Disclaimer: I don't own the mentalist and make no money from this.

Author's Note: This is my first mentalist fanfic, hope you enjoy. Please read and review, good or bad I don't mind

"Right team," Jane heard Lisbon yelling from his couch, she was about to tell them there was a dead body somewhere and they should go and investigate, "we have a dead body in Capitol Park, let's go." Jane grinned as he sat up, he was too good at this.

They left and soon arrived at Capitol Park. The victim was a man in his 30s with dark hair and eyes, execution style murder. It was clearly a body dump from the awkward position he lay, Jane noted but he'd been put in plain view, like someone wanted him to be found. It was odd as Jane judged from the man's clothes he lived somewhere east of here probably in a small town as some form of labourer. Jane wondered why he had been in Sacramento.

"Clearly, a body dump, let's head back and try get an ID."

*****

"Got an ID on our Vic," Van Pelt informed them happily, her date with Rigsby must have gone well, Jane yawned bored, were people really this easy to read?

"His name's Richard Santos, 33 from Rancho Murieta. He's a builder who lives with his elder brother Robert Santos. The brother reported him missing yesterday after he failed to return home from Sacramento. He'd been visiting his girlfriend apparently, her name's Gloria Eastwood," Van Pelt was still grinning obviously pleased with herself, "also his car was just found dumped 3 miles from the park."

"Good work Van Pelt," Van Pelt's smile widened at the praise from her boss, "you and Rigsby can go and interview her. Cho you go look at the car." The team moved into action as Lisbon barked her commands. Jane felt a pang of jealously as he saw Van Pelt and Rigsby smile at each other, how he missed his family!

"Come on then Jane, hurry up!" he realized Lisbon was walking off without him and quickly caught up. They got to the car and after a few minutes of arguing over who was going to drive, Lisbon put her foot down saying she was the boss etc. etc.

Jane hadn't really been desperate to drive, he just thought it was fun to annoy Lisbon. She was still feeling slightly down because of not spending Christmas with her brothers or because she missed her parents or both, Jane wasn't entirely sure. She'd probably had to cancel her flight because of the bad weather. Jane was just guessing now and realised he was bored of staring at empty countryside.

"So... how was your holidays?" he asked, knowing it wouldn't provoke much of a response.

"Fine," Lisbon answered as bluntly as he expected. Jane pondered what to ask her, she really had had a crummy holiday he noticed. As he opened his mouth to talk she interrupted.

"Unless its about the case, shut up. I don't want to talk about the holidays. Clear?"

"Oh Lisbon," he laughed, "I was going to talk about the case."

"Jane, I know you can lie better than that,"

"I know I just didn't feel like it. Anyway I do actually have something to say about the case."

"Okay, what?"

"The body was dumped but it wasn't posed or hidden. It was like someone wanted us to find him but didn't want us to know they did,"

"Jane- hey look!" Jane looked and saw a blue van pulled over by the side of the road, beside it was a man waving his arms frantically at them. He looked funny, Jane thought, a big burly man looking so desperate for help. Lisbon pulled over and exited the car.

"Please help me, my van broke down and I left my cell phone at home. I can't call for help and I don't know exactly where I am," the man clearly looked relieved and nervous. But there was something odd about him, he was hiding something.

"Okay sure, you can use my cell," Lisbon said handing her phone over. Jane debated telling Lisbon something was off about him and decided he would. Before he could open his mouth the van doors burst open and out jumped a bunch of guys with machine guns. Crap!

Lisbon went to pull her gun but one of the guys hit her with his gun, Lisbon gasped and fell to the ground. The man kicked her hard while another grabbed her gun.

"Leave her alone!" Jane heard himself yell, surprised at how protective of her he felt. The man turned from her and punched Jane instead. Jane fell backwards from the force of the painful blow, the man punched Jane again, in the stomach this time and he fell winded. Gasping for breath Jane was aware someone grabbed his wrists and was tieing them tightly behind his back.

"Search them," someone said and the man behind him hauled him to his feet and frisked him for weapons. Finding none the man was content to take Jane's cell phone instead.

"Sleep tight psychic," someone else sneered. Before Jane could think of this something hit him in the back of the head and he passed out...