In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire in thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

A Fire's Burning

Since she was fifteen, Teresa Lisbon always wanted to be a police investigator. Before there were cop shows like CSI, Without a Trace and Criminal Minds, before there was the technology and the weapons that were used so frequently today. No matter what anyone said, her mind was set… but it hadn't always been her first choice. If you'd asked her the same question when she was eight or nine no doubt the answer would have been a writer or a fairy. In just a few years, all those dreams changed. If something hadn't happened to her older brother, or her father had left sooner, maybe her life would have taken a different path. She could be on the stage dancing, sat in a cosy room writing books; following the dreams she'd originally grown up having. Work at school and the few friends she had made each day worth waking up to but when it came to waving them off at the end of each day, she couldn't help the stab of jealousy, knowing they all could go home to their normal lives, normal routines, normal families…

One look at Josephine Odell brought all these memories back to her in one long film roll. The eyes which had seen too much, hands constantly fidgeting in fear and her face…Everything in the dark viewing room seemed to rotate, slowly at first, quickening the more Lisbon looked at the girl, taking in every inch of her.

Sitting at the table on the other side of the glass was the girl who had been in all the pictures back at the house but they could have been two completely different people. Now Lisbon saw that the pictures up the staircase had just been little charades, masks to cover up the life they were really leading.

"You gonna go in there?"

The voice startled Lisbon. She'd forgotten she was not alone in the darkness of the room having asked Rigsby to watch her as she questioned Josephine.

"That's my job, Rigsby. I don't want to keep her in there for too long so I'll try and keep it short." She made to leave the room but, remembering what Hightower had asked her, she held the door open so she could shout over her shoulder.

"Would you mind trying to contact Jane? Hightower's getting suspicious as to what he's up to."

Rigsby's phone was already in his hand and speed-dialling to Jane's number before she had finished. She liked it when her team were keen.

"You got it Boss."

"Make sure you tell him that I'm getting suspicious as well."

They exchanged a knowing smile before she closed the door and walked into the room next door, file tucked under her arm and an attempt at a friendly smile on her face.

"Hey Josephine, I'm Teresa Lisbon. I'm only going to ask you a few questions because I don't want to keep you here for too long and I know you must be tired."

The girl gave a small smile and Lisbon couldn't help feeling a sense of relief rush through her. Jane was much better at communicating with the younger adults than she was. Having only two nieces, both under 10, Lisbon had never really grasped talking to teenagers who hadn't take part in a serious offence or weren't witnesses to any crimes. This girl had, in truth, done nothing. She couldn't remember anything and it seemed that the impact of what had happened hadn't fully hit her yet. Hightower had explained that Josephine hadn't shed a single tear and Lisbon knew, especially in her position, what it felt like. The truth hadn't sunk in yet but when it did…

"Now," she sat down at the table and opened the file in front of her, pen in hand, conjuring up the right words to say. Her thoughts strayed to Jane and what he would do but she was brought back to earth with a bump when the girl lifted up her head and her hair fell away from her face. She was careful not to stare because she didn't want to offend the girl but she knew something must have shown in her eyes because the girl nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and bit her lip, worried. It seemed that the others hadn't done as good a job as Lisbon at hiding their surprise.

Dark bags hung under her tired, bloodshot, eyes, hidden by dirty blonde hair which looked as if it hadn't been brushed in weeks. She was wearing a long sleeved pink top; the sleeves of which were stretched tightly over her clenched fists, a muddy gillett jacket and battered jeans. From the neck up, her skin was bruised purple and scarred with deep red cuts. It was like looking at the result of someone who had just survived a horror movie.

As she twirled a piece of hair in her fingers, Lisbon could see that her nails were bitten down un- naturally low and one of them was bleeding, but it was seeing the girl shaking that had the biggest impact on Lisbon because she wasn't shaking from the cold or angry, no, she was scared. Even surrounded by police officers who were here to protect her she was scared, and it was seeing this that helped the words come to her.

"Josephine, I don't want you to be scared okay? We're here to try and help you as much as we can."

The girl continued to twist her hair in her fingers but she gave a slow nod.

"I want you tell me everything and anything you remember from yesterday, anything at all. Start with when you woke up in the morning. Whatever it is, it may not seem important to you but it might to us."

