White Collar strikes again! ( Unpredictable, Part 1)
Whew, this took longer than I'd expected. Neal refused to follow the script, and I was forced to take drastic measures to reassert my Author-ly Authority. *g* Anyhow - response to another of kriadydragon's prompts here at collarcorner. ^.^
Unpredictable
Peter sighed, staring out his office window at nothing in particular. He was pretty sure Neal was acting strange. Stranger than usual, that was. Not that there was necessarily anything out of the ordinary about Neal acting… well, out of the ordinary. The man hadn’t just made a living out of being hard to figure out, after all, he’d made a lifestyle out of it.
Thing was, there were subtle differences between Neal being unpredictable because he could, and Neal acting differently because he was up to something, and Neal being unconsciously off because something… entirely different was bothering him. For all the years he’d studied the man, Peter still couldn’t always pin down the shades of distinction.
It didn’t help that the current off-ness was so subtle.
Neal brushing off an invitation to join Peter for lunch at the café down the block. Contrary to popular belief, Neal did choose to work through lunch break occasionally, if something had caught his interest. But there wasn’t anything particularly interesting in the files Neal was studying. He’d been fidgety all morning. And turning it down when Peter had already volunteered to pay? Odd.
Then the other day when the air conditioning went out he’d refused to take off his suit jacket. It had been sweltering, and everyone else had been hastening to shed unnecessary clothing, rolling up sleeves… but not Neal. He’d gotten plenty of incredulous remarks, but had grinned and laughed his way out of each of them, joking that he was just better at keeping his cool than they were. He’d kept it up for hours, until the repairs were finally completed, and Peter hadn’t missed his sweating, or the volume of ice water he’d downed. It was an idiot thing to do, that sort of macho toughing things out, and really not like Neal. Not without a reason, as if he had some point to prove.
He’d seemed a bit edgy lately, too, when it came to personal space. That was distinctly un-Caffrey-like. Neal was comfortable with people, and he certainly didn’t mind the people he knew well leaning over his shoulder to watch him do something, the odd bit of casual physical contact. Peter would’ve thought there’d been some disagreement or issue that he’d missed, to make Neal so stand-offish, except that he was doing it with everyone, even Peter himself. And he didn’t actually seem uneasy, or reluctant to be around any of them. Just subtly shifted away a bit if someone got too close or brushed up against him.
Add in a few too-easy smiles and bursts of chatter clearly designed to misdirect, alternating with fits of inattention on Neal’s own part, and… well.
It was just a lot of little things, each on their own insignificant, easily shrugged off, but collectively niggling at his mind. It could be nothing more than his imagination, but he thought not. Something was up. The real question was whether he needed to do anything about it. When it came to Caffrey acting strangely, the answer was almost always a resounding yes. The problem was how to go about it.
Naturally, he’d tried going over Neal’s tracking data. Several times. He knew that Neal hadn’t been wandering outside his radius, of course - he’d have had an alert for that - but there was actually breaking the rules, and then there was generally suspicious behavior it’d take a careful eye to pick up on.
Nothing particularly odd showed up under the scrutiny, aside from the fact that he’d pretty much spent the last two weekends entirely in his apartment. Unusual for someone as social as Neal, but he couldn’t very well call him over and demand to know why he hadn’t found anything better to occupy his time than sitting in that loft and painting, or reading, or whatever he’d been doing. Well, technically he could. If he wanted to look as insane and paranoid as Haversham.
Anyhow, confronting Neal directly worked best if he already had at least an inkling of what was up. Otherwise, if he was up to something it just made him more cautious, and difficult to pin down. And if it was something else… he tended to pull up his best “Yeah, everything’s just fine” façade, making it that much more difficult to get any information out of him, especially if the situation involved something he suspected Peter wouldn’t approve of. Which it usually did.
Looking out through the glass wall of his office, Peter could see Neal sitting innocently at his desk. One elbow was resting on the desk, hand propping up his head as he stared at one of the mortgage fraud files Peter had handed him earlier. At the moment he looked closer to “bored to tears” than “conniving.”
Peter shook his head, turning back to his computer screen. Until he got something more solid to go on, it was probably best to just keep a closer eye on him. Maybe if he saw a chance to catch him off-guard he could nudge him a bit, see if any information slipped out.
Yeah, right. Catch Neal Caffrey accidentally spilling anything he wanted to keep to himself. Peter rubbed at his forehead, hoping to avert the impending headache.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Neal sighed, reaching down to close his desk drawer - carefully not slamming it shut, to avoid attracting attention. Also to avoid aggravating his headache.
He was having the most ridiculous run of bad luck. And to add insult to injury, a lot of it was embarrassing bad luck, too. Mostly just little, stupid things, but it was getting to him.
Granted, maybe he should’ve gotten out of that bar before the little shouting match at the back turned into an all-out fight. But he honestly hadn’t thought it would escalate like that. And it was hardly his fault that they’d drifted closer to him just as things reached a breaking point. He’d been trying to get clear when a case of mistaken identity had resulted in his being knocked to the floor and receiving several solid kicks to the back and sides before he could roll out of the way, under a nearby table. At least he’d managed to slip out of the place before the cops arrived. Wouldn’t that have been fun to explain to Peter.
And that take-out from the great Indian place… at least it was usually great. He’d spent all night Saturday and most of Sunday throwing up. He’d been pretty well recovered by Monday, but the dry toast he’d had for breakfast sat uneasily enough on his stomach that he hadn’t dared risk lunch.
The incident with the bicyclist had been particularly aggravating. It’d been shaping up to be a good day, until then. Traffic had been light, making him early enough that he’d had the taxi drop him off a few blocks from the FBI building, wanting to enjoy the cooler morning air while he could. It’d been so nice he’d taken off his suit coat, carrying it over one arm as he walked. He’d been distracted enough that he’d had no idea of the biker coming up behind him until the rider had called out to him. He hardly had time to start turning in response to the warning shout before the bicycle had hit him. At least it’d been enough to prevent a full-on collision. As it was, some sharp edge on the handlebar had caught him as he stumbled, tearing the back of his shirt.
He’d been sore and annoyed, but had managed to pull himself into some kind of order, covering up the damage by pulling his jacket back on. And… arrived at work with seconds to spare, which both Jones and Cruz had commented upon. Bruised in pride as much as in body, he’d hoped to get by without explanations. Would’ve been easy enough, too, if it hadn’t been for the stupid air conditioning. He’d been just on the verge of giving in - even the annoyance of needing to explain to every person who saw him why his shirt was ripped wasn’t worth risking heat stroke - when it’d finally kicked back in again.
His back had itched like crazy all day, and stung, especially with the beads of sweat inching down his back. He hadn’t realized until he got home that night that he was actually bleeding a little too. One look at the back of his shirt and he’d given up all hope of salvaging it. He’d really liked that one, too. At least the suit would be alright.
There’d been… oh, all kinds of other little, insignificant things over the course of the last couple weeks. Each one minor, easily shrugged off, but cumulatively… yeah, it was getting to him. He’d tried not to let it affect his work, but was pretty sure he hadn’t been entirely successful. He’d noticed Peter giving him odd looks several times over the last week, and was just waiting for him to finally break and give him a lecture about the lack of focus, complete with reminder of exactly how tenuous his position here was.
Yeah, that’d really top things off nicely. He could only hope that if - when - that time came he could keep from yelling right back at him. He was tired, and he was frustrated, and the last thing he needed right now was Peter mad at him.
With another sigh, he pulled the next folder off his stack - yet another mortgage fraud case - and set to work again.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-
“Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I’ll stop by to pick up the copies on my way to talk with him.”
Peter hung up the phone, frowning down at it for a moment before setting it back on the kitchen counter.
On the up side, he finally had something to go on. And there was no longer any question of whether confronting Neal was the best course of action - it was definitely time to get some answers out of him.
Picking up his car keys, he called out, “El?”
“Yes? Who was it, Peter?” She poked her head into the kitchen. On catching sight of his expression, her cheerful smile faded into concern. “Work?”
He nodded.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s -“ he gave an exasperated huff. “I don’t even know yet. White Collar got… kind of an odd letter in the mail yesterday.” Seeing her frown, he added, “I’d have mentioned it earlier, but it slipped my mind. It wasn’t actually threatening, exactly, just - well, strange, and no indication of who’d sent it.”
