A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews; the enthusiasm is greatly appreciated! A lot of things happen in this chapter, and some parts are probably a bit dry, so apologies for that. Hopefully, it'll set the stage for what's to come. Let me know what you think – thanks for reading.

It's fairly obvious that the preliminary kitchen-table phase of this investigation needs to end now, for a couple of reasons. First off, Sam knows they can afford zero naïveté when it comes to the people with whom they're potentially dealing. Perhaps the most important thing about any future information they obtain is that its discovery goes undetected, at least until he can figure out what they should do with it. (Internal Affairs clearly isn't an option.)

Beyond the need for discretion, he has another major concern – one who is currently standing at the counter slicing a tomato.

He wouldn't dream of asking Andy to stay out of this. Putting aside for a moment the cringe-inducing fight it would almost certainly trigger (Either you trust me or you don't, Sam, but you can't keep changing your mind, he can pretty much hear her yelling), he knows damn well she'd just keep going on her own. History has proven that that's a recipe for disaster – and even if she has more lives than a cat, there are only so many just-in-the-nick-of-time rescues one can expect to receive.

But neither does it mean that he's perfectly okay with her proverbial fingerprints ending up on whatever they unearth. If there's going to be heat from this – and he's certain there will be – he's going to be the one to take it.

"Sam!" Her voice snaps him out of his inattention.

"What?"

She keeps her eyes from rolling, but just barely. "I asked you twice if you want cheese on this."

"Oh." He blinks a couple times. "Sure. Cheese, no cheese, I don't care."

She temporarily abandons the sandwich fixings and comes back to the table; leans down behind him and wraps an arm around his chest. "Take a break. Okay? There's not much more we can do from here. In the morning, we'll be back at work, and we can research all of this a little more closely."

He snorts. "Right. So should we just go announce to Santana that we're investigating him, or wait until he audits who's been looking him up?"

"I don't think he can…"

"Personnel files, McNally. Bank records. If it's confidential and need-to-know only, then it's on our wish list." He sighs. "I have no idea what to do. Where to start, how to get the information we need so we can get the information we actually need…"

She rests her chin on his shoulder. "Who can we trust?"

Which is how Sam finds himself in Oliver's office nineteen hours later, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly as he searches for a way to begin.

Oliver looks at him patiently at first, then with mounting impatience, and finally stands up, tapping the desk with both hands. "Well, buddy, it was really kind of you to visit. It gets lonely up here in my glass tower sometimes, and I appreciate your stopping in, but unfortunately paperwork doesn't complete itself, so…"

"If you needed to look into allegations made against an officer without anyone knowing you were looking into it, where would you start?" Sam finally asks, in a bit of a rush.

Oliver momentarily glances behind Sam at the closed door, then slowly returns to his chair. "Would this have anything to do with the massive bureaucratic headache I've had for a couple weeks now?"

Sam nods. "We think it goes way beyond those two events."

"One, I don't want to know who 'we' consists of. And two, I assume the officer in question is not, say, the equivalent of your average beat cop," Oliver murmurs.

"Think higher profile. Much higher."

Oliver looks away; inhales slowly through his nose before puffing air out through pursed lips in steady increments. Sam hears muffled-whisper counting as he exhales.

"What's that about?" he inquires, attempting to keep his tone curious rather than bewildered.

"Celery's big into measured breathing for stress relief. I keep trying, and guess what? Brown liquor still works better." He laughs humorlessly. "So officially, all I can tell you is that without clear and properly obtained evidence, there's no cause to proceed in an investigation of this nature. And should you come across such evidence, your job is to turn it over to Internal Affairs immediately."

And unofficially? Sam wonders, his stomach sinking a bit. "Right. Well, thanks, I mean…"

"Did I tell you what happened last weekend?"

Sam wrinkles his brow. "Can't say you did."

"I had the girls, and Maddie – God, what a kid – she was trying to stream some video, I think it was cats falling off things, and ended up downloading a virus onto my computer. I mean, Sam, it was crazy. The main screen looked fine, and then you'd click on a program, any program at all, and everything would just be covered in frogs. Just cartoon frogs jumping everywhere and ribbiting, the whole thing."

What the hell is he getting at? "Wow, that, uh… sounds like a mess."

"Huge mess. So you know what I did? I called Sebastian Cho. He does our IT stuff, he's great with computers. And he was nice enough to come over that afternoon and give me a hand."

