Aiden and I sit in my car, watching, waiting.

It’s a chilly day in Port Sitka, which is good. Aiden and I didn’t want to wear full, matching suits, like we did for the heist. In a tiny beach town, that’s bound to attract too much attention. But nor did we think our badges would be all that convincing paired with me in a flannel and Aiden in a snapback. So we went with suit pants and shoes, dress shirts, and our regular jackets over that.

“This worked out,” I tell Aiden, tugging on the sleeve of his jacket. “We still look formal, but less conspicuous. I think.”

“Good.” Aiden takes another long sip of his coffee. “We don’t want to make a scene.”

“Yeah, because that could attract the actual police, which would be very bad.”

“Wouldn't be so bad. If they show up, we’ll just tell them to fuck off, right?” Aiden holds up his badge, winks at me. “We outrank them.”

I roll my eyes at him, lifting my coffee back to my mouth. "You're annoying."

I know that I'm not fooling anyone with this. I've been feeling seriously warm and melty about Aiden all morning, and not good about hiding it. I don't know what's up with me, honestly. All I did was move my heist ring back to my left hand.

My fingers keep drifting back to it, resting against the small, bright band of gold.

“Oh - Jamie." Aiden nudges my arm, points with his coffee. "That's our guy, right?”

I lean forward to peer through the windshield. My car doesn't exactly look like the type of ride two high-level government agents would roll around in, so we parked far off down the road from the building we've been staking out. From this distance, I can only discern the more basic features of the man walking down the sidewalk, the one Aiden is pointing to.

There was a photo of Hugh Finley on his business's website, and this man does kind of look like the right person. But, at the same time...

“Doesn't he seem too young?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. “He had grey hair in the picture, not black.”

"Yeah. Weird." Aiden's eyebrows furrow. “Maybe he dyed it?"

The man gets a little closer, easier to see. He’s a very pale guy in a grey suit, lugging a heavy briefcase. We watch him go up the steps to the building we were staking out.

It’s a beautiful, two-story house that’s been neatly converted into a place for business. But it stands out in an odd way. Every other establishment on this street is already open for the day, people weaving in and out through the doors. Only Finley’s building is dark and silent.

And that must be Finley himself, because he has the key.

He lets himself inside. A moment passes, and then we see the lights flip on in the windows.

Aiden looks over at me. “Ready?”

“Mhm.” I let out a nervous breath. “Just hope I don’t have to lie.”

“Yeah, again, please don’t even try to do that.” Aiden huffs out a laugh as he tucks his badge into his jacket pocket. “That literally can’t help with anything.”

We double-check each other's outfits, then both sit still for a moment, switching into agent mode. Aiden closes his eyes and lets his expression go neutral. Channeling his serious, unsmiling Foster.

I close my eyes, too, doing a mental review of everything that Kasey told us about selling this act. Be polite, but not friendly, at ease, but in control...

I open my eyes, find Aiden looking at me. We reach for each other’s hands, give ourselves just enough contact to ground ourselves. Then we both let out a long breath, and open the doors of my car.

We step out into the bright, blustery spring morning. Leaves skitter down the sidewalk, carried along on the wind. We're a good distance from the beach, but even here, the air tastes salty.

The street isn’t particularly busy. This is not an area of Port Sitka that gets crowded with tourists. The businesses here are aimed at residents, not visitors. There’s a grocery store, a bank, a dentist, a farm supply shop. Some of these places have customers or clients drifting in and out, but they're focused on their errands. No one spares me and Aiden a glance as he pushes open the little gate at the edge of Finley's property.

We step off of the sidewalk and onto the short pathway that leads to the door. My eyes sweep over the garden on either side of the path, then go back to the converted house. I can pick out all kinds of expensive details: an ornate door knocker, smooth stone steps leading up to the porch, a graceful, abstract sculpture in the garden. A gold-plated sign by the door, imprinted with the words Finley & Associates.

Aiden's blue eyes flit down to me as we approach the porch, taking in the look on my face.

“Why so nervous, Sutton?" he rumbles. "This is a way less stressful situation than the heist.”

“Yeah, but this guy is a lawyer. He’s probably gonna be pretty sharp, right? Way harder to convince that we’re real agents.”

“True,” Aiden admits.

“This building is like, really nice. Even the flowers in this garden - they’re expensive ones. Finley must do well for himself, which means he must be pretty good at his job. Gotta be a smart guy. He might see right through us.”

