Sorry this update comes so late. With school getting crazy, they might be a bit far between...

Enjoy this one for now!

5.1. Head Games

The elevator doors opened with a cheerful ring that grated on Danny's nerves; he'd only started down the hall that led to the office when the door to one of the conference rooms opened and Jack strode from it. Something was very clearly up, and yet the shadow that seemed to follow him around these days lifted upon sighting his agent.

"Danny." There was something in his eye that Danny didn't quite like. "You take over. I've had about as much as I can handle." He held the door open for him and gestured hi inside. He obliged him, and Jack followed him in, shutting the door behind them both.

The man sitting in the chair in front of Jack's desk could be described with one word: neat. He wore a neat black suit with a neat blue tie, his hair combed over neatly. Even the wrinkles around his eyes seemed to be organized for effect. He wore an irritable expression, his foot tapping lightly with impatience; he glanced quickly at his Rolex watch before folding his hands – neatly – on the desk. When the door shut, he looked up, surveying Danny with a mix of curiosity and distaste.

"And who might this be, Jack?"

"I'm Special Agent Taylor," he said slowly, holding out his hand.

The man took it with a tight smile. "Victor Fitzgerald, deputy director of the FBI."

Danny almost choked.

"Y-you're--?

"Martin's father? Yes, I am. And you would be his partner, am I correct?"

"Yes, I worked with your son, sir," he replied, still recovering.

"Now you see, that bothers me, Agent Taylor," said Victor, rising from his seat with his arms crossed.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"You said your 'worked' with him – past tense." He stared pointedly at him. "Surely, you don't think that's necessary?"

He scrambled for a response. "Sir, at this point in the investigation, we don't yet have enough information to support that circumstance—"

Victor approached him, brooding like a jungle cat… a hungry cat. "Don't shoot excuses at me, boy; I wrote most of them myself."

That shut him up.

"Now I understand you were present at the time of the abduction?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you can confirm he was injured at that time?"

He gulped down the emotion building gin his throat. "Yes, sir."

"Why was Martin taken, rather than you?"

That was the question he'd been dreading, the question he'd asked himself over and over, but to which the answer was…

"I don't know, sir."

Victor studied him carefully for a minute, scrutinizing every detail of his expression. Then he made for the door, turning on the threshold.

"Agent Taylor?" he addressed him.

"Yes, sir?"

His gaze was hard. "If anything happens to my son, I will hold you personally responsible."

With that, he was gone. Danny sank into the chair Victor had previously occupied, his head in his hands. IT was all coming back, all the things he'd tried so hard to forget: the gunshots, the scream of people and tires, the smell of blood and burnt rubber… Shutting the door quietly, Jack approached him cautiously.

"Danny." His tone was almost gentle. "Danny, I'm sorry, but you need to understand you're not the only one who's paying attention to this. It hit all of us hard." He put a hand on his shoulder. "Right now, I need you doing what you do best, and that's your job."

He nodded obediently, still reeling from Victor's mandate.

"Viv's already working on background, but he's swamped. I'm going to meet up with Sam at Martin's apartment. I need you to pull recent records – spending, phone, the whole nine yards."

Incredulous, he glanced up. "Desk work? I thought I was supposed to be doing my job, Jack."

Sighing, Jack ran a nervous hand through his hair. "I wouldn't have you here at all if Victor wasn't pushing this along. You should not be out in the field right now, period. Now go."

Glad to escape the office, he pushed his way out the door, sweeping down the hall to the office while Jack watched through the glass with a steady eye.

5.2. Under the Skin

An hour later, he had little to show for his work than the twenty-seven program collage that covered his computer screen three times over. On top rested his latest endeavor: phone records. Not that they were particularly extensive; in fact, it seemed a miracle that Martin knew anyone at all. Pages and pages of one particular phone number made up the last six weeks of his activity.

"He's called his Aunt Bonnie fifty-something times in the last six weeks," he observed out loud.

Viv grunted in response. "Well, if my second mother had a fatal disease and less than six months to live, I'd be checking up on her pretty often too." She rifled through the papers that covered most of the previously free surfaces in the office. " Did you know he graduated from Harvard?"

"Really?"

"Class of 1998; left with a JD in law. Seems a little overqualified for White Collar in Seattle."

"Father wanted to keep an eye on him, probably." He pushed away the memories of earlier at the mention. Then a number on the screen caught his eye. "Hang on a minute, I think, I've got something."

Viv laid down her papers and came to peer over his shoulder.

"If he has a degree in law, why did he call this lawyer…" he drifted off as he stopped to count, "five times in the last two weeks?"

Viv's eyebrows went up. "Who's the lawyer?"

Danny pulled up a different window, a database, and searched the number. "A guy named James Helvoy."

"You got an address?" she asked, crossing to the chair to grab her coat.

"Right here," he said scribbling it down on his notepad.

"Let's go pay. Mr. Helvoy a visit."