“Well can you do anything about it?”
“We sent it down to be analyzed, see if they can pull any fingerprints or anything… Honestly, I didn’t expect anything. It happens once in a while, and most often nothing more comes of it. Just a one-time bit of crazy, with no real intent to go further. Sometimes we’re able to get enough information to look into it, sometimes not.”
“They found something, then?”
“No, actually, we’re still waiting to hear back on the results. The call was because we got another letter today. Seems to be the same person. This one was a little more overt, definitely threatening, and it mentioned Caffrey by name.”
“So now you’re going to talk to Neal?”
“So now I’m going to spend my Saturday evening getting some answers out of Neal,” he agreed.
Her eyes widened a bit at his grim tone. “You don’t think he knows anything about it, do you?”
“Maybe.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Probably. I don’t know. He’s definitely been acting strange anyway, and I need to know why.”
“Honey…” She hesitated, then continued, “You know going over there accusing him of things right off the bat will probably just make him defensive. It’s possible he doesn’t know anything. And there may be something entirely different bothering him, which he’s not likely to tell you about if you alienate him now.”
“I know.” He sighed. “And I will try to give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s just… bad timing. We really didn’t need this right now.”
“Is there ever a good time for cryptic threatening letters?”
That pulled a reluctant smile from him. “I suppose not. But it’s especially bad right now. Neal’s supposed to be going undercover for our current case, starting Monday. We’ve been working up to this for weeks, and I’m not sure we can find anyone else qualified at this late date. And if we try putting it off…” He shook his head.
“I’m sure you’ll get it figured out.” She rose up on her toes to give him a quick kiss on the lips, then added with a smile, “Good luck.”
-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Peter’s knock at the loft’s door was answered by a clatter, as if something had been dropped or knocked over. It had him instinctively reaching toward his gun, until it was hastily followed by Caffrey’s voice calling out.
“Coming! Just a second!”
When Neal opened the door, Peter noted that he was breathing a bit quickly, as if he’d been rushing. His hair was mussed… and he was wearing a striped polo shirt that even Peter knew did not go with those silk pajama bottoms.
Peter might’ve suspected that Neal had company of the feminine variety, except that he didn’t seem exactly displeased to see Peter, just a bit surprised. And he’d opened the door fully, rather than just cracking it - clearly not planning on keeping him out.
Neal blinked. “Hey Peter.”
“Hey.” Peter nodded at the room behind him. “Are you - um - busy?”
“Oh.” Neal stepped back, letting him in. “No. No, I’m not busy. I was just -“
Shutting the door behind them, he waved a hand toward a small stand, on which Peter could see some kind of clay Neal had clearly been working with. Okay. So he’d been sculpting, and… on hearing a knock at the door, had felt the need to rush over and pull on the first shirt he could find.
Seriously, what? What was that about? Neal didn’t exactly make a habit out of going around bare-chested when he had company over, but he wasn’t shy either. He was comfortable with his own body, and he’d definitely prefer going shirtless over being seen in that getup. At least on a normal day.
The whole drive in to the office, and then over here, he’d been turning it over in his mind, but had yet to decide on the best approach. It was on the tip of his tongue to come right out and demand, Okay, Caffrey, you want to tell me what’s going on now? He restrained himself. Instead, he studied Neal’s just-begun sculpture curiously, trying to figure out what it was supposed to represent. He couldn’t decide if it was intended to be abstract, or just too early on to tell what it was.
“What’re you working on?”
“Nothing particular.” Neal shrugged. “Nothing illegal. Just relaxing. I’ll figure out what it’s going to be as I go along.”
“Just working with it for the sake of the process.”
“Pretty much.” Neal shot him a sidelong look. “Peter, you didn’t come over just to check up on me, did you?”
“I can’t drop by just to talk?”
Neal quirked a smile. “Just last night you were talking about how much you were looking forward to a quiet weekend with Elizabeth. She mad at you?”
“What? No. She’s not mad at me.”
“So it’s work, then. What happened?”
“We got a letter.”
“A letter?”
“Mm.” Peter nodded. “Seemed like a random crazy, until we got the second one today. Now it’s a not-so-random crazy.”
“Okay.” Neal tilted his head. “Are we talking ‘threatening to blow stuff up’ crazy, or ‘sending us the plans for a break-in in advance’ crazy?”
“Neither, exactly.” Peter drew the folded pieces of paper from his pocket, handing Neal the top sheet. “I brought a copy. See for yourself.”
Taking the paper, Neal scanned the message - not handwritten, but typed in a large font and printed out.
Peter, Peter, agent grim
Had a thief and couldn’t keep him.
Put him in a prison cell
And there he kept him very well.
Maybe you should reconsider your policies on letting guilty men walk free. It’s all or nothing.
Finishing, Neal glanced up at Peter before looking back to the paper.
“Well?” He prompted after a moment, when Neal still hadn’t said anything.
“Peter, this is awful.”
Peter tilted is head, raising an eyebrow. Neal looked… well, it was hard to pin down, exactly. His tone might be mildly horrified, but he didn’t seem really upset. Peter wasn’t quite sure what conclusion to draw from the reaction.
“They barely managed to rhyme, much less - “ Neal shook his head. “I never thought I would be so insulted to see poetry written about me. Although I suppose, seeing as it’s just a re-purposed nursery rhyme, it hardly even counts as that.”
“Well, if you’re going to go splitting hairs, you could say that technically the poem’s as much about me as about you.” Peter said wryly. “But yes. I would say that the… antagonism, at least, looks like it’s directed at you. The second letter seems to confirm that.”
He handed Neal the second paper.
I don’t like it when my messages are ignored. Caffrey might think I’m joking, but I’m just about done with warnings. If you don’t do something about him, I will.
Any amusement Neal was drawing from the situation seemed to fade away. He was frowning by the time he finished.
“Well,” he said. “That’s a bit more… direct. Do you have any idea who sent these?”
“No.” Peter said bluntly. “Do you?”
“What?” Neal looked startled. “No.”
Peter sighed. “Look, Neal, I’m not accusing you of anything. You know why I have to ask. The letter said this person had sent messages - sounds like they were sending you messages, specifically. What kind of messages?”
Neal shook his head. “I have no idea. I haven’t received anything, haven’t heard from anyone, can’t even think of anyone I might’ve upset who’d be likely to…” he gestured helplessly at the letters.
“You’re sure?”
“Honestly, Peter, I don’t know. If they did send some kind of messages or warnings, they either never arrived or someone needs to tell this person that those things are more effective when you actually use words.”
“Alright,” Peter said slowly, thoughtful. “So what about non-verbal messages? Anything strange happen lately? Maybe even something subtle, that wouldn’t seem like anything at the time…”
“Well, getting food poisoning two weekends in a row smacks of some pretty bad luck, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a message, unless it’s a hate letter from the universe in general,” Neal responded dryly.
“You had food poisoning? Twice?” Okay. If nothing else, it might be both explanation and excuse for at least some of Neal’s recent behavior. “You didn’t say anything.”
“Nothing to be done about it, and it wasn’t bad enough to make me miss work Monday.”
“Still. Twice?” Peter repeated, shaking his head. “You know, anyone else would take that as a sign to quit visiting the place, even if they did give you free food as an apology.”
“It wasn’t -“ Neal broke off, frustrated. He started again, “The first time was something I’d cooked myself. I figured something had gone bad, so I tossed out what was left of the ingredients and I haven’t had a problem since. Second time was a very reputable restaurant. I’ve never heard of them having problems before.”
“Okay.” Peter raised his hands defensively, surrendering. “Just coincidence, then. There hasn’t been anything else?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
Neal didn’t quite meet his eyes. Peter’s patience snapped.
“Look, I want to believe you, but you’ve been acting strange for a while now. You have to know it’s not helping your credibility at the moment.”
Neal froze, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. It was only for a fleeting moment, before he covered the reaction.
“Peter - “ Neal sighed. “If I knew what the letter was talking about, I’d tell you. I’m not doing anything, and I’m not off trying to handle some threat on my own. It’s just been a bad couple of weeks, okay? I’m sorry it’s been affecting me at work, but that’s really all it is.”
Leaning up against the table, he picked up the glass of wine sitting there, taking a sip. And maybe it was a distraction, maybe he was just buying himself time. But Peter didn’t think he looked or sounded evasive - not any of the many varieties of evasiveness Neal tended to employ. Just… tired.
