The car is a classic, sleek and black with silver trim, idling by the back entrance of what smells like a pizza parlor; garlic and herbs waft into the alley as someone cracks the door to toss an armful of crushed cardboard in the direction of a dumpster. Kate waits until the door closes again before she steps out of the shadow of the alley.
"Katie!" Hale holds out his arms and she lets him wrap her in a bear hug; his jacket smells like old-fashioned pipe smoke, simpler days.
"Thanks for coming."
"Get in here, it's gonna rain." The sky hangs low and heavy, grey overhead as he opens her door; she slides into the passenger seat while he goes around the other side. Warm brown eyes turn serious as he sits beside her and locks the doors. "What have you gone and got yourself into, Katie girl?"
"I wish I knew." She swallows a lump in her throat at his sharp concern, leaning back in the seat. A saxophone plays quietly on the radio; she could almost pretend she's here with Neal, the two of them still young thieves spending all their loot before they've sold it.
"Lot of people been asking about you. Hell, I've even heard Interpol's been asking around." He reaches up onto the dash, passes her a paper plate with two slices of pizza. Black olives, feta and artichoke; he even remembers her favorite pizza toppings. "Hey, we're here anyway. Thought you might be hungry."
She has to set the plate on her lap when her hands start shaking without warning; it's been eight months, she realizes abruptly, since she's been this close to a friend, since she's felt safe even for a moment. She looks away, hands clenched together, until she's sure she can speak normally. "Have you heard from Neal?"
"Not directly." Compassion softens his face; his rumbling voice stays steady and serious. "Mozzie, a few times. They're looking for you, too."
"I know." The pizza is still hot; she licks grease from her fingers. She slipped away from the hotel before breakfast, and had to move fast to get away from the agent tailing her; this one had been good, and a native New Yorker, she guessed. She'd had no time to stop for food on the way. "You coudn't've got parmesan?"
"You are hard to please." But he's grinning fondly now.
"God, I don't think I've had good pizza since -" She laughs, sudden and sharp and unexpected; that, too, is adrenaline more than anything, and she chokes it off before she can't stop.
"You don't want to be found." He's serious, now. Hale knows about Copenhagen and the stupid things they both did after; he knows about the whole mess.
"It's not like that." At his shrewd look: "I don't want Neal mixed up in -" she waves the pizza slice in the air "- whatever this is. Any more than he is already."
"He's scared for you, girl."
"Believe me, the feeling's mutual." And a hollow, cold spot opens in the pit of her stomach, just saying the words. "He didn't ever tell you a place where he hid stuff, did he?"
"Oh, no." He shakes his head.
"This guy wants something." She looks away, keeps her eyes fixed in the side mirror as the first fat drops of rain hit and slide down the windshield. "Something Neal took and hid somewhere. I don't know where and I don't know what, but he's going to hurt Neal if he doesn't get it."
"You tried asking Neal about it?"
"I did." She can close her eyes and hear his voice, calling her name. "He won't tell me."
"Maybe you should trust him. Maybe he knows something you don't."
He won't trust me, she thinks. I can't protect him if he won't trust me. But she doesn't have much time and she didn't call Hale for relationship advice, as desperately as she wants to stay here and listen to old jazz on the radio and rain on the roof and spill her guts for hours to someone who cares.
"Have you heard anything about Peter Burke looking for me?"
"I'd be as worried by who's not looking for you," he says. "Keller's in town, did you hear?"
She frowns; she hadn't heard. "If he's not looking for me that's a good thing."
Her first date with Keller, which she only allows him to call a date because it's easier than arguing with him, he took her to hear Tchaikovsky in the park. He'd made it sound like a group outing with other people going along, and she'd only agreed because she was pissed at Neal over something stupid she can't remember now. She'd been surprised when it was just the two of them on a picnic blanket under a robin's egg sky, with sandwiches and champagne, watching puffy white clouds drift by while the orchestra played Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. Surprised and annoyed, and wary when he didn't try anything; she wondered what his game was.
Hale nods once in firm agreement; he tried to tell her Keller was bad news long ago, before she figured it out herself. "It's who's looking for him. He went in on a job in Stockholm with the Russian mob, took all the money and ran."
She shakes her head; that would be just like Keller, to think he could pull off something like that.
