A/N: I was so gratified that I took so many of you by surprise with my reveal of Darcy. Now, I suppose I need to explain a few things…
Chapter 7: Conclusion (Yes, you read that right!)
Agent Susan Darcy reached over to Jane's ear and yanked out his earpiece, along with the attached microphone he hadn't bothered threading through his priest's cassock. He heard rather than saw her smash the expensive equipment beneath her sensible black pump.
"Lisbon's not going to like that," said Jane blandly, but his mind was racing. Susan Darcy. Last he'd heard, she'd suffered an emotional breakdown after she accidentally killed Luther Wainwright. He'd have to tread very carefully here.
"Of course, Lisbon would be aware of your current fraudulent scheme," said Darcy, annoyed. "Your loyal soldiers are at it once again, helping you perpetrate yet another fraud upon the government."
"Attempted murder sort of trumps fraud, don't you think?"
The gun pressed even harder into his neck. He'd angered her.
"No less than you deserve, Patrick."
Jane slowly waved his upraised hands. "You mind if I turn around and face my accuser," he asked calmly, already moving without her permission. She let him, backing up a step to accommodate his new position.
"Aw, that's better. Good to see you again, Susan. Too bad it's under such…unfortunate circumstances." He smiled wryly. "Black does suit you, though."
The gun, fitted with its silencer, was still trained at his head as Darcy stood before him, black veil pulled back onto her hat so he could clearly see her strained face. She was much changed from the beautiful woman he'd once known. It was like she'd aged ten years in six months.
"I'm afraid that famous Jane charm isn't going to work this time. I told you I was through playing with you. I hope I've made you feel the paranoia, wondering if you might be killed at any moment. The fear of having no control over your life, that you were totally at the mercy of a deranged killer. I bet that's how Luther Wainwright felt in his last moments with Red John," she finished softly, and Jane could tell she was remembering the horror she'd felt when she'd opened that limousine door to find that she'd killed the young leader of the Serious Crimes Unit.
"So that's it. You blame me for Luther's death. I'll share in some of the responsibility for that, I suppose. But Red John is the real villain here, not me. And certainly not you. You were a victim in this just as much as Luther."
Darcy's hand wavered a bit, but she seemed to be ignoring him. "You know how many of my bullets they pulled out of him? Five. He was just a kid, Jane, and your unwillingness to work with the FBI on this, your goddamn vigilante scheme is what led that bastard to put Luther in that limousine. So yeah, I blame you. I'm still not sure that you aren't working with Red John somehow."
Jane went on the defensive. "Red John killed my family, Susan. This feeling you have about Luther, the guilt that's been tearing you up inside for months—I've been going through that for ten years. You didn't need to torment me with attempted murder to make me feel any more paranoid or helpless than I already do every day. You've only made things worse for yourself, I'm afraid."
Darcy shook her head. He was getting to her. But she was on a mission here, and a good agent never gave up in the middle of a mission. She actually smiled now.
"I knew you weren't dead, by the way. After I pushed you over the railing."
Jane's eyes widened in genuine surprise. "You pushed me?" He shook his head, disappointed in his lack of perception. "I could have sworn it was a man."
Her smile only grew. "I can bench press more than most of the men in my unit," she said proudly. "Men tend to underestimate women. It works to our advantage."
"So, how did you know I wasn't at the bottom of Lake Tahoe?" Jane asked, curious in spite of the danger he was in. Also, if he kept her talking, maybe he'd get lucky and someone would come along and rescue him. Maybe Lisbon and the team would wonder why he wasn't talking to them through his microphone. He could hear the organist playing another hymn on the other side of the window, so his funeral was still in full swing.
"I know Lisbon-know her type, anyway," Darcy replied. "She wouldn't have called off the search so soon, wouldn't have thrown this hasty funeral until she had a body to bury. Besides, she's obviously in love with you, so that in itself wouldn't have allowed her to give up."
He didn't deny the logic of her reasoning.
