Federal Building. Tuesday afternoon. July 6, 2004.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Jones walked into Peter's office and closed the door. He looked confused and worried.

"Something wrong?" Peter asked.

Jones sat down. "I got a hit on the name Henry Winslow. Couple of hours ago, cops in a suburb of Philadelphia arrested a man by that name. Description matches Neal's cousin."

That was surprising. They hadn't gotten a viable hit on that name in weeks. Peter assumed Henry was using fake IDs. "Can we send someone to talk to him?"

"Too late. Less than an hour after the arrest, someone showed up offering to bail him out. Charges were dropped after he paid a fine, and he was let go."

"You got a description of the other person?" Peter had to guess it was Mozzie. He was in Philadelphia, and he probably knew both cousins. He'd bail Henry out as a favor to Neal.

"That's where it gets weird. Guy who came to bail him out showed an ID giving his name as Henry Winslow, and he matched the description, too." Jones shrugged. "I gotta think one of 'em is the real deal and the other is Caffrey. One of them gets in trouble, bails the other out, sure. I get that. But how'd he get there that fast?"

Peter leaned back in his chair. "Graham Winslow. Neal made contact with him at Win-Win, was convinced he'd discovered Henry's accomplice, and was determined to talk Graham into keeping him in the loop. Sounds like he succeeded. He must have gotten Graham to tell him that Henry was in Philly. That's why he went there, and how Henry got to the police station so fast."

"Does that help us?" Jones wondered.

"I'm not sure yet." Peter was thinking back to his confrontation with Neal yesterday, when he'd warned Neal that he was on a path that could get him arrested. Had he been caught joining an illegal poker game, maybe in some backroom or unlicensed gambling club? "What were the charges?"

Jones scanned the sheet of paper he'd brought with him. "Says it was busking."

"Busking." Not what he'd expected, but he'd seen a guitar in Neal's hotel room. Had he been planning this all along? "Any hits on Neal or his aliases in Philadelphia?"

"Nothing but a location near the arrest for his cell phone. I don't see how he got there from Atlantic City – no bus or train tickets on record – and there aren't any credit card hits. His cell phone signal stayed in the same place since shortly before the arrest until now."

"Interesting. Thanks for staying on top of this."

Jones stood up. "I'll let you know if there are any more Winslow sightings."

Peter nodded. He thought everything over for a few minutes, then went downstairs for coffee. Back at his desk, he called Neal's cell phone. He thought it was going to voicemail when he heard a breathless, "Yeah?" followed moments later by, "Damn it!"

"Neal, what is it?"

"Henry got away. I knew I should have cuffed him to something."

"I thought he's the one who taught you how to pick handcuffs."

"Yeah, but it would have slowed him down." There was the sound of a door closing. "What's going on?"

"Funny, that's what I was going to ask you. What can you tell me about the arrest of Henry Winslow earlier this afternoon? I'm especially interested in the part where another Henry Winslow showed up to bail him out."

"Sounds like you already know everything."

"Neal," said Peter in a stern, warning tone. He realized he sounded a lot like his own father.

Neal sighed. "I wanted to talk to Henry, and I found a way to get his attention. I think I got through to him, but the phone distracted me and he slipped away. I've got... It's a lot to process, okay? I need to head back to New York soon. I'll be in the office in the morning. Can we talk about it then? I'm still trying to put it all together myself."

It was a reasonable request, Peter had to admit. And Neal did sound genuinely flustered. It was neither the time to lecture him on taking too many risks, nor the time to discuss their argument in Atlantic City. "I get it, but first thing after the morning briefing, we're going to talk." Neal agreed and then he was gone. Peter told himself not to worry.

El's comment that he often worked late had Peter determined to head out at 5:00 today. He was actually shutting down his laptop when he got a call from an unknown number. "This is Special Agent Burke," he answered.

"You promised you were going to look after Neal."

"Henry. Good to hear from you again. Neal said you'd talked."

"He got himself arrested. I had to get him out. You can't let him do stuff like that, Peter. He was using my name. If I hadn't come running, it would have been Robert showing up."

It reminded Peter of a comment Jones had made a couple of weeks ago. He'd suggested that to catch Robert they might have to use Neal as bait. The thought still made his stomach churn. "Something tells me he knew you were nearby to come to the rescue."

"Yeah. He convinced me I gotta stay in touch to keep him from trying something that dangerous again. But you have to help. I can't do this on my own."