“A bad couple of weeks, how?” His tone was quieter, no longer demanding, just prompting.
Neal lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug, eyes drifting to the skyline visible through the windows. “Just - life, you know? No mysterious people showing up, no threats, no messages, just a lot of stupid things going wrong.”
“Neal, what…” Peter reached out to touch his shoulder. He was startled when Neal flinched - not just objecting to the touch, but actually wincing a bit. “Okay,” he said firmly. “Take off that shirt.”
He might’ve laughed at Neal’s expression, if he hadn’t been so focused on figuring out what was going on. Naturally, Neal wasn’t going to take the easy way. His expression shifting into a mischievous grin - yep, definite evasion tactics now - Neal tilted his head at him. It was easy enough to see what was coming, so he held up a hand, forestalling the remark.
“No, I’m not gonna buy you dinner first. I saw that - you’re hurt, and I’m not taking your word that you’re fine. Shirt off. Now.
Neal complied, if a bit slowly. At first Peter took it for reluctance - until he caught sight of the dark bruising spread across his side. He shook his head, torn between concern and disbelief.
“This - this is not ‘just life’. What happened? Because that,” he gestured at the bruises, “looks an awful lot like a few messages I’ve seen handed out before. Usually as a warning that if the person doesn’t shut up they’re gonna wind up dead. You said no one was threatening you, Neal.”
“They’re not! It’s not - it wasn’t like that, Peter. It was just an accident.”
“Don’t try telling me you fell down the stairs.” At least one of those bruises looked an awful lot like a partial shoeprint. “You expect me to believe you were playing a friendly game of football and it got a bit out of hand?”
“It wasn’t like that either. I was in a bar…”
“You got involved in a fight?” Not that Neal couldn’t handle himself when he had to, but still. He wasn’t the type to let even a drunken misunderstanding get out of hand like that.
“Not exactly.” Neal gave him a look of appeal. “A couple of other guys - I didn’t know them - got into a fight. I kind of… got caught in the cross-fire.”
“You got into a bar fight.” Okay, yeah, he believed Neal about the extenuating circumstances. It was still kind of funny.
“No, I got out of a bar fight, at the earliest opportunity.”
“Looks like it wasn’t quite early enough.” Peter studied the bruises. “They didn’t break any ribs, did they?”
Neal made a dismissive gesture. “It looks worse than it is.”
“Oh, really?” Peter raised his eyebrows.
“Well, it does now,” Neal amended. “Doesn’t hurt as much as it did at first.”
“You should’ve said something.”
“Said what? ‘Hey Peter, I got beat up at a bar last night, but I swear it’s not my fault’?”
“Something like that.” Peter shook his head. Alright, Neal might have a point. “Did they get your back, too?”
He moved to get a look at the back of Neal’s shoulder, where he’d reacted to being touched. Yep, there were bruises across his back, too, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. A cut ran across Neal’s back, starting just below the ribcage on the left side, travelling up and across to end above the right shoulder blade. It was shallow, not deep enough to need stitches, but fresh and angry-looking.
“What the -“ Peter looked up. “Did they try to stab you?”
“Oh.” Neal twisted to look over his shoulder, as if trying to see it for himself. “No, that wasn’t - a guy on a bike almost ran me over.”
“And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning?” Peter moved to the side so he could see Neal’s face better.
“Peter, this is New York. How many times have you come close to being hit by a car, never mind a bicycle? It was an accident, happens all the time.”
“Fair point,” Peter conceded. “So that’s all you thought of it - that it was an accident?”
“Honestly, at the time I was just annoyed that my shirt was torn. Didn’t even realize until later that I’d been bleeding. Believe it or not, the idea that it might’ve been an attempt on my life didn’t occur to me.”
“It would be an unusual choice of weapons.” Peter smiled slightly. “And now?”
“Now?”
“You still think everything that’s been going wrong lately is nothing more than a run of bad luck?”
“I don’t know.” Neal tilted his head, considering. “If that’s the case, then whoever’s sending these supposed messages must have the wrong address. But if someone’s actually been doing these things intentionally...” He shook his head. “Hard to imagine.”
“It does seem a little improbable.”
“As messages go, it’s pretty obscure, not to mention impractical,” Neal agreed wryly. “It doesn’t really make sense. But then, this person - “ he held up the letters “ - doesn’t seem like the clearest thinker. It’s possible.”
Peter nodded. “I think for the time being we’ll have to assume that these… incidents were deliberate, not accidental. Even if it turns out to be unrelated, the current threats are directed at you, whatever form they take.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Right now?” Peter ran a hand through his hair, pausing a moment before asking, “Do you have any antibiotic cream?”
“What?”
“For your back,” Peter explained. “That cut’s shallow enough that it’s probably best to leave it open to the air for now, but putting some kind of ointment on it wouldn’t hurt. And you can’t exactly reach it easily yourself.”
“Oh - yeah, I’ve got some in the medicine cabinet. Thanks.”
Neal headed into the bathroom, returning a moment later to hand the tube of ointment to Peter. He examined the label briefly, then nodded in satisfaction.
“Should do.” He gestured to the nearest kitchen chair. “Have a seat.”
Neal turned the chair around, sitting on it backwards. Crossing his arms over the back of the chair, he leaned forward, resting his chin on them.
“So,” Neal prompted while Peter uncapped the ointment, “What about after this?”
Peter started spreading a dab of cream on to the cut. Neal drew in a quick breath, his back arching away from the touch.
“That hurt?” Peter asked, hesitating.
“Just cold. Sorry.”
Neal relaxed, and this time kept still as Peter continued.
“Now,” he responded to the earlier question, “we wait to hear back from forensics about the letters. We’ll try asking at the bar, see if we can identify the men who were fighting. I don’t suppose you got a good look at their faces?”
Neal shook his head. “Not with the bicyclist either. Too busy trying to get out of the way, both times.”
Peter hadn’t really expected any different. “Okay. Well, the bar might have surveillance videos, at least, and if the employees remember the men we may be able to get their credit card information. In the meantime… You’ll need to be careful.”
Finishing with the cut, he stepped over to the kitchen counter to wipe his hands on the towel sitting there.
“In fact,” he said thoughtfully, coming around to lean against the table, facing Neal, “it might be best if you stayed at my place for the rest of the weekend.”
“Peter…” Neal straightened, frowning.
He cut off the protest. “It seems like everything that’s happened has been outside of work hours - weekends, nights, before you get to the office in the morning. Unless I’m missing something?” He raised an eyebrow, daring Neal to conveniently forget another important detail.
“No,” Neal assured him. Then added, “Unless you count the air conditioning going out at the office. But I’m thinking that one’s unrelated.”
“Probably.” He agreed. “So far it hasn’t been anything too dangerous, but we don’t know if that was intended, or if it was just poorly planned, or if these letters signal an intention to escalate things. Until we know more, I’d feel better if there was someone around to keep an eye on you.”
“It’s really not necessary,” Neal insisted. “Peter, I’m tired. I just want to crash for a while - in my own space, with some peace and quiet. There are always at least a couple people in the house, so it’s not like something could happen without anyone knowing. I won’t even leave the house until Monday, if that’d make you happy.”
“It would,” Peter said dryly.
“Then I’ll stay put.”
Peter narrowed his eyes. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d agree to any kind of confinement that easily.”
Neal spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Hey, it’s just for one day. And I am tired. I wasn’t really planning to go anywhere in any case.”
“Okay,” Peter surrendered. “You stay here. You be careful, keep alert, and if anything happens, anything at all, even if something just feels strange, you call me, right away.”
“I will.”
His expression of guileless compliance was really not reassuring Peter at the moment. Still, he didn’t really have any reason to suspect that Neal was planning to go… do anything stupid. At least not beyond the mere fact that this was Neal, and being suspicious of his assurances was reflexive. Foreign as the notion might be, for now he was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Didn’t mean he was going to stop worrying, though.
“And be careful what you eat. Don’t order out,” he cautioned. “In fact, you can come to our house for dinner tomorrow. I’ll pick you up.”
“Elizabeth...” His tone was questioning.
“ - will be happy to have you, as usual.”
“Okay then.” Neal smiled. His expression shifted as a new thought occurred to him. “What about the undercover op? I’m supposed to be meeting with Federico Monday evening.”
