Graham's hotel suite. Monday morning. March 8, 2004.

Last night the hotel suite had been the setting for Neal's birthday party, filled with laughter, music, even dancing. Now the dining area had been turned into a war room, filled with FBI agents and consultants.

Reese Hughes had called Peter early in the morning with the update from OPR. They had enough evidence to charge Hitchum, but they hadn't been able to get much out of him about Mr. Hyde. Peter's team would have a chance to interrogate him today, and needed to do everything they could to convince Hitchum to implicate his partner in crime.

It was now 8am, and Hughes had joined Peter in the suite, along with Jones, Tricia, Neal, Henry and Graham. Noelle was on the periphery, as she was staying at the suite and was getting breakfast from the buffet of food Graham had ordered. Tricia and Jones eyed Neal warily, not surprising since only a week ago he was lost in flashbacks of his childhood. Peter guessed that was another reason Noelle was hanging around: to see how Neal handled his return to work.

The hotel had conference facilities, and Graham had convinced them to wheel in a large whiteboard and other office supplies. A timeline had been drawn on the board, spanning 1990 to 2004. They had the years written, allotting the smallest space to the earlier years and the most space to 2003 and 2004. But so far no notes had been added under each year.

Hughes put down his cup of coffee to stand in front of the board. "You've done good work over the last few weeks. The arrests of Dixon, Churchill and others from Highbury, Seamus Bickerton and August Hitchum is something to be proud of. But we know they are the tip of the iceberg. We have a long road ahead of us to find Vincent Adler. And we still don't have enough evidence to get a warrant to arrest our suspected Mr. Hyde. We get one shot at interrogating Hitchum before OPR takes him back to D.C. to face charges. We have to get this right. And it won't be easy. Hitchum has decades of experience being in our shoes, interrogating suspects. He knows our tricks, knows what we're allowed to do and what we can't do. We need to go into this fully prepared. Agent Wiese?"

Tricia stood up. "On Thursday and Friday, Jones and I went over the Highbury and Bickerton files, building a timeline. Jones is going to put what we have on the board." Jones stood, file folder in hand, and started placing sticky notes along the timeline. "Blue stickies represent what we learned from employees of Highbury. Orange represents what we learned from Bickerton. We used yellow for what we got from Hitchum. We also met with Mr. Winslow about what Win-Win has learned, and those are on green."

Graham held up a file folder. "You want me to add mine?"

Henry took the folder. "I'll do it. I want to read them, anyway." He stood and joined Jones at the whiteboard, but he worked slower because he paused to read each note before he posted it.

Tricia continued, "We've placed red dots on the notes that are speculation or inferences. Those help us, but we can't use them to gain a warrant or to get a conviction. These are the areas where we need Hitchum's help."

Soon all the notes were on the board, and everyone read through the timeline. It started in 1990, with Robert Winslow making the transition from Baltimore PD detective to Win-Win investigator. After everyone else read through the timeline and sat down, Graham remained at the board to say, "When Robert joined Win-Win, I was CEO. He was full of ambition, certain he'd follow in my footsteps, and that his son would follow in his. I was happy to think of a family legacy, and pleased with what I was already seeing of Henry's talents. Two years later, Noelle filed for divorce. Robert and I were both concerned that she would turn Henry against Win-Win, and I did my part to make sure my grandson still had ties to the company."

Noelle raised her glass of orange juice in a toast to her ex-father-in-law. "You were certainly wily." She met the curious looks of the non-Winslows in the room and said, "I was already a professor making a good salary. Alimony wasn't a concern in the divorce settlements. But Graham insisted that half of Robert's shares in Win-Win go to me. That meant I had a seat on the board of directors and had to stay involved with the company. And it meant I continued to take Henry to company events like the annual picnic, the Christmas party, and so forth."

