Marine Corps. NSA. Now Fulcrum.

How quickly things changed.

A month ago – hell, a week ago – anyone who dared suggest John Casey would join Fulcrum would have found himself crumpled up like a ball of wet newspaper and discarded in the nearest dumpster. After all, Casey had spent his entire career loyally defending his country, willing to do anything, anywhere, with no more reason than his government's say-so. Yet here he was, willingly signed up with Fulcrum, a group with an agenda that often ran counter to the government's.

Go figure.

At the moment, though, his defection wasn't the betrayal that concerned him. The thing was, this morning's attack made no sense. Fulcrum hadn't gotten anything from him yet. Why would Jennings bother to accept Casey's allegiance the previous night only to try to take him out with a basic frontal assault the next morning? And as Graham had so pointedly noted, why wasn't Casey dead? Delgado could have easily finished the job.

No, Fulcrum hadn't wanted to kill him, but something was going on, and he needed answers. So as much as Casey wanted to fire off a biting remark and snap his phone shut, he had to settle for firing off the first volley. "You mind telling me why Fulcrum agents attacked me?"

"You didn't tell us that Chuck Bartowski is the Intersect," Jennings said.

"I didn't tell you a lot of things. Can I expect an attack every time I don't volunteer what you need?"

"C'mon, Major. You of all people know how badly we want the Intersect. You've seen it firsthand. Yet you chose not to tell us. That's not the most promising start to your Fulcrum career."

Casey re-centered the speaker of the phone on his ear. "Our deal said nothing about handing over any government agents or assets. In fact, we specified that I would never be put in that position."

"When we made the deal, we thought we had the Intersect. Bryce Larkin is currently shadowing one of our men, and we had a nice little trap laid out for him. Now it turns out that Larkin is useless, and you could have easily handed Bartowski to us."

"I told you up front that I wouldn't betray any agents, and that I have one more mission to complete before I could actively join Fulcrum. You agreed to both conditions."

"We never would have agreed had we known the Intersect is that mission. You cannot have divided loyalties, Major."

"I don't. My loyalty is to Fulcrum – after this mission."

"But you can see why I might think that you weren't holding up your end of the bargain."

Casey shook his head and bit back a sardonic laugh. Like any good politician, Jennings was spinning like a top, trying to find ways to twist things to his advantage. Meanwhile, Bartowski was getting further away with each passing second. Casey would have to do something about both.

He turned and walked over to the kitchen. Frowning, he crouched down by one of the cabinet and opened it. As he peered inside, he searched both for the equipment he needed and the right words for Jennings. "Glass houses, Representative," Casey said. "You promised Fulcrum would stop its attacks on federal agents if I joined. Luring Larkin into a trap sounds an awful lot like an attack."

"You got your one last mission. We got ours."

"By my count, you got two. You attacked Agent Walker this morning."

"We reacquired Lizzie and Tommy last night. Once they told us Bartowski was the Intersect, we needed to move quickly."

"But you can see why I might think that you weren't holding up your end of the bargain," Casey said.

A throaty chuckle oozed from the phone. "Touché."

Casey shut the door and side-stepped to his right check out the next cabinet. He strained to shove aside a heavy box of ammunition. "Here's what we do," he said, maneuvering his head from side to side to see what was in the back of the cabinet. "We revert to the original terms of our deal. I finish my last mission for the NSA, I get you the file that you want, and then I'm Fulcrum. Everybody's happy."

"Unfortunately, the foundation of our plans assumed that Fulcrum had the Intersect. We cannot push ahead with them until we have Bartowski."

"Then I'd say you have a problem."

"Not us," Jennings said. "You. You will bring us the Intersect, Major Casey."

Casey froze, his search suddenly forgotten. Something was wrong. There was no threat in Jennings's voice. The man's tone was calm, assured, full of the smarmy self-confidence of a man who knew he was going to get what he wanted.

Despite the lack of light of the apartment, Casey's eyes narrowed into a squint. There was only one possible explanation.

"What was in the injection?" he asked.

"A particularly nasty cocktail that includes a slow-release poison."

Casey slowly stood up. An annoyed sound, part grunt, part growl, rolled out of the back of his throat. "Of course it does."

"The first twenty-four hours you won't feel much of anything, maybe a minor loss of appetite or a little muscle soreness," Jennings said. "During the second twenty-four hours, you can expect occasional bouts of dizziness and a gradual loss of muscular control."

