Chapter 3: Scattering the Pieces
Lisbon
It was two weeks since the FBI took over the Blake Association investigation. The Red John operation was one week past. CBI internal affairs had interviewed everyone except Jane about Haffner's death. With the cell phone evidence, statements from Lisbon's team except Jane, who was taking time off from the CBI, and a surprisingly favorable report from the FBI on its involvement, La Rouche took the extraordinary step and ruled the shooting fully justified without interviewing Jane. He personally delivered the report to Lisbon, telling her he was completely confident of his conclusion. Off the record, La Rouche asked Lisbon to pass along his compliments to Jane on "finally getting the bastard."
Lisbon finished two meetings, first with the AG's aide and then with Abbott. The AG's aide had latched onto her with a death grip. Lisbon realized she apparently was his life raft in overseeing the CBI until a new director could be recruited and hired. She didn't mind the extra work too much. It allowed her to protect her team and keep the CBI functioning well enough so the daily work could continue. The delay in replacing Bertram dragged on with no end in sight.
After her hard-nosed bargaining with Abbott, Lisbon was surprised to find he valued her advice even more often than before. Of course, the BA list gave Abbott the chance to systematically go after the Blake leaders. Sometimes he concentrated on a particular law enforcement agency – a PD, an FBI office a CBI branch. Sometimes he did a blanket house-cleaning of all levels of law enforcement in a whole city or county. Lisbon gave him her frank opinions of the major players. Abbott didn't always agree with her perspective. But he never regretted asking. For her part, she was content to give him unvarnished advice since he had met – and was continuing to meet – his promises. He immediately had arranged a 24/7detail to protect Jane after Van Pelt pinpointed Jane's location. And he made a point of bluntly and publicly acknowledging that Lisbon's team had uncovered the Blake Association and gotten Red John. Abbott strongly countered any insinuations by the AG's and governor's offices that the Red John operation was compromised by Jane's involvement and personal interest. Lisbon got everything she sought from Abbott.
Lisbon sighed as she got back to her CBI office. It was already mid-afternoon and she hadn't even seen her team yet. She needn't have worried. Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt were about to leave to finish up the case. Cho quickly briefed her.
"Cho, you have a handle on this. Go ahead, use your judgment. I don't have a lot to add."
"Boss, there's something I've been meaning to mention."
"Yes?" Lisbon looked up from her desk.
"We got the DNA analysis Jane requested just before the Red John take down. What do you want me to do with it?"
She glanced at the report. "Haffner was not related to Stiles." Cho nodded. "But there is a relationship between sample X and Stiles." He nodded again. "Cho, Jane didn't tell me anything about this. Who's 'X'?"
Uncharacteristically, Cho cleared his throat. "Not sure."
Looking hard at him, "But you have a good idea, right?."
"Yeah," he said softly. She waited and he added, "I think 'X' might be Jane."
She closed her eyes. Remembering to breathe again, she licked her lips and finally said, "I was afraid you'd say that. I'll tell Jane the results, but I need to do it in person."
"Yeah." Cho turned to leave.
She stopped him. "Cho, thanks for heading up this case. I know I haven't contributed much. The AG's office and Abbott are sucking up a lot of my time."
"I know."
"I'll make sure you get credit, find a way to make it up to you."
"I know. Got it covered."
She smiled. "Well, my capable and reliable colleague, in that case I'm gonna leave early and drive to the coast and check in with Jane."
Faintly surprised, "He'll let you?"
"Yeah. He's texted a couple of times. I think he's working things out, and feeling a lot better."
Cho's lips quirked up the tiniest bit on the corners of his mouth – a veritable outburst of emotion for him. "Glad to hear it. Say 'hi' for us."
Jane
One week after Red John. Jane manipulated and savored and examined and wondered at that staggering thought.
A week.. He no longer burned with the need to avenge his family, or obsessed over how to find and kill a man he couldn't even identify. He stopped waking every morning aching at the loss of his family. That pain would never completely vanish, but the death of Red John at last placed the tragedy firmly in the past.
After ten years, death and revenge were no longer the center of his existence. Colors were somehow more vivid. Early morning walks in the forest and along the beach reacquainted him with the beauty all around him. Though his thoughts and emotions still churned with unresolved disappointments, a dawning urge strongly pulled him toward the future. For the first time in years, he admitted he wanted that future despite his past. He was willing to work for it with the same determination with which he had sought revenge. He couldn't wait to reconnect with Lisbon and try to work out a future together.
