was debris on it. Intending to have it catalogued and identified, I reached for Caffrey's hand, delicately taking the little scrap from him. Our fingers brushed; I felt almost like I'd been shocked by static, but to my mild surprise, Caffrey pulled his hand away even before I did, then looked away like he'd been caught off guard and didn't want me to see.

Static electricity, I figured. Leave it to static to make things awkward. Static electricity had no right to create a literal spark when I touch the guy I'm arresting. My life isn't a fucking fairytale.

Honoring his end of the deal, Caffrey looked back to me. "It's a security fiber for the new Canadian hundred-dollar bill."

Right as he finished speaking the last word, half a dozen men filtered into the room from the doorway, armed but not taking aim. They trusted me to have said if I was in any danger. Caffrey remained passive as one pulled his hands behind his back, yanked on his shoulders, and cuffed his wrists. Another frisked him in a rapid pat-down of his waistband and ankles to check for hidden weapons.

He caught my eyes as they started to turn him, one of them lightly nudging at his heels to encourage him to start moving. "One week," he said back to me in a reminder.

I mock saluted him by holding a hand to my forehead. "See you then," I returned in a promise.


A week seemed to pass too quickly for it to be real. After arresting Caffrey, I made a note on my phone, a post-it on my desk at work, and informed my sister that I had a meeting with him scheduled in seven days. I may not appreciate people who break the law, but I did intend to honor my word.

I lied when talking to suspects and convicts. That is usually true. But that's also usually for when I'm doing it to protect myself or the situation, or bargaining for information. Caffrey hadn't frightened me at all. Sure, I felt the touch of adrenaline from being alone in the room with him - he was a very much wanted con - but I had appreciated the conversation I'd had with him, and even though I'd have been just as happy to put it out of my mind, I didn't mind seeing him again, at least to know what he wanted before I put him out of sight and out of mind for good. His place was in Sing Sing; not my head.

The Dutchman case didn't take off anywhere, which was a huge disappointment, but not an unforeseen one. With the evidence blown up, there was only so much that we could do in the meantime. While it was a high priority case, we couldn't just devote all of our resources to it every minute and let the other, more solvable, crimes be shoved aside. In the last few days, I'd started out on the trail of a case of identity theft and been led to an isolated shipment of tampered street drugs, retrieved all of the drugs that I found, and sent a team from the drug unit on a search for any others. The CIs of the related unit were spreading the word on the street that some of the shipments may have been tainted. Hopefully that would lessen the number of people who unintentionally overdosed.

Street drugs were dangerous to play with, but it wasn't morally acceptable to just let some fentanyl-enhanced drugs sell rampant throughout the city and kill people.

I scratched at my upper arm through my black blazer with my right hand, looking at Hughes, the director of the New York branch's WCCD (White-Collar Crime Division), as he spoke with another agent that I vaguely recognized from the IA department - the "I" standing for International, in this case, not Internal. Both looked pretty aggravated.

Taking a detour, I didn't go up the mezzanine to my office. Instead, I found Derek where he was working at the bullpen and I pushed myself up to sit on the edge of his desk. He moved his coffee to make room without looking up while he finished typing his sentence on his desktop monitor.

Derek and I have a solid relationship and have known each other in both professional and personal capacities for years now. I met him while I was in the Quantico Academy program for the bureau. He had been working as a supplemental hand-to-hand trainer, and we'd had friend-crushes on each other since I unexpectedly kicked his ass and he called me an "insane bitch" while being thrown over my shoulder. Being larger than me, and me looking small in an FBI trainee sweater, he had not seen my martial arts history until he was being slammed into the mats. When I was transferred into the WCCD, Derek applied for an interim position in the same unit. Since then, the position had become unofficially indefinitely permanent, the interim almost never mentioned anymore. We work well together and know the three most important things for FBI agents to know about their partners: their strengths in fighting, their temperament, and their coffee orders.

Okay, so according to some people, there are more important things to know, but those were paramount to us. I had collected a group of agents that work with (or for) me most times, and Derek is the senior of those, along with my probationary agent, Diana Berrigan. Instead of treating them like my underlings and calling them my colleagues, like a lot of people with my authority might do, I treat them like my colleagues and call them my underlings to be playful.

Personally, Derek is more like my brother than my coworker. I brought him to mine for dinner at some point while we looked over a case, trying desperately to catch a break, when he met Kate. Kate and he hit it off right away, becoming best friends, and since then he's been welcome at ours anytime. We even have keys to each others' houses. Although he watches out for me to make sure I'm not compromising my tasks, he also keeps an eye on what's going on because he likes to look out for our entire group - himself, me, and Diana.

"What's got International Affairs' feathers all ruffled?" I asked when he looked up from his computer. He leaned back, pushing against the back of his rotating chair and settling his forearms down on the armrests.

"Ruffled feathers" is one of my favorite analogies to use. I love birds. I love wings even more. They represent flying and freedom, and their colors can have so many implied meanings. There was another reason for my fondness for that phrase, too.

Derek smirked. "That would be you," he replied, pointing at me with a pen he picked up from his desk. I grinned. That explained his smirk. I don't usually go out of my way to do it, but I do love to be the cause of chaos and discord. Just call me Eris.

"Me?" I didn't have to feign innocence, because this time I really didn't know what I had done. "I may have stirred up trouble with Interpol…" Which was actually supposed to go away, since said trouble was orchestrated by police-sanctioned means… "But if they were going to do something about it, they'd have done it when it happened last year."

"Not that," he denied, shaking his head. News traveled quickly here; even though Hughes and the IA agent were still conversing, half of the department had to know exactly what they were talking about. "Although I'm gonna have to ask you to expand on that later, babe. Sounds like a story for over drinks with Kate."

Kate liked to socialize, and was always up for a bottle of juice or hot chocolate. Unlike me, she usually turned down alcohol, but there were exceptions. The only alcohol we'd found that we absolutely refused to ever, ever buy again was this cheap bottle of Chardonnay that tasted like vinegar, not wine.

Derek continued. "No, Caffrey was right - the stuff from the bank vault blowout?" I perked up, sitting up a little straighter. I needed to be seeing the blue-eyed man in just a few hours. I'd been waiting for those forensic results to get back all week so that I wouldn't have to just visit him again. I wanted to have a reason; questions to ask, productivity to make. "Security fibers for the Canadian hundred."

I shook my head. "Well, damn." I didn't know which I was more surprised by - Caffrey being right, or the Dutchman having said security fibers.

"The chemical formula's still classified. The Canadian Secret Service are very curious to know how you figured it out." The way he emphasized 'curious' let me know it was less of an appraisal than it was of a demanding inquiry. And, right, how would I have known if they didn't even release it yet?

For that matter, how did Caffrey find out? He went to jail before it was even produced.

I slid off of the desk and checked my phone for the time. "This is going to be fun," I sighed, looking longingly up towards my desk. I could go up there, but I had a sinking feeling that I'd have to have a phone conference very soon. A phone conference that wasn't going to be particularly jovial or patient.

"You may have started an international incident," Derek said, half teasing and half serious, enjoying my reaction.

"Again," I grumbled, glaring at him while I shoved my phone into the pocket of my slacks. "This is going to be fun."


After my definitely unpleasant phone conference with an agent with the CSS, my meeting with Caffrey was actually much nicer… if I ignored having my gun taken from me and my body patted down by security, that is. I understand why, it's just… gah, it felt so wrong.

I was led to a private room by a different guard than the one I'd been led around by last week, and this one was polite, but not too talkative. When he showed me to the room, I almost made a face. It was so dull and colorless; empty, aside from a grey table, a couple of metal chairs, an overhead light, and a small, barred window on one wall. It was wide, but not very long, and it was almost less comforting than the individual prison cells the inmates slept in. I sat down slowly, shuddered at the cold temperature seeping through my slacks, and then waved goodbye when the guard said that he would go get Caffrey.

I rubbed my hands together, blew into my palms, and then held my hands up by my face, covering my mouth and nose. It was something I did when I was cold, but I also did it when I was tense. It was just one of those small things I did to feel like I had more control.

After a few minutes, the door opened again, the guard holding it open for Caffrey, who was holding a sort of file in one of his cuffed hands. I couldn't say I was too surprised. It was a maximum security prison; unless I said otherwise, as a member of the bureau and his new arresting officer, Caffrey would stay cuffed for the visit. While he didn't have a violent track record, the large majority of the other inmates really did.

"Orange looks good on you," I said with a smirk. The obnoxious color made him easier to see in both light and dark, and it was one color that most people avoid wearing because of how it clashes with lighter colors, like blonde and white. It distinguished prison inmates just as well as white and black stripes.

"Not as good as Klein," he countered, smiling in good nature. Catching the leg of the chair opposite me with his ankle, he pulled it out and sat down, keeping the mysterious file in his lap. I held off on asking. Interesting… most people in prison because of me wouldn't be trading jokes. Maybe he was just inclined to be nice to the only female he got to interact with for the duration of his sentence. The male prisoners were separated from the female prisoners for the obvious reasons.

I leaned back, actively trying to seem comfortable. "You can uncuff him," I said to the guard. I was confident that I was safe with Caffrey physically, at the very least. I didn't know for sure if his grace and agility translated to fighting, but I hoped I wouldn't ever really need to find out. Caffrey seemed pleased, even though he didn't grin, as the guard used the key on his handcuffs to release his wrists. He held his shoulders a little bit straighter and his chin slightly higher.

The guard carried the handcuffs with him as he went to stand by the wall to look on during our conversation, intending to leap in to protect me if need be.

Caffrey rubbed at his wrists absently, though his skin didn't look particularly reddened when the fabric of his sleeves fell up far enough to see. "I'm not even going to ask how you figured it out," I stated plainly, opening the discussion.

He smirked, half charming, half mysterious. "It's what I do," he responded, intentionally vague. Hence why I hadn't asked; I knew there was no point. "How upset were the Canadians?"

I whistled while trying not to giggle. "Suffice to say that whoever started the stereotype that Canadians are nice has never met an angry agent from the CSS." Caffrey laughed. I certainly felt charmed, if that was what he was going for. "So, what, did you want to know if you were right? Or, you know…" I could go for silly or tempting here, and I decided to go for the latter. It was less friendly. "Were you just so awed you had to see me again?"

He raised his eyebrows at the challenge but played along. "I'll admit," he said through a soft sigh. "Your legal talk got me going, and I couldn't stop thinking about the way you held your radio."

He was so sarcastic that it was painful to anyone who understood subtlety, but it still made me bite the inside of my cheek to stop from laughing. His face was straight for a few seconds until I looked down, and Caffrey smiled a second later, and both of us laughed.

What am I doing? Something in my head went off at me, irritated at my decision to play around with a convict. I couldn't care less what the guard thought of how I conducted my interpersonal relations, but I did care that I was treating Caffrey more like a friend than someone I'd arrested. I sobered.

So did he, when he saw that I was getting serious. He leaned in over the table, keeping his back straight and his head up. Sharp, cunning eyes locked onto mine with a ready smirk on his lips. "I know why you call him the Dutchman," he informed. I started to scoff. "It's because, like the ghost ship, he disappears whenever you get close."

