It was after nine by the time Felicity had showered, dressed and sucked down enough coffee to feel like her brain was fully functioning. She called Ramirez to remind him she'd be coming to examine his computer. She called Rory to urge him to get to work on the droid. Then she began executing her plan to evade the Bratva.

Contrary to what she'd told Oliver last night, she hadn't tried to lose them on the way home from the hockey game. She reasoned that if the Bratva had followed her when she left work, then they knew where she lived and would simply go there if she ditched them. And - in all honesty - it was easier to formulate a plan knowing they were hanging around her building than it was to develop one when she had no clue where they were lurking. It meant going to sleep with the Bratva hovering somewhere outside her door, but she was a cop; she had a weapon. And she was confident (well, mostly) that they wouldn't try anything during the night.

This morning was a different story. Under no circumstances could they be allowed to follow her to Ramirez's place. She needed to lose them, thoroughly and completely.

She began by doing laundry - letting herself be seen as she hauled a basket of clothes down to the washing machines in the basement. On her way, she took note of the activity in the building. She decided that the guy fixing the lighting on her floor had to be Bratva. He was too well dressed to be a Glades electrician and the building's manager never repaired anything on a weekend because it meant paying overtime. The man painting trim in the lobby was also Bratva, she figured, largely for the same reasons. She didn't go to the garage, but she supposed there was a person waiting somewhere in the vicinity of her car. The fake-electrician probably called the rest of the gang any time she left her apartment. And she saw a handful of other people hanging about who may or may not have been members of the surveillance crew - it really didn't matter. She assumed she was going to have to get by all of them.

She went back and forth between the laundry room and her unit several times, hoping to desensitize them to her movements. On her fourth trip, she stepped into the elevator with a basket full of towels and paused it on the way to the basement. In the few seconds it was stopped, she pulled a Star City Community College sweatshirt and a brunette wig from the basket, then tugged the sweatshirt over her torso and the wig over her head. She removed her glasses - her contact lenses already in place - and yanked a backpack out from under the towels. Then she peered at her reflection in the stainless doors of the elevator. Good enough, she decided. In less than twenty seconds she had transformed herself from a blond cop to a brunette college student. Now she just needed to have the right attitude to pull it off.

She stopped the elevator one floor above street level and headed for the stairs, leaving her laundry basket in the stairwell. She walked down to the ground floor and strode across the lobby (not too fast, Felicity) - a young woman with dark hair and a backpack, presumably on her way to class or the library. No one gave her a second glance. She nearly smiled as she left the building and resisted the urge to jog down the street.

Ramirez lived a little more than a mile away and Felicity remained alert for the twenty minutes it took her to walk to his apartment. Mindful of her conversation with Oliver last night, she had her stunner holstered behind her back, under the sweatshirt.

She saw no one.

Oliver got the call from McKenna's security detail a little before eleven in the morning. He was in the kitchen, dressed casually in a tee shirt and sweatpants, working on his third mug of coffee.

The head of the team began by apologizing. "I'm sorry, sir."

Oliver took a sip of coffee. "For?" he asked.

"We lost Ms. Smoak."

Oliver tightened his grip on the mug. "Lost her?" he repeated. "In her own apartment building?"

"Yes. She must have known she was being tailed and had a plan to get out of there. We watched her go back and forth between her apartment and the laundry room a few times and then she just...disappeared."

Oliver put the mug down, afraid he would throw it against the wall. And Tommy wonders why I don't delegate more often.

"I thought you guys were pro's," he said, not bothering to hide his anger.

"We are, Mr. Queen. But she is a cop. She must have made us."

"You think?" Oliver was on the verge of chewing the guy out but stopped himself. He knew from his experience at Queen Consolidated that it wouldn't inspire the man to work harder, and would discourage him from telling the truth in the future. And, in all fairness, Felicity was pretty damn clever. He probably shouldn't be surprised that she had given McKenna's guys the slip.

"Do you have any idea where she went?" he asked, more calmly.

"Not really." The man paused. "She's on foot, though - her car is still in the garage, so we don't think she could have gone far. We've got a couple of guys out walking the neighborhood."

Oliver shook his head. "That's a waste of time. She could have taken a bus or a cab, or got picked up by someone. She could be anywhere."

The man sighed, "Yes sir, that is a possibility." He added tentatively, "The good news is that the Bratva lost her, too. The men that were watching her are still in her building, just as confused as we are."

Oliver supposed that was good news, although he wasn't ready to celebrate. It meant that it now came down to who could find Felicity first - McKenna's team or the Bratva. Oliver wasn't ready to bet against the Bratva. They were every bit as skilled as McKenna's guys and more motivated.

He tried to figure out what to do next. He rebuked himself for not asking her last night about her plans for the day. That might give him ideas for where to look now.

"Mr. Queen?"

"Yes."

"Do you want us to wait in her building til she comes back?" The security man still sounded apologetic.

"What are the Bratva doing?"

"They're here - all the ones that we've been able to make, anyway."

