Chapter 4: What Next?
Lisbon and Cho
Silence suited them en route to the airport. It was hours till her flight to Olympia, the airport serving Cannon Falls, and Cho suggested they have lunch. Even after two years, Lisbon badly missed her old team. Cho had been with her longest and his company at this moment was a gift. He again put his cell phone in the glove compartment. Lisbon buried hers in her carry-on.
They ordered. Cho leaned back in the booth, regarding her expressionlessly.
"Want to talk?"
Lisbon squelched the impulse to refuse. If ever she needed a sounding board, it was now. "I don't know what to think. Much less what to do."
"Fill me in?"
She nodded, took a sip of coffee, and began. "Abbott called at 4 yesterday. Said Jane would be in Austin and asked me to fly here."
"No details?"
"No. Today you left and Jane came in a few minutes later." Cho nodded, having delivered Jane. "We barely had time to say 'hi.'" She gritted her teeth. "I asked what was going on. So of course he says, 'Trust me.'"
"And?"
"Abbott came in. Listed a shit-load of potential charges against Jane, including murder. Twenty‑to‑life." She looked up grimly. "The FBI won't pursue it if Jane works for Abbott for five years under parole status. No tricks, no escaping, no screwing around or Abbott throws him in prison."
Evenly, "Makes sense for Abbott. Never work for Jane. And?"
"Jane pulled out handwritten note on a napkin. Claimed Abbott already agreed to his terms."
"Which are?"
"I have to work with him. And Jane's a free man, guarantee they won't press charges and no parole status. –Dammit, Cho, does everyone think I'm a pawn? First Abbott summons me. Then Jane assumes I'll drop everything to work with him in Austin. Damned obnoxious, presumptuous men!"
Ignoring her venting, "Any other terms?"
"Minor stuff. –Oh. Abbott says he has a team set. My services aren't needed." She huffed in irritation.
"So Abbott wants Jane completely under his control. No interference."
Lisbon took another sip of coffee. "He's more than welcome to that pleasure," she grumbled sourly.
"How can I help?"
"Help me think through what's going on."
"Start with Jane. What's he after?"
She said slowly, "Get back to the US without the law on his tail."
"Why?"
"Misses the US. Maybe wants to work with the FBI?"
"That make sense?"
Uncertainly, "Why take the risks if he didn't want it?"
"Since when does Jane love law enforcement?"
She said slowly, "Doesn't need law enforcement now that Red John's dead. He liked solving crimes, though."
"That enough?"
She shook her head slowly. "N-o-o. He wanted his freedom and maybe this was the easiest way."
Cho just looked at her.
She sighed. "Doesn't hold water. He'd see the FBI bureaucracy as irritating. He could come up with a dozen schemes."
Cho prodded, "What did Jane ask for?"
Eyes widening, "His freedom and ... working with me." She swallowed painfully. "He wants to get me into the FBI?" she said wonderingly.
Cho nodded. "What I think."
She gulped a mouthful of coffee to mask a surge of emotion. "He's risking 20-to-life to get me a job?!" she speculated, appalled but flattered, too.
"Jane'd figure he could game the situation."
She sat back. "Sounds right. What about the others? What's in it for Abbott?"
Cho looked even more serious. "Grapevine says he's being pressured by the brass."
"Why would they care about Jane?"
"Lisbon, the SCU took down Red John. Exposed Blake. Had a hundred percent close rate for a decade. I got asked about us at Quantico."
"Assume that's true. What's it mean for Jane?"
"It's good. Abbott has to make it work. –Unless he figures Jane might be Blake."
Suddenly remembering the meeting, "What about Fischer?"
Cho frowned. "My boss? She was there?"
"Yeah. Jane seemed to know her."
"Thought she just went undercover to fetch Jane. But if she was at the negotiations–"
"–she has a stake in him too."
Cho took a deep breath. "Fischer just got promoted. Sounds like she wants him for her team."
Lisbon's expression hardened. "What's she like?"
"Competent. Hard-working. Ambitious – really ambitious. Father was CIA. Feels she has something to prove."
Lisbon took a deep breath. "Abbott has to take on Jane to look good to his bosses. Fischer wants Jane for her career and has an even bigger stake in making it work. –Maybe there is no problem." Her stomach churned at the thought of Jane stuck in Austin for five years, living life as a parolee. And what is Fischer to him?
Cho gazed at her levelly. "Jane turned them down. He isn't capable of toeing the line, not that long."
"Has he been charged?"
"Don't think so."
"How can they hold him more than a few days?"
"Not sure, but they'll do it. Abbott's hard-nosed as they come."
Suddenly recalling something else, "What's a detention suite?"
"Solitary confinement."
She huffed, unhappy. "Cripes, Cho. What the hell has Jane gotten himself into?"
"Think he has a plan?"
