AN: It begins. Many thanks to PhiraLovesLoki and SaharaDesiderata for betaing.
Chapter Two
The case
Emma awoke in the middle of the night to a blue TV screen and a sore back. It took a few seconds for her to remember where she was; she'd fallen asleep on the couch during the movie, she figured, thankful that Henry was staying at Avery's so she wouldn't have to explain why. She sat up abruptly, her foot tapping the whiskey she'd set on the floor and nearly knocking it over. She set it on the coffee table. What time is it? How long was I gone?
3:15, her watch blinked at her. She leaned back and willed the ceiling to explain to her why she couldn't sleep through the night.
And she wouldn't, not now. As she thought about it, Emma realised with surprise that she not only wasn't tired, she felt downright awake, as though it were the middle of the morning rather than the middle of the night. The blue of the TV screen was making everything look frozen, so she turned it off, opting instead for the light, and, without even considering whether she would try and sleep again, got up to fix herself the most luxurious breakfast she could think of.
It wasn't a realistic option, sleeping now. She'd been an insomniac for years; Mary Margaret had envied her in college, between her almost supernatural ability to already be awake whenever her toddler needed her to the more mythical ability to work long hours into the night without having to feel it the next day. It wasn't like that, she'd explained once. The legend persisted. Now, she thought perhaps her friend wasn't so far off, though of course this decision would probably reckon itself to her in twelve hours with an extra shot or two of espresso.
The memory of the dream she'd had came crashing back to her as she was cracking eggs. She swore as one of them slid down the wrong side of the skillet toward the gas burner and almost threw the thing off the metal prongs as she switched it off, swearing again when the hot metal burned her hand as she made to remove it before clearing her mess. Get it together, she told herself. She felt shaky—literally. As she looked again at her hands, they were quivering just so, as though remembering how it felt to lever off the trees like a monkey and run Olympic sprinter-style through an island that was supposed to be the subject of children's fairy tales.
Her eyes widened. Fairy tales. A man with a hook for a hand. Captain Hook? She laughed beside herself at the thought. I thought he had a perm and a wax moustache.
And with that, she waved it off. Stranger things had happened to her in dreams than meeting fictional pirates. While it was easy enough to put away, though, she found it more like a memory in its hold on her conscious, and she was nearly finished preparing her breakfast by the time it slipped away.
As she started in on the meal, she read through the briefing papers she'd received the previous day. It was connected to the case she and Graham had been working on before she'd found the man in the park yesterday—she paused a little at the thought, made sure she could swallow, and proceeded. Some kind of insider trading scheme. It wasn't up her usual alley, but its fallout effects were, as the evidence was coming in faster and faster that some of the murders and other violence they'd been dealing with over the last several years were connected to deals associated with this firm, almost like the mafia.
And yesterday afternoon, the connection became no longer just a lucky guess. The man in the park had been a John Doe when she'd found him, carrying no identification, and his blood didn't return a match in the federal system—that is, until Graham had thrown out the possibility that he wasn't American, at which point Regina, as Captain, had placed a few calls through the Assistant Chief, who directed them through the FBI until Interpol (holy shit, she'd thought) returned a match from Edinburgh of an Irish citizen living in Scotland. When, with that, the case from that morning was shifted quite clearly beyond the jurisdiction of Officer Glass' precinct, a sense of dread Emma hadn't been able to source locked onto her stomach just long enough for her to learn that no, this particular one was beyond her jurisdiction as well, but not entirely. The murder weapon—a hunting knife with initials BB found that afternoon about a quarter mile away, buried dirty and matching the man's blood—had come from a pawn shop in Brooklyn.
And then it became confusing as to what her role was, it being still too early in the day to think about this, so she pushed the papers aside and tried to focus her attention on the food she'd prepared for herself.
Some 45 minutes later, Emma was lacing up her running shoes when her phone lit beside her. Graham.
—Mind if I join you?
