A/N: I'll be relieved when all my SSS stuff is posted. After this chapter, 4 to go. It's taken me over a month. Oops.

Thank you to: Viktorija, Frogster, anthropologist, Jisbon4ever, autumnftw, Ebony10 and Famous4it for reviewing part five and to Yana for betaing.

x tromana

Part Six

"We need to go talk to this Daniel Farrington again."

"Jane, it's old ground. He doesn't know anything and if he does, he's not telling."

"He annoyed you, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did."

Jane smirked and leaned back in his chair, satisfied with her response. She hadn't spoken much about her brothers - any of them - just yet. All he knew was that she was meant to meet Tommy for the first time in a decade within the next couple of days and that she was dreadfully nervous about it. She was definitely focusing on that more than the fact that one of her other brothers had died. However, that was hardly surprising. He'd seen her mourn the loss of Bosco, somebody she loved dearly but was only ever a friend. Still, it was probably better that she was holding up under the strain rather than breaking down every five seconds, a bit more productive, at any rate.

"I thought you came back to help out with the Morton case anyway?"

"Meh, Red John's not exactly making himself known, is he?" Jane stated surprisingly flippantly, given his personal interest in the case. "Besides, I'd have thought your priority would be finding whoever killed your brother."

"And the other two victims."

"Them too."

"My priority is both," Lisbon clarified. She was used to multitasking on cases and he seemed to have forgotten that. "And besides, the fact that Morton seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet is worrying me."

A sharp knock at the door was followed by Van Pelt shuffling inside the office. Clasped in her hand were some print outs, which she immediately handed over to Lisbon, who looked over them with interest. Van Pelt smiled briefly at Jane; though he could wind the hell out of anybody just by grinning at them, she liked having him back, working with them. He'd been working for the CBI for longer than she had, so, excepting the odd suspension and holiday, Jane had always been present. As far as she was concerned, he was part of the team and that meant the past couple of months were odd. Besides, it meant he couldn't do anything stupid again, such as breaking and entering, at least not without them knowing about it. They could keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't get into any more trouble.

"So Farrington's been siphoning off money from the accounts? To where?"

"That's the problem. The money just seems to disappear. I think it's either going to cash in hand transactions, or he's hiding it someplace else. It's large quantities of cash, after all. Why would he want to risk having that amount of money on him?"

"Nice work, Van Pelt. Go and keep digging. Check that it hasn't disappeared to any of his other accounts, especially his personal ones."

"Does this mean we can go and talk to him now?"

Lisbon let out a ragged sigh. The man was incorrigible.

"Yes, we can go see him."

Jane was already at her door as she reluctantly pushed herself to her feet. His enthusiasm was quite endearing, but she quickly dismissed it as his not having a chance to work his brand of magic on a murder suspect for a while. Obviously, he was determined to accompany them and she had no qualms about that. She just hoped that Jane would actually listen to her. That'd make for a nice change.

000

Jane was almost as stubborn about the protective vests as Rigsby was.

However, Lisbon, proud of her skills at persuasion, managed to get them both to wear one. Considering they were only going to question Farrington for a second time, having herself, Rigsby, Cho and Jane in attendance was a bit much, but she didn't care. Because of Van Pelt's discoveries, the man had suddenly shot up on their very brief list of suspects. Considering that all of Ellery's family looked clean, along with the O'Mara girl's, he and Stephen Bracey were the only ones left to suspect at the moment. Also, men who knew they were suspects were liable to react violently, especially if they were guilty, so the back up was a good idea.

Rigsby was meant to be going through the Red John files still, but she knew the break would do him good. Besides, Jane had told her that he had been going through them in his free time too, and quite uselessly; therefore, she wasn't too concerned about him spending an afternoon away from the office. She just hoped that Farrington would firstly, be compliant and secondly, not try to do anything ridiculously stupid.

The same applied to Jane. Despite the fact he actually agreed to wear the protective equipment, she still didn't trust him in the field, especially because he hadn't been working with them for a while. She knew that while he agreed to do things on her terms occasionally, they were usually the things that he wanted to do as well. If he had a better idea or a completely different plan, he was more than likely to completely disregard her instructions in favor of his own. It didn't matter that she had his - and everybody else's - safety in mind.

