~ o O o ~

A Place Called Home

Chapter 8

~ o O o ~

While Peter reached for a gun that wasn't there, he was shoved out of the way by Keller, who then proceeded to flee downstairs.

"You okay?" Peter asked Neal, who nodded, eyes wide open and clearly anything but okay.

But he wasn't physically harmed in any way, which was what Peter had wanted to make sure of, before he could think about catching Keller.

"Stay put!" he yelled at Neal over his shoulder. He shortly debated over whether or not to stop in order to get his gun—he would lose valuable time in which Keller could get away, but going after him unarmed would be a stupid thing to do and a risk he couldn't take.

"Hon?" El asked, confused, when he opened the bedside drawer to take out his gun. "What's going on?"

"Stay with Neal! I'm going after Keller," he quickly explained, while he loaded his gun.

"Keller?" El repeated anxiously. But Peter was busy yelling at Neal to keep the door and window closed, before taking off after Keller.

By the time Peter reached the bottom of the stairs, Keller had already made it out the front door, which was wide open.

~ o O o ~

Everything happened very quickly. One moment, Keller was in his room and the next, Peter was yelling. Before he could even process any of it, Elizabeth was there, on the phone with the police or the feds, Neal couldn't quite figure out whom. She kept giving him reassuring looks, but she wasn't fooling anyone, since her voice was all shaky.

~ o O o ~

Peter looked up and down the street. When he thought he saw something at the end of the road, he chased after it, but all too soon he came to a crossroad and had no idea which way Keller might have gone. As far as he could tell, everything was calm and Keller long gone. What was left behind was just a quiet neighborhood, houses in which people slept peacefully, unaware of what was happening right outside.

He was about to give up when he heard something rustling behind him. Gripping his gun tightly with both hands, he spun around—and cursed when he saw that it was just a cat, roaming the midnight streets.

Taking one last look around, he cursed again. Had he not had to get his gun first, he might have caught Keller. From this moment on, he wouldn't leave his room without his gun ever again! Or at least until Keller was behind bars.

~ o O o ~

They were all wide awake—including Satchmo, who followed Peter around as he was talking on the phone, walking from the kitchen to the living room and back.

Neal and El sat on the couch, waiting for Peter to finish his phone call. When Peter finally joined them, he still wouldn't sit down, but kept walking back and forth agitatedly.

"How did he even get by the security system?" he asked angrily of no one in particular.

"Well, that's easy," Neal replied even though no answer had been required. "All he had to do was . . ." He trailed off, when he realized what he was about to say to a federal agent and changed what he had originally intended to say. "I have no idea how one would go about disabling a security system."

"Cut the crap, Neal! A murderer was in my house tonight!"

"Hon," El interjected.

"Our house," corrected Peter without taking his eyes off of Neal.

"Hon!"

"What?" Peter asked tersely, finally looking over at Elizabeth, who indicated Neal with her head.

Once Peter looked at him more closely, he noticed how pale the kid was. His hands were shaking ever so slightly, and he flinched when Satchmo brushed by his feet. Peter should have known—he knew Neal better than that, after all, even though it had only been a few days. The kid was just trying to put on a brave front.

Peter sighed. "Hey. You okay?" he asked.

Neal looked up, caught. Then he tried to crack a smile. "Yeah."

When Peter still didn't seem to buy it, he said "Yeah" once more, this time with more conviction. And if Peter still didn't believe him, he at least let the subject drop for now.

Instead, he picked up his pacing again. "Keller made a big mistake today. If he thinks he can come in here and threaten my family . . ."

Peter continued speaking, but Neal stopped listening. Family. Peter probably didn't even notice he had said it, and even if he did, he was clearly talking about El. But something in Neal snapped at that word, and he got irrationally angry.

"What are you going to do? Have the FBI on his trail? Try to catch him and arrest him for murder? Oh wait, you're already doing all of that!"

It had been too much. The fear, the adrenaline, mixed with a sense of guilt in light of what he was keeping from Peter—what was hidden upstairs under his pillowcase.

Peter and El both seemed a little stunned at his outburst, but Neal refused to feel guilty about that, too.

