Caffrey Flashback

Chapter 2: Two-Mile Radius

New York, Neal's apartment. Monday evening. February 16, 2004.

He wouldn't admit it to Peter, who had a penchant for saying "I told you so," but Neal liked the stability of a long-term legal job. While the FBI work still wasn't as exciting as he had hoped, it left him with time and energy to channel his creativity after hours. The last few weeks he'd been painting.

He hadn't yet discovered what his own style was, but he liked exploring who he was as an artist, and the pieces he produced served as an outlet for his emotions. In the corner of his apartment in the Ellingtons' mansion was a dark rendering of the building's exterior, inspired by sorrow over Byron's increasingly poor health. Beside that painting was a pale, ghostly depiction of Kate, who seemed determined to fade out of his life. On the easel was an abstract he'd started over the weekend, expressing his fears and hopes about the interest his mother's relatives had expressed in reconnecting with him, now that he was out of WITSEC.

He hadn't been able to finish that painting because he realized he had to respond to their overtures, first. Funny how people often described him as impetuous, but on certain occasions he found himself frozen, unable to make a decision. Now circumstances took the decision out of his hands.

He'd left a voicemail for Henry that afternoon, describing what he wanted. An hour later he'd received a text, telling him to call at 7:30pm. It was 7:30 now, and he'd barely said hello before Henry jumped into the heart of the matter. "You're crazy."

"I think you mean traumatized," Neal corrected, "but with the situation well under control."

"Right. If the situation is under control, why do you think you need to buy the diagnosis you want?"

"Oh, I'm not trying to buy a diagnosis. I couldn't afford that on my salary these days. I'm looking for a trade."

Henry groaned. The sound echoed.

"Why are you on speaker?" Neal asked.

"The cast doesn't get removed until next week. Until then I can't hold the phone in one hand and take notes with the other."

Neal vividly remembered the night Henry broke his arm. It was the same night Lucas had held him hostage, and Henry and Peter had come to his rescue. Afterwards Peter threatened to fire him, and Neal really had gone a little wild. "Yeah, about when you broke your arm... Peter guessed what I had planned, and I told him you might have been there to stop me from stealing the truck, instead of being there to help steal it." There was silence in response, but Neal could picture his dark-haired twenty-seven-year-old cousin considering the options before he responded. Henry's smile and hazel eyes would be hinting at secrets. "Were you planning to stop me?" Neal asked.

"Did you want me to stop you?"

These were the kind of circuitous conversations you had when your best friend had a master's degree in psychology and had based most of his thesis on your experiences as a con artist. "I'm not going down that rabbit hole with you tonight. Look, you want me to agree to a reunion with the rest of the family. I'm willing to do that in return for a statement from a psychologist that I'm able to go undercover without risk of incurring flashbacks."

"Peter knows that I'm not a practicing psychologist, and when I met him I told him I'm too close to you to be your therapist."

"I realize that."

"Then what, exactly, are you asking me to do for you?"

Neal bit his lip briefly in a sign of trepidation that he was glad Henry couldn't see. "I want your mother to write the statement. I know a relative as close as an aunt would normally be considered too close. But since I haven't seen her since I was three, and have only talked to her once between now and then, that shouldn't be a problem."