I exhaled. "How have you figured out anything about that case when you've been in prison for the last four years?"

"You know my life, you think I'm not working on figuring out yours?" That definitely sounded like a challenge. I wanted to respond with a quip about the missing eighteen years of his adolescence, but bit my tongue. That wasn't the point, and I didn't think it would do any good as a rapport. "Did you see I sent my arresting officer birthday cards?"

I actually had seen those when I looked at the history of his mail and correspondence; I had laughed so hard that Derek had actually come into my office to make sure I wasn't drugged, because to everyone else, I was reviewing a criminal's file and suddenly got hysterical.

"Yeah," I said, grinning widely. "Those were a nice touch."

"You've been after the Dutchman for months," he continued, just serving to remind me how absolutely hateful I was towards the culprit in question. "He's at the top of the bureau's 'wanted' list." You would know. "I'll help you catch him."

I laughed outright, which was probably a little rude, but I couldn't help myself. What, did he think that he, Neal Caffrey, con artist extraordinaire, was going to get a four-year-early release from prison and be hired by the FBI? Did he think we were just going to waive his newest sentencing on the off chance that he had some light to shed on the situation? The only way he could lead us immediately to the bad guy from prison, where he was, would be by admitting he knew who it was, which made him an accessory, if not an accomplice, and bam, his sentence is extended upon.

Caffrey was disgruntled and didn't appreciate being laughed at.

"How do you think that's gonna work, exactly?" I giggled while I tried to talk and I sounded breathless for it. "Skype at crime scenes? Become pen pals?" The whole thing was just so silly.

Rolling his eyes, Caffrey leaned back away from me and he picked his folder up from his lap. Without an extravagant show or dramatic reveal, he flopped it down onto the table. I stopped and stared at it, laughter ceasing when I saw just how serious he was. What exactly had he brought with him?

"You can get me out of here," he stated, eyes burning in intensity. I got the feeling he'd been considering this for a long time; this had probably been his plan from the first time we'd met. "There's a case-law precedent. I can be released into your custody-"

Fuck. I hadn't immediately thought of it because it was fairly rarely done and I had never done it myself, nor met anyone who had, but Caffrey was right. This was a situation where that loophole would apply.

"You get out of here and you take off after Kate Moreau," I interrupted with the first objection that came into my head, buying myself time to think about it. It was my choice if I wanted to let him out for this or not. The bureau would have final call, but if I wanted, I could get him out for a 'trial,' so to speak.

If - if - I opted to give the opportunity a chance, then that would make me the go-to person for pretty much anything regarding the con artist. I would become the first one contacted if he was hurt or in trouble. I would be responsible - to a reasonable extent - for his safety and whereabouts. It would be my job to both protect him and keep him from breaking the law for as long as he was out of prison, and if he failed to remain on the law-abiding side, then I'd be responsible for arresting him again.

"Kenna," he said, adopting a nickname for me with ease. I hadn't realized we were on a first name basis. Hell, I didn't know he even knew my name, but I supposed it must have come up around his arraignment a few times. He leaned in emphatically again with widened, soulful eyes. "I am not gonna run," he swore.

"Don't call me Kenna," I said back on impulse, flipping open the first page of the file.

Caffrey took over. I pulled my hands away while he shoved the top few papers to the side and pointed out a sheet specifically on a - "GPS-enabled tracking anklet," he announced, although I read the words and recognized the intention of the design on my own. "The newest ones are tamperproof. Never been skipped on."

"Not yet," I boldly corrected. I wouldn't put it past him to try, and he was smart enough that he might actually be able to manage it.

I chased his hands away when I tried to look at the various pages to see what he'd put together. Terms, conditions, deals - histories of times when the precedent had been used in the last couple of decades. There was some more on the anklet, so he fully expected me to be wary of giving him the opportunity to run. Hell, even an outline of the application that would have to be filled out as a formality before he was released. There was a page on a reformed criminal who had taken advantage of the precedent and become a CI, engaged on several instances by the FBI, handed a pass out of prison and essentially given a probationary period in its place as a trade.

That's what he wants, I realized, putting it together rapidly. He wants more freedom and he's willing to work in cooperation with me on my cases for it.

"Wow, you've really thought this through," I said, tone guarded so it wouldn't betray my thoughts. I wasn't sure what I thought about it, to be honest. It seemed like a good idea. He was good at everything the Dutchman was doing. Elites in a community tend to always cross paths sooner or later, or at least know who the others are, because they're at the top of the organizational hierarchy. I could crack cases with his help and advice; white-collar crimes that turned south and became violent, or that were regarded with importance by the bureau. On the other hand, he was a freaking con artist. How could I really trust him to keep his word or be truthful regarding evidence? By definition, it would've been dumb to just blindly trust him, of all people.

"I'm allowed internet access," he explicated. "And legal counsel."

I looked up at him from the pages in the files. I'd want to run it by other people first, of course - mostly Derek and Burke, his original officer. I wouldn't take their answers as veto, but Derek was my brother and he could give insight into whether or not I could deal with it, and Burke could tell me his observations about Caffrey's character. There were some ways in which I respected the man highly. I can admire a criminal in some cases, and damn, a stand-up criminal is unspeakably better, to me, than a crooked cop, which I've dealt with on more than one occasion.

"You realize if this happens, you're mine." I stated, searching his face for reactions he may prefer to keep hidden. That could not be up for debate. And it wasn't a two-way street; he did the wrongdoing, I did the supervising and monitoring. I would have every right to look into every aspect of his personal life that he engaged in, from background checks on his dates or hook-ups to close inspection on the stores he shopped at. Contrastingly, the most claim he would have to my personal life would be to know where and how he could get in contact with me if I was needed. "You follow the orders the bureau gives. You don't stray out of your permitted radius without me. You have to follow whatever other rules I choose to pass through the order."

For a liar, he looked incredibly honest as he bluntly told me, "You could lock me in your own house and it would still be more comfortable than this place."

"You want me to be your get-out-of-jail-free card." I wasn't sure yet how I felt about being used that way. Could I really be irritated, though? It was a reasonable plan to attempt, and it wasn't like I was being manipulated into it. He was being rather upfront. "After you knowingly added to your sentence by stealing a credit card, committing grand theft auto, and breaking and entering into an apartment?"

Maybe he just doesn't understand how this sort of thing typically works…?

"I wanted to find Kate." Just like that, his voice saying my sister's name made my chest tighten. I imagined going home, like he had, and finding the house empty, devoid of all signs of my little sister, with no idea where she'd gone and no clue where to begin looking. "I missed her. I was too late. Do you think that means I shouldn't have tried?"

God damn it. I knew myself well enough to know when someone was making an impression with me. Even though he didn't know I had a sister named Kate, he was still putting me in a situation where I couldn't possibly not see it and understand it from his perspective. If I'd been in his place, I'd have done anything to try to stop my Kate from leaving, even if it did get me in trouble.

Caffrey leaned into the table, hands down in his lap unobtrusively. "I might never see her again. She's my sister," he whispered to me. Although he was using this as a point to enforce his argument, the frustration and sorrow that I saw in his eyes was real – or, at the very least, incredibly difficult to fake. "You said you'd seen smart people do stupid things for their soulmates. Haven't people done equally stupid things for their families?"

How the hell was I supposed to argue with that?

This really did seem like it could be a beneficial situation, but I still didn't trust myself or him enough to agree to anything without doing research. Not when I already got the feeling that looking into his big blue eyes would be enough to sway my emotional stance.

"I'll talk to your arresting officer. Your other one, I mean. And I'll see what the bureau can offer for safeguards." By being noncommittal, I wasn't shutting any doors, but I also wasn't confirming anything. He couldn't hold me to whatever I said at this point. "But I swear to God-" I raised a hand to my face and held up a finger. It was warning, but hadn't quite crossed the line to threatening. "If you knowingly hinder my investigation, or bring any risk to my home, you will find yourself back here so quickly your head will spin."

"Understood, Kenna." He sank back, shoulders falling. Caffrey rubbed at his temple and pulled his fingers through his hair. "Think about it."

I neatly stacked his papers on top of each other in his file folder again before I closed the top, leaving it as it was. "Don't call me that," I repeated my sentiments from earlier with a glare. Nicknames are for friends.


I was certain that if I went through another whole mug of coffee I was going to throw up and cry from all of the caffeine warring with the exhaustion, but I couldn't go to sleep just yet, even though Kate had retreated to her bedroom… hours ago.

Neal Caffrey covered my kitchen table since before she'd gone to bed. In that time, I had thought myself in circles between goals and morals and values that I had thought were all straight in my head, but turned out to be more corkscrew-shaped in practice. I had had more coffee than any doctor would tolerate. I had had an almost hour-long phone call with Burke, the agent who had first arrested Caffrey. Every time I started to see the words, letters, and numbers blurring on paper, I blinked several times and spent a few seconds observing the picture of him I'd gotten from his bust, back when he was first arrested, which wasn't a mug shot. It was him in tight black pants and a solid blue button-up that matched his eyes, collar loose and sleeve cuffs undone.

This would be another situation where I'd have had to hold my tongue in front of other officers, because hot damn, the man could rock his clothes like an AC/DC concert. And that was probably the exhaustion talking (I hoped), because I'd been up for over twenty-four hours.

Basically, getting feedback from other officers hadn't helped me much. Derek was fed up with the Dutchman and a nonviolent criminal was a huge improvement from the majority of the ones he'd seen, so he was all for letting Caffrey out if I was up for dealing with him. Burke, on the other hand, was far more cautious. He thought that, if we were in that much need for leads, then we should negotiate his prison privileges rather than letting him out, but letting him tag along to crime scenes was an incredible advantage for giving him information to be productive with.

That wasn't all. I got opinions from almost a dozen people who happened to hear it through the grape vine. I'd printed some forms to look at and the agents who had been near the printer had checked out what the forms were about. My visit with Caffrey had never really been a secret, so it was through a quick process of logic that the agents figured out I was considering collaborating with someone who used to be on the Most Wanted webpage, and I could count on one hand the number of people with positive, or even neutral, thoughts. Most of them were far more emphatically against it. I received more than one message along the lines of did that attack that put you in our offices also do some serious and previously-undiagnosed brain damage?

However, seeing as those messages never actually had any deeper argument or reasoning than "he's a criminal" (wow, really, you don't say, I had no idea, it's not like I arrested him or anything), I dismissed them as unsubstantial, people offended on the principles that I valued. Caffrey needed to do his time.

There was more than one way of paying back, though, then sitting around in a prison cell, reading Adams and Colfer, smoking in the yard, and jacking off – whatever it was Caffrey chose to do to pass the time in which he wasn't permitted to do much of anything. What they didn't consider in their argument that he had a responsibility to "give back" to the people he took from was that this current form of "giving back" was actually letting him do nothing but sit around and rot, all at the taxpayers' expense. Not only would having him work for the bureau actually give back in an ironic way, but if it got out to his former contacts, it could possibly ruin the illegal bridges that hadn't already been burnt by his arrest.

