Chapter 11.
The party is in full swing when the three agents and Jane arrive, many of the guests they recognise from the paper as California's wealthiest businessmen and women. At the door, they are greeted by Bernard Hayes himself, who formally greets each one of them.
"I'm so glad you could come," he smiles warmly at them, "where is Agent Lisbon?"
"She's unavailable," Cho answers, after a few seconds of silence.
"Aw, that is a shame," he moves aside, "please come in."
Kimble, Wayne and Patrick all wear suits with bow ties, Grace wears a beautiful black dress with a diamante flower on the single strap over her shoulder. She walks in, floating on what looks like black velvet, Rigsby tries not to stare, but it doesn't go unnoticed by Jane.
"Ask her for a dance," he whispers in the agent's ear.
Rigsby looks shocked by his suggestion, the words the heart wants what the heart wants float into his mind.
"Damn you and your mind tricks," he replies with a low voice, before going over to Van Pelt and speaking to her.
At first, she looks shocked… and then nods, following him to the dance floor.
"What's got into him?" Cho asks, handing Jane a glass of water.
"No idea," Jane replies innocently, before taking a sip of the ice cool drink.
"Have you seen her yet?" Cho whispers.
"No, but I'll keep looking," he replies, heading off into the crowd.
The music is soft and romantic as Wayne and Grace make it to the floor. Some couples pirouette around them, others sway gently from side to side. Rigsby smiles as he gently takes her hand in hers, she wraps her arm around his waist, and they dance, taking steps in sync with one another in time to the music.
"Grace," he breathes, "you look beautiful tonight."
"You don't look too bad yourself," she smiles in reply.
"There's something that I want to tell you…" he smiles sheepishly.
"Go on," she encourages him.
"Well, I told Jane something and now I'm going to take my own advice," he takes a deep breath, "I want to be with you, no matter what our bosses say. I love you and I want to always be there for you."
"Wayne, we've been through this before…you know we can't," she tells him, tears forming in her eyes.
"I don't care," tears begin to sting his eyes, "and well…"
"Keep it up," Jane whispers in Rigsby's ear through his earpiece, interrupting his chain of thought.
There are a few taps on a microphone and the cluster of people turn towards the staging; on it is Bernard.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great honour to welcome you here this evening," he smiles, "we are here tonight to remember a great man, Walter Mashburn."
Jane finds it easy to slip around the mansion unnoticed, there are so many alcoves to nip in when one of the members of staff walks past.
"Jane," Cho tries not to shout too loud, "Jane, where the hell are you?"
A hand extends from behind a pillar, "here!" Jane's voice loudly whispers.
Cho finds him leaning against the wall, "what are you doing?"
"Listening," he replies, "do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Do you have your earpiece in?"
"No," he plugs the opaque piece of plastic in his ear, and then he heard it, a flat whine, "it was working earlier."
"What causes interference like that?" he smiles.
"A receiver," Cho answers, "you know where it is?"
"Not yet, but give me a minute," he exits his little hiding place and slowly walks up the corridor, one finger holding the earpiece steady in his ear.
Cho follows, also listening carefully, the whining continues until everything goes back to normal when they turn the corner.
"That room," they both say in sync, Jane smiles whilst Cho just stares at him.
They retrace their steps, stopping at the room's single door. Cho pulls his firearm from its holster which is hidden underneath his jacket; Jane opens the door for him and waits until Cho goes in first. Flipping on the light, they find a vacant desk among tall bookcases filled with book keeping manuals. On top of the desk is a Macbook with a small USB hard drive plugged into it; sat beside it, there are several matching photo frames made from a dark wood. No one is there, so Cho puts away his piece and beckons Jane in.
"Where would she hide it?" Cho asks him.
Jane silently walks behind the desk and places one hand on the leather chair's backrest, his fingers drum as he thinks, and then he says "bottom drawer on the right side."
Cho joins him and pulls open the drawer; underneath a few cardboard files is a set of keys, along with a small black box, which Cho places on the desk.
"Those are Lisbon's," Jane tells him, recognising the set of keys that he once placed in a wooden box, her reaction to his little game was unexpected, as she took a hammer to the small puzzle box.
"Jane," Cho snaps him out of his revelry, "were you even listening?"
"Pardon?"
"I take that as a no then," Cho rolls his eyes, "I said take a look at the photos."
He turns his attention to the arrangement of photos on the desktop; many are of beautiful landscapes, but one is of Bella Castro alongside her boyfriend, Piero Franco, they're both smiling, looking straight at the camera.
"Look at their necks," Jane picks up the frame and shows it to Cho.
When he takes a closer look, he sees the small circular disc hanging on thin chains around their necks.
Cho pulls his phone from his pocket and texts Rigsby, gt evidence, find Bella Castro.
Bella runs out of the mansion to her car, she had parked it knowing that she would need a quick getaway. She's screwed up and now they are coming after her; she thought that her plan was fool proof, she'd been careful not to leave any evidence at the scene, but the bomb… as soon as she returned home she noticed that Piero's token of love was missing from around her neck. All she wanted was to find out why he was arrested, she knew that the CBI would tell her nothing, all she wanted was to know… sure, her way wasn't conventional, but the Castelli's got what they wanted and she just wanted information. He found the bug, so she had to make sure that it didn't trace back to her, so she slit his throat and burned him, the icing on the cake was killing the bitch who arrested him.
"But she just had to live didn't she," she sneers aloud, and that is when she planted the bomb.
A hoody, that's all she needed to conceal her identity; and that was it, job done.
As she ascends up the driveway, a gun goes off and her car fishtails, reflexively she slams on the breaks before colliding into one of the hedges that lines the brick drive.
"Step out of the vehicle with your hands on your head!" comes a shout from behind her.
"It's over," she tells herself, she opens the door, waving her hands in surrender before stepping out.
With Rigsby's gun still pointing at her, Van Pelt approaches her and wraps a pair of handcuffs tightly around her wrists.
"Hey, that hurts," Bella tells her.
"This is nothing compared to what you did to my boss," Grace retaliates through gritted teeth.