~ o O o ~

A Place Called Home

Chapter 2

~ o O o ~

Peter was in a good mood. Jones had just brought him a lead on the minivan with the dog sticker—maybe this was finally the break in the case they had been waiting for.

"Diana. Can you give the Haldens a call and tell them to come in as soon as possible?" he asked.

"The Haldens?"

"Yeah. You know, the witness from the other day? Maybe if we show Nick a picture of the van, he can confirm whether it's the one we're looking for." And if they were lucky, maybe he'd even be able to identify the owner, too.

"You got it, Boss."

"Oh, and one more thing."

Diana, who had already been on her way to make the requested phone call, turned around, arching her eyebrow.

"Have you seen my copy of the case file? I thought I locked it into my desk drawer, but it's not there."

Diana shook her head. "Sorry. Want me to make another copy for you?"

"That'd be great, thanks."

Peter went back into his office and went through his drawers one more time, but the file still didn't turn up. Maybe one of his other agents had taken it.

In that moment, Diana stepped into his office.

"Bad news," she said. "The phone number listed on the contact sheet is not in service."

"Well, just look it up in the phone book then. Maybe Nick got a digit wrong when writing it down," Peter said distractedly, still trying to figure out where he could possibly have put that damned folder.

"Doubtful. Unless he got a few letters wrong when he wrote down the address, too."

"What?" That made him look up and forget all about missing files.

"He gave us fake contact information. These are no good," Diana said, putting the contact sheet in front of Peter on his desk.

Peter stared at the pages in front of him. A kid! They had been played by a kid!

"I knew something was up with this kid!" He should have known. Nick had been way too unhelpful for an innocent witness. "He was suspicious from the beginning!" With those innocent blue eyes looking up at him, being all 'Sure thing, Agent Burke.' Sure thing, my ass!

"Is that why you let him walk right out the front door?"

Peter simply shot her a dark look, which only made her grin wider.

~ o O o ~

A few hours later, Peter was standing at the head of the table in the conference room. On the TV screen, there was a picture of the man who had claimed to be Nick's father that had been taken from the security cameras on Friday and one that showed a mug shot of the same man.

Peter pointed at the screen while addressing his team, "This is Jefferson Porter. He's a small-time criminal and left the country for Europe last Friday, using one of his aliases, Robert Innings. Unfortunately, he's Interpol's problem for now."

He pushed a button on the remote control and a picture of 'Nick' appeared on the screen.

"We have no idea who this is, though. Probably a runaway, so I want you to check every report of juvenile runaways. Start with New York, the Tri-State Area and then you can branch out if need be."

"Of the last few months?" someone interjected.

"Of however long you have to go back. I want to know who this kid is!—Now, any more questions?" He looked around the conference room. When no one spoke up, he dismissed his team, "Then get to work!"

Peter himself was flipping through files, too, in an attempt to find 'Nick', but so far, no luck. He began to think that the kid may not be a runaway after all. Maybe his parents were in on the thefts. But then he flipped over a page and a familiar looking pair of blue eyes looked right at him.

Peter skimmed the information about the boy given in the report and a grin spread across his face. "Neal Caffrey. Gotcha!"

~ o O o ~

New York was always a busy city, which was one aspect Neal liked about it. Always lots of people around and lots of pockets just waiting to be picked.

He went through the wallets he had just acquired. Not too much cash—unfortunately, it was all about the credit cards these days. But he wasn't really out to make lots of money today, anyway. Instead, he was mainly trying to distract himself.

They still had to wait a few days until they could execute the heist because Keller still had to figure out how to bypass security. Or, more accurately, he had someone else figure that out. Apparently, this was a three-man job. Neal thought it was unnecessary to involve a third party—they could so do this on their own—but he wasn't going to complain as long as he was a part of the heist.

Neal threw the wallets away and took out his own—, which at the moment was empty except for a few fake I.D.s and a ten dollar bill—, which he had taken out of Agent Burke's wallet the other day. That was the only money he had made off that job since Keller didn't pay him. Neal could have taken more out of Burke's wallet, obviously, but it had been more about the rush of picking the pocket of a federal agent than anything else.

Now he was somehow reluctant to spend those ten dollars, though. That's why he took out the ten dollar bill and put it into his jeans' pocket before putting the money from the other wallets into his.