It had been a week. Jane had started sorting through what Barlow and Haffner said, trying to decide what to believe, trying to integrate the new information into his understanding of his own past. It wasn't pleasant. The serene, beautiful surroundings helped, however, by providing a counterpoint to the ugliness and pain.
It had been a week so he texted Lisbon a brief note. He wanted her to know he hadn't gone off the deep end. He reassured her he was staying put. He had no intention of vanishing as he suspected she feared. She texted him back, telling him she needed to talk with him in person. Warmth flooded through him. He missed her.
Jane had just returned from a walk along the beach. An explosion ripped his cabin apart. Fire destroyed anything the explosion left.
Abbott
Abbott was in LA overseeing a major dragnet of BA members. His agent on the Jane detail reached him at 5:21 p.m. The cabin Jane was staying in was leveled by an explosion, apparently triggered by the car's ignition. There was no sign of Jane. Abbott swore then, controlling his emotion, he called Lisbon. She was already on her way there.
Lisbon
The remaining hour of the drive was a nightmare. Somehow she arrived with no memory of getting there. She had taken Cho's call and said she would call in the evening when she got back. She muscled her way into the very private resort with her badge.
Light fading in early evening, Lisbon stood looking at the blackened skeleton of a building. Nothing inside the building or car could have survived. Numb, she received the FBI agent's courtesy briefing without comment. Abbott would competently manage the crime scene and secure whatever evidence was to be had. She walked completely around the building. Nothing stood out, there was nothing noteworthy. There was nothing she could do.
After an hour, she got into the SUV and blindly started driving back to Sacramento. Thirty minutes into the drive she pulled off at a rest stop and parked at the farthest corner for privacy. Car finally still, she gave way to wracking sobs, no longer able to set aside the impact of the explosion and Jane's death.
Lisbon shrieked and wrenched around as a hand touched her shoulder.
"Easy, easy, Lisbon" Jane said softly.
She gulped, hyperventilating, stunned and not altogether sure of reality.
"Shhh." He awkwardly hugged her with his good right hand from the second row seating. "It's all right. It's okay."
Gradually her sobs lessened, turned into hiccups, and then to ragged breathing. Shaky, "Jane, you're all right?"
"I'm fine."
"How, how–"
"Here. Let me get into the front seat." He pushed off the blanket that had hidden him, got out, opened the passenger door and slid in alongside her.
"I was walking on the beach when the explosion occurred."
She grabbed the water bottle left from the drive to the coast and took a big gulp. "Abbot's agent said your car exploded. I thought – I thought you–"
He hugged her across the console, interrupting the awful image playing in her mind. "No. This morning I gave my keys to one of the staff to have my car cleaned, detailed." He sighed. "He must have started the car and triggered the explosion."
Beginning to think again, "I had Abbott assign a security detail to you. That was supposed to keep you safe."
"There are too many people with an axe to grind where I'm concerned. I wish it would have been enough."
"You have no idea who?"
Grimly. "Not really. But there's a silver lining. No one–"
She finished, "–hunts a dead man. I know. So we need to keep you hidden, pretend the explosion was successful."
He sighed, tired of having a target on his back, tired of the violence. "Makes sense." Thinking out loud, "I could stay at my apartment."
"Too obvious," she objected. "And how could we get you food if no one is supposed to be living there? –Jane, how about my townhouse?"
He leaned back against the seat, thinking. "That has some advantages. Is it something you'll be...comfortable with if it drags on? We have no idea how long it could take for it to be safer."
She noticed he didn't say "safe." Are we ever going to be safe again? "Jane, let's start with that for now, unless you come up with a better idea. We can change later if necessary. C'mon. I need to get home." She looked more closely at him in the gloom of the parking lot. "You look like you could use some rest, too. You're still injured."
He relaxed, letting go of the day's events. "I'm okay, but you're right."
Lisbon's phone buzzed with an incoming call. "What do I tell the guys?"
Jane shrugged. "Level with them? I'm tired of secrets and misleading them."
Pleased, "Agreed. I'll have them meet at my place a while after we get there."
