Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter Nine) by Lexikal
Rating: M for graphic violence and language
Fandom: The Mentalist
Summary: Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.
Author's Note: Keep the reviews coming guys!
"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers." - Erich Fromm
"Uncertainty is the refuge of hope."- Henri Frederic Amiel
"We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict." - Jim Morrison
"Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts." - William S. Burroughs
"She can stay and watch, or she can wait outside," the man said. Except, of course, he wasn't really a man. He was a demon, or a monster, but he had a human face. Almost looked like Daddy. Not quite. And in the right light, no... nothing like Daddy.
"Please," Mommy said, and her voice broke up. She wasn't crying but her fear was breaking her voice up, like the words weren't strong enough to march out of her mouth for very long on their own. You needed to be unafraid to speak normally, otherwise your fear hailed down on your words like acid rain and your words walked all bent over. "Please. Don't hurt my baby."
Baby. Charlotte, standing in the doorway, wrinkled her nose. Baby?! Babies were 1 year and under. But Mommy was crying now, streams of clear tears down her cheeks. She, Charlotte, had come across this scene, woken up from a nightmare (her teeth had been falling out, and some man with needle-nose pliers was taking them out, one by one, and putting them in an old glass milk jug full of cobwebs) and so she'd come to speak to Mommy, to get a cuddle. And here, in Mommy and Daddy's room, she'd found Mommy sitting on her bed and talking in careful words to this man that looked sort of like Daddy but obviously wasn't him, and obviously wasn't even a man. The man had turned and smiled at her when he saw her, but the smile wasn't altogether nice. His eyes looked mean, like an animal watching another animal die.
"Mommy?" Charlotte asked, and that one word told them both everything. That she was scared, and wanted to know who this stranger was, and wanted to know why her mother was crying.
"Charlotte, go back to your room, baby-" Mommy said, and she used that word again, baby. Mommy's forehead was wrinkled up with sadness and fear.
"She can stay and watch if she likes. It might be better. Might ease the transition?" The man asked, and his voice was almost friendly, as if he was discussing who gets to go next in Monopoly or if you can really buy that house on St. James Place. Except, it was the wrong tone of voice to be using with someone else so obviously upset.
"Please," Mommy said again, and then she started to cry for real. Her face crumpled up like a piece of paper and she began to cry even harder, making little newborn kitten noises from the back of her throat. Tears were coming out of her eyes much more, and a little bit of spittle from her mouth was dripping down like a clear bit of web from a spider. "If you let us go, I promise you, we won't call the police. Patrick will stop working on the case today, I promise..."
"Oh, Angela," the man said, and he sounded almost sad. "I wish it were that simple. I really do. But Patrick needs to learn that he can't degrade people. He really needs to learn it and a simple warning won't suffice, I'm afraid."
"But... but I... I didn't do anything to you! I, and Charlotte-" Mommy was trying hard to make the man agree with her, Charlotte could see that, but the man had already made up his mind. Charlotte wasn't sure what his decision would be, but considering how scared and sad Mommy was, the decision wasn't a good one, not a nice one. Daddy said that sometimes when people didn't get along, you had to reach a compromise. A compromise was when two or more people agreed to do something a little different then they wanted to get part of what they wanted. Based on how Mommy was acting, this monster-man didn't want to compromise. Not at all.
"I know. You are completely innocent. So is Charlotte. It's not fair, is it? How life is, sometimes?"
"Please-" Mommy tried again and the man sighed, loudly, longly, like he was getting annoyed.
"I brought you some milk. It will be easier if you drink it. Think of Charlotte. What you want her to see? You struggling? Or you... simply ending." The man's voice got higher at the end.
"Charlotte," Mommy said, and she turned her sad, teary face toward the child. "Charlotte? Look at me. Look at Mommy."
The child did. She looked at her mother and at her mother's tear-streaked, terror-filled face and felt a warm wetness spread through her panties, down her leg. She had peed herself. Mommy's face, her terror, had done it. The child could even hear her pee dribbling out onto the floor. Dripdripdripdrip.
"I want you to... run! Run Charlotte! RUN!" Mommy said, and her words got harder, faster and more anguished. The man made an annoyed noise almost like a grunt and reached out and there was a cracking nose but Charlotte didn't see what happened because she had turned and was running down the hall, back to her room. She had thought about going down the stairs, but it was dark downstairs. In her bedroom were all her dolls, and Daddy said they kept monsters away. He said he had paid each of the dolls money (five dollars) to stay awake all night long and keep away the monsters-
She burst into her room and dove under the bed. In the dark of her room, she could see, for a second, all the eyes of her dolls watching, watching silently. They knew she was here, of course, and when the monster man came, they wouldn't let him in, they would do something, they would have to do something, because Daddy had said they would protect her if he couldn't be there or if Mommy couldn't be there and because the alternative was inconceivable.
Under her bed, she could hear calm, slow footsteps. The footsteps were slower than Mommy's, and heavier (the monster-man, the monster-man was coming). Now she could almost feel him in the dark of the hallway, and from under the bed she could see his feet, the black shine of his expensive shoes. The shoes took a step into the room.
"Charlotte? I know you're in here," the monster-man said. Charlotte, under her bed, felt a little more of her pee come out, hot and then warm, then cold, all over the floor and soaking through her underwear. She kept her mouth shut, screwed up her eyes. She would not look. She would not look. She would keep silent and pray to wake up, and maybe God would hear, and would wake her up.
"Charlotte? Are you under the bed?" The monster-man said and she felt more than saw the shift of light. She slit her eyes open and could see that the man had pulled up the blanket hanging over the edge of her bed and had bent down and he was looking at her with eager, shining eyes. Eyes like liquid mercury.
"Hello," he said, and his voice was perfectly pleasant. His eyes reminded the child of an eagle or a hawk, when it sees a mouse or a rat on the nature shows. Totally "zeroed" in, that's what Daddy called it (look at that, Charlie, that eagle has zeroed in on that mouse!) and right now, that was what this man's eyes were like, looking at her. Zeroed in on her.
"Why are you under the bed?" The man said, then, as if she had just decided to crawl under it for no reason. Charlotte tried to listen to the house past the man's words and past the fast beating of her heart and the thrumming noise of her blood in her ears and the whooshing of her lungs, because maybe Daddy would be coming home soon, or maybe he was home and just didn't know what was going on.
"Daddy!" Charlotte screamed then, suddenly, hoping to catch the monster-man off guard. It did catch him off guard, just a little, his eyes got a bit wider. She tried it again. "DADDDDDDDDDY!" A long, drawn-out scream of fear.
The man actually laughed then, a small little chuckle of a laugh.
"Oh, Charlotte. Your father can't help you. Your father could never help you." His words were so certain, so strong, not like Mommy's had been, not shaky at all.
