#I did use the term ManFatale

[victorianoir]

The Detective and the ManFatale, Part 3

Part 3 of the ManFatale arc!! If you haven’t heard of The Detective and the Tech Guy and would like to read it from the beginning, here’s the MASTERPOST. If you’d like to read this chapter on fanfiction.net, you can do that here: TRALALA.

Have fun!

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"Welcome home. What's this?"

The happy look on his face as he looked up at her from the bottom of the stairs dimmed as she held up the file she'd just found, wiggling it a bit. She raised an eyebrow and gave him a flat look when he didn't say anything for a solid thirty seconds.

"Wh—Um. Where did you happen to find that?" He cleared his throat and came up a few steps, stopping with his hand on the railing then. "I'm not sure it's mine."

She made the look on her face even flatter. "Well, it sure looks like there's a lot of your handwriting in here. Alongside a really childish scribble—I can only imagine you're employing some sort of third grader to help you."

Chuck seemed to ignore that part. "But…where did you—?"

"Chuck, it was under your mattress."

He sighed, looking relieved for some reason. "God, I thought maybe I'd left it out or something, and that would've been really great spy work."

"Chuck!"

"S-Sorry. Sorry, I—" He hastened up the stairs to stand on the step a few down from where she stood on the landing. "It's my folder. My file. I did it."

"Yeah, that was never in question, bud. What in the hell is this? What are you doing?" She held it up again and he gently reached out to take it from her.

"I'm…detecting."

"No, Chuck. No, you are not detecting. Please, please tell me you aren't doing what it looks like you're doing," she pleaded with him, arms crossed at her chest.

"Well…" He winced. "Do you want me to say that, or do you want the truth?"

"Chuck!"

"Gah! Okay! I'm…I was just doing some light research, that's all. Into this guy who hired you. He's wily, okay? Extremely wily and untrustworthy and it only took me seeing him for like a few seconds for me to figure that out." A look of almost defiance came over her boyfriend's face then. "I have no regrets."

"Are you insane?" she asked, backing up so that he could join her on the landing.

"No, I was just…having your back."

"Look at this!" She grabbed the file back and opened it up, flipping through to a picture that had been taken of Cartwright from what looked like a pretty close range. She took it out and held it up for him to look at.

"I know. I took that."

"Yeah, Chuck! I kinda figured! Have you been following my client?"

He was silent for long enough that it was pretty clear confirmation.

"Oh my God," she moaned. "Chuuuck."

"Okay, yes. Yes, I followed him. But I was very careful." Something told her he really wasn't careful. He was untrained, a guy who watched a lot of movies and heard about her cases. That was it. "I was, Sarah!"

"You can't do this, Chuck! You can't follow my clients around and do your own…What is this? Did you just go around taking pictures?"

"There are his day to day activities in there, too."

She opened it again and looked at his notes. "Lox on a bagel, black coffee, flirted with the barista. Namor the Sub-Mariner? What the hell's that?"

"That's the codename Morgan and I gave Cartwright."

Sarah's eyes shut slowly and she took a calming, long breath, letting it out, breathing in again, and then she snapped the file shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Morgan? Not only were you following my client, which is dangerous in and of itself, you brought Morgan into it?"

That explained the childish scrawl alongside Chuck's neat handwriting.

"He's been a very good partner."

"HE'S A HIBACHI CHEF, CHUCK!"

Chuck winced. "A very sneaky hibachi chef, though—No, I see your point. It's a fair point."

The look she gave him apparently got her point across.

"Chuck, why did you follow my client? Why are you building a file on him? Why are you taking notes on his whereabouts, on his habits? Why are you following him and taking pictures? What prompted you to do something this stupid?"

Her boyfriend let out a sigh and scratched the back of his neck. At least he seemed somewhat contrite. "Look, he was shifty. And some of the things you were saying when you'd talk about the case, how you weren't finding anything on Jerald Brown, and how he seemed almost…I dunno, impatient, that you weren't."

A thought hit her then and she chewed on her lip a little. "Chuck, did you…do this because he's young and handsome? Was this a jealousy thing? Trying to find something on him to make me…I dunno, not want to go through with this case?"

She felt a little bad suggesting it, but she needed to know this wasn't Chuck's jealousy making him do foolish and dangerous things.

"No! Sarah, it's not that! I'm not a total idiot! I'm just…a little bit of one about certain things. This isn't jealousy. This is…This guy is shifty!"

Sarah crossed her arms again and sighed. "You met him for, like, two minutes. Tops."

"So?! I had a gut feeling! It was just some harmless following."

"In legal terms, it's stalking."

"Nobody saw us! We wore disguises!"

Sarah gaped. "Oh God. You didn't…"

"Yes! Yes, we wore disguises. He had no idea he was being followed the whole time. Your tech guy is actually a pretty good detective…" He smoldered at her.

"Chuck, you hid this file from me by putting it under your mattress. So excuse me if I don't have the utmost faith in your detective abilities."

He frowned. "It seemed like a good place."

"Chuck, I'm in your bed more nights than I'm in my own, for the most part," she half-laughed, shaking her head. "Anyway, that isn't the point. The point is that this was incredibly dangerous. Insanely dangerous. You could've been hurt or even killed, and then you dragged Morgan into it and he could've been hurt, too. This was foolish!"

"We were helping you!"

"I don't need help! Do you think I'm stupid, Chuck? Do you think I got this far with just a bunch of luck or something? I've got my own cases well in hand."

"I thought he was maybe trying to pull something over on you. Getting you to do something bad."

