Missed Opportunity

Disclaimer: The plot's mine, just borrowing the rest.

A/N:- I set myself the challenge to write something light-hearted and fun for a change, sans Red John and all Jane and Lisbon's emotional baggage ….

When we're doin' the best we can
Even though we're walking a wire
Where there's hope there's desire …
Hall & Oates – Missed Opportunity


"Van Pelt and Rigsby are -"

"Don't go there," Lisbon interrupted, simultaneously running a brush through her hair and slipping her shoes on. The irony that he was choosing now to gossip about their colleagues' sex lives of all things didn't pass her by.

He gave her a lop-sided grin. "How did you know what I was going to say?"

"Any sentence which starts with those two names these days can't be good."

She picked up a cell phone from the bedside table, checking that it was hers and not his.

"What I was going to say was Van Pelt and Rigsby are on call on Saturday, aren't they?"

She glanced into the full length mirror as she straightened her clothes and looked at him in the reflection. Jane was still buttoning his shirt over his T-shirt. "Yes, why?"

"I want to take you out on a date."

Lisbon laughed and waited for the teasing grin to appear on his face. It was slightly disconcerting her to find he wasn't even smiling. "I'm not falling for that one."

"I'm serious," he frowned.

"You're delusional," she corrected, turning around so she could look at him directly. "Where's this coming from?"

Jane shrugged. "I think it's what we both want and we should stop dancing around it."

"Stop kidding yourself."

"Oh please Lisbon. I read people; that's what I'm good at, you know that. And I know you've thought about this."

Lisbon shook her head, refusing to let him get under her skin. "You're letting last night go to your head."

There was silence as she watched him unfasten and then tighten his belt buckle and do up the buttons on his waistcoat.

He met her gaze and she looked away. "You can deny it all you want but it won't make it any less true."

"Can we put this bizarre conversation on hold because we need to get to work?" Lisbon said, checking her watch.

"One dinner?" he prodded, walking round to her side of the bed to grab his phone, brushing past her as he went. He had a knack of invading her personal space just when she least wanted him to. "Agree to one dinner and then we can leave."

She gave him a look and pursed her lips together, annoyed that he decided to corner her by dropping this on her now. His timing was impeccable. She moved away and didn't say anything as her eyes did a last customary sweep of the hotel room before opening the door and walking out.

Jane strode after her. "One dinner. No strings," he repeated, fixing his gaze on her as he reached behind him to press the button for the elevator.

Lisbon stared straight ahead at the floor numbers, watching them light up one by one. The thought that he might actually be serious and not just winding her up started to scare her.

"No."

A chambermaid walked past and smiled at them cheerfully. Lisbon felt increasingly self-conscious and was glad that when the elevator came it was empty.

The doors had barely finished closing before Jane caught her off her guard and reached behind her and pulled out a strand of her hair trapped in her collar. His fingers lingered around her neck. She didn't want to but she felt herself leaning into his touch and she let her eyes close for just a moment. Then he leant down until his mouth was right next to her ear.

"I know you have feelings for me. Real feelings that go beyond what we spent last night doing," he whispered, his warm breath licking her neck.

She wanted to push him away but he had her trapped and the only thing she could do was make the elevator move faster by sheer will power. He dropped his hand to her lower back and she knew he was enjoying her discomfort entirely too much.

After what she was pretty sure was the longest elevator ride of her life, they finally reached the lobby and Lisbon walked away from him and waited by the door whilst Jane handed in their key cards and paid for their room.

She watched as a small smirk crossed the receptionist's lips. She had clearly drawn her own conclusions after seeing the wedding ring on Jane's finger and putting it together with the fact they checked in for just one night and had no baggage. Lisbon felt a flicker of annoyance at being judged and looked around. The hotel lobby was empty at this time of the day. There were a couple of other receptionists and hotel catering staff all busy with their work and the bell boy was standing there smiling at her politely, waiting to open the door.

Just as the receptionist was pulling up their bill, the manager came out of the back room to check things over. "I hope you enjoyed your stay, sir?" he said, addressing Jane.

Jane glanced over his shoulder and caught her eye. "Yes, it was very … satisfying," he replied with a grin. Lisbon squirmed and walked outside.

"Can I drive?" Jane asked as the valet handed him the car keys.

"Fine," she said with a sigh. She was willing to endure dangerous speeds as long as it meant they got back to CBI quicker and gave Jane something to focus on other than annoying her.

She walked to the car and reached for the door handle to the passenger side but before she could open it, Jane leant over her shoulder and held it shut.

"What are you doing?"

She turned around to find him standing really close and before she could react, he came even closer and pinned her against the car with his body. "Seriously, what are you doing?" A pyrotechnic display of warning flares were going off in her head.

He rested his hands on her hips lightly and slowly brought his head down. Her heart was racing and she found herself curiously torn between the impulse to run and letting this play out.

"I think the valet's watching us," he said under his breath, his lips centimetres away from hers.

She tried to glance over his shoulder but he was blocking her way. She had thought that the elevator had been some twisted form of torture but that had been nothing compared to this. She dropped her gaze to his chest to avoid eye contact and noticed that he had left a button undone on his waistcoat. Unable to help herself, she reached forward and fastened it distractedly; she could feel him smiling.

