Some of you asked for a sequel to my tag to "Redacted" (A Magician Never Reveals). I'm not sure about the protocol on writing a sequel to a tag, but after reading discussions on this site and others about Jane and Lisbon's possible "long talk", exchanging messages with information specialist (She always stretches my thinking.), and reading the TV Guide© article on the season finale, the idea of a companion story to "A Magician …" started buzzing around in my head, and I couldn't let it go. So, this is the long talk, part 2. If you haven't read "A Magician…", some of this won't make sense. Sorry for the plug, but it had to be said.
NOTHING UP MY SLEEVE
It wasn't the call he dreaded. That had been the easy part. It was the talk.
They had agreed to meet at an open-air café, the kind in which downtown Sacramento abounded. The back deck of this one overlooked the river walk and was as far away from the tangled complex of state and federal buildings of which the CBI was a part as one could get and still be in the city. The day was warm—almost too warm, but the breeze off the water was balmy. He'd asked for a table in the shade—couldn't be too careful with skin like Lisbon's—and he sat, waiting for her.
Jane saw her approaching before she noticed him, or so he thought. In spite of the fact that she was concentrating on the phone call in which she was engaged, motioning with her hand, palm down and wafting away from her side as she so often did when she was patiently explaining something, in spite of her furrowed brow and frown at said phone as she ended the call, she had managed to wend her way through the linen-circled maze straight to him.
"Hey," she offered in a non-committal way that he would've described as off-handed if he didn't know that they both knew why they were here. Mirroring her manner, he offered a raise of the chin and his own "hey" back.
She sat down and looked around her, taking in the place—the table coverings, the flower boxes on the iron railing, the thinned out late lunch crowd. And he took her in, choosing to admit to himself that even though it had only been two days, he had missed her. Good, solid, dependable, professional Lisbon. She was wearing a light-weight short-sleeved jacket over a white tank and yoga pants, her hair pulled up in a high ponytail. No loafers . . . flip-flops. She'd painted her toenails the color of cabernet. Bored already, he thought to himself with a small smile.
"We ever been here?" she asked sliding the crisp napkin into her lap.
"No. Grace and I have been." He didn't know why he felt the need to explain at her arched eyebrow. "On the street side, out front. She helped me pick up an old friend . . . when Danny . . ."
He moved his hand in a circular loop, as if he were waving something away, and she knew he was hoping that was all the explanation she would require. She let him have that. Choose your battles, her mother had told her once.
"So," she started, perusing the menu, "what's good here?"
He watched her a moment, wondering if the game had started yet.
"Am I paying?" he quipped, testing the waters. She gave him a saccharin smile, and he was relieved to see it. It was a game, but only their usual. He sighed in exaggerated resignation.
"Do you want to start with soup or salad?"
She grinned up at him then, glad he'd understood. Closing her menu and sliding it to the side, she said the most startling words he'd ever heard from her.
"Why don't you just order for me?"
He covered his surprise, pleased with himself at the monumental accomplishment. Lisbon had never relinquished so much personal control of her own volition—not to him at any rate or to anyone else since he'd known her. He recognized it for what it was: a sign of trust. Only with her appetite, but still, it was something.
When the server appeared, Jane ordered a cup of lobster bisque and a salad of herb-crusted goat cheese, greens and walnuts for Lisbon and a light pasta for himself. She opened her mouth in protest, but he raised his hand, silencing her before a word slipped out.
"I know, I know. You skipped breakfast. We're saving room for dessert."
That satisfied her, as he knew it would, and she relaxed back into her chair.
"So, how's the suspension going?"
She looked out over the river and gave a half-shrug.
"Oh, you know. Tv, reading, running . . ."
"Shooting?"
She dipped her head and scowled at him through her eyebrows. He leaned across the table at her and dropped his voice to a near whisper.
"Are you wearing a gun now?" He managed to make it sound almost dirty.
She leaned in close and lowered her voice too, scrunching her nose as she replied. "Yeah. A light-weight little number. Easily concealed."
He grinned before he leaned back as the server suddenly appeared to refill his water glass. They weren't going to talk about anything serious over lunch. She would want to enjoy her food, and she knew he wouldn't be in a hurry to get back to the office. The hard stuff could wait until after they'd eaten. He was surprised at how easily they talked about everything else. The latest case, the flavor of the food, whether she should get that pixie cut he was always trying to push her into, her nearly getting him to admit he would miss her long hair, his trying to guess what books she'd been reading when she adamantly refused to tell him. It was all over too soon—not because he dreaded getting to the hard, serious stuff but because he had actually been enjoying himself.
