Remain Faithful, part four, [White Collar]
Part 1 / 2 / 3 /
Agent Burke rests his hand on the small of Neal's back, gently guiding him inside the apartment, and for a moment Neal feels warm again. The touch and the feeling of safety are both gone in the next second, leaving him with nothing but a welter of confused emotions. Exhaustion dulls them, but not enough, and all he wants is to escape reality and sleep. Keeping up a facade of being even mildly all right and answering the cops' questions for the last four hours has wiped him out. He says something smart-ass before they go in and that's it: he's got nothing left to give.
He leaves the bag he packed when they stopped in at June's to explain that Neal would be staying with Burke until they knew who killed Kate under a table by the door. Nothing in it really feels like his yet, not like the personal stuff Neal picked up for himself when he bolted for Mozzie's place. He's got to get back there and pick those things up or buy more. Burke guides him through the small rooms, showing him where everything is. Neal follows, trying to listen, but all he's getting is that Burke's talking. He finds himself leaning against the wall outside the bathroom, hoping it will hold him up. It's exhausting just trying to think out his next step and now he's stuck here with no toothbrush or underwear and he wonders how much longer he'll be able to cope.
Going on the run with Kate seems easy in retrospect. He always knew he could stop, Neal realizes, because he wasn't the one being chased. No one cared about catching him.
He doesn't know his eyes are shut until Burke's hand on his arm startles him and he jerks away and stumbles into the door jamb. The pain focuses him back into the present, though.
"You look ready to drop," Burke says kindly.
Neal blinks and manages a nod. His throat is too tight to talk. Burke hasn't done anything to frighten him, but the wall and his hand on a still sore bruise combine to send a jolt of remembered terror through him.
"Go ahead and sit down. I'll make up the couch for you."
Neal nods again before making his slow way back to the main room. He sits on the edge of Burke's recliner; if he sits back, he'll go to sleep there. Even so, he sways back a couple of times, only the sensation of falling snapping him into wakefulness again.
He barely registers Burke bringing out sheets and a blanket, even a pillow; it seems to happen in slide show flashes.
"Okay," Burke says, making Neal lift his drooping head. "Don't go anywhere if you wake up before me."
He leaves Neal then, to Neal's everlasting relief.
The couch is miserable, but the sheets are clean and soft against Neal's skin when he strips down to a tank shirt and his boxers. Sleep claims him before he can make sense of everything that has happened in the previous forty-eight hours. The last thing running through his mind is the way Burke's hand felt, a tactile promise that if Neal fell, someone would catch him.
~*~
His finger snaps again.
Neal curls his hand to his chest, lost in the nightmare, reliving the heavy hands shoving him against the wall just inside the doorway of his building. His messenger bag is ripped away from him and pawed through, but he quickly knows this is no mugging.
"Quit fighting, Caffrey."
Muggers don't know your name.
He thrashes until the muzzle of a gun taps against his throat, just under his jaw. The gun smells of cordite and oil and the leather of the holster it's kept in. "My name's Fowler. Agent Fowler, in case you're stupid enough to think about taking this to the cops." With his free hand he flips open a badge case, then makes it disappear again.
Neal freezes, pinned against the wall, and swallows involuntarily, feeling the cold metal against his Adam's apple. He shakes his head minutely. Fowler smiles. "Good boy."
The first fist sinks into Neal's unprotected belly and he almost doubles over, but the gun stops him.
"That's right, hold still."
He keeps his feet because of the wall behind him as the two other men beat the shit out of him. They concentrate the blows to his gut and his ribs. He's panting and barely aware at the end. Only the gun keeps him conscious. The last three blows are to his face, almost afterthoughts or punctuation, something to make sure the damage shows. Through it all, the foyer stays empty. It's strange, Neal thinks between gasps, that no one has come in or gone out. The sun comes through the glass in the doors and lights the tile floor with color. There is a fragile splatter of crimson from the hit that split his lip open. The color is fabulous against the faux marble, not clean, but pure. Neal fixates on it until all he knows is scarlet.
"Tougher than you look, kid," Fowler says. He smiles again. His eyes are emptier than those of the two thugs with him. Smarter too. He's not enjoying himself, he's just doing a job. Somehow that's scarier. "Now just two more things."
Bloody spittle runs down Neal's chin. He can't incline his head enough to spit it away without hitting Fowler. Expectorating in his face might be fine and defiant, but Neal doesn't want his head blown off, so it's not worth it.
"One, tell Kate: he wants it back."
Neal's eyes widen in shock. All of this, everything that's happened in the last month, has all been a message for Kate.
Fowler's late forties to early fifties, short cut hair, pale eyes, pink skin, bad suit, Neal's never going to forget him. He nods to the thug who is mostly holding Neal up on his left side. The thug takes Neal's hand, singles out his little finger, and begins to bend it backward. The agony builds and builds, all out of proportion to a single finger, and Neal slams his head back against the wall, breathing hard and trying to swallow a scream.
"Two, next time it's both hands."
Neal's finger snaps.
He jerks awake, sweating and sick to his stomach, pain still pulsing through his finger and up his arm. At first he thinks he's on Mozzie's couch again, but after a panicky moment of confusion, he remembers he's in Agent Burke's apartment. He's alone - Burke's in the bedroom - and unhurt. The sheet and blanket Burke provided are tangled around him, half trailing on the floor. Once Neal can breathe again, he scrambles back into the corner of the couch and curls into a ball of misery.
He doesn't sleep again. Every time he closes his eyes, Fowler's there and his finger snaps.
Eventually, he cracks and pulls out his phone to call Mozzie. Mozzie answers on the first ring, despite the hour, and listens as Neal describes his day, beginning with Elizabeth no longer Burke Mitchell and ending with sleeping on Peter Burke's couch. Predictably, Mozzie's unhappiness over any association with the authorities is accompanied by a rant over not trusting the FBI, but undercut by a thread of genuine concern. He ends by asking, "Are you sure about what you're doing?"
"No," Neal admits, "but, Moz, I've got no idea what else to do."
~*~
Neal tips Byron's trilby over one eye, straightens his shoulders, and follows Agent Burke out of the elevator onto the twenty-first floor of the Federal Building, down the hall and through the glass doors into the FBI's White Collar Unit. He pastes on a carefree smile, even though it's an act, because like he told Mozzie, he doesn't know what else to do. Cooperating with Agent Burke makes him uncomfortable, which is foolish, but years of being around Kate and Mozzie have inculcated him with more than a little of their distrust and disdain for the authorities.
And then there's Fowler.
It's an open plan office and several agents working at their desks lift their heads to observe them. A very sharp looking woman actually leaves her desk and heads over.
"So this is where you work?" Neal asks.
"My office is up there," Burke answers with a nod to the second level.
"Hmm."
Neal wonders if the fishbowl effect makes the agents working here any more productive or honest. He dislikes the glass walls, even if they do give better light than just fluorescents. It makes him miss the reference book-lined cubbyhole he got to call an office at the auction house. The reminder annoys him: he left a few items in his desk there and never had a chance to retrieve them. He makes himself smile at the woman as she approaches rather than show how unhappy he is.
"Diana," Burke greets her.
"Boss." She surveys Neal calmly, recognition in her gaze, cataloging the vintage suit he's wearing, the fading remnants of the beating he took, and probably the bruised-looking bags under his eyes. She hands Burke the file in her hand.
"What's this?" Burke weighs the thin file in his hand.
"Background on Neal Caffrey." Her dark eyes hold a light of amusement as she speaks. "There's nothing there to tell where he is, though." She manages to get that out with a straight face. It's impressive. Neal wasn't sure if any other FBI agents would have a sense of humor or if it might be just Burke.
Neal grins at her while Burke grunts. "Diana, this is Neal Caffrey."
"I guessed," she replies dryly. "There are pictures in the file."
"Good ones, I hope?" Neal teases, his grin just getting wider as her expression hardens into skepticism.
Burke glances at Neal. "Don't grin in the office. Neal, this is Agent Diana Barrigan."
"Diana," Neal says and tips the hat. It makes her smile back, but there's no spark there, none of the tiny signs he's learned to notice when someone is attracted to him. Nothing he'll have to pretend to be oblivious to while still trying to win her over.
"Neal," Diana replies, acknowledging the amusement and nothing more.
It makes Neal smile for real.
"None of that," Burke says. "No flirting."
Neal shrugs his acceptance. It's just habit, something that comes naturally to him. Shutting it down might be a relief.