"I also think you should let me take you to dinner."

She looked back up at him and that's when she caught the glint in his eye. "The valet's not even there, is he?"

"I lied," he said. "I just wanted to see your reaction."

She pushed him off her but before she could let loose the stream of abuse that was building up inside of her, her phone started ringing.

She looked at the caller ID. It was Cho, probably wondering where they were. "Get in the car and drive," she hissed at Jane before answering the call.

"How did it go?" Cho asked as they walked into the bullpen.

"I was locked in a room for ten hours with Jane, how do you think it went?" Lisbon sighed.

"That's a long time. What did you do?"

"What do people usually do in hotel rooms?" Jane cut in, causing Rigsby to choke on his coffee. "Well, apart from that," he smirked, glancing at Lisbon amusedly. "We played cards, Lisbon got annoyed that I kept letting her win and then when I stopped letting her win, she got annoyed that I kept winning, then we tried watching television until Lisbon confiscated the remote because apparently searching for something good to watch is classed as channel hopping and then-"

"Are you quite done embellishing the truth?" Lisbon asked, irritated.

"Not really. I haven't got to the bit where -"

Cho cleared his throat. "Shall we run through what we've got on the case so far?"

Lisbon took a deep breath and was glad that Cho had stepped in. She had gotten very little sleep in the past twenty-four hours and Jane was pushing her closer and closer to the edge with every passing minute. "Yes. Van Pelt go ahead."

"Okay," Van Pelt said, walking towards the whiteboard. "Jack Morton was discovered in an alley two blocks from the hotel yesterday morning. We know that he had spent the Monday night in that hotel with his mistress, Louise Radcliffe, who told us that on Tuesday morning Morton had received a call demanding $5000 or his wife would learn of the affair, and a photo of the two of them was sent to his cell. Morton went to make the drop off and our best guess is he hung around to see who picked up the money and things got out of hand."

"You would've thought that after they killed someone, they would wait awhile before making their next mark wouldn't you?" Rigsby frowned.

"No, whoever's running this scheme is a professional," Jane answered confidently. "He's been doing it for a long time and he knows there's no evidence to point to him and there's hundreds of employees in that hotel."

"The only reason we think it's a hotel employee is because everyone else who might have wanted to blackmail or kill Morton had alibis and because you said so," Cho pointed out. "Who's to say it's not some rogue private detective hanging around the hotel, looking to make some easy money?"

Jane shook his head. "No, someone like that hanging around the hotel would have been noticed long ago. Think about it: where's a better place to pull a blackmail scheme like this than a hotel? It's easy to spot a cheating spouse a mile away, and the amount of money they're asking for means the victim's more likely to pay up than risk reporting it to the police and losing everything to his wife in the divorce. Trust me, someone at the hotel is behind all of this."

"Whilst you and Lisbon were in the hotel last night we combed through all the background records and personnel files and they're all mostly clean. A few have got a record for petty theft years ago but there's nothing to indicate extortion or murder."

"Well, hopefully I will be getting a call soon."

"Do you think they bought it?" Rigsby asked.

"Oh they bought it. I can be very convincing, just ask Lisbon…."

She shot him an annoyed look and as if on cue, Jane's cell phone started ringing and he put it on speaker.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello mister Williams," came the response. The perp was using a cheap voice distorter. "Put $5000 in a rucksack and leave it under the bench closest to the entrance of Sycamore Park at 7pm tonight."

"Who are you? Why would I give you the money?"

"In one minute you will receive a photo to your phone. If you don't pay up, your wife will also receive the same photo."

The call ended. "Well, that was blunt and to the point," Jane said lightly. His phone beeped again and they all looked at the photo: It was a screencap from the elevator.

"Wow, looks like you're really enjoying your neck massage there boss," Rigsby laughed. Lisbon scowled.

"Who do you think it is?" Cho said, trying to keep a straight face. "Someone in security since it's taken from the video feed?"

"Not necessarily," Lisbon said. "I had a look around and any of the employees could have access to the security room."

"My money is on the manager," Jane said. "Or someone else working the front desk."

"Maybe everyone in the hotel is in on the scam," Van Pelt said, flicking through photos of the hotel employees. "There's definitely got to be a couple of them working together."

"Probably but only one of them went to pick up the money and killed Morton," Lisbon said, getting up. "And once we get him, we'll get the rest of them. Search the database and see whether any similar schemes have been shut down in the state and cross reference the names of those involved. I'm going to go make preparations for the drop off."

She had nearly made it to her office before Jane jumped up from the couch and came after her.

"Honestly Lisbon, dinner's not that a big deal after the night we spent together."

"Please don't say it like that."

Jane grinned. "What? Did we or did we not spend the night together in the hotel room?"

He had done nothing except use this case as an excuse to toy with her and although she knew her constant state of irritation was adding fuel to the fire, her patience was just about all exhausted.

She opened her office door, stepped inside and closed and locked it shut before Jane could follow her inside.

"You know, I wasn't inferring anything. It was your mind that went to that place," he called from the other side.

She dropped into her chair with a groan. This was the last time she ever let anyone talk her into going undercover with Jane.

A/N:- This is going to be a two-parter so the second half will be up soon.