I'd thought about it a lot.

Seeing as other people apparently hadn't bothered to formulate an actual argument, I elected to acknowledge their opinions (some of those acknowledgments were more strongly worded than others, depending on how insulted I was by the format of their complaint), and then proceed to throw them out. A good chunk of them had possibly skipped every debate or persuasive writing class in their lives.

It came down to my decision, as I knew it would, but between knowing he was a professional liar and knowing that he desperately wanted out of jail - to the extent he was willing to make a deal -, those parts of the situation cancelled each other out. Him being a con artist and playing people's emotions made me leery about trusting my intuition when my head told me he was sincere.

A light flipped on by the stairwell and Kate emerged in the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of her eyes and padding across the room in fluffy animal slippers. She squinted at me to make sure she wasn't still partly dreaming, and when I reached for the coffee and downed half the mug, then panted because it burned, she realized that I was totally, one hundred percent real.

"Oh, you're kidding," she complained, crossing the kitchen and heading to the cupboards where we kept our glasses. "You're still awake?"

I looked at the clock, wondering why she was up. It was still in the dark hours of the morning as the sun slept, so I hadn't worked all night. Yet.

"It would appear that way, yes." Working on my caffeine dependency.

Kate took down a glass and she filled it up with cold water from the filter tap. She picked up a bottle of low-strength melatonin from the shelves by the fridge and then came to sit with me at an open chair. She had to balance her water on her knee because there were papers about Caffrey everywhere.

"What's wrong?" She asked, looking over the table dully and then realizing I was obsessing over work problems.

"Nothing," I denied. Something being 'wrong' to me was something like people being hurt. In this case, no one was getting hurt; I was just having difficulty deciding if this was a great idea or the worst I'd ever been confronted with. I propped my head up on my elbows. "Nothing's wrong, I'm just… ugh."

The 'ugh' was what really communicated it to Kate, and that wasn't even sarcasm.

"You're considering taking him on," she said, not sounding very surprised. She knocked back a pill to help her sleep better and chased it down with water, then wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist.

"I really wanna catch the Dutchman," I answered defensively. Taking a criminal out of jail… it was literally the exact opposite of what I was supposed to do. I felt like I had to justify the choice even if I was only considering it.

Kate snorted. "You're too stubborn to take him out if that were the only reason, especially this soon." I hated how well she knew me sometimes; she was going to find out in about thirty seconds that there was a bit more to it than just the Dutchman case, no matter what I was telling myself. Sure enough, her eyes fixed in on me and became sharp and focused, waking up further. "What did he say to you?" She demanded apprehensively.

I laughed softly at her protectiveness. Although I was far more likely to be impulsively violent, Kate was the kind of avenger who struck sneakily. I hated to think of what Caffrey could be confronted with if I let him out of prison with Kate under the impression he had forced or otherwise coerced me into it.

"He didn't threaten me or anything, okay?" Still, that had to be established, because I wasn't sure I could consider him safe in or out of prison if I didn't remedy the misunderstanding. Kate softened and relaxed.

She quietly sloshed her water around in her glass while she patiently waited for me to figure out how to explain my reasoning. I knew that I didn't have to defend myself to her - if she had a strong opinion, she'd have made it known by now - but she knew just as well that I would want to prove I was able to defend myself from others' judgments.

I took a deep breath and then let it out. If I said it to Kate, at least she'd know why I was caught by it and how it felt. She hadn't looked into his eyes and felt sympathy for him, so she could tell me if I was being stupid and silly again.

"He wants out early because he added to his sentence escaping, but he broke out because he was trying to find his sister before she took off." I breathed again and shook my head, looking down at the files strewn in front of me. No matter how much they held, they were all missing the definitive answer I needed to confidently make the call. "I think it's fair that he serves time for his crimes… and for breaking out… but I think another four years, just for looking for his sister, is a bit much."

Kate was nodding in understanding, so at least it wasn't just me being caught with the charming smile and the gorgeous eyes. "So you want to help him get out?"

"This could be a great win-win situation for us both!" I implied that I did without stating it. She noticed and rolled her eyes. "He's not in prison, and I have a consultant who really knows what the hell he's talking about!"

An indent appeared in the side of her cheek, not like a dimple, and she picked up a photograph of Caffrey that I'd been looking at to reassert my vision. She tilted her head slightly to the side and kept biting gently on the inside of her cheek, thinking.

"Is this him?" She asked, already knowing the answer. "He's cute."

I hypocritically ignored that I thought the same thing. I thought a lot of people were lookers, ranging from attractive to hot to drop dead sexy depending on the context and my mood. Kate knew this, because I tended to have even less of a filter than usual around her, and we both knew that while we could appreciate looks of men, neither of us were any straighter than bendy straws, and just because we could think that laying a guy would be awesome, we didn't automatically idealize the man in question or think he was that great in any other sense. We just learned from experience and theory and discussion that lust is far from affection or admiration, and how to separate it from anything else.

"He's a conman, not a puppy."

"I didn't say he was puppy-cute," she retorted with a quirk of her lips, mischievous. She dropped the photo back onto the table and it landed a bit askew. I resisted the urge to retentively fix it. "I meant he's badass-and-hot,-fuck-me-please-cute."

I wasn't too sure that 'cute' and 'fuck me please' belonged in the same phrase.

"I think the word you're looking for is 'sexy,' not 'cute,'" I indulgently corrected.

"Ha!" Her eyes lit up with a sparkle and she pointed at me animatedly. I gave it about fifteen minutes before she felt the Melatonin and started yawning. "You said it, not me."

I laughed quietly again. I loved my sister so much sometimes.

"I think you want me to pine after someone so that you can tease me when I get on you about Derek," I playfully argued. Kate's grin dropped but she tried to recover. "I'm not going to pine for this guy, Katie. I'm going to get him out of prison for a while, maybe enjoy the conversation, and - maybe - look into reducing his sentence if the bureau doesn't hire him as a consultant."

Giving up on the play, I realized too late that I had said 'going to' like I had already made the decision. From the look Kate gave me, I knew she caught it, too.

"Look, people do stupid things," she delicately began. This was one of her 'serious' tones, so I listened up attentively to whatever it was she wanted to say. She was already being reminiscent of words that had been said both to and by me. "And if this were your normal type of criminal, I'd agree; keep him in jail. But he's not, Kenzi." The gentle reminder was what I needed to help me tell the difference between Caffrey and the inmates that I was used to. "Caffrey is a forger and a thief and a liar, but he doesn't torture and rape and murder people and then dispose of the body in some creative and horrific way." I looked down when she said it all so casually. Sometimes I regretted her being so desensitized to it, but I knew that she reacted differently when it was more than hypothetical, so she still felt. Besides, a lot of the desensitizing had been done before we'd even met.

"He made bad decisions," she allowed without trying to defend those. "But I've done my own research, and I haven't found anything that indicates he hurts just for hurting."

"Yes, but he's still convicted," I pointed out weakly.

My sister nodded slowly. "Okay. Look at it this way," she suggested. "If he were some guy, who wanted to help the FBI, who had a background that suggested he would know about the crimes, but hadn't been convicted, would you be opposed to letting him help?"

It dawned on me that I wouldn't. I wanted leads. I didn't really care who I got them from - except, it seemed, when it came to criminals.

"He's still paying. He'll be tethered to you, and you know how to make his life hell. He won't be free, just in a less high-strung place, and with some more luxury. To catch the Dutchman, it might be worth lengthening his leash for a while." She paused and thoughtfully drank the rest of the water left in her glass. "Besides, if you really can't stand him, you can resign custody. And who knows? If you stop thinking about him as someone who wears orange, maybe you'll actually like him a little bit."

My brilliant, brilliant sister stood up and left the chair pulled out to the side. Kate left the table to go to the sink, rinsed out her glass with warm water, and then put it down on the left side to be loaded the next time someone did the dishes. I supported my head with one hand, elbow propped on the table, and I thought hard about it.

Kate was absolutely right. My wariness regarding convicts came from an entirely different class of criminals. It's not like it was a long-term arrangement; I could end it whenever I wanted, but, being a reasonable and amicable person, maybe I could make an agreement with Caffrey about his allowances that gave him the freedoms and rights he wanted while I had a minimal amount of work to do pertaining to him.

She yawned widely and covered her mouth with her elbow, blinking. "I'm going to go sleep now," she announced, smiling mockingly like she was taunting me with the silent, you know, like a normal person. You might wanna try it if you still expect to pass yourself off as human. "Wash the mug when you're done with it."


"I know it's here somewhere." I was standing up on top of my desk chair, door to my closet wide open, while I tried to reach in and lean towards the top shelf without sending the wheels of my chair sliding across the carpet. I gripped the wall with one hand and felt around on the shelf between boxes. I wasn't even sure what most of them held anymore, but I knew the one I was looking for. "Come on. There's no way I would've tossed it with the junk."

I bit my tongue and stood up on my toes. Right as the chair made a frightening lurch backwards, making my heart thud, I felt my hand hit a velvet edge almost at the very back of the shelf and all the way to the left.

"Ah!" I called, both in victory and in fear as I pushed my rear back, pulling my feet back under me and dragging the chair along with it. In hindsight, it was a really good thing that I had held a strong grip on the doorframe.

Now that I knew where it was, it was a fast process of getting the box out from where it was buried out of sight and out of mind. I retrieved it quickly, moved it to the chair beside my feet, and stepped down before I broke my neck. Closing the closet door, I rolled the chair back to my desk and picked up the black box, about the size of a large filing envelope, and carried it with me back to my bed. It smelled like musk and Febreeze, was adorned with a layer of dust that stuck to my shirt, and one of the cardboard corners was bent underneath the glued velvet. There wasn't a big surprise there. I'd gotten it at seventeen and didn't have the heart to trade it out for something newer.

My overhead lighting was the only source I had to read by, although dawn would be breaking sooner rather than later, and I'd regret staying up any later than I absolutely had to the coming morning. Still, the satisfaction was worth it. I was going to be suffering anyway. What was ten more minutes?

The box top was stiff and had to be worked at to get it to open. I waved it away from my face to get rid of some of the extra dust and looked down at the stationary inside. The box was stuffed almost to the brim with unsealed envelopes and crinkled post-its with smudged ink and faded pencil marks.

"It's been a while," I said, rolling my shoulders down and looking inside. I didn't even remember half of the stuff that was in there, yet once I'd chosen one to read, I was sure it would come back to me. "Can't really say I've missed you, Zar, but it'll be nice to hear from you again."

I let out a quick breath and reached down into the box, pulling up envelopes and trying to get towards the bottom of the stack. They'd been added as they were received, and I wanted to start at the beginning. It just seemed like the right thing to do, at least for the first time I was unearthing them. I kept them in case I needed a reality check or a reminder, but I'd dutifully spent my adult life pretending they weren't hoarded away in a dark cupboard somewhere.

