Chapter 3

The next morning, when Neal walked into the white collar office Peter and Diana were already in the conference room. Since the door was open, Neal guessed that they weren't doing anything, that was to stay a secret so he entered the conference room interested in whatever had captured their attention so early in the morning. His interest faded however as he saw the picture of their suspect from the day before on the screen. The name Larissa Sorlist showed that they had apparently figured out her identity and found some information in the FBI system. Just in that moment Neals phone vibrated and he looked at it to see a text from Tim

Tim: Her name is Larissa Sorlist. I found a recent cellphone number and sent Jason to its last known location. It's pretty close to the place where you met her.

Neal looked up at the information on the screen and realized a connection.

Dick: Is it by any chance an apartment building a block away at 45th street?

Tims answer came immediately

Tim: How did you know that?

Dick: According to the FBI file it's her last known address. I'll probably be on my way over there with Peter soon.

Tim: Ok. I'll tell Jason to watch out for you. And I'll try to find more information on who might have hired Wilson.

"Neal!" Neal looked up from his phone as he heard Peter call his Name "We are not keeping you out of prison to look at your phone all day. Either start helping us with this case or go back to your desk and do mortgage fraud if you are to afraid to do this. But do something that resembles work." Neal could hear how annoyed Peter was and decided not to push it anymore so he put his phone away.

"I was never afraid for my own safety Peter. I will work with you on this case. What is the plan?"

Peter shot him an indecipherable look but quickly got over whatever puzzle Neal was presenting him with in favor of solving their current case.

"As you can see on the screen Diana found the name and the FBI file of our thief who is being targeted by Deathstroke. And don't think I've forgotten about you knowing him. We will have a discussion about that some other time. Right now we need to find her before he does. Our best shot is either her last known apartment or a warehouse that was rented in her brothers name three days ago. Diana and Jones will go to her apartment while we go to the warehouse. As of now we don't have any proof that she was the one who stole the necklace and we can't proof any other crime, so we can only act on the fact, that we believe, that her life is in danger. That means we can't do anything without her explicit permission."

"Got it Peter" Neal said with a smile. "What are we waiting for then. Lets go!" Peter just shook his head, but accepted Neals behavior for the moment because he didn't think, that Neal tried to hide something criminal with his conman smile this time. On the contrary Neal seemed to actually be worried, that Peter or someone else might get hurt by getting involved in this and Peter understood that Neal didn't want to seem too worried for the man who caught him.

Together they made their way to Peters car and got in. While Peter started to drive Neal took out his phone again to see a text from Jason.

Jason: She just left the apartment and is going in the direction of the warehouse district. Why is it always warehouses?

Neal: Me and Peter are on our way to the warehouse as well. Any sight of Wilson yet?

Jason: Not yet.

Meanwhile at Neals apartment …

Tim was starting to regret the fact, that he had set up his laptop at Neals apartment instead of in his hotel room. He had just wanted to be prepared for going out immediately if any of his brothers needed help and for that he was in his Red Robin costume. He didn't want any of the hotel staff to come into Tim Drakes room and find Red Robin sitting there drinking coffee and typing away on a laptop. That would create a connection that he really didn't need. So he had decided to use the fact, that Dick had an apartment under his aliases name. The problem was the internet connection. Junes mansion was nice but how could anyone live with internet that was so slow.

Okay maybe normal people didn't need quite as much as he did when he hacked into security cameras and government databases, but a certain speed was just necessary. He really didn't understand how Dick lived here for so long without going insane from technical withdrawal. Talking about withdrawal, his coffee mug was empty again and he was already starting to feel tired again.

He went to the kitchen and started a new pod of coffee. Suddenly there was a noise at the door. At first he thought it was Neals landlady June. He had met her this morning when she had come up while he and Neal had breakfast. She had been very surprised that Neal would know someone like him but she had promised Neal not to tell anyone that she had seen Red Robin in his apartment. She had seemed a bit shocked though so he doubted that she would come back up as long a he was there.

And indeed when the door opened it wasn't June. It was Mozzie who had hoped to get some of Neals wine while he wasn't there. He froze as soon a he saw Red Robin standing in Neals kitchen. The laptop was still on the table with the feed of the security camera, that was pointing to the suspects warehouse, visible on the desktop. The coffee maker beeped because it was finished and that shook both of them out of their surprise and Red Robin took the coffee back to the table and poured himself a cup.

"So is it going to be a regular thing that capes are in Neals apartment?" Mozzie asked while he was hesitantly stepping into the apartment and closing the door. Tim looked up from where he was already focusing on his laptop again.

"No we are just helping him with his latest case. After that we'll be gone."

A second after he said that Tm realised his mistake at the same time Mozzie did.

"We? Who else is helping" Mozzie didn't know what to think. The fact, that Neal knew one cape was bad enough, but to trust multiple capes to help him with his case in all probability without alerting Peter was worrisome. Especially because Neal had never let on that he knew anyone in the cape community. They had always avoided Gotham, but that was just common sense. Now Mozzie asked himself if Neal had different reasons to avoid it than the obvious dangers. But he could think about that later. Now he had to find out as much as he could about Red Robin and whoever else was working with him.

In the same moment Mozzie finished his line of thought Tim had decided that he could trust Mozzie to some extend, because Dick had obviously trusted him with a lot during the years they had spend together. So he decided to tell Mozie who else was working with him right now.

"Red Hood and Robin are currently tailing the suspect while I'm trying to find more information on her, but Neals internet is terrible so I can't really do anything until this will load." While talking he showed Mozzie his hack of the FBI database that was currently just a loading symbol.

"Why are you in Neals apartment anyway? Don't you have a secret safehouse from where you can work?" Mozzie was slightly suspicious of why Red Robin was here of all places.

"Not close enough that I can help them if something happens. We had one but.. You don't really want to know what happened to that the last time we were here. So this is pretty much my only option."

"I might have solution. I have a safehouse nearby that has a safe and stable internet connection. Although I'm not sure if I can trust you with the location."

Tim smiled and Mozzie couldn't help but notice how similar it looked to Neals smile.

"I'm sure you will change the location soon anyways. But if it helps we can hack some databases together and see what they have on our suspect Larissa Sorlist. It would be fun to exchange ideas about how we get in."

"Follow me then" Mozzie said while opening the door again. Hopefully he wouldn't regret his decision to trust a cape enough to be alone with him. But to be honest he was interested in how the capes got their information. He himself had never managed to hack into certain areas of the CIA and other questionable organizations and he hoped to get new ideas how to do it. And Red Robin was associated with the justice league so maybe he could confirm some of his theories that no one else ever believed.