Monday afternoon. December 27, 2004.

Elizabeth Burke was relaxing in a spa with the Burke, Caffrey and Winslow women. She sat beside Noelle and Paige, and they were carefully sipping mai tais while their recently manicured fingernails dried and their feet soaked in preparation for a pedicure. They wore lightweight, sky blue robes, and bride-to-be Noelle had a lei of white orchids around her neck. The room felt like a tropical paradise, filled with plants and exotic flowers, accompanied by the calming sounds of a waterfall splashing behind them.

"This is much better than a wedding shower," Noelle said. "Joe and I already have so much stuff we're trying to consolidate into a single household, the last thing we wanted was more gifts."

"I noticed on the wedding invitations you requested people give to charities in your honor," said Paige.

"That's right. Registering for gifts the first time I got married was painful enough to last a lifetime. I was glad to skip that."

"Joe mentioned he's moving to Baltimore," said Elizabeth.

"Yes, his architecture business takes him up and down the East Coast, so he could be based anywhere. My work as a professor isn't as flexible."

"Will you...?" Elizabeth was in the middle of asking whether the couple would live in Noelle's townhouse, but trailed off when someone ran into the spa. "Mozzie?"

"Mrs. Suit! You have to tell me where to find Neal. It's an emergency!"

"My phone's in my bag." She glanced toward the shelf where they had left their purses, but she couldn't stand up with her feet in a bowl of warm, soapy water.

"No, his phone is off. The Suit's is, too."

"Of course. Peter said they'd turn off their phones at the bachelor party."

"What's going on?" Angela padded out of the massage room on her way to the steam room, her robe open to reveal a bright purple bikini. Mozzie shielded his eyes, and she grinned and tied her robe.

"Mozzie's looking for Neal," Elizabeth explained, worried by Mozzie's agitation. "What do you need him for? You said it's an emergency?"

"Yes! There's a crime against humanity underway, and the FBI needs to intervene!"

"Please, Mozzie, can't you go to the local authorities with this? We're on vacation."

He shook his head. "I need Neal's expertise."

"And that means Peter will decide he needs to be involved, too." Elizabeth put down her drink. "What is it you need from them?"

"I don't have time to explain," Mozzie insisted.

"At least tell me it isn't dangerous," she pleaded.

"The sooner they help me, the less risk there is," Mozzie said, which wasn't as soothing as she would have liked.

Noelle, however, used her most calming psychologist's voice. "You can tell us about the risk," she told him. "It won't take long. We want to understand, so we can help you."

Mozzie seemed only a little less agitated. "We need to stop someone from stealing a treasure and destroying it."

"You want them to take steps to prevent a crime?" Noelle asked.

"Yes!" Mozzie looked over his shoulder toward the exit. "Before it's too late."

Elizabeth was a bit surprised at first to hear that Mozzie objected to the theft, but destruction of something valuable was another matter. That must be the part that bothered him. "The bachelor party is at –"

Betty Burke, who with the other two grandmothers was currently getting a facial, sat up and removed the cucumber slices that were over her eyes. "Wait!" she ordered in a commanding voice Elizabeth rarely heard from her sweet mother-in-law. "Three hours from now we have a dinner reservation." She named the restaurant. "If we tell you where to find our sons and husbands, I expect them to meet us there unharmed and on time. If for any reason they can't join us, you will promise to be there to explain why."

"I don't know if..." Mozzie trailed off under Betty's stern glare.

"Promise," she insisted. "Or no one tells you where they are."

"I... I promise," Mozzie muttered.

"Fine. Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth named the sports bar where the men were spending the afternoon, and Mozzie scurried out.

Betty smiled smugly. "I may be retired, but I still can pull out my teacher's voice when I need it. The secret is not to overuse it, so it keeps its power."

Elizabeth giggled. "I'm sure the green scrub on your face helped. Mozzie's fascinated with science fiction and aliens."

Betty raised a hand to her face and looked across the room at a mirror. "Oh, my. I didn't realize it dried to such a... a... an alien green." She laughed. "Who was that?"

"Mozzie's a friend of Neal's. He's..." How did you describe Mozzie to the uninitiated? "He's an expert in many things, not all of them legal."

"How did he know where to find us?" Noelle asked.

"He introduced me to a friend who grew up in Hawaii, someone who helped me with local resources for planning your wedding. Billy runs a Hawaii-themed store in New York now, but he has a large family here, and he recommended this spa. I think it belongs to a sister-in-law. Billy knew when we were going to be here, and he could have told Mozzie."

"Mozzie," said Irene. "Such an interesting name. It sounds a little like Oz, but he can't be the wizard. We already assigned that role to Joe. What do you think, Dorothy?" she asked her daughter. "Is he part of our journey as you prepare to marry the wizard?"

"A munchkin, perhaps?" Noelle mused. "Warning us about the wicked witch who would steal and destroy a treasure?"

"I suppose that means he's about to send our scarecrow and lion down the yellow brick road," Elizabeth said, remembering that Neal and Henry had identified with those characters.

