"I guess Amanda Trouble Rollins has a nice ring to it"

She rolled her eyes at him when he said it. What the hell did he want? Amanda didn't want to step into his territory, to interfere with whatever the feds were doing. But she also didn't want that girl to suffer.

He gestured her to get back to the car and Amanda decided that maybe honesty would be the best policy in this case.

She sat back down and they both looked at each other for a moment.

"Don't be rude" she told him "you know my name, introduce yourself"

"Agent Andrew Mason" he said and looked straight ahead "why don't you drive us from here, we'll have a little chat"

Amanda stared at him for a moment and he raised his eyebrows at her as they still weren't moving. But then, without saying anything, she turned the engine on and drove away.

She parked the car in a close by street and turned to look at him again "listen" she said "I don't want to step into your turf…"

"I'm sure you don't detective" he didn't let her finish "but yet you are, even though I asked you to stay away"

"Asked?" she frowned "you mean threatened" she turned to him as he was about to speak but this time Amanda didn't give him the chance to do that as she raised her voice a little "you have no idea what I was doing there, you found my name through the DMV? Great job! Let me handle my business and I'll let you handle yours"

"Only problem is I know your business is my business"

"And what is my business exactly?" she countered, how much did he know about what happened to Eve? Did he know the truth or only what they told her at the hospital? Did he even care?

"I know you were looking up Albert Collins" he said.

Amanda tried to hide being surprised that he knew this information, sure she was by his house but he couldn't be sure she was checking that house in particular, but he knew she looked for information about him, did the feds have some kind of alert on his file?

This was big.

"You're right" she nodded and her voice was calmer now "as I'm sure you know, his daughter was discharged from the hospital yesterday" she waited for his acknowledgment and she continued after he nodded "it was classified as an accident but that's not true"

Now it was his turn to be taken aback by the information "what are you talking about?" he asked.

"That morning I was in the park very early and I saw her, she jumped into the water and I pulled her out, this was no accident, I mean from the look on her face…"

Agent Mason looked at Amanda, taking in what she just told him.

"So as I said before, I don't mean to interrupt whatever you're doing here, I just want to make sure that girl gets help"

She was about to turn the engine on again but he stopped her.

"What?" Amanda asked "don't expect me to ignore it"

It seemed like he was thinking about it and Amanda was getting restless. She told him the truth, he wouldn't ask her to just pretend it didn't happen, right?

"Is there a police report about it?" he asked.

"Not that I know of" she answered "the hospital has my information, but after I found out they wrote is an accident I figured no one filed a report"

"Not even you?"

Amanda shook her head "I wanted to hear what the father had to say"

"Does anyone know you're here?" he looked at her.

She narrowed her eyes at him "you're planning to get rid of me?" she chuckled and it made him smile. Amanda shook her head but didn't say anything else for a while.

"Does anyone know about any of this?" he asked.

"Seriously?" she asked, this time her gaze was more pissed than suspicious, but she did answer the question "I told my partner what had happened in the park, not the rest"

"Good" he nodded.

"So what now?" she asked after he was silent for a couple of minutes.

He looked at her "Now" he said, sounding much more serious all of the sudden "now I make you an offer you cannot refuse"

"Really?" her eyes narrowed again but she looked away this time "what are you talking about?"

Even though she was saying the words Amanda couldn't deny her curiosity. She wanted to know who this Albert Collins really was and why the FBI were after him.

But even before the agent could elaborate on his offer Amanda narrowed down the options. If he didn't plan to kill her, which she was pretty certain he didn't, he could ask her to let it go. But she already told him she had no intension on doing that.

The third option was asking her to help.

He took something out of his jacket, it was a file and he looked at it "honestly" he said "I did not expect to hear what you've just told me"

He opened the file, the way he was holding it Amanda couldn't see what it was.

"Not because I don't believe the girl would try something like that" he glanced at Amanda and then his eyes returned to the file "but because I didn't know what you'd want"

Amanda wasn't sure how to take this, maybe he did want to get rid of her in the eternal way.

"I read this very interesting piece of work" he said and handed her the file.

For a moment she just looked at it, she started going through the pages.

It was her personnel jacket.

Everything was in it, from her first days in the APD to the transfer papers to the NYPD.

The report of her gambling problems and the ten vacation days Cragen took away. The undercover operation.

And that agent just read it all? She didn't like it at all, but she didn't want to look like she was affected by it.

