Chapter 17 Road Trip

Burke Residence. January 8, 2004 – Thursday morning.

While everyone else was waking up and getting dressed, Peter caught up on email. He became absorbed in the updates on recent cases, and was the last one to head downstairs. As he reached the living room, he could smell the omelets and coffee El was making, and heard Henry strum a guitar. Neal came out of the kitchen with a stack of plates and flatware, which he placed on the table. Then he glanced over at Henry and sounded surprised when he said, "You kept it."

Henry stopped playing and shrugged. "I thought you might want it back someday."

"Thanks," Neal said as Henry handed him the guitar. Neal leaned against the recliner and played a chord and said, "Hello, my friend."

Henry shook his head. "You'll never be as good as me, but I know you can do better than that."

"You saw the piano at my place. That's what I've been playing the last month; I haven't practiced with a guitar in weeks. And I'm supposed to be setting the table."

"Well, then you need to practice, and I think I can figure out the table."

After a few more chords... Or at least that's what Peter assumed it was, not being into music himself, Neal started playing an actual song that Peter vaguely remembered hearing on the radio. Neal repeated "Hello, my friend," and then continued onto more lyrics.

Henry sang along while arranging the table. It brought to mind what Ellen Parker had said in St. Louis: the Caffrey side of Neal's family loved music, and couldn't pass up a piano without playing a song or listen to the radio without singing along. Neal had even mentioned memories of his mother singing in the kitchen while she cooked, and probably felt at home as Elizabeth hummed while pouring coffee.

Peter followed her into the kitchen. "You know the song, too?"

"'My Sacrifice'," she said, thought a moment and added, "by a group called Creed." She handed Peter a plate of toast which he carried back out to the dining room.

###

Neal flipped through radio stations as Henry drove to the FBI offices. They had been following Peter's car for the first few blocks, but as usual the agent had sped ahead as if he were in a race. Neal landed on a station that was starting the song "The Reason" by Hoobastank, and he listened with intent to play it on his guitar that evening.

As usual, Henry couldn't help singing. But when the song ended he turned off the radio. "So, you can't lie to Peter. Does that mean you gave the FBI all of your aliases when you made your confession?"

Neal knew which alias had Henry concerned. "I withheld the name Neal Legend. It's more a pseudonym than an alias. That's how I justified holding it back."

"You promise you'll keep that one a secret?"

"I have to. And if anything goes wrong, it's the one escape I have left. The FBI knows nothing about that part of my life, and they don't need to. I don't want to give Peter any clues or reason to follow that thread."

"You've mentioned Shawn to them."

"It was hard not to. But I didn't give a last name. I've implied Shawn is a friend of yours, without a criminal past, and therefore not of interest to the FBI." Neal looked at Henry. "You know, I used to be confused when you talked about Shawn in the third person. But when I started gathering aliases and tried to keep them all straight, I had to do the same thing. Each alias had different personalities and quirks, and I thought of them as different characters I played, but not me. I finally understood how Shawn could be blisteringly angry that I left, and you could still be my friend."

"It does feel I've been typecast as Shawn," Henry acknowledged. "But as much as I'd like to drop the act, I can't retire him yet."

"Thanks to Shawn's temper tantrum when I left for New York a couple of years ago, a lot of the people who have heard of Neal Legend think he's dead."

"I might need to revive him if I start to make progress on my plan for Masterson. I'll need your help to bring him down."

"Another reason you let Robert blackmail you into joining the company?" Neal asked.

"Yeah, but no luck yet on getting the information I need. I've got the same challenge that you do; I don't want anyone I work with to guess about Shawn, and extensive research into Masterson would clue Robert in to how I stayed off the radar all those years. He's smart enough to put it all together if I'm not careful. I'm hoping your FBI resources can help."

"Now it's making sense. You want Peter to get used to seeing you around, as the first step toward using the FBI in your personal vendetta."

