Kate sleeps most of the day, waking at seven after the light has faded, just in time to wash the smell of the lake out of her hair and get dressed. The short black cocktail dress is hardly suitable for colder weather, but it's the only one she has; she drapes a thin jacket over it that doesn't quite match and decides the ensemble will have to do.

Adler sends a car for her at eight.

She hasn't seen Fowler since they got back to the city in the morning; she resists the urge to stop by the other suite before she leaves, to say tell Neal I said hey. She lingers outside the door, waiting for the elevator, long enough to overhear Maurice: slippery bastard wouldn't even say where the meet's gonna be, but he spent forty-five minutes last night casing this parking garage on Kenmare and Lafayette.

"You look lovely." Adler leans in to brush a kiss on her cheek once she arrives; it's somehow overly familiar and cold at the same time. "I trust your trip went well."

"As well as could be expected."

He's got an entire suite on the upper level of the mission, with polished hardwood floors and luxurious carpets that wouldn't have been out of place in his old offices. A large desk of carved oak dominates the center of the room, facing the window. If even one of the paintings hanging on the wall belongs to him, he's clearly doing well for himself.

Not that she ever doubted it.

He's watching her face as she looks at the paintings; she makes a point of giving each one a long stare, silently assessing the likely value until he waves her toward a round table by the door and pulls out her chair for her.

His voice is cool when he says, "My pilot was rather put out by the way he was treated."

"Agent Fowler has many talents," she says, "but I'm afraid tact isn't one of them. Still, the plane was returned to you without any damage."

Adler concedes that with a nod, removing a bottle of white wine from an ice bucket and pouring carefully for both of them.

She never should have asked for that plane. She should have found another one somewhere else; then she wouldn't be here right now, trying to read her old boss, and wondering if she can con someone who's known her since she was a college student.

"I hear you and Nick -" he smiles at his mistake, as a silent black-aproned waiter appears with two glass plates topped with an artful arrangement of arugula "- I'm sorry, he goes by Neal these days, I understand? I hear you've made quite a name for yourselves in the art world."

"You could say that."

Two long blue taper candles are lit between them; the napkins are stiff linen and the wine glasses crystal; she could fence the silver on the table and buy a car. (Not a very good one, but one that would get her across the Canadian border; she can't not notice and catalogue these things.)

"I remember your father used to tell me about your drawings," Adler is saying.

The window at the far side of the room is cracked an inch, letting in a cold breeze; the flames grow and twist, casting shadows that jump and dance on the striped wallpaper, a constant flicker of motion barely perceived at the edge of her vision, keeping her on edge.

"He was always proud of your talent, you know. I'm not sure if he ever told you."

"I didn't come here to talk about my father," she says sharply. "And I'm pretty sure you didn't either."

His face tightens in annoyance; it's a familiar look, and she's this close to apologizing, falling back into old patterns of reading her boss and deferring to him without thinking.

She says, "Why don't you tell me what you really want from me?"

"I think you could get to like Argentina." And she wonders how she never saw the calculating condescension behind that tone, how she ever mistook his facade of paternal benevolence for respect. "You and Neal both. It would remove certain - complications - from both your lives."

"I don't doubt that," she says.

She doesn't go on; the slow ticking of the walnut grandfather clock is the only sound, punctuated by the clink of silver on glass. Eventually, the waiter takes away their salad plates, bringing out covered dishes with poached salmon and delightfully fragrant garlic mashed potatoes.

Neal would be turning on the charm, right now. Kate is silent for most of the meal; Adler pretends not to notice.

He carries the conversation smoothly; she pastes on an expression of polite interest and knows he isn't fooled, as he tells her about the night life in Buenos Aires and how much he'd love to see her paint the sunset over the pampas. The room is cold and she has no appetite; she's jumpy and tense with old fury and long-sour betrayal, and beneath all that there's a small voice telling her, quietly, to get up now and leave.

There is something in his face, looking at her, as if he's studying a priceless work of art or some rare butterfly pinned under glass.

"I think you'd both fit in quite well with us," he's saying, when the waiter returns with dessert plates.

"Are you offering me a job?" she asks finally, and she doesn't try to conceal the blunt disbelief behind the words.

"I think the two of you have skills I might find useful," he says. "And you'll find I have resources you don't."

"I'm sure."

She's walking a fine tightrope; she's never liked chess, and this is chess played in the dark and blindfolded, and all the pieces are broken glass and cut her hands with every move.

"I'll be honest with you," she says. "I don't have time for games tonight. And I don't trust you."

"Kate." It's quiet and affectionate and condescending at once.

She leans forward and nearly knocks over her wine glass. "You disappear with all my money and then you come back and you expect me to believe a word you say?"

"I hear you're quite the accomplished thief yourself these days." The edge is barely noticeable, a scalpel shaped in ice.

"I learned from the best."

"You flatter me."

"I wasn't talking about you."

