Tim's heart was beating almost as fast as it had been after his run. He didn't want to open the folder in front of him, afraid of what might be inside. Based on that photo and what Art had just said, Kathryn was either a dead FBI Agent or she had gotten one killed. He was keenly aware of the three inquisitive sets of eyes in the room, so Tim kept his outward appearance intentionally calm as he opened the file.

Sarah Geller. 32 years old. Confidential informant for 12 years. Permanent address no more than a 15-minute drive from the Marshals' office, which irritated him for some reason. None of this made any sense.

The Agent, who had been watching Tim while silently fuming, leaned forward. "According to a report I received a little over a month ago, you were recruited to support Ms. Geller and her handler Agent Christopher Romero on a case that resulted in the deaths of three men."

Tim wasn't sure how to answer the question, so he deflected for a moment to give himself time to think, "And you are?"

"Special Agent Matthew Reed."

Tim waited for some elaboration, but none came. He decided a half-truth was the best way around Reed's question, "I was told my work on that case was classified and I am not to disclose any information it."

"Chief Mullen, if your Deputy isn't going to be cooperative, then I'm clearly wasting my time!" Agent Reed was shouting, now, and Tim could see it had piqued the interest of some of the Marshals on the other side of the glass, including Raylan.

Tim held his hands up in surrender for the second time that day and spun around in in his chair to face Art. "I'm just sayin' what I was told."

Art looked down at him, and Tim could see from his expression he knew there was something Tim wasn't saying. But what he wasn't saying was that he'd never met an Agent Romero, and he had no idea that Kathryn, or Sarah, he supposed, was not an agent at all, but a CI. His brain was still playing catch up.

Reed looked like he'd have steam coming out of his ears if he was a cartoon character. Art leaned over and flipped the file to another page. Tim looked down and saw a grisly photo of a man—Romero, he assumed—though he didn't think anyone could be blamed for not recognizing him from the picture, even if they'd ever actually met him. Romero had obviously been killed with a high caliber weapon at extremely close range, and there was little that remained of his head that wasn't in pieces.

"Agent Romero was killed," Art said as he leaned over Tim and flipped through the file, "by this man." Tim glanced down at the page. A mean-looking mugshot stared back at him accompanied by a lengthy rap sheet to complement its subject's face tats.

Vasquez leaned forward, "That's Vincent Dawson. He's a well-known, high-level hitman."

Tim kept his face neutral and expressionless, afraid he might give something away.

It was Reed's turn to interject, "Agent Romero's logs show that he was scheduled to meet Ms. Geller following a phone call with her. Instead, he walked into a trap and lost his life."

Tim spun back and forth in his chair a little, mostly because it seemed to set Agent Reed on edge even further. "While I'm very sorry for the loss of Agent Romero, I'm not sure what any of this has to do with me. I haven't seen either of them since that case you mentioned," he looked innocently over at Agent Reed.

Reed stood up, slapping his hands down on the table as he did so, "Her prints were also found on a gun used to murder several men in Daniel Boone National Forest, and her description matches that of a civilian who saw an unknown suspect in the park that night."

Vasquez watched the FBI agent carefully as he spoke once more, "We're hoping we can bring in both Geller and Dawson. We want you on this case because you've worked with her before; according to Agent Reed here, she can be difficult to predict."

Tim had to smile at that because he had certainly found that true during their time together. He definitely hadn't predicted that not only had she lied to him about her position, but she'd also gone rogue and gotten an FBI handler killed.

"How do you plan on getting them both?" he asked.

It was Art who spoke this time. "Agent Reed believes Dawson will make contact with her at her home. We're going to provide a surveillance team."

"Doesn't the FBI have a scary black van of their own?"

"Again," said Vasquez, "We are requesting that you work on this case because of your history with Ms. Geller."

"I worked with her for three days," he said, flatly. He hadn't read the report they were referring to, but he assumed any record of their interaction dead-ended in that field with Solkov, Melnik, and Popescu.

"That's more than anyone but Romero, who's dead." Agent Reed said.

"Does this mean I'm off desk duty?" Tim asked Art.

"Yes, Tim, it does."

Tim grabbed the file and stood up. "I'm assuming I can take this for review?"

All three men waved him toward the door with an open palm, almost in unison. He would have laughed if he wasn't trying so hard to keep his composure. He nodded and headed back to his desk with the folder in hand. From his chair, he watched as Vasquez and Art spoke with a highly animated Agent Reed, and he got the feeling the Feeb didn't like him much.

