Chapter Two: Red Rain
Disclaimer: The plot's mine, just borrowing the rest.
A/N:- Thank you for your reviews so far!
I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream
I cannot make a single sound as you scream
It can't be that cold, the ground is still warm to touch
This place is so quiet, sensing that storm
Red rain is coming down
Red rain
Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me …
Peter Gabriel – Red Rain
Six years ago when he stood at the top of his stairs reading the note taped to his bedroom door an icy coldness had gradually enveloped his body until he had felt that he was literally frozen with fear. In something akin to an out of body experience, it seemed like someone else, not him, had reached forward to open the door and forced him to cross the bridge from overwhelming dread to crumbling realisation. Seeing Lisbon's necklace had triggered the same reaction and he barely remembered getting into his car let alone driving full speed across town.
It was only when he stood on Lisbon's porch with her front door slightly ajar in front of him that everything started to come into focus and as his stomach churned and his heart thudded, he braced himself and gathered all his inner strength to push open the door.
The lounge was a mess. The settee had been shoved to the side, the television knocked off its stand, glass was smashed, chairs overturned. Jane stepped inside. Photo frames, books, papers were strewn all across the floor …… and there on the floor directly in front of him was a small pool of blood and on the wall above it, half a smiley face drawn in blood. He felt the bile rise and crouching over, he gagged.
Jane was still crouched over taking deep breaths when he heard a car pull up and Cho's voice calling him. He couldn't remember, but he must have called him sometime during the drive over. By the time his three colleagues had entered the house, Jane had managed to regain some sort of composure and watched silently as they took in the scene before them.
"Oh God." Cho said quietly and no one said anything as Van Pelt ran out and emptied her breakfast in next door's hedge.
Within fifteen minutes the local cops and forensics had arrived but Jane knew better than to hope that they would find anything of use. The blood was surely Lisbon's and even if Red John had left his DNA behind, it would be of little help. The four of them stood in Lisbon's living room silently helpless, each of them wishing they knew what to do next, hoping that the inhibiting shock would wear off soon and they would be roused into action by Lisbon's calm, authoritative voice.
"Why did he only draw half a face?" Van Pelt asked quietly, her face as pale as Lisbon's walls.
"Probably ran out of time, got interrupted." Cho answered brusquely.
"No, it means she's still alive. For now." Jane said. "With Lisbon, he'll want to have his fun with her first. He'll torture her, both physically and emotionally. It'll be slow and nasty." Jane said, recalling Hardy's words and trying to face up to the truth. The other three gaped at him, numbed at the fact he could say such horrible things so calmly.
"How did you know?" Van Pelt swallowed, like she was afraid that saying it aloud would make it all the more real. "How did you know that he had taken Lisbon?"
"He left this hanging on my mailbox." Jane said, showing them the necklace he still had clenched tightly in his fist. His hand was shaking but if the others noticed, they didn't say anything.
"It's evidence. You should give it to the techs."
Jane stared at her. He knew that when Van Pelt was in shock her one comfort was in the rules but she knew as well as he did that there were no prints or DNA on it except Lisbon's and even if there had been, they would have been wiped off long ago. Besides the thought of handing over the closest thing he had to Lisbon at the moment was more than he could bear. Clutching it tighter, he suddenly found the adrenaline rush he needed and walking down the hall he found what he knew he would find taped to Lisbon's bedroom door.
"Dear mister Jane,
You took something from me so now I am taking something from you. She'll suffer so much that you'll wish you had let him shoot her.
This is the endgame, mister Jane. Are you ready to play?"
He handed it wordlessly to Cho who read it out hurriedly to the rest of the team.
"They way he doesn't mention Hardy's name and the 'something' shows that he saw Hardy as an object, a possession, rather than someone he actually cared about."
"Maybe Red John did care about Hardy. I mean it's hard to not feel some sort of connection with your partner no matter how twisted they are." Van Pelt said.
"Unless of course you're a sociopath." Rigsby pointed out.
"He's not a sociopath." Jane said quietly. Normally he would have been the one to start the analysis but the words of the letter had been swimming round his head. She'll suffer. She'll suffer. She'll suffer. "He may not be broken up about Hardy's death but he understands feelings. He sees all this as a game and I am his opponent, just as obsessed with hunting him down as he is with avoiding capture. He's exploiting my weakness." How could he have been so blind not to see this coming? How had it never occurred to him that Red John might use Lisbon to make him suffer?! The others were looking at him questioningly and taking a deep breath he continued. "I didn't join the CBI for altruistic reasons. I wasn't there to make friends or to help the greater good by hunting down criminals; it was the only way I was going to get the information and resources I needed to hunt down Red John. After what he did to my family, I didn't expect to care about anything or anyone again. I didn't expect to care about the victims, you guys … Lisbon. Caring is my Achilles' heel and the one thing that distinguishes us, the one thing he can use to destroy me. And now he's exploiting my capacity to have those feelings and he wants to take away everything from me like he did last time." He paused. "'Endgame' suggests that this was part of his plan all along. It was always going to end this way. He'd done his research, knew Lisbon's routine, probably started planning this months ago."
