A/N: Some dialogue taken from S1E11: Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

Chapter 35

Neal frowned. "You really think the mayor's going to break into our house?" he asked. "Pencil skirts and stiletto heels do not an effective cat burglar make."

Emma snorted. "Come on, mixed in with all the Versace and Prada power suits, she's got to have some designer leisurewear." Alala, Emma thought to herself. That, or maybe Summersalt. Not to mention a decent pair of runners. "Besides," she continued aloud, "she might have someone else doing her dirty work."

"Yeah," Neal nodded. "She might. So, Sheriff Swan… hauled in any thieves lately?"

Emma frowned, thinking. "No. I noticed the locksmith at Granny's the other day and when I asked her about it, she told me it looked like someone had forced the door open, but when I tried to take a report, she told me not to bother, because the only stuff missing were a loaf of bread and a couple of packages of cold cuts and she didn't want to press charges on a person who was just hungry." She tilted her head with a faint smile. "She did say though, that if I found out who it was, to let them know that she'd appreciate it if they washed out their coffee cup instead of leaving it for the morning shift next time."

Neal chuckled. "I like her," he said firmly. His face grew serious once more. "Regina might be behind it, but how would she know we even had the book? We didn't tell her and Henry wouldn't."

"She might have overheard him and me talking at the castle," Emma said slowly. "No. Wait. She was in her car; we stopped talking when she pulled up." She frowned. "Okay. Who else knew about the book?"

Neal shook his head. "I don't know. And I'm not saying the mayor isn't behind it, I'm just saying…"

"That I'm letting my anger run away with me," Emma finished. "Damn."

"Hey, at least you recognize it."

"No, that's not it," Emma replied. "I mean, yeah, I see it, but you know what makes it worse? I can't even notify the police; I'm the police!"

Neal started to laugh.

"It's not funny!" Emma protested. "If word of this gets out, I'm going to be a laughingstock. I'll never live it down!"

"Yeah, you will," Neal reassured her. "I mean, of course, in a small town like this, it might take a couple of years—"

"You're not helping."

"Sorry," Neal said, still smiling a bit. "I mean, as… weird as you've said this place is, let's face it: with no creepy psychos or gruesome murders in a one-hundred-mile radius, sheriff's house gets burgled is news. Even if all the thief took was a book of fairytales."

Emma shook her head, but she was starting to smile too. "At least, I don't have to worry about Sidney writing an article about it for tomorrow's paper."

"There ya go. I knew you'd see an upside eventually."

The response Emma gave him was halfway between a growl and a groan.

Neal left before breakfast the next day to do an early job with Marco. By the time he was finished, it was nearly lunch time. "Go on," Marco told him indulgently. "Just be at the school for half-past two. Some of the kids, they can hit a baseball higher than the school board thought, when they decided not to reinforce the top-story windows."

"Thanks," Neal grinned back. "See you then."

"Give the sheriff my best," Marco added.

"I will."

He got home to discover boxes covering the dining room table with more on the floor stacked around and under it. "How goes the investigation?" he asked, after greeting Emma and—because Sidney was also there—settling for giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

Emma exhaled. "It's taking forever, but I guess you can tell that much. I think we may have found something on Regina, though."

"Oh?" Neal pulled up a chair. "What?"

"Missing records of a funds transfer."

"Missing?" Neal repeated. "Then you didn't actually find them?"

"We found out that they aren't where they should be," Sidney said. "Meaning that Regina likely absconded with them. So," he glanced at Emma, "since you want to do this by the book, the next step would be to get a search warrant to check her home and office."

Emma's face fell. "What judge are we going to find that she doesn't own?" she said with no small amount of exasperation. "We're screwed."

Sidney nodded, his expression unwavering. "Or there's my way."

"I want to do this the right way, Sidney," she said.

"What's right," Sidney retorted, "is exposing her. Sometimes doing a bad thing for a good reason is okay," he turned to Neal while he was speaking, "right?"

"Don't look at me," Neal said, seeing Emma's eyes on him as well. "I'm staying out of this." He hesitated. "I mean, if there's no other way, then I guess maybe… I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a couple of things in my past that you'd say were bad."

"Robbing a jewelry store in Arizona?" Sidney asked dryly.

Neal did his best to fight the wave of annoyance that surged up. "You've done your homework on me."

"At Regina's behest."

"Of course."

"And I'm sure you had a good reason," Sidney offered.

