Sara answered the phone on the first ring.

"Hi, Neal."

"Sara. I need to meet. Are you nearby?" he asked.

"Define nearby."

"Within my radius."

She giggled.

"I'm in a bookstore two blocks from your place."

"I'll be there in ten." He hung up. He had not asked which bookstore, but he had an idea which one it was. He hurried over to it, and there she was, browsing a book.

She looked up when he entered.

"Hey." At that moment, he wished he could leave with her, away from every trouble.

"Hi," she said with that little smile. "You look exhausted. Everything okay?"

"Oh, just… long night." An understatement but not untrue. "Sara, Peter may come to you and ask some questions."

"About what?"

"He thinks the art didn't burn."

"How's that possible?" She frowned. He raised his eyebrows and got the picture. "Oh, he thinks you took it." She sounded excited. Was that good or bad? Neal was not sure.

"I was off-anklet when it could have happened."

"So you need an alibi." She crossed her arms. "What is it you're hoping I tell him?"

"The truth," Neal said. He was glad that he, for once, could ask someone that. "About the other night."

"You want me to tell him everything? 'Cause that could get really very awkward." She leaned in to kiss him, grabbing his tie as if he was about to run from something so lovely. She giggled.

"Skip the good parts," Neal mumbled.

"Yeah," she nodded. Then she looked him in the eye. "Did you take it?"

"No." She kept looking at him, searching for the truth. "Do you believe me?"

"You're a damn good con man." He sighed but accepted her doubt. He moved towards the exit. "Caffrey," she called after him. He turned by the door. "If that art is out there, any idea who has it?" He was about to say no but bit his tongue. She had demanded him not to lie to her. Still, he could not answer the question truthfully. Because then she had to lie to Peter. He almost shook his head but made it into some form of shrug and left.

When he got back home, he found the door open and saw the back of Mozzie out on the patio. He had been gone for maybe thirty minutes. The timing was spooky. On his kitchen table stood a little figure of a woman in a hula-hula dress. He touched it, and it swayed with a tiny chime.

"Her name is Lolana," Mozzie said from his chair outside.

"She from any island in particular?"

"Whichever one your heart desires."

Neal put his hand in his inner pocket and pulled out the calling card he had got that led him to the warehouse with the treasure.

"So, I guess this was from you?" Moz turned, a glass of white wine in his hand. He chuckled when he saw the card. "How?"

"It wasn't easy."

"The warehouse?" Neal started.

His friend rose and walked to him with two glasses of wine.

"I worked backwards from the transmitter you wired into the limo."

"Security?"

"I got around it with a localized E.M. burst."

"And the art?"

"Adler had it loaded onto a truck. The swap wasn't hard."

Moz made it sound so easy. Just as easy as Peter thought it was for him. Though, in this case, Peter got the wrong guy.

"And the TNT we got off the sub was unstable and easy to detonate," Neal ended the story.

"A perfect cover."

Yeah, Neal sighed to himself. And if it had not been for that explosion, he and Peter would still be friends.

"You didn't tell me."

"Plausible deniability and all," Moz shrugged. He knew Neal did not lie to Peter. "We finally got our white whale."

Things were the way they were. He had no use for regrets.

"Lolana, huh?"

"In Hawaiian, her name means 'to soar.' Which is exactly what we're gonna do in a very short time."

"Well, it's not that easy. I just spent five hours in interrogation with Peter. He suspects something."

"All the more reason for haste."

"How long to get things ready?"

"Just a few days."

A few days. Neal was not sure he was ready for this. Too much had happened in a short time. Two days ago, he thought he would spend the rest of his life in New York, working for Peter, even when his sentence was over. Now he was about to flee. Forever. He would never be able to return to the States.

"I can lull Peter. But we don't rush this. We take our time. We do it right."

Moz did not seem to be bothered by this. Maybe because he considered his plans 'right' already.

"To our best and final score," his friend raised his glass. Neal finally took the glass offered and raised his too.

Peter took Neal out on lunch. They had not spoken the whole day, working on their own at different places at the office. He had sent Jones to put the kid's anklet back on. He had seen it through the glass wall of his office how it came on. No comments, no objections, nothing that told him anything than the kid was cooperative.

He knew he had no proof. All he had was a piece of a painting he had seen in Neal's apartment who had been in the explosion. The kid had passed the lie detector, and Peter had to admit that he had seen no signs of lying. Still, that piece vexed him. How had Neal's painting ended up in that explosion if he was not involved?