Very much, she thought before sighing to herself. She closed her eyes and took a couple breaths. He's not trying to be overbearing; maybe he's just concerned. She did up the other shoe. And maybe it's nothing and he really does just want to run at five in the morning. It wasn't entirely convincing, but it was enough for her to swallow her second thoughts and reply with:
—Okay. Meet me at 57th in 15
Phone, gun, and badge in their holster, Emma was still pulling her shirt on as she slid out the door. It was some effort to keep her mind purposefully blank the whole trip. When she saw her partner waiting by a lamppost, looking almost like he was in pain but putting on a smile when he saw her, she returned it the best she could as she jogged up to him.
"I usually do the whole periphery, think you can handle it?"
"Only if you can," he replied good-naturedly, and they were off.
With Graham's longer stride putting her pace a little faster than usual, their rate was such that conversation was initially laboured, then silent. Emma knew he noticed when she deliberately looked left, away from the place the man had fallen from the woods yesterday, when they passed that spot. As they neared where they'd began, she slowed, making her way toward the pond, and as though reading her mind, Graham anticipated her, raising a hand to her shoulder and squeezing a bit. To her surprise, she didn't shrug it off. More so, he didn't press.
And that was one of her favourite things about Graham. Despite the big-brotherly attitude, he knew when she needed space, and he didn't coddle her or treat her like something breakable. They looked out for each other—and, she supposed, in not telling him about what had happened yesterday, she'd unwittingly slipped on their unspoken agreement.
"How long do we have?" He asked as they neared the waterfront.
"About half an hour. I still need to change."
"You're telling me," he laughed a bit, glancing down at himself. "Come on, I'll buy you coffee."
"It's my turn to get it today. Ruby will be pissed."
"Well, then, I'll buy both of you coffee. Come on," he steered them toward the park entrance, leaving no room for argument. Emma rolled her eyes.
"Fine."
They talked good-naturedly at that point, taking their time in leaving the park that was empty but for others like them. Graham picked up on her odd profusion of time, at which she informed him that no, she wasn't usually this available, but Henry stayed the night with a friend to work on a project, and even crazier, she'd woken up at 3:15 after the weirdest dream and been too awake to go back to sleep. He asked about the dream. She remembered all of it. But she also remembered cleaning eggs off the stovetop, and told him all she could remember was running through the forest faster than should be possible, running into a man with a hook for a hand before she woke up.
"What, like Captain Hook?" He laughed a bit.
"Or something. I have no idea." And then, after figuring she wouldn't sleep again, she'd made a sinfully large breakfast and tried to go over the briefing but decided it could wait. "You've probably been over the whole thing, Mr. Responsible."
"Guilty as charged." He held up his hands. "Want me to tell you or should I let you find out?"
"Spare me the misery?"
Graham smiled, nodding once. "Of course. We're looking into the prints on the knife—once we know who it is, why they wanted to kill Liam Jones, perhaps why he was in America in the first place, we look for the network. It seems straightforward enough." The shop was nearly empty at that hour, but he was careful not to say too much in the open. Emma nodded.
"There's still something bothering you about this."
She paused, thinking. "Yeah. I can't shake how weird it is that the guy I randomly found yesterday would wind up with his case as close to our jurisdiction as it can be. It's just too…I don't know, too much of a coincidence." She pressed her temples. "It's almost like it was on purpose."
And at that, and a flash of the pained expression he hoped she didn't see, Graham offered his hand. She took it momentarily as she realised they both had to get back. "That would be a bit too perfect," he disagreed. The expression was gone as quickly as it came. As they parted at 57th, he winked that she could reimburse him that afternoon, and disappeared into the underground before seeing her flip him off in response.
Yet, something was bothering her. She'd seen the expression just then, the same one he'd worn when they met that morning, and she'd seen him try to hide it. Now that I think about it, we only talked about me. That's weird. It's almost like he's hiding something. As the train pulled up and she boarded, however, the thought escaped her, retreating into her subconscious as the doors pulled closed.
Ruby's lukewarm vanilla latte in tow, Emma arrived home to a pile of clean dishes and a note for her on the fridge whiteboard. She heard the shower running before she noticed Avery absorbed in his phone in the living room. "Hi, Ms. Swan," he said without looking up.
"Hey, Avery. What're you two doing here so early?"