"I'm guessing I really don't want to experience the third twenty-four hours."

"I knew you were a smart man." Jennings's smug grin was obvious even through the phone speaker. He was enjoying this, so much that, had he stood in front of Casey offering a choice between the antidote and wiping the grin off the man's face, Casey would have had to think about it. At least until he realized that he could take the antidote and then wipe the grin off the man's face.

Casey didn't care for being poisoned much.

"So I take it our original agreement is terminated," he said.

"More renegotiated than terminated. We still want you to come work for us."

"You've hardly laid the groundwork for a trusting partnership."

"The poison was originally meant to ensure you'd deliver the file as promised, but it should serve just as well to encourage you to deliver Bartowski," Jennings said.

"Or it just shortens the window I have to pay you back."

"Remember that it was your decision not to tell us about Bartowski. You'd be amazed just how many agent defections didn't turn out to be one-hundred percent genuine."

"Probably not."

"We're forced to be careful. Had you simply shared what you knew, your motives would never have come into question. These precautions wouldn't have been necessary."

" 'Precautions'?" A sharp, barking laugh escaped Casey's lips. "Since I agreed to join Fulcrum, I've been attacked, poisoned, and threatened with death if I don't complete a mission that breaks a fundamental tenet of our agreement."

"I'm sure you've realized that if the attack was designed to kill you, you'd already be dead. The poison is a precautionary. As soon as you complete your first mission and prove your loyalty, you get the antidote."

"And the last?" Casey's nostrils flared. "Fulcrum attacks on federal agents were supposed to stop."

"Unfortunately necessary. But Major, while I find the whole 'I'm not going to fight my former colleagues' thing very noble, you can drop the charade now. I don't think any less of you for joining Fulcrum for less than selfless reasons. In fact, I commend you for it."

Casey found himself wishing he was in the same room with Jennings so he could grab the man's lapels like the scruff of a dog's neck and give him a ferocious shake. He settled for a sneer and an energetic circuit of the apartment. "I will not go against Walker or Larkin or any other agent. These are honorable Americans that risk their lives every day in defense of our nation. They deserve better than to be taken down because they happen to inconvenience Fulcrum!"

"Don't get me wrong, I have little doubt that you've worked with some fine men and women, and I understand that it's not their fault the system is broken. But protecting them was not your first concern. It's not what brought you to Fulcrum."

"It was certainly part of it."

"Maybe a nice bonus, or even a way to salve a guilty conscience. It's not why you became Fulcrum. No, I'm guessing that when you saw Amafor, you started to remember the kind of missions that you used to go on with your old partner – the ones that really mattered, back when the NSA still kept sight of what was truly important. You know how good a man Amafor is, and that he wouldn't have switched sides without good reason.

"Then I'm guessing you thought about the conversations that you and I had, about how the government was ineffective at best and downright incompetent at worst, and you felt relieved that somebody finally would say what you and your colleagues, these noble Americans that you care so deeply about, all know in their hearts but would never dare speak aloud.

"For the first time in a long time, maybe for the first time in your career, you allowed yourself to wonder if your superiors were capable of leading you as you deserve. You wondered why Beckman has kept you on such a short leash since Belarus, since a single mission went bad. Are you being punished? Or is the NSA simply incapable of functioning effectively?

"And then, the next morning, you woke up ready to take on the world – and realized that you were working undercover at a Buy More."

Casey pivoted and retraced his steps. An almost pathological need to defend Beckman welled up in his chest. "Keeping Bartowski at the Buy More isn't ideal, but it was an unusual situation. There was no real choice."

"See? That right there is what the government does to people. After a while, you develop a mindset where you believe that there aren't any good choices. There are always good choices. It's just that the CIA and the NSA and all the other agencies unintentionally function in such a way that good choices are never made. The red tape, the lack of interagency communication, the politics … little gets done, and on those rare occasions when the DoD manages to get its collective act together, it's a miracle if they do anything useful. You've come to the only conclusion that makes any sense – you work for an intelligence community incapable of doing what this country needs. That's why you came to Fulcrum, Casey. You just want to make a real difference again. There's nothing wrong with that."

Casey's steps ground to a halt. As pissed off as he was at how he'd been treated, there wasn't anything he could say to refute Jennings. If what he was saying wasn't the exact truth, it was damn close.