"You think I don't know that? I've been doing this work for years, Chuck! I worked for Pinkerton! You think I'd ever let someone get the drop on me like this? You think I trust my clients blindly?" She thrust the file into his chest. "I've got a file on Cartwright just like this at my office." He looked very regretful, sorry, and she loved him dearly, but God, he could be such an idiot sometimes. He really could be. Then she glanced at his file again. "Though yours is a lot thicker, so that's…interesting."

"Um, I'm an incredibly thorough detective." She glared. "Not a detective, fine. But…researcher?" She glared harder. "A P.I.'s boyfriend who is in big trouble?"

"Bingo," she chirped, raising her eyebrows.

"Listen, Sarah…I know you're really mad at me…"

"Yeah, well…you obviously think I'm a bad P.I., so that feels good."

"What?" The pitch of his voice got impressively high. "Sarah, that's not it at all!"

"You thought this guy was pulling the wool over my eyes, taking advantage of me. That's why you built this folder on him, isn't it? This is all work you thought I wasn't doing."

"No, you-you were focusing on investigating Brown and I thought maybe you'd prioritize that over checking out your client so I—bad phrasing, I didn't mean checking out checking out. Like, obviously he is a very good looking man. And super charming, I guess, if you're into that sort of thing."

"Yeah, well, I'm not…" A thought occurred to her then and she looked up at him with wide eyes. "That's it, isn't it? You thought he'd charmed me, that I was falling for his whole spiel and therefore trusted him blindly. That's why you decided to follow him, isn't it? That's why you put this together with Morgan!"

At least he didn't do her the disservice of trying to lie to her. Instead, he huffed and scratched his ear. "Okay, full disclosure, it felt like a lot of flirting was going on in your office when I walked in last week and it maybe…sort of…got under my skin. But it wasn't about—I mean, I know you aren't the type of person to neglect the right thing just because some blue-eyed Alain Delon lookalike is batting his eyelashes at you."

"You're damn right I'm not! Have you been here for the last year and eleven months of our relationship?"

"Yes," he said weakly.

"He could be the most charming man alive and I'd still do my job, Chuck. God!"

"I know. I knoow, I'm an idiot. I know. I was weak, though. I'm sorry." Then he shook his head. "About my reasoning. I'm sorry for the stupid reason that I started this whole thing on Cartwright. I am. I was a jealous dumbass. But I would've stopped a long time ago if I didn't find something. And I found something."

Sarah was still too caught up in how much of a fool Chuck was to realize what he'd just said. "I mean, you're the one always calling me a bad ass and the best. You really think blue eyes are going to make me trust a guy blindly? I've got you, Chuck! I'm impervious to other men's charms. I know you still have some…self-esteem stuff. Everyone does. But this is me, Bartowski. It's us. If you don't think I'm a better detective than to let some guy in fitted suits play me like a fiddle just 'cause he's attractive, then at least think our relationship is stronger than that."

"You're right. You're absolutely right. And as hard as I try, I'm still gonna keep making blunders like this. I'm not saying you're just gonna have to deal with it, but um…Please…bear with me, I guess?" He winced.

Sarah sighed and closed the distance between them, moving up onto her toes to kiss him gently, ruffling his hair. "I have no choice. I love you, you big dumb nerd. And anyway, I'm not exactly perfect. You have a lot of shit you have to deal with where I'm concerned, too. So…"

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

"I know. I know you are. But please stop doing dangerous stuff like this. Please. You have no training and no experience. I'm a professional. It's even dangerous for me, let alone a couple of guys who watch movies and think that's prepared them for the reality of investigating work. You're going to get hurt. This isn't a game."

"I know it isn't a game! That's what I'm trying to tell you!"

"But you and Morgan went running around Los Angeles following this potentially dangerous guy in wigs and fake noses…"

"No, we didn't!" He paused. "We didn't wear wigs…"

She knew him too well not to read between the lines with that one. "Oh my God, did one of you have a fake nose? Oh my God, Chuck."

"That was all Morgan! He showed up with it and it was so funny I couldn't say no." He winced.

"Oh my God." She pushed a hand through her hair. "Like I said, this isn't a game!"

"I know it isn't a game! He's a con artist!"

"Yeah! He is! And—Wait." She blinked, what he said finally settling in her brain. "What? How do you—?"

"Because." He took the file and hustled into his bedroom with her hot on his heels, and then he set it down on his bed, whipping it open and digging through the reams of papers and photographs. "Ha! Here. Okay. Feast your eyes on this shit."

He started taking pictures out, spreading them on the bed for her to look at. It was the same bearded man in different suits, sometimes in a hat and tie, sometimes not, walking through LA, sitting with different men at different tables…

"That's him."

Sarah turned to gape at Chuck. "Holy shit. That's Cartwright?"

"Well, I'm not entirely sure if there is a Cartwright. Or if there is a real Cartwright, this isn't him. Beard Guy goes by Paul Lawson."

"What?" she breathed.

"He quote, represents, unquote, Cartwright."

"He's in a disguise," she murmured. "How didn't I see this? How wasn't I…looking for this? I trailed him often enough to catch him pulling this kind of creepy shit…I thought. How'd I miss it?"

"Because it's absolutely freaking bizarre, that's how. It was sheer luck I happened to see him walk out of his building where he lives. And I thought he was familiar-ish, and then I zoomed in with my camera and was like 'Holy shit, it's him!' Sheer dumb luck."

"I was watching him this whole week and I never saw this Lawson guy." She shook her head then, trying not to get bogged down by the threatening self-consciousness she was feeling. She tried not to slam herself for missing this. Chuck hadn't missed it, and now the evidence was right here in front of his face.