"I'm glad to hear you realize that. I want to help. I always have. For that to work, you have to stay in contact."

From there, things went downhill. Henry sounded increasingly worried and paranoid. It made Peter think back to Neal's concern that Henry might be using drugs. He tried to be as encouraging and supportive as he could, but when Henry hung up a couple of minutes later, Peter had grave concerns.

He sat at his desk, wondering what to do, and then placed a call to Joe. "I think I could use some brotherly advice. Is this a good time?"

"Sure," Joe said, although he sounded stressed. "What's the problem?"

"Neal got arrested this afternoon. Not a big deal. Misdemeanor. Charges were dropped and he was released about an hour later."

"You wouldn't be calling if it wasn't a big deal."

"He took a huge risk. He gave the arresting officer his cousin Henry's name, knowing that Henry's dad could hear about it and come after him, all on the chance that it would finally draw Henry out of hiding to talk to him."

"Henry seemed like he had a good head on his shoulders when I met him at the cabin. You said he disappeared. You have any idea what's happened to him?"

"Yeah, Henry's courting danger to keep his fugitive father focused on him and so he'll leave the rest of the family alone. It's noble, I guess, but I think we'd be a lot further along on this case if he'd work with us rather than avoiding us. It's been bothering Neal, who's now jumping into the deep end to help his cousin. But he didn't tell me what he was planning. He knows I'm here for him, knows I have resources that could keep him safe when he's taking a risk like that. But he didn't even ask. Didn't call after it was over, either. I had to find out from one of my agents."

"He's what, twenty-four?"

"Twenty-five."

"When you were that age, did you call Dad every time you got into a scrape?" When Peter didn't respond, Joe continued, "I didn't keep Mom and Dad informed of all my missteps. If I could handle things myself, that's what I did. And I was proud of myself for doing it."

"Suppose it was one of your daughters?"

"That's the stuff that keeps me up at night. But I have to trust that I taught them how to handle the bumps in the road, and they'll let me know if they need me. In your case, you've bragged several times about how capable Neal is. If that's true, you need to make sure he realizes you respect his ability to take care of himself."

"I should let it go."

"I wouldn't go that far. You can't let him think you condone endangering himself. Kids that age tend to think they're immortal and we have to remind them they're not. But give him a chance to think through how to break the news to you about the arrest and why it happened. He might be embarrassed about it now, especially given your job. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. Now that it's over he might be looking for the right time to come clean."

"I might have jumped the gun on that."

"Already chewed him out?"

"No, but he knows I know, and I, um, I kind of used the voice on him. You know." He channeled that stern fatherly voice and said, "Neal."

"Wow. You sound just like Dad."

"Scared me a bit. I didn't even know I could do that."

Joe chuckled. "I remember the first time I said Rosalind's name like that. It shook me up to hear Dad's voice coming out of my mouth. But it's not so bad being like Dad. He did a good job with us."

"Did you ever rebel against Dad?" Peter asked.

"You think that's what Neal is doing?"

"Maybe. It's possible I brought some of this on myself. I was worried and since my concerns were related to a case, I justified using Bureau resources to keep track of him. Going into it, I'd realized I might be turning into a control freak, but I convinced myself it was acceptable to invade Neal's privacy to keep him safe. Let's just say he didn't agree. The arrest might have been at least partly motivated to get under my skin."

"I see how that could have happened. I had it easier than you – most dads do, I guess. We start off with infants. When we go overboard trying to control everything around their environment to keep them safe, they're oblivious to it. They don't remember the fools we make of ourselves, or how we finally admit defeat. But you're dealing with someone who's able to perceive your struggles and be annoyed by them."

"What would you do, if you were in my shoes?"

"I think honesty is your best bet. If you tell him you were acting out of concern and that you realize where you overstepped the bounds, that's about the most disarming thing you can do. And let him yell, if he needs to. Or be sarcastic, or whatever he does. But let him get it out of his system instead of bottling up that annoyance."

It made sense and Peter almost wrapped up the call then, but something else was bothering him. Why did the normally calm, unruffled Joe sound stressed? "Are you okay?"

"It's the FBI training, isn't it? You didn't used to be so observant. Hold on. This calls for a beer." There was a sound of a bottle cap being removed. "You remember I went to D.C. this weekend, met Noelle's parents? Her dad's an ambassador, you know."