They finished the "Seven Sins" chocolate cake they'd shared, and Lisbon drank the last of her coffee as Jane handed the signed receipt back to the server. Then, in silent agreement, they rose and descended the steps to the waterside walkway, each of them stuffing their hands into their jacket pockets as they moved along the pavement that seemed to float over the river's edge, the water at Lisbon's left side and Jane at her right. They covered several yards in silence, Jane feeling himself grow more tense as they moved along. They had come to talk, and he realized the burden was on him.
"So . . .," he took a deep breath and blew it out through puffed cheeks, "how do you want to do this?"
Lisbon, recalling their previous talk had resulted in a sort of buckshot spray of information when she let him talk conversationally—and being a cop—opted for the convention of interrogation.
"How did you know Todd Johnson was connected to Red John?"
Jane frowned down at his shoes. That had been the question he had dodged two nights previous during their first talk. He comprehended she had never intended to make a game of it and was at once both relieved and apprehensive.
"Is that really important?" His eyes slid sideways away from her, and he chewed the inside of his cheek. He took a few steps before he realized she'd stopped. He turned and took two steps back until he was standing what he reckoned was exactly three feet away from her. He'd read somewhere that was the average edge of the comfort zone for most people and had found the information, after much application, to be accurate.
She was regarding him, her chin tucked and eyebrows raised with that patently Lisbon look of incredulity when something occurred to him. When exactly had she learned to do that? Stop walking, stop following him, just stop and wait for him to come back. Like a yo-yo. He was used to controlling the drop, the loop and return. She was getting better. All of the time. It had taken her a while, but he wouldn't fool himself by thinking it was because she had learned from him. More like after years together she was just learning him.
"Jane—" There was that note of exasperation he both enjoyed and chafed at.
"Are you sure that's something you really need to know?" he reinterated with purpose.
"Yes." She didn't even think about what he might mean. She stepped nearer.
"I want you to tell me the truth. All of it. I deserve to know."
That assertion was always the big guns, and though she used it sparingly, it unfailingly made him spill his secrets. Because she was so right. He had never used it on her—knew he wasn't so deserving.
She stood patiently, watching him think, then took two more steps toward to him, reducing the space between them to nearly nothing, lowering and lightening her voice at the same time.
"I've known you were hiding things, keeping things from me since . . . "
She had to think about that. The encounter with Red John? Bosco? Hardy?
"I won't be angry. We're past that now." Her eyes and voice had softened, and he knew she was sincere. "Just tell me."
It wasn't a command but an invitation. He closed his eyes and swallowed, fighting the urge to physically lean on her. She knew silence wasn't good. It gave him too much room for thinking. But she had said as much as she dared. Any more might spook him. He opened his eyes and looked down at her, believing actually seeing her might steady him. It did . . . but it didn't. He felt haggard, and wondered why she looked relieved.
"Just before Todd died, after you left. He looked at me and said 'Tiger, tiger'."
She drew back and frowned at him, slightly shaking her head, not knowing what he meant, ignorant of the reference.
"It's a poem by William Blake." He inhaled deeply. She had said she wouldn't be angry . . .
"The same poem Red John recited to me that night."
He watched her expression shift, then flicker, like frames from an old movie, changing from one shot to the next. She took a deep shuddering breath and just stood there, looking.
"'Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy dreadful symmetry?'" He rushed through the words, like pulling off a sticky bandage. It irritated him that she still didn't get it. Really, what kind of books did the woman read? Should he buy some for her or just let her borrow his?
"It's from a poem by William Blake, eighteenth to nineteenth century. It means—"
"I get what the poem means, Jane. What do you think he meant?"
He frowned down at the sidewalk and pulled one hand out of a pocket, half-shrugging as he rubbed his hand up and down on his vest front.
"Not sure." He didn't want her to push. The poem was a dead horse. He had wrung everything out of it he could and still wasn't sure why Red John had quoted it. He was surprised when she let it go and raised his eyes to peer at her. She was certainly being more accepting of what he said lately. While he regarded her, her expression transformed into a look of shock, her mouth frozen in an astounded "o". It so caught him off guard that he could only turn and watch her as she suddenly strode past him, her soft "Oh my god" wafting to him from over her shoulder. She was a full ten feet away when his body finally shifted into gear to follow. She made it to a bench and dropped onto it sideways, her back to him, and as he approached her, he heard her repeat the exclamation. When he sat, she turned, aligning her body alongside his. He shifted slightly until his knee almost touched hers, his right arm resting along the back of the bench.
