[Chapter 7]

“Boss, we’ve got an ID from the cross-reference. There’s only one guy who smokes that brand of cigar we lifted off the ash, has that particular type of denim jacket, and attended that party. Yale Bates, 43, owner of a small financial firm.” I reported, walking into the room with the file in my hands. My team was working on a fraud case that had only recently been reopened by Clarke under directions of Barrett, but we were getting on with evidence that hadn’t been spotted by previous agents so far.

Of course, it did help that Hayden, Mr. Jack of Spades, had pointed out the M.O. for the suspected, and thought out everything with a con artist’s mind. It didn’t take me long to guess who the perpetrator of this sort of crime was, and though I had the answer to this case, as Annabel Francis, the new transfer from Bronx Homicide, I had to pretend that I didn’t.

Though Hayden did know that I was subtly inching the team towards the answer.

After the argument on our first day, Hayden hadn’t wanted to talk more about our complicated relationship. To him, it was as if his sister was dead, and only Annabel Francis had taken on her identity. Annabel Francis hated it that Hayden continued to run away from the problem, but only Hayley Seyfried was crying out with hurt on the inside every single time he looked away after meeting her gaze.

I knew he wasn’t ready to accept me back in his life yet, but the way my brother employed his tactics to make me feel guilt was almost too much for me to take.

“Great. How about his accomplice-slash-temporary-girlfriend?” Clarke received the file from me, scanning through the file quickly.

“Do you want me to give you a hunch, or evidence that she’s seen anywhere near the money?”

“If I ask for the latter, you’re going to tell me you have nothing, aren’t you?” I was here only weeks, and Rainer was already beginning to catch in on my style of work.

No wonder this guy topped his cohort in Criminology. He was awfully good at pinning down my style and Hayden’s. He did point out –at one point of time –that I worked almost like Hayden. Of course we did –we were taught the same way, after all –but Rainer Clarke couldn’t know about it, so we lied about it being a coincidence.

“Bingo. But if you’re asking for the first, I have logical explanations.”

“Not my style to ask for hunches, but go on –since we’re on our last lap.”

I went forwards to the map spread out on the table, taking a marker from the table.

“Yale and Sophia live here –at least at the time when the party happened. The party was here –a few blocks away. Records say witnesses saw a suspicious figure running up the road, others saw another one running down. One of them has to be Sophia. They had to split up, before their rendezvous back at their home. Yale was caught and arrested two hours after. No money. Logically, it’s with Sophia.” I made a few drawings and circles to help my fellow team members understand.

“For a woman in heels and a party cocktail dress, no matter how much of a runner she is, she’s not going to be able to run the entire place out before her arrest three hours after Yale. With that much of money along with her, she’s got to drop it off somewhere. There are a million routes from the party back to Yale’s, but with a radius of 3 miles max –this considering she’s an athlete and might even be able to win some Olympics medals –there’s only a few places you can drop that money and run safely. Here, here, and lastly, this lousy warehouse.”

“Interesting. But cops checked out these two after the fraud. Nothing there. Suppose someone else is part of this, dropped in and cashed out the money, leaving Sophia and Yale to hang?”

“Ah, but Sophia is possessive. If someone is going to steal her money, she’s going to burst out of jail anytime –given her capabilities –and grab the money for herself. It’s with someone safe –someone she trusts, or at least someone she’s paid enough to trust. And my bet that it’s still in the warehouse, the key belonging to the special man who’s been paid off.”

Clarke nodded, eyes still on the map, staring at the circle I’d made repeatedly around the warehouse with the marker.

“Say your hunch is right. We can’t go barging in there. This case is reopened –getting a search warrant is going to take weeks.” Agent Ryan put in with a pair of furrowed brows, but I smiled instead.

“But if our very own FBI Consultant gets out of his radius, breaks in, we have every right to be in there –in which we’ll find our goods, and slap an arrest on Sophia again.” I looked up straight at Hayden who froze in mid shuffling of his pack of cards. He obviously hadn’t been listening –since he too knew the perpetrator of the crime, but had just wanted to let his ‘friend’ go on a roundabout hunt.

“I could do that, but I need promise that I don’t end up in the yard again.” Hayden offered with a shrug.

