"How'd it go with Sleeping Beauty?" Peter asked as Neal entered the conference room the FBI had borrowed at the hospital.

"Sleeping, oddly enough," Neal replied. "Agent Holbert," he acknowledged.

"Mister Caffrey," Frank returned. "Lovely gift basket, by the way. Don't think I've ever gotten one just for loaning out a flashlight."

Peter knitted his brow in concern, "You sent a gift basket?"

"Oh, yes," Holbert answered on Neal's behalf. "With a thank-you note and everything. Like we'd invited him to a housewarming instead of allowing him to observe a bust." He turned amused eyes to Peter. "Oddly enough, we had a minor breach in security around the same time we received our present. Someone managed to make copies of all our files related to the Abigail Harvey case. Can't imagine what happened."

Burke closed his eyes with a pained expression and shook his head just once before looking up. "Jesus, Neal," he said, resigned.

"Relax," Frank waved it away. "I gotta admit, the kid done good that night. You better watch this one, Burke, he's pretty slick." He raised an eyebrow, "If he were one of my boys—or girls, these days—instead of, well, a felon, I'd be pretty impressed."

"If I knew what you were talking about, I'm sure I'd be flattered," Neal smiled.

"Don't encourage him," Peter warned, shooting Caffrey a dirty look.

"No," Frank agreed, "I can see he doesn't need it. Next time you want information, though, fellas, there's a nifty invention called the telephone. Been around for a few years, you might have heard of it."

"What can I say?" Neal spread his hands, "Some people are old-fashioned."

Holbert snorted. "Don't push it, kid. Still," he lowered a significant gaze at Caffrey, "For as long as we're on the same side, I'm not a file hog. I take help where I can get it." He smirked at the other agent. "Seems we're of a mind when it comes to that one, eh, Petey? Though you're a bridge farther than I'd go."

Frank swiveled his chair back to his files on the table. Peter glared at Neal with thorough disapproval as the young man mouthed, "Sorry" at him with a shrug over Holbert's head and claimed a seat.

"So if you two are done with your pantomime show, maybe we can get started," Frank commented without looking up from his papers. "Caffrey, you get anything from our victim yet?"

Neal sat at polite attention. "No. Abigail's not ready. She said maybe three words the entire time. And she's tired and still scared. I got her to finish a milkshake and then she fell asleep again. I'll probably head back down when we're done with this briefing." He didn't want her to wake up alone. Not here, not yet.

Frank nodded. "That's probably for the best right now, anyway. She'll need a lot of high-calorie, high protein foods and rest while her body heals. And movement. To avoid contractures."

"You see a lot of these kind of injuries?" Peter wondered.

"Not a lot, thank God, but I've seen a few." Holbert replied, looking up at Peter from the notes he'd been writing. "The things some of these bastards do to their victims... Sometimes makes me wish I worked something a little more... civilized." He sighed. "And this case is weirder than most. Not the garden-variety marital squabble or nut-job or sexual trafficking. From one angle it looks like a freaky James Bond villain plot, from another it looks like amateur hour from a bad horror film."

Neal and Peter exchanged a look.

Burke cleared his throat. "Does this mean you agree with the conclusions I put in my report?"

"Yeah. Doesn't get us any closer to a perp, though, does it? The forensics hasn't helped yet, either. Only one set of unidentified fingerprints on anything in... in that room. No hits on facial recognition for the guy in the video. We've even been tracking down the equipment to see if we can get anything from where it was bought, but no luck on that, either." Frank shook his head. "Whoever this is, they covered their tracks pretty damned well. So far."

"You think they'll slip up?" Peter asked.

"No," Neal interjected before Holbert could answer. "We'll catch someone. They'll want us to, so it'll wrap the case up and we'll stop looking. But whoever we get, it won't lead anywhere." Neal leaned forward, his voice serious and a little fearful. "Peter, I don't think she's the only one."

Frank and Peter were the ones exchanging a look now.

Neal returned to his original attentive but relaxed pose and observed, "But you'd already considered that." He threw a glance at Peter, whose only response was a slight twitch to his eyes that Neal could read volumes in.

"We have to consider that as a possibility. I have my people cross-referencing other cases, looking for torture victims who had been presumed—or declared—dead until they turned up again. It's slow going." Frank sucked in his lower lip thoughtfully. "How soon d'you think Ms. Harvey will be able to assist us in the investigation?"

Neal shook his head. "I don't know. I'm not an expert."

"Hmph. With all due respect, Mr. Caffrey, that's bullshit." Frank held a hand up to forestall the other two men's objections. "I'm not trying to insult you here, but I don't want you wasting time, either. You conned people for a very nice living for quite a while and you were pretty damn good at it. You don't operate at that level without having a hell of a lot more insight into people than most of these 'experts' I talk to."

Holbert leveled Neal with a no-nonsense gaze. "Don't jerk me around. Give me your best analysis and let me decide what to do with it."

Neal raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair. "Okay, then." He picked a bit of nonexistent lint off the sleeve of his turtleneck to give himself a moment to arrange his words. "She'll talk to me. It will take some time, but she will. How long is going to depend on several factors, many of which are beyond my control."

"Such as?" Holbert prompted.

Peter folded his hands on the table and watched the scene with interest. Frank was much more effective dealing with Caffrey than any of the other agents—not counting Peter, of course—who'd worked with him. And it was instructive to watch them interact. Neal was playing his cards carefully, evaluating Holbert's response to every physical and verbal maneuver and letting just enough of some indefinable energy leak out to lend his performance unassailable credibility.

And Burke could see that Holbert understood full well that he was playing a game of wits with a master. Frank was turning every one of Neal's phrases over in his mind to test for veracity and usefulness, but he also wasn't fooling himself about his ability to detect all of Neal's motives. Peter wondered if this was how his own relationship with Caffrey looked to other people.