"So I came to your funeral to see what was really going on, suspecting that this was just another scam, and I simply…observed. Oh, your colleagues are very good. They look suitably sullen and teary-eyed. And I'm sure no one else noticed how they occasionally glanced up at this window, despite their best efforts. When I saw Rigsby talking into his sleeve, I knew you must be around here somewhere. I was right; you didn't fool me this time."
"Congratulations," he said softly. "So, now what? Come to finish the job? You don't have to do this, you know. Leave now. Stop trying to kill me and I swear I won't tell anyone about our conversation. Go back to your very promising career and we'll never speak of this again."
She laughed without humor. "Career? What career? I shot a unit director from the CBI. I spent a month in a mental facility. No one in government or law enforcement will allow me to work in the field ever again. So I'm thinking, I don't have much to lose here. I'll simply shoot you and prevent you from ruining someone else's life—maybe even Lisbon's."
"Susan, think about-"
"And if I'm right about you," she interrupted, her finger moving to the trigger. "You are working for Red John anyway. Hell, maybe you are Red John. In that case, I'd be doing the world a favor too."
"Please," he began, and as he looked down the barrel of Agent Darcy's gun, his last thoughts were of Teresa, and the real funeral she would attend. But then the lights went off, and they were plunged into darkness. Jane dropped instinctively just before he heard a muffled bullet zing past him and into a wall somewhere behind him. Then he heard a click, a gasp, and a sickening gurgling sound.
Jane crawled to where he remembered there was a wingback chair, accidentally jabbing his face into its arm in the pitch-blackness before hiding behind it. Outside the window, the electric organ had stopped, and there was the distant murmur of a discombobulated crowd. The electricity must have been thrown for the entire church. He knew there were enough windows and candles in the church to give the chapel plenty of light, but upstairs, behind the dark red curtain, Jane could see nothing.
It was then that Jane sensed another presence in the study, but he was too frightened to say anything lest he give his location away. As his eyes adjusted, he strained to see into the darkness, and fancied he could just make out the shadowed outline of a figure, moving quickly about the room. He had the sickening feeling it wasn't Darcy. His instincts were confirmed when the voice from his every nightmare spoke his name.
"Patrick," said Red John. "I'm so relieved to know you aren't really dead."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the chapel, Father Brown finished his final words without benefit of a microphone, giving the closing benediction while Cho turned in his pew to look back at the place where the mystery woman had once sat. He reached over and gently touched Lisbon's hand, who seemed was lost in the priest's comforting prayer.
She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he tapped his earpiece and shook his head. She tried her own, but there was nothing coming through from Jane. The prayer ended, and the attendees rose to their feet, milling about in the dimness. A few came by to thank Lisbon, and to express their condolences over her loss. She smiled, but her eyes kept straying to the dark room above them.
A bad feeling swept over her, especially when Cho leaned down to whisper near her ear.
"Jane thought he spied a suspect. She was sitting in the back pew, but now she's gone."
"Did you recognize her?" she whispered back.
"No."
Lisbon caught the eyes of Rigsby and Van Pelt, inclining her head to indicate that they should follow Cho. She tried to work her way toward the back of the church, but she kept getting waylaid by Jane's old friends and colleagues.
As she accepted condolences from Bertram, then Alexa Shultz, her thoughts were with Jane. If she didn't hear from him in exactly one minute, she was going to fain overwhelming grief and flee the chapel.
"Are you all right, Agent Lisbon?" asked the kindly voice of Bret Stiles.
"Mr. Stiles," she said, "how good of you to come." She couldn't help the cynicism in her voice; Stiles always seemed to have some unfathomable ulterior motive. He took her cold hand in his dry, warm one.
"Patrick held a special place in my heart. I wouldn't have missed this." She looked up at the older man, put off as usual by the intensity of his blue eyes, how they seemed so full of secrets.
"I'm sure he would have been…surprised at your appearance."
Stiles smiled wryly. "Suspicious, you mean. I sense your skepticism, but let me assure you, I really did come here to pay my respects."
"Well, thank you then. Now, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Stiles…"
She tried to politely extricate herself, but as she moved to leave, Stiles firmly held her hand, forcing her to look back up at him in annoyance.
