A/N This is my first ever The Mentalist story! I just rewatched everything and knew I had to get this story off my mind. First I really wanted to write something with Volker's revenge, but it turned into this instead.. I might still write one with Volker later.
Anyways, I really hope you like this one. I'm always nervous when I post new stories. And the next chapters will be longer if people find this interesting.
Chapter one
March, 27
His mind was clouded. All he could hear as he ran from his car was her gut-wrenching scream. When they first realized she was missing, the morning she failed to show up for work, he'd still had hope that when they found her she would be alive. Possibly in a bad shape, but nevertheless alive. Cho had described the scene as gruesome and advised Jane to stay home, but he just had to see it for himself. Images of his first wife's body flashed through his mind and he knew that just like he had avenged her death he would find the man who murdered Lisbon too.
He had failed them both. Lisbon went missing a week ago and even if he solved every case he just couldn't find out who took his wife. They only knew that whoever took her was a stranger to her, someone she might've met once or twice, but she wouldn't pay attention to. And after checking all the places she visited frequently they were none the wiser. He was a ghost that didn't want to Ben found. Not even Jane couldn't make that happen, just like it took him years to find Red John. Perhaps the grief made the possible impossible.
Coming to a full stop in front of the police tape he took a deep breath, closing his eyes, before ducking under it and cautiously walking up to his colleague.
"Is it really hers?" He asked, his voice trembling slightly.
The warehouse they were in looked even worse than Cho had described. He had mentioned the gruesome part, but that did nothing to prepare him for this sight. There was blood everywhere, splatter on the wall, puddles on the floor, mostly beneath a single chair where rope was still attached.
"We won't know until the lab's done with it," Cho answered, his voice withholding any kind of emotion, even if Jane knew inside the other man had a turmoil of feelings.
"Where's her body? If there's no body she might still be alive," he said, sounding just a little hopeful, even if he knew that the blood loss might have been enough to kill her.
"We followed these drag marks," he said and pointed to the floor where sure enough a trail of blood led to a single barrel.
Patrick Jane wasn't sure he wanted to look inside, another image flashing through his mind. This time of Lisbon's bloody and beaten body. He'd seen her banged up before, but nothing like this. On the edge of the barrel he could see dark strands of hair and Jane already felt like he was going to be sick.
"If she was put there, there's not much left of her," Cho told him as Jane looked inside.
"Is that..." he trailed off and sniffed the air over the barrel, grimacing slightly as the smell reached his nostrils.
"Sodium hydroxide? Yes it is. I imagine he wanted to get rid of the body, or most of it," he sighed and looked around what they could just assume was where she'd been tortured and then evatually murdered.
"It doesn't make any sense," Jane shook his head and scratched his growing beard. "Why leave all this blood here and then put her body in sodium hydroxide as if he doesn't want us to be able to identify her body."
A part of him just wanted to believe that Lisbon was alive and well. Perhaps not well by the looks of this crime scene, by the hair and blood belonging to her. Though he knew the coroner most likely would declare Teresa Lisbon dead and they would have to bury what was left of her body.
"Or he knew he'd left evidence on her body that could identify him," Cho suggested, quieter than before.
The suggestion took time to sink in and the ideas that came to mind were nothing Jane ever wanted to imagine. Putting a hand to his mouth, he ran outside, bending over and emptying his stomach of what little he had eaten that day. In fact, since Lisbon's sudden disappearance Jane had barely eaten at all, or slept.
In a way he wanted to punish himself for his failure to bring back the one thing he cared most about. Cho didn't make his presence known behind him, except for the vague sound of his shoes hitting the gravel.
"I'm sorry, Jane," he said, putting one hand on his shoulder in an attempt to soothe him.
But Jane didn't want that pity because it meant that Lisbon was truly dead, that Cho had given up the hope of her being alive. The first time his wife died he had been destroyed and put in a mental hospital and he didn't know if he could deal with another loss; he wasn't sure he could live with it.
"We can't know for certain that it's her," he told his colleague, though perhaps he was just trying to tell himself this.
"If the blood is hers, she lost a lot," Cho commented, and cocked his head to the side, studying his surroundings. "We also found a few strands of hair on the side of the barrel that could be hers which means that the body is hers too."
"What if someone placed it there so we'd think she was dead?" Jane suggested, again sounding hopeful. He needed that to be true, but he also knew that if it was, her whereabouts would be hard to find. This guy was good and knew enough to fool the FBI. Well, two can play that game.
"Why would anyone do that?" Cho's arms were crossed over his chest as he looked at the blonde.
Jane stood up abruptly. "Why would anyone kill another person?" He countered and started walking again, this time back toward his car. He had seen everything he needed to see and the crime scene would forever be etched to his memory.
Cho knew better than to follow him and could only watch as the other man drove away.
Jane had a mission. He didn't care if they declared his wife dead, all the evidence pointed to her being brutally killed, but he would not rest until he found her or her killer.