For a finale the orchestra played the 1812 Overture as originally scored. Keller had found them a spot as close to the cannons as anyone was allowed to be; she remembers the horses, harnesses twined with bright ribbons, dark bay with black tails twitching in the still heat. The gunners even had authentic uniforms like those worn by artillery crews in the time of Catherine the Great; the whole thing was put on by some local Russian heritage group, although she suspects they borrowed the guns from one of the Civil War reenactment units upstate.
"Now Sergei's boys are here and they've paid a visit to everyone in New York Keller's ever worked with, trying to make sure he can't leave the city. They're burning all his IDs and scaring the hell out of anybody might hide him or make him new ones."
"Except us."
She can close her eyes and feel the boom of cannon fire vibrating through the ground in perfect time with the percussion; she remembers watching the guns roll backward with the force of the recoil and the thin haze of blue smoke falling over everything, blurring the line of trees at the edge of the field, the rousing, triumphant final theme. She'd come home exhilarated, having forgotten to be annoyed or suspicious. She'd completely forgotten to be angry at Neal, leaning into his embrace like they'd never fought. She'd felt his hesitation, smelling the fine film of powder smoke still clinging to her hair.
And that had been Keller's whole reason for taking her, she realized then. He took her because he knew it was something she would love that Neal couldn't give her; he'd done it for no other reason than to rub Neal's face in it afterward. He'd gone around humming that final theme for weeks.
"Well, Keller can't go near Neal anyway with the feds watching. But you -" His voice drops, and he checks the rearview mirror. "It ain't like no one knows you're back in town," he says. "Word's out, and it'd be one thing if the Russians hadn't found you yet, but they ain't even looking."
That was three weeks before the last job Neal and Keller pulled together, and she didn't see him again until Neal left for Europe. What fascination she held for him was all about Neal; she was nothing to him but a shiny thing that was Neal's, a game he played with Neal that he hadn't been able to win yet. And there was nothing left, in the brief angry fling they'd had after Neal went to Copenhagen, once her initial fury faded to a dull grief for what she'd thought she and Neal had built together and a vague disgust at herself for forgetting what Keller was.
"So either they don't know I used to run with Keller -"
"Or somebody bigger and badder than Sergei warned 'em to leave you alone."
"Now there's a cheerful thought." She aims for a light tone and fails completely.
"I don't know who you're with right now, but if he can scare the head of the Russian mob -"
She takes a deep breath, blows it out slowly. "Do you know where Keller is?"
He cocks his head at her, concerned and suspicious in equal measures. "Tell me you're not gonna tempt Sergei, sticking your neck out for the likes of Keller?"
"Not unless I have to." She hesitates, watching the view through the windshield waver through the rain, glass turned to rippling silver, then switches gears abruptly. "But he's not what I came about. How much can you get me for Raphael's St. George and the Dragon?"
He blinks. "You got your hands on a genuine Raphael? How -"
"Never mind how." Neal been trying to get her attention, then, and she'd been torn between renewed anger that he thought he could buy her back with things and being touched and stunned that he remembered the one time she'd said it was her favorite the day they met. It's also the only thing of value Neal stole that she knows exactly where to find.
"Off the top of my head, at least ten million. More, if you give me time to shop it around. How soon do you need the cash?"
Ten million ought to finance a jailbreak, if it came to that, though if Fowler can scare the Russian mob she's not sure they can run far or fast enough. But she's spent too much time reacting, and not enough making plans of her own; she needs something in reserve.
"I haven't decided if I'm selling yet. But if I do need the money I'm gonna need it fast."
"Raphael I can move fast."
"Five percent?"
He frowns at her, then sighs deeply. "For you, two." He holds up a hand when she opens her mouth. "But don't tell nobody, all right? Don't want people thinking I've gone soft."
"I won't. Hale -"
He shakes his head. "Folks like us, we can always get more money. Old friends are harder to replace, once you lose 'em. Just don't go and get yourself killed, all right?"
She can't speak; she blinks rapidly several times and leans in to brush a quick kiss against his cheek before opening the door.
***
Neal and Keller pulled their last job together at an upscale ski resort in the Poconos. It was a three-man job, and Keller had lined up a third before they got there; none of them knew the guy, but Keller had worked with him before. Keller had also laid most of the groundwork, but the plan required a second expert safe-cracker and that was where Neal had come in.
Kate half suspected Neal only took the job because it gave him an excuse to pull out of a job Ryan Wilkes was planning ("I don't like the direction that plan's starting to go," he'd confided to her, the day before they left), although Wilkes had left the offer on the table if they got back in less than a week and changed their minds.