An imposing black agent arrives before Neal can say anything else. "Neal, this agent Clinton Jones. Jones, Neal Caffrey."
"You found him that fast?" Jones asks Burke.
"Hah. I found him," Neal corrects. Agent Burke opens his mouth to object, but really can't. It's a stupid, tiny thing, but Neal's going to take his wins where he can and it feels good to best the agent even if he does like him.
Jones gives Neal a neutral smile. Neal smiles back, then frowns, realizing he remembers this agent. "You were there when Kate was arrested."
It throws Jones off, just the way Neal meant it to. Jones even looks guilty for a second.
"Good memory," Burke comments. He's glancing through the file Diana handed him. Neal vows to get a look at it; he wants to know what the FBI thinks they know about him. "That should be useful."
"Already told you I don't know where Kate kept anything," Neal replies.
Burke doesn't believe it, but Neal just smiles.
"Neal's going to give a statement," Burke tells Diana. "When he does, I'm going to want you to begin digging - quietly - into the name he gives us."
"And then?" Neal asks.
"Then you're going to sit in my office while I figure out if you're still a target or just collateral damage so they could get at Kate."
"I need to start looking for another job."
"Check the classifieds," Burke says. "Though I'm pretty sure June would underwrite your painting career if you asked her."
Neal scowls at him. "I'm not scamming June into supporting me."
Burke snaps the file closed. "All right. But you're still staying here today."
~*~
Agent Burke disappears into his boss's office just before lunch and doesn't reappear. Neal does read the paper, even the classifieds, pokes around Burke's desk and contemplates trying to guess his password and getting on his computer, but decides the odds aren't good enough. He finds a legal pad and steals a pen and sketches randomly, doing an ink cityscape of the view from the window, but after that he ends up sketching Kate and has to stop when he sees it turning into a picture of her death.
Mozzie would say he's being morbid; Neal knows he's just torturing himself, imagining how she must have looked. Somewhere there are crime scene photos. He doesn't want to see them. He needs to remember Kate vital and alive.
Restless, he pokes his head out of the office. Down in the bullpen, Jones and Diana are busy at work. Burke told him to stay in the office, but there are limits to Neal's obedience. He leaves his hat to show he'll be back and strolls out. He's almost at the glass doors when Jones arrives at his shoulder.
"Going somewhere?"
Neal angles another smile at him. "Washroom?"
Jones walks Neal out and down the corridor to the door of the men's room. Like a hall monitor in school, Neal thinks. "Please tell me you aren't going in with me."
It pulls a smile from the big agent. "No windows."
When he's done and his hands are washed, Neal amuses himself for a second looking around the men's room and figuring out how to get out without using the door. When he comes out and Jones is waiting, leaning against a wall, checking something on his phone, Neal has to say, "Ventilation ducts."
Jones pockets his phone. "Come on, Houdini. Boss says we should get lunch and some coffee. He's still stuck in a meeting."
"Let me get my hat."
"What's with the hat?"
"Don't you like it?" Neal asks once he has the trilby. He tries out a trick that leaves it on his head. It's exhausting pretending he's silly and entertaining, but the alternative is still breaking down in front of a bunch of strangers. He isn't going to do that. He's going to act and keep on acting and no one's going to see what a mess he is inside. He's going to make Kate proud. He's going to fool the FBI into doing what he can't and then he's going to see her killer pay. He sweeps the hat off just in time to gesture Jones ahead of him into the elevator. "I like it. It has style."
A snort of laughter is Neal's reward for his clowning.
"Anything you're in the mood for?" Jones asks amiably as they walk out of the building.
Nausea churns through Neal's stomach, but he hides it. "I'll bow to your better knowledge of the dining establishments around here."
The sun shines like Neal's life didn't fall apart only days ago, New Yorkers stride along the sidewalk as purposefully as ever, and Neal knows more than one woman gives him and Jones a second admiring look. He tips the hat lower over his eyes, so no one will see that the smile on his mouth doesn't reach them.
Jones pays for lunch for both of them and Neal says nothing. He's low on cash and it's second nature anyway; Kate never paid for a meal she could scam from someone else. He only orders a salad though.
Setting his fork down, Neal looks at the greens left before pushing the plate slightly away.
"Agent Jones - "
"Just Jones, it's easier."
"Ah. Thanks." Neal gestured at his plate. "For this too."
"So what do you want?" Jones asks.
Neal glances up at him. "I need to get my mail."
"Where?"
"You'll - "
"Yes." Jones smiles. "Peter isn't that inflexible, Caffrey. C'mon. It took a smart guy to figure out how to catch your girlfriend. He wants to make sure you don't disappear, not lock you up."
Since Jones makes it easy, they head for the post office where Neal has a box. He'll need to switch everything to a new address at June's, but the PO box has always been separate from his apartment. He set it up after Kate went to jail, as a just in case method of staying in touch with her. Even Mozzie doesn't know about it.
Neal doesn't expect anything to be there. Nothing ever has been. Kate's letters from Danbury always came to his apartment. It's still habit to check it though. He'll abandon it after this, since he's led Jones to it.
The cheap envelope addressed to him and lying in the box makes Neal freeze.
"Everything okay, Caffrey?" Jones asks from just behind him.
His heart beats so hard he feels it in his wrists and his throat.
Reaching out, Neal's hand stays steady. Touch tells him there isn't much in the envelope, nothing more than two sheets of paper. There's no return address, of course, just his name and the PO box number scrawled hurriedly in Kate's familiar hand.
"Yeah," Neal replies unthinkingly. He shoves the envelope inside his coat. "Let's get back."
~*~
His key turns to water and drips through his fingers onto the floor in brass colored droplets that sizzle when they hit. Neal shakes his hand and stares at the palm, finding a perfect burn on his palm in the intricate shape of a skeleton key.
The door to the apartment opens for him when he presses his palm flat to it. Empty white space stretches in every direction, so bright he can't see. He catches the door jamb on either side and holds on to keep from pitching forward. His left little finger snaps again, bone breaking with a gunfire bang.
His fingers clutch at the edges of the doorway, sinking right through the dissolving material and he's falling, reaching out desperately to catch at anything. He falls into the light only to find himself standing on the bare, wooden floor of his apartment.
Neal stays still but the apartment revolves around him. Everything is gone. Everything. There is just the floor and the white walls and the bare windows letting in the bloody sunset.
He shuffles forward, afraid, looking for any sign he was ever here. His heart pounds harder and harder and he stretches his hands out as if he'll feel something he can't see.
His feet slip and he looks down. The crimson light from the windows is pooling on the floor, darkening into blood. He's standing in Kate's blood and it's spreading across the floor in a flood because there's nothing to stop it, not his things, not his paintings, not his hands because they can't hold on to anything.
Neal opens his mouth when the warm tide rises high enough, swallows, and drowns.
He jerks awake gasping for breath, still reaching for anything to hold onto, and remembers he's sleeping on Burke's couch again, because Neal's the FBI's only link to a dirty agent and that means he's in danger. His heart hammers in his chest and he fists the thin blanket in his hands.
"Damn it."
Neal bends his knees up and leans his forehead into them. Every night his brain subjects him to a new nightmare. This one amalgamates knowing Kate died in his apartment with the shock of walking into his apartment after his last visit to Kate and finding all his paintings - and everything else - gone.
He wonders what happened to the paintings. All the rest, that's just things, but the paintings are all pieces of him. Not knowing keeps him scraped raw inside, along with everything else.
Desperate for a distraction, he fishes Kate's letter from his sketchbook - he's kept it there since he's fairly certain Burke isn't going to page through it when he's not looking - and pulls the sheets of cheap paper out to read again. It's too dark to see the words, but in the end he doesn't need to see. He just wants to touch something she touched.
~*~
Diana slaps the file down on Peter's desk like it has personally offended her. She gives Neal a skeptical look in the next second, telegraphing that whatever's in it is something she doesn't think he should hear. Neal keeps his head down, watching through his lashes, scraping his pencil over his sketchbook randomly, and listens.
She braces one hand on Peter's desk and leans close. Her voice is lowered, but Neal makes it out anyway.
"The second ballistics report you ordered came back. The slug's a match for a service weapon registered to an agent with OPR."
Burke's "Damn it," is equally quiet, but intense enough Neal nearly twitches. He searches his memory, trying to identify the acronym. OPR, OPR... Office of... He has a good memory and Mozzie has ranted about nearly every branch of the government at one time or another. It comes to him. Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI's answer to Internal Affairs.