"He had to have known about Hardy's death before it was on the news in order to get here and set up his plan." Cho pointed out.
"Yes, he was there, watching. He saw me shoot Hardy. He was probably hiding in the fields somewhere and then disappeared before the search teams could reach him. He hadn't planned to kidnap Lisbon last night but with the capture of Hardy we've moved his timeline forward. That's the only edge we've got on him." Jane was pacing now, managing to dredge up just enough hope to cover the despair. His motivation was contagious.
"We should start by going through the victim's .." Cho paused. He was having a hard time processing what had happened to their boss. "Lisbon's home."
"We don't need to do victimology, we know why he chose her." Rigsby said bluntly.
"But if he's been stalking her, been in the house maybe there's something."
"You really think Lisbon's going to want us going through her stuff?"
"I think she wants us to do whatever it takes to save her."
"Cho's right." Jane cut in. "But so are you Van Pelt. We shouldn't all invade Lisbon's privacy so I'll do it alone."
In a universal display of loyalty to their boss, they all looked like they wanted to object but couldn't; they knew he was the best at reading a crime scene.
Cho tore his eyes away from the blood red smile and reluctantly took the reins silently handed to him. "You two question the neighbours. Hopefully someone will have seen something last night." He instructed Rigsby and Van Pelt. "Minelli's in the office trying to keep this out of the news. I'll check in with him, put out a BOLO and reach out to other agencies. We're going to need all the help we can get."
With everyone else out of the house, Jane read the crime scene, replaying what had happened last night. Lisbon would have come home late last night, absolutely exhausted, probably still angry … what's the first thing she would do? Jane looked at the cabinet by the door and opening the drawer he found her gun, badge and car keys. Red John had been inside, waiting for her but she hadn't realised anything was wrong until she entered the living room and by that time it was too late. The fact that there were blood drops all over the carpet told him that he had stabbed her first, probably superficially, allowing her to fight back for awhile before he overpowered her and stabbed her again and again.
He looked at her bookshelf. It was in disarray at the moment but he knew Lisbon would have kept it meticulously ordered: the first two shelves were full of books, both fiction and non-fiction, alphabetised by author's name, then there was a small collection of CDs, including The Rolling Stones' entire back catalogue, and DVDs, most of which he guessed belonged to her nieces and nephews apart from the odd black and white old movie. Then there was a shelf that to anyone else would have seemed like a place simply to store random odd things but he knew it was something of a shrine to her work life …… It was full of presents from previous Christmases and her last birthday … the yoga mat, the voucher, a photo of the pony in her office ….. photos … Jane looked around and saw that amongst the stuff on the floor were several photo frames that had once sat up on the shelves or hung from the walls. He picked them up: all of them had the glass smashed and their photos removed.
Jane walked out of the house. "Have you spoken to her family?" He asked Cho.
"Minelli's notifying them now."
"I think we need to bring them under 24 hour protection to be safe."
Cho nodded. He didn't have to ask why.
Rigsby and Van Pelt walked up the path to join them, their faces white, unable to look at Jane as if they had personally failed him. The search had turned up nothing. One neighbour remembered seeing a dark van parked outside yesterday evening but couldn't give a license plate or a description of the driver. The CSIs were moving in and out of the house now and the locals were expanding their search parameter, more for procedure's sake than in hope of finding anything useful.
"So we have nothing." Jane said quietly. It didn't surprise him that they didn't have a single lead to go on but somewhere deep down he had been silently praying for a miracle. He crouched down and rested his head in his hands, trying to hold it together. Why was it that the one time he needed it the most, he was unable to figure out what their next move should be?!
"Jane, it's not your fault." Rigsby said, breaking the silence.
Jane stood up and turned to face him slowly. "Can you really look me in the eye and tell me that?"
"If Lisbon were here she would tell you the same thing."
He had touched a nerve and the others knew it. There was tension in the air and his colleagues looked like they were getting ready to duck for cover but the sad thing was the only person he wanted to punch at the moment was himself. He forced a hollow laugh at the hopelessness of the situation. Lisbon's words yesterday ran through his head louder than before. "I know you mean well Rigsby," he said, keeping his temper in check. "But I'm not one of your victims' families: you don't need to lie through your teeth to try and make me feel better because until Lisbon is standing here telling me to stop being stupid and childish herself, nothing you say is going to work."