"Wait, he represents Cartwright? What in the hell?" She grabbed one of the photos of him sitting at an outdoor table with a shorter, older man.

"He's supposedly selling Cartwright's things for him. A boat, a yacht, a condo, a…"

"Property in Morocco," she breathed. "I know. I followed him to an office by the docks and found all of his paperwork for everything that's been getting sold. So he's putting on a disguise and…selling his own things?" She huffed and shook her head. "This isn't Cartwright."

"Do you even know if Cartwright is a real person?"

Sarah went to Chuck's laptop on his desk and opened it, typing in his password and immediately Googling the Cartwright family. "Look, the Cartwrights go back generations in South Africa, since before Apartheid, for decades upon decades. Robert is the last surviving Cartwright. It's a real family, and he's a real person. He has been running this business for almost ten years, after his parents' deaths. It's just that he's a recluse."

"But do you think he's sent this fake guy here to sell his things back in South Africa?"

"No, of course not. Why would he ever do that?"

"So, wouldn't he know if someone is stealing his things?"

"Not if he isn't alive to know about it."

"Holy shit." The blood seemed to have left Chuck's face as he slumped into his desk chair.

"I told you he was dangerous. There's a definite chance this guy stole Cartwright's identity. Who better than a recluse who's never left the African continent and doesn't let pictures of himself up online? Someone who isn't super respected in his own town, let alone in California on the other side of the world. Someone who didn't have family or any personal connections." She shut Chuck's laptop again. "Meanwhile, this guy is going out on the town, has women on his arm all the time, is making all of these business deals."

"He's not even South African, either."

Sarah frowned and crossed her arms, half sitting on his desk, facing him. "What?"

"This conman. Fake Robbie. Your ManFatale."

"My what? Excuse me?"

"Uh, nothing. But when he spoke to me, he definitely didn't have a South African accent. He was very American, so…"

"When he…spoke to you?" The meaning wasn't lost on her, and when his eyes widened with a very clear look of oops on his face, she felt anger and worry rise in her chest. "Chuck? Did you make contact with him? Besides when I was there, in my office?"

Chuck winced. He did. Oh God, he absolutely did.

"It was an accident. And he totally didn't know who I was! It was just a nonchalant, quick exchange. Almost nothing. He didn't even see my face!"

"Chuck!"

"I followed him into a shopping mall and sat out on a bench waiting for him while he bought a briefcase at Gucci." It came out in a quick stream of words that sounded like they were all connected.

"He bought a Gucci briefcase? Ugh. Gross."

"Right? He's an awful person!" She gave him a look and he cleared his throat. "Anyway, I was sitting out on that bench and since it was the closest one to the store entrance, when he came out he used the other side of my bench to take the tag off and stick his papers and stuff inside of it. He, uh, must've seen me glance to the side because he explained he had to look good for a job interview, but I didn't say anything." This was getting worse and worse. "I was disguised, too. I slicked down my hair like this." He pushed his hands over his curls so that they were pulled flat. "And I had thick glasses on, and I had a newspaper up like this, covering my face." He mimicked holding up a newspaper, slouching forward, a completely conspicuous look on his face.

"Oh my God, Chuck! He saw you!"

"Not my best detective moment. I'll admit it."

"No! Chuck, you…" She groaned. "What if he recognized you as Charles Bartowski? You were in my office! He might not know you're my boyfriend, or maybe he does, since we've had pictures of us together put in magazines and shit, which would make it even worse."

"He didn't seem like he recognized me. He didn't. If he did, he would've feigned his accent still!"

"Well, if he recognized you after the fact, maybe not! And you're talking about a guy who has potentially killed someone—we don't know if he has yet—to take their identity and live off their bank account across the world, and is successfully selling yachts and hotels… This isn't some novice, Chuck. If he recognized you, he isn't going to show it. He's going to log it away in his criminal brain, figure out why the hell you were there, in disguise, potentially following him, and he's going to take it out on me. Later. When I least expect it."

Chuck became even paler. "I put you in danger, didn't I?"

"I don't think so. I think he probably really didn't recognize you. Especially if he was in a hurry…" She put her hand in his hair and stroked it reassuringly.

"That's exactly the opposite of what I was trying to do. Why do I have to butt in all the time?"

"Because you're an idiot who loves me a whole lot." Then she gestured to the bed with a nod of her head. "And you actually did some pretty good detective work. As much as I hate that you did it, because I'd rather not lose you to some psychopath identity thief, as much as I hate that you dragged Morgan into danger with you…" He looked genuinely contrite at that. "It's good work."

A slow smile grew on his face. "Yeah?"

"Mhm. I mean, some of those pictures, you were really way too close. Which is…not smart." He winced. "But…" She pushed away from the desk and went over to look through all of their notes. It was a mess, true, and they seriously used that weird codename every single time they mentioned him, and maybe it was a little too thorough, since she really didn't need to know every time Fake Cartwright used a public restroom…but they'd gotten a lot of incriminating evidence. Combined with what she had, and the photos they'd taken of him in disguise, selling Cartwright's property to other people, she might have something she could take to the LAPD. "You two bozos collected a lot of useful things. Amidst a lot of, um, completely useless things."

Before she did anything else, she had another order of business to tend to. And she'd have to do it as soon as possible…tomorrow if she could get an appointment with him.

"Hey, there's one thing that's weird, though. And it's a big thing."

She glanced over as Chuck stood and crossed to her side. "What's that?" she asked.