The envelopes were all the same color, but the stationary was different. The letter at the very bottom was thick and old, the edges of the paper soft with age and duress on the crease, a gentle bird's egg blue with fleurs-de-lis in violet shades around the edges and heavily layered in the corners. I couldn't recall where it had come from, but I touched it with soft fingers and fought the urge to hold it to my nose and sniff, having a ridiculous thought that it might brush away the cobwebs clinging to underused memories of being a teenager. In a way, I was thankful to Caffrey, because it could've easily been years before I went looking for ghosts if it wasn't for the moral conflict his proposal incited.

"This isn't stationary. This is kids' paper," a French-accented voice sniffed with disdain to a ginger girl in a sundress and tights, hair braided.

"It's stationary for people who aren't boring," the girl had retorted to him. She had less of an accent – English wasn't as foreign to her. I giggled at the memory, looking down at the words in familiar handwriting and running the back of my hand along the crease as it unfolded.

Time to delve into the past. Quiet snickers aside, I knew that more of the letters would make me feel upset or angry than reminiscent or gleeful. It was Pandora's Box – I was willing to at least acknowledge that the demons existed for the sake of the light and the understanding that I hoped would come as a result.

I'd always hated that story as a kid. Shaking my head, I sat down on the side of my bed and then leaned backwards, falling sideways on the mattress, hair spreading out like a messy backdrop.


Hey, so, remember that day when our mom told us we couldn't go to a college party with Michéle, so we (allegedly) made fake IDs? Because I do. She was older than us, only by a couple of years, but when you're 15, that's an enormous age gap, especially when you're as desperate to fit in as we were. God, we were such fucking losers that year. Couldn't even speak enough Italian to ask questions in class. I had been so excited about that relocation until it turned out that we were one of the dumb privileged kids no matter where we went.

Mom really kicked our asses. Asked if we wanted to have criminal records, be lumped in with killers and sex offenders, and man, we were pissed. We were 15, no one wanted to do anything with us until then, and our parents couldn't be bothered to give a damn unless it could turn around and reflect badly on them. And they called themselves parents. We raised ourselves. With some help from the staff.

Dad got it worse from her, though, since he had so much to worry about that was a hundred times more important than any disappointing daughters could ever have been. Well, fuck you too, Dad.

Actually, fuck you, too, Mom. You only found out because the ER called you; we'd have done fine if it weren't for that. Did you think we didn't learn our lesson about criminal activity when it turned out Michéle took us to that party to spike our drinks and get us drunk? She got blackmail, and her skeevy brother got easier prey. He also got a broken arm. We may not have been able to walk straight, but those self-defense classes that dearest, darling Mommy and Daddy insisted on turned out useful, after all. Oh, well. He deserved it.

That bitch was a minor and only had probation, but her brother was a full-fledged adult, in college and everything. We testified under the table in a private court and got him arrested, expelled from his school and charged with sexual harassment, assault, and intent of sexual assault. Good for him. That looks a ton worse than made a fake ID.

Whatever. Won't be trying that again. I don't need a fake ID to travel, just a passport, which I already have. The second I get the chance, I'm going to get so far out of here, away from this fucking hell, that I'm never going to look back. Wherever you're at now, McKenna, I sure hope you know better than to stay somewhere where you're miserable, and I hope you remember what happened when we let someone break the law and get us fakes, and if you don't keep in mind that criminal activity apparently leads to that entire nightmare, I'm going to punch your teeth in.

Can't say I particularly love you, but I do wish you the best. Go get 'em. Be the antithesis of our teenage selves and catch out the bastards that'll take advantage of drunk girls like we were.

Hope you miss me,

Zarra L


I didn't speak to Caffrey again before I had it finalized, and so it must have come as at least a little bit of a surprise when he got the news that he was leaving this afternoon. At about an hour past the time I'd eaten with my sister, I was sitting up on the hood of my FBI SUV, waiting patiently for the prison gates to open while on my phone.

I took a picture of the prison while I was waiting and put it on FaceBook with the caption, Picking up my new pet from the pound!

When they opened as a guard scanned his key, Caffrey walked out the gates for the second time in less than as many weeks, in the same outfit he'd been wearing when he'd been arrested in Moreau's apartment. The guard saw me and let Caffrey keep walking out on his own, while he squinted slightly against the sunlight behind me.

I pushed myself off the front of my SUV and dropped down solidly onto my feet.

"Lemme see," I prompted before he was within five yards of my car.

He rolled his eyes, but stopped walking and pulled up the left cuff of his pants. Around his ankle, he had a thick belt strapped around and connected with a tan monitor that kept emitting a solid green light to show that it was in connection with the satellites. I grinned.

"You understand the terms of the deal?" I confirmed, waving him onwards. He dropped the cuff and continued. I almost felt weary of letting him get close, but realized that I was going to have to suck it up and get used to it. I'd have to deal with being pretty close to him for the next however long this case took.

He held his arms out. "I'm being released into the generous, warm arms of the FBI, under your custody." At least he liked satire. That I could get behind. He pointed down at the anklet hidden under his cuff. "And this thing is chafing my leg," he complained. "Anything I'm missing?"

I joined him at the side of the car, smiling saccharinely. I felt this would be one of those give-and-have-taken situations, so I wanted to make sure he knew that he could not fuck with me and expect to get away with it.

"Yes," I replied, because he was forgetting to remember the consequences of a failure to behave. "If you run, and I catch you - which we know I will, because I already have - you're not just back here for four years. You officially become a fugitive, and you're likely in for good." Caffrey became serious as I spoke, his eyes darkening, and he nodded to show he understood. "Another thing - you're probably tempted to start looking around for Kate. Don't."

"I told you," he objected softly. Whenever Moreau came up while we spoke, he seemed to immediately grow more earnest and easier to see through. It seemed too convincing and too repetitive to be a charade, but I would keep on my toes. "The bottle meant goodbye."

"Then leave it at that," I advised sharply, and then tried to soften my own disposition. With those things said, there was no reason to be harsh when getting along would work better for the both of us. "This is a temporary situation. Maybe in the future, if it goes well, we can see about making it more semi-permanent."

Holding up the keys to my car, I pressed on the unlock button. The locks went up, visible through the windows. I smiled and nodded my head to the side, indicating for him to get inside.

"Where are we going first?" He asked, raising his voice as I sauntered around the car to the driver's side and pulled open the door.

Cheerily, I called back, "Your new home!" Although I hadn't chosen the residence he would be taking… it would be a lie to say that I wasn't a little bit pleased with it.

"What happened to keeping me locked in yours?" He asked, sounding like he was mostly joking, but I still saw a red flag in my head.

"I'm making an effort to trust you here." Catching his eyes, I pulled my door shut without looking. He kept looking at me while he pulled on the seat belt and buckled it in. "Don't push it by inviting yourself into my territory." Trusting him to have my back out of mutual gain was one thing; trusting him to behave and look out for Kate was another completely different ball game, and until I knew that I could actually trust him to be a help, I wasn't happy to consider them even meeting, much less living together.

I thought that everything was pretty settled with that. He blinked, breaking eye contact, and nodded, accepting it even if he didn't fully understand why. Twisting the keys made the car turn on, the engine starting up and then purring heartily.

"What made you decide to try it?" Caffrey asked me, looking across the car like he was arguing with himself. Did he really want to ask? Did he really want to know the answer? Did he care one way or the other?

"My sister," I answered softly. Kate had really hit me with a clue. No one could blame me for not trusting Caffrey, but I had no reason to really believe he would betray me. If I made our lives difficult by not even trying to trust, then it was on me. "You know," I added as an afterthought, laughing a little. "Her name is Kate."

His eyes widened and his lips pulled up in a grin. "You're kidding!" He laughed loudly and I smiled as the noise filled my car.


"This is Neal Caffrey. You should've been called earlier by a Derek Johnson." Smiling politely at the clerk behind the counter, I held out a hand to my left at the convict, who was looking around like he was in a trap.

The bureau was prepared to house Caffrey for as much money as it took to house him in prison, but not to go over that. It was government money, and just because he was a CI now didn't mean that what he'd done wrong was erased. The best extended stay place that they could afford for a month-long stay was a really old one that didn't even have a name other than "Motel." It wasn't a nice place; dirty, crowded, and small, I was amazed it was even still open. Had it ever been checked by the health department?

A prostitute was working at her nails with a nail filer while leaning against the wall in the lobby, her shirt too short, her hair coiffed, and her bust emphasized by her shirt. A man was reading the paper at a table behind us and swatting at an insect with a ping-pong paddle. The man across the counter had his computer open, and one of the internet tabs read suspiciously like a porn site.

This wasn't a place I could be paid to stay in; I much preferred greater luxury. I was absolutely certain that Caffrey did, too - and that was why I was somewhat sadistically delighted to drop him in here.

The clerk reached into the dirty mail slot for room number twelve on the second floor, picked up a card key on a tacky pink keyring with dirty Persian pink fuzz, and dropped it onto the counter for Caffrey to pick up. "There you go, Snake Eyes," he said, popping chewing gum with his teeth and sitting back down in front of the computer, switching the tabs again.

Caffrey stared at the keys as if they carried the plague, revulsion in his eyes and disgruntlement written all over his posture.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" The felon touched my shoulder and kept very close to me, like he was afraid to get near any part of the motel lest he pick up a disease, and I was the only sterile surface.

I rolled my eyes, grabbed the keys off of the counter, and walked him back into the lobby, past the front door and the prostitute by the cushioned old chair in front of the dusty television with the crack in the screen.

He looked around anxiously. "Maybe a little further down," he hedged, shuffling further away and eyeing the man who was swatting at the insect suspiciously. I followed him, much more at ease. I had gotten all of my rabies shots and taken my cipro pills already. "Do I have to stay here?"

I grinned at him, enjoying his discomfort far too much. "What's the matter, not enough stars for you?" I mocked. Instead of manning up, he just copped to it with an emphatic nod. I scowled. He took the fun out of it. "Grow up. It costs the government seven hundred to shelter you in prison every month, so that's what they're going to pay out here in the real world." Pulling his elbows in tighter to his body, he looked around uneasily. For someone who liked to use illegitimate money to lounge in the lap of luxury, I could see how a place like this might feel like sleeping in a barn - especially because a barn might actually be preferable. "Hey, I'm with you, I'd rather camp in the car than stay in this place, but I can't put you up in my home." I could if I got his perimeter adjusted, but not only was I not sure I was cool with that idea, I wouldn't ask Kate to deal with it. "I won't put my sister in that position."

"What, with a houseguest? Who cooks?" He was almost begging. I rolled my eyes and shook my head more sternly. Looking after my sister came first; and sure, a cook might be nice, since Kate doesn't particularly enjoy making more than a handful of specific foods and I just… don't mix well with kitchens, but we manage on our own, between drive-thrus and microwaveable macaroni.

"I won't ask my sister to start sharing her house without warning, and definitely not with a man." I could have very well added that he was a felon, but him being a stranger to her of the opposite sex was reason enough, in my opinion.