"I'll make it worth their while," Henry promised. "And I think vendetta is overstating it. Are you going to tell me you want Masterson to get away with what he's doing?"

"Of course not. It's just... You can get a little carried away as Shawn sometimes. Be careful."

###

On the drive to the office, away from the distraction of Neal and Henry, Peter considered Henry's claims that he had access to significant sources of data through the "family business." A business located in Baltimore. He thought he'd figured out what that business was.

Peter rushed through the morning traffic in the hopes of confirming his suspicions before Henry and Neal arrived. Knowing Neal, they'd stop someplace for fancy coffee, which gave him a few more minutes.

Fortunately, Jones was already in the office. Peter strode to the agent's desk and asked, "When you did that basic background check on Henry Winslow, was his employer Winston-Winslow?"

"Yeah." Jones opened a drawer and pulled out a file. He opened it to a list of basic facts about Henry. "Name like that sticks with you."

"I need to borrow this." Peter grabbed the file and practically ran up the stairs to Hughes' office. Seeing the boss was alone, he stepped inside, closed the door behind him and asked, "You got a minute?"

"Have a seat. What's got you in such a rush, Peter?"

"Last night I met a Henry Winslow from Baltimore." Peter laid the file on Hughes' desk, open to the photo and basic info about Henry. "When I was a probie in D.C., I heard rumors about an outfit called Winston-Winslow in Baltimore. The stories were so outrageous I doubted if the company was even real, but obviously I was wrong about that. What can you tell me about them?"

"This Winslow must have made quite an impression." Hughes leaned forward to scan the basic background info and then looked up at Peter again. "Is he causing trouble?"

Putting aside the Winslow-induced nightmare that he still believed was caused with good intentions, Peter shook his head. "Not yet. Caffrey says he's mostly harmless."

"That seems unlikely if he's one of those Winslows. They've been a thorn in the side of the FBI since Win-Win opened their doors in the 1960s. And yes, a lot of the rumors are true." Hughes leaned back in his chair. "You met him last night and already have a file on him?"

"I'd heard the name a few times before. He's Caffrey's cousin."

"Caffrey has a Win-Win connection and it didn't raise any flags on his background check?"

"That's right," said Peter, knowing Neal's background check raised no flags because his background was a fiction invented by the U.S. Marshals. "Henry Winslow has only been with the company about a year. Sounds like he was reluctant to join them at first, but has big plans now. He wants to open a branch in New York. And then he wants to recruit Caffrey away from the FBI."

Elbows on the arms of his chair, fingertips meeting in front of his chin, Hughes pondered this information. "I'm going to make a few calls. Go ahead and lead the morning briefing, while I put out some feelers. I assume this Winslow knows you're an agent?"

"He does. And he's on his way here."

"Willingly? Either he or you were brilliant to pull that off. Keep an eye on him. I don't want him going through our files or accessing our systems. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything from my contacts in Baltimore. Did he happen to mention his job title?"

"No. But I'll ask."

"If he tells you he's a receptionist, proceed with caution. They reserve that title for the ones who cause the rumors you heard. We still don't know why. Any intelligence you can gather about the organization needs to go into our file on them."

###

Neal was surprised at first that Henry was invited into the morning briefing. Then he thought about Henry being free to wander the bullpen unchaperoned, and decided it was a smart move on Peter's part.

As expected, he and Peter were assigned to spend the day in the van again, but at least this time they were guaranteed something interesting to observe. The approval had come through to bug Quincy's office, and Jones would be responsible for planting the bug, with Peter and Neal listening and providing back up.