"What's that all about?" Raylan asked from the desk next to him.

"Oh, you know, the FBI outreach program for wayward sons-a-bitches," Tim answered, "I'm their SOB of the Month." He looked at the picture of Kathryn again, ignoring Raylan's irritated glare. Her hair was longer, and her expression cold. If someone had given him the photo without any context, he would have assumed it was the mugshot of someone who'd just shot someone while knocking over their convenience store. Despite her ambiguous nature, Tim thought he'd had a better read on her when they'd been together, and while she was obviously quite capable of killing—who in this line of work wasn't?—none of the information he'd received in the conference room coalesced with the woman he'd thought he'd known.

What the fuck was going on?

#

When Tim walked into his apartment that night, he had a headache. One that he cured with a stiff drink and a turkey sandwich he ate standing at his kitchen counter, hunched over the file he'd been given. The rest of the day had mostly been a blur as he'd read through the thick manilla folder while simultaneously replaying every interaction he'd had with Kathryn.

Sarah Geller, from what he could tell, was an efficient and ruthless criminal whose work as a CI had been primarily focused on narcotics offenders, which wasn't what Kathryn had told him she did. Of course, she'd also implied she was a federal agent of some kind. Instead, it appeared Tim had been hired as a hitman to serve a vendetta against men she deemed unworthy.

Still, there was the truck and what he knew had been inside of it. He knew that her intentions, at least in that case, had seemed to be pure and good. So why was Agent Reed implying she'd executed several men with no greater purpose or cause? What had happened to the women and children they'd left behind?

Tim flipped the folder back open to the exact page he was looking for; he'd thumbed through it so many times in the preceding hours that he practically had it memorized. There, staring back at him, was a copy of the letter that had brought him and Kathryn together in the first place. FBI sealed, and signed by Agent Christopher Romero. There had obviously been some truth to what she'd told him, but it seemed peppered with enough likes lies it was nearly impossible to separate out the full truth. He wished he could talk with Romero and understand his relationship with Kathryn; why had he submitted a report that was filled with obvious falsehoods? Was he just bad at his job? Had Kathryn lied to him as well, so he had fudged the report to make himself look more competent? Or had he trusted Kathryn as much as—or perhaps even more than—Tim had?

It didn't help that Tim had slept with the subject of this new investigation, either. Each of their conversations after the first time they'd had sex was tainted by the corresponding shift in their relationship, and now he was second-guessing her motives. He'd thought she was just frustrated by the case and had used him to work some of that frustration out; a role he was more than happy to fulfill on the occasions he had. And the last time they'd had sex, it had felt intimate and sweet. He may have even made the mistake of thinking she was attracted to him in more than just a physical sense. Now he wondered whether it had all just been part of the greater manipulation.

The thought sank down and sat heavy in his gut, so he reached for the bottle of bourbon on the counter and poured himself another drink. He certainly wouldn't be attempting another run tomorrow morning.

When he crawled into bed several hours and a few more bourbons later, he kept thinking of the night he and Kathryn had spent in Daniel Boone Forest, leaned up against a rock face, shoulder-to-shoulder and how he had peacefully closed his eyes next to her without a second thought for his safety. He had trusted her, implicitly, and he did not think that trust had been misplaced.

Tim's life had, he thought, made him a good judge of character. His father had kept his meanness carefully concealed from the world beyond the Gutterson household, and he had noticed even from a young age the ways in which his father had deluded not only his friends, coworkers, and even Tim's teachers, but himself into believing he was a good man. It meant that Tim usually had a keen eye for people pulling the same long con on the world at large.

Despite knowing Kathryn was lying to him at times, or that she withheld information from him, he had never gotten the sense she was a cruel impostor. He'd never once looked at her and seen the cool mask slip away to reveal the monster underneath like he had with his father or some of the men he'd enlisted with.

Hell, Raylan reminded him more of his upbringing than Kathryn did.

He had thought he'd known her. He'd thought he could trust her with his life; he had. But now she was being accused of the greatest deception he'd ever personally faced; greater even than his father's lack of love or understanding. It made him feel foolish for thinking of her in the intervening weeks, and it made him angry.

If Kathryn was really Sarah Geller. If she had fucked him to get him to like her so she could use him to murder people on some bullshit vigilante quest… he didn't know what to do with that information except to stare it down and unravel it, whatever the cost.