"Henry forgot something for the project, and we had time so he did that." He nodded at the dishes. "Well, I may have helped. But I think you have the perfect son. Hey, is that for me?" He nodded at the second coffee in her hand. As he finished, the door to the bathroom opened, followed by "Hi, mom," and the sound of her son's door closing. She laughed to herself.
"Sometimes I wonder. I made a huge breakfast this morning, you guys are welcome to whatever's left."
"Oh, we took care of that, too," Avery smirked and gathered his things, resuming whatever he was doing with his phone on foot. A few moments later, Henry's door opened.
"Hey, you're back kinda late. What took you?"
Emma laughed again, louder this time. "Sometimes I think you're the parent—cleaning my mess, asking where I've been. Are you real?" She smiled. "Thanks for doing the dishes, by the way. And nothing exciting; Graham ran with me this morning and we did our coffee run early."
"I like Graham. He looks out for you," he replied without looking at her, shrugging on his backpack. "Wish us luck on the project, I guess? And good luck with your new case."
"How did you—" They were out the door before she could finish. But when she looked at the counter, she wanted to smack her head on it. There, in plain view of two very curious seventh-graders, was her briefing on what was now her segment of an international cartel case. Luckily, it had been in its folder; unluckily, it had been labelled.
She felt her phone vibrate in its holster.
—I didn't look. Not that I don't trust him, but I cleaned up to reduce the amount of time Avery would be alone with it. Don't think he noticed. And I would have done it anyway. Love you
Smart kid, she thought as she turned the water on and undressed.
"Emma, my coffee's cold," Ruby faux-pouted. Emma rolled her eyes, grinning at her junior's antics.
"There's a microwave in the break room. It's caffeine, don't complain."
Her back now to her younger colleague as she turned toward her desk, she missed the mischievous grin that spread its way over Ruby's face as she followed her there.
"Now, why would my coffee be cold? Let's think. Emma normally gets it right before coming to work, which would mean that if it's cold, she must have gotten it earlier. She wouldn't get it in the middle of getting ready, which would mean she had to get it after running, which would mean," she turned, smirking hugely as she ticked off Emma's story item for item, "that something kept her from going right home this morning, 'cause nothing breaks Emma Swan from her routine with Henry. What were you up to this morning, detective?" She crossed her arms triumphantly and stared Emma down her nose.
"Nothing," she replied, just barely too quickly. Ruby perked.
"Did I get it?! Oh, come on! You know that was good."
"You forgot that Henry had to be gone this morning, or I'd have gone straight home."
"You are avoiding the question, detective." She spun around so she was blocking Emma's way.
"Ruby, come on," she rolled her eyes again, ducking past her younger colleague. "I went running with Graham. Really not exciting. And yes, we got the coffee afterward. You can thank him—he treated you."
Ruby smirked. "Well well, Emma Swan, nicely played. Hot running date, and Henry did your dishes for you this morning? I wanna be you." She winked and turned back to her desk, trying and failing not to laugh at Emma's dumbfounded expression before whispering, "hide your phone screen next time." She looked down—yes, she had been texting Mary Margaret about that as she'd walked in.
Emma deflated a bit, smiling despite herself. She clapped her friend on the shoulder. "You're good."
"I know."
As she turned back to her desk, though, that little twinge of concern that had wormed its way into her gut when she'd first seen Graham's expression that morning gnawed at her again. It had been building up, something that was getting harder to ignore between them—even though, as she had when she'd accepted his running offer, she'd made a valiant effort not to notice it. She'd just hoped it would go away—they were partners. It was not only unfeasible, it was impossible. She had to kill that idea before it grew.
Still, she found herself glancing at his desk, just to be sure. Mercifully, it was empty. He wasn't in yet. She set her papers and briefcase down, shrugging out of her jacket as she saw him walk in. As he passed her, he paused.
"Meet me in the briefing room once you've had a chance to look over the files?"
"Sure, I'll be there in 15."
He was already there when she entered. She closed the door behind her.
"What did you find that you wanted to meet in here for?"
"I needed that." He gestured at the whiteboard that took up the entire back wall. "There's a grid in the files that I wanted to show you, plus I did some digging that wasn't in there." He handed her a handwritten sheet of legal paper, which she slipped into the file. "That's for later. For now, I need to show you something."