Then Agent Tricia Wiese took the floor. "Wickham has confessed to the charges of fraud and embezzlement at L&B, but we're not getting a lot of traction on his black-market connection." She projected an image of a man in his mid-thirties. "Wickham named this man, Davis Denny, as his contact. All of their transactions involved wire transfers to accounts we haven't been able to trace back to Denny or any of his associates. Without solid evidence, we can't arrest Denny. Fortunately we had a breakthrough yesterday when Wickham admitted he'd been storing misappropriated L&B products on the Sinclair estate. There's a guest house that was under construction on the edge of the property, near the road. Construction stopped in the summer when Sinclair started running short of cash, and now the guest house is essentially abandoned. Wickham still has a stash there awaiting pickup. All we have to do is tell Denny it's ready, and his crew should arrive within a few hours. We want to set that up today, before word gets out of Wickham's arrest."

"Do you trust Wickham to handle the meet?" Peter asked.

"Not at all. However, Denny's under the impression that Benny Sinclair is in on the deal. He shouldn't be spooked if Sinclair meets him instead of Wickham."

Peter frowned. "I don't like the idea of using Sinclair in an op like this. He's a civilian, and frankly I don't think he could pull it off."

"To the best of our knowledge, Denny has never met or even seen Sinclair. I was going to ask if you'd go undercover as him, Peter. After the op on New Year's Eve, you're familiar with the property. You're the right age, and you could easily pass as an L&B executive."

Neal caught the look Peter shot in his direction. Or more likely in Henry's direction. There was a moment of hesitation, but then Peter agreed. "All right. Change in plan. Hitchum, you'll be in the van with Jones today. Caffrey will go to Connecticut with Wiese and myself."

With that, most of the agents were dismissed. Tricia, Peter, Neal and Henry stayed in the conference room for more details of Tricia's plan. To be safe, the Sinclair family would spend the day at the Gardiners' home. Tricia and Neal would set up surveillance and monitor Peter.

As Tricia reviewed the details, Henry's phone buzzed. He ignored it. Twice.

Then Peter's phone vibrated. He frowned at the number, and then answered, "This is Special Agent Burke." He listened a moment and asked, "How did you get this number?" Another pause. "He's here. Why didn't you call his phone?" After a pause Peter put the phone on speaker. He handed it to Henry, who automatically accepted it, but with a questioning look. Peter answered with a mischievous expression Neal had never witnessed on his boss. "Here, Henry. It's your mom."

Neal managed not to laugh at Henry's appalled expression.

"Uh. Hi?" Henry said.

"If you would simply answer your phone, I wouldn't have to go to these lengths," said a woman who sounded so much like Neal's mother that it almost took his breath away. Identical twins. He knew they would look alike, but hadn't considered that they would sound alike. "Your father called this morning in a snit because you spent the night at the home of an FBI agent. When he tracked you and the agent both to the same Federal building this morning, he almost exploded."

"How could he possibly know that?" Henry asked.

"You have a company phone, with GPS. They tracked you. You know they like to practice their techniques on employees."

"No," Henry insisted. "I disabled the GPS as soon as I got the phone."

"They pay the bill, sweetie. They control the account, and they re-enabled the GPS. Please tell me you're not in serious trouble."

"Of course not. Everything's under control." Henry glared when Neal couldn't hold back a grin. Everything's under control was Henry-speak for I'm making it up as I go.

"Fine. I'll tell Robert not to send in the cavalry. I'm sure there's a pilot firing up a corporate jet as we speak. Are you going to make a habit of hanging around FBI agents?"

"Well... The thing is..." Henry ran his free hand through his hair in a move Neal knew he used, too. He realized he'd probably picked up the gesture from his cousin. Henry looked at Neal, then at Peter, and then back to the phone. "Yeah, I think I will be hanging out with an FBI agent for a while."

"I see. I'll recommend Robert consider medication for high blood pressure."

Henry looked askance at Neal and then said, "Listen, when I get back to Baltimore, I need your advice. I have a friend who's experiencing flashbacks of a repressed childhood trauma."

Neal tried to grab the phone. Henry dodged behind Peter.

Henry continued, "It's been happening more and more frequently."

