Besides thanking you readers for being patient and for sticking to this story, I also wanted to inform you that after this chapter there will only be one more. Of course, things can always change, but probably not this time. I hope you enjoy this, please let me know what you think. :)


7.

Cho and Lisbon moved away from the interrogating room so Jane couldn't see them. Then, the agent showed his boss a small piece of paper, kept inside an evidence bag.

"Byrne was taking a nap. When he woke up he found this on the nightstand. Called us immediately. Rigsby went there, retrieved this."

He handed it to her. On the piece of paper there was an excerpt from a poem Lisbon found familiar from Literature classes at school, a long time ago. The handwriting was elegant and graceful, almost like that of a teacher's.

The wild winds weep,
And the night is a-cold;
Come hither, Sleep,
And my griefs enfold! . . .
But lo! the morning peeps
Over the eastern steeps,
And the rustling beds of dawn
The earth do scorn.

"Any prints?" Lisbon asked.

"Nope," was Cho's non-enthusiastic answer. "But forensics already has a copy. They're analyzing the handwriting as we speak."

"No one saw who left it there?" Lisbon asked, with a pretty good idea of the answer.

"No. But I've sent guards over to watch his room."

Lisbon didn't answer; she was looking away, trying to remember whose poet that was, because she remembered studying that poem.

"Blake," she said, as suddenly as the name occurred to her in her mind. "It's Blake's."

"Yes it is, it is," Cho said. "It's called Mad Song."

"Blake!" she said, her eyes widening.

Cho looked confused.

"Yes, you just said that and I said…"

"The man we met with," she interrupted him, "when we pretended we wanted to buy a house. He said his name was Blake!"

Cho seemed to take a while to figure out what she was talking about, while Lisbon started to walk away after having barely finished that sentence. Cho interrupted her, though.

"Boss, what about Jane?"

She stopped, and turned around to look at him. She was glad she could trust her gut on this one. Somehow, though, it seemed like she didn't feel good just because of that; rather, she felt something other than just the satisfaction of being right; it was almost like she felt… relieved, for some reason. She found herself making an effort to contain a smile as she answered.

"He has nothing to do with this. Cut him loose."


So that was it. After bringing him all the way to Sacramento, the Serious Crimes Unit of the CBI had just decided they didn't suspect him anymore and sent him away, with not so much as a goodbye or a thank you. Okay. Jane walked to the elevators, glancing at the bullpen and at Lisbon's office, not seeing much but catching the vibe that something was going on; maybe a new lead. He was almost hurt that nobody had even bothered to tell him about it. Whatever. The elevator doors opened and he entered it, checking the time. If he drove fast enough, he could make it to lunch with Charlotte.

When he reached the lot, his cell phone rang; a client wanted an appointment. It was a woman, rich, of course, not older than thirty-five by the sound of her voice. Her father had just died and she felt like they still had unfinished business; she wanted to tell him things she had never told him while he was alive. Blah, blah. Somebody had told her about his services, same old, heard that he was the best at what he did. Well, he guessed he was back to his usual routine.


Apparently, the man who had claimed to be called Blake had been so proud of having escaped without being made that he had decided to leave a riddle in the room of his surviving victim. The thought of him standing next to a vulnerable, sleeping Byrne, sent chills down Lisbon's spine. However, as expected, by the time the clue was found and deciphered, there was nothing left to find. The guy belonged to Red John's network, after all, and clues were never left; if they were, they were quickly disposed of before the police could get their hands on anything. That was already a pattern in the case.

It was one of the most frustrating things for a cop, and for Lisbon particularly, to have their hands empty: an unsolved case, still open, waiting for more evidence, which meant new deaths. With nothing that could be done about it until then. She was sharing that dissatisfaction with Byrne, whom she had wanted to see at the end of that day, to make sure he was all right after the unexpected visit.