"Why'd he hire you to look into Jerald Brown? What's Brown got to do with this?"

"I don't know for sure, but I'm wondering if Brown is onto him and he's figured that out, so he wants a way to discredit him, sully his reputation, his credibility."

"Ahhhh, riiiight. You find dirt on Brown, he can either use that to blackmail him, or he can be like 'You're gonna believe this guy? Look at this stuff he has in his closet!" Chuck paused. "Not literally his closet."

"Yeah, ya nerd. I got that."

"Right."

Sarah slumped onto the bed thoughtfully as Chuck sidled up next to her and stood there, like a pillar of strength, she thought. Her man who foolishly went into dangerous situations to help her with a case because he was jealous, but then staying in the hunt when he realized something was genuinely fishy. He'd gotten her quite a lead on this guy, whoever he was.

And she couldn't help being impressed, even if she was mad at him for being so rash, taking such a huge risk, and involving Morgan. Though she imagined it didn't take much work for Chuck to convince Morgan to help. A fake nose? Honestly, that guy was such a weirdo. She loved him, but he was crazy.

"What are you going to do now?" Chuck asked, breaking into her thoughts.

She peeked up at him for a split second, then rounded his hips with her arms and pulled him close, clinging to him and burying her face in his abdomen. His hand landed on her head and he stroked her hair in a way that was so reassuring she felt a sudden fire in her. Determination. Confidence.

"I'm calling Jerald Brown tomorrow to see if I can get a meeting with him."

"You don't think this con artist asshole will know you're meeting with the guy he's paying you to investigate? I mean, if he finds out, that will look bad."

"It will. If he finds out. I just have to make sure I cover my tracks. But I need to talk to Brown. I need to know what it is Not-Cartwright is going after him for. What is it he's got on him?" She sighed, snuggling her face against his cotton button-up adoringly. "Then I can go from there. Probably get the LAPD involved. I can't do that without hearing Brown's side of things."

"Not that you need my approval, since I'm only an amateur sleuth…" Sarah snorted at that and rolled her eyes, hugging him tighter. "But that's a fantastic idea."

"Thank you."

"Know what else is a fantastic idea?"

"What?"

"Letting go of me for just a few minutes while I change into my pa-yam-as, and then we can crawl into bed and you can hold onto me for as long as you want to."

She giggled and let go of him. "I concede, but with great reluctance."

He gave her a deep bow. "My Lady Bad Ass of the Shadows."

She laughed and she shamelessly watched her boyfriend undress, checking him out all the while. "The shadows?"

"You're a P.I. A detective. Slinking in the shadows like a ninja. Catching bad guys."

"Fair enough," she chuckled.

It only took a few minutes before they were wrapped up together in his bed, her arms around him, head on his chest. But then he reached over and grabbed his cell phone from the nightstand. She frowned in confusion, lifting her head to watch him as he put the phone to his ear.

She heard the ringing on the other line. It rang and rang and rang…and then she heard Morgan's jolly voice chirp about not being able to come to the phone. After the quiet beep, Chuck left his message.

"Leader Two. This is Leader One. Abort mission. We are going to abort mission. Black Canary has found the booty. I repeat, Black Canary has found the booty. Mission Codename: Wolf In Sheep's Clothing is successfully ended…"

Sarah cracked up and reached for the phone as Chuck yelped and tried to roll away from her reach.

"Black Canary is on the offense! Black Canary is attacking me! Leader Two, leave the country, change your name, shave the beard! Ahhh!"

Sarah grabbed the phone and hung up, laughing riotously as she tossed his phone back onto the nightstand and pinned him to the bed, kissing him. She wasn't exactly through being mad at him for his foolishness, for that idiotic jealousy that had made him put himself in a dangerous position. But he was here, he'd helped her case, and maybe the thoroughness of the details he'd recorded, the pictures he'd taken, were something of a turn on.

And she had no trouble convincing him.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

Sarah had found his file he'd built on Cartwright a day and a half ago, and in that time, the suspense had been building. She seemed calm enough, but Chuck was struggling to sit still as he tried to write a few emails, some minor housekeeping things. He couldn't even focus on that, though, and he got up to start pacing in his office.

Adisa knocked on the door and poked his head in, eventually. "Man, what is going on in here? You're pacing so hard, I can hear it through the door."

"Oh. Shit. Sorry." He turned to face his assistant and shrugged a bit lamely. "Are you trying to focus out there? I'll sit back down."

"No, no. I could focus in the middle of an erupting volcano. I'm just checking to make sure you're okay. I mean, is there anything I might be able to help with?"

Chuck stared at him for a moment, then sighed. "Nah, you have work to do that's a lot more important."

That earned him a flat look.

"It's not even anything that has to do with the company. Really, it's fine."

Adisa shrugged and stepped further into the room, crossing his arms.

"No, really," Chuck insisted. "You don't want to hear about this case Sarah's working on—"

"What?! Yes, I do!" He shut the door quickly and crossed the room. "Lay it on me! I'm a problem solver. You know I am. I can help."

The tech CEO was starting to see things from his P.I. girlfriend's perspective suddenly. People really did have an automatic reaction to her profession like they could do as good a job as she could, or better. Not just jumping to help, but thinking they could out-investigate, break down clues…when she'd been in the actual business, a Pinkerton agent for God's sake, for years.

He felt a bit sheepish. Maybe he'd reel himself back a bit, or apologize or something. And God, she was such a patient person to deal with him, and to a lesser extent, with Morgan.

