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Mozzie is not in the habit of taking in strays, or of picking up dates. And he really doesn't like the Feds. So when he shows up on Neal’s doorstep with a gorgeous young woman in tow and says, “Call your suit. This woman needs help!” Neal is more than a little perplexed - and yeah, okay, suspicious.
“Hi,” he says to the girl.
“Hi,” the girl answers, eyes sliding left to track on Mozzie’s antics.
“This is Neal,” Mozzie says. “He’ll take care of you.” And beats it down June’s stairs.
“Oh,” says the girl, looking a little nonplussed. She shoves her hands into her frayed pockets and projects vulnerability.
Neal does vulnerability too well himself to be fooled, but it’s still damn impressive. “You got a name?”
The girl grins out of the corner of her mouth. Neal thinks that might even be genuine. “I’ve got a bunch of them.” She glances back down the stairs after Mozzie. “I think Feds make him nervous.”
“You think?” Neal says, and the girl has the grace to look abashed.
“Yeah, okay.” She hunches her shoulders a little and looks up at him through a ridiculously perfect fringe of lashes. It’d be criminal if she weren’t a con. “Look,” she says, “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t important. I need to find a Fed I can trust.”
Neal raises an eyebrow. “So you came to me?”
“I went to Mozzie,” she says. “He brought me to you. Can you help?”
“And if I don’t?”
The girl shrugs. “I run again, try to find someone else before they get me.”
“Who’s they?”
She hesitates. “That’s why I want to talk to your Fed.”
Neal stands back to let her in, already sure he’s going to regret this but intrigued in spite of himself. His curiosity is the kind that could kill a whole houseful of cats.
He offers her a seat while he calls Peter, and she slips into an antique chair and sits with both hands flat on the table where he can see them. Smart girl. He asks again for her name, and she shrugs and says, “Call me Molly,” and he knows that whatever name she was born with, this isn’t it.
Peter shows up and he introduces her as Molly anyway, with just enough hesitation to suggest the alias. “Molly” notices but doesn’t protest.
“Okay, Molly,” Peter says, taking the seat across from her while Neal settle at the end of the table to watch. “I’m here. Tell me what’s been happening to you.”
Molly shakes her head. “That’s not a good place to start,” she says, and huffs a sigh. “I’m going back to the beginning, okay?”
So she tells them a story.