While I did believe that most guys would probably be fine to share temporary housing with, there was always the risk and concern that maybe they wouldn't. Neal gave me a lot of feelings, but none of them had anything to do with being in danger, of any sort. Regardless, there was a stress that society bred into females, since it was impossible to tell from one look at someone whether or not they would take no for an answer. Women are sexualized enough, and the difference in sex is enough to make anyone uncomfortable.

I wouldn't put my sister in the position where she felt like she had to put on a bra and shorts of a certain length before she left her bedroom. She should be able to feel safe through her entire home, no matter what. "Look, if you find a better offer, I encourage you to take it." I wrinkled my nose. I was going to have to come back here to pick him up for cases.

His shoulders sagged. "What about clothing?" He tried to argue. "I'm wearing my entire wardrobe."

It's not a bad wardrobe, I almost said, but stopped myself because I had thought the same thing about the orange jumpsuit, so I was thinking I'd just have to learn to sublimate what my body wanted me to do versus what my head wanted me to do. Well. What one-fourth of my head said I should be doing rather than what the other three quarters and body wanted.

"There's a thrift store at the end of the block," I informed him. I wasn't unnecessarily mean, usually, so I had made sure there were enough places nearby for him to attend to all of his everyday needs without requiring an FBI escort. His face fell and he opened his mouth to start whining. Like lightning, I covered up his mouth with my hand. "No, no, no whining, no complaining. This is what you wanted, right?" I took my hand away from his mouth before he thought to lick my palm. "You get to breathe fresh air whenever you want. You get to set your own sleeping schedule. You can do any leisure activity you please within reason when off the clock, you can exercise, you can eat whatever you want, you can talk to whoever you want." All of these simple liberties I took for granted, he hadn't had for four years. Compared to the confinement, this freedom seemed like it would be overwhelming on its own. "Hell, you can fuck whoever you want," I continued. "If it's consensual, I don't give a damn."

He sulked. "My mate might," he muttered.

My eyebrows rose, surprised. "You've met them?"

That would make this an entirely new ball game. If he knew who his mate was, I'd have assumed he would have brought it up at some point. Even when in prison, people were allowed time with their mates. I'd have to look after his mate along with him, and-

"No." I cut my own train of thought off when Caffrey responded and shook the idea way, undaunted. "Point stands."

So… you just used your mate as a ploy to garner sympathy?

The way he'd done it so casually aggravated me. His mate is supposed to be the one person he will always be permitted to have ties to, the one person that can't be taken from him. In a perfect world, he or she would be the one person that Neal Caffrey, con artist extraordinaire, never lied to. In a realistic world, he or she should be the one person that he can rely on to be there for support. It's not a theory to be taken lightly; the ideal should be respected regardless of the unknown odds of the reality. If my mate took advantage of my existence, I'd be pissed. I'd feel used and offended.

"You're complaining to complain now," I stated sharply, glaring through narrowed eyes. I needed to get out of here before I said something that I would possibly regret. "Your anklet is set up so you can go anywhere within two miles of this hotel. You find another housing situation, then I'll have it adjusted if you like to better accommodate you for space, stores, and restaurants."

"I don't get a housewarming present?" He tried to smile charmingly, no longer complaining or making offhanded remarks about his mate. He must've realized he'd pressed a wrong button, so he tactfully avoided it.

"Oh…" He'd reminded me of that, actually. I opened up the flap of my messenger bag and pulled out a binder of information that we'd photocopied from files to make yet another set for the Dutchman case. My bag felt significantly lighter on my shoulders without it, and I shoved it at his chest. "Happy housewarming," I said tonelessly, closing my bag more securely as he took the binder and frowned at it sadly.

What was he expecting? A potted plant?

"Remember, two-mile radius. Four-mile diameter. That's around eighty city blocks north-south. Just be more watchful going between avenues." The strange thing about New York was just the sheer mass of streets and blocks and how it was all crammed into one space. "Oh, and since it's not really easy to mark exact distances, your anklet will beep at you when you approach your perimeter. It gives you about three feet of warning, but the first inch you take over the edge sets off an alarm with the system."

"How much research have you put into this?" He asked, raising and lowering one arm while balancing the binder in his open hand, as if weighing the files. "And on a scale of one to ten, how much pleasure are you getting out of this?"

"A fair bit," I nodded shamelessly, "And, uh, seven point five." He'd taken some of the enjoyment out with the quip about his mate, but I wasn't going to let that ruin the novelty. "This is assuming the scale doesn't account for physical pleasure." Might as well get that out there. I laughed wryly. "Hey, if it makes you feel any better, this feels better than arresting you did."

"Well, I was sad then," Caffrey replied slowly, using feeling words as if he was unsure he was actually saying it right. "So if you had been having this much fun, I probably wouldn't have wanted to even try being around you this much."

I snorted rudely. There's no way. My attitude wouldn't have had a bearing on what he chose when he had already made a clear decision on what to try. "You'd prefer me to prison no matter how rude I was, and that's a fact." I considered pushing him, seeing what his limits were in the coming days, but decided that being capricious to that extent for no real reason was just too much trouble. "See you at seven AM tomorrow."

I left him in the plague hotel with a wave over my shoulder and a spring in my step, fully intending to go back home to Kate and watch television with her while eating a big dinner of microwaved macaroni. I don't need a chef.


I went back to the hotel the next morning at seven, just like I'd promised, hair still slightly stringy from my shower but with my breath carrying the vanilla scent of my Starbucks purchase on the way over. I covered my mouth as I yawned and stepped up to the clerk's desk.

"I'm here to pick up Caffrey," I announced, looking down at the same man from the day before. Normally I'd have leaned on the furnishings, but didn't think this place had half of the cleanliness any public facility was required to have, and very pointedly stood upright, supporting myself. "Room twelve."

Evidently, the clerk remembered him. He looked up from his game of solitaire to chuckle. "Oh, yeah, Snake Eyes." I didn't think that when I looked at Caffrey; I thought pretty, and it was enough to make me want to not ever acknowledge that I felt that way about his appearance. Sublimate, McKenna, sublimate! "Nice guy…" Rotating on the creaking chair, he reached for the mail slots for the individual rooms behind him and picked up a slip of paper from the cubby for Caffrey's room. "Left you a note."

He passed it over to me, a bandaid on one of his fingers. I took it out of his hands without touching said bandaid and unfolded the piece of scrap notebook paper, folded in two with sharpie staining through to the back. Caffrey's printed handwriting was bold and big on the paper, visibly cheerful and defiant without using any standoffish or rude words.

Dear Kenna, I have moved approximately 1.6 miles. He followed it with an address that was on a street not far away; definitely within his perimeter. I rolled my eyes when the note finished with hugs and kisses. XOXO, Neal.

"You cheeky son of a bitch," I whispered, starting to smile despite myself. I folded up the note and slipped it into my pocket as I left the clerk to play his game on the computer, going back out to my car.


"Christ, Caffrey," I breathed, standing at the front of the porch with my head tilted all the way back to look up at the mansion in front of me in soft whites and green trim and emerald roofing. "You're going to be the death of me." How had he managed this? What the fuck?! I left him twelve hours ago in a disgusting, trashy motel, and now he's living like a duke in one of the city's most scenic mansions. And, no, that's not an exaggeration.

I felt like Burke would probably be saying I told you so, and Kate wouldn't believe this until she saw a photograph.

Although the building was somewhat intimidating, I knew that I had to make sure that the owner was actually aware Caffrey was here, and I still needed to pick him up for work, so I stepped up to the door and poised my hand to rap on the polished oak before I saw the doorbell. My hand fell awkwardly and I pushed the button. I heard the echo of the ring even through the closed door.

A maid pulled the door open. There was no mistaking her for anything else; hair drawn up with ringlets falling out of her bun, she wore what looked like a French maid's costume, except the apron was dirty from cleaning or cooking, the bust was loose, and the skirt was much longer and accompanied by appropriate nylons.

"Um. Hi," I said intelligently, wondering if I was amused or irritated that Caffrey had moved into a place where he could literally have a maid. If he made one joke about a maid's costume, though… "I'm FBI," I introduced, trying to look past her to see if I saw either the building's owner or the con artist I was looking for. "Can I speak to whomever owns the property?"

"You must be Kenna." The maid looked to the right when she heard the soft but friendly woman's voice and she stepped to the side. Into view moved an elderly woman, probably in her sixties or seventies, with rich complexion, wavy black hair with dark caramel highlights, and light brown skin, dressed in an orange coat with fur on the collar and holding a ginger and cream Pembroke Welsh Corgi in one arm. My eyes darted down to the animal before I told myself to focus and looked up at her again.

Her eyes sparkled mirthfully, having no doubt noticed the wave of affection that overcame me the minute I saw her dog.

"It's McKenna, actually," I informed her, suppressing a groan. Caffrey was definitely here. And definitely telling people my name was Kenna. "I'm looking for Neal."

Saying his first name casually, without it quickly being followed by his surname, was a relatively new thing to me; and while I liked how his name sounded, it was strange to seem so familiar with him when I had yet to berate him for this new life decision he'd made.

The woman stepped to the side in a clear invitation into her manor. "He's upstairs," she informed me. I wandered over the threshold and looked around the rich, lavish downstairs that was in view of the door. I hadn't lived in a house this big since-

No. That was a completely different part of my life.

"And…" I couldn't see a set of stairs in sight, meaning that it was further away. After seeing the size of the house from the outside, I was pretty sure I could get lost in this labyrinth and need David Bowie to come rescue me. "Which direction will take me to the stairs?"

I looked back at her, earnestly questioning, and she smiled.


For me, I wasn't sure if I was more irritated that Caffrey had managed a penthouse suite or that I kept half-panicking every few seconds, wondering if the reason it was seeming like such a big house was because I had taken a wrong turn and gotten lost, even though the manor's owner had given very straightforward directions.

Part of the penthouse extended onto the roof and overlooked the busier skyline of New York on one side. I very hesitantly stepped out onto the third-story roof as if it might turn out to be an illusion, but no - a couple of picnic tables were set up, a swimming pool glinted and reflected sunlight to the left, and a wall going all the way around the perimeter of the roof was built up about four feet high for safety. Being in a place this luxurious almost made me long for having a place this big, too - but then I realized I had absolutely no idea what I'd do with all of the space.

Caffrey was enjoying the calmness and great view. Clad in a navy blue robe tied loosely around his abdomen, I caught a glimpse of his chest as he moved his arms, turning the page on the New York Times newspaper and shifting the fabric. He looked up and grinned widely at me.

"You're early!"

"We found a lead at the airport," I stated, transitioning swiftly into a teacherly disposition. "Here's your pop quiz - we got a hit on our Snow White."

"Snow White," Caffrey answered, lips quirking as he proved that he really had done his homework. "The phrase you decoded from a suspected Dutchman communication at Barcelona."

I nodded my head once to confirm he was correct, regardless of whether or not he already knew it (he did). Then I looked around. I almost wished I'd brought sunglasses because the morning was so bright, but it just served to emphasize the great deal that the conman had somehow managed to score.

"You moved," I said intelligently.

"Yeah," he agreed, folding up the newspaper neatly and setting it down flat on the picnic table in front of him. The black wire was patterned with small, precise images. Without the papers in the way, I could see a small cup of coffee in front of him. "It's nicer than the other place, don't you think?"

