Unfortunately, the gaining lead did not translate to ease in figuring out where Gilman was going next. It was not until the evening of the fourth day, over a day and a half later, that the team learned what the next location in the hunt for Gilman was going to be: Buffalo. Poughkeepsie and Buffalo were almost on the opposite sides of New York State, a 5.5-hour drive apart. The team needed to move quickly, which meant it had to use the jet, unfortunately for Kateri.

Kateri was twisting her watch around and around and around and around her wrist, as the team pulled onto the grounds of the Hudson Valley Airport where the jet had just recently landed.

"It'll be a short flight," Clinton said, "less than an hour from take-off to landing."

While she really, truly appreciated that her partner was trying to make her feel better, his words were not helping a lot. Kateri was claustrophobic. She could ride in small cars or even in moving elevators without a problem because she knew that, in almost every case, she could get out quite quickly if she needed to. (The exceptions, she tried to not think about too often.) Trains and planes, however, were somewhat more problematic because, while most were much bigger than a small car, the seating arrangements often made the spaces seem smaller and the options for debarking were … much, much less limited.

Kateri could do it, take planes or trains, that is. She just really did not like it, but having something to distract her or having someone to travel with it made it easier.

"I know," she replied with a sigh after a minute. "We've gotta do what we've gotta do. I'll just be glad to get it over with."

Kateri and Clinton were the last to board the jet, a small Learjet that the Fugitive Task Force teams used from time to time. She balked for a second at the bottom of the stairs, but only for a second, and then she hurried up and ducked into the plane. Best just to get it over with. She told herself. Plenty of work to do for distraction.

The flight did pass quickly to her relief, and soon enough the team was landing in Buffalo.

"Let's move, guys," said Jess, as the team finished gathering their gear and debarking.

Kateri ended up being the last off the plane. Her partner was waiting at the bottom of steps, and she fell into step beside him. An agent from the Buffalo Field Office had been waiting for them and started filling the team in on the latest intel.

"License plate reader picked up the car on the Skyway. Buffalo PD located it an hour ago in Kenmore. I have a team sitting on it."

Transportation was waiting for them all, and Kateri piled into the back of the lead SUV, which the Buffalo agent was driving, between Barnes and her partner. With all their duffels and Clinton's rifle case, the backseat was rather crowded. I'm glad we all like each other. And that this's a relatively short drive. It was only about 20 minutes to their target location in Kenmore.

The target location was a slightly-unsavory, local strip-mall. Gilman's car, which he had taken from the used car lot after killing the dealer, was parked in the parking lot.

"We did a walk-by," the agent said, when the cars were parked, close enough to see Gilman's car but far enough to not be immediately obvious. "There's a map in the backseat. It doesn't look like Gilman abandoned the vehicle. We checked the restaurants here, and every restaurant, bar, and motel in both directions."

"Well, if not for the fine dining," Barnes inserted, her tone dripping with sarcasm, glancing over at Kateri and Clinton, "why is he in Buffalo?"

"Only one reason," the Buffalo agent replied. "He's getting ready to cross into Canada."

Kateri gave a disbelieving snort. "Here? Not unless he's not anywhere near as smart as he's been acting the last several days."

"There are easier places than Buffalo to sneak across the border," Clinton added dryly, agreeing with his partner.

Gilman would be a moron to try to cross here. Big city, lots of traffic, major crossing with guards.

He knows we're looking for him. He knows his picture is out. He needs a quiet crossing, if that's the angle he's playing.

"And as an ICE agent, Gilman should know the quiet crossings," Kateri tag-teamed off of him.

Their driver made a face, obviously unhappy about getting his idea shot down.

Jess shifted in his seat. "Any massage parlors along this strip?" he asked.

"There's a couple … uh, a few blocks from here."

Ah, I see where your mind's goin', boss. Gilman's shown himself to have a habit, and those kinda habits are hard to shake. That might be his undoing here. During her time doing undercover work, she'd seen other perps caught because of such habits.

Jess twisted in his seat to look back at them. His words echoed Kateri's internal musings. "He developed a bad habit. Tried to shake it, but he couldn't."

"Let's do it," said Barnes.

"Clinton, Kateri, take Crosby and Hana. Barnes and I will head inside."

The whole raid went sideways, and the result was one beaten massage parlor girl and one fugitive in the wind. The whole team ended up back in the same car park where they had started, Clinton and Kenny going over Gilman's car with a fine-tooth comb. There wasn't enough elbow room for her to help so Kateri hung back, staying out of the way.

Jess was not in a good mood. Kateri could almost see the bad vibes rolling off of him in waves. Then the Buffalo agent—what was his name again?—made the mistake of opening his mouth again.

"Now he'll head for Canada, just like he planned."

Dude, not a good time for further speculation!

"Yeaaahhh, well, if that's his plan, why did our most wanted fugitive risk a rubdown here with a girl that he had to beat half to death because she recognized him, instead of waiting until he got to Canada to a nice Canadian massage parlor with nice Canadian girls who haven't seen his face plastered all over their video screens?" The boss was really, really not in a good mood.

Luckily for the sake of the other agent's skin, Barnes took the chance to intervene and pull the boss away before he could do more than just verbally fillet the unlucky agent.

Kateri could only catch the very end of their hissed confab, Jess saying, "He's been here two days. Why?"

Good question. If I were a fugitive, I'd want to keep moving.

"Boss,"—Kenny's voice jolted her from her thoughts—"check it out."

The team regathered around Gilman's car. Kateri rubbed her gloved fingers together. It was extremely late in the day, though not quite into the next morning yet, and it was cold, mostly because of the wind. I could go for some coffee right now. Just to hold!

"He killed the Nav and GPS," Kenny reported, "so there's no record of where he's been..."

"Or who he met in Buffalo," Jess finished.

"There was no one in the Buffalo area in his personal contacts," Barnes added.

Kateri looked away from the car, when her partner started to turn, scanning the area. Are you seeing something we haven't? She glanced quickly around, too, looking for obvious threats. Clinton, noticing her movements, shook his head, indicating that there wasn't a problem after all.

"Maybe it's someone he came across in an ICE investigation," Jess said pulling away from the window and leaning one arm on the side-mirror. "We need to get back into their database."

Clinton grimaced, "After we caught them with their thumbs up the b***s about the missing IDs, that's going to be a problem."

Kateri snorted agreement. "Uh, yeaaaahhhh. I had to lean on them pretty hard just to get them to cough up that much help." Should I add I threatened to arrest one of them?

"Big problem," Kenny agreed, already knowing the full story of what had went down.

Jess stared at them for a long moment, nodded, and then went off to make a phone call.