"I'm curious," he says, and then it comes out of nowhere; she's rehearsed for this, but it still catches her off guard: "Why did you and Agent Fowler need a plane so urgently?"

She has one chance to sell this, and her and Neal's lives may both rest on it. "We're going to escape from the feds on a plane like that one," she says. "We needed it to practice."

"For what?" he asks. "Are you going to fly it?"

She has a round face and big blue eyes that a deft makeup hand can make even bigger; she knows these make her look younger than she is, and far more vulnerable. It's something she's capitalized on before. People want to believe her. But at the end of the day she's not a very good liar; she doesn't have Neal's skill, to sell an outright falsehood to a man already suspicious.

The best cons are mostly true, anyway.

"We're going to jump out."

It's a risk, a gamble, a blind leap into the dark and a long way down, but she can tell from his face that she made the right call, the only call; he's heard about the jump already.

"It's a hell of a rush," she says. "I wanted to practice at least once before Neal and I try it for real." Something true, to lead smoothly into what isn't. "We're going to touch down in half a dozen different cities across Europe. The feds, Interpol, they won't know where to start looking, and we won't be in any of those cities anyway. Once we get far enough south we're going to jump somewhere in between. Come ashore somewhere in the Mediterranean while they're searching Dublin and Paris and Madrid."

"Any particular piece of shoreline you're considering?"

"Like I said, I don't trust you." She draws a line with her finger on the linen tablecloth, several short hops, a flight path and the wide circle of the Mediterranean."But we'll be relaxing under an olive tree somewhere warm while they're searching half the major cities of Europe for us." She looks up. "What do you think? You're the master of the slick getaway."

He gives her a cold smile, and she lets out a silent, shaky breath; he either bought it or he didn't. "You're trusting Agent Fowler to make all the arrangements, I take it?"

"I don't trust anyone and that includes you." She allows her voice to rise slightly. "But I know where I stand with Fowler. He's never pretended to be my friend."

"I still think you'd love Buenos Aires."

She shakes her head sharply. "I don't want a job with you."

"What do you want?" he asks, and there's a hook there, buried deep; she can feel it. She shouldn't answer. "Tell me how I can help."

And she knows that tone, too, polite with a hint of reserved sympathy. The memory blindsides her, of the night her father died, dove-grey dusk lit by the first streetlights coming on and brittle red and orange leaves drifted across the walk leading up to her building, the smell of fall in the air; Adler drove her home from the hospital, walked her to her door, his eyes saying I'm not going to push but I'm here if you need anything.

A small enough gesture, but she'd been alone, then, and it had meant everything.

Her fists curl together until her fingers hurt, crumpling the fine linen napkin on her lap. "I want what you took from us when you left seven years ago."

She remembers a park bench and a long summer evening and a playful fit of whimsy, I think you should blow off that commitment; Neal's eyes holding her like he was afraid to blink, the soft wonder in his face at I'm still here. They'd both been so young.

She wants to believe there's such a thing as safety, as security, for her and Neal. She wants to stop running; she wants to believe in a future more than three days ahead; she wants to not be angry and afraid all the time.

She wants to sleep in the dark and not dream she's drowning; she wants to stop jumping at shadows and footsteps and every door opening; she wants to forget what it feels like to want to hurt someone.

"I'll settle for the money that was in our accounts the day you emptied them," she says, and it's everything she's wanted to say to her father, to Michael. I don't want your rescue. I don't want your charity. I want nothing from you but what you owe me. "With interest."

It's a child's fantasy of justice; she knows that now. She is a thief and a survivor and she has long since abandoned any thought of debts repaid, of scores settled and justice done, of getting what she deserves.

In this life you get only what you are willing and able to take.

It's a satisfying fantasy to act out, all the same.

Adler pulls an ATM card and a slip of paper from an inside pocket of his jacket. "I'll have it wired to this account by the end of the week," he says. "Account number and password are right here; you should be able to access it wherever you end up."

And he'll be watching the account for a withdrawal; she sees the game now. Anything in it is poison and will blow their cover if they touch it.

She slips it into her belt and stands abruptly; Adler blinks, surprised, at the half-full wine glass and the cheesecake left on her plate. She has no desire to stay and finish dessert, or linger over coffee, or make small talk; she's said what she came to say and she doesn't think she can share a room with him much longer.

He doesn't call after her; the limo is pulled up and waiting at the gate when she reaches it.

***

"Stop," she tells the driver, barely a hundred yards from the hotel; she can see an agent in a trench coat by the doors, the faint glow of a cigarette in the dark as he looks up; he's seen her.

The dashboard clock says 11:45.

A cold wind slices through her thin jacket as she gets out of the car; the street is quiet. She's not wearing shoes for walking quickly, but this agent isn't a native New Yorker; she shouldn't have to go far out of her way to lose him in the dark.