Rainer shook his head. “I can’t. Good thinking, but we can’t do this, Francis. What if your hunch is wrong? Then we need to send Seyfried back just because you screwed up.”

“What if my hunch is right? Sophia is going to leave by the end of this week, Clarke, and we know it. Are you going to wait till she’s gone with the money before you storm that empty warehouse with a lousy search warrant?” I retorted.

“She makes sense, Boss. I don’t like doing this –but Seyfried’s probably our only choice right now.” Yuri put in –finally someone who could agree in taking risks like this.

“I don’t like it. We’re playing grey areas, and I’m not going to like helping protecting Seyfried from bullets with thick paper.”

“Then let me wear a bulletproof vest.” Hayden put in, extracting a glare from Clarke to shut the hell up.

“We’ve got to be grey sometimes. Black and white’s going to choke the life out of people like us.” I put in impatiently.

“You may have things easier in Bronx Homicide, Francis, but New York White Collar is different. We get shot in the ass, and if you’re not careful, you’re deported into Evidence. We do our best to keep ourselves clean because, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got Seyfried enough to be scrutinized by every other department around.” Clarke warned, but what did I care? So be it if I was thrown to Evidence. We were missing a good chance here, because Clarke wasn’t ready to take a leap of faith.

“Grow some balls, man. Seyfried just has to run. I’m sure a Seyfried can do that just perfectly. We chase after him with guns, get evidence, snap his tracking jewelry back on, and have him back sitting at his desk anytime.” I bargained.

“Sure, a Seyfried can run.” Hayden put in snidely –purposefully making a particular painful dig at me, at Hayley Seyfried, but Clarke gave him another death glare that made him shut his trap right up.

“You’re asking a lot for your… fifth…? Case, Francis.” Clarke warned with a frown in his brows.

“It’s my eleventh, Clarke, and I don’t intend to stop my record here.” I snatched the file from his hands and slammed it down on the table. There was nothing I hated more than cowards. It made me really appreciate Dorian now –for Dorian was nothing if not a spontaneous, try-everything-guy.

“You’d better watch your behavior, Francis. You’re still under observation. Sending in pretty files after files isn’t going to get you anywhere if I write up a report on you.” Clarke stepped slightly back from my invasion of his personal space.

“Write any damned report you want. I don’t care. But you’ve got to grow some balls, and we all know it.”

“You’re getting burned, Rainer. Sure you’ve got no words for that?” Hayden put in childishly when Clarke didn’t reply after my comment for a long time, staring at the map, at the file. I had been through ten cases with him in just a week. Ever since I came, I had cleared all their cases on hand, and managed to get them reopening past cases. My help had closed every single one of those cases.

And here we were, at our eleventh, and we could potentially be scraping this case because my boss had no balls.

“If you’re not going to do something, Clarke, I’m going to.” I finally said. I could not afford for this case to fall apart. I was a perfectionist. Anything I wanted done –I would do it with no qualms, nothing stopping me. I would find my way around things until they worked my favor.

“Where are you going, Francis?” He asked when I opened the door to our meeting room. Even Hayden seemed curious about what I would do next, since all my miracles had been done while I was a con artist, and not while I was some agent cramped in FBI regulations.

“Calling Dorian. He has balls, unlike you.”

****************************************************

Dorian was quick to meet me in a businessman getup, and I had made sure to make him look like I’d pulled him out from an important meeting. There was no mistaking the eyes that were tagged on me from everywhere, and I was pretty sure someone –at least Yuri or Smith –had some microphones trained on me.

Dorian rushed towards me with a passionate hug and some kisses –though most of it wasn’t fake and still holding some of the lingering feelings from the last time we got really close. Yes, we were supposed to be lovers meeting, and Dorian definitely loved the part of being able to help ‘Annabel Francis’ in doing something bad that the FBI couldn’t do. Of course, I had sent him picking up information around town for a few of my cases, and though he didn’t understand why I was working for the FBI, he was glad to be playing along.

“Chica, I came as soon as you called. Is there something wrong?” He asked worriedly. Both of us knew this conversation was tapped, and Dorian knew when to act all boyfriend-y.