When they arrived, the building was eerily quiet, especially considering it was still well within working hours. It was almost as if everybody had, rather unusually, been given the day off for no apparent reason. Lisbon slipped out of the driver's seat, feeling rather disconcerted and Rigsby and Cho quickly followed suit. Jane, however, much to Lisbon's bemusement, stayed put. It seemed as though the unusual circumstances made him hesitate exiting the vehicle too. Quickly, Lisbon muttered that she would inform him when it was safe for him to join them, before moving to talk to her team. The sooner they found Farrington, the better.

The man didn't take long to make his presence known. As soon as he spotted the three agents, he dropped a suitcase, its contents spilling out onto the sidewalk. Deciding that leaving it there was the lesser of two of evils, he jumped over a fence with Rigsby and Lisbon hot on his heels. The moment Rigsby's feet hit the ground, however, a gun was fired, the bullet hitting him square in the chest. Suddenly, he felt very grateful for the invention of Kevlar as his boss managed to not only disarm Farrington, but floor and handcuff him. As she shoved the perp roughly in Cho's direction, she came to her subordinate's aid, the concern apparent on her face.

She hated seeing any of her team injured and always automatically blamed herself, regardless of whether or not she had actually been there.

000

Van Pelt hated being the one left alone in the office, especially when she found out that one of the others, this time Rigsby, had been hurt in the field. Especially as it was Rigsby; she was still overwhelmingly fond of him despite the fact they were meant to be nothing more than mere colleagues It meant she found it harder to concentrate, and was simply waiting for the phone to ring again for confirmation that everybody was okay. She knew that, technically speaking, it wasn't her place to worry, it was Lisbon's and Hightower's, but it wasn't exactly something she could turn off and push aside. Then again, she didn't know of anyone who actually could. Despite his excellent poker face, she was fairly certain that this kind of news would even shake up Cho.

She barely noticed the gentle ping of a window popping up at the bottom of the screen. In fact, she'd been staring into thin air for a good two minutes or so, not doing anything and trying to shut up the niggling thoughts in the back of her mind. Eventually, she did notice it though and opened it with a vague interest. Initially, she thought it was nothing important. Not until Simon Morton filled her screen with a bright smile which would have looked cheerful on anybody else. Considering who he was and what he'd done, he just looked creepy instead though, in her opinion. While she listened to what he had to say, she accidentally knocked over her coffee in her haste to get her cell phone. Lisbon needed to hurry up back and soon. She'd needed to hear this message and it wasn't exactly something Van Pelt felt comfortable telling her over the phone.

When she eventually arrived back, Van Pelt felt a horrible mixture of relief and apprehension. She didn't want to be the one to show her boss the video, but she didn't have much choice. It didn't help that the day had been stressful enough as it was; wasn't losing her brother and having a member of the team injured enough to be dealing with? Van Pelt shook her head - clearly fate thought otherwise and had decided that she was to be the bringer of bad news. Lisbon rushed through the facts quickly, that Cho had accompanied Farrington back to the headquarters, that they'd be doing the questioning, no doubt with a mixture of both help and hindrance from Jane. With a meaningful glance at Van Pelt, Lisbon also informed her Rigsby was going to be absolutely fine. He might have broken a rib and he was definitely bruised, but there was nothing that a little time and a few painkillers couldn't fix. Finally, she got around to the exact reason why Van Pelt had been so insistent about summoning them so quickly and the younger woman's discomfort returned ten-fold.

It wasn't until Lisbon was firmly seated that Van Pelt opened the window once more and pressed play on the video. She couldn't let her boss remain standing while Morton, via a recording, told them what he had to say.

"Hello Agent Lisbon.

I guess you're thinking that it's my dear colleague and friend who is responsible for your brother's death. Well, you think wrong. It's me. He just let me imitate his style, for a change. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and he is developing well, don't you think?

And this provides you with the evidence you need to get a conviction.

Question is, can you catch me before I catch you?"

TBC…