"I WANT MY MOMMY!"
"Your Mommy, I'm afraid, is no longer with us," the man said, and his voice took on a tone of voice that was a little different. Like... he was almost sorry. Except, of course, Charlotte knew he wasn't really sorry, he was just pretending to be sorry.
"I WANT MY MOMMMMMY!" The child screamed again, louder, as if by screaming it louder it might suddenly become true. God listened to prayers more, maybe, when they were screamed.
"I can show you your mother. Would that be easier for you?" The monster-man smiled again. "I think that will be easier for us both." And he held out his hand, under the bed. Charlotte scurried back, tried to crawl out from under the bed the other way, but the man was instantly there, fast as a shadow, had his hands under her arms and strongly-but-gently pulled her out. She tried to bite his hand and that got a laugh. She bit it hard, she knew, because she could taste salt (blood, that is his blood) and then he shook her, hard, like she was a rag doll. She let go of his mouth.
"You will not bite me again," the monster-man said, and his voice was much stronger now. If words could be made out of metal, than this man's words were metal, not just meaning and air. A drop of his blood fell on the ground, a blossom of red that looked black in the dim room, just a little speck of blood. Like, maybe, one of the angels in heaven was crying. Crying blood. Monster-man held her with his good arm, wiped the bite on the corner of his jacket.
"I'm taking you to your mother. Come on," He said, and there was no room in his words to disobey. Charlotte allowed herself to be walked back to her mother and father's room. Mommy was on the bed, The man let go of her when she was in the room and closed the door behind them. She heard the lock go on. The child went to her mother.
Mommy was lying on her back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes were shiny and she wasn't blinking. She wasn't breathing either, no up and down movement of her chest. The black parts of her eyes were very big. Was she...
The girl glanced back at the monster man, wide-eyed, uncertain.
"She's dead," the man confirmed simply, and put on a sad-face, much the same way some people might put on a Halloween mask. The face wasn't real, the expression had no life in it, it was all for show. But Charlotte knew the man was telling the truth. Mommy was dead. She wasn't moving, and she wasn't sleeping. And she would never wake up.
"You can touch her, if you like. So you can experience death?"
Charlotte felt her eyes get hot. She'd had a goldfish die before. It went belly-up and Daddy had hugged her and flushed it down the toilet and told her it was going to the "giant fish bowl in the sky" and the next day, there had been a new fish in the bowl. But this was Mommy, and she could not be so easily replaced.
Charlotte touched her mother's face with her tiny fingers. Said her name. Tears were falling down her own face now, and dripping onto her mother's face. Drip, drip, drip. A child's tears on her dead mother.
"Mommy? Wake up!"
"The dead-"
"Mommy! Can you hear me?"
"-don't wake up, Charlotte. That's what being-"
"PLEASE MOMMY!"
"dead means."
"MOMMY!"
"When you're dead, you're gone. Your soul goes away, to heaven, if you like. And your body stops working. And you decay."
Charlotte looked up at the man, screwed up her face. He had said the word "decay". Daddy had used that word once. He had found some food at the back of the fridge that had been in there for a long, long time.A sandwich, that was what the food had originally been. The sandwich had gone green and got mold on top and he had said it had "decayed". He had been laughing and joking about Mommy not being very good at keeping the kitchen clean and Mommy had gotten annoyed and said "that was your sandwich, Patrick!" but she had started laughing, too. Decayed meant... Charlotte tried to process these words, process what was happening, but it was hard. Because Mommies didn't decay... did they? She didn't even have the words she needed to explain the confusion, the fear. But monster-man seemed to know that, because he was using the words for her. Words like "decay".
"Really touch her, Charlotte. Feel her. Can you feel that she is gone? That what made her your Mommy has gone away?"
The man was so calm, so rational. Was that the right word? Logical? He was telling her to touch her mother, and her mother was dead, there was only a body left, but no "consciousness", no mind. And Charlotte knew, she knew not only in her brain but also in her stomach, that Mommy would never be coming back. Not to this body. And that thought was enough to make her dizzy. She staggered back and felt her stomach twist, like invisible fingers were playing with it, like it was play-doh and ghosts were kneading it. And then the back of her eyes and her nose were burning and her stomach was full of air and force and she threw up foamy acid all over the bed.
The monster-man sighed again, almost as if he was disappointed.
"I want you to watch this. But I don't want you to contaminate the crime scene," and he suddenly had a glass of milk for her. The same milk he had tried to give Mommy. Charlotte looked up at him, her face streaked with tears.
"What will it do?" she asked him, because she already knew that drinking the milk wasn't really a choice. She had to drink it. If she didn't drink it, something else would happen. Charlotte wasn't sure what the "something else" would end up being, but she knew there would most definitely be a something else. Monsters always had many plans, they had plans and they had more plans to use if their first plan didn't work out.
"It will make you feel better. You won't feel like crying. And you won't get sick again."
Charlotte took the milk. Took a sip. It seemed to ease the burning almost-pain in her stomach. She took another sip and then was drinking it all. The monster-man was watching her, and his eyes seemed to sparkle even more, shine even more, as if the act of drinking the milk excited him. When she was done he took the glass from her hands and put it on Mommy's bedside dresser, the one with the pink lamp on top where she usually kept a novel for reading in bed. The novel on the bedside dresser right now was something called "The Celestine Prophecy". Charlotte hadn't been able to read the title at first, so she had asked Daddy and he had told her, and then told her what a prophecy was ("something which people think is going to happen in the future, but nobody has any proof. A prophecy is like a story about what the future will bring that people take very seriously, Charlie") and then they had practiced sounding-out the title together, and now she could read the title of the book, no problem. She still wasn't sure what Celestine meant, but it didn't matter, not now. The man put the empty milk glass on top of the book and the front cover went flat under its weight.
"I want you to sit on the bed, Charlotte. We'll sit and wait."
"Wait?"
"There is medicine in that milk. It will make it... easier for you to learn." The man said, and Charlotte caught the smile in his eagle-eyes again, like a wink of light that was impossible to explain. What were eagles also called? Daddy had used another word for them before, when they had been watching that movie about dinosaurs in a park, Jurassic Park. Oh yes. That's right. Daddy had called them raptors. Eagles were raptors. Hawks were raptors. Crows weren't raptors, not really, because crows mainly ate things that were already dead. But any bird that hunted? Birds of prey were raptors.
And this man was one of them, this man was a raptor, even though his body looked like a human being- Homo Sapien- on the outside. Inside? Inside he was really a raptor. Charlotte was certain of it.