“I can’t stand Clarke, Dory… He’s such an ass without any balls! I don’t know how he managed to get his post, or even how he managed to nab Seyfried!” I pretended to be distressed about it. Cut me some slack, women were supposed to be more sensitive to these kind of things. Sure, it made me sound prissy, but still.

Dorian made an irritated sound at being called Dory again, even as I hugged him tight. We weren’t even trying to keep things secret; this was just another act. Dorian thought it was an act to trick agent Rainer Clarke, but my real target this time was someone else.

“Wow, he must be really something, to have you pulling me out of a million-dollar meeting like this.”

“’Really something’ doesn’t quite cut it. I can’t tell you the details –confidential stuff –but he really just can’t step into the grey area! I just suggested for Seyfried to step out of his radius, and he just clamped up like I was going to kill everyone around him!”

Dorian sat us down beside the fountain, frowning a little –putting on a show as if he didn’t want his precious girlfriend to be a spoilt brat. I must seem like one, huh? This coming from an FBI agent, I wasn't sure if I was giving the best impression at the moment.

“Look, darling, you’re in New York White Collar now. You need to listen to them. Okay, so Clarke doesn’t want Seyfried out there. Okay, so maybe Seyfried’s a coward to not do anything about it. But there’s nothing you can do about it, honey.”

I grinned silently, knowing that this conversation was tapped by Hayden himself. Hayden hated nothing more than to be called a coward, and Dorian knew it. I wasn’t sure if Dorian knew I was baiting Hayden, but he definitely was helping me out. I might have told him a thing or two about my darling Jack of Spades some time back…

“I can’t believe he’s such a coward! He’s a Seyfried, and he doesn’t even dare to run? Isn’t that what he is good at? Running away from problems?” It was a plain and painful dig at both of us. I had run away from my problems when I left New York, and Hayden was running away from his biggest problem now –me. I had let Hayden down, and he, in turn, began running away from the obvious problem between us. It was almost as if he wanted himself to forgive me, but didn’t want to give me the chance to try.

“Cut him some slack, honey. Some people just don’t have balls like I do. I’ll just have enough guts to make up for both of them.” Dorian cooed, giving me the soft, lovey-dovey eyes which I wondered if it was relatively fake or not. Not that it mattered at the moment.

Out the corner of my eyes, I saw the sudden movement, and then both of us watched as someone ran down the street, flagged down a cab by waving a ten dollar bill, and jumped in.

Dorian turned back to face me with a slight smile. Of course, I was already grinning to myself, but I hid it as best as I could. The feds were looking. My plan had worked so well –I didn’t know things could be so easy.

My phone rang almost immediately, and I saw that it was Clarke. Dorian raised a brow at me at that; amused and awed that my sketchy, spur-of-the-moment ruse had worked. Of course. I was THE top-notched con after all.

“I saw him. I’ll cover him. You get back-up at the warehouse.” I instructed before Clarke could say more.

“You’ve got transport?” He asked, sounding surprised as I began taking off after Hayden.

“I’ve got Dorian.” I replied cryptically, but it obviously wasn’t going to settle with my immediate superior.

“And that’s going to help how?”

“No offense, but he’s got a car more expensive than the FBI can afford, and definitely faster than Seyfried’s little cabbie. I’ll see you there, Clarke. Hopefully with Seyfried in cuffs and money safe in a vault.”

“And if there’s nothing there?”

Whenever I had a hunch, it was very probably right. Some FBIs had critical hunches that made them top agents. Cons, on the other hand, had precise, 100% correct hunches. Of course, I couldn’t tell Clarke that, so I did the next best thing.

“I’ll fix it. I’ll cover Seyfried’s ass. You’ve been covering for him for the past few years… Let someone take over that nifty job of yours once in a while.”

“And you can?” There was a trace of something skeptic that had me smiling slightly to myself as Dorian and I slid into his sleek sports car parked nearby just in case we needed a quick getaway. Contrary to popular belief, sport cars have their own advantages on the hustle, bustle roads of New York. Sure, I wouldn’t reach the warehouse before Hayden, but it was the next best alternative at the moment.

“Trust me. I know how to cover someone like Seyfried.”