"Well," Neal continued, "It would help if I could get her out of that hospital room, preferably outside, even if just for a little while. The room she's in doesn't even have a window. Once she becomes more alert, she'll probably also become more paranoid. She might think she's still... in captivity. Just a different kind."

"Yeah," Frank said, "I've seen that happen. Like a flashback. The victim feels trapped; starts to panic."

"The good news is, she seems to trust me. More than I'd have predicted. If we can maintain that it'll really help. It would mean having to spend a lot of time with her, until she begins to establish additional relationships." Neal looked at Peter as he said this, and Peter nodded.

"I think we can solve a few crimes without the great Neal Caffrey to hold our hands for a little while. If Agent Holbert requests your assistance, the White Collar Division will be glad to make our resources available, including use of our consultant. I have to check with Hughes first, of course, but it shouldn't be a problem."

Frank made another note and said, "Good, so I'll get that request in the pipeline. Tell me, though, Caffrey, what is it about you that she's responding to, d'you think?"

Neal displayed one of his more dazzling smiles, with a hint of sadness thrown into the edges to add poignancy. "You did make the point that I have great insight into people. And if I couldn't get people to trust me I would not have made that very nice living you mentioned."

Frank pursed his lips and tapped his pen, caught somewhere between impressed at the smoothness of the lie and offended by its presence. "Fine," he said. He could let this go. If there were a potential problem, Burke would've seen it and taken care of it by now. Everything about the two of them demonstrated the effectiveness of their partnership. Caffrey was still a con man and a thief, but Burke was obviously keeping him on the right side of the law with something more powerful than the threat of prison. "Anything else you need?"

"Some... discretionary funds would be helpful."

Holbert shot a startled frown at Peter. "Is he serious?"

Peter reclined in his chair and raised his eyebrows. "What is it you want, Neal?"

"Oh, just a few pretty things to brighten up her room. Some REAL food instead of the hospital swill." Neal deliberately dimmed his smile and said meaningfully, "These things are important, Peter."

Holbert watched Burke doubtfully. Peter rubbed his chin with a thumb and thought about it before deciding, "I can probably get you a per diem for food, but you'll have to come up with your 'pretty things'—LEGALLY—on your own."

"And field trips," the thief pressed.

"Neal...," Peter warned, "Don't."

"What?" His wide blue eyes were all innocence.

Peter tipped his head and brought a finger up to poke in Caffrey's direction. "Don't use this girl as an opportunity to slip your leash just so you can go sight-seeing."

"I assure you, Peter, I am only thinking of our victim's well-being. A few visits to the great landmarks and—if she's interested—museums of our fine city are simply part of the rehabilitation process."

Burke shook his head and was about to dispel any illusions Caffrey had about gallivanting about town with their victim/witness. Then he stopped and took a long, penetrating look at his partner. Neal's voice was flavored with mischief, but his eyes and body were completely serious in a way Peter knew was intended to send the agent a very specific message.

So Peter scratched his head, sighed, and told Neal, "IF the doctors think it's a good idea, THEN we'll consider allowing you to escort Abigail to locations outside your two-mile radius. If you're accompanied by an agent." Neal added a pathetic brow raise to his expression, and Peter closed his eyes briefly before adding, "Or other non-felonious adult. That I approve. In advance."

Neal had the manners and grace not to advertise his triumph with anything more than a smile that would have shamed the Cheshire cat.

Frank began tapping his pen again. Caffrey had a hold on Burke, as well. It was like watching some strange paternal/partner hybrid. But this dance they were doing would be a helluva lot more fascinating if there weren't also a kidnapping torturer on the loose.

"Back to the case, then?" Frank asked. Peter seemed a little embarrassed but Caffrey took it all in stride as they returned their attention to Holbert. "We're probably looking for someone with medical training."

"They could be self-taught," Peter pointed out, trying not to be too obvious about not looking at Neal as he said this.

"Yes," Holbert acknowledged. "But it would have to be a hell of a self-education. Keeping the temperature high enough to compensate for heat loss from compromised skin. Delivering the correct nutrition and fluids to prevent malnutrition, dehydration, and shock. Preventing infection and illness under unsanitary, warm, and moist conditions. Not to mention the injuries themselves. Inflicted for maximum pain with minimum permanent damage."

"Preserve the body, destroy the mind?" Peter suggested.

Neal felt a tight fear grip him, but he pushed it down and was satisfied with himself for not betraying it with anything more than a fraction of a second of unnatural stillness. Yet to his own ears, his voice seemed a little thicker than normal when he said, "Or they don't want to damage the merchandise."

Holbert rubbed an eyebrow. "There isn't any evidence of sexual trauma, but that's not conclusive. They held her for a long time. And this could all have been preparatory. I just don't see it, though. Doesn't fit." He put his hand back down on the table and tapped his index finger a few times against the wood. "Not that anything here really fits. I don't know how far we're gonna get by speculating on motive, anyway. Just stick to what evidence we have until there's enough to start guessing at the big picture. Like a jigsaw."

Frank began to gather up his papers. "Well, Mr. Caffrey, Agent Burke... It was good meeting with you. I expect reports on any information you manage to obtain from Ms. Harvey and I will send along any new information my team gathers." He shuffled the files into his briefcase. "We'll co-operate the hell out of this case." He shook hands with Peter. "Until we meet again." Frank stopped before Caffrey, hesitated, then shook his hand as well. He paused in the door to say, "'I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,'" with absolute seriousness before leaving the two men alone in the conference room.

"Peter?"

"Yes, Neal?" Peter answered warily. He could hear the playful tone of the young man's voice and already guessed what was coming.

"Which of us do you suppose he takes for a corrupt French official?"

...