When Neal got home, he met Cindy, June's granddaughter, with a tray of coffee and cookies.

"Hi, Neal. I was just on my way up to you with this."

He knew Mozzie waited upstairs, dying to tell him about their escape plans.

"You shouldn't have!" he said, smiling, a little too loud to warn Moz.

"Grandma insisted."

"Oh, you're both so thoughtful!" he beamed and opened his door. "Mozzie, you, of course, know June's beautiful granddaughter."

He saw his friend with an oddly placed kitchen towel on the table.

"Oh. Hi, Cindy." Moz said, leaving the table.

"Grandma said the two of you have been, uh, up to something in here." She looked at Neal. And Neal, in turn, looked at Mozzie.

"Oh, you know, idle hands and all," his friend chuckled. Cindy took a step forward to place the trace on the table. Neal got in front of her and took the tray from her hands with a friendly smile.

"And they brought us coffee!"

"Oh, and cookies!"

Cindy watched them, not quite sure how to handle the situation. Neal did not blame her. It was awkward. Now June would know for sure they were up to something.

"I'll be back for the tray."

"No. No, no." Neal placed the tray on the table. "Don't trouble yourself."

"Yeah. We'll bring it down."

"Everything looks beautiful," he beamed, showing her to the door without being obviously rude.

"Yeah. Hey, um..." Mozzie tried. "Thanks again for everything. Thanks. Yeah."

"Thank you."

Mozzie shut the door behind her.

"Lovely girl."

"I'm gonna miss this place," Neal sighed as they listened to Cindy's steps going down the stairs. There would never be a place where he would feel so loved. June was a pearl. How would she handle it when he left?

"Yeah, and the views."

For a moment, they were lost in their own thoughts. Neal pushed them aside. Peter was no longer his friend, so he had no reason to stay.

"Yeah. All right. Peter's team is setting up a harbor sting."

"Oh, well, perfect. So while the FBI is busy collaring Lawrence by sea, we'll be making our escape par avion... By air. I have procured our getaway vehicle." He pulled the towel away and revealed a model of a small airplane. "Voilà. Behold. The 400 series twin otter."

"Is it big enough?"

"Think of it as a Kardashian. What it lacks in refinement, it makes up for in cargo space." If Mozzie said so, Neal trusted him. But… "You're not sold."

"No, the plane's great. I'm worried about Peter." He had, after all, caught him twice, and now Peter knew even more about him. "He's holding something, Moz. If he's got a card he hasn't played yet, we're not gonna get far."

Moz took this in.

"Okay. So, what's the best way to find out what Peter knows?" Neal considered the question. And sighed. "What?"

"Elizabeth. He tells her everything."

"He does? Why have I never thought of that? What an advantage that would have been!"

"Moz!"

"What?"

Neal was about to blame him for using his friends like that. But that was as pointless as Moz asking him to stop being a con man.

"I don't think she would be your friend if you started asking her that line of questions. She's smart. She would know you're fishing."

"That rules out that I go and ask her about what Peter knows then."

"Yeah…" He had to do it. And he did not enjoy the thought of it. He walked to his wardrobe and opened it. "Peter will be at work at least a few hours more, working on some case I am not involved in." He took his suit off.

"That's what he says. The Suit is probably working on framing you."

The thought had crossed his mind as well. He changed into something casual to get a relaxed and friendly look, more like someone up for a hug.

He walked to Peter's place. It took its time to get there, but walking was good for you, and he had time to clear his mind and get focused.

He knocked on the door.

Elizabeth opened. She blinked, surprised.

"Hey, Neal."

"Hey."

She did not let him inside, Neal noted.

"Peter's not here."

"I know. I want to see you." Now she looked even more baffled. Maybe even hostile. Neal hoped not. He put a humble smile on his face. "I was hoping we could talk."

She took a step back.

"Come on in."

"Thank you." Elizabeth was already on her way to the kitchen.

"You, um... Want some coffee?" she asked as she closed a book on the counter and placed it on a side table.

"I never say no to good coffee." What really caught his attention was that she put some stuff on top of it, like hiding it.

"Okay. Well, then, why don't I pour," she said and took a mug from the cupboard, "and you tell me why you dropped by knowing my husband's not here?"

"Hmm. I don't know. He suddenly doesn't trust me."

"I don't know how sudden it is," she shot back. "I don't know, breaking out of prison, stealing the music box, almost shooting Fowler. You want me to go on?"

"Not particularly, no." He sipped his coffee. If that was what she and Peter saw, maybe the step of utter mistrust was not that far.

"Look, he wants to trust you, but you have this, I don't know, habit of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons."

"You're saying I'm impulsive, but I have a good heart?" He set her a sheepish grin that did not melt her at all.