She waited on the bed. She waited because he had told her to do it, and because she knew in her bones (that was a term Daddy had used which meant to feel something deeply, "in your bones") that if she tried to disobey something bad would happen. She waited. The monster-raptor-man got up and he went to the corner of the bedroom where Mommy and Daddy kept their CD player. He pulled a CD out of his pocket and opened the CD player and put his CD in. He pressed a few buttons and some fancy music came on. Charlotte watched him. He seemed to look farther away then he should have looked, less distinct around the edges, and she was starting to feel fuzzy, and relaxed, like she had just taken a long warm bath. The man came back and he knelt down and he handed her his hand to shake.
"I'm John," he said, and his gleaming raptor eyes scanned over her face like he was looking for something. Charlotte took his hand because she knew it was expected. They shook hands.
"Do you know who is playing this music?" John asked. Charlotte shook her head and glanced over at the CD player. She didn't know what she felt right now. She didn't know what her emotions were anymore. They seemed to be getting scrambled up inside her head but whatever had been in the milk was also making it so she didn't really care that everything was scrambled up.
"This is a song by a man called Bawk."
"Bawk?" Charlotte repeated.
"Bawwwck. B-A-C-H. Bach."
Charlotte blinked. Looked at her hands. There was a fine ghost of each hand hovering over the real hands, like double hands. Like her soul was coming out. When she moved her hands she could see the second-hands trail behind them. It was weird, but also... kind of funny. For a second she forgot Mommy lying so still and dead on the bed and giggled.
"Feeling better?" John said and his voice was happy now. Charlotte looked at him. His words were weird. She knew what each word he was saying meant, but still, all together, she couldn't figure out what he was saying. There was no meaning in the words. She stared and replayed his words back to herself.
"Feeling better," Charlotte repeated. She blinked again. No. Still made no sense. But John was smiling now, a full smile, like he was happy.
"I can see that you are. How about we begin?" He said, and his voice went up at the end as if he was asking her a question, but Charlotte knew it was what Daddy would call a rhetorical question. A question you are not really supposed to answer. So she didn't answer it.
As she watched, he went over to Mommy. Moved her body so she was sitting up. He was now... now he was taking off her clothes. Her pyjamas. He was fast, but gentle too. He even took off her panties. When she was unclothed, He laid her so her stomach was against the blankets, back facing up. Charlotte watched. He removed a knife from his pocket, a long, flat knife with a curved edge.
"What are you doing?!" Charlotte said, and she wanted her words to be more upset, but they came out flat and bored.
"You're going to want to be paying attention here," John said. And then, just like that, just like it wasn't the biggest mistake that anyone had ever made, he pushed the knife into Mommy's back. A little bit of blood came out. Just a little. Not much. John turned his eagle eyes to her and, as if he was reading her mind, said:
"She won't bleed much. She won't bleed much because her heart has already stopped beating. So there is no pump to force the blood out."
Charlotte looked down at her mother's smooth, pale skin. John was right. A little bit of blood was coming out, but not very much. Not nearly as much as you'd expect from a wound that deep. John made a deep slit in Mommy's back and Charlotte watched, dumbfounded, as John's fingers disappeared inside the cut. They disappeared inside Mommy, wriggled down inside her back and a few seconds later (but it could also have been hours) they were tugging on bags. Bags were being pulled out of Mommy's back! Little pink bags! Little pink yellowy bags with strings on them! Charlotte stared at the bags hanging out of her mother's back. John had some clear thread in his hands now, and was sewing the thread into the bags.
He looked up and caught her eyes and grinned.
"These are your mother's lungs. But... don't they sort of look like wings?"
Charlotte glanced down at the wings again. The bags. There was blood on the outside of them. The man- John- was pulling on the clear string he had sewn into them and the bags were coming up into the air like real wings and... Charlotte followed his movements. Saw him tie the clear string to hooks in the ceiling. Then he took a rag out of his pocket and wiped his hands off and moved Mommy so she was sort of sitting up in bed. She was sitting up, and from Charlotte's position at the end of the bed, she looked like an angel with strange, bloody wings. A naked, bloody angel.
When John was finished rearranging her mother, he looked back at the child.
"Are you ready for the big surprise, Charlie?" He said. Charlotte knew that this was another rhetorical question. She said nothing.
"Wait here one moment, will you? Don't wander off now..." and he chuckled at the end of his comment, like the idea of her wandering off was silly. Which, given how much everything was moving and how far away the floor had become, it probably was. And then he disappeared into the black of the hallway, and she heard his feet on the stairs, going down into the dark hall and the dark first floor. And some time later (it was hard to gauge how long John was gone) he came back carrying a big doll wrapped up in a white blanket. Charlotte could see the feet of the doll dangling as he carried her, and her blonde curls, and for a second- just a second- Charlotte thought this this doll was a gift, like the American Girl doll she had in her room that looked like her. John laid the doll down on the bed and opened up the blanket and Charlotte could see that it wasn't a doll, after all, but a little girl with wide-open shiny eyes and her chest was still, too. And her lips... her lips were blue-purple. Her skin was so pale, so white.
Charlotte knew she was dead, too. Just like Mommy was dead. John cut into her back, too, with the same knife he had used on Mommy, and removed her wings too, and stitched the clear string into them so they stood up on their own and when he was done he painted Mommy's face red, and the girl's face red with some redness he had with him in a little jar. The girl's face he tilted into Mommy's chest, against her breasts, so that you could only see one small part of one wide-open eye. The golden hair, he arranged around her face, a tight halo.
"Are they pretty, Charlotte? A pretty mommy and baby?"
Charlotte stared at her naked, dead mother and the little girl, at the blood-red faces and the pulled-out lungs and heard the Bach music, so pretty and quaint, and felt a part of her mind crack. She could almost hear it, like the sound glass made when it broke from heat or the sound of ice cracking, shrrrrrrrrrekkkkkkk. That was the sound of her mind splitting.
"Pretty as a picture," the man named John said. "Should we leave the music on for Daddy? Do you think he'd like that? I think he'd like that."
Charlotte glanced back at the CD player. The music was still going. The same song was playing over and over and over again. It had played at least five times so far. At least five times. Maybe a lot more.
The man named John was now looking at her, and Charlotte felt an energy in her belly that was a distant relative of panic. She had been unable to stop watching him, and unable to move as he had worked. But now the knife was away. On the wall, looking down at her, was a smiley face. A smiley face made out of blood or something red, the same red he carried with him in that little jar.