Graham nodded. "I knew Robert was obsessed with the family business, but it was an obsession I could understand and appreciate. When Noelle filed for divorce, I thought she was overreacting. It wasn't until 2000 that I had any concerns. Robert had reached his ten-year anniversary with Win-Win, and was getting antsy. He was complaining about not getting enough recognition and advancement, and all I could say was he hadn't earned it. He was an excellent investigator, but wasn't a leader. I was looking to retire within the next five years, and knew Robert wasn't ready to take over. I started looking to Allen Winston as an alternative replacement for me. Robert made it clear he wasn't happy about that, but I never believed he'd sabotage the company or break the law. He'd been merciless in making people stick to legal means of solving cases, and had no sympathy for criminals. I honestly thought he needed a little more compassion and understanding for people who find themselves in gray areas. I thought he couldn't bend. I still can't believe I read him so wrong. Noelle, you got any insight on that?"

"You thought Robert was like Peter, someone dedicated to the law because he believed in it. But Robert was dedicated to whatever would gain him approval and advancement. Some of that comes from being a middle child trying to outshine his older and younger siblings, but most of it was what's often called sociopathy. He has no empathy for others. That made the law very relatable to him. The law is black and white, without mercy or empathy. Robert clung to a legalistic perspective because Win-Win approved of that, and he wanted success at Win-Win. But he abandoned that approach when it inhibited his success. The most likely scenario is that he developed a jealousy of criminals who weren't bound by the law, and started blaming his lack of success on being constrained by being a good, law-abiding person. He justified breaking the law in order to stop people who weren't constrained by it, and he kept stretching the law farther and farther until he finally abandoned it as irrelevant to him. Finally, he reached a point where he believed that anything that gets him what he wants is good and acceptable, and nothing is off-limits to stop people he perceives as his enemies."

There was silence for a moment, as Graham simply looked sad. But then Tricia picked up the review of timeline. "That left us in 2000, a time when Robert Winslow was getting frustrated with his inability to prove he was a worthy successor of Graham. In that year, Robert Winslow was working a case of embezzlement. A company in D.C. had lost tens of millions of dollars, and hired Win-Win to look into it even though they knew the FBI was investigating. The FBI agent on the case was Hitchum. It was a complex case, but after more than a month of investigation, both the FBI and Win-Win were nearly ready to prove who had done the embezzling. At that point, a large amount of money was transferred from an account belonging to Robert Winslow to an offshore bank. Suddenly Agent Hitchum reported he'd hit a dead end. Win-Win solved the case, an arrest was made, and Hitchum simply went on to the next case."

Peter hated the pained look on Graham's face, but he had to say it. "The assumption being that Robert paid off an FBI agent in order to get the credit for solving a major case."

"Exactly," Tricia said. "But it isn't until 2001 that we see proof on our end. That's when Hitchum made a withdrawal from the same offshore bank. He confirmed to OPR that he had planned to leave that account untouched until after he retired, but an unexpected expense came up and he took the risk of accessing the offshore account. That summer, the influx of cash showed up in an internal audit of FBI agents and Hitchum would have been investigated for suspicion of bribery, but then 9/11 happened and internal audits took a lower priority than terrorism investigations. The stress of what he'd done, and of almost getting caught, took a toll on Hitchum. He ended up getting divorced and requested a transfer from D.C. up here to New York, looking for a fresh start."

"And he claims he didn't know who in Win-Win bribed him?" Peter asked.

"He says he can't tell us," Tricia said. "That could cover anything from not knowing to being afraid to reveal his identity. According to the interview transcripts, OPR asked him a few times to name the guy, but it clearly wasn't their top priority. They didn't push very hard. Their questions are much more focused on finding out if anyone else in the Bureau was involved."

"What did they determine?" Peter asked.

Hughes spoke up. "With regard to his interactions with Win-Win, Hitchum acted alone. When it comes to Adler it seems likely that more people were involved to enable his getaway, but they kept their identities hidden. That will be an ongoing investigation."

"Getting back to the timeline," Tricia said, "2001 is also when Neal enters the picture."