"He thinks so."
"Why not let it play out for awhile?"
She closed her eyes, discouraged. "Don't have much choice, do I?"
"Lisbon, Jane is one of the most capable people I've met. Let's see what he does."
"You'll keep an eye out for him?"
Cho exhaled slowly, lips pressed in a thin line. "Much as I can. Don't have a lot of running room." Lisbon threw down a few bills and got up to leave. Cho stopped her.
"Boss – take this."
She eyed the burner cell phone Cho handed her. Crap. He's seriously worried about being under surveillance. Why would the FBI screw with its own agents? "I hate that you feel we need this, Kimball. But, thanks."
"My burner number's programmed in. Call after midnight if we need to talk."
They reached the airport shortly. Lisbon impulsively gave Cho a hug, surprising them both.
"No matter what, don't be a stranger, huh?" He nodded and was gone. Lisbon waited for her flight, thoughts and emotions in chaos.
Lisbon, Cannon Falls, Washington
Lisbon pulled into her driveway and parked after the two-hour drive from the airport. The day was cool with drizzle wrapping the land in soggy gray cotton as twilight yielded to night. The four hour flight had been a trial. She did everything possible to stop thinking, stop feeling. Talking with Cho had tempered her alarm and disappointment, and she held fast to that.
Lisbon closed the door, dropped her carry-on, and tossed her keys on the kitchen counter. Home sweet home. She pulled cheese and an apple out of the fridge and cut them up for a snack. She added a soda and set the tray down in the study. With a frown she returned to the kitchen. Didn't check for messages all day. She stiffened at the message from her station officer Henry, then tossed the phone aside with a derisive snort after reading the simple "Good nite, Hope Ur back 2morrow, Chief."
She lit the fireplace to drive out the dampness and settled on the couch. It was a favorite place. Many a night had been spent warmed by the fire, a glass of wine, and a letter from Jane. Her breath caught. Jane! Not just a dream or hope, he's back in the US for good. Goosebumps washed over her with a shiver at the memory of his hug. He'd smelled vaguely of ocean and sun, faintly of sweat, and overwhelmingly of Jane - her past, present and future all rolled into one. She closed her eyes, hugging herself, hands wiping away the goosebumps covering her arms. Her skin tingled at the remembered embrace – a memory hours, not years, old. She let herself bask in knowing the man who had been at her side for a decade had come back and come back at least partly for her. She dashed away tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes. She had lived an eternity under the threat of Red John, the likelihood Jane would die at his hand or spend life in prison. Jane was here. He was vibrantly alive. And he could wipe the legal slate clean for the asking. His current problems were minor by comparison.
Lisbon drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, able to think now instead of just feel, to get past the jumble of happiness, disappointment, frustration, optimism, concern, and curiosity. Jane will come out on top. Maybe it'll be hard, but it's not impossible. Killing Red John. Exposing Blake. Keeping everyone alive. That was impossible. And we did it anyhow. She leaned forward to nibble on the food. The fire cast a warm yellow glow in keeping with her mood. Then she wrinkled her nose. Nope, 'warm glow' isn't Patrick Jane. She acknowledged the thrill of excitement, the feeling her life could get moving again after two years of suspended animation. The warm glow was a bubble in which she had survived on hope and letters. Today was the electric crackle of possibility, of change. Patrick Jane's arrival upended her life and she'd never felt more alive.
Her gaze slowly scanned this most favorite room. The team photo reminding her how much she'd lost. The box of letters that left her aching for more. The beauty of a room, a house she had made into home, that so bitterly contrasted with the rest of her life. She blinked. A house wasn't enough to sustain her for the next twenty years and there sure as hell wasn't anything – anyone - in Cannon Falls to live for. Stopping DUI's, catching bike thieves, managing traffic? I was a homicide detective for chrissakes! She had led a team hand-picked from the best of thousands in California law enforcement. In Cannon Falls she led a few dozen willing to keep the peace in a sleepy backwater. And dating? That's the biggest joke of all! Her tentative efforts only confirmed how pathetic the available men were compared to Patrick Jane. Nice, decent, stolid men like the one I ran from twenty years ago. Not one came close to the brilliant, mercurial, complex, superbly capable man she hungered for.
She stared at the team photo, at one man in that photo. Dammit. I've wanted Jane every moment of every day since he killed Red John. He fulfilled his vow. He didn't die. He isn't a million miles away in some godforsaken country. I will do whatever it takes to see where we go from here, to have him if he'll have me.
She cleared the dishes and empty soda can, made sure the fire was out, closed the glass fireplace shield, and turned in.
Lying in bed, every nerve arced with electric desire as she remembered Jane's smile, his voice and scent, how his body felt against hers. For the first time in two years she wasn't torturing herself with what might have been. She was embracing what could be.
