For the first time in twenty-five years, Taylor Shaw wasn't the first person Kurt thought of when he woke up.
Even when Jane had been left for him in Times Square, his name emblazoned on her back in permanent ink, thoughts of her had been entwined with the hope that she was Taylor. After the DNA test had seemed to prove it, he'd thought of her as actually being his childhood friend, even when the tooth isotope test Patterson had run contradicted it.
Even though they'd all called her Jane, his mind had always clung to that stubborn, irrational belief that she was Taylor.
Well, now he knew what had happened to Taylor Shaw. He would always hurt, always privately nurse that grief and misplaced guilt, but now he could put the mystery to rest with her child-sized bones and gaudy plastic boots.
Now the mystery of Jane Doe was free to tear him apart anew. Her tear-streaked, stricken face was the first thing his waking mind recalled, and reality thudded into the pit of his stomach.
His head was killing him, yesterday's self-medication having given way to a hangover that was as much emotional as it was alcohol-induced. He was tempted to take the day off sick, but Jane was in holding, waiting to be interrogated, and the only way he'd ever be able to relax again was if he had answers.
As he dragged himself out of bed and stumbled to the shower, his memory reminded him that he could have had those answers last night, if he'd actually listened to a damn word she'd said. Instead, he'd arrested her on the spot.
"I know you hate me right now, but please. Let me tell you what I know."
He shoved her in the backseat of his car, hands cuffed behind her back. Ridiculously, some distant part of him wanted to buckle a seatbelt around her in case he totalled the car on the way to SIOC. He was in no fit state to drive, hadn't been since he'd downed those beers with Sarah in a premature celebration of his father's innocence.
He was going to drive anyway. He had to get this done.
Gritting his teeth, he slammed the door on her next protest and got into the driver's seat. The car still faintly smelled of the mud from Taylor's gravesite, drying on the floor mat under his feet, and his hand faltered for an instant before he turned the key in the ignition.
"Kurt." Jane shifted in the backseat, no doubt trying to catch his eye in the rearview mirror. He never had been able to resist those eyes. She probably knew it, too. How much had she manipulated him over the past few months? God, he'd been so blind.
He ignored her, but wasn't surprised in the least when she spoke up again a few minutes later.
"I didn't know I wasn't her until today. I swear to God, if I'd had any idea—"
"I can't hear this right now, Jane."
"You have to believe me—"
She'd always been stubborn, strong-willed almost to a fault. She'd never been shy about arguing with him, and at times he'd even enjoyed their heated exchanges. Right now, though, everything he thought he'd known about her was collapsing around them, and he just couldn't bear to add another wrecking ball to the demolition of his trust in her.
"I don't believe a word you say anymore. If you ever had an ounce of respect for me, then listen to me now. I will take whatever statement you give in the interrogation room tomorrow, and then I'll decide where to go from there. Right now, I'm taking you in, I'm processing your arrest and I'm going home to sleep."
Jane was silent. When he risked a glance in the rearview mirror at her, all he caught a glimpse of was the curl of her hair around her ear, the tautness of her jawline as she gazed out of the side window.
He took that for agreement and gave a mental sigh of relief, ignoring the twinge at the back of his consciousness that told him he was making a mistake.
Tomorrow. He'd deal with it all tomorrow.
"What do you mean, she's gone?" Still only half-dressed, Kurt abandoned his search for a clean shirt to focus on Patterson's call.
Patterson's voice was harried, as though she were hitting her multi-tasking limit. "I get notified on my phone every time something in our system relates to Jane. Two CIA agents discharged her from holding just over an hour ago, and by the time I managed to speak to someone there, they'd already taken her out of the building."
Her voice softened, betraying her concern. "Without Mayfair around to protect her, the CIA can pretty much do anything they want to Jane unless we get the director to step in. Do you think they'll put her in a black site?"
Reality fuzzed around the edges as the possibilities pressed in. Kurt held them at bay, focusing on the call. "Pellington wants to shut down the whole tattoo operation. He won't do a damn thing to help Jane."
"Then it's up to us, right? Okay, I'll…"
As she rattled off a list of possible ways she could track Jane out of the building, Kurt tuned out, shrugging on a clean shirt and mechanically going through the rest of the steps to getting ready for work. After a minute or two, she went quiet with a hesitant, "Weller?"
"Do what you can. I'll be there in thirty." He ended the call without waiting for her acknowledgement, tucked the phone into his jacket pocket and left his apartment in a half-daze.
It wasn't until he got into his car that it really sank in.
Gone. Jane's gone.
He'd made a bad call last night, so focused on his own anger and betrayal that he'd lost sight of the bigger picture. Mayfair would have kept him in line, but God knew where Mayfair was right now. Hopefully somewhere without US extradition, keeping her head down until he and his team could come through for her.
Maybe Jane had had information he could have used. Maybe he'd condemned both Jane and Mayfair with his own petty, short-sighted emotions. If he'd just listened to her…
The CIA would never get useful intel from Jane. On top of her natural stubbornness, she had military training to help her resist physical interrogation at the hands of the enemy. But they'd break her trying. Kurt's imagination supplied him with an image of Jane suspended from a hook in a dark room, being beaten by some black-site thug who got off on torturing people. Blood and bruises almost obscured the tattoo on her neck, but her jaw was set with steel determination.
Kurt had wanted her to suffer last night, but not like this. Never like this.
He hit the accelerator.