Disclaimer: Anything you recognise is Bruno Heller's.

A/N: I'm starting to sound like a broken record but seriously, you have no idea how much I appreciate your reviews. Thank you.

Fair warning: you may have to suspend your disbelief for this chapter, because finding a balance between "clever enough" and "too clever" is very hard when speed writing. I tried to keep Lisbon's psychic act as unspecific and easily explainable as I could, but I have no idea if I succeeded. Guess we'll see how you react. Hope you enjoy it anyway. :-)

Hour 8: Lisbon
Test

"Prove it," repeats Lazarus, when she doesn't answer.

She breathes in deeply, joining her hands together in a pseudo-mystical gesture she saw Jane do a few times.

Okay. You can do this. You have to do this.

"This place – has been in your family for a long time," she starts slowly, keeping her eyes on him, reading him as best as she can.

"A spirit tell you that?" asks Lazarus, eyes widening slightly.

"Shhh," she says, raising a hand – cocking her head to the side, as if listening to someone.

Lazarus straightens but keeps quiet – and she has his full attention now.

Hooked, whispers Jane in her mind.

Good.

"This house, it used to belong to your father. It belongs to you now that he's – gone?"

He flinches nearly imperceptibly, a very slight flare of his nostrils, consolidating her feeling that his father is the spirit he's trying to contact.

Keep going, says Jane. You're doing good.

"You spent a lot of time in this room as a kid," she says slowly, watching him like a hawk, making sure her cold reading is accurate.

He doesn't react, waiting for her to continue. How much can she push it? The last time she read a profiling assessment for a serial killer, the man turned out to be much more of a mastermind than his profile gave him credit for.

Then again, McAllister did fit some of the sociopath stereotypes.

How many of them fit Lazarus?

"You didn't have friends as a child, but this place – this room – was your haven. It still holds some of your happiest memories."

"Who's telling you that?" he asks intently.

She keeps silent, but takes a deep breath and joins her hand again. The strong, strange smell she noticed earlier comes back with a vengeance. Some sort of cleaning products – she isn't quite sure what for but it's tugging at a childhood memory – and rotten meat. But no, rotten meat isn't quite right, it's rather –

Blood. It smells like spilled blood.

– like one of Red John's crime scenes. One of those dreadful crime scenes with a gutted victim, their blood soaking the sheets and mattress, and the smell, especially in summer –

Oh, he does take blood from his victims, doesn't he?

When she opens her eyes, Lazarus is vibrating with excitation, and she knows to thread carefully – he's like a bomb just waiting to be set off. She shivers – not on purpose at first, but quickly harnessing it to add to her mannerisms. She can nearly hear Jane's soft chuckle in her ear.

"You were close with your father. Not as a child – you had trouble respecting anyone back then. But – "

He doesn't have the physical built of a bully. And he likes good manners.

" – as time passed, you learned from him – understood the world better with his help. Since he died – "

She takes another deep breath. They both are on the edge of their seat, she realises – only for different reasons.

How did they describe a psychopath's mindset already? Disconnect with reality. That's it. Well it's certainly accurate with this one.

" – the world doesn't seem as real as it used to be. Nothing matters to you anymore, and you feel as if people around you are just going through the motions, like – like robots. Robots wearing human skin."

His eyes widen – and he tries to hide it, but he's obviously impressed. There's a headache slowly growing behind her eyes, however, and she knows she won't be able to maintain that level of attention much longer.

How the hell does Jane manage to keep it up all the time? God, he must have been a monster as a kid if he had that kind of energy to waste.

She barely stops herself from touching her stomach. There is no telling what he would do to her – to them – if he realised she might be pregnant.

"What do I do for a living?" Lazarus asks suddenly, interrupting her thoughts – and she kicks herself for faltering, for failing to keep her focus on him.

"I – "

I have no idea at all. Oh God. What do I do? What do I say?

She closes her eyes, half-thought words of prayer on her lips. Her breath quickens, bringing in more of the chemical smell, and suddenly the childhood memory that's been nagging her every time she breathes in comes back to her mind.

Cockroaches. We used to have them in the house, after mum died. Someone came and used chemicals on the carpets, made Jimmy sick. It's the same smell. That's it!

"You're an exterminator," she answers, opening her eyes again, looking right at him. "You chose that career path because – "

The wipes. He gave me baby wipes after I used the bucket. And this workbench is the only clean thing in the whole room.

" – because you like order and – and cleanliness. Getting rid of pests makes you feel good, makes you feel like you – like you're cleansing the world, one house at a time."

He nods slightly, mouth hanging half open, and she lets out a loud sigh of relief – which quickly turns into a sigh of exhaustion, because she cannot possibly keep this up any longer.

"That's – impressive," he says.

She nods her thanks, unable to trust her voice right now.

"But I don't need to know about me," he adds. "I want contact with another."

She bites her lip, but shakes her head.

"I can't," she says.

He slowly gets up, a storm darkening his expression.

"What do you mean, you can't?"

"I – I need to rest."

"You've been at this less than fifteen minutes!"

