SteeleSimz and I would like to thank everyone for the alerts, favorites and reviews. This has been an awesome creative experience for us both so far, thanks a lot for taking an interest in our story!


1. I DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE

The argument could be heard throughout the entire floor. Jane and Lisbon exited the elevator; Jane's voice was loud yet controlled; Lisbon's was shrill and exasperated.

"I told you not to insult him," she snarled, making several heads turn her way as she walked towards her office. "But you just couldn't help it, could you?"

"The guy is an ass," Jane defended himself.

"Jane, in order to get a warrant we need a judge to sign off on it, so stop insulting them," Lisbon stated angrily as the two of them entered the office.

"He wasn't going to give us the warrant…" Jane began to say, but was interrupted.

"You don't know that," Lisbon hissed.

Jane rolled his eyes and headed towards her couch.

"Don't even think about it," she commanded. "You are going to go and try to fix this mess that you created."

"Or what?" Jane asked sarcastically. Lisbon glared at him from behind her desk.

"Just go," Lisbon said sternly. Jane shrugged and headed towards the door.

"You know, you should have paid better attention in those anger management classes," Jane quickly stated as he left the office just when the pen flew behind him.

"Jackass," Lisbon said quietly to herself, knowing he was heading either to his couch or his attic.

She was still sighing in frustration when her cell phone suddenly rang inside her pocket. She thought it could be Jane, trying to tell her once again how much of a jerk that judge was, as though she didn't know that or it justified his disrespectful behavior. The number on the display was, however, completely unknown to her. She answered the call.

"Lisbon."

"You are done," said slowly a weird, yet in some uncanny way, familiar voice.

"What?" was her retort. "Who's this? Jane, is that you? Are you trying to mess with me?"

"Who the hell is Jane?" the voice spoke, and the line went mute in the next moment.

Lisbon realized she was shaking; she quickly dialed a number from the landline, taking deep breaths to try to ease the hurried beating of her heart.

"Hey," she said, "this is Agent Lisbon from Serious Crimes. Can you trace a call that I've just received in my cell?"

She gave her colleague her number and, a few minutes later, he gave her an address. For some reason, she thought she had to go see what was there, so she picked up the car keys and left her office without a word to the rest of the team.

That voice was all she could think of as she headed down the highway towards her destination. If she could only remember where she had once heard it... The sound of a nearby car horn jerked her attention back to the road. Checking the G.P.S she knew she was getting closer to her exit.

"You have arrived at your destination," she listened as the female voice of the G.P.S. system informed her, sighing to herself as she pulled into the empty parking lot. The place seemed to be abandoned but, if her cop instinct had taught her anything, she wasn't about to get out of the car. Her cell phone rang suddenly, making her jump.

"Hello," Lisbon answered quietly.

"I'm not going to go and apologize to that judge, and you shouldn't either," Jane stated through the speaker. Lisbon rolled her eyes. The man could sometimes have the worst timing in the world.

"Jane, I'm not going to have this argument with you again. Get off your couch and apologize," Lisbon hissed, then hung up the phone.

Before she could hit the button, though, she heard his voice asking where she was. Maybe it would have been a good idea to let him know, just in case… But there would be no need, she told herself the next moment. She was scared, but there was no reason to; she was going to take a look at the place just to make sure and then she would be back to the office in no time. Turning off the engine to the SUV, she was about to exit the car when the phone rang again.

"Damn it Jane, I'm not kidding…," she began irritably.

"This isn't Jane," the familiar voice stated. "I see the cop in you hasn't learned over the years."

"Who is this?" she demanded.

"Exit the vehicle and head toward the rear door," the voice instructed.

"Not happening," Lisbon retorted.

"I recommend you exit the car this instant, Agent Lisbon, or else…" the voice threatened.

"Tell me who you are first," Lisbon interrupted, disregarding the demand.

"In the back of the vehicle there is a bomb," the voice stated. "It is located under the tarp. You've got about two minutes left before it explodes."

The line went completely silent, and as Lisbon put her phone away, she felt her whole body shaking. It was sheer panic that caused her to exit the vehicle and head toward its back. She opened the trunk; there in the cargo hold laid a green tarp. Holding her breath for a second, she slowly reached down and pulled the tarp up. The blinking L.E.D light was showing less than a minute left. Gasping at the sight of the bomb she forced her legs to move in a quick run away from the bomb.