"I can't give you too many details. But I'm just a little stressed. This guy she's dealing with is dangerous and she knows he's dangerous, even knows how dangerous, I mean…what he's capable of. And she's waited a few days, sitting on the information, without acting. I think she's trying to trap him, but she doesn't always tell me her plans and it's worrying me that she's in legitimate danger." He huffed.

"She was a Pinkerton agent, Boss. She knows what she's doing. We're talking about Sarah here—our Sarah—your Sarah," Adisa corrected himself, probably misunderstanding the look Chuck sent him. Honestly, it was cute he'd just called her 'our' Sarah, as though he had a genuine affection and connection with her. It was heartwarming. "You think she'd ever handle someone who is dangerous without being at least a few steps ahead?"

The tech guy chuckled. "You make a good point, there, buddy. And it isn't like I don't think she can handle herself. She already had to grill my ass because I underestimated her wiles once. Thought she'd missed a lot of stuff about him, but she hadn't. And she's playing him like a fiddle, but what if…I don't know, what if he's more cunning and observant than she even suspects? What if he's waiting for the perfect moment to get the drop on her?"

Adisa frowned. "Is he really that awful?"

"Stealing the identity of someone we suspect is dead, whether he killed him or not, we're not sure…I think he's pretty awful."

"Holy God."

"Yes."

"That is why you are pacing so loudly."

"It is." Chuck sighed, pushing his hand through his hair. "I'm just gonna call her and see if she's okay, actually."

"Well, don't go overboard, Boss. Or she'll start to get mad. It isn't my place, I know, but sometimes I think maybe you should…er…"

"I know. I'm overprotective of my girlfriend." He gave his assistant and friend a wan smile.

"She is a private investigator. I get it." Adisa shrugged.

"But I do need to dial it back. You're right. I'll just call her and say hi, that's all." That got him a flat look again. But Chuck was already calling her, bringing the phone to his ear.

It rang…and rang…and rang…It kept ringing. And then he finally heard the clicking sound on the other end, like she was answering it, and he breathed out in relief. But then he heard a gasp, a "No!" and then a loud crashing sound…and then nothing else…a dial tone…

"Something's happened!" he snapped, shoving his phone in his pocket and grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair, putting it on.

"What?" Adisa moved out of his way as he rushed out of his office and strode past Adisa's desk.

"There was a weird sound, I heard her, and then a crash and a dial tone."

"Don't talk to me, then! GO!" his assistant barked, and Chuck didn't have time to muse over Adisa's quick one-eighty…from telling him to dial it back to yelling at him to go.

He just needed Sarah to be okay.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

Sarah stared down at the file in her hand, sitting on her nonexistent assistant's desk, her legs crossed, a thoughtful look on her face. She had a secret meeting with Jerald Brown in a little over an hour and she needed to go through a lot more of the information she'd gathered over the last week before she did so.

She needed his side of the story. And when she told him over a secure line that she was a private investigator, and that it was about Robbie Cartwright, he'd gotten a tone she picked up on immediately. "Oh. Robbie," he'd said with a bitter clip. "I'm not sure I should be meeting with you, or even talking with you. I have—"

"Mr. Brown, I just want to get to the bottom of this. I need your side of the story. This man could be dangerous and he has it out for you for some reason. We need to meet. Somewhere that isn't your office or home, somewhere private and safe that he doesn't know about."

He'd finally relented.

And now she would be meeting him at his wife's personal office. He had a key, he said. And she was out of town for a week, visiting her parents in Oklahoma. Sarah slipped a few extra knives into secret places on her person just in case. And she'd be bringing her gun, too. She knew better than to trust Jerald Brown, just in case there was something extra twisted going on here and he was somehow involved.

She shifted to scoot further back on the desk to make herself more comfortable then, but her knee knocked into the file and the papers and pictures inside cascaded onto the floor. "Damn it, Walker…" she sighed, rolling her eyes as she watched it all slip and slide across the wood floors, some of the papers ending up on the other side of the room.

As she climbed off of the desk, leaning down to slowly start collecting the papers, she heard a muffled sound coming from her office. It took much too long for her to realize her phone was ringing in her purse. Chuck had played a joke on her the other night and he'd made her ringtone the theme from a movie called Body Heat or something—she'd so far managed to avoid having to watch it. But it was also a low, whining jazzy trumpet and it was harder to hear than her regular ringtone.

And now she was scrambling back into her own office to get to her phone in case it was something important.

She snagged it out of her purse, saw it was Chuck, and swiped to answer. But she swiped a little too hard and it went sailing out of her hand. "No!"

It hit the half-open drawer of her desk, then slammed into the floor at a weird angle, right on its corner. And Sarah I-Don't-Need-A-Phone-Case-Because-I'm-Not-A-Klutz Walker watched her phone crack right down the seam. "God…damn it!" she groused through her teeth, letting out a long, tired sigh, rolling her eyes, and kneeling down to pick it up.

The phone was broken. She'd be having to get a new one or hope Chuck could work some magic on this one. At least he could potentially get her data off for her, her pictures and everything.

Damn. She'd taken a cute one of Clara over the weekend and she didn't want that gone forever.

Setting the phone down on her desk, she pushed her hair out of her face and turned to stare out at the mess in the other room. At some point, she needed to pick that up.

And them she frowned a little down at the phone. Why was Chuck calling? He was supposed to be at work, still planning that huge conference of his…

Not that he didn't randomly call her during the day every so often when he needed to pull back from his work. She did the same thing from time to time. Out-flirting him over the phone for a few minutes in the middle of the day had become something of a habit, now. A habit she couldn't and didn't want to quit. Even as they approached their two year anniversary of that morning in Paris when they made their relationship official, she could still get him to stammer, the adorable dope.