"We better be going now. It's later than we know-"
Something about the word "going" made her body wake up. That word "going" was so final, and even through the haze of the medicine she knew that that word "going" meant she'd never see Daddy again. John was still fussing about with the clear strings coming out of the lungs from the dead bodies (from Mommy, Mommy is a dead body now) and Charlotte felt her body beneath her and jumped off the bed. She ran out into the hallway jerkily, as if made of rubber, and already she could hear the sound of John coming after her. She ran towards the staircase and was aiming to run down it, but her feet got tripped up on something and she was crashing down the stairs and into the darkness below, a small scream coming out from the back of her throat and around that time there was a sharp, loud cracking noise that filled the air, and a second after that crack came a white-hot pain screaming at her from her right arm and wrist. She sat up and tried to crawl away, but her arm screamed at her again and through the haze of the milk's medicine she could see white-yellow bones sticking out of her arm and blood... blood was running down her arm and dripping quite heavily on the hardwood floor. And suddenly this was all real, and she knew she wasn't dreaming and she knew the tall, dark figure coming slowly down the stairs towards her was real, and he was really coming for her, more real than any monster she had ever heard about or even thought about or dreamed about, this shadowy man with his gleaming, bright eyes so much like mercury, coming so slowly towards her, so slowly and so calmly...
And she screamed. She opened her mouth and out came a wail of anguish and terror, and nothing about the man changed, except that now the small smile on his face was bigger, more impressive, as if her screams were his food, and he'd been hungry. And despite herself, she screamed again, louder, a long wail of pain and terror, an AAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
"Aeeggghhhhhhh!" Charlotte shouted and came back to awareness. Instantly, almost faster than instantly, she was aware of being in a moving car and knew within a second that her father, Patrick Jane, was driving. His partner, that Lisbon woman, turned in her seat immediately. She could see her father's eyes checking on her in the rear view mirror.
"Charlotte? You okay?" Patrick said.
"I'm fine!" Charlotte huffed, but her skin was wet with sweat and when she shrugged a few drops of sweat fell down her face. She blinked and tried to clear the images from her mind. Her hair was damp, she could feel sweat running down the back of her neck, staining her shirt (it was starting to smell a little funky). Patrick was still watching her in the rear view mirror, as if she might suddenly freak out. She sought his eyes out, tried on a glare.
"I'm fine, Patrick," she said again, this time more firmly and he nodded and she saw his eyes shift back to the road.
"Must have been one hell of a nightmare," he said, and his voice was light, but she knew his type and knew that she'd caught his attention. People like Patrick Jane were like terrier dogs. When you caught their attention, you didn't lose it easily.
"No nightmare. Just too hot. Made my heart skip a beat."
"Oh?" He said in a neutral tone. Charlotte didn't buy his act for one second. His eyes were bright and curious, like Red John's, when Red John smelled weakness. Charlotte forced herself to slow down, deliberately tried to work on her breathing. But she knew that both Patrick and Teresa Lisbon were aware that she was sweaty, and breathing fast. Patrick was a mentalist, so studying people was what he did and Teresa Lisbon was a detective and, from what Charlotte had read, not half-bad at her job. Charlotte's arm was aching. She pulled up the sleeve of her army jacket, rubbed the one inch white keloid scar with her left pointer finger gently. The movement caught Patrick's eyes again and she immediately pulled her army jacket's sleeve down and sent him another glare.
"You might not be as hot if you take your jacket off," Patrick said knowingly. Charlotte avoided his eyes. Ignored his words. Unzipped her bag and pulled out her mp3 player. In the bottom of her bag she'd brought along an AC wall charger for the MP3 player, which could plug into any standard wall outlet. Great buy. She'd purchased it for 2 dollars and 73 cents off amazon. She had over 2,000 songs on her mp3 and a collection of short scary stories narrated by the one and only Vincent Price. The Vintage Radio Shows.
Charlotte eased the earbuds into her ears and turned the mp3 player on, scrolled through the songs until she came to what she wanted. Something fun and upbeat to wake her up and scare away the boogey man. An old "suspense" radio show called "Hunting Trip" narrated by Vincent Price. But first, the old-timey commercial.
...For your enjoyment by Roma wines. That's R-O-M-A. Roma wines. Those excellent California wines that can add so much pleasantness to the way you live, to your happiness in entertaining guests, to your enjoyment of everyday meals. Yes, right now a glass full would be very pleasant as Roma wines brings you... Suspense! It began with a little hunting trip...
She see Patrick watching her in the rear view mirror again, eyes flickering from her to the road. She more pointedly ignored him. Pulled Bunsen out of the backpack and used him as a pillow. But the images in her head wouldn't go away, the throbbing in her arm, that slightly bitter milk from the dream glowing pale blue in the dim light of her mother's bed(death?)room and the way she'd puked just before it, hot and angry adrenaline-puke. Had she puked? Already the dream (but really, she knew it was so much more than a mere dream) was fading away, ebbing away, but she could suddenly taste that damned milk as if she had just taken a sip, room temperature whiteness with a bitter, sickly sweetness in it and Charlotte sat back up, feeling sicker, head suddenly spinning like a CD in a player. She pulled the earbuds out of her ears and Vincent Price's voice cut off sharply.
"Stop the car, Patrick," Charlotte said tightly, and shut her eyes against the surging wave of nausea. She would not get sick in this car. She would not get sick in this car. Patrick, to his credit, immediately pulled the car over onto the side of Interstate 5, no questions asked. Charlotte was tugging open the back door before the car had completely stopped. She scurried a few feet from the car, leaned over, and threw up the fries and grilled cheese she'd eaten in that stupid diner a little over an hour ago, now partially digested. Another wave of nausea hit and she was bent over and gagging, vomiting into the hot November dust that lined the side of the California interstate.
She heard Patrick's door open and slam shut, distantly, as if he inhabited another world. Charlotte kept her eyes screwed shut, hands on her thighs. Gagged out the last of her sickness, when another wave hit and her stomach convulsed again, her throat worked and spasmed, trying to eject acid. The back of her throat and her sinuses were burning with chunky vomit.
She could feel Patrick behind her, he had come over to her. Was standing over her, his shadow warped over her bent body. He seemed afraid to touch her, unsure of what to do. Her head was pulsing and felt tinny and unreal, like a balloon bobbing above her shoulders, and she kicked at the mess in the dust, forced herself up and turned scornful eyes to her father.
"I told you I wasn't hungry earlier," she said angrily. Patrick nodded sadly.
"Probably got food poisoning or something," Charlotte clarified.
"I don't think that's it," Patrick said gently, not wanting to fight, but obviously not misled. Charlotte stared at him, hard, and the eyes looking back at her were both gentle and knowing. Eyes that you couldn't really, rationally, be angry at for very long. And for some reason, that made her even angrier.
"Next gas station we come to we'll stop, get some bottled water, okay? And baby wipes?" Patrick's words were so soft and so careful. There was a strange, not-human kindness in them that Charlotte wasn't used to and didn't know how to process.
"I have Pepsi in my bag," she told her father, walking back to the car. He said nothing and when she looked over at him she caught him staring at her, uncertain.
