The club was unusually quiet, even for mid-afternoon, as Ethan approached in the ride he'd called from his apartment. There were usually at least 5 or 6 cars in the lot at any time, and more people inside than that, considering plenty of people were like him and either lived close enough to walk or called a ride instead of keeping a car. Today, though, there were no cars in the lot.

He asked the driver to wait, then approached the doors. He half expected them to be locked and to have to turn around and head back home, but they were unlocked as usual, and he turned back to wave the driver on. The man raised a hand in thanks as he drove off.

It was almost silent in the building, only the occasional sound of shuffling filling the open area. The source of the sound was readily evident -- one of the regular bouncers, Jackson, stood at the foot of the stairs.

"Afternoon," Ethan greeted as he approached. "Quiet here today, huh?" Jackson nodded, his thickly corded neck rippling with the movement.

"Yeah. Boss is out of town, so." He shrugged, as if that explained everything. Ethan nodded.

"Gotcha. Well, I'm just going to go see if they left any work for me," he said with a smile. There was an odd tension in the air, and he wondered if Jackson would stop him, but the meaty man simply waved him on past.

Ethan trotted up the stairs, and was surprised to find no guard at the top of the stairs. In fact, there was no one up here -- not that he could see, anyway. He walked through the large, open space slowly, heading for his work area. The room he'd been set up in was near the far end; an old office that had been converted into a passable workspace with plenty of desk space and bright lighting.

There was no note on his door, no random electronics dropped on his desk with a vague instruction on what to do with them. There was no sign anyone had been in his workspace since he had, which was unusual; even when he'd been working on other projects, there was usually a string of 'hey, can you fix this?' that he would knock out a couple of each day. Frowning, he stepped out of the door once more and started a slow circuit of the upstairs space.

He walked past the 'recreation' area, with its ratty old couches, television, and foosball table. There was a locker room he poked his head in briefly, with no one in there, either. The makeshift gym, with a weight machine and one rickety old bench press, was abandoned, and the office area was utterly deserted.

Ethan was completely alone in the headquarters of a criminal organization, and he had no idea what to do with that. His fingers twitched toward his pocket with the impulse to call Daniel, but that was silly; Daniel couldn't instruct him on what to do without seeing what he was working with, and there was no way he could get him in, even with only one person on guard duty, without blowing the whole gig. Taking a deep breath, he stepped over to the door to Michael's office.

Not willing to take any unnecessary chances, Ethan knocked on the door as if he fully expected Michael to be in there. When there was no response, he tried the door handle fully expecting it to be locked.

The door swung open on silent hinges.

Taking one last nervous glance over his shoulder, Ethan stepped into the empty office, keeping an eye out for trip wires or traps; it seemed ridiculous, but Michael was a crafty man, and Ethan knew he couldn't be too careful. He could be too slow, though; surely someone would come in soon, and he couldn't be in here when that happened.

Stepping around to the desk, Ethan powered up Michael's desktop, wincing as the Windows startup music echoed loudly in the office. It was password-locked, of course, but it was only the matter of a few minutes to get past that. From there, it was just a maze of folders.

Most of it was innocuous stuff; payroll and expense reports for the club, a quarterly tax statement, permits on file with the county. Ethan was almost impressed; they'd really gone out of their way to do everything with the club legally, though he had no doubt there were some bribes involved with that. He knew the stuff he needed wouldn't be anywhere obvious, though, so he kept digging.

"Family photos" was the file that stood out when he ran across it. He'd never heard Michael or anyone else mention him having any family, and he knew the man didn't wear a wedding ring. He clicked into it and saw a bunch more folders -- "Vacation 2014", "Wedding", "Coco", "Birthday 2017". Clicking farther in, it all seemed perfectly innocent -- pictures of what the folders described, with some folders holding more folders with further organization. There was something off about them, though…

They were too perfect. Every photo had perfect lighting, almost as if they were staged, or if they were all taken professionally. Frowning, Ethan opened a couple of them to look closer, and couldn't help but think they looked a lot like stock photos.