#

The next morning, Tim was up even earlier than he'd anticipated. He'd slept poorly, with visions of dead Taliban, Romero's exploded head, and Kathryn covered in blood intermixing in his dreams. Tim was brimming with volatile energy and while he didn't go for a run, he decided a day of hiking might improve his mood while also offering some much-needed clarification.

After he'd pulled on his hiking gear and left a voicemail for Art on his office line, Tim piled himself into his car and began the drive back to Daniel Boone Forest.

There was no traffic yet, and the ride was smooth as the sun rose slowly over the Kentucky hills. The CD Kathryn had left was in his car, and he listened to it on a loop, half-hoping to glean some secret meaning in the lyrics, but discovering nothing new.

Once at the park, Tim set out through the woods with no real destination in mind. While he planned to see the place where they had secured the truck, and he had parked at the nearest campsite so he could walk through the trees where Kathryn had beaten their last pursuer to death, he had mostly chosen to come here to clear his head and think without distraction. There were too many other things to look at in the office, or even at his home, and he needed unclouded vision to work through his muddied thoughts.

When he'd come here with Kathryn, there had been a crisp breeze, but today it was muggy and hot. He started sweating the moment he stepped out of his car. As he left the campground and found himself wandering deeper into the less trafficked forest beyond, he felt some of the tension he'd been holding in his body ease. There were few things as peaceful as being alone in nature, and he was glad he had taken today to investigate some of the information he'd been given on his own.

His goal, aside from retracing some of their steps, was to hopefully speak with a park ranger who might be able to tell him more about the incident as Reed had described it. But for now, he would enjoy the snapping of branches beneath his feet and the buzzing of insects in the trees.

#

"It was a real strange situation." Tim was sitting in a comfortably air-conditioned ranger station and Ranger Grady Warren was pouring him a cup of coffee. "We got a call about unusual activity from some anonymous tipster the State Police traced to an out-of-state payphone. When they got out there, they found a coupla dead bodies and a truck full of people. I don't know if they were illegals or what," he said.

"What did the Staties say?"

"They said for us to close down the road and shut the hell up." Tim could see that Ranger Grady was pretty peeved about that.

"What, they thought you couldn't keep up?"

"Fucking troopers, man, they always think they're better'n us. As if I couldn't have joined the Academy if I wanted to." Tim appraised Grady's rather impressive girth and wondered if maybe he was overstating his abilities a bit. "I can't say for sure, but I think I saw some Feds come in at one point, too. By the time they let us open the road back up, everything was gone. Never heard nothin' about it on the news, either."

Tim nodded, already knowing that to be the case himself. The fact that the FBI had seemingly shut down any media coverage of what should have been a huge win for them was part of why he was here. Even if the deaths of those men and the acquisition of the truck had happened as the result of a rogue CI, there was no reason they couldn't have spun the story to their advantage. Unless they were waiting to bring in Sarah Geller first for some reason.

"Who spoke to the caller?"

"A young kid named Spencer. He quit a few weeks ago; got an easier job at some store near his house. Said he didn't like all the snakes."

"He say anything about the caller? Maybe he had an accent, or something else stuck out?" Tim assumed Romero had called in the tip anonymously, but he couldn't figure out why.

"Didn't say much except it was a woman."

Tim got back in his car and tugged his shirt off over his head. It was soaked through from his hike back. After his talk with Grady, Tim had wound his way through the foliage to find the bend in the road where they had descended on a tractor trailer full of trafficking victims, and replayed the evening in his mind.

Whoever had made the call to the Rangers must have been the person Kathryn had been speaking to by phone from inside the truck. It hadn't been Romero, so who else was she working with?

Tim rolled his windows down and decided to make the drive home shirtless in order to give his clothing a little time to dry. He wished he'd thought to pack a spare.

The CD was still playing, and Tim listened to the same song he'd heard a hundred times by now; the one that had become his favorite from the album during the intervening weeks.

There was love inside the basement where that woman used to lie
In a sleeping bag we shared upon the floor most every night…

He couldn't help it. The thought of a spare shirt in his go bag and the song made Tim think of Kathryn in a way that made him uncomfortable and nostalgic, two things he didn't much appreciate given the current circumstances. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, but all he saw was Kathryn's face just inches from his own.

Tim pressed the eject button, pulled the disc out and flung it out the window. He watched in the rear view as it shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.