“I don’t know.” Peter rubbed at his forehead, then dropped the hand, shaking his head. “I haven’t decided yet. I’m not sure if you should be….We’ll see. Maybe we’ll get really lucky and have this all sorted out before then.”
Neal smiled. “Hey, there’s always hope.”
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
As it turned out, they were not that lucky.
The weekend had, at least, passed quietly enough. Neal hadn’t left the house, as confirmed by Peter’s regular checks of his tracking data. Nothing unusual or dangerous had occurred. Peter idly wondered whether their mysterious letter writer had decided to give them all a day of rest for Sunday. He resisted the urge to call Neal at random intervals, just to make sure nothing was wrong.
Monday morning had brought mostly negatives. Negative results on the letters - no helpful prints, no unique aspects, nothing that could be traced. Inquiries at the bar had met with nothing but dead ends - no security footage that’d caught anything useful, staff had vague memories of the men, but they’d paid in cash so couldn’t be traced from credit card information. None of the scraps of information they managed to gather was quite enough to go anywhere with.
There were a few positives, though. No new letters had arrived. (Which, on the one hand, meant no chance of information to be gleaned from the sender’s potential carelessness. But on the other - well, a lack of threatening letters was generally considered a good thing.) No one had tried to attack Neal, lethally or otherwise. (Which might possibly have been influenced by the fact that Peter had not allowed him to move more than three feet from his side from the moment they stepped out of June’s house until they arrived at the office. And, once there, Neal had not been allowed to leave the White Collar division without first notifying Peter, and receiving an escort if the trip was to be any further than the restrooms.)
Having once resigned himself to it, Neal had accepted the restrictions, and repeated inquiries into the minute details of his life the last couple weeks, with surprisingly good grace. Hey, the man was smart, and he knew the sooner they could get things sorted out, the sooner life could get back to what passed for normal. A minimum of complaints and distractions could only facilitate that. Besides, he really didn’t want to get attacked by a crazy person.
As the day dragged on with no new information coming to light, though… he had begun to chafe. The more so because nothing was happening. By late afternoon his fidgeting and suggestions that maybe the incidents really had been completely unrelated to the letters grew less subtle.
In the end, Peter had decided that until they had something more to go on the investigation into the letters would have to be put on the back burner - though he would not be relaxing his watch over Neal just yet, thank you very much.
More reluctantly, and with many reservations, had come the decision to go ahead and send Neal in to meet with their suspect, Federico, that evening. It was too late to substitute anyone else without hopelessly compromising the op. Besides… as such things went, it would be relatively safe. The location was public, a restaurant where Peter could situate himself at a nearby table, the meeting was to be brief, and Neal shouldn’t be away from Peter’s side for more than twenty minutes, tops. Peter wasn’t stupid enough to ask “What could go wrong?” - this was Neal. The answer was always “You don’t even want to know.” But taking the risk was more easily justified than throwing away weeks of careful work and preparation.
It hadn’t gone well.
Oh, no one had tried to kill Neal. There was that.
A man from the neighboring table had slipped, though, knocking his full cup of coffee into Neal’s lap just as he was greeting Federico. It’d thrown Neal a bit, but he’d rallied like the experienced professional he was, exuding even more than his usual charm. And he’d needed every bit of it.
Federico had been unexpectedly edgy, in a bad mood from the start. When Neal had tried - per Peter’s instructions - to move the time for their final meeting to a few days out, instead of tomorrow, Federico had been upset, to say the least. That meeting - at which wealthy collector “Thomas Cardin” (Neal) would exchange his (the FBI’s) hard-earned money for an assortment of Federico’s illicitly-gained Middle Eastern artifacts - was the crux of the investigation. Neal had been forced to cave.
To add to Peter’s frustration, they hadn’t even been able to talk with the man who’d spilled the coffee. The man had finished his meal and left before Neal’s discussion with Federico was over. Peter had ordered Jones to intercept him quietly outside, but the sidewalk had been busy and Jones had missed him in the crowd.
It was probably a random stranger - an ordinary accident. But the missed opportunity on top of everything else rankled.
So here they were on Tuesday, still caught between a rock and a hard place, with decisions to be made. Peter had called the team together in the conference room to discuss the situation.
“I’m telling you, I can do this.” Neal leaned forward slightly in his chair, fixing Peter with an earnest look. “It’s worth it.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Peter countered. “Look, I appreciate your willingness to take the risk. I do. But catching Federico and retrieving those artifacts is not worth your life.”
“Peter, I’m touched.” Neal grinned.
Peter pointed a finger at him. “Don’t. This is not a game.”
“It was a cup of coffee, Peter. It wasn’t hot enough to scald, much less kill. There’s not even going to be a permanent stain. Besides, we still don’t know that it had anything to do with the letters. It was probably just an accident.”
“I don’t know.” Peter glanced over to where Cruz and Jones were sitting. “What’s your take on it?”
Jones shook his head. “I wasn’t there to see it happen, so I can’t give an opinion on whether it looked like an accident. Going by the circumstances… it could just as easily be either. This whole situation’s kinda crazy.”
“Cruz?” Peter turned to her.
“I’m with Jones - impossible to say.” She pressed her lips together. “If you want my opinion, I think we should take the risk.”
Neal gave her a wry look. “I’m… not sure whether to thank you, or be insulted.”
“Either way, the debate’s moot now.”
They all turned toward the doorway, startled at Hughes’ entrance.
“I just got off the phone,” he went on. “People up the chain from me are getting pressure from people higher up than them to get these artifacts back, fast. Apparently there’s a risk of this turning into an international situation, if it doesn’t get resolved. My orders are to make this investigation a top priority. So - you’re going to that meeting, Caffrey.” He turned to Peter, giving him a sympathetic look. “Take what precautions you can, but this isn’t our call anymore.”
“Understood.” Peter wasn’t happy, but as long as Neal was willing he wasn’t going to fight it.
Giving him a quick nod, Hughes turned back to his office. Peter drew in a deep breath once he was gone, letting it out slowly as he thought through the situation.
“Okay. Neal, any chance one of us can go in with you - as a bodyguard, assistant…?”
Neal grimaced, shaking his head. “I don’t think he’d go for that, not after the way he was yesterday.”
“Then we’ll just have to go ahead as planned. You go in alone, but we’ll never be more than a couple minutes away if there’s trouble. We have eyes and ears in the building, so we’ll be able to monitor everything that’s happening.”
That was one thing they’d lucked out on. The location Federico had chosen for the exchange was a vacant warehouse. As it happened, a bit of research had revealed that the place wasn’t just abandoned - it had become government property due to the owner’s failure to pay taxes. They’d been able to legally check out the place thoroughly earlier, and set up a few hidden cameras.
“Will I be wearing a wire, or do you have enough bugs set up?” Neal asked.
“We’ll set you up with a wire, to be on the safe side. Remember, we don’t know exactly what he’ll have with him - ”
“ - So I need to make sure that the pieces we’re looking for are actually there before you move in.”
“Right. Ideally, we’re hoping to grab all the artifacts we’ve confirmed are in Federico’s possession at once. Failing that, we need to at least confirm a few of the most important pieces. You want to read the list off, Jones?”
Jones opened the folder in front of him to scan the papers. “It looks like the key items are… an Akhenaten statue, four Sumerian clay tablets, three Babylonian rings, two gilded statues of Tutankhamen…”
“… and a partridge in a pear tree,” Neal added, smiling.
Jones chuckled. “Nah, don’t see that one on the list.” He flipped the folder shut, sliding it across to Neal. “There are maybe half a dozen other things listed, and a few photos in here, but those are the key pieces.”
Paging through it, Neal nodded. “Artistically speaking, the Akhenaten statue is the most unique, but each of these pieces is significant, either intrinsically, historically, or both.”
“Hence the pressure to get them back where they belong,” Peter agreed. “Just remember, if he brings any of the stolen pieces at all, even if the important ones aren’t there, we can still bring him in for that and work on getting the location for the rest once he’s in custody. If needs be, I’d much rather cut Federico a deal later than put your life at risk. If you don’t like the feel of things, don’t hesitate to use the code phrase, and we’ll get you out. Do not push your luck on this one. Just play things as safe as possible.”
“I will.”
Mercifully, Neal’s expression and tone were sober and matter-of-fact as he met Peter’s eyes. Peter hoped that meant he really had gotten the message, and wouldn’t try any heroics or risky improvisation if things went off-script.