"What?!" Charlotte snapped, head pulsing with pain. Migraine? Maybe. Maybe this was a migraine. Migraines could trigger puking spells.
"Pepsi? I thought you boycotted Pepsi?"
"This is old Pepsi. I had a lot of it," Charlotte said, as if that explained everything. Jane continued to watch her. Studying her. So many unvoiced questions. And, if he knew what was good for him (for them both) he'd never ask those questions.
"I have two cans. I will give Lisbon one, if she wants it."
A beat of silence.
"We'll still stop for water. Okay?"
"Yeah. If you want," Charlotte muttered, pulled the back door open and got back in. Lisbon glanced over at her, gave her what was obviously meant to be a sympathetic smile. Charlotte nodded back. Couldn't quite bring herself to smile back at the woman, but at least Lisbon wasn't grilling her like Patrick.
"That food Patrick fed us? I bet I got food poisoning from it."
"I hope not," Lisbon said softly. Jane was still outside, back to the car, face turned away from both of them. Charlotte looked over at him. Scowled.
"What's he doing?" She asked Lisbon. Leaned forward in her seat to look out the window. Shrugged. Charlotte tugged at the door, leaned out into the early evening. In a little over a half hour, the sun would be going down.
"Patrick? You wanted to get water?"
Jane turned around immediately, ran a hand through his sun-streaked hair. Smiled at his child, but his eyes looked tired, clouded with some unnamable emotion. He came jogging around to the driver's side door. Charlotte tapped Lisbon on the shoulder. Lisbon turned to the girl.
"He looks pale, see?"
"I... maybe," Lisbon allowed.
"See, I bet you that food was bad. Bet you money. Bet you ten dollars."
Jane had gotten back in the car now and turned his head to watch the exchange.
"You bet Lisbon money for what?" He asked Charlotte, eyes darting between his child and his partner.
"I bet Lisbon ten bucks that food you gave us makes us all sick."
"So far you're the only one who has gotten sick," Jane teased gently. Charlotte stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out his angle. Finally nodded.
"Yeah. But you're pale."
"Am I?" Jane asked innocently, risking a glance at Lisbon.
"Yes," Charlotte confirmed.
Jane started the car up again. He looked over at Lisbon, and some message passed between them.
"I was thinking of stopping for some bottled water and snacks and stuff at the next Chevron we come to?" Jane said, eyes on Lisbon. She nodded. Jane raised his voice, still aiming his comment at Lisbon but intending for Charlotte, obviously, to pay attention to it, too.
"If you guys want anything, let me know. I think when we pull in for gas, you should duck down, Charlotte. Okay?"
"Yeah. Okay," Charlotte said from the back seat. Jane watched her face for a moment, but he knew she understood, and that she understood why it was important to keep a low profile.
"Even better?" Jane said, and pulled a pen out of his pocket, a scrap of paper. "Write down anything you want. Then I'll pick it up when I pay for the gas. Okay?"
"Yeah," Charlotte said, and took the paper from him.
"We're going to want to stay on the road. So if you need to go to the bathroom-"
"Don't have to-" Charlotte cut him off.
"But if you change your mind," Jane said, and let it drop.
He reached over, turned the air conditioning on. Pulled the car back onto the I-5. The storm clouds that had been threatening 45 minutes ago loomed closer, dark and bruised purple, across the sky. The air was hot and humid, and smelled vaguely of electricity and the approaching night. The light was almost gray-green now, eerie and flat light.
They were on the road 5 minutes when the first rain drops hit the windshield. The light of the day was now almost gone, even though it wasn't yet 5:30. The clouds were blocking out the late-day sunlight, and the air was hotter still.
"Great," Charlotte muttered, eyes focused at the looming storm clouds, and she lay down tiredly in the backseat.
"Try to put some food down on that list that doesn't come out of a box or bag, okay?" Jane said, eyes never leaving the road.
"Like what?"
"Fruit or something. Sandwiches?"
There was a drawn-out sigh from the backseat.
"Do bananas fit your criteria?" Charlotte said after a moment.
"Bananas are fine," Jane said and caught Lisbon's eyes. She grinned back at him.
The heavens opened up then with a loud crack and lightning arced across the sky in an electric surge. Jane caught his daughter wince and sit up out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes were suddenly wide open, round. She blinked hard, seemed to trace the trail of rain down her window with her finger. A moment later there was a clap of thunder and Charlotte jerked in her seat.
"Just thunder," Jane said calmly, placatingly. Charlotte ignored him.
A few minutes later she handed Lisbon her list and the pen. She had written: Dr. Pepper, t-shirt, banana. Jane looked over at the list. Grinned.
"You want a t-shirt?"
"I need another t-shirt. I need to wash this one in the sink."
And then she fell silent again. Jane glanced over at Lisbon. Raised his eyebrows. Realized she needed gear, too.
They were just outside Modesto. There had to be a Walmart or something around here.
Thursday, November 1st, 2013 6:02 P.M. P.S.T.
"Lisbon- it might be better if-" Jane suggested. They were in a Walmart parking lot in Modesto, California. Jane knew it would take him much longer to get the basics. He'd never actually been in a Walmart before, and more than that, he wanted to stay with Charlotte. Lisbon glanced back at the sleeping figure, the corners of her mouth tweaking up in a tender smile.
"You want me to shop?" She asked, only a trace of amusement in her voice as she looked back at Jane.
"If you wouldn't mind. I am not sure what to buy. It'll be faster if you do it," Jane said, and gave Lisbon an annoyingly optimistic smile. He handed her the list. To it he had added: toothbrushes, brown hair dye, toothpaste, bread, jam. Lisbon looked at his list. Raised an eyebrow.
"This is what you guys think you need for a life on the lam, is it?" Lisbon said, and smiled tolerantly at Jane. Jane, voice low, shrugged.
"Never actually done this before," Jane said, and gave her his best puppy dog face.
"I can pick up some stuff, but... I mean..." Lisbon glanced over at Charlotte, who was still fast asleep. "We can't just stay on the road forever. Eventually-"
"Not now, Lisbon," Jane said sternly, voice still low. He glanced down at his watch.
"What time do you have? I have 3 minutes after 6."
Lisbon glanced down at her own watch. "I have 4 minutes after. Give me... half an hour."
Jane nodded. She could see the anxiety on his face, now. The idea of getting caught. Of his child disappearing into the clutches of the "police", never to return. Would he lose his mind if that happened? Neither Lisbon or Jane had verbalized the idea outloud, but both felt he might go irrevocably insane if Charlotte were to "disappear" at this point in the game.
"I'll be as fast as I can," Lisbon said, peering out into the pelting rain.
"You're going to get wet," Jane offered helpfully, and smiled at her again. She nodded.