It was not ten minutes later, as she plopped into her comfortable desk chair and kicked her heels off to put her feet on the desk and rest for a few minutes, that the door to her outer office burst open.

"Sarah! Oh my God! Sarah, are you here?!"

She lowered her feet with a thump and stood quickly, pushing her chair back. "Chuck, what is it?"

Just as she came around her desk, he appeared at the doorway to her private office, his hands slapping against the doorframe on either side of him. He looked incredibly frazzled, his hair a mess, the hem at the bottom of his suit jacket somehow caught up inside of the sleeve under his armpit, his eyes crazed with worry.

And then there was relief. Abject relief. "Sarah," he breathed, his eyelids fluttering.

He lunged at her then and she let him wrap her up in a tight hug. Almost a little too tight, she thought, still totally confused. But she hugged him back. "What is it?" she asked, rubbing his neck with one cool hand. "What happened?"

"I could ask you the same thing!" he rushed out, pulling back just enough to look into her eyes, cupping her jaw with one caring hand. "Are you okay?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, furrowing her brow. "I-I'm fine! What's going on?"

"I was calling you 'cause—Er, well, I was gonna say hi. And you answered after it rang for a while, but then I heard you yell and there was a crash. With-With everything going on with this case of yours, I thought—"

Oh. Oh God, poor Chuck. "Goddd, Chuck. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out, you complete sweetheart." She giggled a bit, wincing as she stepped back. Almost unconsciously, she reached out and tugged at the suit jacket, pulling it down over his torso, not that he seemed to care, and then she snagged her phone off of the desk and showed it to him. "I was trying to answer it in time and I fumbled it. It cracked on the floor. Hence the yell. And the crash. It's broken, I think."

She gave him a lame, closed-mouth smile.

"Oh." He laughed a little and shook his head. "I maybe…overreacted."

"Hey. Listen. I welcome the overreaction, considering…um…whom I'm dealing with currently."

"Really?" he asked, eyes wide. "I-I guess I thought maybe…" He delicately took the phone from her fingers and started distractedly trying to fix it for her. And somehow that made her melt a little. How unconsciously he did things to make her life easier. Without her even having to ask. "With our conversation the other night. I sort of went overboard and, um, maybe made you think that I'm underestimating your capabilities as a detective. And I thought that might extend to this, protecting yourself I mean."

"Chuck, I'm never gonna get mad at you for caring. Of course you rushed over here to check on me after that. And with the fake Cartwright thing, I don't blame you. I'd do the same thing if I tried to call you and heard you yell on the line before it went dead." She put her hands on either side of his neck and moved up onto her tiptoes to peck his lips. "I'm sorry I worried you."

"Nah, it's okay. I'm just glad you aren't in the back of some van with tinted windows or curtains right now." He shivered dramatically and then there was a small click sound between them.

Sarah looked down and saw he'd managed to get the phone open. "Uh…Baby, I wanted you to fix it not break it all the way."

He chuckled. "I mean, I can maybe get it sticking together again, but see how gnarly this bit is? It's bent up," he said, running his pointer finger along where it had made contact with the hard floor. "I don't think it's gonna be working again."

Sarah let out a dramatic whine. "Damn it. I need that."

"It's okay. That's why I opened it. The card is fine. I can just put it in a new phone for you." Then he paused. "Um, also…just a minor thing. But is there, uh, any reason why your outer office looks like the scene of a kidnapping? 'Cause that didn't help me not think something had happened to you."

"Oh God, I'm so sorry." She chuckled. "I accidentally dropped a file I was looking through right before I dropped the phone. So…today's been…a day."

"Ah. That makes sense."

"I'm sorry I scared you so badly…" she said, a bit of a pout on her face as she sidled up to him and ran her hand down his tie, wrapping it up in her fist.

"It's okay," he chuckled, shaking his head. "As long as you're okay, that's all that matters. Also, this is good. I was kind of dying at work and now I'm here instead. Maybe we can have a post-lunch coffee? Or I can buy ya a cookie from down the street at that bakery you love so much."

She moaned a little, then moved in to wrap her arms around his shoulders and hug him. Part of her wanted to just wrap her legs around his waist and cling to him like a koala or something, just let him hold her for a while. This was shaping up to be one of those days where a lot of little frustrating things happened that not just soured your mood but made everything you were trying to get done that much harder.

"Is that a yes?" he asked, chuckling and rubbing her back comfortingly, almost like he could tell she was in a mood that needed that sort of thing.

"No," she said with a put-upon sigh. She pulled back and gave him a full on pout. "I can't. As much as I wish I could. I have to go meet with Jerald Brown in a few which is especially great now that I don't have a working phone."

Chuck froze in her arms. "Wait, what?"

"I got Brown to agree to meet me today. I've gotta leave in fifteen minutes to get there on time." She glanced at her watch. At least that wasn't broken.

"Wait, wait. Hold on. Brown? Jerald Brown? You are going to meet with him? Now?"

"In fifteen minutes, yes. What?"

"Nothin'. Nothin'. No, I was just…I didn't expect that. I mean, that's—Well, it's what you needed to do, to get this guy once and for all. Where, um, where you meeting him? At his office? On a bench in a very public place? Please don't say his home."