Every agent eventually takes a turn with them if they want to move up in the organization.
"He hasn't showed up here," Peter says quietly.
"No," Diana agrees. "There are no OPR investigations running on anyone in the New York office and he hasn't tapped any agents here to look at anyone else."
"We're between inspections." Burke flips open the file and stares at the contents. Neal stops pretending he's still sketching. "Hard to miss when the rent-a-goons move in for a month."
Diana straightens up, crossing her arms in front of her instead, and frowns. "Rogue," she murmurs.
"Neal," Burke says.
Neal lifts his head. He keeps his expression calm. Hopes Burke doesn't see his pulse beating fast at his neck. Kate always said to watch for that. He can only speculate if the FBI trains their agents to look for the same kind of tells. It occurs to him that he's thought about and used the things Kate would tell him more in the last few days than he ever did while he was with her. He can't decide whether he should be sad or proud.
"Come here."
He sets the sketchbook aside and rises from the spot he's made his along with Burke's office visitor's chair. "What?"
Burke pulls a color photo free of a paper clip and holds it out. "Take a look."
Neal glances at the face front identification picture. He feels sick for a second, sweat prickling under his arms and on his upper lip. The buzzcut hair, the pale eyes, the sneer... they're all there and he'll always associate them with agony and helplessness. "Yeah," he chokes out, just controlling the urge to step back. His good hand goes to his splinted finger. "That's Fowler."
"Garrett Fowler," Burke confirms the whole name as he places the picture back in the personnel file. "This is going to get dirty."
Diana sneers. "It already is. He's a murderer."
Neal stays stock still while wondering how far Burke will go for him if it means taking down another FBI agent. He knows Burke has been counting on Fowler being an imposter. Maybe he should start worrying over how far Agent Burke will go to protect the Bureau.
Burke slaps his hand down on the file. Neal and Diana both jump. His face is set, grim and hard with anger. "Find him. Then I'll bring him in myself." He shoves his desk chair back and surges to his feet. When Diana doesn't move immediately, he glares at her. "Now. I've got to brief Hughes."
"You're going to arrest him?" Neal asks.
The glare switches to Neal, but finally softens. "Yes I am."
Neal finally relaxes and takes a silent, deep breath.
"Do you believe me?" Burke asks.
"Sure."
"No, do you believe me?" Burke insists.
Neal meets his eyes. "Yes, I believe you," he says. The irony hits him a second later. He told Kate he loved her. He never said he believed her. But he believes in Peter Burke.
~*~
He's still in the office five hours later when Burke, Jones, and Diana return, walking Garrett Fowler through the White Collar office, hands cuffed behind him. Jones has one big hand curled around Fowler's arm, steering him between the desks, then up the stairs.
Neal stands at the glass wall of the office and waits until Fowler's gaze catches on him to lift his hand, the one with the splinted finger, and give him a slow wave. Fowler's shoulders stiffen and his step stutters. His head turns to keep staring back at Neal.
Neal smiles at him.
Burke's walking behind Fowler and gives Neal a look that says stop taunting Fowler, before giving Fowler a little push.
The angle's wrong, but Neal memorized everything in the White Collar office, so he knows Fowler's either being taken to Hughes' office or the conference room. He'd lay money on it being the conference room, even if Hughes means to talk to the rogue agent at some point. The handcuffs on Fowler's wrists are for humiliation as much as restraint. He won't get the courtesy of an office visit after that parade through the office.
Neal thinks maybe Burke did that for him. A wave of satisfaction and gratitude crashes through him.
The satisfaction doesn't last long enough to savor, because the truth hits Neal in the gut: so Fowler's in custody. Even if Burke puts him away, Kate's still dead.
He drops back into the chair he's made his own and bends over, trying to breathe through the brutal truth, hands threading through his hair and tugging at it, fighting tears again.
Kate's still dead.
~*~
Neal slides his way out of the White Collar office in the aftermath of Fowler's arrest. He figures it's safe enough, even if Fowler isn't in it by himself, his partner or boss will need to replace him before doing anything new.
He needs to get away from Special Agent Burke for a while. It's been a week and Neal hasn't been out of Burke's control since leaving Premier Events' premises. It's stifling him. Except for Mozzie, Neal's not used to anyone looking out for him. He's relies on himself. Half an hour in the open air, not answering to anyone, just moving, feels necessary. Plus he really needs to talk to Moz about Kate's letter.
As soon as he can, Neal finds a shop selling phones and buys a burner, using it to call one of Mozzie's numbers and leave a short, enigmatic message. Mozzie will decode it and meet Neal in the park. From there, they can slip off to either the studio loft or one of Mozzie's safehouses and talk in peace.
He really wants to get back to the studio. There's an itch Neal gets under his skin, when he hasn't had a chance to paint for a while. It's like withdrawal, he imagines.
He makes the call and heads for the park bench Mozzie specifies. Once there, he tips his face up to the sun for a moment, searching inside himself for some quiet. Seeing Fowler in cuffs helps, but the hole where Kate filled his life still gapes open inside him. The sounds of birds, of people passing by immersed in their own lives, the city sounds of traffic and sirens, HVACs and helicopters, along with the endless mutter and murmur of a million voices settles through Neal, grounding him again. New York is home, it's why he always came back when Kate left, and the city, the streets and people, still inspire and console him somehow.
He takes out Kate's letter and reads it again. The first page is a stilted note, though written in Kate's gorgeous cursive. Kate loved the classics: there's a clue in her words, something only Neal will recognize. The second sheet of paper is filled from top to bottom, side to side, with numbers, symbols, and letters, no stops, spaces or punctuation to make decoding it easier.
Neal studies both sides of each sheet of paper, then the edges, then puts them to his nose, trying to find any scent. Nothing stands out. He needs to remember Kate had very little time between breaking out and sending the letter before going on to his apartment. Whatever she did, it won't be very elaborate. The answer must lie in the note.
"Ah, there you are," Mozzie says, startling Neal into looking up from the two pages. "Didn't I say the south side?"
"No, you said the east side."
"So you came to the north side."
Neal smiles at him. "One to the left, just like always."
Mozzie beams in satisfaction. "Just in case."
"I don't think the burner I bought ten minutes before was bugged."
"You've been in the hands of the Suits, mon frère," Mozzie says. "I should sweep you for bugs. You don't have any missing time, do you?" He peers at Neal in concern. "They could have implanted you with - "
Laughter, a little awkward and brittle, is the only response available to Neal. "Mozzie, I swear, I haven't been implanted with anything." He doesn't mention missing time is more often a symptom of disassociative identity disorders. Mozzie would not be pleased and Neal's in no mood to listen to a lecture on modern psychology, if he was lucky enough that Mozzie didn't ask why Neal knew that in the first place.
"So you say."
Neal holds up the two pages in his hand. "Kate sent this before she was killed."
Mozzie plucks both sheets away, reminding Neal his friend is a superb pickpocket: those hands are fast. The letter is gone before Neal can tighten his grip. Just as well, if he had, the paper might have torn.
"Printed," Mozzie states of the second page.
"I noticed."
"Of course you did."
They'll take the letter to one of Mozzie's safehouses and examine it under several different kinds of light, but for now, the sunny afternoon light is good enough. Mozzie angles the first page one way, then the other, looking for impressions with another message. Neal already thought of that and has looked, but he bites his tongue. This is Mozzie's game.
"No time for invisible ink, no lemon or urine - " Mozzie mutters. Neal wrinkles his nose in disgust. Yuck. Some of Mozzie's ideas are just disgusting. Mozzie notices his face, of course. " - Don't be so prissy, Neal. Carmine."
Neal shakes off a shudder. Mozzie's lectures on disgusting and weird food ingredients once went on a tangent that included the origin of carmine with the cochineal beetle. He's never looked at anything red, from lipstick to cherry candy, the same way since. Forget Jell-O shots. Mozzie can turn a Texan vegan.
Neal insists, "Kate did not use pee to write a secret message."
After a pause in which he's obviously thinking about it, Mozzie goes on, tacitly accepting Neal is right. "So it's in the words. Something only you would know."
'Adios, Neal. You'll always be my favorite artist, but we're quits. A con has to know hwen to fold a bad hand. Accept no substitutes, because it's been real, but don't look for me. No more poetry in Rome. I'm gone. Kate'
Mozzie looks at Neal expectantly.
"What?" Neal demands.
"Come on, Neal." Mozzie snaps his fingers with one hand and pushes the papers at Neal with the other. "Figure it out. What stands out?"