She hears Maurice, spent forty-five minutes casing this parking garage, she hears Kenmare and Lafayette and it's fifteen minutes to midnight and she doesn't want to think, doesn't wait to ask herself if this is a good idea. It's not survival instinct pulling her back up the street and into the shadows, away from the hotel.

It's a still, small voice as strong and raw and impossible to ignore as the voice that says run, as the voice that says something isn't right but it's not that voice.

She walks quickly, slipping out of her shoes as she turns onto Lafayette; the heels will echo in the garage. A car passes, slowly, headlights sweeping up the street. She sees a feral cat dart from a corner as she enters the garage; it runs lightly down a ramp toward the lower level, turning to blink wide green eyes at her.

She thinks it might be the same voice that told Neal to break out, almost a year ago.

She sees him in a convex mirror near the ceiling as she creeps down a second ramp; it's only slightly warmer, here, two levels down and out of the wind. She recognizes the silhouette of his hat against a pillar. His face is hidden, but she knows he's alert for the slightest sound or stirring shadow; she's seen him like this on too many jobs.

She presses against the wall, gritty cement cold through her light jacket; it's darker, here, halfway down the curving ramp. Not ideal for cover, but Neal will hear her if she moves.

Fowler is already here. A black car with government plates is parked not far away, screened by a few more support pillars but in a perfect position to watch Neal in that mirror. Neal hasn't seen him yet.

Cracks run along the wall beneath the mirror, some of them patched, branching lines in irregular patterns. Rust and water stains spread in blotches where overhead pipes run into the concrete near the ceiling.

Another car approaches; she can recognize it from here, the tension in Neal's absolute stillness, that says he's desperate to pace, to work off extra nervous energy, to act. The second car stops; she can barely see the hood in the mirror. The sound of a door opening and closing rebounds off the walls of this industrial cavern, echoing and reechoing and seeming to come from everywhere at once.

Then Fowler and Maurice are walking past the front of the hood, distorted reflections in the mirror, and she freezes. Slowly, she turns to stare at the first car, still and silent with the doors closed; the overhead lights cast a glare on the driver's window and she can't see if anyone is inside.

Her attention is caught as Neal steps out from behind the pillar; she watches Maurice give him a cursory pat-down. His voice carries, warped by echoes chasing along the walls; she can't make out the words but she knows that grin as he steps forward, leaning in toward Fowler. She sees an edge, there, something hard and fragile and desperate; he's as stretched thin and pushed to the wall as she is, and as terrified for her as she is for him.

She isn't here to overhear their conversation; she's here to see Neal, to read him, and she doesn't like what she sees.

She recognizes that look, as his face is caught by the light; she's seen it in her own mirror; she's seen it in Fowler's eyes not too long ago, the look of some wild thing backed too far into a corner with nowhere else to go but out and swinging.

"I don't give a damn what you do, Caffrey," Fowler says at last, raising his voice as he backs away; his eyes hold Neal's, still, and she knows all communication here has been unspoken. They both know there are cameras all throughout the garage. "Just don't make it my problem."

Then Fowler and Maurice are out of sight; she hears the car doors closing again, watches the headlights sweep over the walls as the car turns.

Neal looks around him; for a second she has the feeling he's looking straight at her, like he can see her. Then he turns and walks quickly toward the exit.

She's still hearing the sound of his footsteps disappearing, the strangled echoes of everything she wants to say, when another engine starts with a cough.

The first black car pulls out from the shelter of those pillars and turns toward the lower exit; she tries to follow but it's gone before she can catch a glimpse of the plate.

Someone was watching.

***

Fowler is on her balcony when she returns.

She leans against the door as she closes it, still shivering, and doesn't turn on the light. She wants to be alone, to sit up with a glass of wine and go over chute specs until she can forget the strained look on Neal's face, until the sun peeks blearily over the distant office buildings.

She kicks her shoes into a corner and pulls a bottle out of the minibar as the sliding door shuts with a thud.

"Now what the hell are you trying to pull?"

She closes her eyes, gathers up frayed shreds of calm. "I beg your pardon?"

"Adler's limo brought you back at 11:45." It's cold and suspicious and she is so very not in the mood for this tonight. "You disappeared for forty-five minutes after that. Where were you?"

She stabs at the bottle with a corkscrew as he comes into the tiny kitchen. "Parking garage at Kenmare and Lafayette."

"I was there." His eyebrows go up. "I didn't see you."

"You weren't supposed to." Her voice stays steady and she's proud of that; she's glad it's too dark for him to see her face. "Did you see the second car?"

"What second car?"

"Black. Government plates." Her voice is steady but her hands are shaking badly enough that she mangles the cork, breaking off half of it and leaving the other half stuck in the neck of the bottle.

She slams the corkscrew down on the counter, bites down hard on the inside of her cheek, breathes out slowly and stares at her hands. Swallows back I don't have to explain myself to you and the hard, sharp swirl of fury that's been building since she saw Adler.

"I wanted to see him."

And there's a crack in the last word but her eyes meet his and it's an admission of weakness and a challenge at once, a spiked gauntlet thrown down, daring him to make something of the opening.