Mozzie had insisted he and Kate should come along, as just-in-case backup. Privately, Kate suspected he wanted to get away from summer in the city for a week; the last three days they'd sat on the veranda of a little bed and breakfast not far from where Neal and Keller were staying, sipping coffee and playing cards after she'd gotten impatient with his attempts to teach her what she considered unnecessarily convoluted chess strategies.
They were in the room when Neal came back. Kate saw him first from the window, walking slowly up the winding gravel drive before disappearing under the porch roof. He looked pale and tired, shutting the door and throwing the bolt. It had just started to rain; she could smell it in the cool breeze through the open window, see raindrops dotting the shoulders of his suit. The left side of his dark jacket was soaked; he must have been splashed by a truck going through a puddle, was her first thought.
"Did you get it?" Mozzie looked up from his book as Kate moved toward the door; Neal half turned away, hesitating, as she was about to hug him. His movements were off, she realized, a little stiff and uncertain.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, suddenly alarmed.
"No." His voice was soft and oddly flat. He handed her an envelope. "It's all here."
A quick count revealed half of a take that should have been split three ways. "Neal, this is -"
"Mike's dead." And now Neal was shrugging out of his suit jacket and that dark spot wasn't rain at all; half his white silk dress shirt was soaked with blood.
Mozzie barked, "Jesus, Neal!" coming out of his chair as the book fell with a thud; Kate stepped forward and stopped, staring.
"Oh." Neal glanced down at his shirt as if only now becoming aware of it. "'S not mine."
Kate said, carefully, "What happened?"
"He thought he dropped his passport."
Mozzie's face turned grim. ""He went back for it? Did they see you?"
"No." Neal shook his head, slowly at first, then kept shaking it violently back and forth, as if to shake free from an image he didn't want to see.
Kate caught his face between her hands. "Easy. Neal, look at me." She didn't think she'd ever seen so much blood; Neal's eyes were shocky and vague and not quite tracking. "Hey."
"Kate."
"Hey." She gave him an encouraging little smile, stuffed her own fears aside as he finally focused on her. "You're all right. I've got you." She could feel his hair, too, stiff and sticky with drying blood, could feel it sticking to her hands. "You want to tell me what happened?"
"Keller shot him." He looked down, then, his eyes caught by the blood on his shirt again. "He was standing next to me, and -" One hand wiped at his shirt, like that would do anything.
She felt Mozzie's alarmed look beside her, but didn't take her eyes from Neal's. She loosened his tie, passed it to Mozzie and started undoing the buttons on his shirt. She could see Keller, laughing, remember the times she'd responded in kind to his barbed flirtation, because the attention was flattering and it wasn't like it meant anything.
She remembered hearing him and Neal argue over whether he should carry a gun; she had never imagined anything like this. The realization swept through her, sudden and sick and cold: he could have shot Neal instead.
"Did anyone hear?" She kept her voice level and encouraging; Neal was clearly in shock, and they couldn't afford for her to lose it, too. "Where's Keller now?" Thinking please, let him have already gone, far away; she didn't think she could look at him now. "Did anyone follow you?"
"He had a silencer." He shuddered, his eyes closing briefly. "I don't know if - I don't remember much, after -" He trailed off, his voice fading to a whisper as she peeled the shirt off of him; it was soaked and dripping blood on the floor.
She handed the shirt to Mozzie, and they exchanged a look; for all they knew, the police could already be on the way. Mozzie said, "I'll clean up and get the truck ready."
He stopped, though, as Neal said, "It was in his back pocket." The words were raw and confused, and Mozzie's grim expression softened into compassion. "The passport. Keller didn't even wait for him to check."
Mozzie looked at her, then, and said, "Five minutes, max."
She nodded, took Neal's hands in hers and led him to the bathroom while Mozzie started packing up, twisted the shower on and undressed quickly. Neal followed her without protest, stood quietly while she removed the rest of his clothes, let her tug him under the spray.
Blood ran down his neck as hot water hit his hair, swirls of red falling around their feet on white tile. She felt his breath catch, stepped quickly in front of him and pulled his head down to hide his face against her shoulder.
"Close your eyes," she said against his ear. Don't look. But oh, God, she could smell it, heavy and metallic under hot water and wrapping around them with the steam and now he was shaking and they had five minutes.
