Disclaimer: I do not own any of these great Mentalist characters, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Lisbon's morning started as an unremarkable Thursday, pleasantly quiet, with no hint of what would unfold as the day wore on. A promising day for her to catch up on the mountains of paperwork that Jane so often chided her about. She checked for Jane in the attic when she came in to get some details he had about their last case - she would need them to complete a few of her forms. Everything seemed in order in his little outpost, except there was no Jane. She dialed his cell and got automatic voice mail. Lisbon shrugged and headed to her office. It wasn't like she had a shortage of other paperwork to do. It would wait.
She didn't think too much about it for at least a couple of hours. Jane might be out finding the right kind of pastries, or getting his oil changed. But when she looked up from her stack of forms a little before noon, Jane was still nowhere to be seen. She redialed his cell, but it went straight to voice mail again. She rose and walked out into the bullpen where Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt all sat at their respective desks, also laboring over reports.
"Hey, Jane still hasn't shown up? Anybody seen him this morning?" Lisbon asked.
They glanced around at each other. No, apparently not.
"Maybe he's getting his shoes repaired again," offered Van Pelt, smiling.
"He didn't say anything to any of you?" Lisbon confirmed. Shaking heads and shrugs were her answer.
"At least he's not making work for us," Rigsby grinned.
"You don't know that, " Lisbon warned.
Cho peered at his watch. "It's already lunch time." The small crease she saw in Cho's brow didn't do anything to quiet that nagging worry she felt. Still, she could hardly call out the cavalry because nobody had seen Patrick Jane for three hours.
"When he shows up, I want to see him!" she said a bit too loudly and stalked back into her office.
The team exchanged raised eyebrows. They knew the Boss was right, though. Something felt off.
Lisbon tried to concentrate on her paperwork but that gnawing feeling in her insides wasn't hunger. She should have watched him closer. She should have seen this coming. He'd been leaving from time to time for several weeks and she knew he was working on the Red John case by himself. She begged him to let her help, but he always gave her "that look."
Still, up to now, no matter how secretive he had been about his activities, he had always at least let her know he would be away, or answered when she checked on him. Until today. This morning was different. Jane hadn't made an entrance or an exit, and that wasn't normal. Lisbon closed the file on her desk, slammed a desk drawer closed decisively, and strode back out into the bullpen.
"Something's wrong," she stated simply. "We need to find Jane."
"I'll check the hospitals?" Van Pelt offered hesitantly.
"I'll check for arrests," Rigsby added. He shrugged half an apology but Lisbon nodded, reluctantly agreeing.
"APB on his car?" Cho asked.
Lisbon hesitated. If Jane came strolling in after a late lunch with a box of leftovers, she was going to feel very silly. She explored her team member's faces and saw the same concern she felt deep in her gut.
"Do it," she agreed. "I know some places Jane hangs out sometimes – I'll go check them out. Keep in touch." There was a park she knew of where Jane went on days when he was in a good mood. And there was Frank's Tavern, which he had been known to visit on a particularly bad day.
A couple of hours later they reconvened, and all of them had come up empty handed. Now she was absolutely certain something was wrong. Even when Jane had gone to Las Vegas for six months, he hadn't just vanished. She'd watched him leave. After that fiasco, she'd sworn she'd never worry about him again, she recalled with a mirthless laugh. It wasn't the first lie she'd ever told herself.
"When we find him, he's mine – and I may just shoot him," Lisbon said, aiming for gallows humor and missing. "Keep looking – keep checking - anywhere you think he could be," she urged her team. "I'm going to make some calls." She whirled and went back to her office, sinking heavily into her desk chair. How could he do this to her again, she thought angrily. She glared at her empty couch and fought back tears of frustration. Maybe he hadn't. Maybe that's what worried her most of all. She pulled herself together, picked up the phone, and started dialing.
Another hour of unproductive searching had passed when the mailman pecked on her office door. The perpetually cheerful man looked at her through his big black glasses and gestured toward an 8X10 envelope and his electronic signing machine. She motioned him in. It wasn't unusual for her to get One Day Air packages containing documents relating to cases, and the mail guy was nothing if not punctual – he always brought them by 4 pm.
"Here ya go, Agent Lisbon," he smiled. "You gotta sign for this one."
He placed it on the desk in front of her and she scribbled her name onto his device. "Thanks, Troy," she offered automatically as he exited her office. Her mind was still off wandering through places Jane might have gone. She glanced down at the envelope as she reached to put it in her inbox. The address was hand printed in ink and started out: Agent Teresa Lisbon, CBI, Head Manager, Redundancy Department, followed by the street address. What the hell?
And then she saw it – the return address: Patrick Jane, CBI Consultant. She had the envelope ripped open in an instant. It contained a handwritten letter and the "home" end of a locator transmitter in a plastic bag.
"Dear Teresa," the letter started. The fact that he used her first name filled her with dread – this could not be good.
"First, I'm sorry I couldn't include you in my plans this time, but we both know how that turned out with Sheriff Hardy – you simply don't have the patience for this sort of thing. And this way you won't be in any danger.