As it turned out, he seemed okay; he had been scared, of course, to find that someone had been there while he was asleep, and could have easily finished the job of killing him, had they wanted to. He told her once again about the possibility of leaving his job.

"It will take me a while to recover anyway," he said, "you should start looking for someone to stay in my place."

"It's good that it will take you some time to recover. You can use it to think about it instead of making any important decisions in a hurry. And when you're good as new, your job will still be waiting for you."

Byrne smiled, and Lisbon could swear she detected a hint of relief there. Maybe he still wanted the job and was just scared that she might blame him for the death of Jordan Maple. What a silly boy. She didn't want to rush him into deciding anything about his career from a hospital bed. If he should ever come to decide he wasn't fit for the job or the job wasn't fit for him, he would do that after enough pondering and after he was back in the field.

"Thanks, boss," he said.

"You're welcome," she replied, holding his hand, then let it go and stood up. "Well, I gotta go. I'll be back tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," he said as she was already walking towards the door.

"I hate serial killers," she said, turning around to look at him once more before leaving him with a sigh, and a quiet wave of her hand.


As Lisbon had predicted, the Red John case had gone completely quiet for months after that. Actually, pretty much everything seemed to go quiet at the time. Against her will, Lisbon found things a bit too quiet and normal at work after Jane was gone, even though he had only belonged to the team for a day. Frustrating as it might have been to try and not be able to completely control him or figure out his next moves, he had been helpful and, truth be told, a novelty in their usually predictable, methodical work.

She even wondered if they would ever work together again, when Red John made his next appearance. Would he volunteer his talents and expertise? Well, she certainly wouldn't go after him, asking him to work with them. Even if he had been helpful, she could tell that more than just a few days with him would have meant a lot of trouble to her. She chuckled at herself as that thought crossed her mind. God forbid she ever had to put up with him for longer than a week!

After meeting the psychic, she noticed there were quite a lot of people who claimed to have clairvoyant powers. There were ads everywhere, offering all kids of services; from making contact with loved ones who had already passed away and getting glimpses of what might happen in the future to finding out about past lives. She had never really believed in that kind of thing, neither did she believe in them now, but Jane's talents, whatever they were, had really impressed her.

She didn't want to think much about how else he had impressed her; she had already admitted to some kind of physical attraction, but even if he weren't a married man, which he was, and happily married, it seemed, his personality was certainly one she couldn't stand to live with for very long. So no, she was not considering that any further. Okay, the man was handsome. But as soon as he opened his mouth, whatever attraction she might have felt would fall apart. And that was the end of the internal discussion.

As months passed, though, Jane slowly faded from Lisbon's thoughts. If in the beginning many things would remind her of him – like advertisements of psychic services or the rare event of seeing someone wearing a three-piece suit, those thoughts of the inconvenient and peculiar man were properly catalogued as memories and shut down in a box inside her head. So much that a certain night, when she turned on the TV, she was more than surprised to recognize his familiar face on a talk show she rarely watched, but had ended up on due to the lack of other interesting options of nightly entertainment.

"Oh my God," escaped her lips.

It was him. Upon seeing his face again, she realized she had almost forgotten what he looked like. He was handsome, she admitted once more, even though he looked a bit different with his hair molded back with a thick layer of gel and a grey suit with a tie, and no vest. He was performing. She watched as he pretended to help someone from the audience get in touch with her father. She found herself shaking her head many times as she watched it. It was probably just like the bus trick he had taught her; he was following the woman's signs, that's how he knew what to say, what she wanted to hear. What a career choice, she thought, a professional liar.

As soon as that performance was over, Jane sat down with the hosts, who seemed very impressed, and who also started asking him about his work helping the police with the Red John case. Lisbon tensed, wondering if he was going to reveal any confidential details, anything that wasn't supposed to be released to the media. Or if he was going to mention her. Or the CBI. He did none. He talked a little about Red John's psychological profile, the one Sac PD had come up with, certainly with his help, even though he actually called it a "psychic fix". She watched as he said he seemed to have a connection to this case, and it made her curious: how had he first got involved with the case anyway? Could it be possible that he might have really had a vision or some kind of premonition about the case?