Something dark flickers behind his eyes; he turns away, flips on the light over the sink and takes up the corkscrew, pulling the bottle away from her. He takes his time, carefully and silently extracting the remains of the cork before he says, without looking up, "Did you get the plate number?"

And like that the anger fades, leaving her drained and tired. "Couldn't get close enough without being seen."

"How was dinner?" In the light he looks as exhausted as she feels.

"You know, it's hard to really enjoy New York's most expensive cheesecake when you're wondering the whole time if your host is plotting to kill you." She sighs. "I told him the best story I could come up with. I don't know if he bought it."

"He's still staying at the mission, I take it?"

"Oh, yes. He's not stupid. And he's got connections; they've got him set up with a whole suite, there. Very fancy."

"The two of you were together in his suite the whole time?"

She tilts her head at him with a sharp, exasperated frown. "What are you, a chaperone?"

"He didn't excuse himself any time between, say, nine and nine fifteen?" The words are patient, edged. "To make a phone call, perhaps?"

The temperature in the room drops several degrees. She shakes her head slowly. "Doesn't mean he's not involved."

"The plane's in the air right now," Fowler says; he pulls out his phone and sets it on the counter. "It'll land tonight somewhere in New Jersey. Keep that with you." He nods toward the phone. "Don't answer it. Keep the chain on the door and don't open it for anyone until I get back."

"You're going out to load the plane?"

"And make the final - modifications." He opens his wallet, now, flips through half a dozen credit cards and driver's licenses; he tucks one of each into an inside pocket of his coat and leaves the wallet with the phone. "If all goes according to plan, you'll be out of here by the end of the week."

She swallows, caught between anticipation and a sudden twist of cold fear; the Italian consulate is hosting a party this week. So much for hoping it's at someone's private home. Security at the consulate will be a challenge even for Neal, and if he's caught -

She can't think about that now.

Fowler writes something on a pad of hotel stationery and slides it toward her; it's another phone number. "If you absolutely have to reach me in the next six hours," he says. "Memorize that and then burn it. If anyone asks I was here the whole night."

She nods once and opens the door, darting a quick glance into the hallway. "It's clear."

He disappears into the stairwell.

***

He returns without incident just before sunrise and says only that everything's ready.

They don't go out to the pool again, but they spend some four hours in her room that evening putting the parachute harnesses on and taking them off again, until her hands know the motions and she thinks she could do it blindfolded.

After that she's too wired to sleep most of the rest of the night; she catches a brief nap around 7 AM, and by 10 she's downstairs and on her second espresso.

She leaves the cafe and settles in one the overstuffed armchairs before the fireplace, close enough that she can stretch her feet out and feel the warmth. Flames dance above a gas jet, bright gold fading to blue at the base, suspended over a not-very-convincing pile of fake logs.

The snow is gone; a brief warm spell has melted it, and a cold drizzle has descended to wash away the rest. From the lounge she can see into the lobby, the street outside framed by rain-streaked glass doors.

She sits and tries to draw the scene, pedestrians on the sidewalk, dark umbrellas like overturned teacups, pen and ink on a tiny rectangle of hotel stationery but the lines are disjointed and refuse to come together.

She gives up when she notices three agents lurking near the elevators.

The elevator dings and Maurice comes out to join them, just as Fowler pushes through the revolving doors at the front entrance. "Did you get it?"

Maurice holds up a paper. "Fax came through ten minutes ago."

"Burke was in the second car." This is addressed to her, as Fowler waves the other agents ahead toward the door. She sits up with a start.

"He knows Neal is up to something." And dammit, she should have known better than to tell him about the music box. But she hadn't dared speak of it over the phone, and Neal probably would have told him anyway.

"I've got this," Fowler says. And then, shaking his head in frustration, "He's got no idea what he's sticking his nose into this time."

"Do not underestimate him." It comes out sharper than she intended, but she knows Burke better than he does. "He may be honest but that doesn't mean he's stupid. He's dangerous. He knows Neal and he believes in what he's doing."

He thinks he's saving Neal from himself; he's going to get Neal killed, if they're not careful.

"I said I can handle Burke," Fowler says, sharply.

She glares at him. "You'd better," she says. "If he screws this up -"

"He won't." He gathers the rest of the agents behind him with a look, and they sweep out through the front doors; she watches them vanish, a flock of black trench coats like dark birds against the wet sidewalk.

After her third espresso she gives up waiting and retreats upstairs; she's sitting in a chair in front of the balcony doors, watching the rain taper off and the clouds part, studying a map of the Irish coast. She hears the elevator first and then the growl of the ice machine at the end of the hall.

Fowler comes in with a split lip and a bruise on his jaw, holding a handful of ice cubes wrapped in a handkerchief against his mouth and looking decidedly pleased with himself. She closes the door and puts the chain back on, leans against the wall and says, "What the hell happened to you?"