Peter knew. He'd met the ambassador a few times, and had been impressed with Neal's grandfather. "Retired, yeah. Noelle didn't tell you?"

"She told me. I thought I knew what I was getting into." He took a swig of the beer. "I had no idea."

It wasn't like Joe to be intimidated. He often met politicians and executives in his architecture projects, and he always thought of them and treated them as ordinary people. It was something Peter emulated in his role as an agent. "Hard to imagine you in over your head. Tell me about it."

"We met at their house, and everything was normal at first. We took a picnic basket and blankets out to watch the big D.C. fireworks display. Must have been tens of thousands of people there. We were surrounded by national monuments, and in the back of my mind I was thinking I wanted to do this again and bring the girls along. We were grazing on the food Noelle's mom had packed and chatting about some of their travel overseas and some of the buildings in Europe that inspired me architecturally. And then..." Another swig of beer. "The ambassador gets a call. He gets more and more serious as the call continues, and when it's over he tells us to pack up. We put everything back in the basket, fold up the blankets, and walk toward the street. I figure there's been like a death in the family or something. I mean, what else could it be?"

"What happened?"

"Well when we get to the street, a black limo pulls up. Government plates on it. We get in and... I swear to God, Peter, I'm not making this up. It takes us to the White House."

Now Peter wanted a beer. "Why?"

"I had no idea. They show us into some kind of antechamber that you don't see on the tours. Noelle and her mom and I stay there. Edmund Caffrey is whisked away by some Secret Service guys for half an hour. Then we hear him walking back, but it isn't just him. The Secretary of State escorts him back to us after his meeting with the Vice President. Then Edmund's apologizing for derailing our outing, and the Secret Service guys show us to a spot on the lawn where we could see the fireworks. We spread out the damn picnic blanket on the lawn of the White House like it was... Like it was normal. We picked up where we'd left off, eating stuff Irene had packed and talking about architecture until the fireworks started. Then when the crowds had thinned out another limo took us back to Edmund's car."

"Did he tell you what it was all about?"

"You know those stories in the news about unrest in Eastern Europe?"

"Yeah, we've been doing some emergency planning here in case that leads to domestic unrest. I heard several heads of state were planning to meet next week to negotiate a cease fire. In Geneva, right? Last I heard, the U.S. wasn't getting involved in the talks."

"That's right. No active U.S. officials will be involved. But a certain retired ambassador and his wife have been asked to go on a vacation in Switzerland."

Peter shook his head. "There are times Neal and his antics seem larger than life. It's like somehow, even growing up away from them, he knew what he was a part of."

"No such intuition on my side. I had no idea. It was more than I could deal with. I panicked. When we got back to her parents' house, Noelle asked about plans for next weekend and I blurted out that I was wondering if that was a good idea. Our backgrounds are so much more different than I'd realized, and I said I was having doubts this relationship could work." He sighed. "She'd taken everything in stride all evening. I was starting to think nothing could get to her, but when I blundered my way through that comment her eyes filled with tears and her face crumpled. Her parents had backed off to give us a little privacy so they didn't hear what I said, but they saw her reaction. Next thing I knew her dad was ushering her away and her mom was graciously seeing me out the door before I could take my foot out of my mouth. I really blew it."

"You try calling her?"

"No answer. I sent an email, kept it low key, thanking her for the adventure on the Fourth and apologizing for overreacting at the end. I said how much I admired her parents and what they were stepping up to do in Europe. Then I ended with suggesting we get together next week. She shot me down. Said she's been invited along to Switzerland and doesn't know when she'll be back."

"You really did blow it." Peter couldn't offer much advice beyond what Joe already had planned, to let Noelle have some space and contact her again when she returned. For weeks now she'd been on edge about Henry disappearing, and this rejection by Joe had probably been the final straw. She needed to get away. At least now Joe understood what she'd been going through with Henry's recent actions, and he could keep that in mind the next time he talked to her. Peter had no doubt that Joe would eventually get to make an apology in person. Noelle was a reasonable woman who would be willing to hear him out, and the Burkes could be stubborn, especially when they believed they needed to right a wrong.

As Peter finally made his way home to finish replacing the flooring in the laundry room, he let go of a scrap of hope he'd been holding onto. He'd thought Noelle might be able to help with Neal's tuition. Neal was too proud to ask, but Peter thought he might be able to work with Noelle to get around that obstacle. But for now she wouldn't want to talk to anyone named Burke.