Be sure to read Chapter 13 if you missed it since the site didn't show the story as updated yesterday. Makes me crazy when that happens, it was an important one!

Chapter 14

As requested, Danny's green Jeep pulled up in front of Jamie's house at exactly eight the next morning. He had barely put the vehicle in park before his brother was out of the front door and hurrying over to climb in the front seat. "Drive," he ordered.

"Where to and what's all this about?" Danny snapped. He was tired and working on only a few hours of sleep as he had been on scene most of the night; by the looks of it, Jamie was functioning on even less than that.

"Anywhere, just put us out in the open. We need to talk."

Danny glanced at his younger brother's strained face and shook his head before he dutifully guided the car down a few blocks to the park where they had all spent hours playing when they were young. He gazed out upon the empty, snow covered fields and put the gearshift into neutral while leaving the engine running for heat. "Jamie, please. For the last time, what is all this about? You're starting to scare me, kid."

"Have you noticed anything… um, out of the ordinary happening lately?" Jamie asked in a low voice, almost as if he was expecting someone else to be listening in. "Besides the fact that a dead Joseph O'Connor was tossed out of a van last night on the very spot that your brother Joseph Conor Reagan died?"

"Is that what has you spooked?" Danny asked. "Kid, by all accounts it's just a wild coincidence. From what Baez learned from one of her snitches this morning, the guy's been skimming off his supplier lately and he wanted to make an example out of him. It had nothing to do with the FBI operation last night. I mean, I'll admit it's weird, but no way connected to what happened to Joe."

"How many times was that guy shot last night, Danny? Let me guess… four times in the chest, right?"

"I don't have the M.E.'s report back yet," his older brother replied. "But, yeah, I'd say that was about right."

"Too many coincidences," Jamie murmured while he stared straight ahead. "Dad doesn't believe in them."

"There's been something else?" Danny puzzled. "Like what?"

Without a word Jamie reached down and pulled Kaylin's toy bear out of his bag and handed it to his brother. Danny just laughed when he saw it. "You're joking now, right? A stuffie? Am I being punked? Did Baez put you up to this?"

"Look at the insignia, Danny," Jamie said coldly, of everything that had happened the fact that there was an implied threat to his daughter had him most on edge.

"The Templar? You've got to be kidding me. Where the hell did you get this?"

"In my house, right after I came back from Washington. Eddie said Kaylin found it in the basement." Jamie quickly added the details about the open window and the boxes left downstairs. "That's when Bear went missing too."

"So like you said, Gramps might have left it from back in the day, and Bear came back, right? No one took him. He must have just gotten out of the house like Eddie said. Jamie, I think you're just making too much of this. You know you always get wound up when you're not sleeping well."

"And exactly how do you know I'm not sleeping well?" Jamie asked in an icy tone, expecting Danny had been informed of his nightmare in the hospital in D.C. by his father.

"Oh, uh, Eddie sort of brought it up when I ran into her at 1PP the other day." Danny admitted, suddenly feeling like maybe he should have kept that to himself. "She was worried after you jumped out of bed in the middle of the night and clocked yourself on the head. I told her that, you know, nightmares and stuff are par for the course for you when you get stressed... I mean it's the truth ever since you were a baby."

Jamie just sat back against the headrest and closed his eyes. It was all coming down to that again, and just as he feared, he was getting nowhere with his family. They were all starting to look at him now as if he was off his rocker, even his own wife who had gone behind his back to bring his problems up with his brother. God forbid if he'd reveal the true subject of his dreams or the identity of that man driving the Chevelle in Washington, they'd be calling the EDP squad out on him as an emotionally disturbed person. There was no way he could go to his father with any of this right now.

"So you don't think there's any chance... you know, that anything is behind this Templar stuff," he whispered, wishing at that moment he could just melt away and disappear. He didn't even feel like bringing up the whole business about the cat on the porch, judging from Danny's tone he'd already made up his mind.

"Nah, I mean come on, Jamie. Every single person that was involved was taken down at the bar that night or cleaned up in the following week. They all went upstate for hard time. There's no one left, we made sure of it," Danny said as he reached over and gave his younger brother a squeeze on the shoulder. "You know what I do think?"

"What?" The question was asked flatly. Complete mental exhaustion was setting in.

"I think you're trying too hard to be everything to everyone. Look at what you did this week... you got sick as hell, but you drove yourself to take care of every little thing at home and at work without a break or asking for help. Like I said to Eddie, you're an overly responsible tight ass that's been under a lot of stress lately, and now you're just seeing things that aren't there. After all that you've been through in the past year, you should take some time and enjoy the holidays. I mean, kid, come on... this should be the best time ever in your life... you've got Kaylin and a new baby on the way with Eddie. You need to let yourself relax, and that's coming from me. I get wound up in work too but I always take time with the kids and Linda."