"You should see the other guy."

"What did you do, break his arms?"

"Took his badge." He leans against the kitchen counter; there's a glitter of adrenaline and triumph in his eyes, and he lowers the handkerchief long enough to give her an edged grin; blood and ice water drips on the tile floor. "Agent Burke gets a hearing in two weeks, and they'll decide if he gets it back. Until then he won't be arresting anybody."

"Burke took a swing at you?" She stares at Fowler, stunned at such a gift being dropped in their laps; so much for Burke not being stupid.

"In front of half a dozen witnesses."

"How'd you manage that?" she demands, with a huff of stunned, delighted laughter. "Not that I can't understand the impulse, of course."

"Someone called in an anonymous tip -" and the first word is emphasized in a way that suggests that someone is hardly unknown to him "- alleging Burke Premier Events has been violating half a dozen import restrictions on all kinds of expensive foreign foods."

"You took his office apart looking for absinthe and contraband Swedish caviar? What on earth is he doing with - wait." She frowns. Burke Premier Events - "That's his wife's company." She blinks at his fraction of a nod. "Are you telling me you arrested his wife?"

"These are serious allegations."

"You arrested his wife." She stops, caught by a sudden realization; her slow, incredulous smile is bright and fierce and not nice at all. "And he punched you in the face."

"I told you I could handle him."

"You -" The next words are quiet, deliberate, despite the singing, angry joy bubbling up from some place too long helpless inside her: "You used the woman he loves to set a trap for him."

He turns and spits blood into the sink. "Does that bother you?"

"No." It's soft and rough and heartfelt and she thinks this, this is what it feels like to want to hurt someone. "No, I want him to know how it felt."

She can still hear the bang of the door opening in that storage unit, a flood of bright light released and as suddenly blocked by men with guns. She can still close her eyes and see Burke, alone after Neal was taken, his satisfied smirk as he looked at her; she'd been a tool, in his eyes, and one that had served his purpose.

"You'd better watch it, Fowler," she says, quiet and dangerous.

Both eyebrows go up as he lowers the handkerchief; that's going to leave an impressive bruise, she can tell already. "Oh?"

"I might actually start to like you."

"There's a frightening thought."

"Tell me about it."

***

The Italian consulate hosts a party three nights later.

Kate is packed long before then; her bag is ready to leave, ready to stow in the crate to be shoved out of the plane. It sits in the corner of her room, by the head of the bed, and whispers to her in the dark.

The night of the party she spends an hour running on the treadmill in the hotel's tiny fitness center, until the nervous stress wears off and her mind grows tired of spinning over the extended metaphor of futility. Running like a rat on a wheel, weaving plans in the light and pulling frayed threads of doubt in the dark until it all unravels.

She doesn't know anymore if she's the weaver and the anchor and the safe harbor, or if she's the storm-tossed traveler washed up unrecognized on a familiar shore, gone so far and so long even the eyes of love won't know her anymore.

It's dark outside the main doors when she leaves the treadmill behind; the clock over the fireplace in the lounge says it's nearly nine.

There's a miniature Christmas tree tucked in one corner of the lobby.

A pair of uniformed desk clerks - she recognizes most of them, by now - are stringing a twisting rope of gold tinsel and plastic evergreen over the mantel, hanging a row of identical red velvet stockings edged with silver sequins.

"It's not even Thanksgiving," she says, staring around her at the transformation in the lobby. It's not addressed to anyone, but one of the clerks beside the fireplace looks up from arranging fake pine cones; recognizing her, he offers a "what can you do?" shrug.

She finds Fowler in the bar, where tiny white lights peek like stars strung around potted plants in all the corners, but at least the elevator-music rendition of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is somewhat drowned by the TV in the corner.

Maybe she and Neal will be in the south of France for Christmas. She remembers Neal saying you'd like France. They'll hole up in a quiet villa by the shore, order expensive room service and spend the day in bed, relearning each other's skin and mapping all the new scars that weren't there before.

"I swear it starts earlier every year." She leans against the bar beside Fowler.

Maybe they'll go to Paris and pretend to be tourists, lose themselves in the crowds at the Louvre.

Fowler looks up and says, quietly, "Your boy's off his leash."

He pulls out his phone, opens a short text message. An unknown number, only four words.

After a prize tonight.

She looks away, stares at their warped reflections in the polished brass panel behind the bar and swallows the sharp sting of tears. That message is from Neal, and it's for her.

"'But I will be back with the yellow gold before the morning light'," she whispers. Fowler frowns at her and she shakes her head. "Just an old poem."

It's a classic, and an old favorite, one they've both memorized; a tale of theft and doomed love that cuts sharper, now, than it once did. Still it's an old token, between them: I'll come to thee by moonlight though hell should bar the way.

It's quiet; the bartender wipes down the surface of the bar and only nods a greeting. She can barely hear the hum of a vacuum cleaner in the dining room.