Neal tried to reach around Peter, who grabbed his phone from Henry's hand and sent it sliding across the slick conference table. Henry and Neal both ran after it, on opposite sides of the table.

"He should see a therapist," came Noelle's voice from the sliding phone. "I can recommend someone. Does he live in New York?"

There were more chairs on Henry's side of the room. With fewer obstacles, Neal reached the phone first, before it could slide off the end of the table. In his best Henry impression he said, "Sorry, I've got to go," and disconnected the call. He tossed the phone back to Peter, who caught it with ease.

"Why did your mother make the call, instead of your father?" Peter asked as he pocketed his phone.

"Dad's too hot-headed. You'd have hung up on him in less than a minute. He leans on others rather than learn diplomacy."

Tricia Wiese, who had been patient up to now, said, "I'm going to pick up the surveillance equipment. When you're done playing games, meet me at the Gardiners' home."

###

Peter took the cousins up to Connecticut in his car. Henry called shotgun and started messing with the radio before they'd driven a block. Staying focused on the city traffic, Peter vaguely noted his passengers were playing a complex game based on the songs they heard. There were points for knowing the title, the artist, the record label, and the lyrics. There was even a system of points with minimal credit for knowing the chorus, more credit for knowing the first verse, and the most credit for getting words to a subsequent verse right. They also seemed to have rules about who took the melody versus the harmony. As they left the city behind, the cousins were singing "My Own Worst Enemy" with a great deal of gusto, but when the song ended Peter turned off the radio.

"I'm sensing you've played that game a lot," he noted.

"Made it up on a lot of road trips," Henry said. "We stayed on the move." The car had warmed up, and he pulled off his coat. "Are we going to finish our exchange of information for time out of the van?"

"Yeah," Neal chimed in from the back seat. "You were in the middle of a story that was going to get me down to ten days of surveillance work."

"Fifteen days," Peter corrected. He looked back in the rearview mirror to see Neal shrug.

Neal grinned and said, "It was worth a shot."

"You'd left off with discovering that Neal and his mom had moved to St. Louis. You were going to explain how and why you met up with him." Peter wanted to pay particular attention to the information Henry mentioned having access to through the family business. Hughes would want to know.

"Right. I'd uncovered a lot of information by the time I was sixteen, but then I stopped hanging around the office."

"Because of your parents' divorce," Peter recalled.

"Right. Shortly after I turned twenty, I needed to drop off the radar. I needed for my dad, who is a complete control freak, to stop monitoring me. I couldn't use a credit card, ATM or phone without him knowing about it. Any kind of travel that required ID he could potentially track. It took a lot of creativity to evade him. Even doing my best to be invisible, I occasionally left a trail. I was working on –"

Peter had to ask, "Why did you need to become untraceable?"

"It's a long and irrelevant story," Henry said. "I was working on negotiating a deal where my dad would stop tracking me if I checked in periodically. He was balking, though, until he needed a favor from me. Mom's sister had called, off schedule. It was March instead of Christmas. Meredith knew from her discussion with Mom over the holidays that I'd become sort of a runaway, but that she wasn't too worried because Dad had resources to track me. So when Neal ran away, Meredith called Mom and asked if Dad would track him down. He tracked him from St. Louis to Chicago, but then lost him."

"I was using cash and staying put," Neal added.

"To find Neal and make Mom happy, Dad needed my expertise with being a runaway. He offered me a deal. If I found Neal and promised to check in monthly, he'd stop monitoring me. I was desperate to make him stop, and curious about my missing cousin, so of course I took the deal. With the information he gave me, my own memories of what I'd discovered about Danny Brooks, and my experience as a young man occasionally living on the streets, I tracked down Neal. He was in an industrial district, hiding out in an abandoned building with some other street kids and homeless guys, and running a serious fever. It was freezing cold out there, snowing the day before I found him, and I knew about the drowning before he left St. Louis. It was a good bet he had developed pneumonia. But there was no convincing him to see a doctor. That's when I decided to take him to a morgue, instead. That got him to agree he needed medical assistance."