Neal shook his head. "Not really," he said, adopting the nonchalant contrition he generally exhibited when the subject came up at job interviews. "My boss was a drunk and, at least to my mind, lazy. I thought he was making me do more work than I'd agreed to for less money than it was worth. I was annoyed; he was careless; I saw a chance to get rich quick and I took it. I didn't have the easiest time growing up. I got used to making my own opportunities and looking out for number one and I was still in that mindset, so maybe I had understandable reasons, but not good ones." He'd practiced that speech to the point where he could make it without a hint of fear or defensiveness. The trick was to be open about his past, while making it clear that he'd left that part of it behind him. Usually, his candor went over well, and he hoped that it would now, too, because he really didn't feel like fielding more of Sidney's 'gotcha' attitude today.

To his relief, Sidney seemed inclined to drop the subject. "Mr. Cassidy," he said carefully, "that's as may be. I wasn't there. I don't know what your boss was like. But I can tell you that Regina and I go pretty far back. Look what she's done so far. To your son. To Emma. You're right that she had me research you and I should caution you that I turned over everything I uncovered before she got me fired, so it's just a matter of time until she finds something she can use against you. She'll keep coming until she does and she's not going to stop until she's got you all toeing her line, so whatever you do, you've got to do something."

Emma and Neal exchanged a glance. "Okay," Emma said slowly. "We can start by talking to her."

"You bugged her office?" Neal exclaimed that evening. "Emma, Maine's a one-party consent state! Even if you turn anything up, it'll be inadmissible!"

"But I'll know," Emma shot back. "Even if I can't use it, I'll know what she's up to. And once I do, I can find legal support and make it stick."

Neal shook his head. "What if you can't?"

"Then I'll still know. And maybe…"

Neal waited for her to finish. "Emma?"

She shook her head. "You know I keep going back and forth about whether this place is some… extended… brainwashing experiment. Or mind control experiment. Or… Look, I know it sounds crazy, but there is something… off… about this place and Regina's either behind it, or she's as much a victim as everyone else, but maybe this way, I'll start getting some answers." Her eyes widened. "Unless someone was watching me plant it. Or Sidney's in on it. Or," she groaned. "I'm sounding paranoid, right? But what if they really are out to get me?"

Neal shook his head. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're crazy. Maybe you are a little paranoid, but come on: you told me that Regina managed to find out how many death threats you've had in Boston! Not to mention uncover your juvie record."

"That was Sidney," Emma groaned again. "And I'm actually working with him now! I mean, if he's really split from Regina, then that's good. But if he hasn't…" She stopped. Neal waited. "If he hasn't," Emma said slowly, "then he's working with her and this is all playing into her hands. How am I supposed to figure this out?"

"Well," Neal ventured, "it's not like you have to decide tonight." He took a breath. "Okay. You planted the bug. Illegal as hell, Sheriff Swan, but unless she's got you on video doing it, you still have plausible deniability if she finds it. Of course, if she and Sidney are still in cahoots, she might just have you on video."

Emma brought her hand to her forehead. "Great."

"Well, still not terrible. If Regina knows about the bug, either because she has you on camera, or because Sidney told her, what do you think she's likely to do about it?"

Emma thought. "I guess she could report me to… Well, I don't really have a boss, do I? What's her recourse in a case like this again, the state attorney general?" When Neal nodded, she frowned. "Except I don't think she will. Henry told me that nobody ever comes or goes around here, and while that's not entirely true, I can confirm that apart from Herbie and August Booth's motorcycle, I haven't seen a single out-of-state license plate since I got here. Something tells me that Regina doesn't want outsiders coming here, even if it's their job to. If there's something going on she wants dealt with, she'll do it 'in-house'."

Neal didn't know much about curses beyond the stories whispered around the campfires in the village where he'd been born. He'd left the Enchanted Forest long before Papa had delved into such matters. But from the bits he'd retained from Henry's book, the curse was supposed to repel outsiders. This town wasn't on any map. While Emma's rationale was off, he rather suspected that her conclusion was on the money: if there was crime or corruption within the sheriff's office, Regina wouldn't be reporting it to anyone outside of Storybrooke. "Okay," he said. "So…"

Emma frowned. "So, she's either going to confront me with what she knows in the next day or two," her eyes widened, "or she's going to make sure that anything I hear over that bug plays right into her hands. If she discredits me, then I'll lose the town's confidence. And even if I don't resign over it, I won't have the support I need to take her down."

Neal nodded.

"Of course, Sidney might be playing straight with me," Emma added.

"Yeah."

Emma rubbed her forehead. "I keep going back and forth over it and my lie detector isn't helping. I-I mean, I don't believe everything he's telling me, but I don't know if it's my superpower, or if it's just this little voice in my head telling me it's too good to be true, because if he's legit, then everything's about to swing around my way and every time I've felt like that in the past, I've had the rug yanked out from under me. So is this my superpower, or am I just… cynical?"

