Author's Note:I stole my parents' laptop at 12:10 a.m. Massachusetts, Eastern Standard Time so I could write this story out because, otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to get to sleep after watching the season two premiere (which was AWESOME! XD). A couple things freaked me out, though - first of all, the guy Neal and Peter were trying to charge with robbing the banks has the same initials as me, E.W., and secondly, I live near Cape Cod and Hampton Beach, which is mentioned when Neal is talking to the guy's assistant. Freaky, huh?

Disclaimer: I do not own White Collar, nor am I making any profit off of this.

~oOoOoOo~

It was a little amusing how easily she had tricked her boss and new team member into believing that she didn't know where, or how, the music box disappeared or who had taken it. But he was so focused on how his grieving partner was doing to notice her research on the best wall-vault for her home or her looking for a box the same height and width as the coveted music box.

She'd first gained interest in the music box while watching the two men fight with another for it from a distance. She was smart enough, and had learned far too much from being a white collar crime solver than too just jump into the battle without a plan or an advantage.

So she waited it out, watching as they battled each other over who would get the music box and who would go to jail. She watched as the new team member, an ex-conman who had made the wrong career choice as a teenager, suffered as he began the painstaking search for the music box and his ex-girlfriend. She watched as her boss attempted to keep his partner from making the wrong mistakes all over again.

And, with the ex-girlfriend dead, her boss suspended and the partner in jail, she perceived her opportunity.

The OPR agent they had fought disappeared soon afterwards like a coward, knowing full well that if he stayed in New York he'd surely be shot or killed by his enemies. OPR covered their beloved agent's tracks, which only fueled her boss's belief that the agent was responsible for the girl's death. His possessive and over-protective nature, something she'd noticed with woman's intuition the first time she'd met him, was easy to manipulate as long as you manipulated him towards the wrong person.

Wearing a badge and gun she was able to convince the men guarding the music box as it made its way to D.C. for "more supervised containment" where mere charm couldn't as replaced the music box with the fake without setting off so much as an alarm or warning. The ride back to New York was satisfying - no policemen or federal agents stopped her and asked for a music box. No one knew what she had hiding in the trunk of her car. No one how easily she'd stolen what was thought to be almost unattainable for more than three months.

Guarding the music box with nothing more than her vault and her government issued Sig she went through her daily routine at work, pleasing her boss with her great detective skills and pretending to be keeping the partner's mind off of his ex-girlfriend's death. If she hadn't just stolen something he'd lost someone he truly, deeply cared about she'd actually feel sorry for him.

Letting men fight over something like dogs fight over steak was amusing enough, but grabbing the thing they were fighting for - risked their lives, careers and loved-ones for - was hilarious.