"Be careful of this game you're playing," he murmured. "Not everyone has my sense of humor."
She paled at his knowing gaze, but managed to pull her hand free, a new sense of urgency pushing her onward. Clearly, Stiles was giving her a warning.
"My condolences, Agent Lisbon," she heard Bret Stiles call after her, and then she was desperately moving through the crowd, ignoring the well-wishers as she made her way to the door to the vestibule.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Don't be frightened, Patrick," said Red John, in that oddly high-pitched voice of his. As always, Jane had the sense he was trying to mask his real one. "Why would I kill you after I just killed Agent Darcy to save you?"
Jane swallowed, his fears confirmed. "You didn't have to kill her," he said lamely. His voice didn't sound like his own, either, but he could barely hear it anyway over the pounding of his heart.
"It was either your life or hers; once again, I chose yours. I apologize for putting you in this predicament with her in the first place. I do feel partly responsible. But let this be a lesson to you, Patrick. Obsession with revenge only leads to death."
"Yes," said Jane bravely, "I'm hoping it will lead to yours one day."
The serial killer chuckled. "That may well be, Patrick. But not today."
Jane heard the sound of a hand on a doorknob.
"Wait!" Jane cried, rising to his feet. "I'd like to talk to you some more."
"I'm flattered, Patrick, but I do have to go. Oh…Lorelei was sorry she couldn't attend your funeral, but she's sort of on the lam these days. She was truly saddened by the news of your death."
"You have Lorelei?" he said in surprise.
"You thought she wouldn't come back to me? That your lies and manipulation would make her think the worst? When will you realize, my old friend, that the only way to true happiness is through me. Lorelei has learned this; perhaps someday, you too will see the light. Good-bye, Patrick. Until we meet again…"
"No!" Jane said, moving blindly around the chair and sprinting across the small space toward the door. Unfortunately, he tripped over what he sickly realized could only be poor Susan's dead body. He landed with a hmph of expelled air on the carpeted floor.
"I do like your ironic new vocation, by the way," said Red John from the doorway, no doubt referring to his priest's garb. "Right idea, wrong cause."
From his place on the floor, Jane could just see the outline of a tall, dark figure in the slightly lighter hallway, but then the door closed again with a click of finality. Jane stumbled to his feet, his hand finding the doorknob that Red John himself had just grasped. He turned it, but found it to be locked. He fumbled for the light switch, frustrated to find that of course, the electricity was still off. He felt the smooth surface of the doorknob and the casing around it, then remembered he'd noted earlier when Sister Agnes had let him in that there was only one way to access the lock—from the outside.
"Dammit!"
Red John was getting away.
He hastened to the window overlooking the chapel, careful to avoid Darcy. Drawing back the curtains, he pounded on the window with the palms of his hands.
"Lisbon!"
All eyes rose to see a priest in a black cassock, dark hair askew, yelling like a madman. A few found him to look vaguely familiar. A few more recognized him immediately. It would seem that Patrick Jane was not dead, after all.
"That son of a bitch!" said Bertram, heedless of their holy location. The CBI Director looked around for Lisbon and her team, but they had conveniently disappeared. Bertram sent his assistant, Drew Yost, to find out what was going on, and to determine why, exactly, Jane had chosen to embarrass him again so publicly.
Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt arrived at Father Brown's study just as Jane was yelling for Lisbon. They'd spent a few minutes looking for the woman Cho and Jane had seen, but she was nowhere to be found. In the dark hallway, Van Pelt shone a small flashlight she kept in her purse for just such emergencies.
"Jane!" said Cho. "You okay in there?"
"I'm locked in!" answered Jane frantically from the other side of the door. "Did you see anybody in the hallway?"
"What? No."
The trio heard a few choice profanities rarely spoken by Jane, then:
"Well, get me the hell out of here. Red John locked me in!"
The trio looked at one another in the dimness.
"Stand back," called Rigsby. On his second kick, the door swung violently into the room.
Van Pelt shone her flashlight on the face of a near-hysterical Jane, who brushed past them to run down the hall toward the back way he had come in earlier.