"Lisbon?" Her agitation troubled him. He knew it wasn't from anger directed at him. When she looked at him, her eyes enlarged with bewilderment, he thought this was worse.
"Bertram," was the only word she got out for several seconds before she turned and looked out, unseeing, over the river, leaning toward it. He looked down at where her left hand rested on her thigh, fist tightly clenched, her thumb stroking back and forth along her crooked index finger. He needed to break her out of her tumbling thoughts and nearly touched her, wanting to give her a shake.
"What about Bertram, Teresa?" He hoped the combination of firm tone and use of her given name would rouse her out of herself. She turned to look at him, that awful bewildered stare still rounding her eyes.
"The night Madeleine—you helped—after everything." She closed her eyes and swallowed, calming herself. Good girl. Her gaze was clear when she looked out over the river again.
"We were standing outside, wrapping things up. Bertram was droning about the sad chapter . . . lamenting?" She looked at him as if wanting assurance that was the right word. But Jane hadn't been there, hadn't heard or seen. "It was like he suddenly cheered up and started talking about putting things behind us. I thought he was working out the spin for the press. He quoted from a Blake poem."
Jane's hand squeezed on the bench behind her. She had been that close. If she had known . . .
"Which poem?"
"I don't know." She shook her head impatiently, face turned toward the water again. "Like part of a lullaby. Something about a little heart waking and the dreadful night being over?" She looked back at him, desperate for him to know the answer.
"'And when thy little heart doth wake, then the dreadful night shall break.' "
She nodded, relieved. The implication bounced across her mind again, and she closed her eyes.
"How did you know it was Blake?"
She didn't answer for a moment, and he nearly put his hand on her opposite shoulder to jostle her, but she moaned out an answer.
"LaRoche."
"Teresa—" He wanted to close his eyes and drop his head into his hands in frustration. He just didn't have it in him to play twenty questions. Sensing his agitation, she squared her shoulders and tried to sit up straight, still unable to lean back into the bench.
"Bertram quoted the poem and walked away. I looked at LaRoche, and he told me he thought it was Blake. He had that creepy . . . knowing smile." She grimaced before closing her eyes and nearly moaning again. Another "Oh my god" escaped her lips, and Jane couldn't peel his eyes away from her.
A few seconds passed, and she opened her eyes, that empty stare directed out to the river again. Not empty, he noted. Thinking. Calculating. The movement of her hand on her thigh caught his peripheral, and he looked down. The fist had opened, tips of thumb and index finger just touching, remaining fingers unfurled against her leg, lightly tapping. He lifted his gaze back to her eyes to see them skimming back and forth across the water. He noticed her hand was moving now—a straight exact line back and forth across her thigh. In the absence of desk and bean bag weights, she was straightening, mentally cataloging. Without removing his right arm from the bench's back, he reached across with his left hand and wrapped it around hers, stilling her movements, holding her fingers loosely against her leg. Her eyes came immediately to his.
"I should've asked more questions." Her gaze was weighted with disappointment in herself, at what she saw as her inadequacy. He gave her time, knowing she needed to process everything that was moving through her mind.
"The vehicle at the university museum the night Montero died, Bertram and LaRoche knowing about Hightower's affair, the fingerprints . . ." Her mouth hung open and she worked her jaw twice. "Were they actually collected at the scene or were they inserted into evidence later? Were they ever even part of the evidence?"
She closed her eyes and groaned at her failure to investigate, to follow up. But beating herself up wasn't getting her anywhere, and leaving her to her own devices in coming up with a plan to make up for what she saw as her shortcomings was out of the question. If she had looked into any of that . . . for the first time he thought it may have actually been wrong to keep so much from her. Ignorance had left her unprotected, unknowing and unwarned.
"No. That is exactly what you should not have done." The force of his words jarred her. "He would have known. Red John's man would've felt you getting too close, prying into things he thought he'd resolved by framing Madeleine. She was only a convenient scapegoat, and look what they did to her. If they thought for one minute that you were actively looking . . ." His voice trailed off, unwilling to give words to his fears. She swallowed thickly, realizing what he wasn't saying.
"It could be anyone," she spoke to him in a pained whisper. "Bertram, LaRoche . . . the forensic tech at the scene, even Derrick in fingerprinting." She looked down at her lap and laughed, harsh and bitter. "You've got me sounding as paranoid as you are."
