“What do you mean, I can’t talk to her?” Buffy demanded angrily. She stopped pacing the length of the back porch and tapped her foot as she waited for Angel to respond.
There was a lengthy pause before her ex-fiancé spoke. “Something came up and I left her with a trusted associate. I get a report every four hours. I can give her a message in a few hours,” Angel offered The beeping of his phone had him pulling it away from his face and peered at the display. He recognized the Baltimore area code and assumed the caller was Spike.
“I don’t want you to give her a message, Angel. I want to talk to her. To find out exactly who helped her beat a murder charge. So help me, if I don’t talk to her in three hours…” Buffy closed her eyes, berating herself for letting Dru out of town. She wouldn’t have asked Angel to take her away if only she hadn’t been so blinded by past dealings with the woman.
Knowing that Spike’s patience only lasted so long, Angel attempted to end his conversation with Buffy. “I’ll do what I can,” he hastily agreed, promptly killing the connection to halt further argument.
“Don’t hang up on me you sorry ….” The blonde agent resisted the strong urge to throw her phone against the side of the house. Shaking her head in disgust, she joined the others waiting in the living room.
Spike briefly glanced up when he heard the door open and slam shut with a bang. “I don’t have all day for this. Pick up, you wanker,” he muttered into the phone.
“What do you want?” Angel’s voice was considerably cooler than it had been when he was talking to Buffy.
“How’s the Bit?” Spike ignored the other man’s tone and got straight to the point.
Angel glanced out the window of his vehicle and focused on the brunette rocking in a porch swing. Her head was bobbing to the beat of the music coming from her portable CD player. “She’s just fine. If anyone so much as breathes near the cabin I’ll know about it,” he assured.
“Good. If all goes well, this will be wrapped up soon and she’ll get to come home,” Spike slowly ambled toward the house. He was relieved to find that Dawn’s safety was no longer a pressing issue.
Angel’s curious nature had him inquiring if a suspect had been found. If they had indeed found someone, why did Buffy want to speak with Dru? He was under the impression that the raven-haired felon had been ruled out.
“We’ve got a good lead, that’s all. You just concentrate on taking care of my girl,” Spike quickly changed the subject, not wanting to give too much away over the phone.
“You do the same,” Angel responded, stretching his long legs as much as the cramped confines of rental car would allow.
Spike scowled at the reference to Buffy and the slight possessiveness evident in the other man’s tone. “She hasn’t been yours for a while now, mate.”
“Let me know if you find anything else out. It’ll help to know who I’m supposed to be on the lookout for,” the CIA operative’s attention returned to the house as Olivia and Giles stepped outside to join Dawn.
Spike mumbled his agreement and quickly disconnected the call. He stood on the porch for several seconds and watched through the window as Buffy talked to the rest of their team. From the way her face lit up and her hands moved rapidly, he guessed she was telling them about a past case they’d worked together. He was startled out of his reverie when the door beside him swung open.
“Are you going to stand outside the window like a creepy stalker all day, or are you going to come inside?” Buffy demanded, eyes twinkling with amusement.
Spike rolled his eyes, hiding a slight smile, and followed Buffy back inside the house. “Any word from Jack yet?”
Just as Xander opened his mouth to respond, the fax machine set up on the coffee table beeped once to signal an incoming fax. The agents raced to the machine and waited none too patiently as the old machine slowly spit out the first page.
Buffy reached across the others and grabbed the first page, grateful to find that Jack had blacked over the suspect’s name. While she and Spike had been making their phone calls, Tara, Willow and Anya had used the board to write down key dates in Buffy and Spike’s lives: Dru’s trial date, the approximate time the evidence for her case had gone missing, and Spike’s retirement party were just a few of a long list.
Willow, with the rest of the pages in hand, moved to stand beside the blonde agent. “Jack must really think this is a solid lead. He even managed to get the flight information.”
Buffy and Willow compared the dates on the board with Stalin’s flights to Baltimore while Anya, Tara, Xander and Spike went through the rest of the financial papers. After finishing their cross-checking, the women stepped back from the board to show the others what they’d discovered: for every key event in Buffy and Spike’s career, Stalin had made a trip back to the city.
“There are several more flights here, but the dates aren’t ones we considered important. Could he have just been visiting family then?” Willow queried.
