Disclaimer: All characters and such belong to CBS. I own the new characters and the new plot.

Author's Note: Sorry this took so long!! I would have uploaded it even sooner, but I made myself wait until I could update all my stories at once. Thank you so much for reading!


Red Letter

The bodies had been removed from the house and the lab techs had finished photographing, printing, documenting, bagging, and tagging everything in the house. Lisbon had Cho and Van Pelt collect and document everything in the little girl's room. The crime lab techs were excellent at their jobs, but there was an unspoken agreement amongst the members of the CBI team that discovering the girl's identity and solving her imprisonment was too important a task to leave to anyone else.

Patrick Jane entered the living room where the rest of the CBI team was gathered to discuss their next move.

"At first, robbery seems to be the obvious motive," Teresa Lisbon was saying. "But the more time I spend here, the more I think it was an afterthought, if not a flimsy attempt at a cover up. Some of the most valuable paintings are still here, and there's something like $12,000 in Mr. Randall's sock drawer, of all places. Several expensive pieces of Mrs. Randall's jewelry are even still on her dresser."

Her coworkers nodded thoughtfully.

"We know that Mrs. Randall was lying when she told people that she insisted on doing all her own cleaning," she continued. "We should check to see if she was also lying about some of those volunteer hours. And if it turns out she wasn't volunteering when she said she was, we need to know what she was actually up to. She may have made some less than pleasant connections."

"What about Mr. Randall?" Cho asked.

"Go through his phone records, documents, voice mails, text messages, faxes, e-mails, letters, everything with a fine-tooth comb. A bad business deal, a jilted associate, who knows what could have resulted in someone being angry enough to kill him. Also, check out anyone who ever worked here for the couple. Maybe they had a gardener at one point. Anything that could help give us insight into these people would be a huge asset. And it just might help pin down motive."

Grace Van Pelt frowned. "Do we even know who the actual target was yet?"

Her boss shook her head and sighed. "No. All we have right now are theories."

"Such as?"

"Theory one: Mr. Randall was the target. Motive there would likely be business or finance related, but don't rule anything out. Theory two: Mrs. Randall was the target. Motive there is a bit trickier, I'm thinking related to one of the vices of bored, young, rich housewives: credit card debt or fraud, drugs, maybe a fling. We need to go over all her correspondences with equal attention. Theory number three: The couple was targeted, and the theft was either a crime of opportunity or the items were taken to make this look like a robbery. Motive…I'm not really sure. Like I said, be thorough. I don't care how unimportant a lead seems, follow it through to the end."

"Theory number four," Patrick Jane added, stepping to the front of the group. "The little girl was targeted."

Everyone looked at each other rather than Jane, uncertain due to the way he had obviously been seriously affected by her imprisonment and shooting.

"Why would someone want to kill her?" Cho finally ventured.

"Extortion gone wrong, attempted kidnap and ransom…not to mention, if you remember from your history books, that the servants hear everything."

"So she could have overheard something she shouldn't have?"

"Precisely."

"Focus on Mr. and Mrs. Randall separately first," Lisbon interjected. "Then we'll work our way down to the other two theorized targets. Jane, can I talk with you for a minute?"

He nodded, and they stepped off to the side as the rest of the team headed outside to get back in their vehicles to return to the office.

"I need to know if I can count on you to be objective on this case," she stated bluntly when everyone else was out of earshot. "What happened to that little girl is terrible, but if we want to help her, we're going to have to stay focused and do our jobs."

"By we you mean me."

"All right, yes. You need to stay focused and do your job."

"I'm sorry that I can't be as detached and emotionless as you, Lisbon."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Is this case even different to you? Does it really matter that it's a little girl, or is this just another case to solve to keep your quota up?"

"Jane, how can you even say that?!" Lisbon retorted angrily. "This is what I mean: you're letting this get to you."

He seemed about to throw back an equally testy reply when he paused and lowered his voice. "I'm sorry. You're right."