She watched as the girl lowered her hands and clasped them tightly together in her lap. She looked into Lisbon's eyes and gave her a small smile.

"Okay, but I really don't remember that much."

"Don't worry; just tell me everything you can." She returned a reassuring smile and put down her pen. She didn't want to seem to intimidating, just enough to make her feel safe.

"I woke up yesterday morning and did what I usually do. Shower, put on my clothes, have breakfast and then finished up any late homework I didn't do the night before. Then I said goodbye to my Mom and walked down the lane to wait for the bus."

Lisbon imagined Josephine walking silently down the path to her house, alone, head down and gaze unfocused. She didn't want to interrupt but she knew Hightower would be annoyed at her for not following procedure.

"Was your Father around at the time? Did you see him at all?"

The mention of her father caused a dramatic change. Every muscle in Josephine's body tensed as if she was preparing for a fight and she shook more than ever, eyes flashing red as she gazed at Lisbon and said, "He's not my father."

The words placed themselves on the table and seemed to shriek themselves at Lisbon. Josephine might have just shouted them. They seemed to echo around the room, trying to escape from the four walls surrounding them.

"He's my step-father." That explained a lot. She cleared her throat and the girl looked back down in her lap again.

"So anyway, as I was walking up the lane I looked over at the stables, where we keep our horses, and I saw smoke coming out of the roof of the barn. I, like, ran over and as I got nearer I noticed the fire."

It was silent for a moment as she fiddled with a hole in her patched up jeans. Lisbon could only watch as Josephine raised her head slowly and she was surprised to find there were tears in her eyes.

"The horses are some of the only friends I have; I couldn't just leave them there to die! I had…I had to try…"

She looked back and forth from Lisbon to the straight faced police officer standing at the door as if pleading them to understand the words she couldn't say. Lisbon understood.

"It wasn't your fault…"

"It was!" She slammed her fist on the table and Lisbon's pen rolled off the desk but she made no attempt to pick it up.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

"No, please," the girl sighed and she seemed to crumple under the guilt of what she'd just done.

"It just hasn't settled in yet, you know, everything that's happened. I feel like everything is my fault because if I hadn't gone over to the barn, I wouldn't have got hit on the head and then…maybe I could have stopped them getting to my Mum and-" she closed her eyes tightly and bit down on her lip so hard, Lisbon was worried she might draw blood.

"Maybe I could remember more…"

She wondered if the girl would mind coming home with her and staying at her house or if she would be scared and once again reveal the brewing anger she kept just beneath the surface. Either way, Lisbon felt she could take it because she knew what it felt like to be abused. It was something she wanted to leave behind forever and she didn't want to go into it here and now in front of the people she worked with because even they didn't know …although she figured Jane knew something or had taken a 'guess' at the very least. Nevertheless, this girl needed to go home at some point and bombarding her with questions she couldn't answer in a small room probably wasn't doing much to her temper.

"Okay," Lisbon kept her voice soft as she bend down to pick up her pen, "if that's all you can remember then we'll take you somewhere you can get some rest. I just have one more question for you, okay?"

Josephine nodded slowly, her gaze still fixed upon her shaking hands.

"If your step-father could go anywhere, to hide or stay, where do you think he would go? Do you have any relatives close by or does he have any friends at his work?"

"He has a lot of friends." The words were said in a monotonous voice yet there was a hint of a sneer in what she said. They meant a lot more than she was letting on but Lisbon didn't need to guess.

"If you can, I'd like you to write down the names and addresses of those people but the doctors at the hospital told me you suffered a mild concussion so you're memory might be a little hazy for a couple of days."

She placed a pen and paper in the centre of the table and closed the file in front of her, sitting up straight in her chair preparing to leave. She looked directly into Josephine's sea blue eyes and saw a million different questions screaming out at her.

'What if I can't remember?'

'What if the thing I need to remember is something I can't…'

'Why can't you help me remember?'

'I'm scared…can't you help me?'

"I know but thank you." She gave Lisbon a shy smile and pulled her sleeves over her hands.

"I'm feeling a little dizzy again. Is there somewhere I can lie down, please?"