Spike stood over Willow’s shoulder to peer at the list of dates she’d written. “Dad and Mum were in town that week,” he commented, pointing to a set of dates.
Her heart sinking to the pit of her stomach, Buffy took a closer look at the dates. She closed her eyes and forced herself to remember where she’d been or what she’d been doing on those days. She pulled a pen from behind her ear and pulled the list from Willow’s lax grasp. She began to write correlating events down beside the dates.
“Celia’s kindergarten graduation; Mom’s gallery re-opening; Dad’s employee of the year banquet; Spike’s big birthday bash; Spike’s promotion,” Willow read once Buffy was finished writing. “It could all just be a coincidence, but I doubt it. If these dates really do match up, then he’s been watching you both quite some time.”
“And I thought it was just the bad guys who were creepy,” Xander observed wryly.
Having taken a moment to regain her composure, Buffy recapped her pen and moved back slightly so that her back was resting against Spike’s chest. “Let’s not jump to conclusions until we get the lab results from the bullet back. Even if the bullets do match, we’re going to need to connect Stalin and Dru,” she reminded the others.
“Now that we’re even more certain that he’s our guy, can we stop using the nickname?” Anya requested, tired of still being left in the dark about their suspect’s identity.
In response, Buffy pulled a picture from the photo album and handed it to Anya. “Him.” She tapped her finger next to the man in question.
The rest of the agents gathered around Anya, trying to see who their suspect was. “No way!” Tara exclaimed once she’d gotten a glimpse of his face.
“This is our creepier than creepy killer? Sure he makes crappy coffee, but he can’t be a murderer,” Willow dismissed the idea.
Xander leaned in for a closer look and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I remember him. Worked with him once on a fraud case. He kept calling me ‘boy.’ Had a chip on his shoulder the size of Mt. Everest. Talk about your poster-child for sexual harassment training.”
“So you think it could be him?” Anya questioned. She was somewhat disappointed by the revelation. The man seemed normal enough. Nothing about him screamed psycho.
Xander just shrugged his shoulders in response and returned to the pages he’d been reading. An idea dawning on her, Willow sat at her laptop and quickly logged onto the network. Several minutes later, she let out a small yelp of triumph. Curious as to what she’d found, Buffy perched on the end of the couch next to the redhead.
“You hacked into his personnel file?” Buffy’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe that by-the-book Willow had hacked into another agent’s classified personnel file.
“Yeah, and I got his psych evaluation, too,” Willow crowed proudly. She trailed her finger down the screen as she read the evaluation. “Obsessive? Paranoid? And they let this guy into the Bureau?”
She printed out the report for the rest of the group to read. What the psychiatrist had written only seemed to confirm, in more official words, what Buffy and Spike had said about the agent.
After having read the evaluation, Spike passed it on to Xander and reached for his car keys. “Like Buffy said, we’re never going to be able to connect all the dots unless we find something linking him to Dru. She and I’ll have a talk with the bird and see if she can tell us anything.”
Finding no fault with Spike’s logic, the others readily agreed. Deciding that Jack needed to be informed of their whereabouts, Spike left a message with Jack’s secretary Harmony Kendall.
Buffy nervously chewed her lower lip as she waited for Spike to start the vehicle. Before he could put the car in reverse, she turned and put a hand on her arm. “Dru’s not at her house,” she admitted softly.
Spike quirked an eyebrow and tilted his head, urging her to continue. Buffy kept her eyes averted, unwilling to meet her friend’s gaze. “I know that she wasn’t really a suspect, but I was afraid having her around would cloud your judgment, so I had her sent away,” she finished in one breath. Her confession made, she braced herself for the inevitable outburst.
“I know,” Spike responded calmly and proceeded to back out of the driveway. “We’re going to see if there’s anything there to connect her to our killer.”
Confused, Buffy raised her eyes slightly. “You know?”
Once out of the driveway, Spike headed in the direction of Dru’s house. “I stop by at least once a week to check in on her. When she didn’t answer the door, I used my key to get in. There was no sign of a struggle so I figured she just up and left. Was pretty sure you had something to do with it.”
“And you’re not mad?” Buffy still couldn’t believe that he was taking this so easily. In the past, whenever the subject of Dru came up, there was either a lot of yelling or a lot of silence.
