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Author's Chapter Notes:
Disclaimer: Like lots of other stuff in fanfic, I don't have any real idea if some of the stuff in this and later chapters is feasible. All I know is that it seemed plausible that this type of information would exist. So just go with it.
Chapter 20: Accusations

A few days later Buffy was surprised to by a summons to her boss’s office. As far as she knew, she hadn’t done anything wrong. She had done everything that had been asked of her: she had taken pictures of the inside of Thorndale’s house, gotten his fingerprints, and now the case was ready to be closed. In reality she felt that it should have been closed a week earlier. The fingerprints were SO unnecessary. It wasn’t like they could be used as evidence even in the rare occurrence that something did come up. It wasn’t her fault that William Thorndale was completely innocent.

Buffy knew that Giles would probably be against her desire to continue seeing Spike after the investigation was over, but she didn't think there was very much he could do about it. She wasn’t completely sure that she would even tell him. It was none of his business who she dated or what she did in her free time.

The only thing she could think of was that Giles was going to insist that she go back to the house and get a look at his workroom. She had a pretty good idea how she was going to go about too. She was just opening her mouth to explain how she planned to work it, when Giles cut her off.

“You’re off the case. I don’t want you investigating Thorndale anymore. Effective immediately.”

“What?” Buffy was floored. No way she had seen that coming. She had done a good job. Despite her misgivings about the validity of the whole thing, she had done everything her boss had told her to do. “Does that mean the case is closed? It’s about time! I’ve only been telling you and telling you that there’s just nothing there….”

“It’s not that. Not that at all. Quite the opposite in fact.” Giles removed his glasses, and gestured vaguely with them in the air. “Buffy, I think you may need to have a seat.”

“Buffy, I’m not sure I know how to say this, but my decision is final.” Instead of reaching for a cloth to clean his glasses, he lay then on his desk while he pinched the bridge of his nose. That was probably a bad sign. Cleaning his glasses was bad enough, but taking them off all together? “Buffy, I want you off this case. It’s being transferred to Faith. The reason, well, you mustn’t think its anything to do with you. It’s nothing that you’ve done wrong. Your work has been exemplary. It’s just that…”

It was taking Giles a long time to come out with whatever it was he wanted to say, so despite his assurances, Buffy knew it had to be worse than bad. What if he had found out that her relationship with Spike had gone further than her reports had implied?

“Yes. Well, under further investigation, those fingerprints you supplied us with? Well, they turned up in some rather interesting places. Not where we expected. Nothing to do with art or the black market at all. But it now seems William Thorndale is suspected of quite a bit more than simple forgery. Faith is going to handle the case from here on out, and that’s the end of it.”

Before Buffy could even voice a protest, Giles continued. “You’re not an experienced field agent. You’ve never worked on a major undercover operation – certainly nothing with these kinds of undertones. I’d suggest that you stay far away from William Thorndale. Far, far away. A man like that isn’t implicated for no reason. Where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire, as I’ve doubtless said before. We just need to find some solid evidence before charges can be filed.”

Back to the smoke and fire again! God, she was sick of that saying! She stood to defend him. “What’s William suspected of? Tax fraud?” she sniped. “If every businessman that was suspected of tax fraud was investigated, the Agency would do nothing but.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s guilty of that. It’s the new information that’s just turned up that concerns me. Buffy, those fingerprints you gave me, they’ve found a match. Several in fact. The first that came up was at a crime scene in New York about twenty years ago. Young woman killed on a subway car. Of course there had probably been hundreds of people in and out of that car, so the fact that this particular set of prints was there seemed unremarkable.

“However, I just got another report back from Interpol. Not one, but two more matches, both connected to murder investigations overseas. One in China, and a third in Romania. I don’t have all the pertinent facts of either case yet – they’re both even older than the one in New York, as I understand it. But prints left at three different murder scenes? That’s not coincidental. This man that you’ve been seeing is no longer wanted in connection with art theft or forgery, Buffy. He’s wanted for questioning in connection with murder. Three murders in fact. Possibly four if you count the fact that his mother died under mysterious circumstances.”

Slowly Buffy sat down. She was shaking. Her legs could no longer support her. It didn’t make sense. The man she knew, the man her mother had liked and known for almost twenty years, suspect in a murder investigation?

Sure Spike had his quirks, had made some bad errors in judgment. But murder? He had been friends with her mother! Joyce’s own journal had verified it. Surely Joyce wouldn’t have made that monumental an error in her assessment of his character, would she? Plus, he was friends with Tara. Tara wasn’t an easy woman to deceive, as Buffy knew from experience.

And, to be suspected in the suspicious death of his own mother? How heinous was that! Buffy could have sworn the guy was still undone about his mother’s death, and he was nearly forty! Spike hadn’t said how long ago she had died, but he had intimated that it had been was when he was much younger. Surely he couldn’t have killed his own mother? Surely, he was innocent?





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