Maybe they'll lay low in Ireland for a while. Spend long evenings together in the corner of some warm, wood-paneled pub beside a roaring fire, listening to the waves outside, two shipwrecked souls swapping war stories. She can close her eyes, imagine wandering with him along a narrow path, dew-drenched hills sparkling like wet polished emerald, fog rolling back like antique silver.

Maybe they'll head south, follow the tourists to Malta and then to Italy.

It still seems unreal; she thinks of home and she sees that visiting room; she's swept by a fierce, ridiculous nostalgia for that glass, smudged with a thousand fingerprints, futile gestures of longing. She thinks of a reunion and she sees him in the doorway of her storage unit; all the happy endings are woven in frost and spider-silk, melted with a breath and torn away by careless hands.

She thinks if only she can have Neal alone, truly alone together with no one watching, she'll never lie to him again.

Part of her knows that isn't true. She also knows it doesn't matter; she'll lie to him, and he'll lie to her, but she'll never doubt his love again, or give him reason to doubt hers. Surely enough love, enough blood and sweat and pain spent in returning home can substitute for honesty.

She thinks of hope and imagines huddling with Neal in the shadow of a rock, soaked through and barely sheltered from the salt wind and listening to the ocean pound the shore, cheated of its prize and raging as the smoke from the explosion spreads a gauzy haze between them and the stars.

She wants to feel him breathing. She wants to hear him say he loves her. (He never lied about that, he said, and she believed him.)

She sighs, slowly, sinking onto a stool beside Fowler and leaning her elbows on the bar.

"Scotch on the rocks," she tells the bartender.

Neither one of them will be sleeping tonight, waiting for Neal's signal. They might as well stay up and watch the phone together.

***

Sunrise comes and goes and there's no word from Neal. It's late afternoon by the time she hears anything; Fowler has gone in to the office and she's upstairs; she's finally dozed off in an armchair by the door when Fowler calls her.

He lets the phone ring once and hangs up; it's a signal. A green light. All systems go.

She jumps up, grabs her bag and her coat and does a last quick check around the room for anything she might want to destroy and then realizes she has nothing more to do; she's been packed and ready to go at five seconds' notice for the past three days.

She paces back and forth across the tiny living room until Fowler arrives.

He shuts the door and chains it, walks into the bedroom without a greeting. She follows and he shuts that door, too, and closes the blinds over the window. He drops two black duffel bags on the bed, opens the larger one and drags out two parachutes.

She stares at the smaller duffel. "Is that -?"

He nods once. "Focus." He tosses a chute at her and she catches it by reflex. "Show me how you'll put Caffrey's chute on."

She slips the shoulder harness over his arms, pauses to let him shake open a folded square of paper; it flutters and spreads over half the end of the bed.

"What's that?"

"Waterproof map," he says, and as she leans closer, "Don't stop. And pay attention. You're going to have to be able to multitask, here."

She tightens the straps down as he goes on, tracing a line across the grey shaded space of the Atlantic.

"You'll take off from here. Weather report says there's snow moving in off Newfoundland late tonight, but if you get out of here soon you should be able to land and refuel and take off again before it hits. The pilot already has the course heading."

"What's his name?"

"The pilot?" Fowler looks up from the map; his eyes are tired and serious. "Do you really want to know his name?"

She feels like she should want to; she's going to point a gun at the man. She closes her eyes and shakes her head briefly. She says, softly, "Neal hates guns."

"He's lucky he has you, then."

She wonders if Neal will recognize her; she wonders if she can hold a gun on a man while he watches.

But she only snaps, "Will you hold still?" The words are low and rough; she stands in front of him, tightening the harness and weaving the chest straps over the life vest when it hits her.

In less than twelve hours she'll be standing this close to Neal. Securing the net in place that will catch him when he falls, holding his life in her hands. She has to stop, has to steady her hands and her breathing; if Fowler can tell her eyes are wet, when she looks up, he doesn't let on.

"If my advice is worth anything," he says at last, "do whatever you have to do to keep him alive. He can't forgive you anything if he's dead."

He turns away as she steps back; he folds the map and stows it back in the duffel, before turning toward the full-length mirror behind her door to inspect the harness and check her work.

She says, quietly, "Are you giving me relationship advice?"

"Something like that." Now he's shrugging out of the harness, nodding toward the other lying on the bed. "Now yours."

She slides into her own harness, her hands moving automatically as he continues.

"About half a mile out you're going to turn and head north along the coast. That's where you set the autopilot and the pilot jumps out. You two follow twenty minutes later. You want to time it so you're out at least fifteen minutes before it blows; that way you won't have flaming wreckage and half the Irish coast guard coming down on your heads. And remember, anything you say in or near the cockpit is being recorded. Don't assume they won't find the black box. And make sure -"

He stops; they stare at each other for a moment, and she knows they're thinking the same thing.

Most likely all three of them will be dead this time tomorrow.