"Three days in a hospital," Neal said. "I wasn't happy about that."

"No, you weren't. But it gave me time to get everything settled. Mom overnighted family photos and other evidence I could use to prove we were cousins, so you'd listen to me when you could actually stay awake for more than half an hour at a time. Dad had time to verify that a Neal Caffrey had been checked into the hospital, with his older step-brother Henry Winslow listed as next of kin, and he gave his word to stop tracking me. Of course, he was severely pissed the next day when I declined to take you back to St. Louis. He wanted to back out of the deal, but the bargain was I had to find you, not that I had to send you home."

"Why didn't you send him home?" Peter asked.

"The nightmares," Henry responded.

"That really isn't –" Neal started.

"I knew he'd been abused," Henry continued over his cousin. "He wouldn't talk about it, and I couldn't tell if it was an ongoing issue. I couldn't take the chance of sending him back to an abusive situation if his mom was still dating losers, and I couldn't leave him alone. He was recovering from pneumonia and didn't know the first thing about how to fend for himself on the streets. I decided to take him under my wing for a little while, and then found I kind of liked having a kid brother to boss around."

"And I found I could tolerate having a big brother."

"Tolerate," Henry repeated as he rolled his eyes. "You thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. You recognized my obvious genius, and hung on my every word."

"I was already such an accomplished con artist that to this day you believe I idolized you."

"All of my cousins idolize me," Henry claimed. "It's a heavy responsibility, but I've learned to live with it."

Neal snorted. Then he asked, "Fifteen days, Peter?"

Peter considered for a moment whether he wanted to tip his hand before Hughes called with more information. He decided it was worth the risk. "Yeah. And I'll take it down to fourteen days if Henry answers a simple yes/no question."

Henry studied Peter a moment. "What's the question?"

Peter's hands tightened on the steering wheel. Traffic was light, giving him the freedom to watch Henry's reaction as he asked, "Do you like working for Win-Win?"

"Damn." Henry frowned, closed his eyes and sighed. "I tried to bury the fact that I'm from Baltimore in all of the drama last night, to delay your putting the pieces together."

"I told you Peter was clever," Neal said.

###

When they arrived in New Haven, Neal greeted Peggy Gardiner and Guillaume D'Arcy in French. The student seemed thrilled to have a young man close to his own age to speak to, and they chatted amiably for a few minutes. Henry stood on the periphery and observed. He'd been quiet since learning the FBI knew where he worked, rebuffing all questions about Winston-Winslow.

Henry rarely talked about Win-Win, but Neal had picked up the basics over the years. Now that Henry was less of a mystery, Win-Win was a subject Neal could use as his next bargaining tool with Peter.

At noon the Gardiners served a casual lunch, with sandwich makings and a salad on a buffet, and people grabbing seats around the dining table or in the living room. Benny Sinclair and his daughters were there, and none of them seemed surprised that Neal no longer had a French accent and didn't go by the name Charles. Lily wanted to know what had happened to his glasses, and insisted on another magic trick. That finally got Henry engaged. He considered himself superior when it came to sleight-of-hand.

"Is he your roommate?" Lily whispered to Neal after a particularly impressive trick.

Henry heard every word and raised a brow. Neal hadn't yet told Henry about the party at the Sinclair home, and how the girls had believed he was the grown-up version of the main character in the School for Wizards series.

"Yeah," Neal said. "Lily, Katy, this is my best friend and fellow wizard. He goes by 'Henry' these days. Henry, these young ladies have guessed who we are."

Henry's eyes widened. He'd just taken a bite of his sandwich and quickly swallowed. "They think you're..." He couldn't say it.

"Yeah, I was wearing round glasses when we met. They figured it out right away."

"We knew for sure when he fought Charlotte," Katy said. "She was evil. Only a wizard could save us."

