"Nice place," Jon commented, looking around as he entered Heather's apartment.

Heather smiled. "It's not bad. I can handle the rent on my own at least. It's only one bedroom but more just invites guests."

"I can't say much about having guests at my place," Jon commented dryly. He let his bag slide off of his shoulder and onto her couch. "I seem to spend most of my time trying to get more." He looked questioningly at an object by the end table by the door. "Since when did you start wearing shoes like that?"

Heather glanced over. The gold shoe was still there. Why had she thought it would be gone when she got back? Probably because she was still drunk at the time and believing in a shoe fairy. "I think I switched shoes with a hooker while I was in the bathroom at the bar the other night," she explained. "That part's still a little hazy."

Jon started laughing. He would have loved to have seen her that trashed. She had been funny enough on the phone, but in person it had to have been hilarious. Maybe not though. He knew how else she got when she was drunk, and if she wasn't in the mood to take no for an answer, then he would have been in trouble. Well, maybe not too much trouble, he thought, taking note of how her rear looked in those slacks she was wearing. No, stop that. You know what her butt looks like, there's no reason to be thinking about it now.

"It's not that funny," Heather said dryly. "I lost a rather expensive shoe."

"Oh, the tragedy," Jon said melodramatically. "Is Mommy going to get you another pair, or one of your aunts for Christmas?"

Heather did the most mature thing she could think of and stuck her tongue at him. "You do not even start that with me," she teased back. "You're just as much of a spoiled brat as I am."

"I have not gotten everything I have ever wanted," he protested.

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? Name one thing you wanted that you didn't get."

"I wanted a Viper when I graduated," he said firmly.

Heather rolled her eyes. "I was there remember? I believe it was you who told your parents that you didn't want one since they were fighting over who was going to give it to you and thus prove they loved you more."

"The point is," Jon countered, "I wanted one, but didn't get it. And I think it should also count that I also have felt the loss of losing something that I had and liked but couldn't keep."

"Oh, and what would that have been?" Heather asked in a playfully disbelieving tone.

Jon went to reply, but nothing was quite able to come out when his eyes met hers. He had been thinking about his pet snake that he had when he was nine. But there had been one thing in his life that he wanted more than anything, but he had to let her go in the end. And if he said he hadn't thought a million times about the "what ifs" then he would be lying through his teeth.

"Umm…I…uh…" he stuttered. "Okay, you win; I'm just as spoiled as you. Where can I put my stuff?" he finished in a rush.

Heather looked at him quizzically for a moment, but let it drop. "Bathroom is the first door on the left. You can put your suitcase in my bedroom if you want." She turned away quickly and went into the kitchen to get some water or something, anything to make her not think about Jon in her bedroom. This was getting ridiculous. She so needed to get away from him and get her head back in gear. It had been too nice having him on the flight back. She finally told him the whole story of why her and Ethan had broken up, and he suggested that Heather call him and tell him Katie was free. They talked for a while, and then Heather ended up falling asleep with her head on his shoulder. Still, they were friends. Just friends. And that was not going to change even if they were now both single. There was that matter of a small ocean in between their permanent residences.

She checked her watch and sighed. The flight had been a little delayed, and now she was going to have to get moving quickly to meet Donnelly. Since he was doing her a big favor, she was going to have to work around her schedule there. "Jon," she called out. "I've got to get going if I 'm going to meet Donnelly on time."

He came out from the bedroom. "Okay," he said. "You know, I was thinking about what you said earlier about giving them a copy of the police report to open up when they got here. I thought of something else you might want to consider doing to them."

Heather smiled, feeling the evil already. Jon was usually such a nice guy, but when called to the ranks of doing something nasty, you did not want him playing against you. "And what did you come up with?" she asked.

"I was thinking about a nice 8 X 10 framed picture from that footage we got of the thieves," he replied. "All wrapped up in shiny paper and have them unwrap it right in front of the family."

Heather's laugh could be more accurately be described as a cackle. "That is perfect!" She laughed again. "Those little weasels aren't going to know what hit them. That is so great. Can you get a picture pulled from the footage while I'm gone? We can get the frames when I get back and wrap them all tonight."

"No problem," he said, pleased with her enjoyment of his suggestion. He thought it was rather brilliant if he did say so himself.

She was still grinning wildly. "That is so brilliant." She grabbed her purse, getting ready to leave. "I know I owe you for that, so just remind me to you know, bear you a child or something later."

She took a step, and froze, realizing what she had just said. She used that expression all of the time, but not to someone that she had once seriously thought about being married to and really having kids with. From the way Jon's laughter was silenced, it struck him too.

She glanced over her shoulder. "I meant…"

"I know what you meant," he interrupted gently. "Just go now." She nodded and then left quickly. Oh yeah, some time apart was so needed.



