"You made it," Veronica said with a grin, stepping aside. "Come in."
"Thanks," Walter said, resting his fork beside his plate and wiping a spot of spaghetti sauce off the table with his napkin. "Uh, that was good."
Veronica snorted. "Please. I'm a terrible cook." She leaned back into her chair, taking a sip of her red wine. "Tomorrow we'll order Chinese."
The genius released a breath, Veronica's candor putting him a little more at ease. Paige would have appreciated his attempt at a compliment, but in all honesty, he'd only finished the meal because he was ravenous after nearly fourteen hours without food.
"Oh. Okay." He swallowed. "Thanks."
"You don't have to keep thanking me. That sauce could have gone to much better use in a Bloody Mary."
"No, I mean…" He faltered. What did he mean? He'd never excelled at expressing gratitude, although he made a concerted effort for Paige and Ralph. Walter tucked his hands in his lap, shifting uncomfortably. "T-Thanks for...all of this."
Veronica nodded understandingly, tipping her glass in his direction. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you need. I've been using the spare room as an office, but the sleeper sofa will fit in there." She tilted her head, a small smile forming on her face. "I don't even know why I got it. No one comes over. Maybe I just knew I'd harbor a fellow fugitive someday."
Fugitive. Scorpion had chased plenty of fugitives, but despite some activities of questionable legality, that term never applied to them directly. It sounded foreign even though he understood logically that she was referring to him. "I won't stay long," he insisted, scratching the side of his face. "I can't p-put you in danger like that. I just need to sleep and figure out my next move."
Staying in any one place was far too risky. He had a few hundred in cash and an offshore account registered under a different name that was unlikely to be frozen. Not in preparation for this, precisely, but Scorpion was more or less in the habit of pissing off government agencies and it always seemed the wisest course to protect his team against retaliation. He'd be able to live off that for a few weeks if he bounced around the cheapest no-tell motels he could find.
He didn't know why he was so surprised when Veronica responded by rolling her eyes. "Honey, I was putting myself in danger before you were born. I don't need you for that. At least this time I'll do some good."
Walter frowned. "Good?"
She set her glass down, pressing her lips into a tight line. "Paige has spent her whole life wondering where I was. I'm going to assume she doesn't know where you are, either?" He shook his head. "Then she at least deserves to know you're safe. That is one thing I can do right for her."
The genius cringed as Paige's tearful voice echoed in his head. Maybe he was wrong to run. Maybe he should have stayed in Los Angeles, accepted the consequences and spared her that constant, familiar uncertainty. Maybe he should have brought them with him.
Walter pushed the thought out of his head. No matter how desperately he wanted to be with Paige and Ralph at that moment, he could never be selfish enough to jeopardize their lives and futures that way. "You don't even know if Paige believes me."
"I don't have to. She has a certain...talent for seeing the best in people." Veronica shrugged. "Besides, anyone who's spent more than five minutes with you would know you're not responsible."
He'd hesitated plenty before reaching out to her through Ralph's encrypted communication channel. He was reasonably sure she wouldn't blow her own cover to expose him, but there was a sizeable reward for information on him and he didn't want to make any assumptions about her priorities. "Most people think I am."
"Most people are idiots. If you were guilty, you wouldn't dare come here anyway. I'd flip on you in a second to protect my daughter."
He was supposed to protect Paige. He'd vowed, once, that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. She wasn't supposed to need protection from him. But now the whole team was under fire because he'd been stupid and distracted and let his guard down, and if his attackers came after her for his location, he wouldn't even be there to keep her safe. "I…" Walter trailed off, curling his bottom lip under. "I-I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"Because. I'm hurting her."
Even though she wasn't privy to his internal monologue, Veronica didn't appear the least bit confused. "Not by choice." She shook her head. "I'm the last person qualified to pass judgment on causing Paige pain. Don't apologize to me. But if you don't want to be one more person who leaves her alone, then I suggest you pull yourself together and get to work."