“Yeah. Bet he'll be tougher to convince than Coburn was.” Aiden stops on the porch, waits for me to stop beside him, and presses the doorbell. “We’ll just have to be at the top of our game, if we're gonna persuade him that we're legit.”

I nod, then take a deep breath as we hear shuffling footsteps approaching the door from inside.

The door is pulled open, and we get our first good look at Hugh Finley.

He looks way younger than he did in the picture on the website, to the extent that I’m wondering if that was a photo of someone else. This guy can't be more than thirty years old. But he does bear a resemblance to the picture, which is odd. He’s like a young version of that same man, or something.

He has wide brown eyes, and he’s wearing an expensive suit that doesn’t fit him very well. It's too big, swallowing him. He’s holding a stack of thick, overstuffed folders, and seems to be struggling under their weight.

“Hello,” he says, glancing back and forth between me and Aiden. "Can I help you?"

“Hugh Finley?” I ask.

He blinks at me, uncertain. “Yes?”

Aiden and I both slip our badges out of our pockets and hold them up.

“Mr. Finley, we’re with the-”

Before Aiden can finish his sentence, Finley drops everything he’s holding, spins around, and bolts.

The folders explode into a cyclone of loose papers as Finley sprints pell-mell away from us, his panicked breathing filling the air, wind whipping through his too-big suit.

“What the f-?” Aiden blinks at him, steps over the pile of papers. “Finley! Stop!”

Finley suddenly seems to realize that he’s run further into his office, effectively trapping himself. He lets out a little sound of despair and shoves open a window, tries to fling himself outside.

But Aiden is fast.

He's across the room in a split second, and he catches Finley’s ankles before he can escape. For a positively absurd moment, Finley hangs halfway out of the window, only visible from the waist down, fruitlessly trying to kick himself free of Aiden’s grasp. Then he goes limp, and lets Aiden drag him back inside.

I step past the papers - some of which are still slowly floating down to the floor - and shut the door behind myself. Aiden and I exchange a baffled glance as Finley sags back against the wall, mopping his forehead with the sleeve of his expensive suit.

“Okay, okay!” He's completely out of breath, and it sounds like he's on the brink of tears. “Fine, alright? I did it! I admit it!”

Aiden stares at him, lost. “Admit what?”

“That I paid someone to take the bar exam for me.” Finley lets out an anguished breath, presses his palms over his eyes. “I know it’s technically a felony, but - I took it three times myself, doesn’t that count for anything? Even if I didn’t pass?”

Aiden and I look at each other, but Finley forges on before either of us can say anything.

“Listen, I - I’m gonna turn this firm back into a respectable place,” he says desperately. “I’m working on it, I swear-”

“Alright, well, let me give you a tip,” Aiden cuts in. “The first step in turning your law firm into a respectable place is to not instantly flee the minute that law enforcement officers show up.”

Finley bites his lip, then hangs his head, running a tired hand over his eyes. “Okay. Yeah. That’s - yeah.”

He looks up at us again, panicked eyes darting back and forth between me and Aiden.

“Look,” he begins, “I know I shouldn’t have done what I did, but you don’t understand, I had to-”

"Finley," I interrupt, increasingly concerned that he might not be getting enough air into his lungs. “We’re not here about that."

He pauses, staring at me. “What?”

“You’re not under suspicion of anything that our agency is concerned about, Mr. Finley,” Aiden tells him. “I’m Agent Foster, this is Agent Sutton. We wanted to ask you to consult on a case.”

Finley freezes, staring at Aiden with obvious disbelief. “Me? You want me to consult on a case?”

“The case is connected to a piece of property that was owned by Joseph Finley at the time," Aiden explains. "We were hoping you could answer a few questions for us.”

For a moment, Finley stares at Aiden in blank silence.

“So…” He takes a slow, shaky breath. “I'm not in trouble?”

“Not with us, no,” I answer firmly.

Finley sways on his feet, looking ready to collapse with relief. Then he brightens up considerably, swipes his sweaty hair out of his face, and pushes up off of the wall.

“Then - yes, okay! Let’s go to my office.”

Finley takes a second to catch his breath and tuck his shirt back in. I take the opportunity to look around at the room that we're currently standing in. It has a few desks pushed together, a waiting area for clients. It’s expensively furnished, but there’s nothing on any of the desks, no sign that anyone besides Finley works here.

He hesitates by the pile of papers that have all escaped from their folders, half-heartedly starts to pick them up, then changes his mind and leads us to a door at the back of the room.