***********

"So, what do you think?" Heather asked Donnelly. He had been going over the computer tracks that came from the di LiCossa's security system and trying to see if there were any signature paths in the hack.

Donnelly pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose for a minute. Heather had called him from somewhere over the Atlantic and asked if he would come in on a Saturday and look over some stuff she was bringing in. It wasn't an official case, but something of personal research. This had intrigued him. But they had to keep it quiet. Chambers frowned on using multi-million dollar government equipment for personal research. Not that it stopped the computer specialists in HRT from helping the others, but it just made them more careful. For some reason, they were able to cover their electronic tracks quite well.

"I would be proud to call this my work," he replied. "There are a few slips, but considering the anti-hacking and capture routines that were built into this, that's just flat out amazing." Heather had told him that a friend had asked her to look over the police reports and the like as a favor, but just left out the fact that her brother and sister and cousin were most likely the culprits. Heather didn't want anyone to think that she might have had a reason to kill them when the bodies were found.

"Anything that might trace back to the origin?" she asked. She was still hoping ever so slightly that there might be some way that the trio wasn't involved. If this was done from a stationary location, they might be able to trace it down and hopefully it not be where the kids were living.

Donnelly shook his head. "The tracer paths are so covered, it's scary," he replied. "Actually, you know what this reminds me of?" He tapped a few keys and another chart pulled up. He tapped a few places on the screen. "See that and that?" Heather nodded. She saw. Made no sense, but she saw it. "This is some charting of an old Eye's Only hack. What you gave me is so like what he used to do to cover his trail. If I didn't know better, I might say it was the same person."

His back was turned, so he didn't see Heather's face wilt. How many times had she heard Aunt Max telling Uncle Logan that Janna needed to get out of the computer room? The child was always on the computers or behind an easel. For some odd reason, Janna liked painting while her father was working. Logan had said that it was good for her to have diverse interests. As she got older, she hadn't seemed to still be into computers like she was when she was younger. At least, that's what they had thought. Little brat. She had just been giving everyone that cute little smile like her mother's and making everyone think she only used a computer for e- mail now.

Donnelly turned around. "Sorry I couldn't be more of a help," he said, misinterpreting Heather's expression. "This is really important isn't it?"

She nodded. "To my friends it is," she replied, trying to sound the right amount of disappointed; the way you would feel if something happened that you felt bad about, but didn't affect you personally. "Unfortunately, the Italian police aren't as sophisticated as we are, and I can't do an official thing since it's a little out of our jurisdiction, but I promised I would see."

"Don't blame you there," he replied. He started packing up his equipment. "You want me to leave these printouts?"

Heather nodded. "Yeah. I'm going to go over a few things, and send it over to my friends in case there's something they can use."

Donnelly left, and Heather spread the stuff out over the desk. He might not know how Eye's Only covered his tracks, but she did. Maybe there was some way to use that to find the tracing. Even if they could get it back to a single laptop or computer or even a static IP address, then the little brats would be so busted. Heather didn't think she could turn them over to the Italian authorities, but they might beg for her to do that rather than turn them over to their parents.

Heather wasn't sure how much time had passed when Chambers spoke up from behind her, startling her back to reality. "Agent Raleigh, aren't you supposed to be moving from Chicago?"

Heather spun around quickly. What the hell was he doing here on a Saturday? He had a family. He should be taking them Christmas shopping or visiting Grandma or something. "Well, actually, I was able to find a place when we had that weekend off. And then my parents surprised me by having my old apartment moved there, so I'm pretty much done in the moving department. I don't have to be in New York for a few more days, so I was working on some stuff before I had to leave."

He looked pissed. Of course she had yet to see him not look pissed. What was the deal with that? He didn't seem like he was on permanent-dislike of the others, including the newest members of HRT. Was it because she broke into the all-boys club? But, none of the others seemed upset that she was there. Maybe he was just an ass.

Chambers glanced down at the papers on the table, and his scowl deepened. "Eye's Only?" he asked.

She felt herself flushing. She hadn't felt like this since she was a teenager getting caught doing something she wasn't supposed to be. "Well, see…"

"Agent Raleigh, the FBI is not a vehicle for agents to satisfy personal curiosity," he interrupted coldly. "We all would like to know who he is and where he went to, but that case has long since been closed. I myself would love to investigate it if it was ever reopened, but in the meantime, the Bureau's resources are not to be wasted, am I understood?"

Heather wanted to protest, but thought better of it. His assumption was a hell of a lot easier than explaining what she was really doing. "Yes, sir," she said meekly, and started to gather her paperwork as he left. Jerk. Oh well. Jon should have gotten the pictures done by now, and they could get some dinner and the frames, and tomorrow things were going to get very, very interesting.