Oliver pondered the idea. If the Bratva were hanging around then it would make sense for his security team to wait as well. But even as he was about to give his assent, it dawned on him that there might be a better way to take care of this, a way that resolved things once and for all. He could go to the source of the problem. He could talk to the man who was giving the order to have Felicity followed.

"No," he said slowly, "I want you to find someone else for me."

"Sir?"

"I want you to find Anatoly Knyazev."

Felicity entered Ramirez's building and pulled the wig off her head, trying to restore her hair to some semblance of order. She didn't want him knowing that she'd worn a disguise to see him. He was already dealing with the news that someone had set up him for Isabel's murder. He didn't need the additional worry of knowing that a Bratva captain would love to get his hands on him.

Ramirez answered the door in faded jeans and a tee shirt, wearing an anxious expression. Beside him was the little girl from the photos, her dark eyes looking very much like her father's.

"Good morning," Felicity said brightly. "You must be Zoe."

The girl stared at her and didn't reply.

"Is it okay if I come in?" she continued. "I'm here to work on your dad's computer."

Zoe looked up at her father, and at his smile of encouragement, nodded tentatively. Felicity met Ramirez's eyes and added, "Is it still a good time?"

"It is if you can figure out who's trying to set me up. It's been gnawing at me ever since you left yesterday." He glanced down at his daughter. "The thought that someone is trying to put me back in jail and leave her…" He stopped abruptly, then stepped back to allow Felicity to enter.

She walked into the apartment. "Well, let's see if we can figure out who that someone is."

As she headed toward the computer, Zoe said suddenly, "Are you really a police detective?"

Felicity nodded. "I am."

"You don't look like a police detective."

"Zoe-" Ramirez began.

Felicity smiled. "No, it's okay. It's not the first time I've heard it. What does a police detective look like?" she asked the girl.

"They dress differently. All the ones on TV wear a suit."

Felicity glanced down at her Star City Community College sweatshirt. "It's a Saturday," she replied. "These are my Saturday clothes. I save the suit for the weekdays."

Zoe wasn't satisfied. "And they're bigger and older," she added. "And they carry a weapon."

Felicity thought about lifting her sweatshirt to reveal her stunner and decided against it. "There are all kinds of detectives," she said instead. "I do most of my work with my brain so it doesn't matter how big I am. And I'm really good with computers."

But Zoe did not appear convinced.

Ramirez gave Felicity a shrug, as if to say, kids, what can you do? Then he pointed to the coffee table in front of the sofa. "Zoe and I are going to be here, working on her fractions while you do what you need to with the computer. Is that okay?"

"That sounds fine," Felicity said. "I always liked fractions."

"Really?" Zoe regarded Felicity suspiciously. "They're hard. No one in my class likes them. Especially when you have to multiply them."

"But they're important," Felicity pointed out. "If someone gives you the choice between half of two thirds of a carton of ice cream, or two thirds of one half of it, don't you want to know which offer you should accept?"

Zoe mulled that one over. "Aren't they the same thing?" she eventually asked.

Felicity laughed. "They are. See? You're better at fractions than you thought."

Zoe and her father both smiled, and the girl regarded her math book with a little more enthusiasm.

Felicity sat in Ramirez's computer chair. "Now let's see what I can find on your dad's machine, here, while you sort out your homework." And she started typing.

Ramirez watched her for a minute, then hunkered down with his daughter over her book. Felicity pulled a flash drive containing a host of diagnostic tools out of her backpack, and loaded several of them onto the computer. For the next hour, the only sounds were the clack of the keyboard and the gentle murmur between Ramirez and Zoe. Felicity reviewed the results from her programs, then loaded a few more and ran those too. The results were surprising - and disappointing.

She sat back and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Sh-darn," she said, catching herself as she glanced at Zoe.

"Problem?" Ramirez asked, instantly nervous.

"A bit of a roadblock. I found the malware that was used to get to your cell phone account. What I couldn't find is how the malware got on your machine in the first place. It wasn't sent to you in an email or in any of the websites you've visited over the last four or five months. That's the way people usually get crap on a machine."

He frowned. "Does it matter, how it got to my computer?"

"It does. If I can find out how it got here, then I can backtrace it to the source - and figure out who's trying to set you up." Felicity paused, biting her lower lip. "Did anyone give you a flash drive or data on a disk that you may have loaded?"

"No. I'm not a genius with computers, but I know enough not to plug something in when I don't know where it came from."

She nodded. "Is there a chance someone could have accessed your computer directly - from inside your apartment?"

Ramirez thought about it. "It's the Glades," he said. "There's always a chance someone broke in. But it would be tough for them to know when to try. My schedule isn't predictable and I'm here most of the time. And there have been no signs of a break-in."

"How about when you were here? Did anyone new or different visit you over the last several months?"

Ramirez leaned back against the sofa and stared at the coffee table.

"There was the child services lady, Dad," Zoe offered helpfully. "Back in February? She wasn't the one who usually stops by. She had the fancy shoes."