She heard the blast before she felt the heat push her down to the ground. Covering her head from any debris that might fall towards her, she felt her arms hit the ground first, then the rest of her body. In a few seconds that felt like an eternity, it was over. The blast left a ringing in her ears as she slowly got to her feet again. Looking at the now burning pile of metal, she remembered where she had heard that voice before. But that wasn't possible; the voice belonged to someone who had been executed.


Fifteen minutes later, the fire department was close to putting out the fire when the team had arrived at the scene. Lisbon was sitting in the back of the ambulance when Jane came over to her.

"You okay?" Jane asked with concern.

"I'll be fine," Lisbon replied, but didn't meet his eyes. "Just a couple of cuts but nothing major."

"Boss, what happened?" Rigsby asked as the paramedic left Lisbon alone with the team.

"I got a tip on the case and left to check it out, but the car started having problems so I pulled over and then it exploded," Lisbon stated, hoping they would believe her.

"Lucky you weren't in it," Van Pelt replied.

"Anything we can do?" Cho asked, seeming emotionless, but Lisbon could sense his concern.

"Yeah, give me a ride back to the office," she replied as she got off the ambulance and started toward the cars.

"Let me do it," Jane offered.

"Hmm, I don't think so," she refused awkwardly before climbing into the car. "You need to go apologize to that judge."

Jane stood there watching as Cho drove off back towards the CBI. He knew Lisbon had lied to him about being okay, but why had she done it? She would normally play tough, but he sensed it was something different this time. Jane turned around and headed towards the charred pile of mess that now lay in the middle of the parking lot. He walked around the entire scene hoping that something would jump out at him.

"Who are you?" A voice asked from behind him.

"Patrick Jane, consultant with the CBI," he replied without looking away from the burnt pile.

"Can I help you with something?" the fire chief asked.

"What caused the fire?" Jane asked.

"A small bomb," the chief replied. Jane spun around and looked at him.

"A bomb?"

"Yes, according to the witness. She stated she found a bomb in the back of the cargo hold. We aren't sure what type at the moment," the chief answered.

"Thanks," Jane said absently. He headed back towards his car with only one thought in his head: Lisbon had not only lied about her being okay but she had also lied about the entire situation.

He drove back to the bureau, and, as soon as he got out of the elevator on the Serious Crimes floor, he headed directly to Lisbon's office. She wasn't there, though. He went into the bullpen and asked his team mates where she was, to which Cho answered that LaRoche had given Lisbon express orders to go home and rest after the accident.

That actually made Jane chuckle.

"And she left, just like that, without a fight?" he said, in protest.

"Did you expect her to stay?" Rigsby asked. "She was injured, nothing serious, but still."

"She left Cho in charge," Van Pelt stated in a defensive tone. "We're gonna find out who did this to her. Are you in?"

The truth was, however, that there were no clues left at the scene. Rigsby had gone back to the scene with a team of arson specialists, but nothing they could find gave any clues to who might have planted the bomb in Lisbon's car. Van Pelt had checked out surveillance videos from the areas near where the car had blown up, but none showed the incident or anybody near the scene, even hours before. She had also taken a look at the surveillance videos from the CBI's parking lot, while Cho had questioned every employee who could have seen anything, but all of those attempts also failed at raising any suspicions as to how a bomb could have appeared in Lisbon's trunk.

After a long day of basically just wasting time, Jane still couldn't forget the sensation that Lisbon was lying about something, if not about many things. He decided then that he would go see her and see if he could elicit the reason for that. He arrived at her apartment building at around 9PM, wondering if she was already asleep. That didn't matter, though, because, asleep or not, he was there to see her, so he rang the bell and waited for her to answer. After waiting for almost a minute, he rang the bell again. Another minute went by without an answer of any kind.

Jane decided to pick the lock, which he did with no difficulty. He entered the apartment and heard the sound of the television, which was very loud, but there was nobody watching it in the living room. That's when he noticed two chairs tumbled across the floor, her bookcase void of books, which pooled around it on the floor, and two lamps lying broken on their respective places.

"Lisbon!" he called, walking into the kitchen just to see that it was also empty. "Lisbon!"

There, he found the cabinets open wide, and their pans and plates and glasses on the sink top. As if somebody was looking for something, but was interrupted. Then, the perpetrator had maybe tried to escape and was tackled. After that there had been struggle in the living room, causing the mess he had just witnessed. Jane went up the stairs and checked in Lisbon's bedroom, in the spare room and in the bathroom. They seemed intact, and there was nobody there either. It had already been dark for a while, but all the windows were still open, not to mention the television speaking to no audience downstairs. And the unattended mess.

There was only one explanation; it seemed as if Lisbon had been taken.