Peter did not want to do this.
Sitting in this cold basement room, squeezed onto a bench no bigger than Satchmo's doggie bed, Peter realises he can't do this. He wasn't a coward, had faced down some nasty people in some nasty situations in his time, but he was damn proud that despite over a decade as an agent he hadn't yet had to identify the body of a friend.
Trust Caffrey to ruin that.
Neal had never met a rule he didn't want to break, Peter should have seen this coming from the start. He says one thing, Neal does another. He tells Neal to stay put, Neal wanders away. It was classic Caffrey and he did see it coming. He told Hughes no way should they lend Neal to Violent Crimes – to Ruiz - for the week. Neal wasn't the only young, good-looking brunette in the bureau, any number of trained and experienced agents could have fit the bill for this op. But just like Kimberly Rice and Senator Wilson, there was something about Neal Agent Ruiz needed, and like those times Peter knew it was something he wasn't going to be privy to until it was too late. Peter doesn't like Neal being lent to other divisions because they don't know how to handle him, and now look. He's been proven right once again. He may not be shouting I told you so from the mezzanine for all to hear, but he was kicking himself for not taking action when it would have counted, for failing in the only thing that mattered. He didn't keep his promise. He didn't keep Neal safe.
Elizabeth grips his hand and Peter tears his gaze away from the double plastic doors separating them from the truth beyond. He was wrong. He is a coward. His best friend, his partner, his boy. That insufferable yet oddly endearing kid who sported one of the brightest smiles he's ever seen was on the other side of those cold metal doors and Peter Burke needed his wife by his side to face the reality he might never see that childish menace again. Peter had dedicated a lifetime to catching Neal Caffrey. Now he needed someone to catch him.
"Mr and Mrs Burke." The mortician appears and invites them inside.
Standing to the head of the cold mental slab the size looks right from the shape of the body bag. Peter sucks in a breath, El squeezes his hand again and the coroner pulls back the zip.
El tenses, body ridged against his. Peter shuts both eyes. Tears leaking out despite his best efforts.
"It's not him."
Unfazed by his reaction the mortician asks, "are you sure?"
Fist pressed to his mouth all Peter manages is a supine shake as El's arms wrap around his waist. "That's not Neal."
….
"Alan DuPont."
Diana brings up the slide. A healthy smiling Alan, dark haired and blue eyed, forever twenty-two years old stares back at the grouping of White Collar agents, making everyone uncomfortable with the startling similarity Alan had to the still missing Neal Caffrey.
"Alan is our guy in the morgue, he was enrolled in school at Juilliard until two months ago when he dropped out." She continues. "According to the coroner he's been dead less than 24 hours."
"So killed around the same time Caffrey went missing." Jones muses out loud.
"As you may know DuPont was a suspect of ours, we believed he was a working part of the extortion ring Caffrey was sent to infiltrate," Ruiz takes over the narrative, earning him a searing look from Peter's team as he goes into how Alan frequented the Maxam Club in the East Village, pulling in several thousand dollars a night according to his bank balance.
"Let me guess. Maxam's one of Benedict's clubs." Peter smiles sickly, he'd snuck in part way through Ruiz' intro speech, having detoured to the bathroom after returning from his visit to the morgue.
Diana brings shots from the van up on the big screen. "One of three." She flicks through images of each one. "Carl Benedict also owns one in the meat packing district and one in Hell's Kitchen."
Peter tells Diana to back up and zoom in on the third image. "That's four blocks from the Midtown address we raided this morning." Peter stares Ruiz down, forcing him to break eye contact first. "How come we haven't made the connection to Benedict's clubs before now?"
"Look Burke our intel-"
Peter launches out of his chair, pushing onto the table with both palms. "Your intel is worth crap when you share it after it's hit the fan."
"I didn't know my case connected to Benedict until just now." Ruiz backs up, putting the table between them.
"The hell you didn't." Peter follows, prompting Jones to step between them. "The bureau's been after Benedict for years, he's got his hand in everything from extortion to money laundering to murder for hire. He doesn't sneeze without you knowing it."
