Chapter Text
Part of me still cringes when I remember how Keller found me after Kate left. My memory of that night is a little foggy, but I can still see him strolling into the sparse apartment—as if I’d invited him—and stopping short at the sight of me. He took in my disheveled clothes and wild hair without a word. Not to mention the empty bottles of cheap wine that littered the table.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Where’s Kate?”
I swallowed. “No idea.”
“She left you, huh? Wow, who could’ve seen that coming?”
“Fuck you.”
He grinned as he walked up to the table and started collecting the bottles. I watched through blurred eyes as he brought them over to the sink, rinsed them out and put them in the recycling bin. Keller was surprisingly conscientious about stuff like that.
Half of me wanted him to leave me the hell alone. The other half didn’t. That explains the stupid suggestion that came out of my mouth. Well, that and the wine. “Wanna—wanna play some chess?”
He shook his head as he turned back to face me. “I don’t think your head would be in the game right now.”
“So? Easy win.”
“That’s not what I’m after.”
I tried to ask him what he was after—apart from the next score—but something about his expression stopped me. It was half measuring and half . . . I don’t know. Wistful, maybe. But that didn’t make sense; Keller never wasted his time being wistful. If he wanted something, he went after it.
“She’s gone,” I said instead.
He nodded. “Yeah.
“I want her back.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
I glared at him. “She’s worth it. She’s the one.”
“If you say so, Caffrey. Come on—let’s get you cleaned up and into bed.”
~oOo~
“Neal?”
I started at the sound of my name and the sudden weight of Peter’s hand on my shoulder. I stopped myself from jumping out of my chair, though, and managed to fix a smile in place as I looked up at him. “Hey. Didn’t know you were still here.”
He pulled a chair up to my desk, cocking his head at me as he sat down. “Everything ok? You were staring into space.”
“Was I? I must be more tired than I thought.”
“Yeah. It’s almost nine. I sent you home two hours ago.”
I feigned a nonchalant shrug. “I grabbed a bite and decided to come back. There were a couple of cold cases I wanted to look over . . .”
He took the files off of my desk. I felt my stomach clench as he perused them. At length he gave me that look—the one that makes me feel like a five year old in trouble with his dad.
He dropped the files back in place. “Keller’s a suspect in all of these.”
I nodded.
“Neal, I told you not to look into him on your own. You have a hunch, you come to me. You know what that son of a bitch is capable of!”
“I don’t have a hunch, Peter! That’s the problem. And that’s why I’m looking through these. I just want to see if anything strikes me. Anything that will help us figure out where he’s hiding.”
“If you want to look through old files on him, you ask me first. Hell, if you so much as think about Keller, I want to know. I’m not going to have you going off half-cocked—”
“I won’t!”
“You want to talk about your track record?”
“Peter—”
“End of discussion,” he said, standing up. “Come on. You’re coming home with me.”
I forced myself to bite back a sigh of frustration. Since the ‘treasure incident,’ Peter was keeping me on a tight leash, as if I needed a 24/7 babysitter. He even halved my radius, which almost didn’t matter, since he insisted I spend most of my time at Chez Burke. And when I wasn’t a guest at his house, he kept an eye glued to my tracking data. I don’t know how the man got any sleep.
I tried not to complain too often because, as Peter liked to remind me, the alternative was prison. I figured Peter-as-babysitter was preferable. Barely.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Let me get my coat.”
~oOo~
It was steadily raining when we stepped outside. We hurried to the Taurus, climbed inside and buckled our seatbelts—but Peter didn’t start the car. He paused with the key in the ignition and then turned toward me. “I talked to Hughes and Bancroft,” he said. “Just before I found you back at your desk. Your paperwork should be ready to sign tomorrow.”
I managed a wry smile as I pulled up my pant leg, revealing the tracker. “Two extra years to my sentence.”
“That’s the deal—if you’re sure you want to go through with this.”
“It’s better than prison.”
He gave me a pointed look. “Prison’s not the only alternative.”
I shut my eyes for a moment. Unofficially, Peter knew everything about the treasure incident now. What I hadn’t told him, he had pieced together for himself. But officially—officially the blame was falling partly on me and partly on Keller.
“No,” I told him, opening my eyes as I shook my head. “I’m not flipping on Mozzie.”
“He’d understand if you did—I’ll say that much for him.”
“I don’t care.”
Peter turned back to the windshield and gripped the steering wheel. “Neal, he stole that loot and pressured you into going along with the crime.”
“If he did, it was my own fault for giving in to peer pressure.”
“So you get two extra years of the anklet while he walks? Is that really how you want to play this?”
I twisted in my seat so I could face him. “Peter, Moz risked his life—and his freedom, which he cares even more about—to help get Elizabeth back.”
“El would never have been in danger if he hadn’t stolen the loot in the first place. And he took a hit out on Keller, Neal! Don’t try to deny that.”
I bit my lip. Vigilante justice is never the way to go, as far as Peter’s concerned. Even now, he wanted to hunt Keller down only to put him behind bars. Of course, he would shoot Keller in a second if he had a legitimate reason to. Unfortunately, Keller would never be stupid enough to give him one.
I took a deep breath. “Peter, whatever Moz did or didn’t do, I think—I think he was trying to protect me. He was afraid Keller was gunning for me.”
“If you two would have come to me, you’d have had much better protection.”
“You didn’t exactly make that easy, Peter.”
He glared at me, but then his gaze softened. “You’re right. But that’s not an excuse, Neal. And it sure as hell doesn’t excuse Moz.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as Peter finally started up the car. There was no talking to him about this now. He was furious with Moz, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Despite the fact that my hemming and hawing with the treasure gave Keller the opportunity to kidnap El, my friendship with Peter was still intact. Well, not quite intact, but Peter had started to forgive me—maybe because he could punish me appropriately.
But Keller’s move had destroyed any sympathy Peter had for Moz, and any chance that Peter would allow me to see or talk to him for the foreseeable future. As far as Peter was concerned, Moz was a ‘negative influence on my chances at recovery’—recovery from my addiction to criminal behavior, that is.
I turned my head to stare out the window as Peter pulled into traffic. I understood where Peter was coming from. And, to be honest, I had my own issues with Mozzie right now. But I couldn’t testify against him. Prison would kill him.
No, I’d save my testimony for Keller.