Chapter Twenty-Five

Of Fake IDs and Cheap Hotels

The meeting with Alex could have gone a lot worse, Nora decided as she roamed through the city streets, considering the last time Nora saw her hadn't exactly had a happy ending. But, if there was one thing Nora knew about Alex, it was that she always came back to the music box. It was her white whale; she'd been looking for it as long as Nora had known her.

As she walked, Nora's phone started to ring. "Hey, Caffrey," Jones' voice greeted when she picked up. "You busy?"

"Not particularly, though I don't think it would matter much if I was, would it?"

Jones chucked. "No, probably not. Peter wants you to come take a look at a crime scene we're at." He read off an address. Nora heard in the background a voice calling Jones' name. "Look, I gotta go. Peter will explain when you get here." He hung up, leaving Nora somewhat confused.

With a sigh, she made her way toward the address Jones gave her. The front door was crossed with crime scene tape, and an NYPD officer stood outside keeping guard. "Sorry, miss," he said as she approached, "I can't let you in. This is a crime scene."

With a smile, she dug her consultant ID card out of her purse. "I'm with the FBI."

He squinted a little as he read over it. "Right," he said slowly. "That agent said you were coming. I think they're all still upstairs." He stepped aside to let her pass, ducking under the tape.

Nora pulled off her hat and sunglasses as she took in the elegant décor of the house. She headed up the stairs, spying several more officers and a few familiar agents milling about, including Peter. As she rounded the railing to get to Peter, her eyes fell on a white sheet on the floor. Red splotches bloomed through the sheet in a few places, and a pair of shoes stuck out from one end.

Nora stopped dead, heart beginning to beat rapidly in her chest. She looked to Peter, eyes wide. "That's a dead body."

"Yup."

She shifted uncomfortably, fighting to keep her breathing even. "This doesn't really fall under my area of expertise, Peter," she reminded him. "Murder isn't an intellectual pursuit and I'm not really a dead guy kind of girl, so I'm gonna go."

She started for the stairs. "You got a lot of rules for a girl who doesn't play by them," Peter teased.

"Yeah..."

"Aldys Christopher Gray," Peter continued. Nora stopped, turning back to him. "Heard of him?"

"Yeah," she admitted, suddenly a bit more intrigued. "Stock trader. Made a killing in derivatives right before the crash." But that wasn't what Nora was most interested in. "He has quite the art collection. Maybe this is my area of expertise."

Then she remembered the dead body on the floor, eyes falling on it once more. She moved across the room to look around. "What's with the hat?" Peter asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What, a girl can't accessorize?"

"The only time I've ever seen you wear a hat was when you disguised yourself on the run."

She rolled her eyes, studying a painting on the wall. "Yeah, well, don't read too much into it."

He let it go. "We've been sitting on him for three weeks," Peter explained, returning to the case. "Today, he comes home with a woman, possibly an escort. Somebody takes a shot at him. By the time we get here, he's dead, the killer is gone."

"So what am I doing here?"

"Something's off," Peter huffed. "What's wrong with this picture?"

Nora bit her lip. "Where's the witness?"

"She's in shock. Had bruises all over her," Peter explained as Nora pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of a forensics kit on the floor. "Lauren traveled with her to the hospital with NYPD."

"Walk me through it, Sherlock," she said, pulling the gloves on with a snap.

"Yeah, alright. The witness says the shooter was already inside."

Nora stooped to look at a bag discarded on the floor, yellow evidence markers placed around it. "This the girl's purse?" She peeked inside.

"She and Gray came in. There was a struggle. Shots were fired." Peter crossed over to the body. "Gray ends up here." Nora pulled the girl's ID out of the bag and studied it, worrying her lip again. Pierce Spelman, from Vancouver, thirty-three years old. Hmm, I wonder... "Now, I- Are you paying attention?" he snapped.

"Yeah, yeah," she brushed him off. "I can multitask."

"Alright," Peter continued. "So the witness was doubled up over here in this corner." Nora returned to the forensics kit and pulled out a bottle of rubbing alcohol as Peter moved to where the witness had been. "She said that they struggled and then the guy went out the door."

Nora spied a silver tray on a vanity and started pouring the rubbing alcohol in it. "I entered and then I-" Peter cut off, noticing what she was doing. "I'm sorry, am I boring you?"

"One second," she muttered. She dipped the ID in the rubbing alcohol for a moment before pulling it out and giving it a shake. Just as I thought. "It's a fake."

"What?"

"The ink hasn't had time to fully dry," she said as he looked over her shoulder. The letters smeared due to the rubbing alcohol. "But this is high-end work, Peter. You can't just get this on the street."

Peter took it, brow furrowed. "No, you can't," he agreed. "Jones."