She grabbed the tiny shampoo from the shelf, squeezed half the bottle into her hand and massaged it into his hair; red water turned to pink foam swirling around the drain, and now the smell of lilacs mingled thick and cloying with steam and blood and sweat. Five minutes for him to fall apart, for her to put him back together, and no time at all for her hands shaking or the quiet thrumming panic beating at the back of her skull, the little hysterical voice saying, over and over, it could have been Neal.
He stood quietly under her hands, head bowed as she washed him; she was swift but thorough. She needed this as much as he did; it was a hurried purification and the only absolution he would get, and for her a need to touch every part of him, to feel him warm and breathing and alive. The water ran clean when she was finished, and they had maybe twenty seconds to stand and lean into each other, foreheads resting together, before Mozzie pounded on the door.
She shut off the water and held his face close to hers. "Are you here, now?" she asked, serious. "I need you with me, now, okay?"
"Yeah." He swallowed and nodded once; she watched him gather himself. "Yeah, I'm good."
Mozzie had laid out clean clothes; the others had disappeared. They dressed quickly, strolled hand in hand down to the front desk; Neal flirted with the clerk as they checked out, walked out to the parking lot looking entirely unconcerned.
He started shivering again as the battered pickup pulled down the gravel drive; not visibly, but she could feel it; they both could, as he sat squeezed between them on the bench seat in the cab. He closed his eyes when they reached the highway, leaning his head against her shoulder; she combed her fingers through his wet hair. No one spoke.
They pulled into a rest stop in the dark some six hours later, parked at the edge of the lot away from any lights or cameras. With the engine off and the headlights dark, she couldn't see Neal's face when he said, "I'm taking the Wilkes job."
A beat of careful silence, then Mozzie said, "I thought you didn't like Wilkes."
"I don't." He was only a shadow in the dark, sitting up and staring straight ahead. "He's gonna hurt those people. Take a dozen hostages and then kill two or three to make an example, get everyone else to cooperate." His voice sounded thin and fragile in her ears. "I can stop him."
"How?" she demanded.
"He wants me to go in undercover and get to know everyone, gather intel. I can warn them, figure out a way to get them out of town."
"And what happens when he figures out you've screwed him over?" Mozzie asked. "You know what he did to the last guy who tried to cheat him?"
"Why don't we just call the cops?" she asked, trying to sound reasonable despite a sudden twist of cold fear; that Neal could pull off something like this she had no doubt, but she was less sure he'd live very long afterward. "Let them take Wilkes down. And distract them from coming after us for a while at the same time."
Neal shook his head. "Not enough proof for them to go after him. I have to do this. I'll tell him –"
Mozzie seized his arm before he could reach for his phone. "Sleep on it," he said, quiet but firm; his fingers curled around Neal's wrist and didn't let go. "You're exhausted right now, and you just came off a bad job. You just watched some guy get shot, and you're in shock, and you are not making this decision tonight."
Kate wanted to hug him. She felt Neal let out a long, shuddering breath, but he didn't speak as Mozzie went on, "We can talk about this in the morning. After at least eight hours' sleep and some decent coffee. Then, if you still want to sign on with a guy who likes to cut his enemies' hands off for fun, and screw him out of half a million dollars, we'll back you up. But not tonight."
Mozzie slept in the cab. The rain had stopped a few hours ago, and the night was warm; Neal lay on his side in the truck bed. Kate curled up against his back and wrapped her arms around him, whispered "I love you," into his neck. He didn't answer, but his hand moved to grasp hers like a lifeline.
***
Fowler looks up from a file folder when she comes in.
"I get the feeling you're not taking all this seriously." He pulls something from his pocket and throws it on the table. "Maybe this will change that."
It's a necklace; the pendant is a diamond teardrop the size of a grape, a deep pink color surrounded by smaller white stones.
"For me?" She holds it up to the light from the window; the chain is white gold, falling like water over her fingers. "You shouldn't have."
"What do you think?"
She blinks, both eyebrows lifting. "If you want me to tell you if it's real, I'm going to need a magnifying glass. But I can tell you somebody's got some serious equipment if it's not; pink's hard to fake in a stone this big."
"It's not." And now he's definitely smirking, and oh, she's not going to like this at all. "Guess what you'll see under a polarized light?"
He lays the folder flat on the table and those are Neal's initials; she can hear him, a hundred times, saying the worst part about forgeries is you can't sign your work but surely he wouldn't have -
"You're telling me Neal got his hands on an oven that can do this -" holding up the necklace "- in two miles?"
"Seems he's found a way to hack the Marshals' database and erase six hours of his tracking data the night the real one went missing."
