White Collar Division. Tuesday afternoon. June 22, 2004.

After taking a few minutes to gather himself, Neal returned to the bullpen. He stopped in the kitchen area for a cup of coffee he didn't want, and looked around at the team members who weren't in the field this afternoon. How many of them agreed with Hughes that Neal was dragging Peter down?

Back at his desk, Neal started making a list of all the cases he'd worked, hoping to reassure himself of the good he'd done. After all, he'd contributed to that ninety percent closure rate everyone was so proud of. But the more he looked at the list, the more he remembered his mistakes. Was it his fault they hadn't been able to catch Adler after they had gotten a new lead? If he hadn't been so cocky going into the Highbury case, maybe Neal wouldn't have landed in the hospital and Peter would have been more focused. If Neal hadn't joined the team, would Agent Hitchum still be working here, instead of being arrested for accepting bribes and tampering with evidence?

"Oh, good." Tricia Wiese stood beside Neal's desk. "Since we don't have a new case for you yet, I was going to suggest you take advantage of the downtime to document your midyear accomplishments. Looks like you're ahead of me. This list is a good start. You want to add the Tuesday Tails, of course."

Neal automatically added that to his list. Then he shook his head. "Most of these I messed up at some point. I'm not sure if I should be writing accomplishments or a letter of resignation."

Tricia leaned against his desk. "You're being too hard on yourself, Neal, and you're making me feel old. Virtually every new agent feels the way you do six months in. You've finally learned enough to understand what you should have done. We don't expect perfection. We do expect learning, and continuous improvement. Don't dwell on the past, except to learn from it. Use it to set goals for the future. Think about how you should approach your next case differently, given what you know now."

Neal felt a twinge of hope. She could have offered to help him with the letter of resignation, but had ignored that opening. Maybe he still had some allies here. "You really think I can do this job?"

"I think you should do it. You're a natural. More importantly, Peter thinks you should do it, and you know what everyone says about Peter's instincts. Don't bet against the gut."

Neal nodded. "I need a case, something I can use to show what I've learned."

"Something will come along," Tricia assured him. "Things never stay this quiet."

Not long after that pep talk his phone vibrated, offering a welcome reprieve. Seeing it was an unknown number, Neal hoped it was his cousin calling from a burner phone. Instead it was Theo Guy, a former member of alternate rock band Local Devastation who had recently opened his own recording studio. Working on a case involving threats to Michael Darling – another former member of the band – had led to Neal being invited to a recording session in February. They'd actually let him participate when Ty Merchant practiced songs Michael had written for Ty's second solo album. Just thinking about it lifted Neal's spirits. As a teenager he'd idolized these people.

"Remember I said I might call you if I needed a backup musician? You free this evening?" Theo asked.

"Sure," said Neal. Music was almost as good as art for purging emotions and stress. He'd planned to spend the evening painting, but he didn't have an inspiration and hated to force it. "You want me to bring my guitar?"

"Nah, this will be keyboards and a little singing. You gonna give your paycheck to charity again?"

Neal considered it. But he could use the extra money to put toward his tuition. "Not this time."

"Okay. Remind me to get a social security number from you. By the way, you know a Grace Legend?"

"Yeah, I know her."

"Got a call yesterday from someone looking for her. Said she noticed your pseudonym in the credits for the album Ty's releasing next year, and thought you might be able to put her in contact. And that got me thinking you'd be a good choice for this gig. You want her number?"

Neal wrote down the woman's name and number. Then he debated whether to call her, or if he should call Grace first. The easy, obvious choice would be calling Grace, giving her this other woman's number, and leaving it up to her whether she wanted to talk to whoever this was.

But a series of questions were forming in the back of his mind. Questions he should have asked weeks ago, but he'd been distracted. Finding out what this stranger knew might give him an edge when he started looking for answers, and therefore he called her first.

His call went to a receptionist at the Julliard School, and then was transferred to Professor Victoria Laszlo. "My name's Neal," he said when the professor answered. "Theo Guy told me you wanted to talk about Grace Legend."

"I'm looking for her contact information." Victoria had a smoothly modulated voice. She must be a singer or stage actress, Neal guessed.

"Can you tell me why?" Neal countered. "I don't normally give her number out to strangers."

"Do you read MINNY?" she asked.

Music Industry Notes – New York. It was an online newsletter about music performances and performers. Neal used to read it to look for events he might want to attend. But prepping for Columbia entrance exams and worry about Henry's disappearance had kept Neal too busy for the music scene, and he'd stopped reading it. "I used to, but not recently. Not since April. What does it have to do with Grace?"

