Chapter 2

A/N: White Collar has been good so far, but I'm rather disappointed by the lack of Alex. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm rather fond of her :)

They had indeed, as it turned out, allowed a potentially homicidal art thief escape from their "secure" facilities. Agent Hightower was most displeased; she took the news about as well as could be expected. Which was to say, she responded by threatening Lisbon with suspension and Jane with a new boss.

"It's not that I have grown fond of the team these past months," Jane assured Lisbon as they practically fled Hightower's office, "It's just that I would hate to have to break in a whole new group of state agents."

"Yeah, whatever," Lisbon replied, but there was a small smile on her face as she went to round up the rest of the team.

They congregated, as they often did, around Van Pelt's computer; she was the handiest with technology—a result of being the most junior agent, and therefore one most often relegated to desk duty.

"Pull up the file on Hunter," Lisbon said, once they had settled in, "so we can see what we're working with."

"Yeah, of course," Van Pelt murmured. Her fingers danced over the keyboard. Rigsby eyed her hands appreciatively. Jane raised a meaningful eyebrow at Cho, who shrugged noncommittally.

"Alexandra Hunter. High-end fence, specializes in rare and valuable artifacts of Slavic origin. Eastern European, to be more general," Van Pelt read. "She was arrested once—"

"Excuse me, Van Pelt," Jane interrupted, "can you tell who was the last person to pull up this file?"

"Yeah." She looked a bit surprised by the question. "Um, Agent Jones of the FBI. New York branch. Supervisor, Agent Burke."

Lisbon's head snapped up. "Burke, did you say? Peter Burke?"

Van Pelt did some more typing. "Yep. Peter. How did you know?"

Lisbon was already up and moving toward Cho's desk. "Because I just got off the phone with him regarding Hunter's alibi."

"You think he was covering for her?" Cho speculated.

Jane frowned a little, brow furrowing in concentration. "Lisbon, that painting was an authentic Kandinsky."

"So?" Lisbon looked at him, "It's expensive?"

"Of course, but that isn't the point I was making. Kandinsky is a Russian artist. Russia is a part of Eastern Europe. Seems right up our suspect's alley, doesn't it?" Jane's brow smoothed out. "How difficult would it be for you to get that FBI agent down here?"

Lisbon considered. "Not too tough. This is a multi-million dollar painting related to a quadruple homicide; I'm sure the FBI will be cooperative enough."

"Excellent." Jane stood and moved toward the door, but paused halfway and turned back. "Oh, and make sure that you request that Agent Burke bring along the man Neal Caffrey. He's essential to the case as well."

"It was a decent plan, but poorly executed. The guy had some brains but no skill."

Peter glanced over at his companion, amused. "Not like you, eh?"

Neal shot him a blinding smile. "Apples and oranges, my friend."

"Yeah. Fruit."

Neal looked rather offended; Peter pushed past him to hide his smile, and was immediately hailed by Hughes. The man looked grumpy and a bit nervous—dangerous combination, Peter thought privately. He gave Neal a little push towards Jones' desk. "Go do a crossword or something until I've finished my report."

Neal gave him an odd look, but went, surprisingly, without resistance. Hughes was actually tapping his foot when Peter reached him. He didn't mince words.

"Burke, I've had a call from the California Bureau of Investigation. You're requested in the Sunshine State."

Peter felt his stomach start to sink, and then, sure enough,

"You, and your charge. Neal Caffrey. They specifically requested that you bring him along. Now, do you have any idea what this is about?"

"No sir."

Hughes sighed as if he expected as much. "Well, I've booked your plane tickets. In the interests of interdepartmental cooperation, you are to aid them in any way you can with their investigation," Peter opened his mouth, but Hughes raised a hand to forestall any questions. "You'll receive all the necessary information on the plane."

"When are we expected?"

"Yesterday would have been best. Since that's not really within our capabilities, they'll have to settle for ten o'clock tonight."

Peter blinked and consulted his watch. "That's eight hours from now."

Hughes coughed; it looked suspiciously like he was covering a smirk. "Your plane leaves in half an hour. You'd better get going."

The flight was, for the most part, uneventful. Neal was surprisingly obedient—it was setting off all sorts of warnings in Peter's head. They were, as promised, given files to review on the plane.

"Kandinsky," Neal murmured. "Impressive."

Peter looked up from the middle of his file to find that Neal had, as was his annoying habit, finished reading first. "Is there something you should be telling me about this? Maybe something about Alex. Odd coincidence, that we get a call to confirm her whereabouts, and then suddenly we're summoned to California by someone with enough juice to get even Hughes antsy."

Neal was wearing his poker face; Peter thought might have as much luck drawing the truth out of a brick wall—more, even, because for all their immobility, brick walls never tried to misdirect you by changing the topic.

"The thing about Kandinsky, Peter, is that he was never a halfway kind of guy. He didn't agree with some of his colleagues in Moscow, so he moved to Germany. Didn't bother trying to compromise, or reevaluate his own viewpoints. People tend to be the same way about his art. Either they love it, or they can't see the appeal at all."

"How about you?" Peter asked, because now he was sort of curious.

Neal flashed his trademark grin. "I'm a fan."

Peter closed the file without bothering to mark his place, and leaned back. "So what does that have to do with this case?"

"Just interesting." Neal shrugged, and smiled oddly. "It's important to know your mark."

"Why does that sound like a quote?" Peter asked, wryly. Neal threw back his head and laughed, attracting glances that revealed varying amounts of interest from those seated near them.