While his back was to her, she opened the file as she followed him to the board. It was definitely not a chart—in fact, it looked like a letter. She shut it again and boxed away her curiosity; Graham launched right into his discovery.
"Liam Jones' visa is an H-1B. It's the skilled non-resident visa—for people with technical skills who want to work in this country but don't want to immigrate. It's what my father had been on when he moved us here when my mum was pregnant before we went back to Belfast, and why I'm a double citizen. But that's irrelevant, and this where it gets interesting." He drew a circle around Liam Jones' name, then a line to another circle he filled with the name William Smee. "This man owns the pawn shop the knife that killed Liam came out of. That's in the file. And this," he drew another circle above the other two, writing in it Ariel Fisher, "according to Victor Whale in forensics, is a match for the fingerprints on the knife. The only problem is," he drew a dash through the circle he'd just drawn. "Ariel Fisher is dead. Died in a car crash with her boyfriend a week ago in Long Island. The knife was in the tacklebox in her car. And the BB on the handle?" He looked at her. "Bill Blackbeard, her mother's grandfather."
"Did Ariel steal the knife? I mean, if it was a family heirloom…"
"No, I don't think so. I thought about it after I got home this morning. I don't have hard evidence for this, but I think Smee may have looted it from the crash site when the tacklebox fell open. It'd be worth a good sum to a collector. And that's what this pawnshop is. It's his collection. I looked into it before we met just now. This isn't a typical pawnshop, these are antiques the likes of which I've never seen."
"Do we know who stole it from there, then?"
"That's another hole, but we do have a bit of a lead. If Smee is dealing in rare antiques, he has to be dealing with a certain level of…clientele." Graham drew another circle, and wrote the ambiguous Cartel inside. "That, or the more likely scenario: it's a cover. The knife wouldn't look out of place, there; perhaps the items are code names for some accounting tricks. Either way, if we were able to tap into the transaction history for this shop, I imagine there might be a pattern connecting us here." He tapped below the Cartel circle. "Even better—I'd say I knew just the man to call, the problem of course being that his name is Liam Jones."
"What?"
Graham's face was alight. "Jones was a data engineer. If anyone would have been able to trace something like that, it would've been him. If we can establish this? Emma." He stepped away from the board, taking both her shoulders and staring at her more alive than she'd seen him in months. "Not only would we have a motive, we'd have our network. It was no amateur that killed Liam—they left no prints behind. But if we could find this killer," he stepped back to the board, underlining the Cartel circle several times, "we might just have this. I know it seems like a long shot, but I just have a feeling. And if Smee stole the knife? Who's to say he didn't orchestrate the entire crash?"
"Graham…"
"Emma, please." He set the marker down. "We don't have anything else to go on right now—they left no evidence. Let's just try and see how far we can take it." When he stepped back to her, he took her hands this time instead of her shoulders. "I'll even say for you to keep investigating other possibilities. But this could be something."
She sighed, pulling her hands back, and looked intently at the file on the table beside her. "Okay," she said, finally. "But if you're going to do this, I'm going to help. See what else you can find out about this shop." She looked at him, inhaling slowly before adding, "I need to make a call."
He wasn't in, but she didn't expect him to be. He was a stock trader on the floor with the rest of them at the opening bell—probably doesn't even have his personal phone on him, she thought once she'd hung up.
"Hi, Neal," she'd begun. "It's Emma. I know it's been a while, and we can talk about that later, but I need your help. My partner thinks that a financial firm called the Voyager Group might be connected to a case we're working on, and there may be others like them turning up. I'll explain later. Call me back when you can."
Things are about to get real, yo.
Review or die. :) See you next week (if you survived).
Terms:
Data engineer: a fusion of normal engineer and really badass computer programmer. They work with data systems (i.e. systems that turn numbers into useful information), and a data engineer is someone responsible for setting up data systems that people who use the data rely on. They're often tasked with finding data that's relevant for analysis in a given situation.
Financial firm: a company that deals with investments, lending, insurance, and securities (things that prove you either own something or are in debt - stocks and bonds are some examples).