Mozzie's giving him a headache, Neal wants to snipe, that's what stands out. He scowls at the horrible note again. So, cards... Kate counted cards and read the players. She knew when to walk away from the game, too. "I don't know. Some kind of poker metaphor? A bluff?"
"No, no, no," Mozzie insists. "Read it again. Think. Something only you and Kate knew."
"We had a joke," Neal murmurs finally.
"Good. A private joke."
"Favorite artist, favorite poet, both Byrons." It's a coincidence, but the irony that he's now going to live in a loft and studio that belonged to Byron Ellington doesn't escape Neal. Kate would have loved that. He stares at the note again, picking the words apart, sorting the red herrings from the private language of lovers.
Every sentence holds something, whether misdirection meant to send hunters chasing off to Mexico or Italy, or to point Neal at something. To... All roads lead to Rome, of course. Neal presses his fingertips to his closed eyelids and fights tears.
Drunk on beauty and Kate and love, he recited poetry to her on the Spanish Steps.
"It's a substitution code," he states when he's back in control, "using She Walks In Beauty."
Mozzie snags his arm and pulls Neal to his feet. "Let's go find out what Kate really said."
It isn't as easy as that. Neal knows he shouldn't have thought it would be. They figure out the substitution code relatively easily - it lacks a Z, but is simple otherwise, replacing the letters of the alphabet with the letters of the poem, skipping forward through it when letters repeat. It just doesn't work.
Mozzie sips wine sulkily and glares at the pages of work they've done only to end up with gibberish. "What are we missing?"
Maybe it's the wine, but Neal thinks Peter could figure it out. Peter knows how Kate thought. He wants to slap himself the next second. He plucks up the letter and absently folds it, then stares when the folds don't result in a envelope-sized missive. He unfolds the sheet of paper and examines it again.
"Oh," he blurts, grinning blindly, because now it is obvious.
"What?" Mozzie abandons his wine and sits forward eagerly.
Fold. Fold is the clue.
Neal holds up the note. It came in the letter-sized envelope, folded in thirds, but the paper was folded in another shape before that. Those are the creases his fingers followed just now. It doesn't result in a new message suddenly appearing, but that's okay.
The second sheet of paper, the one filled with gibberish? It was only folded once, to fit in the envelope.
Neal picks it up and folds it to match the first sheet. Then he begins transcribing the letters into Kate's substitution code. This time it results in a series of addresses, the numbers written out: storage spaces around the world. Then the list switches to banks, accounts, safety deposit boxes and the passwords to access them using the name Nick Halden.
He stares at them once he's finished. "What do you think?" Neal asks blankly. He could guess, but he's afraid. Kate would never give everything up.
Mozzie's eyes have gone wide behind his glasses. "Neal..."
"What?"
"Those are Kate's caches."
Neal jerks his head up and he gapes at Mozzie. The only thing Kate ever gave him was an incredibly ugly music box that she sent him a month before she showed up back in his life the first time.
"I know, it's hard to believe," Mozzie mutters, "but it has to be. Maybe she thought you'd need them, in case - "
"In case Fowler got to her?" Neal finishes.
Mozzie nods.
Neal snatches up the bottle and sloshes wine into his glass and then Mozzie's. Mozzie doesn't even complain about the careless treatment of a fine vintage. Instead, he lifts his glass and declares, "To Kate the Great."
Neal drains his glass without a word.
~*~
The light knock on his door brings Peter's head up from the endless paperwork involved with arresting another law enforcement professional. Fowler's role in OPR just makes the case more difficult. He has to get everything exactly right. Legal's lawyers will be going over every single piece of paper generated by the case with a fine tooth comb before it goes to the US Attorney's office and the courts. His work laptop provides its own illumination, but it is late enough he's just switched on his desk lamp so he can go over the print-outs again. The warm pool of light is familiar as the one in his apartment kitchen - more - after years of working late hours in his office.
It's late and he's trying not to let his irritation at Neal build into real anger. Peter doesn't own him. No, Neal shouldn't have disappeared the way he did, but he's not under arrest or even suspected of anything. If he wants to forgo the Bureau's protection and Peter's company, that's Neal's prerogative.
It doesn't stop worry churning Peter's stomach into a sick froth. He doesn't think Fowler's the real mover and shaker in this case. Fowler has no ties to Kate Moreau and, as far as Peter can discern so far, never accessed her file to find out about Neal. Someone else is out there. He can only hope Neal either goes to the loft or shows up at his apartment eventually. Somewhere safe.
Whoever that someone else is, they haven't found Neal yet. He's standing in the open doorway to Peter's office, cool and collected, brows arched in a silent request that Peter invite him in, waiting.
Peter narrows his eyes. Neal widens his in response, all mock innocence.
Giving in, Peter grumbles, "Get in here."
Neal practically bounces into the office, making Peter wonder if he went out and got drunk. Is Neal a happy drunk? Peter has no idea. He'd have pegged Neal as the sort to get very quiet, though he couldn't really say why. He'd actually like to find out. Maybe Neal's the sort who sings. The thought makes Peter smile to himself.
"So where'd you go?" he asks.
Neal shifts uncomfortably, then pulls a sheet of paper from inside his jacket. "I needed to talk to a friend of mine." He fidgets with the paper. Too little light is left from the sunset to make out anything on it from where Peter sits.
"You couldn't do that from here?"
That makes Neal laugh. "Mozzie's not a fan of law enforcement. Or, well, anyone in authority."
"Someone you met through Kate?" Peter struggles to keep his voice level, despite thinking that the real author of Kate's demise is no doubt from her milieu. This Mozzie could easily have been the guilty party.
Neal shrugs. "He looked out for me after she left. I was staying with him - I needed to let him know I'm okay."
"May I suggest that is what the telephone is for?"
"I needed him to look at something for me too."
It's Peter's turn to raise his eyebrows. "And?"
Neal holds out the sheet of paper. He doesn't actually cross the distance between the door and Peter's desk, instead he lingers in the doorway, unconsciously telegraphing that he's conflicted over handing it over. "Kate sent me a list."
"What kind of list?" Peter's heart begins to pound at the prospect. A list of names, maybe, enemies, people she conned? People who might have killed her out of revenge or going after everything she had hidden?
"Mozzie thinks it's of her caches."
Would Kate do that? Would she have trusted that information to Neal? Peter can't help doubting it.
Having said it, Neal walks forward and lays the hand-written list down on top of the reports on Fowler's arrest. A glance down shows Peter the writing is Neal's.
"Is there some way to find out?" Peter asks. He wants to ask where the original is, but knows it will only come out as an accusation. Nothing made Neal share the existence of the list after all.
Neal relaxes minutely. "We could check one of them out." He nods to the list. "Several are here."
Peter checks and sees it's true. "If by here you meant the five boroughs."
"You're federal," Neal points out with glee. "Special Agent Burke."
"That's right," Peter agrees, "and I have my own list." He waits a beat. "Of everything Kate was ever suspected of stealing."
Neal frowns at the list. "You think something on that list is 'it'?"
"Don't you?"
Neal's frown deepens before he answers, "No." He perches a hip on Peter's desk, bent over, half his face in shadow, one hand spread flat on the desk. The light catches on his late day beard coming in. Peter blinks and makes himself look away from the line of Neal's jaw and neck, abruptly flushed and aware of his own skin, his body, and how close they both are. Neal side-eyes him and asks, "So, up for a treasure hunt tomorrow?"
"Not without back-up and not without clearing it with my boss."
"Fuddy-duddy."
Peter shakes his head, unable to take offense. "C'mon, Wild Child, you can crash on my couch again. We'll get crazy and order Chinese."
"I've got a place to live now," Neal points out. He isn't refusing to come with Peter though. "You arrested Fowler. Don't you think it's safe?"
Peter just looks at him.
Neal holds up both hands. "Fine, Agent Burke. I can endure your couch of torture one more night. But I know, you just want to be sure I'm not off checking out the list tonight without you." His bright smile takes the sting from the words, making it clear he has no real objection to spending more time with Peter.
"That's it exactly," Peter lies, because it's as good an excuse as any to put in whatever report he ends up having to write. The truth is a mixture of worry for Neal and wanting his company in Peter's otherwise empty and unwelcoming apartment. "But since you're sleeping at my place again, you may as well start calling me Peter."
Neal cocks his head and appears to consider it seriously before agreeing. "Okay. Peter. But I pick whatever we have for dinner."
