White Collar - as an unofficial novel - part 3

To buy a bakery

Peter felt like a wreck when he came home. He stopped inside the doors and looked around. He had lost his partner and when he passed the doors to his home it hit him like a fist in the guts that he had also lost a friend. No matter how much he liked Neal, the kid was now locked up in prison. He and Neal would never work together again.

"What is it?" El asked.

His eyes focused on his dear wife.

"I had to put Neal back in prison today."

She did not say a word. She just hugged him. It was exactly what he needed.

They sat down by the dinner table and ate while he told her everything that had happened the last days.

"Those initials on the diamond..." Peter sighed. "They vex me."

"Someone could've set him up," El suggested. "Make it look like it was Neal."

"Yeah..." Peter nodded. "But who and why? If it hadn't been for those initials, all we had on Neal was lost tracking data and nothing on anybody else. If somebody else did it... we've no clue who it might be. No need to frame Caffrey. And, not to forget, Neal Caffrey is a con-man. He could've tried to frame Tulane and failed."

Elisabeth nodded, but there was something thoughtful about her.

"What?" Peter asked. "You don't think he stole the diamond?"

"Of all you've told me about Neal when you chased him, I very well believe he could've stolen it. But not like that. And not trying to frame someone for it."

Peter was not sure what to believe any longer.

"Maybe he was set up. For reasons I don't understand. And maybe Neal Caffrey isn't the man I thought he was and he conned me."

That was what he feared most: that he had misjudged the kid, that he was used and conned. Neal had seemed too baffled when Fowler came in to arrest him, pleaded to Peter, telling him he did not do it. Peter did not want that plea to be a lie. He wanted Neal to be the man he thought he knew, the friend and the partner that he had been working with for months now. The person he thought he knew.

He could not deny that the same man could tell lies without blinking and make them sound like solid truth. Maybe Caffrey had done the same with him.

Next morning he drove straight to prison to see Neal. It was perhaps not the most proper thing to do, considering the ongoing investigation, but he needed to face the kid, see if he could catch him lying. Or see if there was hope for the kid to be innocent of the theft.

He paced in the visitor's room, waiting for Neal to arrive. It was the same room where they had met twice already. The kid sent him a happy smile when he entered. After the pat-down he swung himself down on the bench, smiling.

"Hello, Peter! What brings you here?"

Was there hope in the kid's voice? Was he pale? Scared? Peter pushed all those thoughts aside. This was a criminal and he had put far too much trust in him already. Peter sat down opposite, not looking at the charmer. Was this how it would end? A last meeting, in a visitor's room in prison.

"You let me down, Neal."

He saw the kid's pose straighten at one.

"I let you down?" the con-man returned with a harshness that surprised Peter. "You told Fowler to look for my initials."

Peter had not. But he did not like the tone of accusation in the kid's voice. He was not the one in prison. His eyes met Neal's.

"And you told me to look at your bonds under a polarized light, remember? Well, guess what? I did. And, yeah, you signed them."