They looked at each other for a minute before Lisbon spoke again. "Your theory is valid, let's…let's just focus elsewhere for now, ok? She's in good hands."

He nodded, not convinced but wanting to stay on the case.

"I know you want to help her. So do I. What these people did her is horrific and immoral and just plain wrong. But now they're dead and it's our job to find out who did it, no matter how disgusted we might be with them."


Back at CBI headquarters, Cho began digging through Mr. Randall's life with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. The sheer amount of material was staggering: the man had multiple phones (cellular and otherwise), PDAs, e-mail addresses, not to mention a mountain of physical paper files. At the moment, he could only work with the immediately accessible data. The rest of the records would have to wait for a subpoena to come through, a process that was going to take Lisbon some time. Mr. Randall had some extremely high profile clients and associates.

Grace Van Pelt leaned over his desk. "Anything?"

"Not so far…for a wealthy businessman he seems to have kept his nose clean."

"That's weird."

"Tell me about it."

"I've got something," Rigsby called from his desk as he set his phone down.

His two coworkers looked up, eager for some kind of progress.

Rigsby flipped through a planner from the crime scene as well as his own notebook. "Ok, so Mrs. Randall has written in here seven times in the last two months when she supposedly was at that women's shelter. I just finished talking to the program director there, and the last time he remembers her actually being there was a little over three months ago."

"So what was she really doing all that time?"

"I'm looking, but there's nothing else she's written that gives me any clue. Nothing from her e-mails, either. I'm waiting on Lisbon for a subpoena for her phone records."

"Aren't we all," Cho murmured. "What about you Van Pelt? You come up with anything on past employees?"

She sighed in frustration. "Nope. I've been through all the financial documents we have on hand, and I've called every service agency in the county. No one has a record of any requests from the Randalls. Of course, to be certain, I'm going to need to have a look at the rest of their financials and bank statements and that's—"

"—going to take a subpoena," Cho and Rigsby finished for her.

"Exactly."

"What are Lisbon and Jane up to?"

"She called me a little while ago," Grace said, glancing at her watch. "She that they were going to interview some of the 'neighbors'." When she said the word 'neighbors', she made quotes in the air with her fingers. "If living a quarter of a mile away still qualifies you as a neighbor."


"Would you two like some tea?"

"No, thank you, Mrs. Galloway," Lisbon responded, taking a seat on the woman's overstuffed, expensive leather couch.

"Please, call me Charlene." The young woman bustled about with a white china teapot edged with gold leaf.

"I would love some tea Charlene," Patrick Jane said, flashing her his signature grin.

Lisbon gave him a look but he merely shrugged.

Charlene Galloway seemed genuinely pleased to fix him a cup. "There you are. It's so lovely to meet you, although it is under terrible circumstances. Those poor people, shot right in their own home."

"Did you know the Randalls well?"

"I suppose as well as anyone can around here. We can't exactly talk over the fence."

"Did you talk often?"

"I wouldn't say often, but with some frequency. Lydia and I were in much the same situation: probably too young to have married, with intensely driven workaholic husbands." She smiled over her own teacup as she brushed a long lock of chestnut hair off her shoulder. "That's not to say I begrudge Walter his business, and I'm certain Lydia didn't begrudge Edward his either. It takes work to live like this, and I greatly appreciate being able to stay home and raise my boys. But by the same token, I'm not quite either one of us was ready to be a full-time high-society wife."

"You didn't grow up with money?" Jane asked sipping lightly at his tea.

"Not nearly as much as Lydia," Charlene replied. "But at any rate, growing up privileged is quite different from being in charge of such a household. It takes an adjustment."

Lisbon nodded, not really agreeing but wanting to seem polite. "Out of curiosity, where are your boys?"

"Oh our nanny Rosie took them out for the day." She turned a picture frame around on the glass coffee table in front of them so that the two CBI affiliates could see it. "Charles is fourteen and Wesley is nine."