"Oh please. If he could do that he'd have escaped -" She stops, as it all suddenly, horribly, makes sense. "Neal found a way or you did?"
"What do you think?" He pulls the necklace out of her hand with a self-satisfied look. "Now ask yourself what a jury's going to believe." He drops it back into his pocket. "Just came from the office where we arrested him. He should be in processing -" a glance at his watch "- right now."
She stares at him, her mouth dry and her mind racing, as he walks out. Thinks about the Raphael, and what it would take to set up a jailbreak, and how much good running did them the last time. The Russian mob is afraid of this man, or whoever he works for.
She needs information; she needs to know who she's dealing with. She stares at the folder lying open on the table, the picture of the stone, Neal's initials magnified against a deep, clear pink.
There's a French term in chess; she's heard Neal use it, though chess is one game she rarely played with him. Pis aller.
The move of last resort.
She pulls out her phone; closing her eyes, she can still smell steam and old blood and lilacs. She texts Hale: Tell Keller meet me tomorrow at 9 AM coffee shop on 5th and I'll get him out of the country.
Takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, then adds: I need to borrow a photo studio.
***
Dylan takes one look at her and says, "I'm doing this for Hale, not for you. I want no part of whatever you and Caffrey got into this time."
Kate just nods thanks and heads into the back of the trailer, where thick black drapes will make for an effective darkroom come nightfall.
She has a clean passports and an old photo of Keller from about five years ago. Stripping the laminate off of Vivian Smith's photo takes time, and redoing it will take longer, but half of all art is patience, as her freshman art survey professor told her.
Of course, he was the same professor who told her "art won't keep you alive, but it will give you something to live for," which goes to show how much he knows.
She stops by the library on her way home, lifts a card off a distracted teenager and logs in on one of the public computers. She prints a copy of Fowler's personnel file off her flash drive, and then pulls up Travelocity.
***
She shakes her tail loose somewhere north of 39th and goes underground, emerging from the subway two blocks from the coffee shop where she broke up with Keller, a month and a half after Neal left for Europe.
The menu hasn't changed. At 8:30 she asks for a table by the wall, leans back against rose-patterned wallpaper, orders an espresso and a cinnamon chip muffin. Then she texts a cab driver she knows and tells him to be here at ten past.
She sees Keller from the window. At a distance he's unremarkable; not particularly tall, in faded jeans and a battered brown jacket, hat pulled down over a face that's thoroughly forgettable until he's actually looking at you.
"Katie," he says; he doesn't sweep the hat off and bow. The place isn't crowded, but they're not alone and he can't afford to attract attention. "I didn't know you cared."
She wore the wide-brimmed straw hat in part so Keller couldn't lean in and kiss her; he takes her hand instead, presses his lips to her fingers. Neal can pull off a gesture like that; Keller really can't.
"How many times have I told you not to call me that?"
"I've lost count." He sits in the chair next to her - mostly, she suspects, because like her he wants his back to the wall and his eyes on the door, but that doesn't stop him from trying to put his arm around her shoulders. "What's this about getting me out of the country?"
She pulls an envelope from under her jacket, takes out the plane ticket and slides it toward him; he picks it up as the waiter approaches with her muffin and a tiny mug.
"Coach? Really, Katie?"
She takes a slow sip of espresso, savoring, and sets the mug down carefully. "I don't care that much."
After the waiter leaves, "Who's Vivian Smith and why's he going to Norway"
She holds up the passport. "It's clean. Neal's work. Well, with some modifications of my own."
She'd changed the sex and the photo, redone the lamination and the holographic seal. He nods appreciatively, reaching for it; she tucks it back into the envelope and pulls out the file on Fowler.
He says, "I'm guessing this isn't for old times' sake."
"I need information." She looks up, sweeping a glance around the room and lowering her voice. "You're going to dig into an FBI agent for me."
"Burke?" And then, when she shakes her head: "He's looking for you, too, I hear."
"I know that. He wants a meeting." She shrugs. "He's not going to get one. Can we focus, please?" She can only deal with one fed at a time. "For now you're looking into this guy."
"OPR?" His eyebrows go up as she passes him the file. "What's his game?"
"You tell me. All I know is he's after something Neal took."
"OPR doesn't handle recovery of stolen property." He frowns. "You're tangling with somebody high up, here. Rumors have been going around."
"So Hale tells me." She gives him a level look, spreading jam on her muffin. "But I'm not the one who thought I could rip off the Russian mob and get away with it."