"If you're so up on all that is Carl Benedict how come you didn't make the connect?" Ruiz shifts, rubbing his neck, continually glancing at the door behind him.
"Don't try to put this on me. You've been sniffing around here since Neal went missing." Peter kept his stare fixed on Ruiz. "What else haven't you told us?"
"I would like to know that myself." Hughes enters the briefing room, handing Peter a manila folder.
The whole room was watching the exchange, only Diana was watching Peter.
"Boss?"
"Everyone, clear out." Hughes directs the group of junior agents made up of the Harvard crew and some of Ruiz' personal.
Peter was white, his face ghostly, fingers ripping through the folder as he read. "You son of a bitch." He hands the folder to Diana, confident she'd know what to do with it.
"What is it?" Jones asks, keeping himself as a barrier in front of Ruiz, preventing any move which could turn an already bad situation worse.
"It's a profile from the behavioural analysis unit in Quantico." Hughes doesn't take his eyes off Ruiz. "Answering Agent Ruiz' request from ten days ago."
"Before Neal went undercover." Peters seethes.
Jones turns on Ruiz now, done protecting him, arms crossed high over his chest.
Diana drops the file open on the desk. "You weren't just tracking an extortion ring. You're looking for a serial killer."
"My case is centred on the blackmail of several high-profile New York figures, there was a threat to life, but I didn't know about the murders of several of the escorts working the clubs until my team tried to flip one. I had no hard evidence their deaths were even connected, let alone this would lead back to Benedict." Ruiz shifts uneasily under the fixed angry stares of four very pissed off FBI Agents. "Two other guys, looking just like this DuPont kid have died in the last month, neither worked directly for Benedict, but they were last seen in one of his clubs so I followed the lead." Ruiz looks ceiling to floor, anywhere but at the angry face of Peter Burke.
"When you asked to borrow Neal, you told us it was because you didn't have anyone on your team that could infiltrate the inside without being made." Peter speaks calmly, voice low and dangerous, muscles still tensed and ready to deliver the blow he knows Ruiz firmly deserves.
"And that was true." Ruiz shrugs. "I needed young and pretty. My guys don't exactly fit that bill Burke."
"But the brief you used to request Caffrey's assist centred around coercion via prostitution. Not murder." Diana steps forward, sensing like her colleagues that one more derogatory comment and Peter would explode.
Ruiz looks to the side. "A misunderstanding."
"One you are going to clear up here and now." Hughes orders him.
"Look it was a long shot okay." Ruiz gives up the innocent act, deflated he backs up, shoving his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders. "Caffrey fit the guys type. It was an opportunity I wasn't going to miss just because Burke here can't cut the cord. End of the day the kid isn't an Agent."
Peter launches forward and it takes both Jones and Diana's hands on his arms to hold him back. "You son of a bitch!"
"What else do you know Agent?" Hughes demands, gaze split between glaring at Ruiz and showing concern for Peter.
Ruiz stumbles over his words, looking nervous for the first time. "That's everything, I swear." He looks away, "Burke come on, you want to find the kid, it's his time you're wasting."
Peter has no words, he turns his back on Ruiz and walks over to the row of windows.
"Peter." Hughes warns.
"Reece." Peter hisses through gritted teeth, an agreement not to do anything stupid.
Hughes turns back to the man trying to creep out the door. "Agent Ruiz I suggest you get your team to transfer all files related to the murders and case against Benedict to White Collar ASAP."
"You can't be serious?" Ruiz shouts, instinctively defensive over the potential loss of his case.
"Yes, I can." Hughes stares him down. "And for the record, Agent or not Caffrey is the bureau's responsibility. He gets the same level of protection we afford any one of us. Is that clear?"
Ruiz nods in defeat and hisses a forced "Yes, sir," through gritted teeth.
"You better get going before I change my mind and let Burke shoot you." Reece waits, listens to Ruiz hurried footsteps fade out the room, "Peter." He waits for his agent to turn and look him in the eye. "Find him."