Sequel to Peso.
"I bet you'd never have thought we'd have a stable in the big city."
"Yeah," Casey admitted, looking around the place with big eyes. It was nothing like what her aunt had, but considering that this was New York City, well, she was impressed.
"There are a few private stables in the City, too. You know, for those carriage horses for the tourists. Come on, I'll show you around."
Christine didn't have a horse of her own, but she took lessons and knew all of the horses that the stable used for that. They passed a box where a big black was snorting while sticking his nose into the hay, looking up and back at them as he heard them. Casey froze.
"Hey, who's that?"
Christine, who had gone ahead without realizing that Casey had stopped, returned.
"His name is Peso. He belongs to a guy from Manhattan."
"Peso?!"
Casey couldn't believe her eyes. This was Vin Tanner's horse! Not just the name — it was really the same horse!
"What, you don't like the name?" I think it's cute." Christine's smile turned dreamy. "His owner is cute, too."
"Oh yeah?" Casey almost chocked. "What's his name?"
"Martin. I heard that he works for the FBI."
Casey guessed that it wasn't a big jump from the ATF to the FBI. The name was wrong, though.
"Do you know his last name, too?"
Christine gave her a look. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, you know, just asking. Hey, I'm gonna take a few pictures. And didn't you want to show me that roan you usually ride?"
Casey dug her phone out of her purse. Peso, maybe remembering her, had come to the stall door and stuck his nose over it. Casey petted him.
"Careful," Christine warned her, "he's a bit moody and he can bite. But hey, he seems to like you!"
"Yeah, seems so." Casey's laugh sounded nervous even to herself. JD was always telling her that she was an open book to the whole world.
She snapped a picture of Peso, then a few of the other horses and the stable. As she trailed after Christine, her fingers flew over the small keys of her phone to send the picture to JD.
Name's Peso. Owner Martin ? Of FBI
It was 4 or 5 AM in Denver, so she didn't expect a reaction until JD got up.
"So, tell me, what does that cute FBI agent look like?"
Christine laughed at her.
"Don't you have a boyfriend?"
Casey tried a shrug. "I can still look, can't I?"
Her friend raised an eyebrow at her, but she complied:
"He's got amazing blue eyes-"
"What kind of hair?" Casey interrupted. "Long?"
"Oh no, short. I've seen him a few times wearing a suit."
"He rides in a suit?!"
"No, of course not! I think that's just when he comes by after work or before to check on Peso but doesn't have time to take him out. He rides Western, like me. Like I said, he's really cute. Looks very much like an FBI agent."
She giggled as Casey rolled her eyes. When she'd first shown Christine a picture of JD, her high school friend hadn't believed that he was an ATF agent. It still stung a bit. So what if he looked a bit young? So did Casey.
She was having lunch at a Subway when her phone finally rang. Her ring tone hadn't gone past the first couple of notes by the time she had picked it up.
"JD?"
"That's Peso!" He yelled into her ear incredulously.
"I know!" She yelled back and quickly rushed on: "I asked Christine a bit more about the owner: He has really blue eyes, short hair and he wears suits."
After a pause, JD said: "He could have cut his hair. And he could wear suits."
"Duh! I looked into it, there's a coffee shop across the street from the FBI office. I'm gonna stake it out tomorrow. I'm not leaving until 6 PM anyway."
"Stake out the FBI office? Are you nuts? Besides, hundreds of people work there! Even if it's Vin-"
"It has to be, JD. And yes, I'm staking the place out, I don't care." She looked around, suddenly realizing that she'd maybe said that a bit loudly. JD was still the best at riling her up in the shortest amount of time. But nobody seemed to have noticed or cared.
There was a pause on the other end of the line, then JD said:
"What's the name of the stable? I'll check their bank account and find this Martin. And all Martins working for the FBI in New York."
Casey grinned. That was what she'd been waiting for.
"Are you going to tell the others?" She asked at the end, after she'd told him what Christine and her had been up to.
"Not yet. I want something more… substantial."
She nodded silently. Poor Chris and the others.
JD had always told her, but she hadn't believed him: stake outs were boring! It certainly felt like hundreds of people worked at the FBI, and once she'd realized that the building - of course - had several entrances, her motivation had plummeted. Two hours into her self-appointed task, Casey was ready to give up. The building probably had a parking garage on the closed off street, and if 'Martin' drove to work, or used the entrance on the other side of the building, she wouldn't even see him.
Originally she'd planned to go shopping, and perhaps she should have just gone. JD would find a name, whether by looking into the FBI's employee list or the stable's finances. He might even get access to the first one legally.
And then, suddenly, she saw him. Maybe. She could see his profile, then he turned to look behind himself to greet a colleague. He was now facing Casey's position, and she gasped. Her hand curled so tightly around her coffee cup that, next thing she knew, she had spilled coffee onto the table and her pants. She jumped up and promptly bumped into someone behind her.