"Well, this has been fun. But I'm going back to bed now," he announced and stood up, just to have his path blocked by Peter, who shook his head decisively.

"You're not going anywhere. We're waiting for the protection detail to arrive."

Neal groaned and let himself drop back down onto the couch. Protection detail. That was just what he needed.

In that moment, the sound of sirens, distant but growing rapidly closer, became audible. Well, it sure had taken NYPD long enough to get here. Neal sighed. He could just imagine the bunch of questions he'd have to answer. As if Peter's interrogation technique wasn't bad enough . . .

~ o O o ~

It was a long time before Neal was on his own again. Peter and El had gone to bed, not without making Neal promise to leave the door open. So Neal had turned off the lights, too, and had waited for well over an hour before he finally dared to get up and quietly close the door.

Then, and only then, did he retrieve the hidden cell phone. He stared at it and thought back to earlier that night.

Neal woke up very suddenly. Even in the dark, he could make out Keller, who stood next to his bed. Without thinking twice, he called for Peter as loud as he could while trying to untangle himself from the sheets in order to get away from the danger.

But Keller just threw something onto Neal's bed—something that Neal couldn't make out in the dark—and said in a low voice, "You might wanna keep this between us if you don't want to end up in prison. Would be a shame if Burke had to send you to juvie and you'd have an accident in there."

In that moment, the lights went on and Peter's sleepy voice said, "Neal, wake up, it's just a . . ." As soon as he saw Keller, he yelled, "FBI, don't move!"

While Keller shoved Peter out of the way and made his escape, Neal finally saw what it was that Keller had thrown onto his bed, and he quickly grabbed the cell.

By the time Peter turned to him and asked if he was okay, he had already hid it safely away under the covers.

Coming back to the present, Neal turned on the cell. There was only one number programmed into it. He took a deep breath and hit speed dial #1.

Keller picked up on the second ring.

"Hey there, kiddo. Long time no talk." His voice sounded way too chipper for the middle of the night. Or for someone who was on the run from the FBI, for that matter.

"Peter is going to get you," Neal replied, but since he had to keep his voice down, he couldn't make that statement as cold or as intimidating as he had wanted to.

"Oh, it's Peter, is it?" Keller asked, and Neal realized his mistake a couple seconds too late. But then all humor left Keller's voice, as he went on, "He's a fed, Neal. Your natural enemy. He'd place the cuffs on you in an instant if he could prove half of what you've done. And he will place the cuffs on you if he should get a certain painting with your fingerprints all over it from an anonymous source."

Neal's blood ran cold. The Degas! It seemed like ages ago that he had been so proud carrying that painting out of the museum. But that had been before . . . before.

"Got your attention yet, have I?" Keller's voice penetrated his foggy mind.

"Oh please!" Neal tried to make his voice sarcastic and sure of himself—again not an easy feat when you were whispering—and bluffed for all he was worth, "I told him everything. Burke's way more interested in you."

Keller chuckled. "Nice try. Face it, kiddo. He's the cat, you're the mouse, and sooner or later, he's gonna eat you up."

"Well, you should be happy about that, then. That'd save you the trouble of getting rid of me."

"Get rid of you?" Keller laughed. "Nealie, Nealie." He clicked his tongue. "If I wanted to get rid of you, I would have already sent your fed friends some evidence to put you away. But while we're talking business, a . . . client of mine wants a certain painting. And I thought, since you owe me and all—"

"I what?" Neal asked incredulously, and then he listened carefully for a few seconds, hoping he hadn't been too loud and had woken Peter and El. But everything stayed quiet.

At least outside of his room; Keller on the other hand went on, "Even you should know that you don't rat out your fellow thieves. That's just bad form. Anyway, I need a few . . . copies. And I think it would be in both our interests if I got them, don't you?"

Neal bit his tongue to keep quiet. Fellow thief . . . yeah right! Try murderer!

"Great!" Keller said who obviously took Neal's silence as consent. "I'll text you the details. Oh, and Neal? Don't call this number again, you won't reach me there."

With that, he hung up and all Neal heard was the continuous beep of a disconnected call.