"Oh, yeah, here... use cash." Jane said. He tugged two hundred dollar bills from his wallet and handed them to Lisbon, like a magic trick. Of course he would have brought a wallet with him, and of course he would have a fair amount of cash. No doubt he had a few credit cards registered to different people in his possession, too. And what he didn't have, he'd win somehow. Lisbon was convinced they'd be fine, as far as money went. That wasn't the concern. No. Returning to their regular scheduled lives? That was starting to look more and more unlikely.
"Is two hundred enough?" Jane asked her as she pocketed the money.
"For some basic food and a change of clothes? Should be fine."
"Or whatever you need. Here, take another two hundred," Jane said, and dug another pair of bills out of his pocket. Lisbon didn't protest. She didn't think she'd actually have time to get much, but it was better to be prepared. Already, she was making a mental list of what they were going to need.
"I don't know her size," Lisbon said, voice still low, as she pulled her own wallet out of her pocket and carefully laid the bills inside.
"She's small. Girl's medium, if they have such a thing? She seems to like baggy clothes," Jane said fondly. "Oh? And Lisbon? Her favourite colour is green."
"Green," Lisbon repeated softly. Smiled. "Got it. For you? A sweatshirt okay? Jeans?"
"Whatever you think I'll look best in," Jane said, and his smile got wider. Lisbon snorted and opened the passenger side door, ran to the front doors. She was almost soaking by the time she got to the front of the store. She glanced back to see Jane grinning at her, giving her a thumb's up sign.
"Yeah, right, Jane," Lisbon murmured. She grabbed a cart and disappeared into the store.
Lisbon moved fast. She knew Jane's sizes. They'd been on a few cases before where Jane's suit had been damaged or dirtied and she'd had to commandeer him clothing. Into the basket she tossed two pairs of dark blue jeans in Jane's size, two pairs of lighter jeans in her own size. Fruit of the Loom sweatpants, socks and briefs for Jane. A package of underwear and socks for herself. A package of fruit of the loom underwear and socks for Charlotte (they looked to be the right size). One pair green and blue pajama lounge pants with drawstring for Charlotte and a larger pair, purple, for herself (colours were hardly important right now). Three bottles deodorant (two lady speedsticks and one stick of Old Spice for Jane). An electric shaver for Jane, a box of Just for Men brown hair dye and a bottle of aftershave. Three tubes of assorted toothpaste (one Crest, one Aquafresh, one Colgate), three toothbrushes (one blue, one pink, one green), three spools of waxed dental floss. A bottle of suave shampoo. A four-pack of mens' crew t-shirts and two hooded sweat shirts (one grey, one dark blue) for Jane. Two pastel t-shirts for herself, a thin blouse and a dark denim jacket. Charlotte stumped her. The teen was tiny, tomboyish. Lisbon eventually settled on two pale green t-shirts from the junior's section, two dark green hooded sweatshirts.
Lisbon glanced at her watch. Not bad. She had been in the store 23 minutes and had never shopped faster. On her way to the grocery section she found luggage and added a a black tote bag to the cart for Jane and a cheap gray luggage bag for herself. She selected a camouflage style bag for Charlotte. It was the only thing approaching green in the luggage section. Lisbon glanced back down at her watch again, fully aware that every minute she was in here was a minute Jane was in the car, worrying. Creating disasters in his head.
She'd been in the Walmart 29 minutes now. Lisbon pushed the cart to the grocery section. Quickly added a 12 pack of Dr. Pepper, several bottles of water, a box of Oolong tea, eight bananas, 6 pre-made sandwiches (2 roast beef, 2 egg salad, 2 ham and cheese), 6 cup-of-noodles in assorted flavours, 2 4-packs of Kraft Easy Mac, a jar of instant coffee, a pack of 160 assorted plastic utensils, a tub of wet wipes, a 12 pack of assorted pudding cups and the bread and strawberry jam Jane had asked for. In the line up she added a MAD magazine, four packs of assorted gum and 6 chocolate bars to the total. She had been in the store 37 minutes when she was through paying for everything, pushing the cart back into the parking lot. The total was 367.83. Jane, instantly, perked up behind the wheel when he saw her and came out to help load the car.
Charlotte had woken up and was lying in the back seat, head down. Lisbon handed her a bag and the teen went through it curiously.
"Are these green t-shirts for me?" She asked Lisbon.
"Yes. You... Jane said you like green."
Charlotte didn't respond, but pulled the t-shirts out. Tore the tags off them, unzipped her backpack and crammed them inside.
"These dark green sweatshirts are for me too?"
Lisbon smiled.
"Yes. They're too small for me."
Charlotte nodded and tore the tags off these, too. Into the backpack they went.
"What's this?" The teen said, picking out the MAD magazine.
"I, um... I thought you might like to read that," Lisbon said, trying to sound casual. Charlotte flipped open the magazine, looked at for a second, then continued pawing through the bag. She pulled out a chocolate bar- a Kit Kat- tore the wrapper off and began to eat. Jane had loaded the last of the gear into the trunk of the car, and came back carrying a bag with the pre-made sandwiches, some of the bananas, three bottles of water and a few cans of Dr. Pepper. Lisbon watched the teen. She ate the candy bar quickly, almost furiously, as if she were being timed or someone might take the candy away from her. Jane got back into the driver's seat and shut the door.
By the time he had put his belt back on and inserted the keys, Charlotte was done the candy and had carefully hidden the wrapper in her jeans' pocket.
Jane handed the bag of sandwiches back to the teen. She riffled through it, pulled out a can of Dr. Pepper and popped the tab. The storm had stopped a good ten minutes earlier. It was 6:51 p.m. by the time they got back on the road, full dark now.
Lisbon glanced back at the girl ten minutes later, and found her reading the MAD magazine, eyes glued to the page. Charlotte was holding a tiny little flashlight and was aiming it at the pages of the magazine studiously. She read something topically amusing and chuckled to herself. Lisbon looked over at Jane, whose own lips curved up in a smile at the sound of his daughter's laughter
At 8:23 they stopped at a Mobil and Jane filled the tank while Charlotte used the bathroom, carrying a key attached to a dented wheel rim. The inside of the bathroom was dirty, covered with graffiti ("Mike likes Lisa, but loves Sheralynn" "Have anal sex" "Ctrl + Alt + Delete"), the light flickered and there was a large, brown moth flying around frantically, body hitting against the mirror with soft tapping noises. Charlotte peed and as she did so she stared at the moth and wondered about its frantic moments. Was it scared? Was it thinking at all, or were the moth's movements simply reflexes? Was it self aware? Did it have a soul? Did it ponder its existence, or merely respond to stimuli, an insect automaton? Done peeing, she wiped, flushed the toilet and zipped her jeans back up. She reached out, tugged the door open and held it ajar in the cooling night.