~*~
Part 5
Agent Burke rests his hand on the small of Neal's back, gently guiding him inside the apartment, and for a moment Neal feels warm again. The touch and the feeling of safety are both gone in the next second, leaving him with nothing but a welter of confused emotions. Exhaustion dulls them, but not enough, and all he wants is to escape reality and sleep. Keeping up a facade of being even mildly all right and answering the cops' questions for the last four hours has wiped him out. He says something smart-ass before they go in and that's it: he's got nothing left to give.
He leaves the bag he packed when they stopped in at June's to explain that Neal would be staying with Burke until they knew who killed Kate under a table by the door. Nothing in it really feels like his yet, not like the personal stuff Neal picked up for himself when he bolted for Mozzie's place. He's got to get back there and pick those things up or buy more. Burke guides him through the small rooms, showing him where everything is. Neal follows, trying to listen, but all he's getting is that Burke's talking. He finds himself leaning against the wall outside the bathroom, hoping it will hold him up. It's exhausting just trying to think out his next step and now he's stuck here with no toothbrush or underwear and he wonders how much longer he'll be able to cope.
Going on the run with Kate seems easy in retrospect. He always knew he could stop, Neal realizes, because he wasn't the one being chased. No one cared about catching him.
He doesn't know his eyes are shut until Burke's hand on his arm startles him and he jerks away and stumbles into the door jamb. The pain focuses him back into the present, though.
"You look ready to drop," Burke says kindly.
Neal blinks and manages a nod. His throat is too tight to talk. Burke hasn't done anything to frighten him, but the wall and his hand on a still sore bruise combine to send a jolt of remembered terror through him.
"Go ahead and sit down. I'll make up the couch for you."
Neal nods again before making his slow way back to the main room. He sits on the edge of Burke's recliner; if he sits back, he'll go to sleep there. Even so, he sways back a couple of times, only the sensation of falling snapping him into wakefulness again.
He barely registers Burke bringing out sheets and a blanket, even a pillow; it seems to happen in slide show flashes.
"Okay," Burke says, making Neal lift his drooping head. "Don't go anywhere if you wake up before me."
He leaves Neal then, to Neal's everlasting relief.
The couch is miserable, but the sheets are clean and soft against Neal's skin when he strips down to a tank shirt and his boxers. Sleep claims him before he can make sense of everything that has happened in the previous forty-eight hours. The last thing running through his mind is the way Burke's hand felt, a tactile promise that if Neal fell, someone would catch him.
~*~
His finger snaps again.
Neal curls his hand to his chest, lost in the nightmare, reliving the heavy hands shoving him against the wall just inside the doorway of his building. His messenger bag is ripped away from him and pawed through, but he quickly knows this is no mugging.
"Quit fighting, Caffrey."
Muggers don't know your name.
He thrashes until the muzzle of a gun taps against his throat, just under his jaw. The gun smells of cordite and oil and the leather of the holster it's kept in. "My name's Fowler. Agent Fowler, in case you're stupid enough to think about taking this to the cops." With his free hand he flips open a badge case, then makes it disappear again.
Neal freezes, pinned against the wall, and swallows involuntarily, feeling the cold metal against his Adam's apple. He shakes his head minutely. Fowler smiles. "Good boy."
The first fist sinks into Neal's unprotected belly and he almost doubles over, but the gun stops him.
"That's right, hold still."
He keeps his feet because of the wall behind him as the two other men beat the shit out of him. They concentrate the blows to his gut and his ribs. He's panting and barely aware at the end. Only the gun keeps him conscious. The last three blows are to his face, almost afterthoughts or punctuation, something to make sure the damage shows. Through it all, the foyer stays empty. It's strange, Neal thinks between gasps, that no one has come in or gone out. The sun comes through the glass in the doors and lights the tile floor with color. There is a fragile splatter of crimson from the hit that split his lip open. The color is fabulous against the faux marble, not clean, but pure. Neal fixates on it until all he knows is scarlet.
"Tougher than you look, kid," Fowler says. He smiles again. His eyes are emptier than those of the two thugs with him. Smarter too. He's not enjoying himself, he's just doing a job. Somehow that's scarier. "Now just two more things."
Bloody spittle runs down Neal's chin. He can't incline his head enough to spit it away without hitting Fowler. Expectorating in his face might be fine and defiant, but Neal doesn't want his head blown off, so it's not worth it.
"One, tell Kate: he wants it back."
Neal's eyes widen in shock. All of this, everything that's happened in the last month, has all been a message for Kate.
Fowler's late forties to early fifties, short cut hair, pale eyes, pink skin, bad suit, Neal's never going to forget him. He nods to the thug who is mostly holding Neal up on his left side. The thug takes Neal's hand, singles out his little finger, and begins to bend it backward. The agony builds and builds, all out of proportion to a single finger, and Neal slams his head back against the wall, breathing hard and trying to swallow a scream.
"Two, next time it's both hands."
Neal's finger snaps.
He jerks awake, sweating and sick to his stomach, pain still pulsing through his finger and up his arm. At first he thinks he's on Mozzie's couch again, but after a panicky moment of confusion, he remembers he's in Agent Burke's apartment. He's alone - Burke's in the bedroom - and unhurt. The sheet and blanket Burke provided are tangled around him, half trailing on the floor. Once Neal can breathe again, he scrambles back into the corner of the couch and curls into a ball of misery.
He doesn't sleep again. Every time he closes his eyes, Fowler's there and his finger snaps.
Eventually, he cracks and pulls out his phone to call Mozzie. Mozzie answers on the first ring, despite the hour, and listens as Neal describes his day, beginning with Elizabeth no longer Burke Mitchell and ending with sleeping on Peter Burke's couch. Predictably, Mozzie's unhappiness over any association with the authorities is accompanied by a rant over not trusting the FBI, but undercut by a thread of genuine concern. He ends by asking, "Are you sure about what you're doing?"
"No," Neal admits, "but, Moz, I've got no idea what else to do."
~*~
Neal tips Byron's trilby over one eye, straightens his shoulders, and follows Agent Burke out of the elevator onto the twenty-first floor of the Federal Building, down the hall and through the glass doors into the FBI's White Collar Unit. He pastes on a carefree smile, even though it's an act, because like he told Mozzie, he doesn't know what else to do. Cooperating with Agent Burke makes him uncomfortable, which is foolish, but years of being around Kate and Mozzie have inculcated him with more than a little of their distrust and disdain for the authorities.
And then there's Fowler.
It's an open plan office and several agents working at their desks lift their heads to observe them. A very sharp looking woman actually leaves her desk and heads over.
"So this is where you work?" Neal asks.
"My office is up there," Burke answers with a nod to the second level.
"Hmm."
Neal wonders if the fishbowl effect makes the agents working here any more productive or honest. He dislikes the glass walls, even if they do give better light than just fluorescents. It makes him miss the reference book-lined cubbyhole he got to call an office at the auction house. The reminder annoys him: he left a few items in his desk there and never had a chance to retrieve them. He makes himself smile at the woman as she approaches rather than show how unhappy he is.
"Diana," Burke greets her.
"Boss." She surveys Neal calmly, recognition in her gaze, cataloging the vintage suit he's wearing, the fading remnants of the beating he took, and probably the bruised-looking bags under his eyes. She hands Burke the file in her hand.
"What's this?" Burke weighs the thin file in his hand.
"Background on Neal Caffrey." Her dark eyes hold a light of amusement as she speaks. "There's nothing there to tell where he is, though." She manages to get that out with a straight face. It's impressive. Neal wasn't sure if any other FBI agents would have a sense of humor or if it might be just Burke.
Neal grins at her while Burke grunts. "Diana, this is Neal Caffrey."
"I guessed," she replies dryly. "There are pictures in the file."
"Good ones, I hope?" Neal teases, his grin just getting wider as her expression hardens into skepticism.
Burke glances at Neal. "Don't grin in the office. Neal, this is Agent Diana Barrigan."
"Diana," Neal says and tips the hat. It makes her smile back, but there's no spark there, none of the tiny signs he's learned to notice when someone is attracted to him. Nothing he'll have to pretend to be oblivious to while still trying to win her over.
"Neal," Diana replies, acknowledging the amusement and nothing more.
It makes Neal smile for real.
"None of that," Burke says. "No flirting."
Neal shrugs his acceptance. It's just habit, something that comes naturally to him. Shutting it down might be a relief.
