Work Text:
The ragged young woman whose name is definitely not Molly takes a deep breath and begins:
“Right. So. I was born in East Tennessee in 1991. It became clear pretty quickly tat I had won the genetic lottery. Smart, athletic, a cute kid. ‘Gifted,’ the rural childcare workers said.” She bites her thumbnail edgewise, catches herself, and laces her fingers together on the tabletop instead. “But my parents, they weren’t ... they were poor. I mean, really poor. The best they could do for me was to send me to the county school in goodwill clothes on the taxpayer’s dime. So they did that.” She swallows, absently tracing a small scar on the back of her hand. “By the time I was five, I was reading at college level. Getting my hands on every book I could find. I guess ... I guess one of my teachers must have said something. So these ... guys ... came to the house. Told my parents about this special government program for gifted children. A boarding school. Said they could give me all the advantages my parents couldn’t. You know what they say, about too good to be true ... but I guess sometimes you want to believe something so badly ...” She shakes her head. “Anyway. My parents enrolled me when I was seven. I never saw them again. I got letters, a few times. Sent responses that my keepers screened. Then when I was ten, they chose me for a new level of the program - or maybe it had always been there, I don’t know. I know we got more resources that year.”
“And you went,” Peters says.
Molly levels her clear blue gaze at him. “I said I was chosen,” she repeats. “Not that I had a choice.”
“Right,” says Peter, looking vaguely guilty. “Sorry.”
Molly nods. “I don’t know where they expected to place me - maybe they intended to keep my skills for their own purposes, I don’t know. But a few months ago I was on assignment in Turkey when the job began to go wrong. Someone was giving me false information. The target ended up being a shipping tycoon’s daughter, a kid about eleven years old.” Her eyes harden. “I don’t kill kids. Not if I can help it. So I ran. Went to ground in Russia. Made some mob connections and got out that way. Smuggled some stuff through customs for them to get back in the U.S.”
“Classy,” Peter says, but Molly stares him down again.
“I made a deal,” she says. “I did the best I could. Now I’m here. And I’m trying to stay off the radar, but the people I worked for ... they’ve got some damn good radar.”
“You want me to help you get a new identity?” Peter asks, frowning. “Witness protection?”
“Hell no,” Molly answers. “Anything that goes through the Bureau, my keepers have access to. No. I want you to help me take them down.”
Peter looks appalled. “What?”
“Someone has to.” Molly’s smooth young jaw is hard with determination. “Kidnapping children and using them as assassins can’t be legal. The Constitution and all that. But the Keepers are powerful enough to silence any one voice. We need to engineer discoveries from multiple points at once, so they can’t shut us down without drawing attention. Because that’s the one thing they can’t handle.”
“Wow.” Peter stares at her. “That's … do you have any proof?”
“Just my own experience,” Molly says. “And there’s a reason why I told Mozzie, after all.”
Peter mutters something about fringe elements, which Molly ignores. “There’s one other thing,” she says. “If Mozzie’s right ... and I trust his research ... they’ve got my parents now. That’s ... bad.”
Neal sits up a little straighter. “You think they’ll kill them?”
“Not right away,” Molly says. “They don’t have anything else on me, so they’ll hold my folks for a while. But it’s always a threat. So, you know, getting my family out is a priority.”
“Okay,” says Peter. “If your story checks out -”
“It won’t,” Molly says, decisive. “You believe me or you don’t, but you can’t verify anything. These people didn’t get where they are by following court orders and sunshine laws. They erase things, especially themselves.”
Peter sizes her up, then looks at Neal, who shrugs. “Okay,” he says again, looking back at Molly. “We’ll figure this out. You got a place to stay?”
“With Mozzie,” Molly says, her face admirably blank, and this time when Peter glances at Neal, he shakes his head.
“That means either a storage unit or my couch.”
“The first one,” Molly says. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Neal flashes her a grin. “Wouldn’t saddle me with a beautiful woman sleeping in my apartment?”
He gets an answering smile for his efforts, but Molly’s quick head-shake is worthy of Hughes.
“Right,” Peter says, sounding resigned. “Come home with me for tonight -”
Molly shakes her head again; it’s slightly different this time, and Neal wonders how many versions of the gesture she has, for different occasions. Her body language is careful but highly nuanced. It’s like moving art. That’s more distracting than it should be, and it takes him a second to catch up to the conversation.
“Sleeping with a Fed?” Molly is saying. “I’m trying to stay off the radar, remember?”
“So you came to a notorious art thief?”
Molly shrugs. “The people I worked for don’t care about forged bonds and stolen music boxes.”
Peter looks at him helplessly. “Neal.”
“Right,” Neal steps in, because apparently this is the part where he’s supposed to talk to the difficult interlocutor who unfathomably combines the crime of youth with that of femininity, and somehow save Peter from his social skills. “June might -”
“Your landlady?” Molly interrupts him, not giving his charm time to kick in. “I don’t think so. The fewer people involved in this, the better.” She turns back to Peter. “And that’s something you need to think about. These guys - they won’t hesitate to go after your family. The end always justifies the means for them. So talk to you wife. Be sure before you get in any deeper. And when you make up your mind - one way or the other - pass a message to Caffrey and I’ll hear it from Mozzie.”
“I notice you didn’t ask me whether I was willing,” Neal feels obliged to point out.
“Because I don’t expect I’ll see you again,” Molly replies, standing. “If you can pass a few messages, that should be enough. It’s safer that way. Like I said: the fewer people involved in this mess, the better.” She holds out her hand to him. “Thank you, Mr. Caffrey. I’m sorry I won’t get to know you better.” For just a second, her smile turns genuine, and she covers his hand with hers before she lets go.
She says goodbye to Peter and then she’s gone, making practically no noise on the stairs.
Peter meets his eyes. “What do you think, Neal?”
Neal shakes his head. “I think maybe Mozzie has finally met his type.”
Peter’s look says he’s running low on patience at this time of the evening. “I meant about her story.”
“Oh, that.” Neal tilts back in his chair, glancing at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I only meet federal agents who are interested in art theft and forgeries. I’ve never heard of these guys, but then that’s kind of the point.”
Peter glances past him at the door, now closed. “You think she’s paranoid?”
“I think she’s scared,” Neal answers cautiously. “She seemed awfully lucid for someone suffering from paranoid delusions.”
“So you think it’s true,” Peter says, more than a question but not quite a challenge.
Neal lifts his shoulders in a loose shrug. “She could be wrong. Or she could be lying.”
“Wrong?” Peter snorts. “About being kidnapped and trained as some sort of agent? No. Either it’s true, or she’s lying.”
“Or crazy,” Neal reminds him. “Are we taking crazy off the table?”
Peter looks at the door again, then back to where Molly had been sitting. “Not yet,” he says. “Can you lift her prints from the table?”
“Of course.” Neal frowns at him. “But if she’s really trying to keep a low profile, won’t that send up flags?”
“We’ll do it quietly,” Peter says. “But we need to know what we’re dealing with.”