"I can take this part," Henry said. He looked pained, and so did Neal. "I guess distance makes the heart grow softer, because I was ready to start over with Dad. I had this fantasy built up where Dad would meet Neal, recognize how smart and talented he was, and want to bring both of us into the family business. Instead he asked Neal to prove his talents by forging those Atlantic bonds, and then..." Henry paused, taking a deep breath.

And Neal jumped in with, "And when I succeeded he claimed I was a born criminal who was infecting Henry with my ingrained evil. He blackmailed me, saying he'd give the bonds and evidence I'd created them to the cops, unless I left Baltimore and ended all contact with Henry."

"He also collected your fingerprints and a photo," Tricia added, "and sent them to Hitchum, asking to be informed if you showed up in any FBI investigations."

It was obvious from the reactions of Henry and Neal that they hadn't been aware of that.

"Did he do that as Mr. Hyde?" Noelle asked. "Or as Robert Winslow?"

"Under his real name," Tricia confirmed. "Hitchum said he'd met Robert in the course of investigating similar cases over the years in the D.C. area, and that Robert reached out to him when he had reason to believe Neal was heading to New York. Robert claimed to be acting as a concerned citizen and a concerned father of a son who had fallen under a con artist's spell."

"Yeah, right," said Henry.

"At least it establishes a relationship between Hitchum and Robert," Noelle said. "It proves they knew one another, and that they would recognize each other's voices."

"By the next year it had escalated," Tricia continued. "Yesterday Hitchum admitted to what Neal had already discovered: in 2002 he started listing Neal as a suspect in several unsolved crimes. And he told OPR that was at Robert's request."

"Neal discovered it?" Peter interrupted. "When was that?"

"Early last week," Tricia answered.

"Is that so surprising?" Neal asked. "I thought you believed I was good at this stuff."

"At the fieldwork sure, and at piecing together how someone got away with a crime. But this is a different type of analysis, and something you did when you were still impaired by flashbacks. That's damned impressive. It should go in your file as something to remember for your annual review."

Neal nodded, but with an expression of wariness at the thought of the annual review process. Peter did some quick math and realized they would hit Neal's ninety-day anniversary and kick off the process of setting goals in about a week. That should be interesting.

"Getting back to what happened in 2002, that's also the year Highbury asked Win-Win to do their background checks, and we formed a partnership with them," Graham said. "They sent qualified job seekers our way, and we provided background checks and other security services for them. Robert was one of several people on the Win-Win side involved in that arrangement. He wasn't heavily involved. He didn't talk directly to Highbury's people, but did some of the paperwork and coordination with legal to prove he had management skills, and not just investigation skills. He had responsibility for reviewing their financials to make sure they were on the up-and-up. He should have caught the discrepancies in their books when they started blackmailing clients, but when I spoke to him about it he said accounting wasn't his strength and he'd delegated that responsibility to others in Win-Win."

"Tell us who, Pops," Henry insisted.

Graham looked his grandson in the eyes a moment, seeming to weigh his ability to handle the news. "To a variety of people over the years. Lastly to you." He paused. "You know I never believed you were in on the blackmail scheme. But I would have believed that following up on their accounting wasn't something you were excited about."

"And maybe I put it on the back burner rather than keep up with it and catch the discrepancies?"

"Something like that. It was the first time Robert implied maybe you weren't the paragon he'd always claimed you were. I can't say it worried me, not until I looked into things last week and realized he was going to great lengths to harm your reputation at Win-Win. The records make it clear that you never had any involvement with Highbury."

"I didn't even know we had a partnership with them," Henry added. "And if someone asked me to look into anyone's books, I'd have gotten one of our accountants involved first thing." Henry looked and sounded too tightly wound. Peter wished they could spare him this, but having been falsely accused, he deserved to hear the facts.

