A/N: All characters, cases, and locations belong to Bruno Heller, CBS, and affiliates. Please review.
"Grace, I need you to look up a name for me?"
Grace looked up from her computer to see Jane peering intently at her from his couch. It had been five days since Christmas and though there were no current cases, they were all required to be present, scanning through cold cases and doing the necessary evil of paper work.
"Sure," she said, thankful for an excuse to stop doing the mountain of paperwork accumulated on her desk top. Jane, back in his usual three piece suit, came to stand behind her desk.
"The name is James Lisbon."
There was a silence that grew. "Leave it alone, man," Cho called over from his desk. "She'll call when she's ready."
Rigsby had frozen from his game of faux basketball with paper balls and a large trashcan he had stolen from Lisbon's office.
"Jane, I don't know about this…"
"It will be fine. I'm sure Lisbon is fine, but when she returns we want to be there for her, thus we need to know the basics about what's happened. So, if you would…"
He gestured to the monitor.
She sighed, but her fingers hit the keys accordingly. "James Marcus Lisbon, age forty six. Married to Elizabeth Warren. There's not much here. Only a case number for an evidence box. Number 8976223."
"Did he commit a crime?" Rigsby said, rolling his chair over quickly to look at the screen. "What'd ya thinks in the box?"
"Doesn't matter," Cho said, not looking up from his book.
Grace turned her face up to look at Jane who was intently reading the screen. His eyes paused on the numbers and he hesitated slightly.
"Find the box," Jane said softly. "Wait until everyone leaves tonight, then we'll go through it. Tell no one and make sure Minelli doesn't find out."
"Make sure Minelli doesn't find out what?"
The CBI boss stood at the opening of the room with his arms crossed against his chest. "Nothing," Jane said smoothly. "Just some party planning for dear Lisbon."
"Hm," he said with his eyes narrowed. "She just called."
"What?"
Jane perked to attention.
"What did she say?"
Minelli frowned slightly. "Not much. That she had taken care of whatever the hell it was and was going to be on the first flight home."
"That's it?"
A look of frustration crossed the boss' face. His brown eyes narrowed. "Yes, that's it, Jane! You don't think I tried for more than that? She practically hung up on me."
"How did she sound?" Jane moved forward, towards Minelli. "Angry or sad or frustrated?"
"Call her yourself, Jane," he said tiredly.
Jane frowned, but let the man walk away. He didn't turn around, but said, "Tonight."
*CBI*
"A disk? That's it? Serious?"
Rigsby tossed the disk on the table with a frown. "What about reports, photos, bloody clothes?"
The CBI office was dark and eerily quiet except for the Serious Crimes bull pen which was alight with curiosity and mystery.
Van Pelt grabbed the disk, plugging it into her computer. "We shouldn't be snooping anyway," Cho said stubbornly. "Whatever's going on it, it's the boss' business. She wouldn't want us invading her privacy without her permission."
"Meh," Jane said, examining the box. "This is the best way to help Lisbon. She'll thank us for it in the end."
"No she won't."
"Whose side are you on Cho?"
"Guys, there's a video on this disk," Grace interrupted, her mouse clicking to unlock the file.
The team quickly gathered around the monitor and the file opened to reveal one of the interrogation rooms.
Three boys sat across from the detectives. He wore a blue suit and had a clean shaven face. The woman was tall and muscular with close cropped hair. Her green eyes watched the three boys, ranging from ages thirteen to five with a slight sadness.
The more startling thing than their appearances were the bright and fading color bruises marring their skin in various places.
"What's going on?" Rigsby asked, only to be shushed by the three others.
"Can you tell me your names and your ages for the record, boys?" the man asked gently.
"James Lisbon. Thirteen."
The oldest boy was tall with darker blonde hair. He was tanned and wore a too big tee shirt over his jeans. He sat closest to the wall, not making eye contact with anyone.
"I'm Drew. I'm ten."
The middle boy seemed to be ten or eleven and had darker hair, brownish. He had freckles marking his cheeks. He sported a black eye that seemed a week old.
"I'm Tommy and I'm six years old," the youngest boy said proudly. The boy had hazel hair and clung to a dilapidated teddy bear that had obviously been sewn and resewn many times due to wear and tear. He had shadows of fading yellow bruising on his cheeks.
"Thank you. We've-"
"But you forgot Reese!" the youngest boy said, his face lighting up with a smile. "She's sixteen! That's really old. But she's little, so she doesn't look that old."
"Teresa's your older sister, right?" the woman asked.
"Yep! Where is Reese? Isn't she supposed to answer some questions too?"
"She's busy right now, Tommy, but I'm sure you'll be able to see her soon," the man said quickly. "Can you boys tell me what happened this morning around three AM?"