"Maybe you can try and balance the two?"

"You make a fair point," he nodded. At the same time, he pulled his phone out under the counter. "And a great cup of coffee. But I like a little bit of milk in mine."

"Yes." She moved to the fridge while Neal rose and took a photo under the table where the book was, glad it was of glass. Taking a shot of the spine would have been more of a challenge.

"Okay." She said, coming with a jug. He had had no time to sit down again, and she probably noticed. "Tell me when."

He looked at her. Intelligent, beautiful, charming. And Peter's loyal wife. She would not tell him anything about the current situation.

"When." She stopped pouring. He lifted his mug. "To the right things, for the right reasons."

Their mugs clinked together, and they sipped their coffee.

"Liked what you've done with the place, by the way," he said, gesturing towards the living room, hoping to explain him standing. "Taking down the wall."

"We like it too. It was no big job, actually. The furniture was covered in plastic for two days."

"That fast?"

"It was not a supporting wall and no electrical wires in it. Just to knock it down. Dusty, but it was worth it."

"I remember when I hid in here when I was framed to have stolen that necklace." With the wall down, that would have been difficult now.

She smiled.

He wondered if he should continue down the lane talking about trust. Both Peter and Elizabeth had trusted him then, far more than now. He chose not to. It would lead to nothing productive.

"But that window," he said, pointing at the new window with frosted glass by the fireplace, "must be a fake, right?"

Elizabeth chuckled.

"How observant to you, Neal. It's quite silly really, but it makes the room less cramped."

"If I hadn't known you had a neighbor on the other side of that wall, I would have taken it for real."

They talked for a few more minutes and not once let Elizabeth her guard down. When the coffee was finished, he put the mug in the dishwasher and thanked her for her time. She followed him to the door with a few ordinary well-wishes.

Walking back towards Manhattan, he got overwhelmed with grief. The life he had had, was truly lost. Whether he stayed or fled, that life would never come back. He was adaptable; he would make it. But the loss of the only family he had really had hurt.

For a long time, he stood in the place where he had gone every day before his first arrest, knowing that the noose was tightened. The place Peter had known he went to but thought of it as a trap to make him look like a fool if he turned up.

Now, when Peter knew he had thought of it as the place where he would be arrested, he almost hoped that Peter would turn up and finish it all. That they could be friends once more, and everything would start over.

Except that he would probably never leave prison again for the rest of his life.

And Peter did not come.

Neal pulled himself together and passed a bookstore to find the book Elizabeth had hidden from him.

"Picked up a copy on the way home," he told Mozzie the next day when the friend came over. 'Modernist Painting: The rise of steel and glass.' Moz poured himself a glass of red wine.

"And you're sure Mrs. Suit was intentionally hiding it from you?"

"Yes." He sat down and opened the book.

"You know, I guess a part of me always knew when push comes to shove, she'd choose Peter."

"Well, he's her husband," he pointed out, browsing the book.

"Yeah, have they ever swapped ossobuco recipes? Which apparently means nothing."

It sounded like more than he was hurt in all this. Neal was about to say something about this when he saw what was behind Moz. The Chrysler Building. He had painted it. And on the page in the book was a similar painting.

"Wait a minute. This has to be it."

"The Chrysler Building?"

"Yeah, Peter was here the night before the fire. This painting was on that easel. He commented on it. You remember?" He was not sure if Mozzie did or not, but that was of no importance. He glared at him. "Did you put it on the sub?"

"You know, in all honesty, i-it wasn't one of your better works." But it had been his own, not a replica, which hurt even more.

"What if it didn't burn, Moz?"

"If he had it, you'd be in cuffs already."

"No," Neal shook his head. "I know him. He'd want to be sure."

"So he gave it to the feds to run some tests to see if the painting predated the sub as opposed to, say, last week."

"If the Bureau ran the tests, he'd have the results by now."

"He doesn't want the FBI involved." Moz came to the same conclusion as he just did.

"He doesn't want it on the record." Whatever Peter was doing, he was doing it under the radar. That meant it was easier for him to interact if he only could find out what to interact with.

"Why not?"

Yes, why? Neal only knew one reason:

"To protect me."

"Or to protect himself," Moz pointed out and sat down beside him. It hurt, but yes, that could be the case too. Peter's career would suffer.

"Maybe."

"So, if he didn't give it to the FBI lab, who else could test it?"

They mulled over this.

"Elizabeth?" he said simultaneously as Mozzie said the same name. It made sense.

"Yeah, she comes from an art background, and she knows about the painting," Neal nodded to their mutual conclusion.

"I should keep an eye on her."

"It's worth a shot, Haversham."