"I'll just clear up my desk and take you to.." Saying 'my house' sounded a little too odd so she quickly changed tack. "..where you'll be staying. I won't be long."

They exchanged smiles, confirming that Josephine knew she was to stay here until she returned and then Lisbon hurried out of the room. Once she was in back in her office, she sank onto the sofa and put her head in her hands, taking long breaths. Although on the outside Josephine Odell seemed like a polite and brave grown up girl, the inside was a completely different story. Not only was she confused and scared but Lisbon was worried about how she would cope when the after shock finally hit her.

She stood up and began rifling through the mountain of paperwork on her desk, groaning inwardly at the sight of it, and finally found her cell phone. She flipped it open and speed-dialled the first person on her list, not caring that she had already asked Rigsby to call him. There was only one person she needed to talk to right now and, having not been in for almost four days, she was beginning to miss having somebody who could put a smile on her face.

Patrick Jane could do just that.


He leaned forward and stared hard at the TV. He was on the news! Could you believe it, the fucking news! He looked at his watch and rubbed his smooth jaw. It was only 11.03am. Maybe not the top story but still, he was on there. He'd have to put a stop to that…or would he?

He sipped his green tea and reached across the table for the remote, ramming the volume up a couple of notches so the orange presenter seemed to be shouting the words at him out of his perfectly white-toothed mouth. How many people would be watching this tanned prick? Hundreds of thousands? Definitely. Much more than that, he shouldn't be modest. Millions! People were sitting in their offices, at home, in hospitals, wherever they could get goddamn signal, watching this channel about his murder. They didn't deserve to because they didn't know how much effort he had put into it, how he had chosen them. No, they only had half the story, the half the newsreaders thought was right and it was always wrong. Still, he liked seeing his beautiful red smiley face blown up on full screen and the little picture of the person he'd killed before he made them someone special. To think, if he hadn't slit their throat, half of them would never have made it onto the television if not for him. They had him to thank for that.

He felt himself getting excited at just the thought of what he had done and he closed his eyes, trying to stifle the cough tickling the back of his throat. He always remembered a pretty face and his last one had been one of them. Every curve, every line, every misshapen freckle, he remembered it all as if they were on the floor in front of him right now. They were gifts to him and gifts to the media. If the papers and news broadcasters didn't have him to write about, what else would they have? Dull politicians, worthless celebrities? He had more talent in his fucking big toe than any of them had in their lifetimes . He played better games with the media and they loved to tag along. And of course, Patrick Jane liked to join in too.

It hadn't started like that. His first couple of treasures had been about him finding himself, working out what he did best and building around his strong points. He liked it when they struggled. It made it so much more fun with the adrenaline pumping through him, at the thought of being caught and taken away from all the fun and games. Patrick Jane had never been part of the plan until he walked out onto that stage and opened his big mouth.

"An ugly tormented little man" he had said. No sooner were the words out of his mouth, the rage had filled up inside him. All those people watching had heard him say that. About him! He couldn't have that. No pretty little bastard would ever, ever get away with saying that about him. He couldn't have himself being humiliated by someone and not get his own back.

So if he'd kept his mother fucking mouth shut, maybe his beautiful wife and child wouldn't have their throats slit. Just a little something he liked to remind himself once in a while. It never failed to make him smile. After all, she'd been the most interesting one to kill and the most fun.

The sweat began to gather on his forehead and on the back of his neck just at the thought of it. He licked his dry lips and his hand gripped the smooth leather on the chair's arm, twisting it in his clammy, shaking fingers. He wished they'd fight more like she did. Maybe if he attacked more beautiful woman with children it would be more exciting. He never understood why they always tried to protect the children.

The piece ended and the dramatic music crackled out of the dying speakers, cueing the commercial break. He stood and brought the empty tea cup over to the sink. He hummed the catchy music through his heavy breaths as he washed the saucer and cup and set them down to dry. Then he turned off the TV and reached for his little black book which sat in the middle of his desk.

It was nearly time. And Patrick Jane was so close.


Author's Note: After the few reviews I had for my last chapter I decided to stop writing this story, but the new series is back and it inspired me to start back up again!

I don't mind if I don't get any; I write for the pleasure of writing but I won't put it up if I don't think many people interested... ;D

~victwi