She giggled, finding his questioning as endearing as it was frustrating. But she knew when she was in this business, a dangerous business she had to admit, she couldn't exactly get him to stop caring, and by extension, to stop worrying. This was going to be a transition. She'd have to get used to it. For most of her career, she hadn't had that element in her life. Someone who legitimately cared about whether she came back home at night after a long day of working on a case. She had it now, with Chuck Bartowski, and it was incredibly precious to her.

He was incredibly precious to her.

"Not his home, no. Nor his office. Those are all places Fake Cartwright knows about. I told him it had to be someplace few people knew about. His wife runs a small, not very well-known Etsy shop because she makes, like, knitted things I guess. And she has a little office she rents in some office building near SoHo. Off of Melrose."

"You're meeting him alone?"

"We'll both be alone."

"And without a phone?"

"Chuuuuuck," she groaned, sliding her hands up and squeezing his shoulders. "Listen, bud. I love you. And I get you're worried. But there are a few things I've got on me that aren't broken that'll be much more helpful than a mere cellphone." He tilted his head in question. "My knives and gun. And my fists."

"Oh. Wow. That's rad."

She giggled, kissing his cheek. "You mind helping me clean up the mess in the other room? And then I should probably leave to beat traffic. Don't want to be late and have him leave, thinking I've stood him up."

"Right. Sure, sure…" He moved into the other room in front of her and knelt down to start scooping up the pictures and the notes and documents. She could feel his worry from across the room, though the adorable and maybe a little overprotective man was doing a good job of holding it in instead of harping on it to her yet again.

She just hoped his worries, and her own, were unfounded.

Especially because the broken phone really did present yet another element that would make her less safe in this situation. And her track record of doing stupid things today hadn't just been limited to those two dropping incidents. There was the coffee she'd spilled when she woke up this morning, nearly missing her new shoes. And then someone had run a red light and nearly T-boned her. If she hadn't been extra cautious in going when she had the green light, she definitely would've gotten it good instead of watching a truck speed past her within inches of the front of her car, her heart in her throat.

She wasn't about to tell Chuck any of that.

Instead, fifteen minutes later, she let him walk her to her car, open the door for her so that she could swing herself down behind the wheel, and he shut it for her again.

She rolled down her window and peered up at him as she started the car. "Hey. C'mere and kiss me." He leaned down with his arms perched on the door and he kissed her with a quiet hum. "What's that look on your face, huh?" she asked.

"Just a little worried, you not having a phone for this meeting. Why don't you just take mine?" He took it out of his pocket, wrapped in a case she noticed a bit glumly.

"I don't need your phone, Chuck. What if someone for your conference calls and it's super important but you can't do anything about it because I've got your phone?"

"They'll call Adisa." He shrugged. "That's what he's there for. Which reminds me: before I give you my phone, I should let him know you're okay. I screamed at him that something had happened to you and then ran outta there. He's probably freakin' out. Woops." He typed out a quick message. "There. Now take my phone."

"No. I'm not taking your phone. I'm fine, Baby. Really. I'll go directly to your apartment after this and you can help me fix my mangled little piece of crap smart phone then. How about that?"

"Sarah."

"Chuck."

He sighed heavily and dropped his forehead onto his folded arms. She reached up to stroke his curls and then leaned in to kiss his head.

"I love you. I have to go."

"Please be careful," he said, lifting his head and leaning in to kiss her again.

"I will be. I promise."

He stepped back as they said their 'see you laters' and she stayed there for a few moments, watching him walk to his own car that was parked nearby, before she finally pulled out from where she was parked at the curb, headed towards Mrs. Brown's Etsy office. Her nerves were on edge, so she was extra paranoid about looking for cars following her, but a few minutes into the drive, when she didn't get any alarm bells over any of the cars behind her, she settled down a bit more, turned on some music, and just drove, glancing in the rearview mirror every once in a while.

If she'd fed into the paranoia a bit more, she might've noticed the taxi a few cars behind her, slowly meandering along on her same path, and the other car off to the side, keeping within three or four cars' length of hers.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

"Mr. Brown. Thank you for meeting me today," she said as he offered her the comfortable chair across from his inside of his wife's cozy little office.

"Please. Jerald. And you're a private investigator, are you?" He eyed her, and she found it wasn't leering or even particularly off-putting. He was merely sizing her up. "I hope you don't mind my saying this, but you weren't what I expected when you called me and said you wanted to meet."

"Hm. I get that a lot."

He chuckled and shrugged. "So what is this? Why the secrecy?"

Sarah sucked in a deep breath and let it out. She'd decided when she made the call that she was going to have to be fully honest with Jerald Brown. She needed his full story, and she needed him to know why it was so important he provided it for her.

"Mr.—Jerald," she corrected herself, and he smirked, pushing the glasses he was wearing up his nose. "Robbie Cartwright contacted me almost two weeks ago and told me he wanted me to vet you." His smirk grew on his older face and he shook his head bitterly, a bit of anger in his eyes. "You don't look very surprised."

"Well, young lady, I'm not." Then he winced. "I'm sorry. 'Young lady' sounds very patronizing. You seem around my daughter's age and I like to imagine sometimes that she isn't quite so old as she's seeming to get." He shook his head, then gestured for her to continue.

She smiled politely, then nodded. "Are you doing business with Cartwright?"