If Troy is on time, I should already have apprehended Red John by now, most likely at his house. Just in case I've been required to improvise and you haven't heard from me, you should be able to find me using the transmitter I swallowed in a rubber sleeve. That's harder than it looks, by the way. I know you will do what you must, and I accept that.
Please don't be angry with me.
All my love,
Patrick"
Oh my God, what had he done?, she thought, as she looked up to see who was still in the bullpen. "Van Pelt! Rigsby!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. They came dashing into her office. Lisbon stood at her desk, holding the bag with the transmitter at arms length in front of her.
"Find Jane!"
.
.
.
They'd been on the road less than five minutes when the first word came. Lisbon nearly jumped out of her skin when her phone buzzed the notification of a text. From her seat as shotgun beside Cho, she read it out loud to the team:
He's all yours, Lisbon. My work is done. PJ
"What does that mean, Boss?" Van Pelt asked. Although Jane may not have articulated his intentions to the team as succinctly as he had to Lisbon, they all knew him, and they certainly knew how he felt about Red John.
Lisbon didn't disguise the fear in her voice as she answered, "I don't know, Grace. I don't know." A grim silence fell over the group.
The second text came a couple of minutes later.
There's someone else here. Don't dawdle.
Lisbon wasn't sure which text scared her more. She was glad Cho was driving, and even he was going at a speed considerably faster than safe.
The early November darkness allowed them to get within a third of a mile of the isolated house. The one story stucco sat on about 35 brushy acres about an hour from Sacramento, and the listed owner was Al Scarlett. Travelling without lights, their SUV came to a halt and Lisbon and her team emerged, readying their vests and guns. Two additional vehicles pulled up behind them and cut their motors. They were in no hurry however, as Lisbon had insisted that their team be allowed to go in alone.
"Boss, do you think Jane...well..did something bad...to Red John?" Van Pelt ventured.
"I hope not, " Lisbon answered, shivering a bit as the desert air cooled quickly.
"Jane didn't send anything else after that last text," Cho said without emotion. "That's not good."
"Let's not assume anything, " Lisbon said, trying to keep her voice even.
"Yeah, everything may be just fine," Rigsby said, immediately embarrassed by the absurdity of his comment. "You sure about this, Boss?" he added. His eyes were clouded with genuine concern.
"Yes. I go first. When we get close, stay behind, out of sight, but watch and listen for my signal if we all need to go in."
She could sense their unspoken questions as to how much she would cover for Jane. She wasn't sure herself. But she knew if anybody could reason with him, it would be her. And who knew what she would actually find.
Lisbon moved silently toward the building, gun at the ready, with her team close behind her. She was silently thankful for the moonless night. She stopped about thirty yards from the house. There was some sort of activity going on in the lighted room – she could see it through the sheer curtains. They all peered in vain at the window, but they were too far away to see what was happening. She would have to get closer. A sudden movement at their feet make them all jump, and a lizard scurried off through the brush.
"Stay here. I'm going to go have a look," Lisbon whispered.
"Okay, Boss, " came the replies, and her team dropped to crouch in the murky darkness.
Lisbon crept slowly toward the corner of the house, far away from the window. Once she reached the stucco wall, she put her back against it and moved toward the light. She could hear soft classical piano music now, and the sound of a distressed female voice. As she inched closer to the window, she realized the voice was not live – it was recorded. TV maybe? she wondered. She was right beside the glass now, and her heart pounded wildly as she eased into a position at the edge of the frame so she could peek in through the gauzy curtains.
She inhaled sharply, nearly crying out at what she saw. Jane was sitting on a low stool with his back against the footboard of a tall brass bed. His arms were stretched out to each side, bound tightly to the metal railings, and a headband of duct tape secured his head, upright and unmoving, to the railing behind him.
There was something sticking into his left shoulder and much of the left side of his rumpled white shirt was dark with blood. The front of him was covered with vomit.
Lisbon forced herself to watch his chest carefully until she was absolutely sure it was rising and falling. She pulled up the cross of her necklace to her lips and kissed it. There was something weird about Jane's eyes, but it was difficult to see exactly what it was through the curtains. She squinted harder. It was duct tape that she saw, over and under Jane's eyes. She bit her lip hard when she figured it out. Jane's eyes had been taped open.
The sound of the recording was to her left, out of her line of view, but she could tell there was movement in that direction. She would have to move to another vantage point to get a different viewing angle. She dropped down and crawled under the window to the other side, and peered carefully into the other side of the room.
There stood Red John beside a small table, razor in hand, making motions with it in the air. An eerie, vacant smile was plastered over his face, and he was watching Jane intently. Beside him on the table sat a laptop, playing a video. That's where the screaming was coming from.
Lisbon could hear the woman's recorded voice now, though she couldn't make out the video image. "Please. Help me, somebody. Please, don't," the woman on the laptop pleaded. "Oh God, no!"
Suddenly, the truth hit Lisbon and she recoiled back from the window. She slid down the stucco wall into the dirt, shaking in horror. This...monster...he had recorded it. He'd recorded it all, and now he was making Jane watch his own wife's murder.
Not only that, but Red John was reliving every cut, his razor slicing through the air, conducting a twisted, evil symphony for Patrick Jane.