"Earlier this month she was brought to my attention by one of our alumni as someone who might be a good fit for our school. I received an invitation to a private performance featuring Ms. Legend and several other musicians, and fortunately I was able to attend. She is truly a gifted pianist, and I had hopes of speaking to her about applying to our school. Unfortunately the event was interrupted, and... Well, you can read the details in MINNY. I'm still interested in speaking to her about our school, but my main concern is simply to ascertain that she recovered from the incident. I know how fragile young performers can be."

Neal was impressed that the Julliard was interested in Grace. He knew she was good, but didn't know she was that good. "The alum who recommended Grace couldn't give you her information?"

"No. When I called Ty Merchant, he said he'd never heard of her. I'm still trying to determine who was claiming to be Ty in the first place. But I follow news about our former students, and when I saw your name associated with his latest album, I called the recording studio to see if they could put me in touch with you. I'd seen your name tangentially connected to hers when I ran a search for her."

"Thanks for letting me know. I'll check on her, and give her your number." He was about to say goodbye, but then decided to ask, "Oh, one more thing. Are you familiar with Masterson Music?"

"Some of our students have gone on to sign contracts with them, but I don't have personal experience with the organization."

"So you wouldn't know if anyone from the company attended the event where you heard Grace perform?"

"No, I wouldn't recognize anyone from the company. But I noticed several people from the music industry in the room. I wouldn't be surprised to hear someone from Masterson was among them."

"Okay. Thanks." Ending the call, Neal dove into research. He had to admit the FBI had upped his skills in that area. First he found the issue of MINNY the professor had mentioned. Grace had participated in a concert of classical music, giving a particularly impressive piano solo that MINNY raved about. During an intermission, she was surrounded by concertgoers who were praising her performance of Liszt's "La Campanella" when a young man pulled her a few feet away and started lambasting her. He said she was wasting her time, that she was fooling herself if she thought she would ever be as good as he was, that he'd only included her in his act out of pity, and that these people were simply being polite. He'd gone on until she started to cry and ran away, and she didn't return for the second half of the performance. When people stopped looking for Grace, they realized the man who'd been berating her had also disappeared.

Then Neal tracked other reports and commentary on the story. There was speculation that the man who'd disrupted the event was Shawn Legend, who partnered with Grace in the duo Urban Legend. Most of the pages dedicated to Grace on the Urban Legend site had been taken down and replaced with a post that the group had split due to "artistic differences." A Grace Legend site, titled Urban Chaos, had popped up and there were dozens of comments posted from people who'd heard about the split. Some railed against Shawn. Some requested that Grace perform one of their favorite he-done-me-wrong songs. She was getting a lot of attention for someone who had never recorded an album.

It was a con, of course. He'd helped them plan it last year, and Neal liked to think that the suggestions he'd made had contributed to their success in pulling it off. But while he was impressed at what they'd accomplished, he was also annoyed that Shawn and Grace had been in New York two weeks ago and not contacted him. After all, the split of Urban Legend was intended to be the first element in a long con. Were they foolhardy enough to try the rest of it without him, or had they replaced him?

And the timing surprised him. This con was Henry's brainchild, part of his plan to trap a corrupt executive in the music industry. Why kick this off when he was busy hunting for Robert? Henry didn't think he'd could do both simultaneously, did he?

Neal took a break to get decent coffee from a shop across from the FBI building, and let his mind wander. Seven years ago, shortly after Neal had run away from home, his cousin Henry Winslow found him and took him under his wing. For reasons he wouldn't explain at first, Henry seemed to be on the run, and they got by using a variety of cons. Sometimes they'd convince a hotel they had a reservation. Sometimes they lived out of Henry's car. And Henry always brought along his guitar. He'd been happy to learn that Neal could play it, and that he had a decent singing voice. They'd sing along with the radio when driving, and Henry would challenge Neal to play the songs they'd heard. Neal could usually play the melody of a song once he'd heard it a few times, although he was better on a piano than on a guitar.

Then one morning Henry got a call and they drove all day to Minneapolis. All Henry would say was they were going to a concert. They got there as the venue was being set up. There was seating for thousands of people. Henry introduced himself as Shawn Legend, said Neal was his brother, and next thing he knew they were meeting with a band. Not the headliners, but the ones who would go on stage first and open for the main event. They were short a guitar player – the guy had been skateboarding the day before and wound up with a serious concussion – and they'd called on Shawn Legend as a substitute. Neal watched from backstage as his cousin performed at a rock concert, and as an eighteen-year-old he thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever witnessed.