"I need to rest!" she repeats, looking up. "And I need food. This is how it works. I can't contact spirits if my body isn't – "

He slams a hand on the workbench and she flinches, muscles stiffening despite her best intentions.

"You better not be kidding about this," he growls, towering over her.

"I'm – I'm not," she says, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

She isn't quite sure how well it works. But Lazarus doesn't seem to enjoy her fear, and she's starting to understand this man doesn't enjoy causing pain, doesn't enjoy frightening his victims just for the sake of it. He doesn't enjoy human interaction enough to be a sadist, and will leave her alone as long as she can give him what he wants.

But that's the problem, isn't it?

Lazarus stays unmoving a few seconds more, then walks away, leaving the basement like a whirlwind. She wants to close her eyes and pray, but she doesn't dare.

I have to find a way out of here.

She gets up, tests the chains to see how far it will let her move. The answer is unfortunately not very far – she barely gets two feet of wiggle room, despite having a little more space than before she was allowed to use the bucket. Disheartened, she sit down, looks around the room. The windows are small, though not that small – she could probably pass through as long as she kicks the screen off. Maybe she can find a way to unscrew the metal loop holding her chain? It didn't move when she tried earlier, but if she twists and turns harder –

But she can hear Lazarus' footsteps overhead, walking back and forth heavily. If he's planning on bringing her food, he won't be gone for long. Not long enough. There's no time to escape right now.

As long as he isn't in the room, she must find a way to gather more information about him, to bring up more details to feed him before he brands her as a fraud and kills her. But she doesn't have Jane's cold reading skills, and there's only a limited amount of things she can guess based on her surroundings.

This time she does close her eyes, grasps her cross, and prays. But even the words of her prayer escape her, and a frantic anxiety settles in.

Stop. STOP. You cannot panic now. There must be something you noticed and forgot. Think!

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

The way he walks – silently, methodical, with an economy of movement rarely seen in normal people. The bear sculpture on the bar behind her. He's probably a hunter – did he learn with his father?

She bites her lip.

Maybe. But that's too thin, I need more. What else?

Her gaze stops on the workbench.

Clean, yes – clean, but old. What if that workbench was around when Lazarus was a child? A memory of Tommy playing with a knife, sculpting his initials everywhere, comes back to her mind.

With a bit of luck, at least that part of his childhood was normal.

She pulls on the chain until her left hand is flush against the loop, and her right can roam free under the table. Her sensitive fingers feel the rough wood carefully, taking note of every scratch and indentation, discarding pockmarks and normal wear, until she comes across a peculiar curved line near the end of the leeway allowed by her handcuffs.

It's a – a "J" I think. Yes. "J" – another curved line, no wait, circle – is that an "O"? And the next one is – J-O-E. Joe. Joe!

The handcuffs are nearly cutting the blood flow to her hands, but she keeps trying to reach further in the hope of finding more – until heavy footsteps come closer, the door opens, and she scrambles back into a normal position as Lazarus comes in.

He doesn't say a word – just throws a paper bag at her and watches, silent, as she takes out a dry blueberry muffin. A pang of heartache tightens her throat – this is Jane's favourite flavour – and nearly makes it impossible to swallow the first bite. She eats as slowly as she can, small piece after small piece, while Lazarus paces impatiently behind her like a caged tiger.

When she's done, he crumples the paper bag and throws it in a corner of the room, his whole demeanour fraught with repressed violence. Keeping her breathing in check is the hardest thing she's ever done.

"Do you finally have everything you need?" he barks at her.

She takes a sip of water to conceal the way her heart jumps in her throat, then nods.

Sink or swim.

"He's here," she says.

"He?"

Lazarus stops pacing, taken aback, then sits slowly.

"Who is here?"

"Your father. He's here – he wants to talk to you. That's who you want to get in touch with, isn't it?"

The man nods briefly, but there's something crude in his eyes, something shimmering with doubt and mistrust – and she knows she has to convince him as quickly as possible, before he remembers he's the one with the gun.

"He calls you by name," she adds, carefully watching for any minute stirring of his facial muscles. "J – John – no. Joe. Isn't it? His little Joe."

She breathes in calmly, slowly blinking, creating the kind of persona that will hopefully allow him to believe. She's surprised to see how quickly his breath mould itself on hers.

"He says – thank you for thinking of him, for – wanting to keep him around, even after all this time. He also says – "

Careful. Watch his reactions, talk slowly – backtrack at the earliest sign that something is wrong.

" – he misses the time you spent together – hunting?"

"Fishing," corrects Lazarus.

For a second she fears his reaction to her mishap, but then she notices the strange, revoltingly soft smile on his lips and the far-away expression in his eyes, and she can breathe again. He seems to believe – for now, at least.

"Fishing," she repeats, nodding along. "He says something about – about a catch, when you were young. When you were still a child. The first fish you ever caught. He's saying how proud he was of you that day – and how proud he still is today."

"Daddy," whispers Lazarus.

"He wants to know why you're trying to contact him."

The man doesn't have time to answer – a ringing sound goes off somewhere, and they both freeze.

Cell phone.

Someone is calling him, and her hands climbs up to her cross again, clenches hard.

Maybe that's my chance.

Tomorrow's prompt: Cold