Then again… this was Neal. He might as well just keep worrying.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-
On to part two!
Unpredictable
Peter sighed, staring out his office window at nothing in particular. He was pretty sure Neal was acting strange. Stranger than usual, that was. Not that there was necessarily anything out of the ordinary about Neal acting… well, out of the ordinary. The man hadn’t just made a living out of being hard to figure out, after all, he’d made a lifestyle out of it.
Thing was, there were subtle differences between Neal being unpredictable because he could, and Neal acting differently because he was up to something, and Neal being unconsciously off because something… entirely different was bothering him. For all the years he’d studied the man, Peter still couldn’t always pin down the shades of distinction.
It didn’t help that the current off-ness was so subtle.
Neal brushing off an invitation to join Peter for lunch at the café down the block. Contrary to popular belief, Neal did choose to work through lunch break occasionally, if something had caught his interest. But there wasn’t anything particularly interesting in the files Neal was studying. He’d been fidgety all morning. And turning it down when Peter had already volunteered to pay? Odd.
Then the other day when the air conditioning went out he’d refused to take off his suit jacket. It had been sweltering, and everyone else had been hastening to shed unnecessary clothing, rolling up sleeves… but not Neal. He’d gotten plenty of incredulous remarks, but had grinned and laughed his way out of each of them, joking that he was just better at keeping his cool than they were. He’d kept it up for hours, until the repairs were finally completed, and Peter hadn’t missed his sweating, or the volume of ice water he’d downed. It was an idiot thing to do, that sort of macho toughing things out, and really not like Neal. Not without a reason, as if he had some point to prove.
He’d seemed a bit edgy lately, too, when it came to personal space. That was distinctly un-Caffrey-like. Neal was comfortable with people, and he certainly didn’t mind the people he knew well leaning over his shoulder to watch him do something, the odd bit of casual physical contact. Peter would’ve thought there’d been some disagreement or issue that he’d missed, to make Neal so stand-offish, except that he was doing it with everyone, even Peter himself. And he didn’t actually seem uneasy, or reluctant to be around any of them. Just subtly shifted away a bit if someone got too close or brushed up against him.
Add in a few too-easy smiles and bursts of chatter clearly designed to misdirect, alternating with fits of inattention on Neal’s own part, and… well.
It was just a lot of little things, each on their own insignificant, easily shrugged off, but collectively niggling at his mind. It could be nothing more than his imagination, but he thought not. Something was up. The real question was whether he needed to do anything about it. When it came to Caffrey acting strangely, the answer was almost always a resounding yes. The problem was how to go about it.
Naturally, he’d tried going over Neal’s tracking data. Several times. He knew that Neal hadn’t been wandering outside his radius, of course - he’d have had an alert for that - but there was actually breaking the rules, and then there was generally suspicious behavior it’d take a careful eye to pick up on.
Nothing particularly odd showed up under the scrutiny, aside from the fact that he’d pretty much spent the last two weekends entirely in his apartment. Unusual for someone as social as Neal, but he couldn’t very well call him over and demand to know why he hadn’t found anything better to occupy his time than sitting in that loft and painting, or reading, or whatever he’d been doing. Well, technically he could. If he wanted to look as insane and paranoid as Haversham.
Anyhow, confronting Neal directly worked best if he already had at least an inkling of what was up. Otherwise, if he was up to something it just made him more cautious, and difficult to pin down. And if it was something else… he tended to pull up his best “Yeah, everything’s just fine” façade, making it that much more difficult to get any information out of him, especially if the situation involved something he suspected Peter wouldn’t approve of. Which it usually did.
Looking out through the glass wall of his office, Peter could see Neal sitting innocently at his desk. One elbow was resting on the desk, hand propping up his head as he stared at one of the mortgage fraud files Peter had handed him earlier. At the moment he looked closer to “bored to tears” than “conniving.”
Peter shook his head, turning back to his computer screen. Until he got something more solid to go on, it was probably best to just keep a closer eye on him. Maybe if he saw a chance to catch him off-guard he could nudge him a bit, see if any information slipped out.
Yeah, right. Catch Neal Caffrey accidentally spilling anything he wanted to keep to himself. Peter rubbed at his forehead, hoping to avert the impending headache.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Neal sighed, reaching down to close his desk drawer - carefully not slamming it shut, to avoid attracting attention. Also to avoid aggravating his headache.
He was having the most ridiculous run of bad luck. And to add insult to injury, a lot of it was embarrassing bad luck, too. Mostly just little, stupid things, but it was getting to him.
Granted, maybe he should’ve gotten out of that bar before the little shouting match at the back turned into an all-out fight. But he honestly hadn’t thought it would escalate like that. And it was hardly his fault that they’d drifted closer to him just as things reached a breaking point. He’d been trying to get clear when a case of mistaken identity had resulted in his being knocked to the floor and receiving several solid kicks to the back and sides before he could roll out of the way, under a nearby table. At least he’d managed to slip out of the place before the cops arrived. Wouldn’t that have been fun to explain to Peter.
And that take-out from the great Indian place… at least it was usually great. He’d spent all night Saturday and most of Sunday throwing up. He’d been pretty well recovered by Monday, but the dry toast he’d had for breakfast sat uneasily enough on his stomach that he hadn’t dared risk lunch.
The incident with the bicyclist had been particularly aggravating. It’d been shaping up to be a good day, until then. Traffic had been light, making him early enough that he’d had the taxi drop him off a few blocks from the FBI building, wanting to enjoy the cooler morning air while he could. It’d been so nice he’d taken off his suit coat, carrying it over one arm as he walked. He’d been distracted enough that he’d had no idea of the biker coming up behind him until the rider had called out to him. He hardly had time to start turning in response to the warning shout before the bicycle had hit him. At least it’d been enough to prevent a full-on collision. As it was, some sharp edge on the handlebar had caught him as he stumbled, tearing the back of his shirt.
He’d been sore and annoyed, but had managed to pull himself into some kind of order, covering up the damage by pulling his jacket back on. And… arrived at work with seconds to spare, which both Jones and Cruz had commented upon. Bruised in pride as much as in body, he’d hoped to get by without explanations. Would’ve been easy enough, too, if it hadn’t been for the stupid air conditioning. He’d been just on the verge of giving in - even the annoyance of needing to explain to every person who saw him why his shirt was ripped wasn’t worth risking heat stroke - when it’d finally kicked back in again.
His back had itched like crazy all day, and stung, especially with the beads of sweat inching down his back. He hadn’t realized until he got home that night that he was actually bleeding a little too. One look at the back of his shirt and he’d given up all hope of salvaging it. He’d really liked that one, too. At least the suit would be alright.
There’d been… oh, all kinds of other little, insignificant things over the course of the last couple weeks. Each one minor, easily shrugged off, but cumulatively… yeah, it was getting to him. He’d tried not to let it affect his work, but was pretty sure he hadn’t been entirely successful. He’d noticed Peter giving him odd looks several times over the last week, and was just waiting for him to finally break and give him a lecture about the lack of focus, complete with reminder of exactly how tenuous his position here was.
Yeah, that’d really top things off nicely. He could only hope that if - when - that time came he could keep from yelling right back at him. He was tired, and he was frustrated, and the last thing he needed right now was Peter mad at him.
With another sigh, he pulled the next folder off his stack - yet another mortgage fraud case - and set to work again.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-
“Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I’ll stop by to pick up the copies on my way to talk with him.”
Peter hung up the phone, frowning down at it for a moment before setting it back on the kitchen counter.
On the up side, he finally had something to go on. And there was no longer any question of whether confronting Neal was the best course of action - it was definitely time to get some answers out of him.
Picking up his car keys, he called out, “El?”
“Yes? Who was it, Peter?” She poked her head into the kitchen. On catching sight of his expression, her cheerful smile faded into concern. “Work?”
He nodded.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s -“ he gave an exasperated huff. “I don’t even know yet. White Collar got… kind of an odd letter in the mail yesterday.” Seeing her frown, he added, “I’d have mentioned it earlier, but it slipped my mind. It wasn’t actually threatening, exactly, just - well, strange, and no indication of who’d sent it.”
“Well can you do anything about it?”