"I think we're out of coffee," Neal said, standing at the buffet and peering into the coffee urn. Peter wasn't at all surprised that Neal was causing a distraction. They both knew Henry needed a break, and that he would never admit it. "There's a gourmet coffee shop down in the lobby. How about I take everyone's orders and grab us more caffeine?"

Peter waited until Neal wrote down everyone's orders and then said, "That sounds like more than you can carry alone in one trip. Need some help?"

"I got it," Neal said.

"You still can't accept help?" Henry complained. "This is ridiculous. I'll go with you."

Neal winked at Peter when Henry was looking in the other direction. And Peter smiled in satisfaction. He might not be at the "twin-speak" level of communicating with Neal, but he thought they already made a good team.

When the cousins left the suite Peter asked, "Anything we should cover while they're gone?"

"We're at 2003 now," said Graham. He looked sad and tired, showing his true age for once. "That's when Henry came to work for Win-Win. He won't tell me how Robert talked him into it, but I remember Robert claiming it as a major recruiting success."

Peter considered for a moment and decided to let Graham know what Henry had shared with him in January. "Robert blackmailed him. He used the same leverage he'd used on Neal. If Henry joined the family business and stayed for three years, Robert wouldn't have Neal arrested for forging those bonds. He added what Henry described as a morals clause: that Henry would be fired if he associated with a convicted felon. Robert must have been fairly certain that Neal would be arrested soon. It seems like Robert was obsessed with keeping Neal from having influence over Henry."

"All of Robert's relationships centered around Win-Win," Noelle added. "In his mind, Henry existed to be his successor at Win-Win, and anything that stood in the way of that goal had to be eliminated. I'm sure Henry's friendship with Neal baffled and scared him. It would have been easy to blame Neal whenever Henry didn't behave as Robert wanted and expected. And when Henry started to become a favorite with the executives, outshining Robert, that would have been the last straw. Robert wasn't going to stand by and let Henry take the role that had been Robert's dream. Robert couldn't accept being passed over for the job of CEO, especially for someone who wasn't even sure he wanted the job. Several people have been going out of their way to convince Henry that he'd be a great CEO. No one had ever done that for Robert. And that made Henry his enemy. With Neal still to blame for corrupting him, of course."

"And that's his motive for wanting to kill Neal," Tricia said.

"'Scuse me a moment," Graham said, sounding a bit choked up. He walked to the powder room, and returned about the same time Neal and Henry arrived with the coffee.

With everyone settled back around the dining room table with their beverage of choice, Tricia picked up the overview again. "We're at 2003. Adler had plans to disappear with the funds of his investment firm. He wanted to make sure that he and his money wouldn't be found, and he looked into the people most likely to be assigned to investigate him. He noticed the large sum of money Hitchum withdrew from an offshore account, and realized it indicated a bribe. In our follow-up interview with Bickerton, he confirmed that he contacted Hitchum after Adler disappeared, with a combination of bribe and blackmail. If Hitchum made sure certain details disappeared from the case file, Bickerton wouldn't expose the earlier bribe, and Hitchum would receive additional funds at his retirement if Adler and his money remained undiscovered. Hitchum is responsible for our not realizing that Gil Goddard was an alias, and for Kate Moreau disappearing from the employee records. That's why she was never even questioned about Adler. But here's where things get even more complex. There's a photo in the Adler file, a shot from a newspaper of Adler talking to the press with members of his team standing beside him. Neal's in that shot. Hitchum identified the people in that photo, and he never pointed out that Nick Halden from Adler's team matched the sketch of James Bonds in our case files, who matched Neal Caffrey in the photo Robert Winslow had supplied. He could have tied all of those together, and he didn't."

"Why not?" asked Neal.