"I passed your lie detector," the kid pointed out when they were out on the sidewalk and walked for a while in silence.

"I've seen you do that before," Peter said. He was quite sure the kid had lied to Sara when she came with her detector. It was only based on voice, so it was not the same thing, but still…

"Are you saying I cheated?" the kid asked. He sounded upset. Peter was not going to let that affect him.

"I've seen you do that before."

"All right, if you're not gonna talk to me, let's at least just keep it civil, okay?"

The damn kid was so cool. Neal had stolen under his very nose, and he just walked there as if nothing had happened.

"Fine," Peter chopped. "How about them Mets?"

Neal stopped, and so did Peter.

"What's wrong? Hmm?" the Kid barked back at him. "What happened that turned you against me?"

Peter stared back at him.

"I turned against you?" He had always been an FBI agent, and Neal always a con man. They had always been on different sides.

"Peter, we're a team!" the kid said like he was talking about his favorite cookies. "We did this!" he continued and held up a newspaper that said: 'FBI collars crooked Money Man' and a photo of Adler. 'Collars' was a strange choice of word, considering that he was shot.

"This is our job. Let's not make a big deal out of it."

It was not fair, and Peter knew it. But he had to take a step away. If he were right, Peter would soon lose his teammate.

He continued to walk, and when Neal did not turn up by his side, he turned. The kid remained where he was, glaring at him. Peter waited for him to come, but he did not. He turned and walked in the other direction.

Maybe it was just as well, Peter thought. What did they have to talk about?

When he got back, Neal was at his desk, working. He knocked on the desk, catching his attention.

"My office."

Peter walked ahead and pulled off his coat. He heard Neal come in and sit down. The file he wanted to show the kid was ready. He grabbed it and turned. Only to see an overly innocent and friendly-looking con man.

He glared at him.

Neal looked away, smiling less, but his eyes soon sent a glance in his direction.

"Hmm."

Neal's face split in a wide grin as if he had made a commercial for toothpaste.

"You're smiling," the kid said.

"I am." At what he was about to expose. He handed him a file. "Tell me about Gary Rydell." Neal opened the file, staring at a photo of himself. "That's you."

"Yeah, it is."

"Regale me."

"Oh, it was an alias I used years ago. Rydell was a bit of a playboy with an uncanny ability to wreck expensive cars."

"Of course. Anything else?"

"He was a world-class fencer."

"And?" The kid did not seem to come up with anything else and shrugged. "Neal, I've read the file."

"And a smuggler," he added, closing the file.

"A world-class smuggler," Peter pointed out. Neal should be lucky that they had had no clue that Neal was behind that alias when he was caught. Peter had got a photo of Rydell when the kid was in prison and put the pieces together.

"Yeah, I get it. You think I might activate my Rydell alias in order to sneak something out of the country, something like a stolen Nazi treasure?" Neal dropped the file on the desk.

"Crossed my mind." But that was not the reason that he had fetched the file. "I think this guy is looking for Rydell. I want to know why." He gave him a second file.

"David Lawrence," Neal said with a chuckle.

"You know him."

"Yeah. We met a few years ago. He was selling pre-columbian art, and I was…"

"Buying," Peter filled in. He would not use this to frame the kid and wanted to make sure he knew that.

"Yeah, buying."

"Lawrence was also suspected of robbing sixty million dollars from the Federal Reserve. He fled the country on a commercial jet before we could make the arrest. We think he left the sixty mil behind."

"Well, safe assumption. I mean, the baggage fees alone would've cost a fortune."

Peter did not smile.

"Two days ago, we traced an e-mail he sent to a server here in New York. Lawrence wants you to help him smuggle the cash out of the country."

"You want me to strike up a deal with him and lead you to the sixty million."

Peter nodded.

"We'll let you know when we make contact."

Neal put the file on the desk and leaned forward.

"Uh, you really think he's gonna take this risk?"

After so many years, Peter figured he knew how criminals worked quite well. He chuckled.

"If you were one step away from pulling off the biggest score in your life, could you let it go?"

He looked into Neal's blue eyes. They both knew that question was for him, not about Lawrence. The kid did not move a muscle in his face.

"I guess that depends on the alternatives. Money's not everything in life."

Was there a rebuke in that answer? Sure he knew much of Neal's work was for the challenge more than for the money but still, he had seen the kid's enthusiasm in the sub.