"''Tis true there's better booze than brine, but he that drowns must drink it'," she quotes softly, and he shows his teeth in a cold grin; he knows the sentiment, if not the poem. She asks, "Supplies?"

"Everything's in two crates on the plane. The gear and the boat for the pilot are by the door; yours are on the other side."

"What about wet suits?"

He nods toward the duffel; inside she sees three black wet suits, a pistol and a bulletproof vest.

"You're going straight from the airstrip to make the handoff," she realizes.

"Yeah." His voice is hoarse but steady.

"Any idea who you're meeting?" A shrug, and she asks, "What if he shoots you in the head?"

His only answer is another shrug, before he turns to inspect her harness. "Not much I can do about that."

He pulls the vest out and shoves the chutes back into the bag, turning away to peel out of his shirt. She moves toward the mirror, drags a brush through her hair a few times and decides to leave it down.

Neal likes it that way. She can put it up once they're in the air.

He gets his arms through the vest before his phone rings; he flips it open with one hand as she steps toward him. "Fowler."

She bats his other hand aside, does up the velcro fastenings to tighten the vest in place herself.

"Did she get anything?" he's asking, and then, quietly, "Dammit."

"Whatever it is, I didn't do it," she says, as he hangs up.

"Not you." He takes out the pistol and zips the duffel closed before buttoning his shirt. "Someone just copied the hard drive off my laptop at the office."

"There wasn't anything on there about -?" She glances, alarmed, at the bag with the parachutes.

"No." He checks the pistol quickly, sliding home the magazine. "But if he's got people looking into my files it means we've made him suspicious."

"You think whoever it was works for -"

"She didn't show a warrant when Maurice walked in on her," he says grimly. Which suggests this isn't coming through official channels, Kate thinks. "Doesn't change anything. Just all the more reason we need to hurry."

She lifts the larger duffel and swings it over her shoulder; he grabs the smaller one and they head for the stairs.

***

The airstrip is deserted.

Fowler pulls up outside a hangar and holds up a hand when she goes to open the door. Draws his gun and gets out quickly, disappearing inside the building.

He reappears a moment later, waving at her to get out, it's clear. She drags the duffel out of the back seat and settles it on her shoulder. The sky is clear, pale blue shading to white at the horizon, but she can smell snow in the wind.

Inside the hangar her footsteps echo and she shivers. Fowler snaps his cell phone closed, following her. "Tower says the plane is twenty minutes out. Caffrey should be here in an hour."

"He has the passports?"

Fowler nods and pulls something else out of his coat; it looks like another cell phone, at first, but it's not.

"Is that -?" She takes it from him; the display is dark, and she's careful not to touch the keypad.

"Detonator." He points at one key, then another: "This starts the timer; this will pause it, if there's any delay. Once it starts you've got four hours."

She glances at the corners of the ceiling; she doesn't see any cameras. Still she tucks it quickly into an inside pocket of her coat.

Fowler walks back out to the car, and she pauses in the doorway as he reaches in through the passenger side window. He pulls a second gun out of the glove box and offers it to her.

"You prepared to use this?"

She swallows. "Yes." If I have to. Checks it and sticks it in the back of her pants.

"You're not jumping with that," he says. "Leave it on the plane. I don't have time to show you how to properly secure a -"

He stops. There's no more time, and only so much instruction she can absorb in the next twenty minutes.

"Feet and knees together," she says, and that gets her half a smile, fading quickly.

"I hope you make it."

It's quiet and sincere; she looks up and meets his eyes steadily. She can hear geese overhead, honking in the cold air, the last flight out before winter sets in hard.

He lifts a hand, as if he's about to clasp her shoulder, and then lets it fall to rest on the roof of the car.

He'll never know, either way; she'll never know if he survives making the handoff, or if he can take out whoever is behind this before they get him.

She can't think of that, now, or wonder if their odd and painful alliance might be called friendship.

"I hope so, too," she says finally. "Good luck."

She stands in the doorway and watches the car drive away, until he's out of sight and she's alone.

One hour and Neal will be here. She leans against the door and tries not to think of all that can go wrong between now and then; she tells herself once Neal is here they'll be all right. Nothing can stop them.

If she were a better liar she might be able to convince herself that's true.

She's leaving New York for good, this time, and leaving Kate Moreau as well. Neal has her new name tucked in a folder, but she hasn't seen it; she doesn't know who she is. But they'll reinvent themselves together, just like they did seven years ago, when she left everything to follow him into a world unknown to her.

Despite everything, she still can't bring herself to wish she'd gone to Chicago.

She'd be on her way home now, if she had, to warm house with a fire going and no doubt in her mind about what her name was or who might recognize her, with nothing to stress about except upcoming holiday parties and the insistence of local stations on starting the Christmas music two months early.

She might have gone with Neal to Copenhagen; they might have stolen the music box together, sold it somewhere and bought that villa in the Cote d'Azur. They might be walking along a path above the ocean, right now, making plans for a holiday on some remote island somewhere.