"So he fixed it."

"Yeah, it wasn't easy, either. See, there are all of these built-in security features that you have to override in order to delete the virus from the mainframe – or something like that, there was a lot of tech lingo being thrown around. All I know is that whatever was blocking things up, Sebastian got around it. And when he was done, it was like nothing had ever happened." Oliver holds his gaze, willing him to get the message.

"So. Sebastian is good with that kind of stuff, huh?" Sam remarks deliberately. "That could be good to know, for future reference."

"Mm-hmm. And the craziest part about it is that I was expecting to come in on Monday and have everyone laugh at me about it. Who lets their kid download a computer virus anymore? How '90s of me, right? But the funny thing is… Sebastian didn't say anything. To anyone."

Sam nods knowingly. "He's not a big talker, then?"

"Not a word." Oliver grins. "So that was my weekend, and this," he gestures to the large stack of triplicate forms on his desk, "is my reality."

"Well. I'll leave you to it, boss."

On his way out, Oliver's wall calendar catches Sam's eye. The upcoming weekend is circled in red, while the one that just passed has a 'Z' written in the corners of the Saturday and Sunday boxes. He looks back at Oliver, who's already cursing under his breath at the document before him.

Sam suppresses a smirk as he pushes the door open. Well, he did say he wanted to take improv classes once when he was drunk.

Just as Oliver said (or rather, didn't say), Sebastian Cho is a remarkably quiet individual. Sam is fairly vague with his request – how to access files without being traced, for the purposes of an investigation – and Sebastian goes about setting up a proxy server on Nash's computer, the screen of which isn't visible to passersby. (Just as well she's out on a call.) As he works, he maintains an expression so blankly calm that Sam frankly wonders if everything is all right in there.

"You're all set," Sebastian announces. "If you need any help, I'll be here for another couple of hours."

Sam thanks him and watches him head back to his desk. He has no idea whether or not they can trust the guy, but right now, they have no choice.

Getting into Santana's work email is probably easier than it should be. The password hint is "first car you crashed, right to left, cumpleaños de mi amor." Sam remembers when Oliver and Jerry – maybe someday it won't sting when he thinks of him – dragged him to the commissioner's gala five years ago, and Santana definitely told an anecdote about totaling a cruiser on his second shift as a rookie; he types 'cruiser' in backwards, and scrolls back in his text messages to see what day Andy was venting about Duncan making a 'happy birthday' video for his mom on his phone instead of paying attention to the radio.

After clicking through a couple of folders, he finds an encrypted document that Santana seems to have sent to himself from his personal address. He gets in with the same password, this time with the numbers first; originality doesn't seem to be Santana's forte, which Sam can only hope will work to their advantage. Turns out he's struck gold; it's a master list of his user names and passwords – which do in fact vary from one place to another. He can't risk anyone seeing this come up in the printer, so he quickly looks through and makes a note in his phone of the most pertinent data. He'll move it someplace a little less conspicuous once he's out of work.

He's barely logged out when Andy bursts through the door, already back in street clothes. "You're never going to believe this," she stage-whispers.

He looks up with a start. "I could say the same. What's up?"

She perches on the edge of Nash's desk. "Ever heard of Armour North Security?"

"The biggest private security firm in the city? Yeah, I have."

"Chloe and I responded to a call there this afternoon when EMS wanted backup. A receptionist had a seizure, but whoever called it in was panicking so much that they didn't know if something worse was going on, but anyway… guess who was walking through the lobby."

"Santana?" Sam narrows his eyes.

"Yup. And a bunch of other familiar-looking people, so when we finished the call, I told Chloe I was craving a latte and made her run into a coffee shop with a line out the door so I could look a few things up."

"And?"

Andy grins. "Turns out he's on their board of directors. And so are four different members of the city council, and the Crown Attorney."

Sam looks at her, nonplussed. "Okay. Except it's not illegal to serve on private company boards, and prominent people like to do that sometimes."

"Do those companies have a CEO whose family has mob ties?" Andy asks.

At Sam's expectant silence, she continues. "Sara Harmon was a housewife who never finished university, and six years ago she suddenly became the head of a billion-dollar company? Doesn't make sense, right? Except for this." Andy holds up her phone, open to a photo.

Sam skims the obituary screencap. "Margaret Reilly Nolan, 82… Predeceased by first and second husbands, survived by children John Andrew Reilly, Frank Nolan Jr., and Sara Nolan Harmon." He glances at Andy. "The same John Andrew Reilly who runs with the NAC gang?"