"He probably went this way," he called over his shoulder. The two men followed, but Van Pelt gasped as her light fell on the body of Susan Darcy.
"Oh, my God."
She rushed to the woman's side, horrified at the dark liquid pooling around her on the floor, some still seeping out of her neatly slit throat. She felt for a pulse, but there was none. The woman was already dead.
"Jane!"
Lisbon stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. Van Pelt pointed her light toward her team leader.
"No, Boss. It's just me. Jane and the guys went after Red John."
"Red John?" Lisbon replied in astonishment. She joined Van Pelt in the study.
"It's Darcy," said Van Pelt, directing the beam of light on the body again. "She's dead."
Somewhere, someone had found the church's old breaker box and switched the electricity back on. Lisbon and Van Pelt blinked in the sudden brightness, then the women gasped together as they saw the familiar gruesome smile upon the wall. No doubt now that Red John had been here.
Xxxxxxxxxxxx
Later, Jane and Lisbon sat on the front pew of St. Mark's Church, admiring the profusion of the plants and flowers surrounding the dais. On the floor beside him was a small arrangement of lilies. He read the card for the third time.
Say hello to Angie and Charlotte for me.
D.
"Danny," Jane said wistfully. "My brother-in-law. Guess he was afraid to come with all the legal types congregating." He was still wanted by the police after his last visit.
Lisbon reached for Jane's hand. "I'm sure he'll be glad you're not really dead."
He looked around the empty church. "Unlike the attendees of my most recent funeral," he said dryly.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
When Jane, Cho and Rigsby had exited the rear of the church earlier, they'd met a parking lot full of cars, but no sign of anyone departing. Everyone who had parked there had entered via the church's front doors, and were likely leaving the same way. The three of them went from car to car, peaking inside and underneath, but to no avail. Not surprisingly, the killer had disappeared without a trace. There would be no parking lot security cameras to access either—the church had none.
"Maybe we can pick up something from the surrounding area," said Rigsby optimistically.
"Maybe," said Jane, knowing in his gut just how unlikely that would be.
Drew Yost had met them in the priest's study, shaking his head in shock and disgust as he surveyed the crime scene.
"Did you do this?" he demanded of Jane as he looked down at the blood soaked carpet.
"No, you idiot. It was…Red…John." Jane halted when he saw the smiley face for the first time, and his heart seemed to stop as well. Red John had painted the macabre picture while Jane had been cowering behind a chair.
Lisbon came to him, taking both his hands. He was white as a sheet. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
"No." He looked down at Darcy's still form. "Susan was the one trying to kill me. She blamed me for Wainwright's death."
"What?" chorused the others in the room. Jane sighed, running his hands through his blond hair, having dispensed with the silly wig in the parking lot.
"You may as well call Bertram for this. I really don't want to explain myself twice."
Yost brought out his cell phone. "You're damn right I'm calling him. And why, may I ask, are you dressed like a priest?"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Now, sitting with Lisbon in the empty church, Jane at last allowed himself a sigh of relief.
The CSU had finished their job in Father Brown's study, and the body of Susan Darcy had been taken to the morgue. Bertram had been furious of course, along with Alexis Shultz and the rest of the FBI contingent. (Father Brown was none to happy either.) It would seem that it would be easier to believe what Jane had told them, rather than risk another drawn-out internal affairs investigation which would invariably lead them back to the same place: a cover-up to save face.
Without a mutually agreed upon story, the FBI would have to explain why one of their own, recently released from the psych ward, would have stalked and attempted to kill a valued consultant with the CBI. Jane also looked suspicious, since he was the only living witness to Red John's presence at all, but DNA and ballistics tests would certainly clear him, or at the very least, leave his involvement in the murder on the dubious side at best. Plus, there were witnesses to say the door to the priest's study was locked from the outside. It also didn't look good that a CBI employee (with the unsubstantiated help from the SCU team) had faked his own death, or that he'd impersonated a priest.