He tips his head toward her: touché. "What do you think I'm going to find on him in Norway?"
"He spent five days there last August. Flew into Oslo on the third and back to DC on the seventh." She sets the knife down, leans in to flip through several pages of the file. "I want to know why."
"Oslo's pretty far outside FBI jurisdiction." He looks intrigued.
"Officially, he was on bereavement leave at the time."
"Unofficially?"
"I want to know what he was up to." She shuffles a few more pages, brushes crumbs off the white linen tablecloth. "Less than a week after he got back from this trip, all his case files from ten years in Violent Crimes are sealed and he's transferred into OPR."
He leans back in his chair, unobtrusively scanning the street outside the window before he asks, "What are you looking to find?"
"Anything." She signals the waiter, orders another espresso and waits for him to leave before going on. "Who is this guy? Besides the reason your Russian friends aren't going to string me up by my thumbs for giving you this?" She waves the passport at him. "Who does he work for? What does he want? Why's he interested in me, or Neal? I need to know who I'm dealing with here."
"You want me to help you rescue Neal." Now he sounds amused.
"I'm also rescuing you, in case you hadn't noticed." She's in no mood to play games with him. They both know he needs her as much as she needs him; he's not going to make her beg. "Unless you think you can convince Sergei Stockholm was just a minor misunderstanding. I've already called a cab to take you to LaGuardia." She holds out the passport, raises both eyebrows. "Should be here in five minutes. You want to stay here with the Russians beating the bushes up and down the city, or do you want to get a few thousand miles ahead of them and help me out at the same time?"
He takes the passport with a little smile, folds the ticket around it and tucks it in his shirt pocket. "What makes you so sure I won't take this and disappear?"
"Because I know you." Her answering smile holds no warmth. She's asking him to take a risk, digging into Fowler and whoever might be behind him; still she doesn't hesitate to give him everything and let him go, trusting he'll uphold his end of their deal once he's out of the country.
She's a game he plays with Neal, and this is his chance to steal a move.
He'll do this for one reason: so he can tell Neal, next time they meet, that she came to him when she was in danger and in desperate need of help. Because he can give her something Neal can't and rub Neal's face in it; because he just might save her life when Neal can't.
Keller won't pass up a chance like this.
She writes her phone number on the corner of a napkin; once he's read it, she tears off the corner and flicks a lighter at the edge, watches the edges blacken and curl under the flame before dropping it in her empty espresso mug.
You don't pull the job with the partner you want, Mozzie always said. You pull the job with the partner you've got.
Neal can't protect her now, whatever he thinks; he's vulnerable enough already. She can't ask Mozzie for help; she needs him to protect Neal. What she's asking will be dangerous, and she cares far less about Keller getting hurt.
A car horn sounds outside; she looks up to see a taxi idling at the curb. "That'll be your ride."
He reaches into his backpack; she freezes as he pulls out a gun, but he reverses it and holds it out to her. When she only stares at it, he sets it on the table, hidden behind the menu stand.
"What am I supposed to do with that?" At his oh, please look: "Fowler's not working alone. Shooting him isn't going to solve anything."
"Take it when you go and meet with Burke."
Her voice turns cold. "I'm not meeting with Burke."
"You should go see what he has to say. You might find he's surprisingly reasonable, you point that at his head." He shrugs as he stands. "Or leave it here. Your choice. But they're not gonna let me take it on the plane."
She deliberately doesn't look at the gun. "You should go."
He glances out the window, scanning up and down the street. "I know you didn't give me the last clean passport you've got."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"We could go south instead. Argentina's got great wine and the best steaks you've ever tasted." He tilts his head at the window as the cab honks again. "And no extradition treaties. We could disappear. No one'll find us. Not the feds, not this Fowler, not Neal."
And she remembers that look, the way he smiles, like he's sharing a joke that's not funny or a plan to hurt someone.
That was all they ever shared, in the end.
"I'm pretty sure Neal could find me in Argentina." And she wouldn't be against Fowler finding her there, either.
"Not if you don't want to be found."
But she does want Neal to find her, when this is over and they're safe. And if the last few months have taught her anything it's that she's not as good at disappearing as she once thought.
"I like New York."
"You're stronger than him." He says it like that should be reason enough for her to leave.
"I know." She meets his eyes steadily. More important, she's stronger than the person she was the last time she went with Keller. "You're going to miss your flight."