She closed her eyes and shook her head, the line between her eyebrows furrowing deeper.
"No . . . I didn't mean that. This . . . none of this is your fault."
She noticed for the first time his hand still curved around hers, resting on her thigh. She withdrew from him and shifted, pulling away from his nearness without actually moving down the bench. Her eyes lifted again and roamed, but he knew it wasn't the same listless movement or the data-sifting shift from earlier. She was subtly searching, scanning. Was anyone watching? Had anyone seen? No amount of paranoia was too paranoid.
She rubbed her palms up and down on her thighs and stood, walking to the water's edge to stand next to one of the large planters that dotted the walkway. Reaching into it, almost absentmindedly, she scooped up some of the landscape rocks that covered and held the potting soil in place and began throwing the small stones out with a backhanded toss one at a time, watching them hit the water. He let her exhaust her supply of pebbles then watched her rub her palms down her sides again before she turned and continued along the walkway. Three long strides caught him up to her.
"Is there anything else?" she asked without looking at him.
"That's all that's relevant." Good grief, did his voice just break?
"How about if you let me decide what's relevant?" she asked with a familiar note of snark.
He cleared his throat and rubbed his hand up and down his vest and rolled his head to the side, squinting as he looked away from her. "I have a gun."
She stopped dead in her tracks. "You what?"
He winced at her sharpness then walked a few steps past her before turning back to look at her directly, his arms flailing out from his sides as he responded.
"I have a gun, okay? You asked if there was anything else, and yes, yes, there is. I have a gun."
He let his arms drop dejectedly to his sides and watched her, waiting for her to say something. All she could do was stand and gape at him. He decided to take advantage at her apparent inability to form words to get in as many of his own as he could.
"Max Winters gave it to me. He identified with me. Or thought I identified with him. I don't know. Anyway, I kept it. In the attic. Under a loose floorboard." He finished lamely with, "It came in a lovely wooden gift box," before he ran out of steam.
"How quaint," she responded dryly, having found her voice. She looked out at the river and asked, "And just what were you planning to do with it?"
His eyes narrowed at her. Was she was laughing at him? She wasn't smiling, but he could hear it in her voice, plain as day and wondered if all of this wasn't unhinging her just a bit. After an instant's contemplation of the possibility of Lisbon having a mental breakdown, he realized her initial surprise hadn't been that he'd kept it from her but that he'd had a gun in his possession at all.
"I'm not exactly sure."
She did look at him then. His fingers clenched at his sides, and his eyes pleaded for her to believe. She shook her head impatiently, trying to shake off his intensity, play it down as if his telling her the truth on the matter were a given.
"Jane, you can't have a weapon." He tried to respond, but she continued. "Not without proper licensing and registration. And you should know how to use it to be certified with the bureau. I'll give Cho a call when we're through here—he'll have the application for license ready when you get back."
Now it was his turn to gape in disbelief.
"It may not be a bad idea for you to have some legitimate way to protect yourself," she continued in her light, matter-of-fact Mother Teresa voice. "That was never how you planned to—"
She stopped abruptly and clamped her lips together, sighing at him through her nose. They looked at one another uncomfortably for a moment. He really didn't want her to start. Not here. Not now. She looked out over the water again, squinting at the sun's glare on it. When she looked back at him, her eyes were clear and determined.
"You'll go back today and fill out the forms. Cho will expedite them. You still won't have a license to carry until at least next week." He put his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, rolling his tongue against the inside of his cheek. "Stop that. This doesn't make you Wyatt Earp. We'll eat lunch at Pete's tomorrow, around the corner from the shooting range. Do you think you can sneak the gun out of the CBI?"
He pulled his chin in and answered her, his voice sarcastically dripping with mock dubiousness.
"Well, I don't know Lisbon. I guess I could try." He dragged the last word out, and he knew if he'd been within reach she would've punched him.
"Just bring the gun with you. I'll keep it with me until you get your license. We'll practice every day, and I'll certify you next week when I get back."
He really didn't want to shoot the gun, but meeting Lisbon for lunch every day was too good to pass up. He opened his mouth to tease her about making an honest man of him when it suddenly hit him all at once—why they had met for lunch, what they'd been talking about, why she wanted him to learn to handle a weapon. There may not be many more chances like this. Chances for lunch and conversation and walks along the river.
He had seemed to go into some sort of daze, and she quickly moved to stand directly in front of him, two of her fingers on his forearm.