"Well, you see…I had planned to. Back when he was still living in Cape Town." Sarah sat up a bit straighter, much more interested in what this man had to say suddenly. "I'd only been corresponding with him through email. He preferred that over phone calls. He was planning on putting some money in with Gridiron Technology—that's my company—" She nodded, already having known that, amongst a lot of other things now. "But he wanted to take a vacation and clear his head first. I said that was perfectly all right. There was no rush. And I didn't bother him. But when I didn't hear for a few months, I figured he had changed his mind after his vacation. I was going to give him a call just to confirm, and he showed up here in LA suddenly. He…called me. On the phone. And I was so shocked by it that I didn't ask why. He told me he wanted to make a proposition. He'd found some information on Gridiron and thought it might be interesting to build an investment there, get his foot in the tech industry door, so to speak…"

Sarah frowned. "So he decided to accept your business arrangement after all."

"Yes. But the way he spoke to me about it, he made it seem as though we'd never discussed it before. That on top of the fact that he'd called instead of emailing, made me a bit…well…"

When he squirmed in his seat, Sarah leaned in. "Dubious?"

"Hm. Precisely. When we met face to face, he was…different from what I'd come to expect from emailing with him for a month or so." He stretched his arms out. "I was perfectly content doing business in the way he wanted to—remotely, with me in LA and Cartwright in Cape Town. Killer time difference, but emailing back and forth meant that didn't matter much."

"Jerald, did you talk to Cartwright about your misgivings?" she asked. "I-I mean, once he came here, to Los Angeles."

"Oh, no. My wife advised me not to. Instead, she said, don't alert him. Just keep talking to him about the investment in Gridiron and see what happened. But, well…I'm not the best actor. And the man I emailed with seems so…different, contrary to what I've experienced the few times I met him in person here."

"How so?"

"More outgoing. Verging on wild. There was an event we were both invited to, about three and a half weeks ago. He danced almost the entire time, drank…" He shifted forward in his seat. "Wait, you say he hired you?"

Suspicion laced his features then and she held up a hand to reassure him. "I've been vetting him instead of you for the past two weeks, sir. I'll be honest with you, I've done quite a bit of digging into your business, your personal life…"

"Comforting. What did you find?" He was almost bristling now.

"Nothing." He blinked. "The deeper I dug, the more obvious it was to me that you're on the up and up, so to speak. And every time I met with Mr. Cartwright to provide an update, I had nothing of note to give him, and he seemed…upset by that. He told me he just wanted to make sure he was going into business with someone honest. But it became more and more apparent that he wanted me to find something on you, something he could use. For what, I wasn't sure. And that's why I wanted to meet with you. I don't know why he's targeting you by hiring a P.I. to look into you. But I figured you would know. Or you might have an idea."

"I must not be a very good actor. That's the only thing I could imagine. That I'm not…enthralled with him."

"More likely, sir, it's that you aren't falling for his act." He furrowed his bushy brow and frowned. "I think he isn't Cartwright. Especially since you're saying you emailed about that business of yours before he came here, when he was still in Cape Town. And that he seemed not to know about it—or rather, not to remember—and struck up talks of investing again. That is because this guy most likely doesn't know you talked to the real Cartwright months ago."

The man was shaking in his wife's chair, and he covered his mouth with his hand. "You're saying this—this man is an imposter…?"

"Yes. Jerald, I'm almost certain the man who hired me is not Robert Cartwright."

Brown shook his head slowly, and then he swallowed loud enough for her to hear. "You know, I was afraid—I was getting suspicious, at least, that there was something fishy with him. Everyone else seemed to be falling for his charms, but that business about the emails and him suddenly showing up and being so different…" He ran his hand down his tie. "Have you contacted the authorities? Both here and in Cape Town. If he's pretending to be Cartwright here, where's the actual Cartwright? Back home in Cape Town, not knowing someone is impersonating him?"

"My fear is that he's dead." Brown went pale and sat back against his chair heavily.

"D-Did this man kill him?"

"I don't know. But Cartwright took a trip in one of his boats…and all of a sudden he was here in Los Angeles, buying a huge condo downtown, cars, other toys…running his business into the ground, and…here's the kicker, selling his own Cape Town property to unwitting buyers."

"He's selling Cartwright's property?" Brown asked, sitting forward again, anger in his eyes. "Listen, I wasn't particularly fond of Robert Cartwright. He seemed very…standoffish, hard to get along with, hard in general. And that was just in the emails we exchanged. But he did genuinely good things with his money and I was eager to work with him. To think someone could…" He murmured a swear and looked her in the eye. "What do you plan to do, Miss Walker?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Now that I've gotten more evidence from you, I'll be needing to go to the authorities. I have a contact at the LAPD. At least I'm pretty sure I know why I was hired to get dirt on you. You're dangerous to this con he's pulling. Very dangerous."

"You mean he thought you might find something incriminating that he could use to shut me up if I tried to do something about my suspicions…?"

"Exactly."

"Well, at least he hired the right person." He cleared his throat and shrugged. "Right for me, at least. And just…right in general. On the right side."

"I try to be, sir. None of this was sitting well with me. I've managed to drag it out for a while as I've picked up more information on this imposter." Fake Cartwright had been almost restless during the meeting before their last, so Sarah had made a point in the next meeting, yesterday's meeting in fact, to come in with something he might be able to use. A misdemeanor she'd drummed up out of nothing, forged papers that looked convincing enough she thought. It would buy her time if she promised to follow the lead and come back with more, which she had.

And now she could go right to Casey's doorstep, her evidence and a witness in hand, and they could take this son of a bitch down together.

"You might need to come with me to the LAPD, Mr. Brown. They'll want to question you about everything."

"Of course. You can…guarantee my safety, can't you?"

Before she could answer, there was a splintering boom behind her, and as she spun in her chair, she saw the man who'd hired her had kicked the door in and was standing there, a gun pointed at the both of them.

"No, Jerry," he murmured. "No, she can't."