The three boys were silent before the middle boy spoke. "We were all sleeping upstairs when shouting woke us up. We were trying to go back to sl-leep…when…when there was this weird popping noise. Kinda like fireworks."
He swallowed and ringed his hands nervous in his lap, casting his eye down.
"It's okay, Andrew, there's not a wrong answer. Just tell me what happened."
"And…then James and I went downstairs to check on Reese…"
Tears welled up in the boy's eyes. "There was blood everywhere. All over the floor and all over Reese…"
"Do you remember where your father was while his happened?"
Andrew glanced towards the older brother and he finally looked towards his smaller brother. "I thought he had passed out after firing the gun. I had Drew call the police and told Tommy not to come out of the room. I didn't know he…"
The boy trailed off.
"What can you tell me about your father, boys? Don't be afraid to be honest. No one can hurt you here."
"Sometimes he makes Reese cry," Tommy said sadly.
"Tommy!" James hissed, suddenly looking very alarmed and threatening at his youngest brother. Moore leaned forward towards the youngest boy gently.
"Does that happen often, your dad making your sister cry?" he asked quietly, keeping eye contact with the boy.
He frown thoughtfully, keeping a tight hand on his teddy bear. "Reese never cries. Only sometimes. Then she goes into the bathroom and locks the door. She takes hours in the shower and when she comes back out, she doesn't cry anymore."
"TOMMY!"
Van Pelt jerked back from the screen and knelt down on the floor, making it to the trash can just in time to direct the food she had for lunch into the can. Rigsby knelt beside her, rubbing her back comfortingly.
All the implications were there, in Tommy's childlike ignorance. Jane looked furious, but didn't move from his seat. Cho kept swallowing thickly, trying to keep himself under control.
"Leave me alone, Jamie," the boy cried, tucking his chin towards his knee, curling up onto of himself. "I want to see Reese. Where's Reese?"
The young boy began to go further and further into hysterics. Agent Moore stood up finally and got the social worker and the woman detective to help Tommy outside.
His sighed and ran a hand over his face. When he turned back to two boys, they stared back quietly. For a moment no one spoke.
"How long has this been going on boys?"
Drew looked over to James who stared at the opposite wall without speaking. "Since mom died. Three years, almost four," he whispered, his voice cracking.
He looked the most like Lisbon with darker hazel hair and paler skin. He had a handful of freckles on each cheek, but not her green eyes. The twelve year old was tall for his age, but thin and lanky.
"Your mother died in a drunk driving accident? On January ninth almost four year previous, they were T-boned driving into your neighborhood. The accident report says your sister was in the passenger seat?" Moore looked up at the boys.
Van Pelt's hand flew to her mouth with a strangled gasp.
"Yeah, Reese and mom went to the store and we got the call in the morning. Mom was…they…think she died on impact. Reese got pinned under the dash and couldn't get out. It took them hours to…to drag her out. The man walked away without a scratch," Drew said.
His voice was monotone, only cracking with each new thought.
"How did your father handle that?" Moore probed gently.
Drew laughed bitterly.
"He was a fireman and didn't get home 'til the day after. He started to drink the night after the funeral…and didn't stop. He was fired a year later for trying to work drunk."
A flicker of confusion crossed Moore's face and he consulted his file. "But your family has a three bedroom house, how did you managed to keep paying rent if your father's been unemployed for three years?"
Drew frowned, confused. He turned to look at James who kept looking straight ahead. "I don't know. Reese always took care of everything."
"Why didn't you go to the police? They could—"
"We did," James interrupted savagely turning back to the conversation. "Teresa and I went after sixth months, but they said they couldn't do anything about it. They didn't believe our story, they said. They refused to help and now he's gone and shot himself and Reese!"
Drew cringed in his seat from his brother's outburst. "Don't say stuff like that, Jamie."
"Why not? I hope he rots in hell for what he did to her. To us." The teen crossed his arm and went back to staring at the wall.
"I…I should go and check on Tommy. You know what he's like without Reese." The younger boy got up from the table and exited through the glass doors.
"Now what?"
"What do you mean?"
"Now what? We're free of him. Now what?"
Moore smiled sadly at him. "You try to move on with your life. Try to forget it."
James laughed bitterly. "You saw what he did to Teresa. She's the worst of us. He always targeted her more than us. Think its cause she looks just like our mom. No matter how hard she tried, Reese couldn't always protect us. Even Tommy's got marks. We'll always have the scars. There's no way to forget them."
The video shut down and just the file box remained open. There was a long silence before anyone else spoke. The quiet was filled with the beating of hearts, the wind whistling against the outside window, and the hum of the running computer.
Cho was the one to break the silence.
"There's another video."
