Chapter 6
Two days later
"We got something, boss." said Cho at the open door to her office as he got off his cellphone.
Lisbon, who was standing by her desk going through the file on Jane's case with Rigsby turned to him.
"What?"
"The lab found a hair on Jane's suit that wasn't his. They tested it and it came back with a hit; Everett Clauson."
"Clauson?" frowned Lisbon. She turned to Van Pelt who was seated on the couch already typing furiously on her laptop.
"Everett Samuel Clauson, forty-four. Fired from his job as a Chemist a few years ago after assaulting two co-workers; spent a few months in prison."
Van Pelt's fingers flew across the keyboard.
"Boss, he was committed to Logan Psychiatric Hospital two years ago after he threatened to contaminate a water treatment plant…"
Lisbon shook her head. "So how could he be our perp?"
Van Pelt read her screen some more. "He escaped from the hospital ten months ago, killing a guard in the process."
"But how is he connected to Jane? Why would he abduct him?" asked Rigsby.
Van Pelt typed some more. "I don't see any obvious connection, let me check something else." A few minutes later she looked up at Lisbon. "Boss.."
"What is it?"
"His mother's name was Lydia Clauson. She married a Clay Milner when Everett was five years old; they divorced several years later. Lydia died in a car crash
3 years ago."
Milner, the name sounded familiar. Lisbon thought back to the year before; the team had been working an inside-trading case that had turned chaotic after
the ruse they used to trap the suspect resulted in him killing his own father, convinced the man had turned on him selling him out to the cops.
"Lucas Milner." Lisbon whispered.
"Clay Milner's younger son." said Van Pelt. "Everett Clauson's half-brother."
"How did we miss this?!" shouted Lisbon.
Weeks before, she had skimmed through Lucas Milner's file and had put it aside. There was no other living family listed and Lucas was in prison so she passed
him over as a viable suspect.
If only she had looked closer!
"He took Jane because of what we did to Lucas." She turned to Van Pelt.
"There's an address for a house; it was his mother's." said Van Pelt. "I forwarded the address to our phones."
Nothing else needed to be said. The team left the office, Cho already on the phone to the SWAT team.
xxxxx
The house was a non-descript home sitting a little back from the road at the end of the street.
Lisbon and her team silently followed the SWAT team and they surrounded the home. Within seconds they had busted inside shouting CBI! Police! There was
a noisy crash coming from one of the rooms on the first floor. Rigsby and Lisbon got to the room first to find Everett Clauson half off his bed reaching for
something in his nightstand drawer; a broken lamp lay by the side of the bed.
"Freeze, Clauson!" shouted Rigsby.
But Clauson had already gotten hold of the gun he had kept in the drawer and slowly rolled off the bed so he was facing them; the bed between them. He
kept the gun lowered in his hand and watched them, his eyes wide and bright.
"Drop the gun!" shouted Lisbon.
Clauson turned to her, his smile manic. "Agent Lisbon". he nodded.
Lisbon frowned slightly.
Then Clauson turned to Rigsby and his smile grew even wider, like a creepy joker face.
"Agent Rigsby. Hello Wayne, how's tricks?"
Lisbon glanced at Rigsby and saw the confusion she also felt wash over his face.
"Drop the gun, Clauson." warned Rigsby taking a step forward his aim never wavering.
Clauson looked down at the gun he was holding then at the agents.
"Tick tock." he smiled, winking. Then in one fluid movement he stuck the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
"No!" shouted Lisbon as the echo of the gunshot reverberated through the room.
Within seconds Cho, Van Pelt and some of the SWAT team were by the bedroom door their guns raised.
"Boss?" asked Cho, entering the room and seeing the stain of blood and brain matter on the far wall.
"We're..we're okay." Lisbon turned and pushed her way through the crowd of officers.
She felt sick to her stomach. She had wanted to interrogate Clauson.
One of the SWAT team members beckoned her to come with him. She called out to her team to follow and soon they found themselves in the back of the
kitchen facing a door with 6 heavy locks on it. A SWAT member well versed in locksmithing had been busy breaking through the locks and was on the last one
when they arrived. A minute later, they heard the last lock break and the door was slowly opened.
They all raised their guns and looked inside. There were steps leading down in the dark to some type of lower basement/cellar.
Lisbon took the lead and they turned on their flashlights and slowly made their way down the stairs to a small hallway with another door with two turn locks.
Once those were opened they made their way into the room. Cho felt for a light switch, found one and turned it on and their steps faltered at the scene
before them.
The smell was just a part of the horror in front of them. The room was small and smelled of urine and blood and other things they didn't even want to
consider. The walls were filthy, a bed lay in the center with blood and unknown stains on the thin mattress.
Blood-stained handcuffs lay open near the top and bottom of the bed. In a corner of the room lay chains attached to the ground, blood stains and what looked
like stale vomit surrounded them.
This was where he must have held Jane.
Lisbon shook her head in horror. This room...it was like some sort of sadistic piece of hell...and Jane was here for months. She turned and rushed out of the
room and up the steps and threw up in the kitchen sink. The rest of her team looked at her as she rushed past them, but they didn't follow her; they knew
exactly what she was feeling.
Cho walked past the bed and an overturned chair and bent to look at a group of photos strewn across the floor. He gathered them all in his hand scowling at
the stickiness of them; then called out to Rigsby and Van Pelt and told them to follow him. They went back upstairs and found Lisbon in the kitchen; she had
washed away the vomit in the sink and was splashing her face with cold water.
"Boss." said Cho and walked over to the counter and spread out the photos he found. He used his sleeve to wipe away the muck and dirt covering some of
them.
The photos Cho had found showed candid shots of the CBI team leaving their homes, buying coffee, leaving work. Lisbon sifted through the pictures, the few
near the bottom silenced the team. They were crime scene pictures of the murder of Jane's family.
"Boss, there are more pictures of me than anyone else." stated Rigsby nervously.
Lisbon nodded. "There's something going on here".
"Why would Clauson have these photos of us in there?" asked Van Pelt.
They all knew they'd have to wait until Jane woke up to find out.
TBC