Like what someone with no family might use to hide something else.

More determined now, Ethan kept one eye on the door as he plunged through the folders, ignoring photos and clicking through to each folder, until he finally happened across one about six levels deep titled 'Circus 2018'.

When he opened it, instead of oddly-perfect images of clowns and elephants, he found a huge number of spreadsheets, PDFs, saved emails… thousands of files that had no place in a supposed photo folder. Hands trembling, Ethan pulled out his house keys, yanking off the keychain thumb drive he always kept there.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he waited for the files to copy over, and Ethan found him starting at every sound, even the ones caused by his own movements. Finally, finally, it was done, and Ethan closed everything out and put the computer back in sleep mode where it had started. He was just considering exploring through the desk a little more when he heard what he'd been dreading -- the distinctive thud of heavy boots tromping up the metal staircase.

Ethan moved without thinking, stuffing the keys with that oh-so-precious USB drive in his pocket to muffle their sound as he walked quickly to the door of the office. He pulled it closed behind him, then trotted the length of the room toward his own room, slipping into the open door just as he heard the door at the top of the stairs swing open.

His heart pounding a terrified rhythm in his chest, Ethan opened the laptop on his desk and hurriedly logged in, opening his last web search and leaning forward to prop his elbow on the desk, hoping he looked more relaxed than he felt.

A few agonizingly long minutes later, he finally heard footsteps outside his door.

"Ethan? What the hell are you doing here?"

Not him, please, anyone but him. Ethan closed his eyes, summoning his strength before turning to face Steve with a false smile.

"Stopped by to see if there was any work," he said, aiming for a casual tone. Steve simply raised an eyebrow.

"While no one's here?" Ethan shrugged.

"I have no idea why it's so deserted. I'm still the low man on the totem pole, they don't tell me anything." Steve stepped into the small room, which immediately felt far too small.

"Oh? That's not what I heard. I heard the boss himself went out on a job with you a few days ago," Steve said, leaning uncomfortably close. Ethan shifted in the chair.

"Yeah, I guess, it was no big deal though." Steve snorted.

"Any time the boss takes a personal interest is a big deal, Ethan," he said in a sneering tone. "That was always your problem, you know. You never recognize opportunities, even when they're staring you in the face." He reached up, running his fingers across Ethan's cheek. "I, on the other hand…" He trailed off as his eyes landed on the mottled purple and blue bite mark on Ethan's neck.

Ethan took advantage of the moment of distraction to slide his chair back, creating just enough room for him to slip out of the chair and step around Steve, putting the door at his back.

"You're fucking someone else?" Steve said, his voice low and dangerously controlled. Ethan threw up his hands in confusion.

"Yeah, I'm seeing someone, Steve. We broke up over a year ago why the hell would you even care?" Steve took a step forward, a flush rising in his pale face.

"Yes, but you're back here now. You know the influence I wield here. This is one of those opportunities we were just discussing, Ethan-"

"You were discussing," Ethan corrected, his tone cold. The thumb drive felt heavy with promise in his pocket, promising a way out and away from crime, away from Steve and everything he represented. "You were talking to hear the sound of your own voice, as usual, and I was leaving." Steve let out a strangled noise as Ethan turned around.

"Don't you dare walk away from me, Ethan I will make your life hell, you know I can!"

Ethan didn't look back, instead raising a hand as if in a mock salute over his shoulder as he opened the door at the top of the stairs.

"You're welcome to try, Steve. Do your worst."

Daniel arrived at the coffee shop he and Garrett had arranged to meet a few minutes early, so he took the time to stand in line behind all the soy-milk-lattes and low-fat-cappuccino-extra-shot-extra-foams to place an order for a black coffee. The barista seemed almost delighted to fulfill such an easy order, and he was soon wandering the back of the shop, glancing in each of the tall booths. They were mostly empty, it being midday on a weekday, but Garrett sat in the very back booth. Daniel slid in across from him, the vinyl of the seat slick against the back of his jeans.