"They're very handsome young men."

"Thank you."

"You have a nanny?"

"Yes, she's wonderful. I don't know how parents raise children without one! Especially more than one boy! I had forgotten how much energy they have."

"Did the Randalls have household help?"

"Oh no, certainly not."

"Why not?"

"Lydia didn't think it was appropriate for someone her age to pawn off easy tasks like dusting on someone else, even for pay."

Lisbon watched Jane's fingers tighten around his teacup, but thankfully he said nothing.

"Really?"

"I know, it is a little ridiculous, isn't it? All that money, that big house, and she wouldn't hire anyone."

"Not even for the lawn?"

"Like I said, ridiculous. Although Edward did enjoy tinkering with the lawn equipment and greatly praised the virtues of a self-groomed lawn, I didn't think it was a good idea. I always told him that he needed to get someone else to do it because one of these days he was going injure those lovely hands of his that create such wonderful cars." She nodded knowingly.

Lisbon nodded again, not sure what else to do, and steered the questions back towards motive. "Did you know of anyone with a grudge against Mr. or Mrs. Randall, someone who might want to harm them?"

"Goodness sakes, no."

"Was Mr. Randall having trouble at work? Was he…pursuing a relationship outside of his marriage?"

Charlene feigned shock that they would even ask such a question. "No, and of course he wasn't! He was madly in love with Lydia!"

"Did Lydia feel the same way?"

"Of course she did! My goodness, how can you people even think that way?!"

"It's our job, ma'am," Teresa explained patiently. "We have to consider all possible motives if we want to find out who is responsible for their deaths."

Mrs. Galloway calmed down some. "I suppose that's true…"

"Was there anything," Lisbon pressed. "Anything that seemed off to you about them in the past few weeks?"

The other woman considered the question carefully, leaning back against the couch opposite them and bringing the teacup slowly to her lips.

"Well," she finally answered, slow and deliberate. "Lydia has seemed a bit unsettled lately, but all she would ever say when I asked her about was that she'd had a bad transaction and was trying to work it out. But she wouldn't give me details, so I have no idea what kind of transaction she meant. Also, I think I remember Edward saying at a dinner party a few weeks ago that one of his higher-ups was giving him grief about some little detail on the Panther X."

"Panther X?"

"Edward's newest car, the one he's working on right now."

Lisbon scribbled in her notebook. After a minute or so she stood and asked, "Is there anything else you can think of?"

"I don't think so…please promise me you'll figure out who did this awful thing to such wonderful people."

"We will do everything we can," Lisbon told her. "Thank you for your time and hospitality."

"Good tea," Jane added, leaving his cup on the coffee table.

They made their way back out to Lisbon's car. "What do you think?" she asked him, searching her pocket for her keys.

"She seemed to be telling the truth," he shrugged. "Besides, the wealthy are never even as close to their friends as the rest of us are to our enemies. I really don't think she knows much of anything about the Randalls."

Teresa nodded. "She did give us two interesting motives to pursue. Of course, they could turn out to be nothing, but it's nice to have something to work with until the subpoenas come through." Just as she found her keys, her cell phone rang. She fumbled for it, and managed to snatch it up on the third ring. "Hello?"

Patrick Jane watched her face as the person on the other end greeted her and began explaining something. Fear, replaced by surprise, replaced by a calm hope.

"Yes? Ok. Ok. Yes. That's good, that's…really good. Thank you for calling me. Yes. Thank you."

"Well?"

She gave him a small, encouraging smile. "That was the hospital. The little girl made it through surgery just fine and she's expected to make a full recovery. She's awake and the doctor said we can speak with her tomorrow morning."

He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. She's ok.


Author's note: I hope you enjoyed the update. Sorry it's so short, but hopefully I'll have a ton more plot development in the next chapter. Thanks for reading!