"Go on, you're free," she said, sotto voce. The moth battered its powdery wings against the flickering fluorescent light, sending a pale fluttery shadow over the off-white painted concrete walls. A frantic, insect-generated interplay of light and shadow.
"Leave. The door is open. Go!" Charlotte ordered, and her words were slightly more animated this time. But the insect was not listening to her, it was enamored with the light, the electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths in the 390 to 700 nanometer range. Could this creature see ultraviolet wavelengths? Extremely short wavelengths? Or infrared, the wavelengths that were longer than humans could see? Goldfish could see both. It didn't matter, though, not really. Strip all the facts and trivia aside and the moth was still trapped in a concrete cell, seeking out light that had no consciousness and which could never serve it or pay it back with any attention of its own. Sad, really, that simple creature's priorities. The door was wide open, and yet, that moth would never leave. Not if the light remained on. Charlotte turned the light off and blackness flooded the room, an instant visual void. Slowly the objects in the bathroom began to come into focus as her vision adjusted. She held the door open, could smell the wet-stormy smell of the early November California air, could almost smell the powdery furred body of the insect flapping around in the dark with such tragic devotion. Something soft and light as a fairy tapped against her face, the creature in the darkness, set momentarily free from its obsession.
"Go. The light is off. Go now," she said, a bit louder. She hummed and waited and after a half-minute, thought the animal must have freed itself. She turned the light back on to check. The moth had landed on the wall near the sleeping bulb, waiting, waiting for the light to return, almost as if it knew the light was only temporarily missing, but would soon return. As if dying in a concrete room that smelled faintly of other people's piss and shit was somehow loyality.
No. No, that was stupid. Moths didn't think. They weren't capable of higher thought. Its frantic, continued flapping was proof of that.
It would never leave. Not ever. Charlotte stared at it sullenly.
"Stupid thing," she said, irritated. It was flapping around the buzzing, humming bulb again, almost as if it wanted the light to pay attention to it.
But the light would never pay attention to it.
Back in the car, back in the back seat, Charlotte pretended to riffle through her backpack, but in reality her thoughts were consumed with that stupid moth. It would die in that bathroom. It would never be free again, and for some reason the girl couldn't process, that thought made her profoundly, inexplicably melancholy.
Christ, Charlotte, get a grip. Getting upset over an insect was just plain idiotic.
"Good?" Jane said from his position behind the wheel as she pulled her buckle on. Charlotte sought out his eyes and nodded and for a second she was certain he had seen the sadness in her face, but he didn't dare ask about it. She knew he wouldn't ask much. He was careful around her, his long-lost daughter, the daughter he hadn't even bothered to make sure was really dead all those long, terrible nights ago. The air conditioning in the car had been off since a little after nightfall and the radio was on, but on low, as a comforting background noise more than true entertainment. She'd only been in Patrick Jane's company a little less than two days, but already she was growing used to him and his mannerisms and presence. He was a tricky one, Patrick was. Always aware, constantly paying attention to every little thing. Every sigh, every movement on her part and he perked up in his seat, his eyes shifted and he sought her out in the rear view mirror. Charlotte knew he paid attention to everything because she, for her part, also paid attention to everything. Lisbon? Well, Lisbon was bright and capable, but worried. She had left her life, just up and left it hanging like a body dangling from a noose and Charlotte knew the woman's thoughts were consumed with worries and hypothetical future scenarios involving the FBI and coming back to work and "making this right". Charlotte knew Lisbon's type. Loyal as Lisbon was, she was still a career woman and she still wanted something of a life and a career and a reputation to go back to.
Patrick wasn't career-oriented, not one bit. Charlotte knew that and what she didn't know from his comments and behavior she could sense on an instinctive level. Patrick was obsessed with Red John, and now that he had her- Charlotte- in his possession he was obsessed with her, too, because she was the closest he'd ever been to Red John. John had told her that Patrick was obsessed, was more obsessed with vengeance then anything else in the world and Charlotte was pretty sure John had been right about that. What she wasn't sure about was when and how Patrick would grill her. When would he want to pry open her memories and get at her secrets so he could get to Red John? How would he go about such a task? No doubt he would be intentionally tactful and careful and "kind" about his questions, but questions there would be, Charlotte had no doubt about that.
She was just another stepping stone to Red John. His daughter, biologically, but just another puzzle piece to be manipulated into a larger picture.
Lisbon, for her part, was more or less silent in the passenger seat, inscrutable and watchful, consumed with thoughts of her own fading life. No doubt she was asking herself what she was doing here, in this car, with Patrick Jane and his nutcase kid. No doubt she was regretting her decision to take off with them.
Why had she come with them, anyway? What was in this for her? It was puzzling.
Thursday, November 1st, 2013 9:15 P.M. P.S.T.
The man who called himself Red John was furious. He wouldn't let it show on the surface, of course, even though he was alone. Such overt displays of emotionalism were contraindicated by the very pathology that had guided and formed his life since the earliest days of his childhood. Not that he wasn't capable of being theatrical, because he most definitely was a thespian of the highest order. But losing control of himself and spinning off into rage or anxiety like a common human, one of the puppets he toyed with... that was unthinkable. No. When Red John was angry, you knew, but nothing obvious told you, all the cues were subliminal, as if the very fires of Hell were burning in his eyes, just below a thin veil of humanity. All of these things you knew about him instinctively, without being told.
He'd known his protégée was restless, was even possibly anxious. But he hadn't seen this coming, not really. Oh, he'd considered it, that she might try to run. But he hadn't really thought she would, and as such, he had been more or less unprepared. He'd had her in his possession a decade and had grown certain of her loyality to him.
But she hadn't been loyal to him, had she? No. This was proof of it, of her lack of feality.
Charlotte. Charlotte was a strange one, and her strangeness had been almost precious to him, a challenge and an amusing plaything amongst a species of creatures who were- for the most part- uniformly boring and predictable. Charlotte was anything but predictable. Even her unpredictablity was unpredictable. When he was around her he didn't feel as if anyone was fated to be anything, and that lack of a sense of everything being fated was inspiring. The exhilirating sense of "free will" (illusion which it no doubt was) that he'd learned to bask in around her was now gone. Now, standing in the middle of her apartment, Red John allowed a tiny bit of his anger at her loss to seep to the surface.
He'd invested so much time in her. Training her. Guiding her. Showing her that life could be different from the ordinary, monotonous drudgery her own birth-parents had had planned for her. And how had she repaid him?