Danny could see that his words had not really reached home with his brother yet. That was worrisome, so he tried another tactic to break through, "You know I do have to admit I enjoyed seeing you rip into Sergeant Walters last night. He looked like he was going to cry by the time you were finished. I've always wanted to do that."

"Yeah?" There it was, just a little break in tone... almost a laugh. Something to build on.

"Definitely, he's a complete jerk," Danny continued. "Foster knows that and none of what happened last night was your fault. Nothing was compromised... if anything it looks like the NYPD had no clue there was anything supposed to go down. They'll reset and get their target to come in again."

"I guess. I was on the phone with him and Reeves from Washington all night. The guy wasn't spooked. There's another meet scheduled for next Thursday now," Jamie admitted.

"Good. See? I told you so. This kinda stuff happens all the time. Now, like you said, you already handled everything with Foster. I guarantee he's catching some shut eye. You go back home and at least get a few hours of sleep, okay? Things will look better then."

"But, Danny... this Templar stuff..." Jamie said softly; he just couldn't let it go... it was still ripping his insides out. Why couldn't anybody else see that?

His older brother sighed; he thought they were past that. "I tell you what, if anything, and I mean anything else comes up, you let me know right away and I'll dive on in with you and we'll get to the bottom of it, I swear. Okay, kid? Please, Jamie. I promise I'll back you and we'll go to Dad if we have to, but right now based on what you've told me I just can't see it, and you don't want to dredge all of that up for him and the rest of the family again, do you? Look at what it's done to you. He doesn't need that, not at Christmas. Hell, neither do I, but I'm glad you came to me to talk. You can do that anytime, all right?"

"Okay," Jamie finally opened his eyes and gave a small uneasy smile. It was true that he didn't want to spoil the holiday week for his family if his suspicions were unfounded, and he'd already have to try hard to keep his cool with Eddie after finding out about her little backhanded conversation. At least his brother had agreed to back him in case anything else came up. It was a start, and it would have to be enough for now. "Thanks, Dan."

"You got it, kid. Now let's get you back home to bed."

###

Just across the street and down a few doors from Jamie's home, a cold pair of gray eyes watched through thin drawn fabric with grim amusement as the green Jeep pulled back up to the curb and dropped Jamie off after being gone for just a half hour. His years of training in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit had rendered him astute in reading body language and could sense that his plan was coming together... that he had the younger brother on edge now.

He laughed at how easy it had been so far... he hadn't even been able to help himself the other night at the tree lot when Kaylin had conveniently dropped her glove. The look in Jamie's eyes when he had gotten close to that little girl... he grinned in pure evil amusement. Throwing that toy on the floor and luring their cat out of the basement had been a nice touch also, too bad the damn thing had clawed him and got away, forcing him to go find a substitute at the shelter to leave on the porch. That had been risky, still it had afforded him the opportunity to take another stab at Jamie with the whole Gonsalves ID. Not to mention the gorgeous 71 blue Chevelle that now sat in a storage facility just a few miles away, practically purring after its round trip to Washington and back with his accomplice Matthew, who had also done a masterful job in instigating the hotel's bout of food poisoning after bribing one of the kitchen staff to carefully place some tainted lettuce.

He had been planning for this ever since that car had gone up for auction after the Templar fell, and he'd spent the last several years restoring it to near perfection. Now that the weak-hearted Jamison had a precious little family to protect and was tied in with the FBI; he was able to work his old contacts, and Agent Foster's dirty little hidden gambling habit had come in handy, providing details of Jamie's whereabouts and allowing him to cherry pick the location of the body drop. Poor Joseph O'Connor never knew what hit him. It was absolutely the perfect opportunity to make his move and end this once and for all after torturing them for a little bit. That stupid kid should have minded his own business when the Templar's reign was strong. If it hadn't been for that nosy little SOB investigating his brother Joe's death, well then none of this would be happening now. It would only be a matter of weeks before he would bring the Reagans down at the time of his choosing and make them all pay for everything that they had taken from him. He would kill them off one by one from the inside out and leave the mighty Frank Reagan broken and alone without any of his sons. Payback was gonna be real a bitch, Commish, he thought with a smile as he let the curtain drop back into place.

He'd let poor Jamie stew on this for a while so he would drop his guard, what with the holidays coming up for a distraction, and then it would be time to have Matthew take the Chevelle out for another run and up the ante to draw the Reagan boys out in the open.

So Danny is not yet totally on board and a little conflict with Eddie tomorrow as Frank gets back in the mix at Sunday dinner. Thanks for reading and reviewing!