~ o O o ~

A Place Called Home

Chapter 1

~ o O o ~

"Okay, where's the witness?" It had been a long and tiring day. They had gotten an anonymous tip about the stolen paintings—a case they had been working on for months. It seemed a group of thieves made their way through every museum in New York, stealing all paintings of the most famous artists they could get their hands on.

Since they had no other leads on the case yet, the tip had come at exactly the right time. So then they had waited for hours near the alley where the exchange of the stolen goods was supposed to take place. And when Peter had finally decided to stretch his legs a bit and went to get dinner, that's when it had all gone down, of course.

The criminals must have had a quick getaway plan, though, because according to what Diana had told him over the phone, they seemed to have vanished into thin air. Luckily, Peter's team have picked up a witness who could hopefully help them I.D. at least one of the crooks.

So now Peter was back at the bureau and looking around the bullpen to see if he could make out the witness Diana and Jones had brought back with them. At this point, he just wanted to get the witness statement over with so he could go home and hopefully not think about work until Monday.

Diana pointed to a boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, who was currently showing a card trick to Jones.

"You're kidding me! That's a kid!" That was just what this day needed!

Diana shrugged her shoulders in a manner that clearly implied, What can you do? and then said, "Have fun, Boss. I'm off—got a date with Christie."

"What?" Peter looked incredulously after her as she stalked off towards the elevators. Okay, he had promised her she could leave early today, but that was before they had lost half a day sitting in the van waiting for something to happen.

In that moment, Jones saw him and hurried over. "Peter, so glad you're here! That means babysitting duty is over, right?"

Peter ignored that question and instead concentrated on the problem at hand. "Catch me up, Jones."

"Not much to catch up on. Nick over there was on his way home, taking a short-cut through the alleyway. Apparently, all he saw was the guys jumping into a minivan and driving off."

Peter looked over at Nick, who was sitting in Jones's chair, going through his drawers. Jones noticed that too and sighed.

"Yeah, I think he has ADHD or something. Can't take your eyes off of him for one second," he explained and went over to Nick to take a file out of his hands that the kid had been just about to nose through.

Peter followed Jones and smiled at the boy. "Hello, Nick," he said. "My name is Agent Peter Burke. I'd like to ask you some questions about what you saw in that alleyway. Mind coming up to my office? It's quieter up there."

Nick fixed him with a pair of very blue eyes and seemed to assess him. Then, he smiled a bright smile that could rival the sun, and said, "Sure thing, Agent Burke."

He stood up, finally letting Jones have his chair back, and picked up one of those backpacks that kids carried around these days before following Peter who led the way up to his office.

"So, Nick," Peter said as he sat down, indicating for Nick to do the same. "I hear you saw the men we're looking for get into a minivan." He waited for the boy to nod before he went on. "Can you describe it to me?"

"Dunno." Nick shrugged. "It was white."

"Okay. Good. That's good." Peter wrote that down and looked up again expectantly. "Anything else?"

"Not really."

"Like, what model, how many doors, license plate number ...?"

"I don't really make a habit out of memorizing license plates."

Oh great. A smart-ass! "What about the men, then? Can you tell me something about them?"

Nick chewed on his bottom lip and seemed to think hard, but then he just shrugged again. "Sorry."

"Well, let's start with how many there were."

"Two. Or three . . . maybe more. I can't really say for sure." Peter put his pen down and shot the boy in front of him a disbelieving look. "I wasn't really paying attention," Nick defended himself. "There were a few guys who got into a car and drove off and then there were FBI agents all over the place."

"I'm sure you noticed something about them. What clothes they were wearing, height, hair color; did they carry something, maybe load it into the van?"

"Don't think so." The kid was starting to give him a headache. This was what you got when you had a teenager for a witness! Before Peter could think of further questions, Nick continued, "Can I get a coffee or something? I've been stuck here for about a half an hour and no one even offered."

"Are you even allowed to have coffee?"

"Excuse me?" Nick looked affronted. "I'm fifteen, not five. And it's not like I'm asking for a glass of wine here."

Peter sighed and looked through the glass walls of his office to see if he could get someone else to get them something to drink, but no one was walking by. He sighed again and got up. "You," he said, pointing at Nick, "think of what you saw. Any little detail you can remember might be helpful. Anything at all."

With that, he left to get a good strong cup of coffee for himself and some teenager-friendly drink for Nick. He kept looking up at his office to make sure Nick was behaving himself—he didn't trust that kid—but whenever he looked at him, Nick just looked innocently back and one time even waved at him with a wide smile on his face.

When he got back to his office, Nick was clearly starting to get bored. He rocked his chair backwards and forwards and Peter expected him to fall off any second now.

"Stop that," he said—he didn't want to end this day by driving an injured teenager to the hospital. He put the cup in front of the boy and sat down again.

Nick immediately went for his cup and took a long swig. Then he put the cup down. "Cocoa? You shouldn't have."

"You're welcome."

"No, seriously, you shouldn't have." Nick suddenly reached over, trying to snatch Peter's cup of coffee, but Peter was faster than him and picked it up to take a sip himself.

"So, about that van and the men?" Peter tried to steer the conversation back on track.