Ramirez nodded. "That's true." He looked at Felicity. "We had a visit a couple of months ago from child services, only it wasn't the usual rep who comes here. Zoe's right about the shoes. I remember thinking the woman was well-dressed for someone with a public service job."

"Can you recall her name?" Felicity asked.

Ramirez looked at his daughter. "Ms. Carson?"

"Carsten," his daughter corrected.

"That's right." Ramirez patted Zoe's hand. "Carsten. Marie Carsten. Good job, Zoe."

Felicity logged into the city's public services database and searched the list of Child Services employees. "Is this the woman?" she asked, pointing at the screen.

Ramirez walked over and studied the photo. "No," he said flatly. "Not even close. The Marie Carsten in that picture must be twenty years older than the woman who came here."

Not surprised, Felicity nodded. "Do you remember if the woman went near your computer?"

He ran a hand over his close-cropped, dark hair and exhaled. "Yes. She said her tablet wasn't working so she needed my computer to update some records."

Felicity sat back in the chair and said nothing.

"You think she's the one who put malware on my computer?" Ramirez continued.

"Most likely."

"And you can't trace it back to her computer because she did it in person."

Felicity set her jaw. "Someone is using that malware to access your machine from someplace. I'll trace her," she said evenly, "but it's going to take me a little while. She - or whoever is getting into your computer - is disguising their location by coming through a VPN. I'm going to have to sift through a bunch of traffic and follow a few trails." She raised the flash drive. "Rather than do it manually, I'd like to install software that will do it automatically. We'll let it run for a few hours and see what it turns up."

Ramirez looked unhappy. "Great. Someone else I don't know installing something I don't understand on my computer."

"I'm a cop."

"And I thought the other woman was child services." He met Felicity's gaze and shrugged. "I'm sorry. This whole thing has me really worried. I finally thought my life was back on track."

"It is," Felicity said firmly. "And I'm on your side. I want to figure this out as much as you do." When he appeared doubtful, she continued, "Look, I grew up in the foster system. My dad left us when I was six and I lost my mom when I was nine. I wouldn't wish that on anyone." She glanced at the coffee table, where Zoe was once again studying her fractions.

Ramirez understood. "Okay," he agreed slowly. "Go ahead. Do whatever you have to do. You've been at the computer for over an hour. You could have installed something already and I would never know the difference."

Felicity smiled wryly. "That's true," she agreed, "although I didn't." She plugged the drive into the computer. As the software downloaded, her eye was drawn to Ramirez's stack of graphic artwork and then to the sketches he'd done of his daughter.

"Do you think you could draw her?" she asked.

Ramirez's brow furrowed. "Draw who?"

"The woman who came here. Do you think you could draw her? I've talked to a number of people for my investigation and there's a chance I've already met the killer or someone associated with him. If your drawing looks like anyone I've interviewed, that could be a big help."

Ramirez frowned. "I don't know. She was only here for an hour and it's been a couple of months."

"I can help, Dad," Zoe piped up. "I can describe her."

The kid hadn't been that absorbed by her homework, Felicity realized. She was glad she hadn't said anything more explicit about foster care.

Ramirez gave his daughter a fond smile. "Okay. Zoe and I will do our best to come up with a sketch. No promises, though."

"That's all I can ask," Felicity agreed. "I've set up the software and I'm going to let it run for a few hours. I've got some other people to talk to today. I should be back late in the afternoon. Maybe you can have the sketch for me then?"

He nodded. "I'll try."

"Thanks. See you later."

Felicity didn't bother putting the wig back on when she left Ramirez's apartment. She was confident the Bratva had no idea where she was and she was about to launch her plan to get them to stop once and for all. Nevertheless, she waited until she was a good eight blocks away from his building before she made the call.

Anatoly's face appeared on her phone screen almost immediately. He looked tired and a little surprised. "Detective Smoak?"

"Anatoly." (She'd given up on pronouncing Knyazev.) "I was hoping we might talk."

"So talk."

Felicity shook her head. "In person. I've got a deal I want to make."

"You want to make deal?" He laughed. "What makes you think you have something I want?"

"I've got information on Isabel's murder. I think that's something you want because you've had men following me since yesterday. It's slowing my investigation and it's wasting my time."

He frowned. "You are attractive woman. Men probably follow you all the time."

"Well, these men began shortly after you and I spoke and they've been unusually persistent - although also a little obvious. I hope your guy likes hockey. The game went into overtime last night. And maybe you could ask this morning's detail to take my clothes out of the dryer and fold them."

Anatoly's face darkened. "Where do you want to meet?"

"There's a bar in the Glades called Nuddy's. Meet me in an hour and come alone - I'll know if you don't." When he didn't reply, she added, "You know the Glades, right? The Bratva have been selling drugs there for years."

He ignored the jibe. "An hour is not much time."

"You're already in Star City. You shouldn't need much time to get to a bar if you're not organizing a posse. All I want to do is talk, Anatoly."

His dark expression remained. "Very well. I will be there in an hour."

A/N: Just wanted to say thanks to the folks who have taken time to post a review. It's much appreciated.