“We sent it down to be analyzed, see if they can pull any fingerprints or anything… Honestly, I didn’t expect anything. It happens once in a while, and most often nothing more comes of it. Just a one-time bit of crazy, with no real intent to go further. Sometimes we’re able to get enough information to look into it, sometimes not.”
“They found something, then?”
“No, actually, we’re still waiting to hear back on the results. The call was because we got another letter today. Seems to be the same person. This one was a little more overt, definitely threatening, and it mentioned Caffrey by name.”
“So now you’re going to talk to Neal?”
“So now I’m going to spend my Saturday evening getting some answers out of Neal,” he agreed.
Her eyes widened a bit at his grim tone. “You don’t think he knows anything about it, do you?”
“Maybe.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Probably. I don’t know. He’s definitely been acting strange anyway, and I need to know why.”
“Honey…” She hesitated, then continued, “You know going over there accusing him of things right off the bat will probably just make him defensive. It’s possible he doesn’t know anything. And there may be something entirely different bothering him, which he’s not likely to tell you about if you alienate him now.”
“I know.” He sighed. “And I will try to give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s just… bad timing. We really didn’t need this right now.”
“Is there ever a good time for cryptic threatening letters?”
That pulled a reluctant smile from him. “I suppose not. But it’s especially bad right now. Neal’s supposed to be going undercover for our current case, starting Monday. We’ve been working up to this for weeks, and I’m not sure we can find anyone else qualified at this late date. And if we try putting it off…” He shook his head.
“I’m sure you’ll get it figured out.” She rose up on her toes to give him a quick kiss on the lips, then added with a smile, “Good luck.”
-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Peter’s knock at the loft’s door was answered by a clatter, as if something had been dropped or knocked over. It had him instinctively reaching toward his gun, until it was hastily followed by Caffrey’s voice calling out.
“Coming! Just a second!”
When Neal opened the door, Peter noted that he was breathing a bit quickly, as if he’d been rushing. His hair was mussed… and he was wearing a striped polo shirt that even Peter knew did not go with those silk pajama bottoms.
Peter might’ve suspected that Neal had company of the feminine variety, except that he didn’t seem exactly displeased to see Peter, just a bit surprised. And he’d opened the door fully, rather than just cracking it - clearly not planning on keeping him out.
Neal blinked. “Hey Peter.”
“Hey.” Peter nodded at the room behind him. “Are you - um - busy?”
“Oh.” Neal stepped back, letting him in. “No. No, I’m not busy. I was just -“
Shutting the door behind them, he waved a hand toward a small stand, on which Peter could see some kind of clay Neal had clearly been working with. Okay. So he’d been sculpting, and… on hearing a knock at the door, had felt the need to rush over and pull on the first shirt he could find.
Seriously, what? What was that about? Neal didn’t exactly make a habit out of going around bare-chested when he had company over, but he wasn’t shy either. He was comfortable with his own body, and he’d definitely prefer going shirtless over being seen in that getup. At least on a normal day.
The whole drive in to the office, and then over here, he’d been turning it over in his mind, but had yet to decide on the best approach. It was on the tip of his tongue to come right out and demand, Okay, Caffrey, you want to tell me what’s going on now? He restrained himself. Instead, he studied Neal’s just-begun sculpture curiously, trying to figure out what it was supposed to represent. He couldn’t decide if it was intended to be abstract, or just too early on to tell what it was.
“What’re you working on?”
“Nothing particular.” Neal shrugged. “Nothing illegal. Just relaxing. I’ll figure out what it’s going to be as I go along.”
“Just working with it for the sake of the process.”
“Pretty much.” Neal shot him a sidelong look. “Peter, you didn’t come over just to check up on me, did you?”
“I can’t drop by just to talk?”
Neal quirked a smile. “Just last night you were talking about how much you were looking forward to a quiet weekend with Elizabeth. She mad at you?”
“What? No. She’s not mad at me.”
“So it’s work, then. What happened?”
“We got a letter.”
“A letter?”
“Mm.” Peter nodded. “Seemed like a random crazy, until we got the second one today. Now it’s a not-so-random crazy.”
“Okay.” Neal tilted his head. “Are we talking ‘threatening to blow stuff up’ crazy, or ‘sending us the plans for a break-in in advance’ crazy?”
“Neither, exactly.” Peter drew the folded pieces of paper from his pocket, handing Neal the top sheet. “I brought a copy. See for yourself.”
Taking the paper, Neal scanned the message - not handwritten, but typed in a large font and printed out.
Peter, Peter, agent grim
Had a thief and couldn’t keep him.
Put him in a prison cell
And there he kept him very well.
Maybe you should reconsider your policies on letting guilty men walk free. It’s all or nothing.
Finishing, Neal glanced up at Peter before looking back to the paper.
“Well?” He prompted after a moment, when Neal still hadn’t said anything.
“Peter, this is awful.”
Peter tilted is head, raising an eyebrow. Neal looked… well, it was hard to pin down, exactly. His tone might be mildly horrified, but he didn’t seem really upset. Peter wasn’t quite sure what conclusion to draw from the reaction.
“They barely managed to rhyme, much less - “ Neal shook his head. “I never thought I would be so insulted to see poetry written about me. Although I suppose, seeing as it’s just a re-purposed nursery rhyme, it hardly even counts as that.”
“Well, if you’re going to go splitting hairs, you could say that technically the poem’s as much about me as about you.” Peter said wryly. “But yes. I would say that the… antagonism, at least, looks like it’s directed at you. The second letter seems to confirm that.”
He handed Neal the second paper.
I don’t like it when my messages are ignored. Caffrey might think I’m joking, but I’m just about done with warnings. If you don’t do something about him, I will.
Any amusement Neal was drawing from the situation seemed to fade away. He was frowning by the time he finished.
“Well,” he said. “That’s a bit more… direct. Do you have any idea who sent these?”
“No.” Peter said bluntly. “Do you?”
“What?” Neal looked startled. “No.”
Peter sighed. “Look, Neal, I’m not accusing you of anything. You know why I have to ask. The letter said this person had sent messages - sounds like they were sending you messages, specifically. What kind of messages?”
Neal shook his head. “I have no idea. I haven’t received anything, haven’t heard from anyone, can’t even think of anyone I might’ve upset who’d be likely to…” he gestured helplessly at the letters.
“You’re sure?”
“Honestly, Peter, I don’t know. If they did send some kind of messages or warnings, they either never arrived or someone needs to tell this person that those things are more effective when you actually use words.”
“Alright,” Peter said slowly, thoughtful. “So what about non-verbal messages? Anything strange happen lately? Maybe even something subtle, that wouldn’t seem like anything at the time…”
“Well, getting food poisoning two weekends in a row smacks of some pretty bad luck, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a message, unless it’s a hate letter from the universe in general,” Neal responded dryly.
“You had food poisoning? Twice?” Okay. If nothing else, it might be both explanation and excuse for at least some of Neal’s recent behavior. “You didn’t say anything.”
“Nothing to be done about it, and it wasn’t bad enough to make me miss work Monday.”
“Still. Twice?” Peter repeated, shaking his head. “You know, anyone else would take that as a sign to quit visiting the place, even if they did give you free food as an apology.”
“It wasn’t -“ Neal broke off, frustrated. He started again, “The first time was something I’d cooked myself. I figured something had gone bad, so I tossed out what was left of the ingredients and I haven’t had a problem since. Second time was a very reputable restaurant. I’ve never heard of them having problems before.”
“Okay.” Peter raised his hands defensively, surrendering. “Just coincidence, then. There hasn’t been anything else?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
Neal didn’t quite meet his eyes. Peter’s patience snapped.
“Look, I want to believe you, but you’ve been acting strange for a while now. You have to know it’s not helping your credibility at the moment.”
Neal froze, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. It was only for a fleeting moment, before he covered the reaction.
“Peter - “ Neal sighed. “If I knew what the letter was talking about, I’d tell you. I’m not doing anything, and I’m not off trying to handle some threat on my own. It’s just been a bad couple of weeks, okay? I’m sorry it’s been affecting me at work, but that’s really all it is.”
Leaning up against the table, he picked up the glass of wine sitting there, taking a sip. And maybe it was a distraction, maybe he was just buying himself time. But Peter didn’t think he looked or sounded evasive - not any of the many varieties of evasiveness Neal tended to employ. Just… tired.
“A bad couple of weeks, how?” His tone was quieter, no longer demanding, just prompting.