"Sometimes," Neal said, "I wonder about that, too. Emma," he continued seriously, "you're good at reading people. You always have been. And mostly, your instincts are great. You pick up on body language that goes right past me. Do you have a built-in lie detector on top of that, or is it part life experience, part intuition, part… picking up on tells and non-verbal cues? I don't know. But I do think that when you… when anyone really wants to believe something, you can find reasons to. Usually."

"And I really want to believe that Sidney's legit, because I want to bring down Regina and get Henry away from her."

Neal didn't say anything.

After a moment, Emma took a deep breath and let it out. "As long as I planted that bug," she said, "I guess I should see if it picks up anything. But before I go barreling up to Regina with guns blazing, I need to make damned sure that whatever I hear means what I think it means."

Sidney was waiting for Emma when she arrived at the sheriff station bright and early the following morning. He turned down an offer of coffee, and waited for Emma to turn on the equipment that would receive the transmission from the listening device now attached to the underside of Regina's desktop.

The message light on the non-emergency phone was flashing, and she quickly checked the voicemail. There had been a number of calls. Each needed to be entered in the logs, and while some did not have to be returned, others did. By the time she finished, it was nearly an hour and a half later and Sidney was seated in front of the machines, a headset around his neck, and Regina's annoyed voice clearly emanating from the speakers, as she informed a caller that she was not responsible for the air temperature. "Scintillating," Emma said, joining him. "Find anything good yet?"

Sidney greeted her with a smile. "Yeah, better than good. She made this call a little over an hour ago." He played back a recording. Regina certainly sounded suspicious, promising to meet someone at Access Road 23 that evening with 'the rest of the payment' and insisting that nobody could know about it.

"Who's on the other end?" she asked Sidney.

The disgraced reporter shook his head. "You bugged the office, not the phone," he pointed out.

That much was true enough, but there had been only so much she could do while Regina was still in her office. "Well, we're just going to have to go and find out," she said, not missing a beat.

"Yeah," Sidney nodded.

Emma smiled. "A payoff in the woods. That's promising."

"A payoff using stolen city funds."

Emma's smile widened slightly. "We need to find out who she's meeting."

Neal decided to surprise Emma with a bear claw that afternoon. He'd seen them in Granny's and been pleasantly surprised, even if they did seem to be called apple fritters here. Then a bearded man rudely shoved ahead of him, slapped the counter and hollered, "Hey, Ruby! I'm in a hurry. Just gimme a bear claw and a coffee and put it on my tab!"

Okay, evidently, they used both terms here. He frowned when he realized that the server was taking out the only pastry under the clear glass dome on the counter. "Uh… do you have any more of those?" he asked hopefully.

The dark-haired young woman whose name seemed to be 'Ruby' shook her head. "Next batch should be ready in about half an hour. I've got whoopie pies good to go right now, if you want; they're a Maine specialty."

Neal looked at the item she was offering, an item that—to his mind—looked like a giant Oreo cake: two round devil's food cake domes with a layer of white filling oozing out between them. He thought that Emma might like one, but he knew she liked bear claws. "I'll come back in half an hour," he said. "Thanks."

Once he was out on the pavement, he decided he'd take a walk around the neighborhood. He still didn't know his way about and, since it looked as though he was going to be here for a while, he should at least know where everything was along Main Street. He could see the town hall in the distance and, more to have a destination in mind than for any other reason, he started heading toward it.

He was about a half block away when he saw the main doors open and Sidney Glass emerge from within. Neal's eyebrows shot up. He guessed it was possible that he'd been in the building to call on someone else; the mayor couldn't be the only person who worked at the town hall. Still, why was Sidney looking around so furtively? Neal quickly stepped into a doorway, out of the disgraced reporter's line of sight and pulled his knitted cap lower over his head.

Sidney walked past, carrying a leather valise in one hand. If Henry was right about nobody ever leaving town, Neal didn't think that the guy was taking a trip.

Neal waited a moment before following, using the training he'd received as a bounty hunter—not to mention his years in the jungle of Neverland—to stay out of sight of his quarry. His eyes narrowed when he saw Sidney turn into the sheriff station. He debated for a few moments, before walking in.

Emma was alone. "This is a surprise," she greeted him with a smile. Then, seeing Neal's eyes darting about, she asked, "Something wrong?"

"I'm not sure," Neal said. "I was going to bring you a bear claw," Emma perked up at that, and he smiled as he explained why he didn't have one with him, "…so I went for a walk and I thought I saw Sidney come in here."