An imposing black agent arrives before Neal can say anything else. "Neal, this agent Clinton Jones. Jones, Neal Caffrey."
"You found him that fast?" Jones asks Burke.
"Hah. I found him," Neal corrects. Agent Burke opens his mouth to object, but really can't. It's a stupid, tiny thing, but Neal's going to take his wins where he can and it feels good to best the agent even if he does like him.
Jones gives Neal a neutral smile. Neal smiles back, then frowns, realizing he remembers this agent. "You were there when Kate was arrested."
It throws Jones off, just the way Neal meant it to. Jones even looks guilty for a second.
"Good memory," Burke comments. He's glancing through the file Diana handed him. Neal vows to get a look at it; he wants to know what the FBI thinks they know about him. "That should be useful."
"Already told you I don't know where Kate kept anything," Neal replies.
Burke doesn't believe it, but Neal just smiles.
"Neal's going to give a statement," Burke tells Diana. "When he does, I'm going to want you to begin digging - quietly - into the name he gives us."
"And then?" Neal asks.
"Then you're going to sit in my office while I figure out if you're still a target or just collateral damage so they could get at Kate."
"I need to start looking for another job."
"Check the classifieds," Burke says. "Though I'm pretty sure June would underwrite your painting career if you asked her."
Neal scowls at him. "I'm not scamming June into supporting me."
Burke snaps the file closed. "All right. But you're still staying here today."
~*~
Agent Burke disappears into his boss's office just before lunch and doesn't reappear. Neal does read the paper, even the classifieds, pokes around Burke's desk and contemplates trying to guess his password and getting on his computer, but decides the odds aren't good enough. He finds a legal pad and steals a pen and sketches randomly, doing an ink cityscape of the view from the window, but after that he ends up sketching Kate and has to stop when he sees it turning into a picture of her death.
Mozzie would say he's being morbid; Neal knows he's just torturing himself, imagining how she must have looked. Somewhere there are crime scene photos. He doesn't want to see them. He needs to remember Kate vital and alive.
Restless, he pokes his head out of the office. Down in the bullpen, Jones and Diana are busy at work. Burke told him to stay in the office, but there are limits to Neal's obedience. He leaves his hat to show he'll be back and strolls out. He's almost at the glass doors when Jones arrives at his shoulder.
"Going somewhere?"
Neal angles another smile at him. "Washroom?"
Jones walks Neal out and down the corridor to the door of the men's room. Like a hall monitor in school, Neal thinks. "Please tell me you aren't going in with me."
It pulls a smile from the big agent. "No windows."
When he's done and his hands are washed, Neal amuses himself for a second looking around the men's room and figuring out how to get out without using the door. When he comes out and Jones is waiting, leaning against a wall, checking something on his phone, Neal has to say, "Ventilation ducts."
Jones pockets his phone. "Come on, Houdini. Boss says we should get lunch and some coffee. He's still stuck in a meeting."
"Let me get my hat."
"What's with the hat?"
"Don't you like it?" Neal asks once he has the trilby. He tries out a trick that leaves it on his head. It's exhausting pretending he's silly and entertaining, but the alternative is still breaking down in front of a bunch of strangers. He isn't going to do that. He's going to act and keep on acting and no one's going to see what a mess he is inside. He's going to make Kate proud. He's going to fool the FBI into doing what he can't and then he's going to see her killer pay. He sweeps the hat off just in time to gesture Jones ahead of him into the elevator. "I like it. It has style."
A snort of laughter is Neal's reward for his clowning.
"Anything you're in the mood for?" Jones asks amiably as they walk out of the building.
Nausea churns through Neal's stomach, but he hides it. "I'll bow to your better knowledge of the dining establishments around here."
The sun shines like Neal's life didn't fall apart only days ago, New Yorkers stride along the sidewalk as purposefully as ever, and Neal knows more than one woman gives him and Jones a second admiring look. He tips the hat lower over his eyes, so no one will see that the smile on his mouth doesn't reach them.
Jones pays for lunch for both of them and Neal says nothing. He's low on cash and it's second nature anyway; Kate never paid for a meal she could scam from someone else. He only orders a salad though.
Setting his fork down, Neal looks at the greens left before pushing the plate slightly away.
"Agent Jones - "
"Just Jones, it's easier."
"Ah. Thanks." Neal gestured at his plate. "For this too."
"So what do you want?" Jones asks.
Neal glances up at him. "I need to get my mail."
"Where?"
"You'll - "
"Yes." Jones smiles. "Peter isn't that inflexible, Caffrey. C'mon. It took a smart guy to figure out how to catch your girlfriend. He wants to make sure you don't disappear, not lock you up."
Since Jones makes it easy, they head for the post office where Neal has a box. He'll need to switch everything to a new address at June's, but the PO box has always been separate from his apartment. He set it up after Kate went to jail, as a just in case method of staying in touch with her. Even Mozzie doesn't know about it.
Neal doesn't expect anything to be there. Nothing ever has been. Kate's letters from Danbury always came to his apartment. It's still habit to check it though. He'll abandon it after this, since he's led Jones to it.
The cheap envelope addressed to him and lying in the box makes Neal freeze.
"Everything okay, Caffrey?" Jones asks from just behind him.
His heart beats so hard he feels it in his wrists and his throat.
Reaching out, Neal's hand stays steady. Touch tells him there isn't much in the envelope, nothing more than two sheets of paper. There's no return address, of course, just his name and the PO box number scrawled hurriedly in Kate's familiar hand.
"Yeah," Neal replies unthinkingly. He shoves the envelope inside his coat. "Let's get back."
~*~
His key turns to water and drips through his fingers onto the floor in brass colored droplets that sizzle when they hit. Neal shakes his hand and stares at the palm, finding a perfect burn on his palm in the intricate shape of a skeleton key.
The door to the apartment opens for him when he presses his palm flat to it. Empty white space stretches in every direction, so bright he can't see. He catches the door jamb on either side and holds on to keep from pitching forward. His left little finger snaps again, bone breaking with a gunfire bang.
His fingers clutch at the edges of the doorway, sinking right through the dissolving material and he's falling, reaching out desperately to catch at anything. He falls into the light only to find himself standing on the bare, wooden floor of his apartment.
Neal stays still but the apartment revolves around him. Everything is gone. Everything. There is just the floor and the white walls and the bare windows letting in the bloody sunset.
He shuffles forward, afraid, looking for any sign he was ever here. His heart pounds harder and harder and he stretches his hands out as if he'll feel something he can't see.
His feet slip and he looks down. The crimson light from the windows is pooling on the floor, darkening into blood. He's standing in Kate's blood and it's spreading across the floor in a flood because there's nothing to stop it, not his things, not his paintings, not his hands because they can't hold on to anything.
Neal opens his mouth when the warm tide rises high enough, swallows, and drowns.
He jerks awake gasping for breath, still reaching for anything to hold onto, and remembers he's sleeping on Burke's couch again, because Neal's the FBI's only link to a dirty agent and that means he's in danger. His heart hammers in his chest and he fists the thin blanket in his hands.
"Damn it."
Neal bends his knees up and leans his forehead into them. Every night his brain subjects him to a new nightmare. This one amalgamates knowing Kate died in his apartment with the shock of walking into his apartment after his last visit to Kate and finding all his paintings - and everything else - gone.
He wonders what happened to the paintings. All the rest, that's just things, but the paintings are all pieces of him. Not knowing keeps him scraped raw inside, along with everything else.
Desperate for a distraction, he fishes Kate's letter from his sketchbook - he's kept it there since he's fairly certain Burke isn't going to page through it when he's not looking - and pulls the sheets of cheap paper out to read again. It's too dark to see the words, but in the end he doesn't need to see. He just wants to touch something she touched.
~*~
Diana slaps the file down on Peter's desk like it has personally offended her. She gives Neal a skeptical look in the next second, telegraphing that whatever's in it is something she doesn't think he should hear. Neal keeps his head down, watching through his lashes, scraping his pencil over his sketchbook randomly, and listens.
She braces one hand on Peter's desk and leans close. Her voice is lowered, but Neal makes it out anyway.
"The second ballistics report you ordered came back. The slug's a match for a service weapon registered to an agent with OPR."
Burke's "Damn it," is equally quiet, but intense enough Neal nearly twitches. He searches his memory, trying to identify the acronym. OPR, OPR... Office of... He has a good memory and Mozzie has ranted about nearly every branch of the government at one time or another. It comes to him. Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI's answer to Internal Affairs.