"I wish I'd known," Angela complained. "I want to go with them."

"You'd have to be the heartless tin man," her grandmother warned.

"That's okay. I haven't had a boyfriend in ages. My heart's probably all rusted."

###

The Burke, Caffrey and Winslow men had been playing poker for an hour and a half. At first Edmund, Peter and Henry played at one table while Graham, Luke and Neal played at another, and Joe watched and egged them on. Then Joe joined the winners from both tables for the final round.

When they first arrived at the sports bar, Joe had mentioned that he didn't have a best man. The wedding would be small and simple, with no groomsmen or bridesmaids. "That means no one's been designated to give the toast at the reception. I think the winner of today's tournament should get that honor."

"What happens if you win?" Peter had asked.

"When I win, you mean." Joe laughed. "I can pick whoever I want to make the toast."

The bar had been recommended by their hotel's concierge as a place that had facilities for poker. The tables were designed specifically for card games, and they'd been given fresh decks of cards. With such competitive players, the games had been intense, and other patrons of the bar gathered around to watch.

For all the intensity, Henry seemed completely relaxed, chatting about his involvement with the Winston-Winslow facial recognition software project. It was so interesting, Peter soon realized, that it could make you lose track of the game, and he fought back with a description of going undercover at Azuma bank earlier that month. He mentioned that he'd spun stories for a bank executive about a troublesome son he'd decided to call Henry, and that surprised his opponents into laughter as Peter relished in repeating some of the complaints he'd made about his fictitious son. He did hold back on mentioning that Neal had been injured and held hostage at the end of that case. Henry had always been protective of Neal, and learning they were actually brothers would probably turn up the dial on the protectiveness for a while.

Edmund countered with a story about returning to Columbia for a class reunion when Henry was a child, and admitted he'd made the mistake of taking the little boy down into the tunnel system with him. "I thought he'd like it," Edmund said, "but I didn't count on his addiction to hide-and-seek. I turned my back for a moment to get my bearings and the boy decided that was an invitation to hide. Scared the daylights out of me when I couldn't find him, and I worried he might have wandered into the tunnels that are supposed to be off limits. Finally I resorted to singing a children's song I knew he loved, and sure enough, he couldn't resist joining in the chorus. I followed his voice and brought him back above ground as soon as I found him. I swear I was afraid to let go of him for the next couple of hours." Henry's grin made it clear he hadn't been nearly as frightened as his grandfather.

And now, many hands of poker later, Joe had just lost all of his chips on a failed attempt to bluff the two remaining players: Neal and Henry. They were so evenly matched that Peter wondered if they would have to take a break for dinner and then finish up the game at the hotel.

Neal was about to place his bet when someone ran into the bar shouting his name. Peter did a double take. Wasn't Mozzie supposed to be on another island with the owner of the Aloha Emporium?

Laying his cards face down on the table, Neal asked, "Mozz, what are you doing here?"

Mozzie came to stop beside the table. "It's a crime against humanity, against nature itself. We have to stop it! Billy is waiting for us. Come with me."

Gesturing at the pile of poker chips at his side, Neal protested, "I'm in the middle of something here."

Peter stood up. "If we're talking about a crime, I should go. I can take Billy's statement and refer him to someone local."

"No, no," Mozzie insisted. "We're talking about art, jewels, and history, all about to be destroyed by a philistine with no appreciation for their value. I need Neal."

Peter glanced at Neal, who reluctantly nodded. "Sounds like my kind of case," Neal said. He pushed his chair away from the table, and several members of their group took a sharp breath. One of the rules they'd laid out at the beginning was that leaving the table during a hand meant you forfeited. If Neal stood up, Henry would automatically be named the champion. Looking across the table Neal said, "It's best this way. I don't want to do permanent damage to your ego by beating you." He stood up, and as Henry started to protest that there was no way anyone could beat him, Neal turned to face Joe. "Sorry about bailing on your bachelor party."

"I take it you're going, too?" Joe asked Peter.

"Yeah, I think I should." Peter shrugged. "Not what I had in mind when I said I'd organize the bachelor party. Sorry about that."

"I think I know how you can make it up to me. It's tough to admit I could be in awe of my younger brother, but I've always wondered what it was like to be an FBI agent working a case. Take me along for this, and I'll call it the perfect way to top off the party."

Henry stood up. "Okay, let's get going."

"What?" Peter said. "I haven't agreed to Joe going along, and now you think you're invited, too?"

"Well, yeah. The FBI and Win-Win are supposed to be working together now, right? And more importantly, if this case is a continuation of the bachelor party, then obviously we're all invited."

"I'm with Joe on this," said Luke. "Always wanted to see my son on a case."

"As a member of the Win-Win board of directors, I insist on observing," added Graham.

"Not often I get to watch either of my grandsons at work, much less both of them," said Edmund. "Count me in."

Neal grinned at Peter. "I won't tell Hughes if you don't."

Peter followed them out of the bar as half of them piled into Billy's car and they hailed a cab to hold everyone else. Turning a case into a bachelor party. Neal had better keep that promise not to tell Hughes.