Chapter Two

The next morning dawned bright and clear, a sharp contrast to the mood Don found himself in. Scowling at the peaceful blue sky, he rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom to get ready for another trying day.

Less than twenty minutes later, Don came downstairs to find his notes and reports on his case spread out over the dining room table, completely covering the surface. He paused near a familiar, ragged notebook covered with Charlie's mathematical scrawls. Don squinted at the numbers and symbols on the page, but finally gave up when he reminded himself that he would never make heads or tails of any of it. A part of him never ceased to be amazed at how easily his little brother seemed to make his numbers become valid facts and predictions. If someone had told him two years ago that he would be using math to solve his cases, he would have laughed.

"Morning," Alan greeted softly as he emerged from the kitchen. He held two steaming mugs of coffee, one of which he handed to Don. "You look better."

"I feel better," Don replied. He took the mug with thanks and gestured to the table. "I wonder how late he stayed up."

"Pretty late," Alan said. "I came down to check on him at about two in the morning and found him passed out on top of all that. Didn't put up much of an argument when I got him up to go to bed."

Don raised an eyebrow. "He must've been tired." He drained his coffee in several large gulps, then set it down on top of one of the files. "Listen, Dad, I have to get back to the office. We need to find some sort of lead before this gets any worse. See you tonight for dinner?"

"Of course," Alan replied. "Be careful out there."

"Always," Don called back over his shoulder, already on his way to the door.

Despite a fresh night's sleep, it was beginning to look to Don as though his team would never catch a break. They had spent all day running down anonymous tips, rechecking the stories of the families of the victims, and fielding countless calls from the public and quite a few higher-ups. By the time it was late afternoon, Don, David, Colby, and Megan were all sitting in the conference room, racking their brains.

"Don, we've gone over this," Colby argued. "We're just looking for information that simply isn't there."

"Look, I'm just as frustrated as you are, but we're going to go over all of this again and again until we find something," Don shot back. "No one's perfect. These guys, they're just better at covering their tracks than most criminals, but the clues are there."

David sighed. "Well, I think the families are a closed avenue. They didn't even know the victims were using."

"Tracking the whereabouts of the victims hasn't brought us any points of commonalities that we can see," Megan added.

"Charlie's working on that," Don told her. "I'll check with him tonight on that. How about LAPD? They got anything?"

"They've got their snitches working overtime on this, trying to give us a hand, but it's so hush-hush that no one seems to know about any shipments or dealers until they see them on the street," Colby answered.

"How about the guy we picked up on fourteenth yesterday?" Don demanded.

Megan shook her head. "He's not talking, but I think it's because he doesn't know anything."

"Any word on another deal?" Don tried again.

David shrugged. "Colby and I leaned on a few people, but nobody knows a thing."

"Dammit!" Don exclaimed. "It's been almost a month, and we have multiple casualties with barely any solid leads! The druglords are covering their tracks too damn well, and the pushers on the street aren't even remotely connected to their bosses. This drug is finding its way into the hands of more and more people every single day that goes by, and despite all of our work, what do we have?"

"A big problem."

Don turned at the sudden voice and stood as a tall, muscular man in his mid-thirties entered the room. He had a brash smile on his open face, but somehow it didn't seem to meet his ice-blue eyes. The other agents in the room watched in amazement as Don approached the man, clasping his hand in a welcoming grasp before pulling him into a hug.

Colby leaned closer to David. "Either Don knows that guy, or the pressure has finally caught up to him."

"Danny!" Don exclaimed, pulling back. "It's been, what, ten years? How the hell have you been?"

"All right," the man replied. "You look like you've done well for yourself."

"What are you doing here?" Don asked.

"Well, I work for the DEA now," the man, Danny, replied. "My bosses assigned me to help out with your big drug case, but I had no idea I'd be working with you."

"That's great!" Don replied. He ushered Danny further into the room. "Let me introduce you to some of my team. This is Megan Reeves, Colby Granger, and David Sinclair. Guys, this is Danny Levinson. We went to school together."

"High school?" Megan asked politely.

"More than that," Danny grinned. "We went through college and even the FBI Academy together. I only stayed with the Bureau for a couple years before transferring over to the DEA, though. We go way back."

"We could certainly use any help we can get," Don stated.

"That bad, huh?" Danny asked.

"Tell you what, I'll bring you up to speed over dinner," Don decided. "Besides, Dad'll love to see you again."

"Sounds great," Danny replied.

"We'll get back to those witness statements," David announced, standing. Megan and Colby stood as well. David turned to Danny. "It was nice meeting you, Danny."

"Same here." Danny shook David's hand, then Colby's and Megan's, then promptly turned back to Don, dismissing the others from his mind as they filed out of the room.

"Man, I can't tell you how great it is to see you again," Don said, grinning broadly. "Hey, are you still seeing Jessica?"

Danny rolled his eyes and waved a hand dismissively. "Are you kidding? That was over years ago, and I've been through a few other women as well. How about you? Last I recall, you were still moping over, uh, Lake, wasn't it?"

Don shook his head. "It has been a long time. Actually, Terry was here in L.A. She transferred back to D.C. a few months ago. Listen, we can do all this at home. Come on, Dad should be just setting the table by now."