"Yeah, I remembered something. There might have been some sort of sticker on the back of the van. A dog or something."

"A sticker of a dog?" Peter mumbled, making a note of that tidbit of information.

"Yeah. So, can I go now? That was everything I know anyway and I'm already late for dinner. My parents are probably worried by now." Nick made a grab for his backpack, but Peter held up a hand and signaled him to sit back down.

"Jones didn't give your parents a call?"

"Uhm . . ."

Peter picked up the phone on his desk. "What's your number?"

"No, seriously, that's fine. I'm often late. They probably haven't even realized I'm late yet. I was just saying that so that you'd let me go home."

Peter gave him his best no-nonsense look, waiting for Nick to tell him his phone number so that he could appease his parents, who were probably worried sick by now.

"I can call them myself," Nick finally said and before Peter could say or do anything else, he had his cell phone out and hit a number on speed-dial.

"Hey, Dad, it's Nick . . . Yeah, I'm fine. Some federal agent thinks I can help him solve a case . . . No, really." Peter made signs to let Nick know that he wanted to talk to his father, but Nick simply ignored him and went on. "Look, I'll tell you everything when I'm home . . . I already did my homework. Yeah. I'll see you in about half an hour—" Peter shook his head. "An hour—"

"Give me that!" Peter held his hand out for Nick's cell, but Nick ignored him once more.

"Listen, Dad, Agent Burke wants to talk to you . . . No, I'm not in trouble . . . I can take care of myself, too . . ."

Okay, that was it. Peter reached over and snatched the cell out of Nick's hands. Nick looked stunned, but Peter turned away from him and spoke into the phone.

"Hello, Mister—" That's when Peter realized that Jones hadn't told him Nick's last name. There was a long pause at the other end of the line. "Hello?" Peter tried again.

"Halden," came a reply at last. "And who is this?"

Peter noticed out of the corner of his eye that Nick began to fidget and that he was intently focused on Peter and the phone conversation. Peter let Nick's father know what was going on and gave him the address to the bureau so he could come pick up his son. Finally, he hung up the phone and gave it back to Nick.

"Your father will be here in half an hour. So, since you don't have anything better to do until then, how's about you try to think back to earlier this evening . . ."

Nick groaned and slumped down in his chair. Peter felt that he should be the one to groan; after all he had rarely had a witness as unhelpful as Nick was. But he suppressed the urge and simply asked questions, hoping to jog Nick's memory, until his father arrived. Since it was evident that the little information he had gotten out of Nick was all he was going to get, he thanked father and son and decided to call it a day himself.

~ o O o ~

Neal and the man who had come to get him out of that fed-trap walked in silence for a couple of blocks until they walked around a corner where Matthew was waiting for them.

"My money?" asked the guy, instead of offering a greeting.

Keller gave him a bundle of banknotes. After checking that it was all there, the guy walked off with a last nod at Keller.

"Did you get it?" Apparently greetings had gone out of style.

But Neal was accustomed to it, so he just replied, a bit affronted, "Of course!" He opened his backpack and fished out a folder. "Here. They don't have much on you, and you're pretty far down on their list of suspects anyway."

"Good job," Keller said as he opened the folder and skimmed the first page, while ruffling Neal's hair with his left hand absent-mindedly. Neal hated it when he did that. It was condescending. Just because Keller was an adult and Neal was not, he thought he could tell Neal what to do and have him do it all the time. As soon as Neal had enough money of his own, he'd definitely part ways with Keller. Speaking of which . . .

"Where's my share?"

Keller looked up from the file he was reading, laughed a dirty laugh, and took out his wallet. "Trying to play business man, huh? Here," he gave Neal a banknote, "go buy yourself a lolli or something." With that, he went back to reading. Condescending bastard!

Neal looked at the bill in his hand. "A twenty? You have got to be kidding me! You sent me right into the lion's den! I think that deserves a bit more than a rusty old twenty!"

"Well," Keller looked up once more, this time looking a bit irritated, "I'm also giving you a place to sleep and food to eat, now aren't I? You should be more grateful, Caffrey."

"That's not fair! I had to talk to feds. They could have locked me up!" How could he ever make it on his own if he didn't even get paid for the dangerous jobs?!

"And you almost messed it all up. I had to send someone in to get you out, which cost me your share for the job. Come to think of it—" Keller snatched the twenty out of Neal's hands, ignoring Neal's Hey!, "I don't think you even deserve this."

"They didn't know it was a set-up. They didn't know I was involved. And I didn't give them anything useful they could follow up on in their investigation. It's not my fault I'm a minor and Agent Burke wanted to call my parents."

"Tell you what, kiddo." Keller put an amicable hand on Neal's shoulder, which he shrugged off angrily. "You help me with the Guggenheim job next week and I'll give you ten percent."

Neal wanted to stay mad, but the prospect of being part of an actual heist was just too alluring. "I can come to the actual break-in?!" he asked excitedly. Up until now, Keller had only had him paint some forgeries, but he had never actually participated in a good art heist. Plus, ten percent of possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars might be a good start for his plan to make it on his own.

"Sure. We could use the extra pair of hands."

Neal simply couldn't wait for next week.

TBC . . .

~ o O o ~

Thanks for reading. Reviews are much appreciated.