Jennings was in his element, stringing together words with uncanny speed and precision, striking at the heart of every doubt and complaint that Casey had about the NSA. Casey had no defense. Phone locked to his ear, he stood there helplessly as Jennings came in for the kill.

"You know all of this, Casey," Jennings said. "I see it in your eyes every time we talk. You're tired of huddling within our borders and playing defense, because you know that frees the enemies to keep attacking, and that eventually they'll break through. You want nothing more than to go after the people who would attack us and hit them where they live. But deep in your heart, you know that the NSA will never allow it, while Fulcrum will. We're going to do what Beckman has refused to do since Belarus, what she's unable or unwilling to do. We're going to put you in position to make a real difference."

An undeniable thrill ran through Casey as he relived the offer Jennings had made the previous night. Fulcrum had promised nothing less than his dream job – running black ops, without restrictions, without oversight. Mission planning would be his. Whatever intelligence and equipment he needed, he'd get. There was the minor detail that nobody would be coming in to rescue him if he got caught, but that really wasn't much different than at the NSA. Casey certainly had the scars to prove that.

No more baby-sitting assets. No more crappy cover stories. No more sitting around watching his skills erode and wondering what would be first to kill him – the boredom, or the inevitable day when somebody got the jump on him because his surroundings had dulled his instincts and lured him into complacency.

Even the choice of targets would be his call. He wasn't about to let Fulcrum use him to weed out people he knew, so veto power was a nonnegotiable condition for switching sides. Anticipating this, Jennings offered up a draft target list that comprised a who's who of America's biggest enemies, people Casey would gladly take out. Their absence from the world could only help America, no matter what Fulcrum's motivations were.

It was truly his dream job. If Casey could believe Fulcrum. If he could trust them. At the moment, their credibility was pretty much dead. Then again, he would be, too, if he didn't figure out a way out of this.

Because things had started off so badly, a big part of Casey wanted to tell Jennings that he'd seen the carrot-and-stick ruse before. Hell, Casey wanted to tell Jennings exactly where he could stick the carrot. He'd heard the stories of agents plied with sweet words and seductive promises designed to get them to complete a single mission or drop their guards for a fatal moment. Those stories rarely ended well.

But part of Casey desperately wanted to believe Jennings, to believe that Fulcrum still wanted Casey to do what he did best. What Jennings said made sense. Casey had held back the knowledge that Bartowski was the Intersect, and any number of men and women had been caught trying to be double agents. Fulcrum had no more reason to trust Casey than Casey had to trust them.

More than anything else, Casey wanted to protect his country, to go to sleep each night knowing that it was safer than the night before, that he was being used to his full abilities. How he made the country safer didn't really matter to him. He didn't care about medals or commendations. He didn't care what was written in his epitaph.

In the end, John Casey would do anything for his country. Even betray it.

He didn't need to decide right now. At the moment, the NSA and Fulcrum missions overlapped. Whether he decided to believe Jennings or not, Casey's only play was to find Bartowski.

He straightened his back and let the only words he felt safe saying, the only thing he knew for certain, slip through his lips.

"I'll find Bartowski."

The midday sun stalked Sarah into the courtyard. Her footsteps echoed off bricks and terracotta tiles until she scuffed to a halt outside the door to Ellie's apartment. She raised an arm to knock, but she hesitated, her fist upraised. She stood that way for a long moment, posed like some strange statue, a monument to her own self-doubt.

What was she going to do if this was a dead end? She had frighteningly few options left, and if Ellie didn't know something, she'd have no excuse to keep Graham from taking drastic action. He was already pinging her for updates every fifteen minutes and made no effort to keep his disapproval of the situation a secret.

Truth be told, Sarah was none too fond of the situation herself. With a forced breath, she let her arm drop and gathered herself. Standing around wasn't going to change anything. She straightened the girlish pink shirt she had hastily tossed on and rapped her knuckles on the hard door. Inside, Ellie's footsteps thumped closer over the noise of the television.

The door swung open, revealing Ellie in her usual cobalt blue scrubs. "Sarah, hi!" Ellie said, practically beaming at Sarah. That in itself told Sarah a lot – at least she hoped it did.

"Hi, Ellie," Sarah said with a forced smile. "Got a minute?"

"Of course. Come in, come in." The words and a come-hither curl of the fingers on one hand ushered Sarah into the apartment. Ellie shut the door. "Give me just a minute to tidy up." She bustled off towards the dining room, giving Sarah a chance to appraise the apartment with a practiced eye.