Emma shook her head. "No, though we're going to drive out to the woods later." She laughed. "I did not mean that the way it probably sounded!" she exclaimed. "We heard over the wiretap that she's making a payoff tonight. We want to watch and see who she's working with."

Neal started to frown, but he knew the determination in Emma's voice too well. "Be careful," he said. "From everything you've told me, she's probably got an ace or two up her sleeve."

"When both aces are from the same suit, everyone knows there's something fishy," Emma pointed out.

Neal grinned and headed back outside. Weird. He could have sworn he'd seen Sidney come in. Unless…

Slowly, he walked around the station to the fenced lot where the patrol car was parked. Sidney was zipping up the valise and looking quite a bit dusty. He started when Neal approached. "Some… kid… thought he hit a baseball over the fence, but he was afraid that the sheriff would be angry if he went into the lot. I… was just checking under the car, but I didn't find it."

Neal didn't need Emma's superpower to know the guy was lying. "Where's the kid?" he asked.

Sidney blinked nervously. "He should be just around the corner. You want to meet him?" he asked dubiously.

Neal shook his head. "Nah, I'll let you tell him the bad news. Later."

Sidney couldn't get away fast enough. Eyes narrowing, Neal approached the squad car. At first glance, nothing seemed wrong. Then he noticed a small puddle under the door on the driver's side. Looking around, he saw a number of small twigs lying on the asphalt and he picked one up and dipped it into the liquid. Decades on an island with dreamshade had taught him how to handle potentially dangerous substances and he took care to drip nothing on his skin or clothing as he raised the twig to his nose and took a cautious whiff. He recognized the fish oil smell at once and all but ran into the station.

"Got my bear claw?" Emma asked eagerly.

Neal shook his head. "You'd better come around back. I have to show you something."

Nonplussed, Emma followed him back out to the parking lot. Her eyes widened as Neal pointed out the puddle and told her what he suspected. "Brake fluid?" she repeated.

"Smell's a dead giveaway. I can't prove it was Sidney, but whether it was or it wasn't…"

"I can," Emma said. "There should be camera footage of the lot. Let's go back inside and I'll check."

Neal followed Emma back into the station and sat back to wait. Ten minutes later, she looked up angrily. "He's smarter than I thought."

"Sidney?"

"Who else? Remember when I told you about how someone switched the security tapes at the hospital to cover up missing David getting up and walking out? Today's lot footage shows rain."

"It hasn't rained all week."

"I know. That's because it's not today's lot footage. And Sidney was here listening to the bug in Regina's office all morning. I had a couple of calls I had to attend to. Nothing major and I didn't leave any confidential files lying out before I left, but…" She examined the lock in the doorknob of the security room and swore. "Tell me this doesn't look like it was tampered with."

Neal shook his head. "He's really… not very good at this, is he?"

"He was good enough," Emma snapped. "Okay. There's no way I'm getting behind the wheel until I have the car looked at." She sighed. "Guess we're taking Herbie tonight."

"We?" Neal asked.

Emma nodded. "I told you: Regina's meeting someone in the woods tonight. Sidney and I are going to find out who." Neal started to say something, and Emma held up her hand. "I get it. If Sidney cut the brake lines on the car, he's obviously still working with Regina." She frowned. "Unless he's upset about losing the election and he's trying to discredit me so he can get the job after all," she said thoughtfully. She took another breath. "Look. Either way, if I don't go with him tonight, he's going to know I'm onto him. Whereas, if I do…"

"If you do, he thinks he's got you fooled and you can play along until you find out what's really going on," Neal nodded understanding. "I get it. I don't like it," he added, "but I get it."

"You think me heading out the middle of nowhere with a guy who probably just sabotaged my car and the security tapes might not be the smartest move I could be making."

"Is there any way I can answer that which won't land me in the doghouse?"

Emma laughed. "I'll be careful. I'll also wear a wire again. Plus," she added, pulling out her cell phone, "when I call Tillman to check out the car, I'll ask him if he can spare me a loaner for police work. You can tail us in that."

"Not Herbie?"

"I pick Sidney up in a loaner, he knows I know there's something wrong with the patrol car. Whereas, if I pick him up in Herbie, I can tell him that I thought it would be less conspicuous than a black-and-white at this time of night and if Regina sees me, I can tell her I was out for a night-time drive and got lost." She shrugged. "I'd buy that if I were either of them."

For the second time in as many days, Neal found himself sitting in a car—a Honda Civic this time—listening to Emma and Sidney's conversation over a wire. He wished the car wasn't white; he'd rubbed mud over it to make it harder to spot in the moonlight and he'd have to find time to take it to the car wash before returning it, but he could deal.