Paige swirled the coffee in her mouth, forcing herself to swallow it. She didn't even taste it anymore, not after her fifth cup. Sixth? She'd lost track a while ago. It wasn't shocking that sleep proved elusive the night before, even though Cabe had virtually ordered her to go home and rest, arguing that she would be in no shape to help Walter if she didn't take care of herself. She was so exhausted she could barely remember her own name, but staring at the empty spot on her bed where the genius had been sleeping less than twenty-four hours earlier was hardly relaxing.
She could smell his scent on the sheets. It was unbearable. The couch wasn't much better—her ottoman was still in the spot where he positioned it to prop up his feet. Finally, she'd given up and slid in next to Ralph, unsuccessful in her attempts not to disturb him. He was too old to share a bed with her, but when he'd responded by silently handing her a pillow, she knew he understood and shared her need for comfort.
Walter wasn't a killer. But nobody was going to take her word for it. She knew that wherever he was, he was doing everything he could to find the truth, and it was up to the team to do what he couldn't.
"That video could have easily been created with a program like Walter's 3D imaging software," Happy offered, perching on the edge of her desk to avoid a chaotic stack of papers. At six a.m. they had finally been allowed back in the garage, which was, in polite terms, utterly trashed. The majority of their equipment was missing, and what was left would take weeks to reorganize. Happy had to sweep the entire structure for bugs and rewire the seven she found before the team could discuss Walter's case. "But I can't run an analysis off the stuff on the news. I need the original feed."
Cabe checked his phone for what seemed like the fiftieth time that morning before sliding it back into his pocket. "We're all locked out of the Homeland system, and you can bet your ass they'll be waiting for a member of the team to try and hack in. It won't look good for us. Besides, the government's best techs couldn't find any alterations in the video."
"Yeah, that's the point," Happy snapped, crossing her arms in front of her. "You need specific code to disassemble it. If I'm right, then Walter's got the key, but that's all kind of moot if I can't get my hands on the security footage."
"Let me do it."
All eyes turned to Ralph. His connection to Scorpion was widely known, and Paige thought it would be wise to keep him out of school until this was resolved. He wasn't likely to focus on much anyway. "Absolutely not." She'd be damned if her son got yanked off the street by Homeland agents one more time. "I don't want you involved, and neither would Walter."
"I'm the only person here who thinks like him and I know almost everything he knows," Ralph argued insistently. "His laptop is in federal custody, right? We need the documents that were planted, and I already know how to get into it. Then we can use his computer to crack Homeland's servers without raising a red flag."
Sylvester furrowed his eyebrows. "I don't understand how."
The young genius let out a long-suffering sigh. He was an unusual pre-teen, but a pre-teen nonetheless. "You trusted me to launch a missile, right? Trust me with this."
"He's not wrong." Paige glared at Toby, and he promptly withered. "But it's your call. Obviously."
The liaison bit her lip. Ralph's intelligence was practically unfathomable to her, and his desire to follow Walter's selfless path made her proud. But he was only thirteen. She couldn't let him loose in the world just yet. She spun her chair to face him, taking his right hand in hers. "What's the chance of you getting caught?"
He thought. "Twenty-six percent."
"Okay." She blew out a breath. This could be their opportunity to help Walter, but what kind of mother would she be if she sacrificed her son for her boyfriend? And yet, Ralph only dealt in facts. If he believed the odds were in his favor, than they were. "Only if you swear to stop at the first sign of trouble. Sylvester will sit with you to make sure, and if he says to pull the plug, you do it. Okay? Immediately, or you're getting benched from Scorpion for at least a year. Maybe longer."
"Okay." Paige quirked her brow and Ralph sighed again. "I swear."
"Good." She squeezed his hand before turning back to the group. "Toby, where are you with the manifesto?"
"Finished it last night. Whoever wrote it nailed 197's superiority complex, but not his writing style. I'm running passages now to see if I can match its syntax to anything published online."
Paige nodded, choosing to let his snide remark go. They were all handling the stress in different ways, and fighting against each other was a waste of energy. "I'll search the garage for anything Homeland missed." I know it the best. I've been here the most. She didn't say it, but she didn't need to.
"Good idea." Cabe glanced at his phone for the fifty-first time. "Happy, you help Paige. I'll keep reaching out to my contacts for updates. And for the love of god," he pleaded. "Someone make more coffee."