An hour later Lisbon pulled into her townhouse complex and parked in front of her door. It was a deep velvety new moon night. The few distant lights did little to dispel the darkness in front of her townhouse. Lisbon got out and opened the front door without turning on any lights. Jane quickly ducked inside. They turned on no lights till all the drapes were drawn.
Forty minutes later, Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt arrived, sober and depressed. Van Pelt's face was red, her eyes puffy.
"Everyone have a seat. Things are a lot better than they seem," Lisbon started. In response to their puzzled, hopeful looks she said quietly, "Jane wasn't in the explosion." She held a hand up, halting the questions. Jane walked in to the immense relief of his colleagues. Cho and Rigsby slapped him on the back. Van Pelt hugged him, backing off only when he winced in pain from the still-raw chest wound. Jane explained what happened while Lisbon made tea for him and coffee for the others.
Ever practical, Cho asked, "Now what?"
"Not sure. I need time to think. Right now I'm going to stay with Lisbon and pretend the explosion was successful."
"Funeral, the whole bit?" asked Rigsby.
Jane nodded. "Safest way to go."
"And the FBI?" asked Van Pelt.
Lisbon grimaced. "Abbott tried, but the security detail wasn't effective. I think we keep it among us five. Jane's best protection is everyone believing he's dead. Abbott is trying to clean up Blake. I don't know what we do about Red John friends. It could even be a Visualize member who blames Jane for killing Stiles in the Malibu explosion."
"Later," Jane interrupted firmly around a yawn.
~.~.~.~
Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt left, leaving the townhouse to Lisbon and Jane. Jane rolled his head, trying to work out some of the tension. It was almost eleven and they hadn't had dinner. Lisbon threw something together from prepared food in her freezer. Tired, they ate in silence, then relocated to the couch with tea and coffee. Lisbon sat down next to Jane.
Softly, "You okay?"
He leaned his head back, eyes closed. "Tired. Disappointed we have to deal with yet more threats. Just this morning I was thinking how great it would be to move forward, have a life."
She eyed him curiously, "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Isn't it about time?"
"I'd say so. Depends on what you want."
Jane took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I'd like to give us a chance, see where it goes, Teresa."
Eyes suddenly moist, she squeezed back, "I want to find out. You still have things to work through, though?"
"I have a lot to make sense of. Still, it feels better after just one week." He rolled his head, again trying to relieve the tension in his shoulders.
Lisbon got up and moved around behind the couch. She put her hands on his shoulders and rhythmically began to knead. "You don't mind?"
Melting into the blessed relief he sighed in pleasure, "Mind? Feels wonderful."
Her small, strong hands deftly found the knots, the hard areas of tension and worked them out. Head back, he relaxed against the couch nearly dozing. Hands tired, she finished. Pausing a moment, she dared to kiss him lightly on the head. His lips curled in a slight smile. He reached back to take her hand and drew her around the couch to sit beside him.
He leaned toward her and brushed his lips to hers. "I've wanted to do that...forever, I think."
She returned the kiss, "Me too. But, now?"
He drew a breath and let it out slowly. "No, not quite. I really have to sort a lot out. And, I want to be able to focus on us, not the latest threat. But, soon."
She said softly, "Do you know what you want now that there is an 'after'?"
He opened his eyes and caught her gaze. Seriously, "I don't know everything. I do know I want you, want to see where we end up. Teresa, I have no plans to go anywhere. Is that good enough...for the time being?"
She smiled at him, "For the time being."
They turned in. Jane would sleep in the guest bedroom upstairs. Lisbon vetoed the couch as too exposed. One nosy neighbor, one unexpected visitor would give him away if he slept on the couch. If he kept quiet, he would be well hidden at the townhouse. Her sheer curtains under the draw drapes made it impossible to see in from outside during the day. At night, they would have to be careful to close the drapes before turning on lights. She promised to buy food on the way home the next day.
Lisbon set Jane up with a towel and toothbrush. He had a set of clothes from the last time he had crashed at her apartment after she was marked by Red John with Brett Partridge's blood. For the first time she consciously realized he was wearing khaki shorts and a casual blue shirt and no shoes. She would have Cho retrieve some clothes from his apartment.
Tomorrow would be busy. After all, there were several thousand people who wanted Jane dead.