Obviously.

"Definitely," I said, humoring him as I looked around, pretending to actually have to seek out the differences. "I don't remember the motel having, uh, half the size."

Caffrey smiled at me cheekily. "I went to the thrift store - like you suggested - and June-" Lady with the Corgi, I assumed - "-Was donating her late husband's clothes. We hit it off, she had an extra guest room…" he trailed off as the puzzle drew itself together. I rolled my eyes. He noticed my irritation. "You said if I found a nice place for the same price, I should take it," he reminded, as if I was considering taking it back.

"Yes, I did. And I'm proud of you for taking initiative," I sarcastically praised. There wasn't really anything wrong with what he'd done, so long as June was aware that her new tenant was a convict, so I couldn't exactly threaten or reprimand him for his new shelter. "This whole place for seven hundred?"

"Yep," he replied, clearly delighted with himself. He popped the "P" in the word. "But I help out around the place. Feed the dog, wash the Jag, watch-"

"The Jaguar?" I interrupted. Though not a mechanic, I admire beautiful cars. A Jaguar certainly qualifies, but there was no way I could buy one on my bureau salary. Kate and I lived quite comfortably, but not quite that comfortably. "Unbelievable. You are unbelievable!" He preened like it was a compliment. "Look, this is great, and I'll have it recorded and the tracker adjusted, but I've got to ask-"

The smile dropped from his face. "No, you don't," he disagreed.

"Yes, I do," I contradicted firmly, finally pulling out the metal chair across from him. I dropped down into the seat and looked at him across the table. From this angle I could see the steam rising from his coffee. "She does know who you are, right?" Caffrey sighed and looked out over the wall at the skyline. "You didn't just charm your way in with a smile and some half-truths?"

I wished that I was surprised, but I caught on rapidly when Caffrey deflected and turned the subject around. I just resigned myself to asking June instead as he put on a sexy, suggestive smirk. "You think my smiles are that charming?"

"You're about as charming as Ted Bundy," I stated tonelessly, unimpressed. At least Bundy was actually charismatic… I could've said something meaner.

His mouth made an 'O' and he leaned back, raising his hand to press over his heart through the fuzzy, dark blue robe. "Oh!" Pouting, he looked across the table and blinked. "Ouchie, Kenna, that hurts. You hurt me in my heart."

"You know what else hurts?" I said, mouth moving on autopilot. Times like these were when I was most grateful for my practice being sassy and quick-witted. I didn't have to work or think to be a verbal match. "Being called 'Kenna' and seeing you without clothes." I nodded to the door going back inside as it was opened again. An excited yap let me know that it was June and her dog. I tried to smile to seem friendlier for her benefit rather than broadcasting the annoyance and stress in the interactions between myself and my new friend. "Go get dressed," I instructed, lacking much fire.

Caffrey stood up, still grinning in good humor at his melodrama, and overemphasized the swish of his robe as he headed to the door. June moved to the side and she bent down, placing her Corgi gently on the concrete, its paws already scrabbling. Caffrey was wearing socks, at least, but that was all else. He passed by June with a polite greeting, a perfect gentleman to her.

The ginger and white dog raced for me, its short tail whipping back and forth. Tiny claws skittered on the rooftop for traction while its head bounced. Bunching up its hindquarters, the dog sprang from a couple of feet away, aiming for my lap. It fell embarrassingly short of its goal, succeeding in awkwardly getting its front paws onto my thighs and falling back down.

Undaunted, the little animal sat down and wagged its ass back and forth happily, tongue lolling to the side of his mouth, looking up at me expectantly. I 'awww'-ed when appropriate.

"That's Cinnamon." Wrapping her shawl more tightly across her shoulders, June looked to the dog with fondness, joining me at the table while I waited for Caffrey. "He's a sweetheart. Oh, he won't bite. You can pet him."

With permission from the owner, I bent over and reached down for the puppy-sized dog, seizing him lightly around his body. He had the weight of a living animal but was light and easy to carry for his size, and his legs stilled and he panted while I put him down on my lap. When my fingers were unburied from his fur and I balanced him on my legs, he chased my hands with his tongue, yipping excitedly as he headbutted my lower ribcage.

Instant best friends.

"I have another one around here somewhere," June mused, looking around the rooftop, but not seeing another pet. "Bugsy. He's a pug, and still thinks he's a puppy."

A hand moved to Cinnamon's side to stabilize the dog, but I reached over across the newspaper and picked up the half-full cup of coffee from in front of June and carefully carried it back to me. June watched with a sparkle in her eyes as I took a drink from Caffrey's mug.

I moaned indecently. "It's perfect," I declared reverently, putting it down in front of me possessively. "Oh, God, the coffee is perfect." The caffeine was strong, but the coffee was sweetened with creams.

June laughed at my fervent adoration.

She, Cinnamon, and I sat around the table while I occasionally shamelessly drank Caffrey's coffee. Although it's never been medically confirmed, I have a slight suspicion that I may have a small caffeine addiction. While it's nowhere near the withdrawal that people go through when they quit recreational drugs, I've noticed that when I stop drinking coffee for longer than usual, my headaches increase in both frequency and intensity.

Cinnamon really was a sweetheart; his owner was more than correct about that. The Corgi was so happy just to be on my lap that it stuck its head over the arm of the chair, wiggled its body across both of my legs, and now leaned at an angle, hind legs pushing against my slacks to stop from slipping off of my thighs. He chuffed happily every few breaths and when I lowered my hand down to stroke down his body, he lifted his head and licked halfheartedly at my hands, torn between being affectionate and receiving a good petting.

Why doesn't Kate want this, I thought mournfully, looking down at the animal with the big brown eyes. We could have this. Instead she wants the animal of Voldemort.

It was kind of awkward to me. Here we were, sitting on the rooftop of a penthouse, our mutual connection inside ditching his robe for no doubt some sleek suit or elegant get-up that used to belong to the widow's husband. I had her dog in my lap while I drank her coffee. I had to break the silence somehow. I had to make friends.

I love my friends, but I don't particularly enjoy making them, so for me to abruptly realize that I need to be on good terms with this woman for my sanity almost made me break out in a sweat. So many things can go wrong when trying to make friends.

"I have to make sure you know," I blurted out before I could stop myself, and my years of practice at calm, level composure was the only thing stopping me from face planting the table. Yes, yes, make friends by establishing rapport over that she's invited a convict to live with her. Good thinking. Now I have to come up with something funny quickly. "French fries didn't come from France." She frowned and blinked at me and I hurried to elaborate, internally scolding myself. See?! This is what happens when you decide to socialize! "And French waiters get really offended when you insinuate that they did."

Her expression cleared, and the landowner started to laugh. I felt the systems in my body calming down. Mission cleared. What does it say when the thought of facing down a gun gives me no pause, but I get an adrenaline rush at the thought of avoiding a social faux pas?

That I need more in my life, I decided glumly.

"It's not jewelry on his ankle," I informed her more seriously now that the ice had been broken. I shifted as little as possible to preserve Cinnamon's place on my legs while I put down the coffee cup and set my hand flat next to it. "It's a tracking monitor. He's a felon, released to my custody in exchange for consultation."

June's eyes softened, and she slowly leaned over the picnic table to place her hand, soft and smooth from lack of labor and presence of lotions, over the back of mine reassuringly.

"Oh, I don't mind, dear," she said with an air of wisdom. "My husband was one, too. But oh, could he pull off an orange jumpsuit." She added mischievously, somehow knowing what to say to make me loosen up and laugh.

I did just that. It was kind of entertaining to relate, even if it's internally, that the new acquaintance and I have both known someone who looked damn fine in prison uniforms, even if I doubted I'd ever admit it.

"You're welcome here to check on Neal any time, McKenna. And for other reasons." Again, there was that mischief and the light humor. I sighed and shook my head. I appreciated the invitation, but other than checking on him, the only reason I could think of to be here would be to maybe study cases. "He's earning and paying his right to residency," she earnestly continued. "I just don't understand how we can expect them to redeem themselves if they're never given the chance after doing their time."

There was a certain stigma attached to being arrested, let alone convicted. Being a felon kind of put a label on a person. Some associated jail with theft, and there was a loss of the feeling of trust. Some associated it with more violent crimes, like homicide and rape, and there became a feeling of a lack of safety. Even after being incarcerated for crimes in which no one was physically hurt, a lot of people may feel endangered by being around someone that the government had decided needed to be locked away from the population.

In theory, the system works so that a person does a crime, they pay for it accordingly - by serving time - and then they're released to continue with their lives. Unfortunately, what's not always taken into account is the dent it puts on their reputation. Oftentimes friends, family, employers, and even potential relationships of any kind are dissuaded from association because of the stigma, and someone arrested in their teen years for shoplifting some jewelry or supplies may be left paying for it the rest of their lives.

June definitely had a point there. It was unfair to deny Caffrey residency simply due to his criminal record; if she had felt unsafe, that would be one thing, but if she felt fine around him and just refused on principle, it was another.

"Right," I said, understanding - really, I did understand. I was just still trying to accept what Kate had reminded me of in that working with Caffrey wasn't going to be like working with Dahmer or Bardo. He had quirks and irritating parts of his personality, sure, but doesn't everyone? It would be cruel to deprive him of the rights I would give someone else just because of something he had already paid for. It goes against the principles behind my job. "Well, he has charmed his way through most obstacles, so just be warned."


After sitting with June for a few minutes, I made an excuse to go back downstairs and wait for Caffrey to be ready to go. I was pacing back and forth and trying to stop (is it rude to pace in someone else's home?) but not having much success.

I checked the pastel-colored watch on my wrist over the top of my laced gloves. Jesus. It takes him longer to get dressed than it takes me, I thought with initial amusement, which I forced into irritation because I'm not supposed to like him, damn it.

Someone cleared their throat to make an entrance. I looked up to the top of the stairwell as Neal came downstairs, twirling a black fedora around, tossing it up, and catching it upside down, placing it on his head neatly. He was dressed to impress in a suit that was probably too expensive to be sold in any of the stores I went to, the material well-fitting and emphasizing his body in the right places. The hat trick should've been silly, but it was appealing. I almost stopped blinking and breathing.

Fuck, I thought emphatically, very, very glad that I was saying this in my mind rather than out loud. I would never live it down. What I wouldn't do to have my legs around him right now.

It occurred to me a second later that he was expecting to make an entrance complete with a good reaction. I crossed my arms, putting on the air of someone who totally wasn't intending to check him out when he was no longer looking. "Wow," I said dryly, making a point to subtly check my watch again. "Whose boy band are you joining?"

He frowned, not garnering the desired reaction. "This is classic Rat Pack." I rolled my eyes, and he held onto the finial on the banister, twirling off of the stairs. "This is a Devore!"

I suppressed the impressed expression. It wasn't difficult. Recognizing the name didn't mean that I wanted to fawn over him. "Right, right." He picked up the fedora and flipped it back on, raising his eyebrows at me excitedly to see what I thought. "Just stop playing with the hat, Krueger."