"First call, Charlie!" Alan called up the stairs. "Dinner's almost ready!"

There was no response, but Alan didn't expect one. He moved back into the kitchen to finish pulling the food out of the oven. When Charlie was involved in a major project, it had become their ritual for Alan to call two warnings to his son before putting the dinner on the table. If Charlie didn't appear by the third call, the agreement- set by his late wife- had been to let Charlie fend for himself. However, Charlie had a tendency to become so firmly ensconced in whatever he was working on that he would simply forget to eat. As a result, someone usually went to go and pull Charlie away from what he was working on- that someone had usually been Alan's late wife.

The sound of a door closing distracted Alan from his thoughts. "Donnie? Is that you?"

"Yeah, Dad," came the voice of his eldest son. "I've brought someone else home for dinner. I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not," Alan called back, busy lifting the chicken out of the oven and setting it on the stove. "Who is it? David?"

Don entered the kitchen, a wide smile on his face. "Not exactly."

Alan looked up in time to see a familiar figure move into the kitchen. The shock on his face quickly melted into a welcoming smile as he went to greet the newcomer. "Danny! My God, it's been years! I didn't know you were back in town!"

"On business, mostly," Danny replied. "I see the place hasn't changed much since I was here last. Looks great."

"Well, we're more than glad to have you here with us," Alan stated. "Go ahead and have a seat while I get you a drink. Donnie, go give your brother his second call, then go set another place."

Danny followed Don back into the dining room. "Oh, the runt still lives here? He still doing his math thing?"

Don nodded, heading for the stairs. "And then some." He looked up. "Charlie! Second call!"

"I'm coming!" Charlie turned the corner and hurried down the steps. "I think I'm making some real headway on those figures you gave me, and-." He froze when he reached the bottom of the steps and spotted Danny standing near the table. In the blink of an eye, his enthusiasm faded into a guarded, emotionless mask. "Uh . . . hi, Danny."

Danny nodded. "Hey Charlie. How've you been?"

Charlie glanced down, dropping his eyes on anything other than on the predatory gleam in Danny's eyes. "Fine."

"Danny's staying for dinner," Don told him, lightly clapping Charlie's back before moving into the dining room. "That's cool with you, right?"

Charlie shrugged and nodded, still avoiding Danny's penetrating stare. "Yeah, cool."

"I didn't know we needed his permission," Danny said lightly.

Don smirked. "Not really, but this is his house now."

"Seriously?" Danny asked. He turned back to Charlie. "I didn't think you could make that much adding two plus three."

Charlie heard Don snicker, and he felt a sharp stab of emotion in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly, he was twelve again, and his older brother was once more shutting him out.

"Charlie!" Alan entered the room, carrying the chicken on a platter and setting it in the middle of the table. "I thought nothing short of a bomb would pry you from your notes. You've been working almost nonstop on that drug case. Go get a drink and come sit down."

"Drug case?" Danny echoed, glancing at Alan. "As in Don's case?"

Don nodded, handing his friend a beer. "Yeah, Charlie's been consulting for the Bureau on a regular basis for about a year now. He's used math to help us solve a few crimes."

Danny's expression was one of skepticism, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

Charlie shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Uh, I just remembered. I have to go meet Larry in about twenty minutes about something from school. Can you save me some dinner?"

"What, can't it wait?" Alan asked.

"I'm afraid not," Charlie replied. He shifted again. "I'll be back later. Um . . . nice to see you again, Danny."

"You too," Danny answered, a thoughtful expression growing on his face.

Charlie left the room as fast as he thought was polite, not slowing his pace until he was outside, in the garage. Pressing his back to the car, he heaved a deep sigh.

He couldn't believe it. He had thought that that time in his life was over. Never in a million years would Charlie have believed he would be seeing a reminder of his past standing before him.

Charlie sank to the ground, drawing his knees to his chest. Danny and Donnie. The two had been inseparable from day one. Though Charlie and Don had never really gotten along, the rift had widened more and more each day once Don had started hanging out with Danny.

Danny had been a hit with their parents. He had been polite, respectful, funny, and had acted almost like a second older brother to Charlie whenever Alan and Mary had been in the room. When it was just the two teenagers and Charlie, Danny had ridiculed the younger boy mercilessly. What was worse was that he managed to get Don to do it, too, and Don was able to hit Charlie in places that no one else could reach. Charlie had been truly hurt by Don whenever he was with Danny.

But when Danny had been left alone with Charlie . . .

Charlie gave a small shudder. No one knew that Danny used to bully Charlie into doing his homework for him. He never told anyone that Danny thought it was funny to knock him around when he was bored. No one would ever suspect that a bright, popular young man had, on more than one occasion, goaded other teenagers at the high school into picking on Charlie as well. Charlie hadn't ever said a word, and he knew that, even if he did, no one would believe him.

And now Danny was back.

Charlie rose to his feet and moved over to his bike. Since receiving his driver's license, he had taken to driving more and more to where he wanted to go, but he suddenly felt the urge to burn some of the anxiety that had settled quickly over him. Walking his bike out of the garage and onto the driveway, he climbed on and silently glided out into the waning daylight.