Neal lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug, eyes drifting to the skyline visible through the windows. “Just - life, you know? No mysterious people showing up, no threats, no messages, just a lot of stupid things going wrong.”
“Neal, what…” Peter reached out to touch his shoulder. He was startled when Neal flinched - not just objecting to the touch, but actually wincing a bit. “Okay,” he said firmly. “Take off that shirt.”
He might’ve laughed at Neal’s expression, if he hadn’t been so focused on figuring out what was going on. Naturally, Neal wasn’t going to take the easy way. His expression shifting into a mischievous grin - yep, definite evasion tactics now - Neal tilted his head at him. It was easy enough to see what was coming, so he held up a hand, forestalling the remark.
“No, I’m not gonna buy you dinner first. I saw that - you’re hurt, and I’m not taking your word that you’re fine. Shirt off. Now.
Neal complied, if a bit slowly. At first Peter took it for reluctance - until he caught sight of the dark bruising spread across his side. He shook his head, torn between concern and disbelief.
“This - this is not ‘just life’. What happened? Because that,” he gestured at the bruises, “looks an awful lot like a few messages I’ve seen handed out before. Usually as a warning that if the person doesn’t shut up they’re gonna wind up dead. You said no one was threatening you, Neal.”
“They’re not! It’s not - it wasn’t like that, Peter. It was just an accident.”
“Don’t try telling me you fell down the stairs.” At least one of those bruises looked an awful lot like a partial shoeprint. “You expect me to believe you were playing a friendly game of football and it got a bit out of hand?”
“It wasn’t like that either. I was in a bar…”
“You got involved in a fight?” Not that Neal couldn’t handle himself when he had to, but still. He wasn’t the type to let even a drunken misunderstanding get out of hand like that.
“Not exactly.” Neal gave him a look of appeal. “A couple of other guys - I didn’t know them - got into a fight. I kind of… got caught in the cross-fire.”
“You got into a bar fight.” Okay, yeah, he believed Neal about the extenuating circumstances. It was still kind of funny.
“No, I got out of a bar fight, at the earliest opportunity.”
“Looks like it wasn’t quite early enough.” Peter studied the bruises. “They didn’t break any ribs, did they?”
Neal made a dismissive gesture. “It looks worse than it is.”
“Oh, really?” Peter raised his eyebrows.
“Well, it does now,” Neal amended. “Doesn’t hurt as much as it did at first.”
“You should’ve said something.”
“Said what? ‘Hey Peter, I got beat up at a bar last night, but I swear it’s not my fault’?”
“Something like that.” Peter shook his head. Alright, Neal might have a point. “Did they get your back, too?”
He moved to get a look at the back of Neal’s shoulder, where he’d reacted to being touched. Yep, there were bruises across his back, too, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. A cut ran across Neal’s back, starting just below the ribcage on the left side, travelling up and across to end above the right shoulder blade. It was shallow, not deep enough to need stitches, but fresh and angry-looking.
“What the -“ Peter looked up. “Did they try to stab you?”
“Oh.” Neal twisted to look over his shoulder, as if trying to see it for himself. “No, that wasn’t - a guy on a bike almost ran me over.”
“And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning?” Peter moved to the side so he could see Neal’s face better.
“Peter, this is New York. How many times have you come close to being hit by a car, never mind a bicycle? It was an accident, happens all the time.”
“Fair point,” Peter conceded. “So that’s all you thought of it - that it was an accident?”
“Honestly, at the time I was just annoyed that my shirt was torn. Didn’t even realize until later that I’d been bleeding. Believe it or not, the idea that it might’ve been an attempt on my life didn’t occur to me.”
“It would be an unusual choice of weapons.” Peter smiled slightly. “And now?”
“Now?”
“You still think everything that’s been going wrong lately is nothing more than a run of bad luck?”
“I don’t know.” Neal tilted his head, considering. “If that’s the case, then whoever’s sending these supposed messages must have the wrong address. But if someone’s actually been doing these things intentionally...” He shook his head. “Hard to imagine.”
“It does seem a little improbable.”
“As messages go, it’s pretty obscure, not to mention impractical,” Neal agreed wryly. “It doesn’t really make sense. But then, this person - “ he held up the letters “ - doesn’t seem like the clearest thinker. It’s possible.”
Peter nodded. “I think for the time being we’ll have to assume that these… incidents were deliberate, not accidental. Even if it turns out to be unrelated, the current threats are directed at you, whatever form they take.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Right now?” Peter ran a hand through his hair, pausing a moment before asking, “Do you have any antibiotic cream?”
“What?”
“For your back,” Peter explained. “That cut’s shallow enough that it’s probably best to leave it open to the air for now, but putting some kind of ointment on it wouldn’t hurt. And you can’t exactly reach it easily yourself.”
“Oh - yeah, I’ve got some in the medicine cabinet. Thanks.”
Neal headed into the bathroom, returning a moment later to hand the tube of ointment to Peter. He examined the label briefly, then nodded in satisfaction.
“Should do.” He gestured to the nearest kitchen chair. “Have a seat.”
Neal turned the chair around, sitting on it backwards. Crossing his arms over the back of the chair, he leaned forward, resting his chin on them.
“So,” Neal prompted while Peter uncapped the ointment, “What about after this?”
Peter started spreading a dab of cream on to the cut. Neal drew in a quick breath, his back arching away from the touch.
“That hurt?” Peter asked, hesitating.
“Just cold. Sorry.”
Neal relaxed, and this time kept still as Peter continued.
“Now,” he responded to the earlier question, “we wait to hear back from forensics about the letters. We’ll try asking at the bar, see if we can identify the men who were fighting. I don’t suppose you got a good look at their faces?”
Neal shook his head. “Not with the bicyclist either. Too busy trying to get out of the way, both times.”
Peter hadn’t really expected any different. “Okay. Well, the bar might have surveillance videos, at least, and if the employees remember the men we may be able to get their credit card information. In the meantime… You’ll need to be careful.”
Finishing with the cut, he stepped over to the kitchen counter to wipe his hands on the towel sitting there.
“In fact,” he said thoughtfully, coming around to lean against the table, facing Neal, “it might be best if you stayed at my place for the rest of the weekend.”
“Peter…” Neal straightened, frowning.
He cut off the protest. “It seems like everything that’s happened has been outside of work hours - weekends, nights, before you get to the office in the morning. Unless I’m missing something?” He raised an eyebrow, daring Neal to conveniently forget another important detail.
“No,” Neal assured him. Then added, “Unless you count the air conditioning going out at the office. But I’m thinking that one’s unrelated.”
“Probably.” He agreed. “So far it hasn’t been anything too dangerous, but we don’t know if that was intended, or if it was just poorly planned, or if these letters signal an intention to escalate things. Until we know more, I’d feel better if there was someone around to keep an eye on you.”
“It’s really not necessary,” Neal insisted. “Peter, I’m tired. I just want to crash for a while - in my own space, with some peace and quiet. There are always at least a couple people in the house, so it’s not like something could happen without anyone knowing. I won’t even leave the house until Monday, if that’d make you happy.”
“It would,” Peter said dryly.
“Then I’ll stay put.”
Peter narrowed his eyes. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d agree to any kind of confinement that easily.”
Neal spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Hey, it’s just for one day. And I am tired. I wasn’t really planning to go anywhere in any case.”
“Okay,” Peter surrendered. “You stay here. You be careful, keep alert, and if anything happens, anything at all, even if something just feels strange, you call me, right away.”
“I will.”
His expression of guileless compliance was really not reassuring Peter at the moment. Still, he didn’t really have any reason to suspect that Neal was planning to go… do anything stupid. At least not beyond the mere fact that this was Neal, and being suspicious of his assurances was reflexive. Foreign as the notion might be, for now he was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Didn’t mean he was going to stop worrying, though.
“And be careful what you eat. Don’t order out,” he cautioned. “In fact, you can come to our house for dinner tomorrow. I’ll pick you up.”
“Elizabeth...” His tone was questioning.
“ - will be happy to have you, as usual.”
“Okay then.” Neal smiled. His expression shifted as a new thought occurred to him. “What about the undercover op? I’m supposed to be meeting with Federico Monday evening.”
“I don’t know.” Peter rubbed at his forehead, then dropped the hand, shaking his head. “I haven’t decided yet. I’m not sure if you should be….We’ll see. Maybe we’ll get really lucky and have this all sorted out before then.”