The show soon ended and Lisbon turned off the TV. She yawned as she got up from the couch and stretched, then climbed up the stairs towards her bedroom. She was suddenly very aware of how tiring that day had been and all she wanted was to fall into a satisfying, restful sleep.


Wrong as it was to deceive people, Jane had to admit he really enjoyed the feeling of seeing so many people, say an audience, impressed by his skills, even if they didn't know which they really were. After receiving many congratulations from the hosts, producers, directors, and a few people from the audience who had managed to get past security to come to him, especially to ask him for a consult – to which he responded politely with a card, so they could call to consult on availability and prices –, he finally left, and he was anxious to get home. He wondered if Angela would have watched – she didn't like his work, but that was an important appearance; his number of clients was going to skyrocket after that, which was good for their family. So he would be a bit hurt if she hadn't watched. He just wished she had, even if she had done so with a frown.

It was, in his opinion at the moment, a long drive from Los Angeles to Malibu. Tired as he was, it would probably have been smarter to have stayed the night in LA and driven home in the morning, but he didn't like the feeling of being away from his family for very long. If he ever worked away from home, he would always feel anxious to be back as soon as he was finished. So he drove on the same clothes he had worn for the show – a grey suit, with white shirt and a tie, whose grip around his neck he had already loosened – not at all worrying about the speed limit, anxious to turn around the corner to his street, park in front of his property, enter his house, his home, go up those stairs as fast as he could, check on his sleeping daughter, lay a kiss on her cheek, then get to his bedroom and find his wife, quickly change his clothes only to find his place on the bed next to her, and fall asleep with his arms tight around her.

And it took him way too long, he thought, to finally arrive. When he parked his car in front of the house, he exhaled in relief. With the mail in his hand, he turned the key on the door and entered. The house was barely lit and completely silent – they were asleep, just as he had imagined. He went up the stairs, smiling, anxious to finally see them, to finally be able to rest where he belonged. He was heading to Charlotte's bedroom when he noticed something. There was a sheet of paper fixed to his bedroom door. His brow furrowed. It didn't look like a drawing – Charlotte would sometimes fix them to the walls and doors all over the house, but that particular sheet of paper seemed like it had text written on it. Actually, a few steps closer, he saw it was text printed on it.

Maybe it was a joke; but Angela didn't usually make jokes. Anyway, he approached it, still with a shade of that smile he had brought on his face since he had entered through the front door. It faded, though, when he got close enough and was able to read what was written.

Dear mister Jane,
I do not like to be slandered in the media, especially by a dirty money-grubbing fraud.
If you were a real psychic, instead of a dishonest little worm, you wouldn't need to open the door to see what I've done to your lovely wife and child.

He instantly felt sick to his stomach. It had to be a joke. Who would make such a stupid joke? He certainly had pissed a lot of people off before, but… Red John wouldn't… he wouldn't really care about him, about what he had said…Would he? With that last bit of hope that he would open the door and see nothing but a bad joke behind it, he slowly pushed the door open. Then he saw it. The face. Like the many he had seen before. He swallowed, not wanting to turn his head, knowing what he would see next. He didn't want to see that. He pressed his eyes shut for a moment, knowing that would be the last moment in his life that he would live without that sight glued to his eyes. Then he opened them again.


The insistent ringing of the phone woke Lisbon up. She heard it ringing for a long time before she managed to wake up, tired as she was, and when she did, she had the impression it had been ringing for a couple of minutes. She picked it up and heard Minelli's voice.

"Lisbon," he said, some kind of urgency in his tone.

"Yes, boss," she answered, glancing over at the alarm clock – what could be so important that he would be awake at such hours, calling her? She found out soon enough.

"Red John has killed again. You're not gonna believe who the victims are."