He smiled now as he remembered a group of teenage girls swarming the backstage area. They'd worn badges that indicated they'd won a radio contest giving them the chance to be there. Most of the girls were ignoring the opening act, instead trying to catch glimpses of the headliners. But one girl stood beside Neal and asked, "Are you part of the crew?"

"Nah. I'm with my brother." He pointed to Henry, one of several guitarists. He was in the back row, but he stood out from the rest in ways Neal was studying carefully.

"Wow. Do you get into a lot of concerts?" she asked.

"This is the first one he's brought me to. But he's teaching me to play." Actually, Neal had started teaching himself to play the guitar when he was fifteen, but Henry had given him a lot of pointers. And he wondered if Henry might intend for him to go onstage like this someday.

When his part of the performance was over, Henry joined Neal backstage. He allowed himself to bask in the admiration of the flock of teenagers, but didn't seem to mind when their attention transferred to the main act. While the headliners sang, Henry directed Neal's attention to the stage, pointing out what the band members did beyond simply hitting the right notes. He explained how their movements, expressions and eye contact conveyed emotions and affected the audience. He helped Neal see the difference between playing a song and performing it. He praised some members of the band and sharply criticized others with a scathing tone that Neal would eventually associate with Shawn. Over time Neal learned that an alias was often more than another name – it was a separate background and personality from your own. And Shawn was much harsher than Henry.

That evening, Henry hinted that his Shawn alias did more than just fill in for missing performers, and that Neal could join the act if he promised not to tell anyone that Henry and Shawn were the same person. And after the concert he'd gone on to explain why he needed an alias he could disappear into at a moment's notice.

And thus Neal Legend had been born, and they started to call themselves Urban Legend. It had been fun until Neal had to leave four years later. Robert's blackmail gave him the options of running or going to prison. He hadn't told Henry what Robert had done, not wanting to make Henry's rocky relationship with his father even worse. Confused and angry, Henry had dealt with his reactions to Neal's abandonment in his Shawn persona, saying to Neal much the same things MINNY reported he'd said to Grace. And then he'd gone on to tell people who asked about the missing half of the act that his brother was too weak, then too sick, and then finally saying Neal Legend was dead.

But Henry had learned that a duo could do things a one-man act couldn't, or maybe he was simply lonely. He'd recruited their cousin Angela to replace Neal, and she went with her middle name: Grace.

Shawn Legend. Neal Legend. Grace Legend. They each had their own unique reasons for wanting to slip into those personas. Reasons they wanted... No, reasons they needed to keep those aliases secret. Only one other person knew who they really were.

Along the way, they'd met a lot of musicians and heard a lot of stories. The most disturbing were about a guy named Stan Masterson, who'd recently formed his own company from the remnants of a firm that had folded. The stories about him involved empty bank accounts, broken dreams, and amazing music that would never be heard. And it made Henry mad. He often told Neal this was the kind of thing his father should have been looking into with Winston-Winslow's resources.

By the time he returned to the twenty-first floor, Neal thought he knew what Henry was doing now. It was a con inside a con inside yet another con.

The first con was intended to bring down Stan Masterson. That in itself was incredibly complex. Henry had been refining the plan for over a year and it still wasn't a sure thing.

The next con was keeping Henry's family – including Neal – in the dark. Everyone was so convinced that Henry was obsessed with tracking Robert that no one considered he had something much more dangerous in mind. That meant everyone focused on finding Robert before Henry could, but no one was actively looking for Henry himself.

And the third con was the killer, perhaps literally. By disappearing as he had, Henry was taunting Robert, hoping to lure him into a game of cat and mouse. While everyone assumed Henry was hunting Robert, he was actually trying to get Robert to hunt him. The Masterson con enabled Henry to slip in and out of view in a way that would infuriate his father and perhaps draw him out of hiding.

On the one hand, it might be brilliant. On the other hand, it might be so complex it would collapse under its own weight like a black hole, crushing Henry in the process. And maybe he didn't care, as long as Robert was crushed, too.

If Neal wanted to help Henry, he had two challenges. The first was to come up with a better plan, and the second was to convince his cousin to abandon the plan he was following now. Make that three challenges. Finding Henry and changing his mind could be a full-time job, and Neal already had a full-time job. Unless... Maybe he could turn this into his next case. He'd beat Henry at his own game as a means to prove he belonged in the White Collar team based on his own merit, and not because he was the teacher's pet.