Instead she's standing on an empty airstrip, staring up into a crystal blue autumn sky, watching for an airplane with a bomb strapped to it flying in low over the Hudson.

This is not the time for regrets.

***

She and the pilot exchange cursory greetings; he looks mildly surprised to see her. Given the secretive nature of his orders, he probably expected a Special Forces team to be waiting on the tarmac. Or maybe he thinks she's CIA.

But he only says, "Ma'am," and "I was told I'll be briefed in the air."

He doesn't offer his name, and she doesn't ask.

She tells him to keep the engine running, and checks behind the seats to find the gear and the boats tucked out of sight. She stows the duffel with the chutes behind them and doesn't look under the seat by the door.

The sky is clouded over, now, a low ceiling of white heavy with snow. A car engine purrs to a halt, then stops. Shadows move between the hangar buildings.

And Neal is here, his steps quickening as he approaches, as he sees her in the doorway. She raises a hand, a tentative wave; he waves back, and his smile is eager and bright and hopeful and only a little bit uncertain and her heart twists and thumps hard, startling tears to her eyes.

Someone calls his name.

Burke.

No. She steps back. No. Not this time.

Her legs hit the back of the front seat and she sits, peers out the window and feels the hard metal of the gun digging into the small of her back.

You son of a bitch, you told me he was on suspension for two weeks …

She leans her head against the window, sick fear clawing at her. She doesn't see a SWAT team; she doesn't see anyone else at all. Burke seems to be alone.

Still she recognizes it, that sudden cold certainty when a heist is about to go south fast. Something isn't right.

She pulls out her phone, hides it under her jacket on her lap and texts Fowler: Burke is here WTF is going on?

Burke holds his hands out, in a gesture of I'm unarmed, and abruptly she realizes: he is still on suspension. He's not here to arrest Neal; he honestly thinks he can persuade him to stay.

She hears her own words, echoed back: he can be your prisoner or he can be your friend. They're speaking as equals for the first time, she realizes - Burke without his badge, and Neal free to go with a deal approved by OPR.

And Neal stops, and listens.

Alarm bells are still ringing, and her phone is silent. She paces up and down the aisle, and punches in the number for the burner Fowler carried when he went to load the plane.

She's not really expecting an answer; it's been nearly an hour since he left, more than enough time for him to have met with his contact.

"Yes?"

The voice is Adler's, and the alarm bells rise to a steady white-noise shriek. She can think of only a few reasons why he'd be answering this phone; none of them bode well for her or Neal, and most involve Fowler being already dead.

She shoves that thought to the back of her mind, files it away as something she will probably have feelings about later, but can't afford to right now.

"It's me," she says, pausing as thoughts tumble furiously over one another. Her eyes move from the pilot - the cockpit door is not yet closed - to the window where Neal stands frozen, and she wonders how far things have already unraveled and if there's still a chance to fix this.

"Kate," he says. "What's wrong?"

You, she thinks; I don't trust you. "Peter Burke is here."

Adler's voice sharpens. "Why? Does he have it with him?"

"I don't know why Burke's here," and it's stalling, as she races to figure out what's going on here. Does he have what -? And then, testing, deliberately vague, "Does this change the plan?"

She's half expecting him to demand a bribe, some kind of payment to look the other way. Or maybe - maybe his hosts at the mission have thrown him out of his sanctuary, and he's looking for an escape route and wants a seat on the plane -

"I know he's got the box," Adler says, and something drops out of the bottom of her stomach. "Was this your plan all along? The three of you take off with it and disappear? You think you can screw me -"

It is you.

She closes the phone with a snap, tries to breathe through a sudden flood of panic. He's been their mastermind all along. And now he thinks Burke has the music box (how? why? and where is Fowler?) and they're all running away with it.

Oh God Neal get on the damn plane we don't have time for this.

Adler's people will be on their way any minute.

Neal finally turns away from Burke, walking slowly toward her only to stop, on the tarmac, in the open, staring at the sky.

Adler's people could be here already; he could have guys watching airstrip; her eyes dart toward the roofs of the nearby hangars, looking for snipers. Snow is starting to fall.

They have to go now.

She half expects to see a red laser dot appear on his forehead, on the front of his wool jacket, but there's only snowflakes caught like broken glass in his hair.

Neal, please.

Later, she swears, staring hard at him and willing their old telepathy to work one last time, later she'll listen to him talk until he's hoarse about why Burke isn't so bad after all, and how he misses working cases in New York. She'll hold him while he cries, if he needs to, once they've reached a place of safety.

But that place isn't here. And now they can think only of survival.

Adler almost certainly has people on the way who mean to kill them both.

She leans close to the window. Neal pauses and turns, looking back at Burke, torn.

Neal was the one who brought her into this world, but some of its lessons he still hasn't learned. You can hold tightly to only a few people in this life; with everyone else, you have to let go and not look back.

And there is never time enough to say goodbye.