"Jane?"
His eyes moved to hers, and the lost look there made her chest tighten.
"Hey." Her hand slid down to grasp his. "It's all right. We're in this together . . . 'kay?"
He swallowed hard and his eyes searched hers. No judgment, no recrimination, no fear. How did she do that? He nodded, and she dropped his hand and stepped around him, taking a few more stones from the next planter and flipping them sideways into the water with her left hand as they walked. He followed her, catching up in a few steps. She stopped and turned squarely toward the river, pulling the next little rock from her right palm only to tap it against the two remaining stones there.
"Why did you keep all of this from me?" she asked quietly without looking at him.
"I told you. I wanted to—"
"Protect me. I know." She dropped the pebble back into her right palm then turned her hand to let all three stones drop into the water. "I don't buy that."
He opened his mouth to protest, but her next words stopped him.
"I think it's because you thought I'd beat you to him."
He watched her struggle against the quirk at the corner of her mouth, curving into the large dimple there. She was baiting him, and it actually made something in him physically hurt to realize that she, too, had comprehended that somehow time was shortening, that what drew near may be bringing about some kind of ending, impossible for her to contemplate in its uncertainty. She needed the banter, the bickering, the sarcasm. She needed them. So did he.
"Well, . . . " He looked away and rolled his head toward his right shoulder. "Let's not get ridiculous."
She swatted at him, and he feigned pain at the contact.
"Why do you always have to get so physical?" he whined at her, rubbing at the imaginary pain in his arm.
She turned to head back the way they had come, and he knew it was time to leave. They walked slowly, their steps and turns perfectly synced, unspeaking until they came to her car. She reached for the door and paused, her eyes fixed on her hand where it rested on the handle.
"We can't do this alone," she near whispered.
He looked over her head across the street. "I know," he sighed.
"It's too big, there's too much, and if one of us starts asking—"
"I know."
"We'll need help." She felt his nod and looked up at him. "Luckily, I know just the people."
He sighed again, but not in resignation. She knew he didn't like the idea of endangering anyone else. So far it was only her, and it was already almost too much for him.
"They'll want their part."
He folded his arms across his chest like a stubborn child, "It's nobody's—"
"Their part in helping you," she cut him off before he said something that would start another talk entirely.
He looked at her, hard, directly in the eyes. Choose your battles, she thought again. He must have read it or hoped he had, and she was glad that his gaze only softened without shifting away.
"And Jane?" she asked hopefully as she laid her hand lightly on his forearm and took the tiniest step toward him. He turned his head slightly and looked at her suspiciously. "Don't do anything until I get back? Don't try anything on your own? Please?"
He relaxed and slid one hand over hers where it still rested on his arm.
"Don't worry, Lisbon. I won't do anything stupid while you're gone."
"Well," she looked away and rolled her head toward her right shoulder. "Let's not get ridiculous."
She grinned up at him, pleased with herself for turning the tease back on him, and he laughed outright at her, fighting the urge to lean again. She gave his arm a final squeeze, and he opened her door and waited until she was all in before he shut it softly, latching it with a final push. She looked up at him through the window and smiled, and he gave a tiny wave as she pulled away and out of the parking lot.
He watched her car until it turned out of his line of sight three blocks down the street. Be careful, he found himself saying with his mind's voice. Be safe. She would have shrugged them off if he'd said the words aloud. Even so, he had to say them. He walked back to his Citreon and unlocked the driver's side door then laid his arm on the top of the car and rested his forehead against it, closing his eyes.
What were they getting into? What was he getting all of them into? Lisbon was right. They would all want their part. They would all count the cost, but not one of the three would turn back. Lisbon had already made the decision for herself. He remembered telling her once he would always save her. She had told him then, too, that she didn't need saving, that she knew the day she signed on with him it would end in disaster. He had asked her in a round-about way why she had signed on in the first place. She had given her pat answer about closing cases and catching bad guys, but when she had started to elaborate, to say for the first time that there might have been more to it, he had cut her off and never revisited the matter. He hoped now that whatever her reason had been, it would be enough. And he hoped he could keep that promise.
Seven years, going on eight, since he'd made the decision, since he'd known in his bones that he would find and kill the man who had butchered his wife and child. And suddenly, the time was close. He could feel that in his bones, too. He had waited, planned, schemed, lied, used, been willing to face prison, even death. He had been willing to pay, whatever the cost. He just never dreamed he would ever again have so much to lose.
END