"So you can read" she said sarcastically and handed the file back "congratulations"

"I like you" he had a big grin "first I thought you were following Collins for money, I mean" she had a pissed smile and he tried to appease her a bit "think about my point of view, a detective with a gambling problem stalks the house of a business man when there are no charges or investigations about him"

"Come on…" she shook her head.

"Detective" his voice got more serious now "I take it very seriously when someone interferes with an investigation, I'm sure you can relate…"

"And I told you already I have no interest in your investigation" it was only half true now. Yes, at first she didn't really care about it, but after the agent worked hard to find out, well, basically everything about her, she was more than curious.

"That's a shame" he said, putting the file back inside his jacket "because I wanted you to be a part of it"

"No" her answer came so fast he figured she didn't even think about it.

"No?" he asked.

"I don't think it's a good idea, as you may know the last time I was involved in an outside investigation things didn't end very well"

"So you didn't get a confession? Cause I read that…"

"I'm not talking about that" she stopped him. He waited for her to explain but she didn't say anything else.

They were both silent for a while until he figured it out "you're talking about her?"

She nodded slightly, clearly not wanting to elaborate.

Amanda could never feel less guilty about the repercussions of her under cover operation, no matter how many times she, or Murphy back then, said they had no knowledge about the rape, it didn't ease the guilt.

"Ok" he smiled at her "I get it, but It's not the same"

"How is it then?" she asked "who is this guy?"

"I've been running this investigation for a long time, three years to be exact" he gave her one more look before he continued.

"As you already know Collins works in the diamond industry. He was doing alright for some time, he wasn't too successful, but not someone you'd feel bad for. But then something changed, his business picked up, he was making more money.

We found out he was smuggling most of the diamonds, a small part he did keep legal. Somehow he managed to expend the smuggling business. It's not only diamonds now, I know he's bringing in drugs. Maybe other things"

"So where do I come in?" she asked.

"We have reasons to believe Collins is not the leader of this operation" he sighed "and we've been trying for a long time, to find out who it really is"

"No luck?" she asked and he shook his head.

"A dirty cop will go a long way" he looked at her "only if that cop is on our side"

"I've played that part before" she didn't sound excited.

"We think he already has someone in the police department, but if I have someone in his operation…"

"So you offer it to me just like that?" she asked him.

"If I thought you're after money what would make him think you aren't?"

She gave him a questioning look "what would make him think that?"

"You care about his daughter" he replied "the car accident two years ago? The one that killed his wife" she nodded, she read about it in the database "it wasn't an accident, but there was no one to save her though"

Amanda looked out of the window, she thought about Eve Collins, did she know about her mother? Was that what drove her down that road?

Something inside of her changed, she didn't feel as reluctant as earlier, when he offered her to help in his investigation.

"If he already has someone in the department he would know I was undercover before" she said.

"Not if you didn't" she gave him a questioning look and he pulled out the file again "imagine this being done on the computer" he took out few pages and crumpled them "he's not going to know about something that isn't there, and I'm sure the number of people outside your squad who know about it is close to zero"

She shrugged, she really hoped so, it wasn't something she'd been proud of.

"Can you trust your squad?" he asked her.

"Of course" there was no hesitation in her voice "but I doubt my sergeant would like the idea of me doing that"

He gave her a look she couldn't read "your sergeant can't now about this, no one can know about this"

Amanda was taken aback by this. She was already on Benson's bad side, doing something behind her back wouldn't be the smartest idea.

"I made a decision to trust you" he looked into her eyes "even if you refuse..."

"Yeah, I'm not gonna say anything but I can't hide it from the people I work with"

"I get it" he nodded "but this investigation has been my priority for a long time, I can't risk it, I will not do that, you want to help this girl, go ahead and talk to him. But you have an opportunity to help others too, and Collins isn't stupid, he's not going to ask you to get anyone in trouble, he wants to protect his business, so even if he lets you in…everything he asks goes through me, I will give you the information to pass to him and…"

For a moment Amanda stopped listening and her thoughts wandered away, she had a certain attraction to dangerous situations, that's what drove her to be a detective, but that's also what got her into gambling.

She was still struggling sometimes to distinguish between the good kind of danger, the kind that gave her courage. And the other kind, the kind that made her make wrong decisions.

Right now, she wasn't sure which kind it was, but somehow there was one thing she knew, and it was weird, but her instincts told her it was ok, that she could trust him.

She saw him looking at her as if he was waiting for her to say something. So she did.

"I'll do it"