"And who got a furlough from prison for his mother's funeral. Any thoughts on what his job title was before he got locked up the last time?"

"I don't know," Sam drawls. "Wouldn't be CEO of Armour North, would it?"

"Ding ding ding. Congratulations," Andy says with a smile. "You've just won the grand prize."

"New car?"

Andy scrunches her nose, as if in deep thought. "Mmm. How about an evening of takeout and TV with me?"

"Not sure. It doesn't have that new-car smell, so…" He stands up, deftly dodging her backhand swat of retaliation. "What do you say we get out of here?"

As they turn toward the door, though, Oliver passes over the threshold, wearing a somber all-business expression. "Hey, Sam. We've got a problem."

Sam feels his burgeoning smile die instantly. "What's going on, Oliver?" he somehow manages to ask in a casual tone.

"Do you remember Nathaniel Gallant, who we brought in for robbery a few weeks ago?"

Not what I was expecting to hear. Thank God. "Yeah," Sam responds, a bit perplexed. "I talked to him at the scene and then again in interrogation, he had some less than pleasant things to say about cops, but eventually he gave up his partner. Made bail, awaiting trial."

"And do you remember who the arresting officer was?"

"Epstein." He hasn't the slightest clue where this is going, and based on her face, neither does Andy.

"That's what I remember hearing, too. Funny thing is, Detective," Oliver says much too calmly for Sam's liking, "Epstein's arrest report is gone. No evidence of him ever having filed one."

"Could it have gotten accidentally erased somehow?" Andy queries.

"It should still exist as having been written and then deleted. We do have a record of Gallant being booked, and video surveillance of the interrogation, but what actually happened at the scene is now, from an official standpoint, anybody's guess."

"That makes no sense," Sam replies. "But it has what to do with me?"

"Mr. Gallant has come forward with a complaint about being roughed up at the scene," Oliver tells him, reading from a piece of paper in his hand. "Says the cuffs were on too tight, cut his wrist, and he that was 'slammed into the outside of the squad car repeatedly' and 'verbally abused with racial slurs.'" Oliver looks up, crumpling the page in his fist. "And the complaint includes a positive identification of Detective Sam Swarek as the one responsible."

"That's ridiculous," Sam protests. "Epstein was there, he made the arrest, and none of that happened."

"Sure, I believe you. Except we have no documentation to back it up, and Gallant is threatening to go public with this," Oliver says wearily. "This really could not have come at a worse time, Sam. I don't know what else to say, except get in touch with your union rep. This has the potential to become a very, very big deal."

Neither Sam nor Andy says a word until they walk through her front door. "He can't know," she promises emphatically. "It's not possible."

"Maybe it is." Sam tells her about his foray into Santana's email account and the information he uncovered. "Maybe he has a system set up so that if someone else logs on, he gets notified."

Andy contemplates this for a moment. "Try one of the passwords," she says suddenly. "If he knows anything happened, he would've changed it."

They find a site that will bounce their IP address through some other country, and Sam goes for the bank account login – probably the most sensitive, and what he'd imagine would be the first password that Santana would change if he suspected anything. It works. So does the personal email, the investment-firm account… everything.

"So he doesn't know," Sam states doubtfully.

Andy shakes her head, clicking through the statement histories. "But we now know that he had a large cash deposit made into his money-market account three days before the DuraCorps partnership was announced. And… a lot of cash deposits, actually."

"Write it down?" Sam requests. "We don't know if we'll ever see this again."

As Andy makes notes, Sam remembers what Santana said before he left, the night of the bomb and Ted McDonald's death. It's a shame the man took his own life, but we'll never know why. Some things are just not worth getting curious about, Detective.

"Sam."

He looks up. Andy's pointing at the screen.

"Two days ago, $10,000 was withdrawn in a certified check, made out to cash. It's already been cashed, and Santana must've requested a photo receipt."

The endorsement on the back of the check's image is borderline illegible, but Sam would bet anything that the signature belongs to Nathaniel Gallant.

Whether or not the commissioner knows yet what they're up to, Sam is absolutely certain Santana's had an eye on him for weeks. Whatever's going on with Gallant – the sudden complaint, the money, the bizarre disappearance of official records – can't be construed as anything but a warning shot.

Sam just hopes they can figure out how to fire back.