after solving the case with counterfeit money, the fbi agency was grateful to have some downtime. and now, charlie, don, david, larry, and ciara all sat at charlie's kitchen table, playing poker. don threw down a few cards, looking at charlie who was slightly grinning.
''do i even need to ask?'' he questioned, staring at charlie. charlie smiled, turning his cards over to show everyone his hand. ''i've only played once before. i actually have a one in eight chance of hitting a set when I'm holding a pocket pair. i'm about 50/50 to draw a flush with three suited cards in my hand, two off the draw. i also count my outs. i, uh, multiply by two. i- i add one. that's roughly my percentage of hitting.'' charlie explained to the table.
ciara scoffed lightly, looking up behind her where alan was standing. ''i'll be asking you soon to take my seat. your son is killing us, okay?'' she joked. alan shook his head. ''no, not me. the only other time charlie played, i learned my lesson about gambling with a mathematician.'' alan said, patting ciara on the shoulders.
''weren't we playing with bottle caps?'' charlie called out to his father. ''yeah, or else you would have walked away with the pink slip to my car!'' alan called back.
after a few more hours of talking, don got a call on his phone. ''fbi, pack up, we gotta go. shooting.'' ciara groaned, dropping her head for a second before pushing herself up out of her chair.
'~~''~~'
''coroner put time of death around 8:00 this morning. victim's name is trevor riley, 27. wanted on a federal warrant for stock fraud.'' terry briefed don, david, and ciara as they walked up onto the scene. after gathering all the information that they could, they headed back to the agency. david and terry went ahead to investigate further into the situation, while don and ciara went to go look for charlie.
''hello? anybody home?'' don called out, walking through the front door of his brothers house. ''yeah, donny, i'm here. oh, hello to you as well, ciara.'' alan greeted. ''hey, dad, where's charlie?'' don asked, cutting right to the point. ''oh, I was just talking to charlie. he said your fbi team needs another hitter. why aren't you playing baseball with them?'' alan asked, curious. ciara had learn to know quite a bit of the eppes' family's past. she knew that, when don was in highschool, he was on the baseball team. it came to be a shock to her, as well, that don didn't want to partake in the fbi team.
''because I don't have time for that. hey, charlie.'' don walked over to his little brother. ''you should play. i mean, there's no reason to waste that experience. they need a power hitter.'' he added onto what his father said. ''look, you got a minute?'' don queried, slightly annoyed. ''that's what I was getting at.'' charlie said, somewhat sarcastically. ''all right, thanks.''
''actually, I got a seminar in about a half hour.'' charlie remembered, glancing at the clock above don's head. ''just give us a minute, all right? this is a copy of a file we pulled off a computer that we think shows some kind of fraud. the problem is our accountants are up to their necks in this big racketeering case and they're not going to be able to get to it till next week.'' ciara explained to charlie. charlie looked between her and his brother, sighing.
''well, love to help, but I'm preparing a seminar on zeros of random orthogonal polynomials.'' charlie said, grabbing his briefcase. ciara groaned, slightly putting her arm out to stop charlie. ''this really isn't an advanced application.'' she begged. don cut in, ''look, please, just do me a favor, all right? 15 months ago, I closed a case: the murder of a young mother. now, the guy's in jail, but the owner of the computer we're talking about here was just killed in the exact same way.'' don explained.
''you suspect the two are related.'' charlie stated. ''well, that's what I'm trying to determine.'' don answered. charlie sighed, taking the case notes out of ciara's arms. ''all right, all right, I'll check it out.'' he said, placing them into his case. ciara and don nodding, thanking him.
~~'~~'~~
''why don't you tell us what you know, charlie?'' ciara requested, pushing herself up on her desk. charlie nodded, clearing his throat. ''salazar sent e-mails to investors at smith-waterson that looked like official communication. It's called "spoofing." those e-mails claimed that he was connected to smith-waterson; asked investors to send him information, such as user I.D.'s, security codes and such, so he could get into their accounts.'' he explained, pacing slightly.
''now, why didn't people complain about missing money? well, mr. riley was a very, very smart man. instead of pulling out lump sums, which might draw immediate notice, he had a scheme to drain out of large sums without raising an alarm. he started by taking two dollars out of each account... then he'd replace the money within a few days by taking two more dollars out of two more accounts.'' charlie said, looking around at the four people surrounding him.
''so he'd put two bucks back, and keep the other two for himself.'' don said, looking over to the other fbi agents. ''he recorded them as accounting errors with amounts so small, no one double-checked.'' ciara added onto don's statement. david spoke up, ''okay, so how does two dollars become half a million?'' he asked charlie. ''okay... uh... good question. and,'' he pauses his speech, quickly folding a sheet of paper.
''i've folded this paper twice. it is now four times as thick as it was. if I could potentially fold it 50 times, how tall do you think the resulting stack of paper would be?'' charlie asked everyone. ''well, I mean, it's got to be at least a couple feet.'' ciara reasoned, looking at david. david offered his own answer. ''no, no, I'd say more like a building.'' he glanced at ciara.
''tall enough to reach the sun.'' charlie said. ''well, i mean... it is a couple of feet...'' ciara joked, causing charlie to look over at her, shaking his head slightly. ''not funny? okay..'' ciara cleared her throat. charlie sighed and continued. ''it's a geometric progression. i mean, obviously, you cannot fold this paper 50 times. a high school student named britney gallivan predicted a way to do it 12 times and then she did it with actual paper. she set a world record.'' charlie used an example.
''how tall was it?'' terry asked. ''oh... a foot and a half. the same principal applies to embezzlement. however, it takes twice as many accounts at each level. it's a pyramid scheme...''