Every agent eventually takes a turn with them if they want to move up in the organization.
"He hasn't showed up here," Peter says quietly.
"No," Diana agrees. "There are no OPR investigations running on anyone in the New York office and he hasn't tapped any agents here to look at anyone else."
"We're between inspections." Burke flips open the file and stares at the contents. Neal stops pretending he's still sketching. "Hard to miss when the rent-a-goons move in for a month."
Diana straightens up, crossing her arms in front of her instead, and frowns. "Rogue," she murmurs.
"Neal," Burke says.
Neal lifts his head. He keeps his expression calm. Hopes Burke doesn't see his pulse beating fast at his neck. Kate always said to watch for that. He can only speculate if the FBI trains their agents to look for the same kind of tells. It occurs to him that he's thought about and used the things Kate would tell him more in the last few days than he ever did while he was with her. He can't decide whether he should be sad or proud.
"Come here."
He sets the sketchbook aside and rises from the spot he's made his along with Burke's office visitor's chair. "What?"
Burke pulls a color photo free of a paper clip and holds it out. "Take a look."
Neal glances at the face front identification picture. He feels sick for a second, sweat prickling under his arms and on his upper lip. The buzzcut hair, the pale eyes, the sneer... they're all there and he'll always associate them with agony and helplessness. "Yeah," he chokes out, just controlling the urge to step back. His good hand goes to his splinted finger. "That's Fowler."
"Garrett Fowler," Burke confirms the whole name as he places the picture back in the personnel file. "This is going to get dirty."
Diana sneers. "It already is. He's a murderer."
Neal stays stock still while wondering how far Burke will go for him if it means taking down another FBI agent. He knows Burke has been counting on Fowler being an imposter. Maybe he should start worrying over how far Agent Burke will go to protect the Bureau.
Burke slaps his hand down on the file. Neal and Diana both jump. His face is set, grim and hard with anger. "Find him. Then I'll bring him in myself." He shoves his desk chair back and surges to his feet. When Diana doesn't move immediately, he glares at her. "Now. I've got to brief Hughes."
"You're going to arrest him?" Neal asks.
The glare switches to Neal, but finally softens. "Yes I am."
Neal finally relaxes and takes a silent, deep breath.
"Do you believe me?" Burke asks.
"Sure."
"No, do you believe me?" Burke insists.
Neal meets his eyes. "Yes, I believe you," he says. The irony hits him a second later. He told Kate he loved her. He never said he believed her. But he believes in Peter Burke.
~*~
He's still in the office five hours later when Burke, Jones, and Diana return, walking Garrett Fowler through the White Collar office, hands cuffed behind him. Jones has one big hand curled around Fowler's arm, steering him between the desks, then up the stairs.
Neal stands at the glass wall of the office and waits until Fowler's gaze catches on him to lift his hand, the one with the splinted finger, and give him a slow wave. Fowler's shoulders stiffen and his step stutters. His head turns to keep staring back at Neal.
Neal smiles at him.
Burke's walking behind Fowler and gives Neal a look that says stop taunting Fowler, before giving Fowler a little push.
The angle's wrong, but Neal memorized everything in the White Collar office, so he knows Fowler's either being taken to Hughes' office or the conference room. He'd lay money on it being the conference room, even if Hughes means to talk to the rogue agent at some point. The handcuffs on Fowler's wrists are for humiliation as much as restraint. He won't get the courtesy of an office visit after that parade through the office.
Neal thinks maybe Burke did that for him. A wave of satisfaction and gratitude crashes through him.
The satisfaction doesn't last long enough to savor, because the truth hits Neal in the gut: so Fowler's in custody. Even if Burke puts him away, Kate's still dead.
He drops back into the chair he's made his own and bends over, trying to breathe through the brutal truth, hands threading through his hair and tugging at it, fighting tears again.
Kate's still dead.
~*~
Neal slides his way out of the White Collar office in the aftermath of Fowler's arrest. He figures it's safe enough, even if Fowler isn't in it by himself, his partner or boss will need to replace him before doing anything new.
He needs to get away from Special Agent Burke for a while. It's been a week and Neal hasn't been out of Burke's control since leaving Premier Events' premises. It's stifling him. Except for Mozzie, Neal's not used to anyone looking out for him. He's relies on himself. Half an hour in the open air, not answering to anyone, just moving, feels necessary. Plus he really needs to talk to Moz about Kate's letter.
As soon as he can, Neal finds a shop selling phones and buys a burner, using it to call one of Mozzie's numbers and leave a short, enigmatic message. Mozzie will decode it and meet Neal in the park. From there, they can slip off to either the studio loft or one of Mozzie's safehouses and talk in peace.
He really wants to get back to the studio. There's an itch Neal gets under his skin, when he hasn't had a chance to paint for a while. It's like withdrawal, he imagines.
He makes the call and heads for the park bench Mozzie specifies. Once there, he tips his face up to the sun for a moment, searching inside himself for some quiet. Seeing Fowler in cuffs helps, but the hole where Kate filled his life still gapes open inside him. The sounds of birds, of people passing by immersed in their own lives, the city sounds of traffic and sirens, HVACs and helicopters, along with the endless mutter and murmur of a million voices settles through Neal, grounding him again. New York is home, it's why he always came back when Kate left, and the city, the streets and people, still inspire and console him somehow.
He takes out Kate's letter and reads it again. The first page is a stilted note, though written in Kate's gorgeous cursive. Kate loved the classics: there's a clue in her words, something only Neal will recognize. The second sheet of paper is filled from top to bottom, side to side, with numbers, symbols, and letters, no stops, spaces or punctuation to make decoding it easier.
Neal studies both sides of each sheet of paper, then the edges, then puts them to his nose, trying to find any scent. Nothing stands out. He needs to remember Kate had very little time between breaking out and sending the letter before going on to his apartment. Whatever she did, it won't be very elaborate. The answer must lie in the note.
"Ah, there you are," Mozzie says, startling Neal into looking up from the two pages. "Didn't I say the south side?"
"No, you said the east side."
"So you came to the north side."
Neal smiles at him. "One to the left, just like always."
Mozzie beams in satisfaction. "Just in case."
"I don't think the burner I bought ten minutes before was bugged."
"You've been in the hands of the Suits, mon frère," Mozzie says. "I should sweep you for bugs. You don't have any missing time, do you?" He peers at Neal in concern. "They could have implanted you with - "
Laughter, a little awkward and brittle, is the only response available to Neal. "Mozzie, I swear, I haven't been implanted with anything." He doesn't mention missing time is more often a symptom of disassociative identity disorders. Mozzie would not be pleased and Neal's in no mood to listen to a lecture on modern psychology, if he was lucky enough that Mozzie didn't ask why Neal knew that in the first place.
"So you say."
Neal holds up the two pages in his hand. "Kate sent this before she was killed."
Mozzie plucks both sheets away, reminding Neal his friend is a superb pickpocket: those hands are fast. The letter is gone before Neal can tighten his grip. Just as well, if he had, the paper might have torn.
"Printed," Mozzie states of the second page.
"I noticed."
"Of course you did."
They'll take the letter to one of Mozzie's safehouses and examine it under several different kinds of light, but for now, the sunny afternoon light is good enough. Mozzie angles the first page one way, then the other, looking for impressions with another message. Neal already thought of that and has looked, but he bites his tongue. This is Mozzie's game.
"No time for invisible ink, no lemon or urine - " Mozzie mutters. Neal wrinkles his nose in disgust. Yuck. Some of Mozzie's ideas are just disgusting. Mozzie notices his face, of course. " - Don't be so prissy, Neal. Carmine."
Neal shakes off a shudder. Mozzie's lectures on disgusting and weird food ingredients once went on a tangent that included the origin of carmine with the cochineal beetle. He's never looked at anything red, from lipstick to cherry candy, the same way since. Forget Jell-O shots. Mozzie can turn a Texan vegan.
Neal insists, "Kate did not use pee to write a secret message."
After a pause in which he's obviously thinking about it, Mozzie goes on, tacitly accepting Neal is right. "So it's in the words. Something only you would know."
'Adios, Neal. You'll always be my favorite artist, but we're quits. A con has to know hwen to fold a bad hand. Accept no substitutes, because it's been real, but don't look for me. No more poetry in Rome. I'm gone. Kate'
Mozzie looks at Neal expectantly.
"What?" Neal demands.
"Come on, Neal." Mozzie snaps his fingers with one hand and pushes the papers at Neal with the other. "Figure it out. What stands out?"