"No coffee for you?" Garrett shook his head, and Daniel noticed for the first time that he looked distressed. "Hey, what happened?"

"Daniel," Garrett started slowly. "I need you to… take a deep breath, I guess." He took his own advice before continuing. "It's bad news."

"Was there another murder?" Daniel asked, forgetting all about his coffee. "Dammit, I knew they wanted him out for a-"

"Daniel," Garrett interrupted, his tone sharp. He shook his head, and Daniel realized it was sorrow on the other man's face. He looked down at the folder on the table between them as Garrett nudged it toward him. "Daniel, I'm sorry," he said softly.

Daniel reached for the folder, his heart thudding to the beat of the dread it was suddenly weighed down with. He'd never seen Garrett look so serious. He pulled it toward him, and after only the briefest of hesitations, flipped it open.

His blood ran cold.

"What is this?" Daniel asked, his voice deadly calm. Garrett sighed, rubbing his hands over his face.

"The lab's been backed up, which you already know. So they just got around to processing some of the lower-priority prints from the murder scene yesterday. I found it on my desk this morning."

"This was at the…" Daniel paused, swallowed hard. "This was at the murder scene?" Garrett nodded slowly. "Why-" His voice broke on the word, and there was a long silence as Daniel took a sip of his coffee -- a pretense as he worked to control his emotions. "Why are you showing me this? Why hasn't he been picked up?" Garrett shook his head.

"I haven't put out the call yet. I wanted to let you know first." Daniel shook his head.

"You shouldn't have done that. The job-"

"Fuck the job, Daniel," Garrett snapped. "Even considering the complications, I've never seen you as happy as you've been recently. Telling you first was the least I could do." There was a long, tense silence.

"Thank you," Daniel said quietly. "I…" He laughed, a sharp, humorless sound. "I don't even know what to do with this." He looked down at the paper, the facts that had broken his hope so easily in stark black and white.

Ethan's fingerprints had been found at the murder scene.

His prints were on record, of course, from when he'd been arrested in the past, so as soon as the new prints had been entered into the system, they'd pinged as a match -- 99.6% accuracy. There was no doubt they were his.

Daniel couldn't take his eyes off the paper; he kept reading it over and over again as if the words there might change.

"Call it in," Daniel said, after they had been sitting across from each other in silence for several minutes. His phone buzzed as if on cue, and he looked down at it bleakly. "He's headed back to his apartment now." He was still staring down at his phone when a hand covered his. He looked up at Garrett.

"I'm sorry," Garrett repeated. "I wanted it to work out for you, I really did." Daniel nodded, his lips quirking up into a humorless smile.

"Yeah. Me too."

It didn't take long; Daniel was sitting in the squad car with Garrett when the report came in that Ethan had been picked up a block from his apartment. When they arrived at the station, Daniel purposefully avoided the bullpen, instead heading back to the locker room, where he kept a change of clothes. He'd gotten used to the more casual jeans and t-shirts of the past week, but the slacks and button-down of his uniform were familiar, and it felt a lot like pulling on a layer of armor around him.

When he emerged from the locker room, Garrett was waiting by their adjacent desks. He glanced up to see the change in wardrobe, and it looked like it pained him, but he didn't comment.

"He's in Interview 1," he said. "I thought I'd do the interview, if you want to-"

"No," Daniel interrupted, shaking his head. "This is my fuck-up. I'll deal with it." Garrett raised an eyebrow.

"Are you sure? I really don't mind, I know it won't be easy." Daniel nodded sharply.

"I'm sure. I need to." Garrett's gaze was searching and worried, but he nodded his assent.

"Alright. Let me get you up to speed on what's been going on while you've been gone."