~'~~~~'~
sitting in the office with charlie and a professional examiner, the three sat and were pairing fingerprints from the killer to cliff's finger prints. ''how do we know that everyone has their own unique fingerprint?'' charlie asked the lady running the tests. ciara's head popped up to look at charlie, unsure where he was going with this. ''because no two people have ever been found to have the same prints.'' the lady explained. ''mm-hmm. and you've examined everyone's print? everyone on the planet?'' charlie pushed, looking at the screen.
the lady furrowed her eyebrows. ''it's an assumption we make, based on a hundred years of empirical evidence.'' she explained to charlie as if he was stupid. ''i- it is. how often does one part of someone's print resemble someone else's?'' he asked, curious. ''i couldn't tell you that. we've never done those kind of, uh... population surveys.'' she explained to him
''isn't random match probability the only way you have of knowing the likelihood of two prints matching?'' ciara asked, joining in with charlie. he looked up at her, grinning. she did not know what he was doing, but charlie seemed to be glad she was backing him up. ''random match is used in dna analysis.'' the examiner said, looking to ciara. ''that's why, when experts make a dna match, they don't say it's a sure thing. they say there's a one- in-four-billion chance that the dna sample comes from the same person. but fingerprints don't have odds. they just match or they don't match?'' charlie asked, using a logical reason to all of his questions.
the lady sighed, obviously getting slightly annoyed with charlie's antics. ''two technicians before me also determined that this thumbprint belongs to cliff howard.'' she said. charlie thought for a moment, looking at the computer. ''why is that, why is that a thumbprint? why not, like a- a left index finger?'' he asked. ''because it has the arches, loops and whorls of a thumb.'' she answered.
charlie hopped up, grabbing the cone cup that ciara was playing with, slightly grabbing her hand in the process. ''what shape is this?'' he asked the woman. ''a cone.'' she answered, not sure where charlie was going with this analogy. ''hmm. depends on how you look at it. see, from different angles, it's a circle, or it's a triangle. a penrose triangle, which is an impossible figure. a cork plug, which can be used as a stopper for a round, triangular or square hole, depending on how you turn it. i mean, you assume that this is a thumbprint because you see it as such. but is it possible that someone else has a left index finger... in which a quarter-section, turned sideways, has points of commonality with cliff howard's thumb?'' charlie asked, finishing his lecture on a cone cup.
the lady looked between him and ciara, ciara just shrugged when she gestured a 'what is this man on' look to her. ''I've been doing this job for eight years.'' she said, clearly annoyed with charlie trying to better her. ''and you're better at it now than you were when you first started, obviously, it's an art, if you will.'' charlie smiled.
~~~''~~~
''all agents, criminal is in custody.'' don's voice rung out. ciara sighed in relief, lowering her gun. they had finally been able to catch the real murderer of lisa bayle. after they all got back to the station, they spent an hour situating the criminal, making their way back home after it was al dealt with
don, charlie, and ciara were in the backyard, picking at a basketball that don had found in the basement. meanwhile, larry and alan were playing chess inside.
''don! i'm open!'' ciara called out, getting the ball thrown to her. she quickly maneuvered her way around charlie, even though he was trying to calculate her moves. trying.
''you can't math your way out of this one, pretty boy.'' she taunted charlie as he guarded her from moving. ''i wouldn't count on that, cia.'' he said, slightly wavering around with her as she moved. she went to throw the ball to her left, quickly moving back to her right and throwing it to don.
''you faked me out!'' charlie shouted at her, laughing. ''part of the game!'' she called back, running to the net and getting the ball back from don before shooting it and getting in the hoop. ''WOO!'' she cheered. she sat on the paved ground, under the net. ''it's been a while since i've actually done anything sport wise. i miss fencing, i was really good with that in high school.'' she smiled, reminiscing.
''fencing?'' don asked. ''would not have assuming fencing from you. you seem more like a- a baseball or volleyball player. or cheerleader.'' don said, looking at the girl. 'i can see cheerleader.'' charlie said, looking at her as well. she shook her head. ''no, i was the fencing captain.'' she said. ''i did try cheerleading, not my thing.''
''give us a fencing.. thing.'' don requested, obviously not knowing the terminology for fencing rounds. ''a bout. don, a fencing bout.'' she corrected, standing up and grabbing the rake from the outside, taking the actual rake off and being left with the stick.
after running through the basics, she had called out her own starting calls, and used the basketball net post as a target, using all of what she knew on there. after maybe three minutes, she gave up, laughing. ''i kinda miss it, but i know that it would not be as fun for me now as it used to be.'' she said, sitting back down on the ground next to charlie.
unbeknownst to the three outside, alan and larry had been watching them for a bit. ''they all seem to get along so well.'' larry commented, watching as ciara pushed don down so he was laying on the ground, laughing. ''yeah. i'm glad the boys found someone who is able to raise their spirits a bit, especially with their lines of work being stressful.'' alan said, genuinely happy for his sons.
''yeah, and charles seems to be a lot happier these days, too. he comes into the university, into my office, and he just talks about his cases and how much he enjoys consulting for the fbi. that girl is also a conversation topic of his pretty frequently. ' oh, agent matthews helped us with this, helped up with that ' i mean, she seems to be doing well for herself, as well.'' larry exclaimed.
''yeah, charlie does seem to be in a lighter spirit now that he's helping with his brothers work. and, i mean, ciara is also really helping him too. keeping him grounded when he's overwhelmed.'' alan said, smiling. ''she really likes him, you know.'' he said, looking over to larry.
''fairly certain charles also likes her. they seem like they would be a pretty good couple.. the only question is when will they realize their own feelings?''
the only thing larry and alan didn't know then, was that the couple had already recognized their feelings. the true question was, when would they admit them?