From what he could hear coming through Emma's wire, Sidney was not happy with the yellow bug, though he hadn't been able to come up with a good reason.

"It's not what I was expecting," he repeated.

"We're undercover," Emma said again. "So's the car. What's the big deal?"

"There isn't one. It's just… not what I was expecting."

Neal smiled in the darkness, as Emma—and, he assumed, Sidney—exited the car. Sidney was warning her that they had to be cautious and think clearly. "Tell me something I don't know," Emma retorted, and Neal smiled. Emma hated being patronized, especially by someone she didn't trust.

Sidney seemed to realize he'd misstepped, for he said quickly, "I only meant—"

"Quiet," Emma snapped. "If Regina hears us, we won't find out who she's meeting or why she's out here."

And then a new voice announced, "She was meeting me."

Neal's smile froze and then fell away. Papa. He should have known.

"Well," Sidney said, "I can't say it's surprising."

"Regina's meeting with Gold, you mean?" Emma asked.

"He does own almost all the land in and around town. If Regina's buying some, there aren't many others she can approach."

"You know them both pretty well, I take it," Emma said softly and Sidney chuckled.

"Well, I can't say anybody really knows Mr. Gold. He keeps himself to himself mostly, and he's not the kind of guy people approach unless they have to. But Regina… I thought I knew her fairly well." He sniffed. "Not quite as well as Sheriff Graham, of course, but… well."

"Sidney? Why did she get you fired?"

Sidney hesitated. "When you first came to town, she asked me to investigate you. I guess that doesn't surprise you. I found out a few things; if you've read my hatchet jobs, I guess you know what, but… it wasn't enough. You're still here. The town hasn't turned against you. Regina doesn't like it when things don't go her way and she needed someone to blame."

"You."

"Me," Sidney confirmed. "I won't apologize for uncovering your past. I'm a journalist, or at least I was. I didn't need to slant it in the direction I did."

"Hang on." Emma pulled out her phone. "I'm just getting a text." She studied the screen. Neal was asking if everything was okay. She was about to confirm when an idea struck her. She let out a heavy groan.

"Problem?" Sidney asked.

Emma nodded. "You could say that. Since I knew we weren't taking the squad car tonight, I figured Tillman could give it its annual service checkup early." She kept looking at her phone as she spoke, but out the corner of her eye, she saw Sidney suddenly look worried. "I wish he'd just tell me instead of getting all mysterious, but he wants me to come in and discuss it in person." She turned to face Sidney with a quizzical expression. "I have no clue what he's going to tell me. Don't suppose you have any insights?"

"Me?" Sidney repeated, stammering a bit. "How would I know anything?"

"I just thought, you being a reporter and knowing Graham better than I did, maybe you'd noticed something wrong with the car before now. How about it? Any idea what Tillman found?"

"Not a clue," Sidney breathed and Emma smiled.

"That's all I need to know." She started the motor. "I'll give you a lift home."

Neal tailed Emma at a distance, pulling past her and parking around the corner when she let Sidney off at his front door. She pulled up behind him a moment later, got out and came to his window with a thunderous expression. He rolled it down, almost before she reached him. "Well?" he asked.

Emma's exhalation was half a growl. "He knew damned well what Tillman found," she said. "And I'm pretty sure he's still working with Regina."

"Only pretty sure?" Neal asked.

Emma sighed. "I'm still can't decide if Regina's in charge, or if someone else is pulling the strings, and Regina's getting hers yanked along with the rest of the town, but whatever's going on, I'm getting close to it."

"Or, maybe this is just a quiet little seaside town with a few… quirks."

Emma shook her head. "I don't need my superpower to know that you don't believe that either."

Neal smiled uneasily. "So… what now?"

Emma shrugged. "Regina did make a payoff in the woods tonight. We know she bought land, and we know she bought it from Gold. What we don't know is why she bought it, but I'm betting that if it were for town business, she wouldn't be bothering with all of this cloak-and-dagger stuff. That suggests it's for personal reasons," she continued, "but we can't know that for sure." She smiled. "Unless we can uncover documents that link her to the land."

"Okay… Neal said slowly. So…?"

"Move," Emma said, and opened the Beetle's door. Neal stepped back to let her out. "Herbie's too conspicuous," she said flatly. "I can pretty much promise he won't be ticketed if we leave him here for an hour or two and go in the loaner."

"Okay," said Neal, trotting to keep up with her. "So where are we headed now?"

Emma shrugged. "The documents are either going to be at Regina's house or her office, and she's probably home by now. That makes this the perfect night to search the town hall."