"Didn't I see Charlotte when we arrived?" Neal asked.

"She lives here now," Katy said. "Daddy said she can't stay at our house anymore because she makes Bethanne sick. But he lets Bethanne come here to visit."

As if summoned, Charlotte sauntered into the living room and approached the chair where Neal sat. "Speak of the devil. Hello, beautiful." He placed his mostly empty plate on a side table and lifted Charlotte onto his lap. "How do you like living with the Gardiners?"

Charlotte sniffed his hands, meowed softly, and then jumped down to check on the other members of the party, starting with Henry. He obligingly scratched her ears. "She's evil?"

Katy held up a hand for his inspection. "She scratched me."

"Without any provocation at all," Neal said, managing to sound serious, but unable to suppress a smile. "At night, Charlotte turns into the monster under the bed."

Guillaume entered the room with a pitcher of water. "Quelqu'un veut de l'eau?"

Neal held out his glass. While Guillaume poured, Neal asked his opinion of the cat.

The student shrugged. "J'ai un chien chez moi, mais les chats ne me dérangent pas. Par contre, depuis que Charlotte est ici, Bethanne vient toujours la voir, ça m'énerve." He made it clear that, as a college student, he found high school girls to be barely tolerable.

Bethanne, who spoke French better than her stepmother, took the pitcher of water and dumped it over Guillaume's head.

###

After lunch, Peter, Tricia, Henry and Neal went to the almost finished guest house on the Sinclair property. Thomas Gardiner joined them. Having been involved in the case already, he said he wanted to hear how it ended. Peter welcomed the offer, as he'd be too busy to keep Neal and Henry out of trouble. He hoped there would be time after the op to ask what Thomas knew about Win-Win.

They put a listening device on Peter, and set up the surveillance equipment in the largest bedroom. Tricia showed Neal and Henry how to record and listen to the conversation, and Thomas remained with them. Tricia would be armed and ready to act as back-up if Peter needed help dealing with Denny.

The stolen property from L&B was in boxes in the garage. Denny had agreed to arrive with a truck early in the afternoon to take everything. They wanted him to make a wire transfer to an account the FBI had established, and then would make the arrest after they had the evidence they needed to freeze his account.

It was supposed to be simple and straightforward, a perfect example for Neal of how a field operation should work.

The truck arrived on schedule. Denny jumped out of the passenger seat to greet Peter while another man came from the opposite side of the truck to open the back doors.

"Sinclair?" Denny asked.

"That's right," Peter told him. "Thanks for being on time. My wife's away and my kids are still on Christmas vacation. I shouldn't leave them alone too long."

Denny looked around for others. "Whatever. Where's Wickham?"

"He's got the flu," Peter said. "He'd have handled this if we'd waited till next week. But I don't like having this stuff sitting around. I just wanted this over with, you know? He said it was a simple deal, so I thought: why not?"

"Uh-huh. Let's see the goods." Denny led the way to the garage, and Peter used the remote Sinclair had given him to open the overhead door. Inside, Denny opened one of the boxes, checked the contents, and took a quick count of the boxes sitting in the garage. "Usually there's more," he said.

Peter shrugged. "That's all we've got this time. Are you going to take it?"

"I'm here. I'll take it. You got an account number for me?" Denny took the slip of paper Peter provided with the account number. Denny's partner continued loading the truck.

After Denny placed a call to authorize the wire transfer, Peter pulled out his badge. "FBI. You're under arrest." When Denny reached for a gun, Peter quickly disarmed him, pushed him against the wall, and cuffed him. Tricia had slipped out of the house and went after the other guy, who initially tried to reopen the back of the truck to scramble inside, and then reached for a gun. Tricia twisted his gun arm around and cuffed him smoothly.

It was all by the book, until Peter saw Neal run out of the house toward the truck. Then everything went to hell.

A/N: Selecting songs that would have been on the radio in early 2004 was a fun research project.