"Whoa, careful there!"
"I'm so sorry-"
"You all right? Did you burn yourself?"
He had handsome, hispanic features, and was wearing a suit like most people around on a Monday morning.
"Oh no, my coffee was already cold. Gonna be a bitch getting the stain out though, and I already checked out of my hotel, too-" She frowned in frustration.
He quickly brought her a stack of napkins and saved her cell phone from a spreading puddle of cold coffee. Casey looked back over at the FBI office where she'd seen Vin, but he was long gone.
"You looked like you'd seen a ghost. Are you looking for someone?"
Her helper asked her.
"Uh… actually yeah. You wouldn't happen to be working in that building over there?"
He frowned a bit but nodded. "Yeah. I'm Danny Taylor of the FBI's Missing Person Unit. Who do you need?"
"Oh, uh, Martin. Blue eyes, not too tall, short hair, sharp suit- I thought I just saw him."
He laughed. "Oh you mean Martin Fitzgerald. He's on my team actually. Want me to call him down for you?"
"Oh, I wouldn't want to bother him. It's, uh, been a long time." She probably sounded like his ex-girlfriend, and the smirk on Agent Taylor's lips told her that he certainly thought so. Well, better than being mistaken for a stalker. But now that she'd possibly found the man, she wondered what to do. Should she actually talk to him? Ask why he had left so suddenly? But whoever this Martin Fitzgerald was, she didn't know him. She knew Vin Tanner, and she could only think of Ezra's undercover stories as a reason for why someone in law enforcement would exist under two different names. So she straightened and said:
"Would you mind saying 'hello' for me? I'm Casey Wells."
"All right. A hello for Martin from Casey Wells. Do you want to leave a phone number?"
She hesitated, then shook her head and picked up her bag and phone.
"He knows how to get in touch if he wants to." Or if he could.
As she walked down the street, she sent JD another message.
Last name fitzgerald. Poss missing person unit of fbi.
"Hey Fitz! I had no idea you liked them so young." Danny called out as he entered their office space.
"Huh?" Martin gave Danny a confused look.
"I just met an ex-girlfriend of yours at the coffee shop. She was so shocked to see you that she spilled her coffee. Said to tell you hello."
Vivian raised an eyebrow while Sam laughed, looking eager for some gossip to lighten her day.
Martin frowned. "Did she tell you her name?"
"Casey. Casey Wells. But seriously, was she just out of—"
Danny stopped. Martin had jumped out of his chair even faster than the girl, just without spilling any coffee.
"Casey Wells?" He demanded. "In the coffee shop across the street?"
Danny hadn't even finished nodding before Martin sprinted past him towards the elevators.
"Huh. What was that about?" Danny asked his remaining team mates, but they looked just as surprised.
Martin came back less than ten minutes later, obviously having missed her. He seemed troubled, but not terribly upset. Danny, lounging on his chair with his feet stretched out in front of him, met his eyes.
"A Miss Casey Wells is leaving on a flight to Denver tonight at 6:05 PM. Do we need to pick her up at the airport?"
Martin shook his head at him. "I'm pretty sure we're only supposed to use FBI resources for actual cases."
"Well, will this turn into a case?"
"A stalker?" Sam asked with a concerned frown.
"No." Martin hesitated. "I used to work with Casey's boyfriend."
"In Denver?"
"You worked in Denver?" Sam asked in surprise.
"That's not in your file," Vivian pointed out.
"Did everyone here read my file over coffee?" Martin asked, irritated.
Vivian shot him a pointed raised eyebrow that quickly made Martin feel like her teenage son.
"I'm Jack's second in command," she reminded him in a deadpan tone. Of course Jack would have talked to her about candidates, and it was her right and part of her duties to read their personnel files.
Martin sighed and looked down. "Sorry, Vivian." When the others still looked at him expectantly, Martin glanced around if any of the other teams had heard them, then waved his colleagues to come in closer, quickly finding himself surrounded by them.
"I was in an undercover operation in Denver. That's why it's not in my file, and I really shouldn't have told you even that much."
"Was Casey Well's boyfriend a target?" Danny asked.
"God no, he's a good guy. I really can't tell you more, but the guys I worked with were the good ones. They didn't know I was undercover, and I would have stayed, but once the assignment was over-" He shrugged.
Danny nodded. "You got pulled out, as undercover agents usually do."
"Yep." Martin smirked without much humor. "My father still had his own mission for me, after all."
"And it didn't include you playing cowboy in Colorado?"
Martin gave Danny an impressed nod. "That is almost exactly what he said."
"Everything all right?" They were interrupted by Jack approaching.
Seeing the photo in his hand, Martin asked: "New case?"
"Yes." Jack gave them a long look. "Anything I need to know?"
"No, Boss."
With another look at Martin, Jack accepted that and called them to the white board.