Neal sighed. He thought about Peter and how he always came for him when he needed him, even in the middle of the night if he was just having a nightmare. Peter would probably have a lot to say about working with Keller, even if it was just a harmless job in order to stay out of trouble.

Neal somehow doubted that "There's nothing against forging paintings in the house rules" would fly as an excuse.

~ o O o ~

Another day at the bureau went by without any news about Keller's whereabouts, even though he had just been in Brooklyn, in Peter's own house, the night before. That man sure knew how to vanish into thin air.

They had decided to just go about their business as usual. Peter had a couple agents follow El to work, even though she had insisted that that wasn't necessary—Keller wasn't after her—but it made Peter feel better. And he hadn't let Neal out of his sight all day.

The only "unusual" thing that happened was when Diana came to talk to him in his office.

"Neal was right about the Coleman case, boss. The signature has definitely been forged."

That distracted Peter from the whole Keller debacle for a moment. He looked up at her to try and figure out if she was serious. He had been about 90 percent sure that the kid had just tried to get a bit attention, yank his chain, which he was pretty good at. Still, he had had Diana look into it, just to be on the safe side.

"You're kidding me."

"Wish I were, seeing as it took even the experts a second look to figure it out. How did Neal know?"

"I have no idea. He's just full of surprises, isn't he?" Peter said, shooting a look down at Neal sorting another bunch of files. A small smile spread across his face despite himself. He should feel exasperated that his agents had missed something that a fifteen-year-old picked up on, but instead he felt a strange swelling in his chest.

"So, what do you want me to do about it?" Diana's voice brought him out of his thoughts.

"Seems like we have to reopen this case."

~ o O o ~

The day had been boring to say the least. Peter wouldn't let him out of his sight, and he got the impression that he was being (mis-)used as a fed-courier. "Neal, can you get this file? Can you get that file? Can you staple and photocopy the paperwork?" You would think they'd have agents for these kinds of tasks!

But on the bright side, it had given Neal time to think about his options concerning the whole Keller situation—not that his contemplations had gotten him anywhere, yet.

He was currently sitting in the living room with Peter. Some sort of cartoon Neal wasn't paying attention to was on in the background, and Peter had taken work home with him and was reading through some files.

Neal shot Peter a sideways glance and worried his lip. On the one hand, he couldn't confess any of his crimes to a fed if he didn't want to end up in prison. On the other hand, though, Peter knew that he had done stuff—stuff for which he could arrest him, should probably arrest him. And he hadn't. Yet. Granted, that was mainly due to lack of evidence, but . . . Maybe if he just talked to him . . .? Neal took a deep breath.

"I know that you know . . . you know?"

Peter looked up and raised his eyebrows questioningly. When Neal didn't continue, he gave him his best suspicious-and-exasperated-yet-fond look, which made Neal's heart constrict when he thought of what he was about to tell him.

"What did you do now, Neal?" Peter prompted with a small sigh, setting down the files he had been looking over.

"Nothing! Yet," he added under his breath, too quiet for Peter to catch. "It's just . . . I mean . . . Do you ever not-arrest people?"

Peter wrinkled his brow. "I not-arrest people all the time. I'm not-arresting you right now."

"Oh, come on!" Neal said exasperatedly. "You know what I mean."

"I can honestly say I have no idea what you're trying to tell me. Mind giving it a try in English?"

"When we first met," Neal began hesitantly.

But before he could go on, they heard the front door, and seconds later Elizabeth came in.

"Hey, hon. Hey, Neal," she greeted them as she put her purse down and joined them.

"Hi," Neal said. "So how was your day?"

But before she could answer, Peter cut in, "Neal was just about to tell me something," giving El a meaningful look.

"That's okay," Neal said quickly. "Wasn't important," he mumbled and got up.

On his way up the stairs, he heard Peter say to El, "Yeah, he's definitely up to something. I just hope it's nothing too serious that will blow up in his face."

~ o O o ~

With all those lovely reviews on the last chapter, you didn't give me any choice but to write chapter 8 quickly. Each and every one of your reviews is highly appreciated and held close to my heart. And as a thank you for all your wonderful encouragement, it's not only a quick update, but even a longer chapter than usual.