~ o O o ~

Saturday night had Peter and his team sitting in the van near the Guggenheim museum.

So far, their lead on Neal Caffrey had been yet another dead end. They had spoken to the foster home he had run away from, but no one there had any idea where they could even begin looking for the kid. Obviously, looking into that minivan had been a waste of time, too—which was no wonder, since Neal had most likely fed them false information, anyway.

So they were back to trying to anticipate the thieves' next move, which had brought them to the Guggenheim. This was the third night in a row that they spent on stakeout and the thieves still hadn't shown up.

This promised to be yet another long night ahead of them . . .

~ o O o ~

Neal couldn't believe he was carrying a real Degas. This was the best night ever! There was an undeniable thrill about robbing a museum at night. Even though it felt a little bit like cheating, simply disabling the security system and then just taking the paintings they were after in the middle of the night. If it were up to Neal, he'd go about it with a lot more finesse. But still—he had a real Degas in his hands!

They put the stolen paintings into the trunk of the car and that's when Keller and the other guy—Davis or something—started arguing.

"I already have a fence," Keller said. "Once I get the money, we'll split it like we discussed."

"I don't think so! If I let you take off with the paintings right now, I'll never see my money."

"You'll just have to trust me."

"Well, see, that's the problem. I don't. I've heard how you screwed over Ray. I'll take my fifty percent right now!" He went to take one of the paintings out of the trunk, but Keller suddenly pulled out a gun.

"Hey, Matt . . ." Neal interjected placatingly. He hadn't even known Keller had a gun and he didn't like this at all.

"Shut up, Caffrey," Keller said without taking his eyes off of Davis. "This is between grown-ups!"

"Oh please!" Davis said rolling his eyes. "Take that thing down. This is ridiculous!"

"You know, Frank, I don't really need you anymore. And one hundred percent sounds a lot better than fifty, now doesn't it?"

Keller had a creepy gleam in his eyes that sent chills down Neal's spine. He had never seen this side of him before. He wanted to say something, to make Keller see sense, but he suddenly realized that he couldn't talk. His eyes were glued to the gun in Keller's hands.

Davis seemed unimpressed, however. He took a few steps towards Keller and said, "As if you would really shoot me right here."

Neal held his breath. But after a few seconds that seemed to go on forever, Keller took his gun down and put it away. "You're right. I wouldn't."

Davis smiled haughtily and turned back to the car in order to get his share for the job.

In that moment, with Davis's back turned to him, Keller stepped up behind him, and rammed a knife into his side that he had produced seemingly out of nowhere.

"Doesn't mean I'm gonna just let you walk away with my goods, though," Keller told Davis, shoving the knife into him deeper and twisting it, before pulling it out and letting Davis slide to the ground.

Then he took out a handkerchief and swiped the knife clean, completely unperturbed, before looking over at Neal. "He was a real pain in the ass, huh?"

Neal had a hard time looking away from Davis's dead body. A lot of blood had pooled around him and his eyes were wide open in shock.

But as Keller took a step towards Neal, he finally snapped out of his paralysis, turned on his heel and ran as fast as he could away from that murdering psychopath.

His heart was pounding a mile a minute, but he didn't dare slow down to check if Keller was close behind. He had no idea where he was even running to; he just knew he had to put as much distance between Keller and himself as possible. He was a good sprinter—he would be able to outrun Keller. Wouldn't he?

After a while, he finally dared to look over his shoulder without slowing down to see if Keller was chasing him—and ran straight into someone.

He fell backwards onto his ass and as his eyes slowly traveled upwards to see whom he had run into, his mind raced. Keller couldn't possible have taken a short-cut? Wasn't that how horror movies always played out? Just when you thought you had left the bad guy behind, he came from the front, or the side, or somewhere else unexpected. But Keller wouldn't kill him—he still needed him. Or did he?

"If it isn't 'Nick Halden'," a familiar voice said; and the next moment, someone helped him up and he stared up at none other than Agent Peter Burke of the White Collar division.

"Just going for a midnight run around the Guggenheim, I presume?"

TBC . . .

~ o O o ~

I want to thank all of you guys who took the time to leave me a review on the first chapter—I treasure each and every one, and you certainly helped me stay motivated and sit down to write when I would normally have slacked off. I hope you also had fun with the second chapter? I wish you all a great weekend!