She'd trashed her apartment and disappeared. All the aquariums housing the various specimens she'd seen fit to collect over the years had been broken, destroyed. Shattered. One of the special heat lamps over the largest of the aquariums was flickering wildly, a staggering jerk of light like an SOS being blinked out. Red John sighed to himself and wandered through the apartment. The house smelled of burnt Jiffy-pop popcorn and marijuana. He opened the fridge. Two six packs of beer, a jug of red liquid (probably cherry Kool Aid) a few random cans of Dr. Pepper and a styrofoam container of Chinese take-out that looked like it had inhabited the fridge for months. Interesting. Was this take-out for show? He'd been pretty certain Charlotte didn't eat take-out, or anything prepared directly by humans. He pulled the container out and inspected it. There was a half eaten egg roll with bites missing out of it, covered in congealed plum sauce.
Little details like this were part of what made Charlotte Anne Ruskin-Jane so incredibly fun. Red John was very, very certain his young charge would never eat such a thing, yet here was an old take-out container of Chinese food with bites missing. So either she had changed her tune again, or even this carefree, rotting container of take-out wasn't nearly as care-free as it appeared to be at first glance. Either possibility was compellingly exciting, because they meant Charlotte wasn't just a plaything, wasn't just a robotic automaton like most humans that could be so easily manipulated and predicted. She was her own tricky, self-aware entity, and her moves were gray areas.
She had always been harder to predict than he'd expected, even as a little girl of five grieving the violent death of her mother and abandonment of her father but over the years she'd only become more tricky. And he had secretly cherished her unpredictable, tortured nature. That said, he'd never really considered that she would leave him, much less that she would leave him to go back to Patrick Jane of all people, the "father" who had so flippantly put his family in danger by publicly mocking and disrespecting a prolific serial killer on National television, the father who hadn't even bothered to check the identities of the bodies he'd found in his master bedroom with their lungs hanging out of the bottoms of their backs in gory ad-hoc tribute to the likes of Bosch.
Red John wanted to scream. Ten years gone. Ten years down the drain on that insolent child, and the second something was asked of her which presented a philosophical dilemma- to murder or not to murder- she'd flipped out and flown the coop. How was that for tenacity?
Of course, she could have left and gone to Patrick for other reasons. To subvert him? To recruit him to the cause? To kill him? Those were all potential reasons. But somehow, Red John didn't believe that she had taken off to try and gain Patrick's trust, to sway him into fidelity with his long-time "enemy" or even to kill him. If she had left to do any of those things, why the subterfuge? Why had she left so seemingly on the spur of the moment, without a word to him? Why had she trashed her apartment and freed all the poisonous creatures she had spent years studiously collecting?
As much as he wanted to deny the possibility, he had to face facts: the little bitch had left him. She had gone home to "Daddy".
She had betrayed him.
And now not only were she and Patrick "missing", but Teresa Lisbon was, as well. One happy little family.
There was a flicker of movement and a snake, one of at least 30, slithered over the tip of the serial killer's booted foot. A dark brown, elegant snake with an olive belly and crossbands and a constantly flickering, black tongue. A tiger snake, otherwise known as Notechis Scutatus. Potentially deadly to humans, if you were unlucky enough to be bitten by it, but generally happy to be left alone. Red John watched the animal for a moment, marvelled at its smooth, almost hypnotic grace. Such a beautiful animal. Elegant, really, but ultimately deadly. Silly for Charlotte to have owned such a dangerous animal, never mind dozens of them, but he had never been one to tell people what to do with their lives. Red John turned away from the reptile and continued on down the hallway.
The bathroom was cluttered with the usual teenage girl paraphernalia: little bottles of hair spray and detangler, Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo (no tears!), containers of scented hand and body cream, a tube of Noxema and a bottle of Nutrogena astringent, bottles of nail polish and tubes of mascara and make up compresses, a small pile of lip glosses in various flavours (Ho-Ho's, Twinkies, Dr. Pepper, Hershey Chocolate, Reese Peanut butter cups and chocolate mint flavours) and containers of foundation. There were two bottles of perfume, one shaped like a cat, kitschy as it was and the other shaped like some cartoon Geisha. Bubble bath and body bath (all these years later and the girl still preferred strawberry-scented toiletries) and a half-full box of Tampex tampons.
There was a tube of aquafresh with the top missing leaking some of the contents onto the side of the "retro" powder blue porcelain sink and a spray can of Glade air freshener scented like apple and cinnamon. Nothing, really, out of order here. Charlotte had never been particularly orderly.
Red John pressed farther down the hall, into his young charge's bedroom. The bed was unmade as usual, knitted green blanket, pillows and assorted stuffed animals were thrown every which way. The rock and metal posters (Ramones, AC/DC, Slayer, Metallica, Iron Maiden) and band flags on the walls were hanging askew. Red John flicked up the light and a set of black lights jumped to life, inciting the black-light posters on the walls to glow. Skeletons on horses glowed in various neon colours, psychedelic creatures sitting on toadstool mushrooms, images from the Bible, more metal band art and glow-in-the-dark constellations which had apparently been glued to the ceiling with... Red John was guessing super-glue of some sort. The effect was disorienting and not just a little crazy and combined with the various lava lamps plugged in and glowing around the room and the half-melted candles left abandoned on dinner plates on the floor one began to wonder if the owner of such a place was ever sober for more than a few sparse moments. On the scarred wooden desk Red John found a pile of crayola crayons melted inside a vintage green glass candy bowl and five Barbie dolls, stripped of their clothes and dismembered with an exacto knife or garden shears or something, covered in red enamel paint (Charlotte had left the paint on the dresser with the lid off and both the bottle and the paintbrush she had used to paint on the "blood" had long since dried to the top of her clothes dresser).
Red John pulled open the closet and stared, expression changing from mild surprise to disdain. Aside from the usual collection of t-shirts and jeans and teenage-girl "accessories", the back of the closet was full of more dismembered and damaged dolls. There were baby dolls with their eyes melted out (most certainly the girl had simply put cigarettes out on the eyes) and their arms hacked off. More barbies, all cut apart, nailed to the back of the wall behind the hanging clothes. Stuffed animals with their stuffing spilling out onto the floor and "blood" painted onto them (red indelible marker and enamel paint, it looked like, served as the blood). There were dolls (these ones looked like Ken dolls or G.I. Joes with the clothes removed) which were blackened and disfigured from having been lit on fire and left to melt away.
It was disturbing. Such behaviour was pointless, was childish and deranged. Inelegant. Taking a life could be a moment of great clarity- philosophically as well as personally. To mock such events by destroying and damaging toys was bizarre at best and disrespectful at worst, a mockery of the very acts which made their lives so glorious.
Red John carefully closed the closet and exited the bedroom. He hadn't found anything that could tell him anymore than he'd already known, or guessed at. Charlotte was a disturbed young woman and she had gotten
scared off by his direction, his support. She'd rather cut toys up then face reality and own up to her own fate.
Sickening. And he'd had such high hopes for her.
-end of chapter, please review-
