Oh, yes, the damn disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have the LIsbon romance for real...meanwhile, I just "write, draw, create, dream, hope and believe in Bruno, waiting for him to be blessed bu the light of reason..." (No, this discalimer isn't mine, it belongs to one fo the girls who wite Mentalist fiction on the italian site efpfiction, but don't tell me many of you don't share this vision...).

Mega, super, ultra Author's note...: I have the evil that men do on hiatus since this summer,I'm well aware of that. And I'm terribly late with the translation of my fanfics from English into Italian (I still have to understand how is possible that I think and write in English, and I'm pretty unable to make my stories made sense into Italian. Mah.), and I'm even terribly late in writing Blackdragon, if you know what I'm talking about... but here I am, with a new multichapter. the rating is T for security measures, even if I'm not sure I'll ever need it, and, just for the record:

this is dedicated to the talented PetiteJ, nice writer and amazing artist of the mentalist, and mostly JISBON, universe. this story took life a while ago via MSN, we ended up discussing this possibility, and I ended up telling her "I think I'll write soemthing about it, you know?" and so, here we are!

PROLOGUE

Detective Anne Charlotte "AC" Donovan enters in her house on the sandy beach of Los Angeles, slamming the door against the wall, careless and quite furious, pinching the bridge of her nose once gotten rid of her omnipresent Persol sunglasses. She walks at closed eyes without bothering to turn the lights on, too tired for even doing so. Besides, there's the simple fact that she has spend the last 10 years or so in this place, whenever she wasn't busy with work or trying to live what she defines as a "sorry excuse of a life", and in the last 4 years she has practically been only at work or at home. She knows where everything is, she can find everything at closed eyes, and given her slightly O.C.D. about order and cleaning, she doesn't have to be worried about falling on something.

Besides, the only thing she wants to do right now is getting rid of the clothes that smell a bit too much like decaying cadavers. And maybe, after the last shower, calling a certain someone who had told her he was going to give her an hand, but apparently found something more… interesting to do then helping his best friend out.

"Sweet Lord, I've never asked Brian anything, and the only time I ask him to come over to take few clothes for me to bring over at work, does he bother to? No! Geez, that man is unbelievable, next time he dares to ask me something, I'll know how to answer!" Like her day hasn't been enough bad. The last four years have been heel, but today… she has never asked Brian anything, even if he has been the one telling he wanted to be there for her. Really, even in her darkest hour, she hasn't asked her almost best friend a single thing. Just today, a change of clothes, since hers smelt like the rotten bodies she has examinee during her shift at the LAPD Crime Lab.

But, after the first steps, she falls upon something on the pavement and, from the feeling of the material against her hand as she skims over it, she'd say it's her coffee table. She immediately understands something, everything, isn't how it is supposed to be; even at closed eyes, she knows someone has been there, and it's definitely not the person she has asked to go there.

Without even thinking, out of reflexes, she takes hold of her Glock, exploring carefully the whole place, without turning the lights on and regretting her comment about Brian, made aloud as soon as she has entered- a clear giveaway, if the intruder is still there, waiting for her to come back.

Someone has been there, someone has gone through her things, and this someone could still be there. There isn't a single thing in its place. Great, thieves, really what I needed to make this day better. Like going though rotting corpses hadn't been enough…

And here she thought that the neighborhood was secure. That had been the main reason her mother had brought that place, more than a decade before, and it had seemed that things were still like back then. The only thing Anne did, had been updating the security system, mostly for her personal security after a couple of guys she had sent behind bars swore vendetta against her… Guess the fancy new security system isn't so fancy at all…

But when she reaches her bedroom on the first floor, she realizes that she has been wrong, that everything she has believed in after she has entered in the house was wrong, because she sees a scene she isn't ready to witness, even with almost 9 years of duty…

The body isn't the first thing she sees as she opens the door, though. A red smiley face is, painted on the wall, and the smell and the color tell her it has been made in the blood of Brian Carlson, her best friend, who's on her bed, eyes open in terror, his neck cut, blood everywhere…

It's in that moment, as she escapes in the security of her bathroom, hands shaking as she tries to call 911, that Anne realizes that as much as she hated that place and what it meant with its memories, she'll never hate it as much as today….