Neal smiled. “Hey, there’s always hope.”
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
As it turned out, they were not that lucky.
The weekend had, at least, passed quietly enough. Neal hadn’t left the house, as confirmed by Peter’s regular checks of his tracking data. Nothing unusual or dangerous had occurred. Peter idly wondered whether their mysterious letter writer had decided to give them all a day of rest for Sunday. He resisted the urge to call Neal at random intervals, just to make sure nothing was wrong.
Monday morning had brought mostly negatives. Negative results on the letters - no helpful prints, no unique aspects, nothing that could be traced. Inquiries at the bar had met with nothing but dead ends - no security footage that’d caught anything useful, staff had vague memories of the men, but they’d paid in cash so couldn’t be traced from credit card information. None of the scraps of information they managed to gather was quite enough to go anywhere with.
There were a few positives, though. No new letters had arrived. (Which, on the one hand, meant no chance of information to be gleaned from the sender’s potential carelessness. But on the other - well, a lack of threatening letters was generally considered a good thing.) No one had tried to attack Neal, lethally or otherwise. (Which might possibly have been influenced by the fact that Peter had not allowed him to move more than three feet from his side from the moment they stepped out of June’s house until they arrived at the office. And, once there, Neal had not been allowed to leave the White Collar division without first notifying Peter, and receiving an escort if the trip was to be any further than the restrooms.)
Having once resigned himself to it, Neal had accepted the restrictions, and repeated inquiries into the minute details of his life the last couple weeks, with surprisingly good grace. Hey, the man was smart, and he knew the sooner they could get things sorted out, the sooner life could get back to what passed for normal. A minimum of complaints and distractions could only facilitate that. Besides, he really didn’t want to get attacked by a crazy person.
As the day dragged on with no new information coming to light, though… he had begun to chafe. The more so because nothing was happening. By late afternoon his fidgeting and suggestions that maybe the incidents really had been completely unrelated to the letters grew less subtle.
In the end, Peter had decided that until they had something more to go on the investigation into the letters would have to be put on the back burner - though he would not be relaxing his watch over Neal just yet, thank you very much.
More reluctantly, and with many reservations, had come the decision to go ahead and send Neal in to meet with their suspect, Federico, that evening. It was too late to substitute anyone else without hopelessly compromising the op. Besides… as such things went, it would be relatively safe. The location was public, a restaurant where Peter could situate himself at a nearby table, the meeting was to be brief, and Neal shouldn’t be away from Peter’s side for more than twenty minutes, tops. Peter wasn’t stupid enough to ask “What could go wrong?” - this was Neal. The answer was always “You don’t even want to know.” But taking the risk was more easily justified than throwing away weeks of careful work and preparation.
It hadn’t gone well.
Oh, no one had tried to kill Neal. There was that.
A man from the neighboring table had slipped, though, knocking his full cup of coffee into Neal’s lap just as he was greeting Federico. It’d thrown Neal a bit, but he’d rallied like the experienced professional he was, exuding even more than his usual charm. And he’d needed every bit of it.
Federico had been unexpectedly edgy, in a bad mood from the start. When Neal had tried - per Peter’s instructions - to move the time for their final meeting to a few days out, instead of tomorrow, Federico had been upset, to say the least. That meeting - at which wealthy collector “Thomas Cardin” (Neal) would exchange his (the FBI’s) hard-earned money for an assortment of Federico’s illicitly-gained Middle Eastern artifacts - was the crux of the investigation. Neal had been forced to cave.
To add to Peter’s frustration, they hadn’t even been able to talk with the man who’d spilled the coffee. The man had finished his meal and left before Neal’s discussion with Federico was over. Peter had ordered Jones to intercept him quietly outside, but the sidewalk had been busy and Jones had missed him in the crowd.
It was probably a random stranger - an ordinary accident. But the missed opportunity on top of everything else rankled.
So here they were on Tuesday, still caught between a rock and a hard place, with decisions to be made. Peter had called the team together in the conference room to discuss the situation.
“I’m telling you, I can do this.” Neal leaned forward slightly in his chair, fixing Peter with an earnest look. “It’s worth it.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Peter countered. “Look, I appreciate your willingness to take the risk. I do. But catching Federico and retrieving those artifacts is not worth your life.”
“Peter, I’m touched.” Neal grinned.
Peter pointed a finger at him. “Don’t. This is not a game.”
“It was a cup of coffee, Peter. It wasn’t hot enough to scald, much less kill. There’s not even going to be a permanent stain. Besides, we still don’t know that it had anything to do with the letters. It was probably just an accident.”
“I don’t know.” Peter glanced over to where Cruz and Jones were sitting. “What’s your take on it?”
Jones shook his head. “I wasn’t there to see it happen, so I can’t give an opinion on whether it looked like an accident. Going by the circumstances… it could just as easily be either. This whole situation’s kinda crazy.”
“Cruz?” Peter turned to her.
“I’m with Jones - impossible to say.” She pressed her lips together. “If you want my opinion, I think we should take the risk.”
Neal gave her a wry look. “I’m… not sure whether to thank you, or be insulted.”
“Either way, the debate’s moot now.”
They all turned toward the doorway, startled at Hughes’ entrance.
“I just got off the phone,” he went on. “People up the chain from me are getting pressure from people higher up than them to get these artifacts back, fast. Apparently there’s a risk of this turning into an international situation, if it doesn’t get resolved. My orders are to make this investigation a top priority. So - you’re going to that meeting, Caffrey.” He turned to Peter, giving him a sympathetic look. “Take what precautions you can, but this isn’t our call anymore.”
“Understood.” Peter wasn’t happy, but as long as Neal was willing he wasn’t going to fight it.
Giving him a quick nod, Hughes turned back to his office. Peter drew in a deep breath once he was gone, letting it out slowly as he thought through the situation.
“Okay. Neal, any chance one of us can go in with you - as a bodyguard, assistant…?”
Neal grimaced, shaking his head. “I don’t think he’d go for that, not after the way he was yesterday.”
“Then we’ll just have to go ahead as planned. You go in alone, but we’ll never be more than a couple minutes away if there’s trouble. We have eyes and ears in the building, so we’ll be able to monitor everything that’s happening.”
That was one thing they’d lucked out on. The location Federico had chosen for the exchange was a vacant warehouse. As it happened, a bit of research had revealed that the place wasn’t just abandoned - it had become government property due to the owner’s failure to pay taxes. They’d been able to legally check out the place thoroughly earlier, and set up a few hidden cameras.
“Will I be wearing a wire, or do you have enough bugs set up?” Neal asked.
“We’ll set you up with a wire, to be on the safe side. Remember, we don’t know exactly what he’ll have with him - ”
“ - So I need to make sure that the pieces we’re looking for are actually there before you move in.”
“Right. Ideally, we’re hoping to grab all the artifacts we’ve confirmed are in Federico’s possession at once. Failing that, we need to at least confirm a few of the most important pieces. You want to read the list off, Jones?”
Jones opened the folder in front of him to scan the papers. “It looks like the key items are… an Akhenaten statue, four Sumerian clay tablets, three Babylonian rings, two gilded statues of Tutankhamen…”
“… and a partridge in a pear tree,” Neal added, smiling.
Jones chuckled. “Nah, don’t see that one on the list.” He flipped the folder shut, sliding it across to Neal. “There are maybe half a dozen other things listed, and a few photos in here, but those are the key pieces.”
Paging through it, Neal nodded. “Artistically speaking, the Akhenaten statue is the most unique, but each of these pieces is significant, either intrinsically, historically, or both.”
“Hence the pressure to get them back where they belong,” Peter agreed. “Just remember, if he brings any of the stolen pieces at all, even if the important ones aren’t there, we can still bring him in for that and work on getting the location for the rest once he’s in custody. If needs be, I’d much rather cut Federico a deal later than put your life at risk. If you don’t like the feel of things, don’t hesitate to use the code phrase, and we’ll get you out. Do not push your luck on this one. Just play things as safe as possible.”
“I will.”
Mercifully, Neal’s expression and tone were sober and matter-of-fact as he met Peter’s eyes. Peter hoped that meant he really had gotten the message, and wouldn’t try any heroics or risky improvisation if things went off-script.
Then again… this was Neal. He might as well just keep worrying.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-
On to part two!