The sunlight continued to follow Sarah, streaming through the windows to explore warm tones and soft fabrics. The faint hints of some kind of cinnamon baked good lingered as if reluctant to leave. Several binders and a sheaf of papers covered the table, an island of clutter in a sea of tidiness Martha Stewart would have envied.

Ellie shoveled the papers and binders on the table into a stylish storage box at an alarming rate, almost as if embarrassed by their presence. "What are you up to?" Sarah asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh, just catching up on Project Runway." Ellie put the lid on the box. Her hands gripped the handles as if to move it, but Ellie paused before lifting it to give Sarah a penetrating look. "Of course, you know all about Project Runway, right?"

Sarah stiffened. She did know about Project Runway. It was a highly sensitive operation where she had set up a secure location for inserted agents to 'land' in Bucharest without attracting notice from the local authorities. She forced a cough to cover her surprise. "Ellie," she stammered, "how do you..."

She was interrupted by an announcer on the television. "Next week, on Project Runway…" Looking over at the television, she resisted a strong urge to smack herself. Project Runway was some kind of reality show.

Ellie lifted the box off the table and set it on the kitchen counter. "How do I watch that stuff?" she said, finishing Sarah's sentence for her. "I don't know. Guilty pleasure, I guess." She flipped off the television with a flick of the remote and laughed her infectious laugh.

Sarah gladly joined in, realizing just how close she had come to blowing everything.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Ellie offered.

"No, thanks, I can't stay long."

"Oh, Sarah, we never get a chance to talk, at least not without my brother around. Stay for fifteen minutes."

In the back of her mind, Sarah heard a clock ticking. Still, her options for information were limited. It was pretty much down to Ellie. She had to find out what the woman knew, and if that meant sitting with her for a while, Sarah really didn't have much choice. "OK," she said. "But only fifteen minutes. I'll need to run after that."

Despite the circumstances, Ellie's smile made Sarah glad she'd decided to stay.

After Ellie made some tea, the two sat comfortably on the couch facing each other. Somehow, she had Sarah completely at ease within a few minutes. The two chatted about nothing in particular. Discussions about the weather, Sarah's woven hand bag, and Ellie's late night at the hospital quickly came and went.

"This is nice," Ellie said. "We need to do this more often."

Given the circumstances, Sarah was surprised to find herself agreeing. She had always felt a little uncomfortable around Ellie, expecting that if anyone were to see the truth of Chuck and Sarah's relationship, it would be the perceptive Ellie. "It is," Sarah said. "Things just get so crazy sometimes."

"Tell me about it. I hardly see Devon these days, let alone Chuck. How is he?" Ellie directed another penetrating gaze at Sarah, highlighting the question behind the question. Just two days ago, a lifetime ago, Ellie had openly questioned whether things were going well between Sarah and Chuck, and Sarah hadn't handled things particularly well. She had tried to lie to Ellie, and Ellie had caught the lie. A heartfelt apology had seemed to smooth things over, but Sarah couldn't be completely certain.

"Better. We talked about a couple of things yesterday. It helped." Sarah found herself frowning as she cradled her cup with both hands. "I think," she added.

Ellie's brow crinkled. "Is there a problem?"

"Just a misunderstanding. I think I can straighten it out." If I can find Chuck, she thought. If he wants to be found. Sighing softly, Sarah lowered the cup to her lap and reluctantly returned to the real reason she was there. "Ellie, do you know where Chuck is?"

The woman delayed her answer by taking a long, two-handed sip from her own cup, a thoughtful look coming across her features. "You don't know?"

"No. I thought things were going so well yesterday, but then he kind of vanished on me. He's not answering his phone, which isn't at all like him, and people at the Buy More say they haven't seen him in a few hours. Something doesn't feel right."

"Maybe he's got a surprise for you." Ellie suddenly refused to look at Sarah, fighting to keep the corner of her mouth from turning up.

Sarah's heart raced. Ellie knew something. For some reason, she was playing coy, but Chuck had told his sister something. "A surprise?" Sarah said. "Like what?"

Ellie's smile arrived in full. Her lips parted as if she was going to answer, but then pressed closed. "I can't. He'd kill me."

The woman was aching to share, but wouldn't break her brother's trust. It was up to Sarah to find a way to get that dam to burst.