There was little doubt then, after Bertram and Shultz met that night, that the official word out of both bureaus would be that Jane and the team, in conjunction with the FBI, had tried to flush out Red John by faking his death after the serial killer had stepped up his pursuit of Jane. The end result, however, was the unfortunate death of one of the FBI's best agents (recently returned from personal leave). Darcy would be given an honorable burial, no one the wiser. Jane was fine with that—not that there had been any other choice.
"It was a nice funeral," Jane said to Lisbon. "Thank you. I had no idea so many people would come." He really was in awe of that aspect of the ruse.
Lisbon squeezed his hand. "Of course they would. You've helped a lot of people over the years."
"Angered just as many," Jane said, remembering again the aggrieved Agent Darcy. "Poor Susan. I completely understood what she was going through. If Red John hadn't have interfered, I might have been able to help her."
"She shot at you right before he killed her, though. I wouldn't have wished her dead, but I'm certainly glad she missed."
"Well, I'm doubtful that my next funeral will be as well attended. People will think I'm the consultant who cried wolf."
"Not many people get to see their own funerals, Jane. You could learn something from that. I hope it makes you feel better about yourself, lets you see what a truly amazing person you are, even though you do tend to annoy and bedevil at times…"
Jane grinned. "Oh, really?" He turned to her, allowing his love to show unabashedly in his eyes. "Do I annoy and bedevil you?"
She smiled back. "On a daily basis, but I wouldn't have you any other way." Her smiled dimmed suddenly, and she looked wistfully at the dais again.
"It was hard pretending, wasn't it?" he asked. "I'm sorry."
"It's not something I want go through again anytime soon."
"Me neither."
He found her mouth and kissed her, the emotional and physical upheaval of the day draining away as he found solace in her soft lips, her warm mouth.
Her hands went up to encircle his neck, but when she felt the strangeness of his Roman priest's collar, she pulled abruptly away, her eyes going uneasily to the statue of Jesus on the cross.
"This is wrong in so many ways," she said breathlessly against his chest. "I feel like I'm in a low-budget version of The Thorn Birds."
"Oh," he said with a laugh, touching the white tab at his throat. "Sorry to offend your Catholic sensibilities. Was there something you'd like to confess to me, my child?" he asked with mock piety, eyes sparkling wickedly. "I think the confessional is free."
"You're terrible," she said, but kissed him again lightly. She stood and looked at the flora and fauna before them. "What are we going to do with these?"
"Send them to hospitals and nursing homes," he said, waving his hand dismissively.
She glanced at him, a bit of mischief of her own in her eyes. "Even that one?" she said, pointing to the ostentatious wreath on a stand, dwarfing all the rest of the more tasteful arrangements.
"Who sent it?" asked Jane, suddenly curious.
"Walter Mashburn," she replied.
"Really?" He said, flattered.
"Yes. Would you like to hear what the card said?" She produced it from her décolletage, and Jane's eyes narrowed. She cleared her throat and focused on her former lover's words.
"It's actually addressed to me," she prefaced. "'Teresa: So sad to hear of Patrick's tragic passing. Sorry I couldn't be there for the funeral. Are you free for dinner when I'm in town next week? Love, Walter.'"
"What?"
She handed the card to him, and she watched in amusement as he read it.
"That bastard," Jane said, and chuckled in disbelief, but then he quickly sobered. It was a little disconcerting to realize that were he to die, there would be a line of men just waiting to take his place beside her. Mashburn. Mancini. Kirkland. It was worth remembering that.
He watched as his savior knelt briefly before the statue of hers, crossing herself before turning to back to him with a dimpled smile.
He gallantly offered his arm to her, and they began walking toward the back of the church, their footsteps echoing throughout the empty chapel, candles flickering as they passed.
"I guess you'd better stay out of trouble now," she told him, leaning her head on his shoulder. "By my count, I believe you've officially run out of lives..."
Epilogue to follow…
A/N: Writing action scenes are by far the most difficult. I hope my hard work paid off. I'm anxious to hear your thoughts. Yes, one more chapter (the Epilogue) to go. Thank you for reading.