He turned away from the road to flash a reassuring smile at her. “Oh, I was bloody livid at first. But it’s nothing less than what I’d expect from you. As long as you didn’t have her killed, we’re fine.”
Relieved that she hadn’t ruined her tenuous friendship with Spike, Buffy relaxed against the seat. “I sent her off with Angel.”
“Well now that changes everything. You sent her off with Peaches?”
“I told him not to hurt her!” Buffy tried to stifle a giggle before adding, “Much.”
Spike’s smile turned into a scowl. “If he harms even one hair on her head…”
Buffy sighed in exasperation. “He’s not going to hurt her. Are you two ever going to get over this petty rivalry thing?”
“Probably not.”
Recognizing the street they were turning down, Buffy straightened and checked her weapon. Spike pulled into the street outside the house and did the same. Feeling the familiar rush at confronting a possible suspect, the duo exited the vehicle and made their way to the front door. While Spike searched his pocket for his key, Buffy took a chance and turned the doorknob.
To the surprise of both agents, the heavy wooden door swung open. Spike, eyes wide, put his finger over his lips and motioned for Buffy to cover his back. She nodded in silent agreement and stayed behind as he stealthily crept inside the dark house. Together they searched the large living room for any sign of Dru or their suspect.
A torn cardboard box in the corner of the room caught Buffy’s attention. She shined her flashlight into the box and gasped at what she saw. Photographs of Buffy, her family and Spike filled the box. “He’s got an accomplice,” she whispered, using a pen to rifle through the photos.
Spike left his position near the kitchen door to see what his former partner had found. There were shots of him visiting Dru, at the grocery store, at the gym and even one of him mowing his grass. “You’re right. There’s no way he could have been here to take all of these. There’s someone in town feeding him information.”
“They were taken by a woman,” Buffy observed. Spike snorted in disbelief. “Don’t give me that, I can just tell. In each shot of you, she focuses on your body almost adoringly,” she continued.
Spike shrugged in acquiescence and searched the area near the box for further clues. He couldn’t stand to look at the pictures any longer. Just the thought of someone watching him for years had his blood boiling.
“Do you have any gloves in your car? I want to take this back to the house and see if we can get anything else out of it,” Buffy pushed the box forward with the toe of her shoe.
“In the glove compartment,” Spike responded, moving away from the corner and towards the back of the house.
Buffy took the proffered keys and went outside to retrieve the latex gloves. She paused for a moment, dug out her cell phone and dialed Spike’s house number. The sooner she had the others looking for Stalin’s accomplice, the better.
Willow picked up on the second ring. “Devereaux house,” the redhead greeted cautiously.
“Will, it’s me. Look, we think this guy’s working with a woman. I found a box of pictures of my family, Spike, and me. We’re bringing the box with us, but I need you to find out who he’s had contact with in Baltimore,” Buffy responded.
There was a short pause as Willow relayed the information to the rest of the group. “Do you think it’s someone from the FBI?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. It just makes more sense that way. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have opened the door for Stalin; they’d never met him before. All this time we’ve been assuming that the killer was the one who had coffee with my parents. What if the accomplice gained access to the house so that Stalin could shoot them?” Buffy proposed.
Willow slapped her hand to her forehead as the pieces slowly started falling into place. Buffy’s scenario made perfect sense. “That would explain the clean cup and the note about the carpet cleaner! No man, no matter how psychotic, willingly does the dishes. We’ll get right on it.”
Buffy smiled, pleased to know that she and the other agent were on the same track. “Thanks. We’ll be back as soon as possible.”
She returned the phone to her pocket, grabbed the gloves and returned inside. She pulled on the gloves as she re-entered the living room. After a moment, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She moved toward the box but stopped when she noticed that Spike was not in the room.
“Spike,” she hissed. “Which room are you in?”
When there was no response, she silently tiptoed toward the hallway. “Come on, Spike. This isn’t funny. Where are you?”
The hallway was dark and narrow. The first three doors were wide open. Buffy did a quick check of the rooms and moved on to the fourth door. It was shut firmly but she could see a faint light coming from under the door. She warily approached the door, gun in hand. Every one of her instincts was screaming, “Trap!” but she continued forward, intent on backing up her former partner.
She took a deep breath and flung open the door. “Spike, what are you--” Buffy hardly had time to take in the scene facing her before she felt a sharp pain in the back of her neck, and then the world went dark.
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