She ran through the reasons that Ellie might be so excited for the two of them, and came up with two possibilities. One was some type of major relationship change, like moving in together or getting engaged. She dismissed those out-of-hand. It was one thing to tell a white lie to protect his sister and another to lie about the status of his relationship with Sarah. While Chuck had changed in many ways over the past few months, at his core he was still the same brother who hated lying to his sister.

Only one other thing might fill Ellie with this kind of excitement. "Does Chuck have a job interview?" Sarah asked.

Ellie's entire upper body quivered with bottled-up glee. With an almost pained expression, she said, "I can't help it. I'm so excited. Promise me you won't say anything to him."

Sarah leaned forward conspiratorially. "I promise."

"Chuck went to Seattle."

"Seattle?"

"Seattle."

A sickened feeling grew in her stomach. She ignored the sensation, distanced herself from it. "I don't get it. Why are you so excited about that?"

"One of Chuck's fraternity brothers made him a standing offer a few years back. Any time Chuck wanted a job with Microsoft, he could have one. Chuck never pursued it." Ellie paused, her eyes shining. "He must have finally decided to take him up on the offer."

"You're sure he has an interview? He told you this?"

"Well, no. But he left me a voice mail this morning saying he had bought a plane ticket to Seattle, and what other reason would my brother have for leaving town on a moment's notice?"

Sarah found herself wondering the same thing. She bit her lip.

Ellie studied Sarah's face. "What's wrong? I thought you'd be excited that Chuck is looking to leave the Buy More."

Sarah shifted uncomfortably. "It's just … strange, that's all. Chuck was telling me just yesterday how much he hates Seattle."

"Well, I guess we're willing to make sacrifices for the people we care about." The look Ellie gave left little doubt as to what she felt Chuck's inspiration had to be. Given the current circumstances, Sarah flushed more than blushed.

They both took a drink from their cups. Sarah used the tea as an excuse to glance away and try to figure out what this revelation could mean. Chuck had told her in no uncertain terms that he would never go to Seattle. Was this a message? Or was it just the perfect place for Chuck to run, the last place Sarah would look for him?

She still had no idea whether Chuck's trail led to him or away from him. The story told her little. Chuck could have told his sister the truth, trusting her not to reveal the secret to Sarah. It just as easily could be a cover story for Ellie's benefit, as the standing offer from Chuck's old friend clearly gave the story credibility in her eyes. Really, though, there was no way to know what it meant.

One last time, she scanned Ellie for any signs that the woman was stalling Sarah for Chuck's benefit. Once again, Sarah came up negative. That only made her feel guiltier about what she was doing, about how many times she had dealt with Ellie in a less than forthright manner – to put it charitably. Ellie deserved better.

The turning of the wheels in Sarah's head kept her from noticing Ellie's impatient stare. "So?" Ellie finally prompted.

Confused by the question, Sarah shook her head. "So what?"

"So would you go with Chuck if he takes the job?"

The smart thing to do would be to lie or deflect, but some reason, she couldn't make herself do that. Not to Ellie. Not to the woman who had treated her like a sister.

Not to the woman who seemed eager to have her as a sister.

Sarah's thoughts short-circuited. "Leave Burbank?" she said. "I don't know, Ellie." Strangely, she found herself considering the idea. She looked around the apartment, at the kitchen where Ellie cooked, at the table where Sarah had shared family meals, at the comfortable couches, at the cup of tea in her hands. She looked at the woman sitting across from her, gazing fondly at Sarah. Ghosts of memories past lurked in every inch of the place - games, holidays, laughter, fights. This was as close to a home as Sarah had ever had, and she truly hated the idea of walking out the door and never returning.

But while the strength of that reaction surprised her, what surprised her more was that she knew the answer to Ellie's question. Sarah would go with Chuck if the choice was hers. The problem was that it wasn't her choice. On multiple levels.

Her cell phone rang, thankfully saving her from having to come up with an answer. She rummaged through her bag and pulled out her phone to find Casey's grim visage staring back at her. "I'm sorry," Sarah said, fully meaning it. "I really need to take this."

The corners of Ellie's eyes drooped, but she covered it well with an understanding smile. Sarah set her mostly empty cup on the coffee table with an apologetic nod and walked towards the front door. She hesitated a bit before answering, partially to give Ellie a chance to collect the cups and head to the kitchen, partially in case she didn't like what Casey had to say.