Mozzie's giving him a headache, Neal wants to snipe, that's what stands out. He scowls at the horrible note again. So, cards... Kate counted cards and read the players. She knew when to walk away from the game, too. "I don't know. Some kind of poker metaphor? A bluff?"
"No, no, no," Mozzie insists. "Read it again. Think. Something only you and Kate knew."
"We had a joke," Neal murmurs finally.
"Good. A private joke."
"Favorite artist, favorite poet, both Byrons." It's a coincidence, but the irony that he's now going to live in a loft and studio that belonged to Byron Ellington doesn't escape Neal. Kate would have loved that. He stares at the note again, picking the words apart, sorting the red herrings from the private language of lovers.
Every sentence holds something, whether misdirection meant to send hunters chasing off to Mexico or Italy, or to point Neal at something. To... All roads lead to Rome, of course. Neal presses his fingertips to his closed eyelids and fights tears.
Drunk on beauty and Kate and love, he recited poetry to her on the Spanish Steps.
"It's a substitution code," he states when he's back in control, "using She Walks In Beauty."
Mozzie snags his arm and pulls Neal to his feet. "Let's go find out what Kate really said."
It isn't as easy as that. Neal knows he shouldn't have thought it would be. They figure out the substitution code relatively easily - it lacks a Z, but is simple otherwise, replacing the letters of the alphabet with the letters of the poem, skipping forward through it when letters repeat. It just doesn't work.
Mozzie sips wine sulkily and glares at the pages of work they've done only to end up with gibberish. "What are we missing?"
Maybe it's the wine, but Neal thinks Peter could figure it out. Peter knows how Kate thought. He wants to slap himself the next second. He plucks up the letter and absently folds it, then stares when the folds don't result in a envelope-sized missive. He unfolds the sheet of paper and examines it again.
"Oh," he blurts, grinning blindly, because now it is obvious.
"What?" Mozzie abandons his wine and sits forward eagerly.
Fold. Fold is the clue.
Neal holds up the note. It came in the letter-sized envelope, folded in thirds, but the paper was folded in another shape before that. Those are the creases his fingers followed just now. It doesn't result in a new message suddenly appearing, but that's okay.
The second sheet of paper, the one filled with gibberish? It was only folded once, to fit in the envelope.
Neal picks it up and folds it to match the first sheet. Then he begins transcribing the letters into Kate's substitution code. This time it results in a series of addresses, the numbers written out: storage spaces around the world. Then the list switches to banks, accounts, safety deposit boxes and the passwords to access them using the name Nick Halden.
He stares at them once he's finished. "What do you think?" Neal asks blankly. He could guess, but he's afraid. Kate would never give everything up.
Mozzie's eyes have gone wide behind his glasses. "Neal..."
"What?"
"Those are Kate's caches."
Neal jerks his head up and he gapes at Mozzie. The only thing Kate ever gave him was an incredibly ugly music box that she sent him a month before she showed up back in his life the first time.
"I know, it's hard to believe," Mozzie mutters, "but it has to be. Maybe she thought you'd need them, in case - "
"In case Fowler got to her?" Neal finishes.
Mozzie nods.
Neal snatches up the bottle and sloshes wine into his glass and then Mozzie's. Mozzie doesn't even complain about the careless treatment of a fine vintage. Instead, he lifts his glass and declares, "To Kate the Great."
Neal drains his glass without a word.
~*~
The light knock on his door brings Peter's head up from the endless paperwork involved with arresting another law enforcement professional. Fowler's role in OPR just makes the case more difficult. He has to get everything exactly right. Legal's lawyers will be going over every single piece of paper generated by the case with a fine tooth comb before it goes to the US Attorney's office and the courts. His work laptop provides its own illumination, but it is late enough he's just switched on his desk lamp so he can go over the print-outs again. The warm pool of light is familiar as the one in his apartment kitchen - more - after years of working late hours in his office.
It's late and he's trying not to let his irritation at Neal build into real anger. Peter doesn't own him. No, Neal shouldn't have disappeared the way he did, but he's not under arrest or even suspected of anything. If he wants to forgo the Bureau's protection and Peter's company, that's Neal's prerogative.
It doesn't stop worry churning Peter's stomach into a sick froth. He doesn't think Fowler's the real mover and shaker in this case. Fowler has no ties to Kate Moreau and, as far as Peter can discern so far, never accessed her file to find out about Neal. Someone else is out there. He can only hope Neal either goes to the loft or shows up at his apartment eventually. Somewhere safe.
Whoever that someone else is, they haven't found Neal yet. He's standing in the open doorway to Peter's office, cool and collected, brows arched in a silent request that Peter invite him in, waiting.
Peter narrows his eyes. Neal widens his in response, all mock innocence.
Giving in, Peter grumbles, "Get in here."
Neal practically bounces into the office, making Peter wonder if he went out and got drunk. Is Neal a happy drunk? Peter has no idea. He'd have pegged Neal as the sort to get very quiet, though he couldn't really say why. He'd actually like to find out. Maybe Neal's the sort who sings. The thought makes Peter smile to himself.
"So where'd you go?" he asks.
Neal shifts uncomfortably, then pulls a sheet of paper from inside his jacket. "I needed to talk to a friend of mine." He fidgets with the paper. Too little light is left from the sunset to make out anything on it from where Peter sits.
"You couldn't do that from here?"
That makes Neal laugh. "Mozzie's not a fan of law enforcement. Or, well, anyone in authority."
"Someone you met through Kate?" Peter struggles to keep his voice level, despite thinking that the real author of Kate's demise is no doubt from her milieu. This Mozzie could easily have been the guilty party.
Neal shrugs. "He looked out for me after she left. I was staying with him - I needed to let him know I'm okay."
"May I suggest that is what the telephone is for?"
"I needed him to look at something for me too."
It's Peter's turn to raise his eyebrows. "And?"
Neal holds out the sheet of paper. He doesn't actually cross the distance between the door and Peter's desk, instead he lingers in the doorway, unconsciously telegraphing that he's conflicted over handing it over. "Kate sent me a list."
"What kind of list?" Peter's heart begins to pound at the prospect. A list of names, maybe, enemies, people she conned? People who might have killed her out of revenge or going after everything she had hidden?
"Mozzie thinks it's of her caches."
Would Kate do that? Would she have trusted that information to Neal? Peter can't help doubting it.
Having said it, Neal walks forward and lays the hand-written list down on top of the reports on Fowler's arrest. A glance down shows Peter the writing is Neal's.
"Is there some way to find out?" Peter asks. He wants to ask where the original is, but knows it will only come out as an accusation. Nothing made Neal share the existence of the list after all.
Neal relaxes minutely. "We could check one of them out." He nods to the list. "Several are here."
Peter checks and sees it's true. "If by here you meant the five boroughs."
"You're federal," Neal points out with glee. "Special Agent Burke."
"That's right," Peter agrees, "and I have my own list." He waits a beat. "Of everything Kate was ever suspected of stealing."
Neal frowns at the list. "You think something on that list is 'it'?"
"Don't you?"
Neal's frown deepens before he answers, "No." He perches a hip on Peter's desk, bent over, half his face in shadow, one hand spread flat on the desk. The light catches on his late day beard coming in. Peter blinks and makes himself look away from the line of Neal's jaw and neck, abruptly flushed and aware of his own skin, his body, and how close they both are. Neal side-eyes him and asks, "So, up for a treasure hunt tomorrow?"
"Not without back-up and not without clearing it with my boss."
"Fuddy-duddy."
Peter shakes his head, unable to take offense. "C'mon, Wild Child, you can crash on my couch again. We'll get crazy and order Chinese."
"I've got a place to live now," Neal points out. He isn't refusing to come with Peter though. "You arrested Fowler. Don't you think it's safe?"
Peter just looks at him.
Neal holds up both hands. "Fine, Agent Burke. I can endure your couch of torture one more night. But I know, you just want to be sure I'm not off checking out the list tonight without you." His bright smile takes the sting from the words, making it clear he has no real objection to spending more time with Peter.
"That's it exactly," Peter lies, because it's as good an excuse as any to put in whatever report he ends up having to write. The truth is a mixture of worry for Neal and wanting his company in Peter's otherwise empty and unwelcoming apartment. "But since you're sleeping at my place again, you may as well start calling me Peter."
Neal cocks his head and appears to consider it seriously before agreeing. "Okay. Peter. But I pick whatever we have for dinner."
~*~
Part 5