He wasted no time in plastering on a flirtatious grin. "Does that mean I'm in your dreams?" Caffrey asked, almost purring.

"It means you're screwing with my life." I like shooting people down when they come onto me. I turned my back to him and checked my watch. We really should be going…

"You're upset!" Behind me, he sounded so surprised by my mood that I had to wonder if he was a little dense. Maybe he was a crime savant and a social idiot. "Sour grapes…"

He was already needling me in ways that I didn't appreciate, so that was all it took to have me whirling back around to face him. He hadn't moved from beside the stairs, but now held the hat in a hand to his chest, making a sad face at me.

"Would you like to repeat that a little louder?" I asked testily, almost sure that he'd back down. He didn't know me that well. For all he knew, I was angry enough to take a swing at him.

That thought might have occurred to him, from the way that he held both arms out, waving the damn hat like a peace gesture, indicating not to shoot the unarmed man. "Look, you tell me which rule I broke, and I will thumb it back to prison myself," he vowed.

Okay. I wasn't sure if I admired or hated that he'd managed to get this far on his own with what very little he had, but I certainly couldn't condone it. It was all too easy to be a little jealous of the ease with which he'd gotten this luxurious penthouse and kind hostess. Then, on top of that, he'd come downstairs looking like a model and started flirting with me. I was a little annoyed at him for taking that liberty and at myself for being attracted to him. The work he does entitles him to a prison cell, which I got him out of. The work I do may give me more of an entitlement to a luxurious home, but that's not the way the world works economically, socially, or politically.

It would also be a lie to say that him living in this mansion wasn't stirring up some old aggression from my former life. This place was great. I'd given up one similar for reasons that were more important, but that doesn't mean that I don't miss all the space, privacy, and - yes, I'll admit, I may be well-off financially, but I do miss having the ability to get on a plane first-class and fly out to Cape Town or Berlin pretty much whenever the mood struck.

"You didn't," I said, and then waved my arms to emphasize the place we were in. "That's the problem! I'm glad you found accommodations I can walk into without worrying about my vaccinations, but it's not right that you just walk around like you own the place after you skip your way out of prison to work on a case that it seems like you're actually enjoying." This wasn't him getting out of his sentence. This was him serving me for its duration, and happening to have limited freedom because I'm not a freak who will demand he live with me and be my personal slave. Also, it wouldn't be legally condoned. But mostly the former. "And you get a furry friend to keep you company, and that's just not cool, because I've been pestering Kate - my Kate, not your Kate - to let me get a Corgi for years and it's always no Kenzi, it's too small and yappy and there'll be fur everywhere and no Kenzi, if I can't have a snake you can't have a dog, and even if you change the rule and let me have a snake, my snake would probably eat your dog." I started to pause, because I really hadn't intended to start talking about my pets argument with my sister, but I shrugged and worked around it. "It's not right that in the meantime, you make lines at me, try to use your soulmate as a point in an argument, and drink coffee in a view that looks like you're watching from Heaven!"

Although in truth the exploitation of his mate was what had me the most riled up at him in general, I was aggravated now for the long list of things. I think it was just finally sinking in what I'd signed up for, and I sent up a prayer to the powers that be that we could learn to get along sooner or later. If I had to deal with stress like this for four years, I probably wouldn't live through the entire four years.

Although I was surprised by how I ranted, what surprised me more was the way that Caffrey received it. He listened very attentively and solemnly, not once trying to interrupt, and when I was done, he stepped towards me slowly. Once he was close enough, I bit my tongue and let him gently place his hands over my shoulders, wanting to see what he would do.

He looked down at me with understanding and sympathy. "I will find out where June buys her coffee if it's that important," he promised me emotionally, as if we were having a big bonding moment here.

I just groaned. Of course. I should've known that it would have killed him to take something seriously.

"It's not about the coffee," I moaned, pinching the bridge of my nose and shaking his hands off.

"I think it is," he wisely chose to ignore me. "I think you're a coffee nut and you want the good coffee."

"I don't care about your coffee," I maintained stubbornly.

"Well, you were fine with the escaping from prison and the forgeries and the alleged stealing and lying and frauds and cons, so something in that list you just named is apparently quite a problem with you, because they all seem pretty irrelevant in comparison." Knowingly, he tilted his head down to me. I resisted the urge to smack the fedora off, but only barely. Of course, now he would use reasoning skills. Well, I'd be damned if I told him I was pissed because I'm a closet romantic, so he'd just have to enjoy his guessing game.

"You try to figure me out, Caffrey," I invited coolly. "But, if you insist on puzzling me…" I poked his chest to make a point. "Make sure you prioritize puzzling my puzzle first, because that's why you're out of the bars."

He looked contemplative as he rocked back to his heels. "I think it's…" he said, narrowing his eyes in concentration. "... Some sort of Italian roast…"

Shut up about the coffee!

"In the car!" I snapped, stepping to the side and pointing fiercely in the direction of the front door.

Caffrey ducked his head sheepishly and hurried in that direction. "Okay…"


"They're over there," I told Caffrey, mostly recovered from my irritation and his insolent quips about coffee.

We approached after being frisked by security. Derek and Diana had come to meet us right past the security checkpoint to take us to the space that they had taken up with the airport so that we could take care of our work without disturbing the airport hubbub from the passengers of airplanes and the families of incoming and outgoing people.

While Caffrey had seen Derek already, Diana was new to him, so he elbowed me and dropped his voice as we watched them talking a few yards away. "Who's she?"

"Diana." Diana was in her mid-twenties, a gorgeous woman of African descent with long black hair that hung straight naturally, unlike mine, and her eyes were always sparkling and lively. She was wearing a pantsuit like mine, but hers was pinstriped and grey while I wore a solid black set. "She's my probie."

"Probie?" He repeated in question.

"Probationary agent. She does what I don't, and I vouch for her and give good reviews." I looked up at him. He was staring at Diana, noticing like I did that she was a beautiful woman… except that sort of observation was much more welcome from me than it was from him, as he would find out if he didn't leave her alone. "She is very good at her job, and she is, ah… out of your league." Both of our individual conversations ended as we stopped in front of Derek and Diana. "Heya."

"Neal Caffrey." Derek, despite having been in the party that arrested Caffrey, was more welcoming to him than I had been. He held out a hand for an enthusiastic felon to shake. "I heard she was so charming when we arrested you, you wanted to flip sides and work for her."

"Hah, yeah, sure." I looked at him in warning. I got how people bonded, so if they were going to comment about me right in front of me, they were welcome to as long as they weren't insulting. I hoped he got this message. "She sure was something."

"Nice hat," Diana complimented to be nice. Caffrey just grinned at her.

Trying to save Diana from the evilly flirtatious conman, I started, "What is this, gossip hour? What's going on?"

Diana made a 'come forth' gesture and I passed the boys to walk next to her. She stayed in step beside me, but she led me past the checkpoint and to the left. "His name's Tony Field," she informed, filling me in while the men started to follow in our wake. "Customs flagged him coming in from Spain in response to our Snow White BOLO."

"Are Customs cooperating?" I asked, almost dreading the reply because the vast majority of the time, Customs were about as cooperative with the feds as children.

"As much as usual," Derek said. It was vague, but I understood the meaning and groaned. "He's in their custody, not ours."

"Well, it's less paperwork for me." I detested paperwork - the field was where I belonged, not the desks, so I'd take the upside. "They can keep him. What was he carrying?"

"You're gonna love this," Diana promised vehemently, beaming widely.

I was a little worried by how eager she seemed.


It turned out that, instead of confiscating something interesting, the man that had been detained - Anthony Field - had been carrying two suitcases chock full of thin children's books. Both suitcases were open and laid on collapsible white- and grey-mottled tables in a secure room in the airport.

I let out a long breath and blinked several times. They rang our alerts, I thought to myself stubbornly. They have to be important. Plus it was just a strange thing. I crossed the airport's linoleum floor and stepped between the two tables, moving to stand behind one of the suitcases and look down into it.

Delicately, I picked up a top copy of a red-covered book with a drawing of… well, I'll be damned. The blue and yellow dress, black hair, and pale skin couldn't be mistaken for anyone other than Snow White in the oval cut-out, surrounded by crimson which traveled over the binding and covered the back.

"Blancanieves y Los Siete Enanos," I read aloud from the front cover, translating as I read and repeating it for the other three. "Snow White and Her Seven Little Men."

Caffrey moved around the tables, making them his comfortable territory. He put his hands on them and spun around energetically, coming to a halt and adjusting his fedora with a grin as he looked down into the contents of the other suitcase. "You've seen the book before?"

"No, I just speak Spanish."

"Ah, the romantic languages." Caffrey chuckled. I tried to ignore him and flipped open the book I was still holding, running my index finger down the creases between the pages. There wasn't anywhere to hide anything. I knew the alert had been "Snow White," but I hadn't expected it to be literal! It looked just like Snow White and the dwarves on the pictures, and although the language was Spanish, it translated to the same fairytale I remembered from since I was a kid. "Gotta love 'em."

"These triggered our alerts?" I closed it up, held it so the cover faced away from me, and held it in front of my chest, showing Derek and Diana. "What was this guy doing with so many Blancanieves books?"

"He says he's a rare book dealer," Derek replied. The way he held himself when he said it, as well as the raised eyebrow, made it clear to me that he was more than a little bit skeptical.

"There are precisely two hundred in the suitcases combined," Diana added from just behind Derek.

Caffrey jumped behind me. "Is that what it was?" He asked in intrigue, as if something had led him to a guess. "That you're a romantic?" He was teasing as he said it, playful, if a little cheeky, but he sounded absolutely thrilled that maybe this was what had really bothered me earlier.

Derek looked at Caffrey, but then back to me, trusting me more than whatever the criminal said. "What's he talking about?"

"Nothing relevant," I said, somewhat strict. I changed gears just as quickly. "What about his paperwork?"

"That's all straight," Diana said, tapping her thigh with an ink pen. "He's brought the same books in the same quantity on three previous trips, and declared them each time."

"Were you upset I was being sweet?" Caffrey cooed. "Usted tiene los ojos azules más bonitos que he visto nunca."

I sighed and rolled my eyes. Of course he would learn I spoke a romantic language and then start trying to flirt in said language. He could say more things in that language and not have anyone but me know what he was saying. What he'd said was cute, sure. Sweet. But coming from him, it just sounded like a cliché; I had no real issues with my eye color, but someone with his irises saying that to me just sounded cheap. He had looked in a mirror, recently, right?

"Alright, Casanova," I finally acknowledged, turning around to put my back to the suitcase, still holding one of the books. I figured that the fastest way to shut him up would probably be to humor him for as long as it took for him to get bored - or, because I didn't have the patience for that, to reprimand him.

"What, not forward enough?" He asked with wide, innocent puppy eyes. "Alright, how about ¿puedes venir aquí para que pueda abrazarte?"

Okay, that's it. Something snapped and I violently growled, "How about cállate la boca con el coqueteo o yo en realidad podría matarte!"