"He said Mr. Hyde asked him not to." Tricia nodded at the expressions of surprise around the room. "I know, it seems to go against our belief that Robert is Mr. Hyde. Here's where we're heading into speculation. Suppose Robert's feeling desperate for a big success at Win-Win. As much as he'd like to see Neal questioned and perhaps arrested as a result of his association with Adler, he would much rather have Neal free and possibly lead him to Adler. I think at this point, Robert's goal is to find Adler ahead of anyone else, impressing his bosses at Win-Win to the extent that they'll consider him as the next CEO. In his role of reviewing Highbury finances, he notices that the client list suddenly includes a lot of former Adler employees looking for new work. And he also hears that Win-Win is going to invest in the clinical trials for a new drug that has some properties of a truth serum. What we've got here is motive and opportunity. Robert knows about Flashback and is in a position to make contacts who could get him access to the drug. He supplies it to Highbury in order to gain information from Adler's former team, and looks the other way when Dixon and Churchill expand the scheme into blackmail of their clients. Robert also encourages them to recruit Neal – or Nick Halden – to learn what he knows about Adler. That means that, at least temporarily, Robert wants Neal to stay free. It also means that he probably got a warning from Hitchum the first time we investigated Highbury, and he helped them avoid formal charges."

"Meanwhile, we recruited Neal and forgave his past crimes, giving immunity in return for a confession. And in the process we learned about his connection to Adler," Peter added.

"Fast forward to Highbury making another attempt to recruit me," Neal said.

"And that made us suspicious," Tricia said. "So many people were contacting you at once to go to Enscombe, it reeked of desperation. That's not Adler's style. But it makes sense if Robert is Mr. Hyde. Even though reopening the Adler case was officially secret, we didn't seal the file. Hitchum was in the habit of checking it daily for updates, and immediately noticed when we started looking into Adler again, with you involved this time. Robert wanted whatever information you had before the FBI could act on it, and that led to a frenzied effort to get you into Highbury, where they could question you and then kill you before you could share what you knew with anyone else. Hitchum told Robert about Bickerton. He started pressuring Bickerton to get you to Enscombe, and then to grab you at the hospital when you survived the overdose."

"Robert has to be the one who called Meredith," Noelle said. "We should be able to get evidence that he tracked and intimidated someone in WITSEC. We can go through official channels, asking the Marshals to talk to her. She would have recognized Robert's voice when he called to tell her Neal was fighting for his life in the hospital."

"Why?" Neal asked. "What did he gain by calling her?"

"Control," Peter guessed. "By calling her, talking to her, he confirmed her location. He gave that information to Bickerton. That's what he was going to use to convince you to leave the hospital with him. If you refused to go, he was going to share her location with your father's enemies."

"That certainly gives us a reason for a warrant, if the Marshals cooperate," Hughes said.

"I get why Robert wanted the overdose at Enscombe to be lethal," Jones said. "But why go after Neal at the hospital? I don't see what he gains."

"He hates me," Neal suggested. "He doesn't have to be rational about it."

"Neal's in the center of so much of this," Peter added. "At the hospital, waiting to see if Neal would wake up, I wondered if we could put everything together and find who was pulling the strings without Neal's insights."

"He did it to hurt Henry," Noelle said.

The room fell silent. Finally Henry said, "I would have been devastated if Neal died. I wouldn't have been able to help with the case, and I'd probably have walked away from Win-Win. I still might do that, but if I'd been grieving for Neal I definitely wouldn't have been any kind of rival for the CEO role."

"And when his attempts to kill Neal failed, making you look like the person who tried to kill Neal was the next most painful punishment he could devise," Noelle added. "He didn't have time to make it stand up to serious scrutiny, but the allegations caused confusion and delays while he ran away, and it caused pain to the people he thinks of as his enemies."

"We have good work here. The information is coming together, and our inferences make sense," said Hughes. "But we'd be in a lot better shape if Hitchum identified Robert Winslow as Mr. Hyde. We need an approach that will convince Hitchum to make that connection for us. That won't be easy, since he has some unknown motivation to protect Mr. Hyde, and he knows most of the information we have in our files about the Adler and Highbury cases. He also knows us. He knows how we work and our limitations in interrogations. Let's hear some options."

"I have an idea," said Graham.