"Yeah?"

"Run indices on Pierce Spelman. And call Lauren. I wanna see if we can get her real name off of Pierce. Her ID is a fake."

"Copy that," Jones agreed, pulling out his phone and pacing away.

Now realizing that Pierce wasn't who she claimed to be, Peter's eyes caught on an overturned potted plant that had several shoe prints tracked through the dirt. He crouched down next to the body. "She used his shoe to make in impression in the dirt," he realized, pointing out dirt stuck on the bottom on Gray's shoe. "She's not a witness, she's the shooter."

"Agent Burke," Jones called, hurrying back up the stairs.

"No one else was in the room," Peter added.

Peter turned his attention on Jones. "Nurses at the hospital took Pierce in for a private exam," he explained. "Left her alone to undress. She slipped out the back. She's gone." Peter sighed heavily, pushing himself back up. They had practically let their killer walk out the door.

Peter struggled his way out of the elevator the next morning, laden with dufflebags. He squeezed past another agent through the glass door, shoulders beginning to cramp and ache under the weight. "You're late," Nora noted from her desk, stopping Peter in his tracks. "You're never late." She eyed his bags in confusion.

He sighed, shifting one of the bags on his shoulder. "Rough morning," he admitted. "I had to take the subway in. You know how hard it is to rush when carrying this many bags?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Did Elizabeth kick you out?"

"No," he snapped.

"Then why the bags?"

"You ask too many questions." He headed for the stairs. "Lauren, are you looking up that stuff?"

"On it," she assured him.

"Jones," he continued, starting up the stairs. "You any closer to finding our missing girl?"

"We don't have much to go in," Jones admitted. "Fake name, no match for the prints found in the room." He shrugged. "All we got is a purse. We'll get that from ERT this afternoon."

"Alright, stay on it. I want a briefing as soon as it gets here."

As promised, the purse came back from ERT later in the day. "Here we go," Jones said, setting a box down on the table and beginning to pull things out. He was cut off by Lauren entering the room with a stack of papers

"Your options," she announced, handing him the first paper off the stack.

Nora read over his shoulder. "Hotel rooms? Peter, what did you do?" she accused.

He rolled his eyes. "We're upgrading our wiring system," he explained. "Getting the whole HD surround sound put in. El took the dog and the car to her sister's, upstate. Good news is, once this is all in place, I can watch the game once the power is back on."

"How long will it be out?" Jones asked.

"Couple days, hence the hotel." He flipped through the paper in his hand.

"Thompson Hotel," Lauren explained. "You said you wanted a big TV, they have the biggest."

"How much is this?"

"Eight hundred and twenty-five dollars a night. With our government discount."

He dropped the paper. "Next."

Nora rolled her eyes. "Peter, it's ridiculous for you to stay in a hotel when there's more than enough room at June's."

"Right," he scoffed. "El would love that. No thanks. I'll be fine." He started flipping through another packet from Lauren's stack. "This one has a pool. I never had a pool."

"$425 a night." Jones whistled and the second paper dropped to the table.

He took the remaining papers from Lauren. "Let's go to the bottom," he decided. The bottom of the pile was a pamphlet that said 'Empire Hotel' across the top. "Ah, here we go. That one?"

"Fifty-nine bucks."

"Book it."

"Already did."

Jones raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that the place where you put Nora when she was first released?"

Peter nodded. "They have an interesting no-heat policy," she said dryly.

"I don't need amenities," Peter said with a pointed look. Just because she was a big baby didn't mean Peter was. "Just give me a wall, a TV, and a bed, and I'm happy."

She looked at him incredulously. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"Peter, mi casa es su casa."

"Su casa is not even su casa," he reminded her. Peter turned his attention to the case before she had a chance to protest. "Jones, what do we have?" Peter and Nora took a seat.

"Okay," Jones said, motioning to the individually bagged items from the purse that he's pulled out of the box while they talked about hotels. "These are the items from the woman's purse. Name on the ID is Pierce Spelman. The card's a fake." Of course, they already knew that. "No record of her prints. We found the gun stuffed inside the fireplace, wiped of prints, serial number filed off."

"Whoever she is, she's good," Nora allowed.

Jones handed her one of the bags. "That looks like a to-do list."

"Verify pie," she read, "spike RN." Peter read over her shoulder. None of the other entries made any more sense. 'Elixir PF,' 'check pew' which was checked off, and 'gather ML.'

"That's an odd list of activities," he mused.

"It's a code," she decided.

Peter took it from her and passed it off to Jones. "Get this to the crypt analyst and then back to me. I gotta go check into my hotel."

He stood to leave. "Uh, no no no," Nora called after him, "motel. Motel with an M." He ignored her.