"Well." Caffrey stepped back, giving me my space, and pulled the edge of his hat down. "That's a bit of an overreaction to some flattery." He stopped, though, and didn't even seem offended that I'd threatened him; I realized a little too late that he had been testing me to see if I really spoke Spanish or if I'd been trying to show off or be impressive.

My expression darkened and I stepped to the side, imagining with a vivid show in my head how satisfying it could feel to give him a hard shove back into one of the tables.

"Start pulling your weight, Caffrey," I ordered instead. "Are we wasting time with these?"

Caffrey picked up another book from the first suitcase. He held it horizontally in his right hand, then experimentally tossed it across a short distance to the other. He repeated this a couple of times before he turned it around and held the spine to his nose, sniffing the binding.

I felt a headache coming on and rolled my eyes.

"They're not limited runs or special editions," he said, thinking out loud before I said something rude. "Can't be worth much."

Derek looked at them cynically and with a hint of disappointment. I think if they really were interesting, then this would be a more promising lead, and feel like less of a time waster. "So why go through the trouble of flying them in?"

Caffrey shrugged and lowered the book carefully back onto the others. Despite it not being special, he was still careful with how he handled it. "Good question," he said to my brother.

Diana put her hands on her hips and coughed slightly. I looked to her and she shifted, putting the majority of her weight onto her right leg. "He sure is nervous for having all the right paperwork." She observed, meeting my eyes steadily. I raised my chin slightly in acknowledgment and pointed at Derek.

"I'll set it up," he said, nodding to Diana about something and going to the left to wherever Field was being detained. I nodded, satisfied. My team knew me so well.

Diana went in the opposite direction. "Hey, boss, I'm grabbing some coffee." She declared to me, knowing full well that my caffeine addiction was a very strong force to be reckoned with. "You want some?"

In response, I leaned over the table between us, promiscuously pushing my chest out and winking. "Anything sweet, gorgeous," I purred. Diana smiled, licking her lips, and gave me a thumbs-up on her way past.

Caffrey called her name and she paused, looking over her shoulder. I looked back to see what he was trying; he smiled charismatically, emphasizing his handsome face and elegant figure. "I'll take mine straight," he said, blinking flirtatiously. I winced at his come-on.

Diana, bless her, stood for none of Caffrey's manufactured or manipulating charm. "The coffee shop's outside," she informed him smugly as she left.

I laughed at how crestfallen he looked, amazed and injured emotionally that it hadn't worked on my probationary agent. I had always known there was a reason I liked Diana. If it wasn't for the coffee and the playful flirting, it was for this instance.

"I told you," I giggled at how far over his head he was without even knowing it. "You are batting way out of your league."

"Oh, harmless flirting," he said, mistaking what I meant. He waved a hand dismissively and with the other, he pulled his hat off of his head. "It's like a dance."

"No, there is no dance," I lectured. I'd have been a lot more serious about it if I thought that he actually stood a chance with my agent, but I knew better, so instead I was content to mess with him until he figured it out. "You're not even in her dance club. No dancing for you."

"You're dancing with her," he accused.

There we go. "Exactly," I replied, watching him expectantly.

He didn't get it. Flipping the fedora back on and striking a pose like a model at Target, he smirked at me sexily. "She digs the hat."

I leaned in, rocking forwards on my toes to bring my face closer to his, and whispered, "She'd rather be wearing it." Then I rolled back onto the balls of my feet and waited a second.

It took Caffrey a shamefully long minute to figure out what I meant. His face went blank as the gears worked in his head, puzzled, a crease between his brows and his eyes down in thought. Then he caught on.

"Oh," he finally managed, looking sheepish and, yeah, almost apologetic.

I laughed. I felt like that more than made up for the Spanish lines.


I sauntered confidently into the holding room that airport security had sent the book collector into. It looked at first like he'd been sent into a large time-out room. The room was large and clear, with tables set up around the sides of the circular room, and the tiles were boring white. The walls were dull grey. It was not exciting in any way whatsoever.

"Tony Field?" I asked, making sure that this was who I wanted to talk to. Hearing his name, the man across the room looked up. He was pale and had wire-rimmed glasses that pressed into his nose snugly to the point of looking uncomfortable, but he just seemed bored. "Agent McKenna Anderson, FBI."

The door closed behind me with a click as the door shut completely.

"FBI?" Field scoffed, reaching up and running his hand through his hair, messing up the short comb style. "Oh, they're really kicking it up a notch in here," he derisively complained.

I raised an eyebrow. That was okay. A lot of people had problems with the FBI. "You're a book dealer?"

"Yes, well…" Field rolled his eyes. The dealer leaned back in the chair, too comfortably for a guy in a chair that didn't have any cushions, and crossed his arms sassily. "As I've told everyone here - repeatedly - my business is the import and sale of rare books."

I don't think you understand what 'rare' means. "They don't seem very rare if there are eight hundred of them," I said mildly.

He shot me a nasty bitch face. "Would you like me to go with you to the crime lab and help you dust for fingerprints?" He asked sarcastically, commenting none-too-subtly on how I was seemingly telling him how to do his job.

"We've got the dusting down, but if you'd like to give us a set of yours, that would be awesome." I pressed my hands down over the table and leaned over him, smirking down and enjoying that I was looking down to see him. "So. Blancanieves?"

"Snow White was not created by Disney, Detective." I bristled as the man wrote me off and got my title wrong. So he's going to be like that. Even Caffrey was more respectful than that. And sure, he was being a suck-up because I was getting him out of prison, but still. I could put this guy in prison just as easily as I could Caffrey, even though it might not stick. "There are a few stories that predate the Steamboat Willie."

Because he was setting me up to look like an idiot, I decided to pull the rug out from under him and make him look bad, instead.

"I'm a federal agent," I corrected icily. "And you mean the original stories that Disney made into fairytales, where Mulan became a prostitute, Ariel died, Pinocchio was a psychopath, the prince raped Aurora?" The way he reacted, with his eyes widening slightly before he recovered and the purse of his lips tightening, gave me a strong feeling of satisfaction as it became more obvious to him that he had prodded the wrong bear. Or dragon, as the case may be. "Or older than that, like the virginally-pure Queen, the tale of the White Princess and the Seven Knights… those stories?"

He looked down and reached up to the collar of the vest, scratching his neck where the back of the wool rubbed at the skin of his throat.

"Don't mistake me for an idiot," I warned softly enough for it not to be picked up by any audio recorders, because that was definitely the right tone for a threat. I raised my voice to normal again. "Now, what are the books for?"

The door's lock clicked as the handle was twisted, and the hinge squeaked protest when it was shoved open far too fast. A suited man with rich black hair and a clear face stood in the doorway and stalked inside, holding his briefcase with white knuckles.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't talk to my client." Ah. Well, that definitely made sense. He looked like a stereotypical lawyer. He smiled, thinly and rudely. "Constitution and all."

"Hm." I took a step back from Fields to show that I would cooperate for the legality. "Yeah. Damned constitution."


I meant to go see Diana again, but ended up stopping in the hall alongside Caffrey while she was entertaining herself with a uniformed airport security officer. The redhead twisted a curl of hair around her finger and giggled. Diana used her hands vigorously in animated gestures as she told a story, the smile never fading from her face.

Caffrey sighed again, not having to look at me to realize that I was there. "No dance, huh?"

"Not with Diana," I replied with a wide grin. Obviously Diana wasn't just one of my favorites for her sexuality, but she and I both always had fun watching the overly confident men get knocked down a peg or two by pursuing her – especially when we were in a setting nonprofessional enough to get away with kissing each other's cheeks to drive the point across.

Diana was openly gay at the office. The FBI had a policy that most people called "don't ask, don't tell" but the 'don't tell' really only extends – at least, in my experience – to those agents that are more traditional or openly homophobic. Thankfully, the division I presided over hadn't had a discrimination incident since I had been transferred. My probie had a steady girlfriend whom she shared an apartment with: Christy, a doctor at NYP Lower Manhattan Hospital. She may have enjoyed flirting with the auburn-haired TSA officer, but she wouldn't betray her significant other.

Caffrey fixed his hands behind his back. "Con tu?" He asked with innocent, wide eyes, turning to look at me.

I smirked. "En tus sueños." Derek, talking with another officer now that Diana and the first were preoccupied, pointed me out, and both started to come over. I didn't wait for them to get here, or say hello to the Customs official before I stated to Derek, "Please tell me you've got something on him."

Derek was shaking his head before I had even finished talking, and I sighed impatiently, driving my heel into the floor. "Neal was right." The con in question looked way too smug. "The books aren't worth much. You can pick them up for a few dollars on e-Bay."

"Why didn't you tell me that guy lawyered up?" I asked Derek, a little wounded and irritated at the same time. Once he officially decided to call for legal counsel, I couldn't legally talk to him about the investigation at all. Period. Because I hadn't known, I'd tried to anyway, and his lawyer could bring up the potential to press it in any court case, in which case however we obtain evidence or information from him could be dismissed under the clause of negligence. "The second he makes that decision, I can't talk to him."

Instead of acting sheepish or looking as if he suddenly remembered something, Derek just cocked his head at me in confusion. "But he didn't call anybody," he objected.

I crossed my arms. That wasn't possible. "Then how did his lawyer know that he-" He couldn't have, I realized as I was talking, and so that I could focus on thinking, I stopped talking in the middle of my sentence. The only way the lawyer could've known to come was if someone else had tipped him off; someone who wasn't supposed to know what was going on, because Customs and my team were the only people who knew anything was wrong. Well, and the criminals we were after, of course.

I dropped my arms from in front of me and took off in a sprint back in the direction I'd come from.


The room I'd left Field and the lawyer in had the door wide open, even though I specifically remembered pulling it shut for the two's privacy as I'd left. Although the lawyer was nowhere in sight, the dealer was slumped over the desk he'd been sitting at, his forehead down on the surface like he'd fallen asleep, except for that his vest was rumpled and a needle was sticking out of his throat.

I went running to him without pause from the doorway and stopped right behind the dealer, feet slipping for purchase on linoleum. "Hypodermic," I called across the background noise to Derek, taking the needle and yanking it out of Field's throat. I replaced it with my fingers, pressing tightly against his skin and feeling around for a pulse.

Derek leaned out the door. 'We need paramedics! Now!"

"It's no use," I told him agitatedly, not finding any heartbeat in the dealer's limp body. I threw my arms to my sides and dropped the needle on the table for the crime scene team to pick up later. "No one frisked the lawyer?!" I yelled, furious at airport security. I mean, for fuck's sake, I couldn't even get into the building without taking off my shoes, but the "lawyer" could manage to sneak in a needle and whatever he'd injected the dealer with?!

Caffrey had followed Derek and I inside with a similar haste, but stayed out of the way while I tried to see if it was possible to save the man's life. He'd been dead before we'd even come into the room, I knew now.

He inhaled and winced, prepared to be hit for what was sure to be a remark I wouldn't appreciate. "I'd make a joke, but now doesn't seem like the best time." Meaningfully, he looked from me to the corpse. I glared exasperatedly.