Neal's laughter faded, and he said, "A lot of the time, with big, valuable paintings that are mysteriously "stolen," it turns out that the whole thing was an insurance scam. The owner was hard up, and figured the insurance for his painting would bring in more than the actual piece could get on the market. But here, that's unlikely. The owner bought the piece himself three years ago; he would be taking a loss with the insurance company. Besides, no one pays twenty million dollars for a painting they don't want to look at."

Peter smirked. "Especially not in this economy."

Neal ignored this, and continued, "This means we have an actual art thief on our hands."

"I have two, actually," Peter interjected, chuckling. Neal didn't appear quite as amused, which wasn't surprising.

There was a ding, and Peter glanced up to see that the seatbelt sign was glowing faintly. It was followed by an announcement, in the pilot's slow, southern drawl, that they would begin their descent, and the estimated time of arrival was ten fifteen, western time.

The estimate was slightly off—due, no doubt, to the fact that Neal and Peter had been seated in the second to last row of the plane. It wasn't a small plane, either, and so by the time their feet hit the linoleum floor of the actual airport, it was closer to eleven.

Peter had only once before traveled through the Sacramento International Airport, but Neal, apparently, was a more frequent visitor. Either that or, and this Peter was reluctant to consider, Neal had a much better head for direction.

"There they are."

Peter followed Neal's line of gaze to two figures standing by the escalator labeled 'ARRIVALS.' One was blond, of medium height, wearing a wide, white smile. The other was a rather harried looking red-headed woman, who held a hastily and sloppy sign reading 'Burke & Caffrey.'

"They put my name first," Peter noted as they changed directions to head toward their guides.

"Alphabetically correct," Neal responded. "You can't expect them to know any better yet—they haven't met us."

Peter was saved from having to give a witty comeback by the redhaired woman.

"Agent Burke and Neal Caffrey? I'm Agent Van Pelt." She even sounded wrung out. Her companion, on the other hand, smiled and bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Agent Burke," he nodded to Peter, "and Mr. Caffrey. My name is Patrick Jane, I'm a consultant for the CBI." He stuck out his hand cheerfully. Neal grasped it and shook firmly.

"Please, call me Neal."

Peter raised an eyebrow, slightly miffed at being overlooked. "How did you know I wasn't Caffrey?"

The blond man laughed. "You walk like an officer of the law. And you," he said to Neal, "don't look nearly serious enough to be a federal agent."

Neal shrugged at Peter, and said, "Fair enough."

Van Pelt led the way out of the airport, Jane at her heels and Neal and Peter following a few steps behind.

"So," Peter murmured, "I see the CBI has their very own version of you."

"Yeah, but not quite so good looking."

"I heard that!" Jane said, without turning his head.

Peter chuckled. "An almost identical version of you!"

Grace was hungry, tired, and stressed out. It wasn't an unfamiliar state of affairs, but it was a combination that made her particularly irritable. Unfortunately, there was no one conveniently available for her to vent her frustration on. Jane just laughed and turned her insults into compliments. And she certainly couldn't start off by insulting the third parties Lisbon brought in to help out.

It almost made her miss Rigsby, and the amusing, wounded, 'what did I do?' expression that crossed his face whenever she was in a mood.

She walked three feet past him before she noticed Jane had stopped.

"What now?" she muttered, turning and stalking back to where he was standing.

A dark haired woman in sunglasses and wicked looking stilettos had walked straight into Neal Caffrey, and gone down hard, the contents of her purse scattering across the floor. Neal and Agent Burke were on their knees, hastily picking up lipstick, compacts, little vials of perfume, and a sleek silver cell phone.

Neal stood and offered the woman a hand up. She said something—presumably 'thank you,' or 'I'm sorry'—in another language. French, maybe? Italian? Grace wasn't sure. Languages weren't her forte. She'd never seen herself going farther away from California than Las Vegas.

Neal answered in the same language, and made a little bow. Grace rolled her eyes at the dramatic, but the woman simply nodded and continued on her way. Neal caught Grace looking, and shrugged, as if to say, People, what can you do about them?

She had the sudden thought that women bumped into Neal Caffrey on a regular basis.

Jane elbowed Grace in the side, and leaned in to whisper,

"Can you create a distraction? Neal slipped something into his pocket—I want to see what it was."

Grace blinked at him, surprised. "What?"

But Jane just smiled and patted her arm before moving away to continue toward the doors. Grace heaved a silent sigh and began to walk quickly. Neal and Burke followed at her heels. She ducked sideways around an elderly couple, and walked straight through the metal detector. It went off loudly a moment later, just as Neal and Burke were stepping up to it.

A security guard approached them, scowling. Grace put on her best smile and flashed her badge. "Sorry, sir. I didn't mean to set off the alarm." She pulled aside her sweater to show the man her gun.

He nodded and glanced at Burke and Caffrey. Burke sighed and pulled out his badge as well. Neal shrugged. "Sorry, I don't have one."

The guard nodded briskly. "Right then. We'll have to pat you down, I'm afraid. Standard procedure."

By then Jane had joined them. He walked up to Neal and the guard, past Grace (he shot her a wink) and asked, "What's going on here?"

The guard gave Neal's tracking anklet one last suspicious look, and straightened up. "They set off the metal detectors. But things seem to be in order. You're free to go."

Grace turned again and led them, this time without interruption, out into the parking lot.

A/N: Hm. They're at it already. Neal and Patrick were made to be friends.