We follow him into a big, spacious office with two bright windows, through which we can see into a back garden filled with trees and blossoming flowers. The desk in here is large and imposing. The chair is, too, which makes Finley look very small when he sits down in it. Even more than his oversized suit already does.

“Well, this is exciting,” he says brightly, as Aiden and I take the two leather chairs before him. “Nice to actually have someone on the other side of the desk, for once.”

I'm so confused, I just have to ask.

“If you don’t mind me saying, Mr. Finley, you don’t look too much like that picture on your website.”

“Oh. Right, I should update that.” Finley takes off his suit jacket and fans his face, trying to cool down from his botched escape attempt. “That’s not me in the picture, that's my dad.”

Aiden and I both pause again.

“I thought you said that you were Hugh Finley,” Aiden says.

“Yeah, I’m named after him. He, um. Really wanted me to follow in his footsteps.” Finley gestures around at the office. “He built this law firm. Handed it down to me when he passed away. Wanted me to run it.”

I glance back at the empty front room. “So, how’s that going?”

“Well, um.” Finley rubs his forehead, then drops his hands onto the desk. “After it was willed to me, I kind of put off dealing with it for a while, since I was nervous… and then I had to take the bar exam, and that was - like I said, it took me a long time to, um… Point is, pretty much everyone quit in the meantime. And the clients left, too. Everybody got tired of waiting.”

There’s a silence, and suddenly Finley looks like he’s wearing an invisible thousand-pound backpack.

“It’ll be fine, though,” he says, in a thin, strained voice. “I’m here now, right? I can fix this. There’s still time. I can still fix it.”

I drop my head and pretend to adjust my sleeve, mostly so Finley doesn’t see me wince. Aiden shifts a little in his seat. Doing the same thing, I think.

“Well,” he says, “Clearly you’ve got a business to run, Mr. Finley, so we won’t take up too much of your time. But we could use your help. If Hugh is your father, that would make Joseph-?”

Finley nods. “My granddad, yeah.”

I exchange a glance with Aiden, both of us trying to hide our disappointment. The older Hugh Finley has passed away. We didn't know that.

It was already a long shot that Joseph’s son might remember anything about the people who rented the farmhouse. It was a long time ago, and he was a child at the time. But it’s even more doubtful that Joseph’s grandson would know anything about it. I get the feeling that Aiden is trying to decide whether or not it’s even worth asking.

Although... Hugh Senior sounds like a guy who was determined to pass things down through his family. Maybe even long-kept secrets. Especially if those secrets were about something interesting, like Cold War spies renting his dad's farmhouse.

I think we may as well ask.

“As Foster said, your grandfather owned a property that we're in the process of gathering information on," I tell Finley. "The collapsed farmhouse?”

"Oh." Finley blinks at me, tips his head to the side. “The farmhouse, yeah. That’s still in the family. Believe me, I’ve tried to sell that land, but nobody wants it.”

“Why’s that?” Aiden asks, as if we don't already know.

“There’s, uh…” Finley shrugs his shoulders, sits back in his overly large chair. “Tell you the truth, people just think it’s creepy. It was already an old building, now it’s the rotting remains of one. People in this town avoid it. When I was a kid, no one would even go there on a bet.”

I think that Aiden asked the question to test Finley, see if he intends to be honest with us. It would appear that he does. Everything he said is in line with what Floyd has already uncovered about the farmhouse.

“The building collapsed all the way back in the 1960s,” Finley continues. “But people still don’t like the feeling of the place, I guess. I have no idea why. Dad said the collapse was a support beam failure, just an accident. No reason to think there’s anything creepy about it. Why do you ask, though?”

"Because," Aiden says, his unwavering gaze leveled on Finley. “We have reason to believe that the property is linked to an unsolved cold case, and that the building was intentionally collapsed in an effort to cover up a serious crime.”

Finley blinks at us, then laughs nervously, then goes serious again.

“What? No. What?” He leans forward, his brown eyes widening. “Are you fucking serious? Oh, my god. Wait a minute - I own that property! Can I get in trouble for this?”

“Um - no.” Aiden stares at him, thrown off. “Why would you-? You weren’t even born yet. Aren’t you a lawyer, shouldn’t you know-?”

“Okay,” I cut in, as Finley sags with relief. “What we’re here to ask, Mr. Finley, is whether your father remembered anything about the tenants who were renting the farmhouse at the time of the collapse.”

“And if he did remember,” Aiden adds, “Whether he told you anything about them.”

There's a brief silence.

“Oh,” Finley says quietly, sitting back in his chair again. “Oh.”

I can tell from the look on his face. The answer is yes.