When Sarah could put it off no longer, she answered. "Walker here."

"Where are you?"

"Ellie's apartment."

"Get over to my place. I know where Bartowski is."

Splinters of ice coursed up her back. Casey had found Chuck first. She had been desperately clinging to the hope that Chuck still believed in her and had left her a way to find him, but either Sarah had failed to solve Chuck's riddle in time, or there had never been a riddle to solve.

Minutes later, Sarah was carefully steering through Casey's dark apartment, navigating the maze of equipment cases littering the floor. A small forest of bonsai trees sat perched seemingly wherever there was flat space available, somehow surviving in what little light slipped in through the cracks in the shuttered blinds, their tiny budded tops looking like moss clinging to ledges in a dank cave.

She managed to navigate to the center of the living room and towards the kitchen without incident. Casey faced her direction, occupied with equipment housed in a metal suitcase on the kitchen counter. Without looking up, he said, "I assume Davis was a dead end."

She took the last few steps to her side of the counter and adopted an uncertain stance, hands on the countertop and one foot perched behind the rest of her on its toes. "Chuck has me running all over town. Davis sent me to Morgan who sent me to Ellie."

"And what does Ellie know?"

"She got a voice mail from Chuck saying he caught a flight this morning."

"Any ideas on the destination?"

"Seattle, but I don't think–"

"Good, that matches what I know."

She kept her tone as neutral as she could, with only moderate success. "What did you find?"

He smirked, his eyes mirthful at her discomfiture. "Still surprised that our boy could up and leave without a proper goodbye?"

"Casey, what did you find?"

He circled the counter, extracting several sheets of paper from a manila folder along the way. "If Bartowski is going to get very far, he needs money, right?"

"Obviously."

"There's still no activity on his credit card or bank card, and no unusual activity in any of his friends' accounts either. However, he had one other place he could get cash."

"What's that?"

" You remember the 'insurance payout' we gave Ellie?"

She nodded. Of course she remembered. When Chuck had totaled Ellie's car in the ravine, there had been no way to replace the car without Ellie suspecting, so the government had engineered a story about a hit-and-run and a wealthy client willing to pay to keep the story off the front pages. It had been the DoD's way of providing Chuck a long overdue paycheck, one that he was happy to pass along to his sister.

Casey said, "Ellie stopped by the lawyer's office first thing yesterday morning to collect the payout. She had two checks cut. The first was in her name and contained the bulk of the money. The second was made out to Bartowski to the tune of five thousand dollars."

"Ellie said she wanted to share the money with him."

"Well, he cashed the check this morning at the Large Mart. Paid fifty dollars for the privilege. Idiot probably thinks it's hilarious he's escaping on the government's dime."

"That last part really doesn't seem like Chuck's style." She pursed her lips in thought. "So we know he has a lot of cash. What's his next move?"

"I know where he used some of it."

"Where?"

"Like Ellie said, he caught a plane."

"To Seattle?"

He handed her a sheet of paper. "At 1118 this morning, Charles Irving Bartowski purchased a one-way ticket for flight 1634 to Seattle at the LAX ticket counter. He paid cash." He handed her a second sheet. "Flight manifest confirms he boarded."

Sarah numbly took the printouts. The news was like a fist tightening around her stomach, threatening to squeeze its contents up her throat. Chuck really was going to Seattle. He had told his sister the truth, and had gone to the last place Sarah would look for him.

"Plane's already on the ground," Casey said.

Sarah looked at the flight information and the clock. After some quick math, her stomach calmed slightly. "There's no way he could be in Seattle so quickly."

"The flight makes one stop. In San Francisco."

After she processed the information and his tone, Sarah decided they were thinking along the same lines. "You think he's going to Stanford."

"Don't you?"

"It would make some sense. Stanford is friendly turf. His ID card is still active, so he has access to all the buildings. But isn't that kind of an obvious move? What if he really is going to Seattle?"

"Well, we'll know soon enough."

"How's that?"

Casey looked down on her with a triumphant smirk. "Because I planted a tracking device in his watch."

Sorry this took so long, but honestly, this was one of the hardest chapters I've ever written. The first Casey section was so difficult to get right. I'm not exaggerating when I say I went through at least a dozen re-writes. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks to Baylink for his feedback early on. I wish I had the patience to send the last version back to him, as he probably would have trouble recognizing it, but for now, I just need to move on to the rest of the story.