Authors notes: I know this is a short chapter even for me, but it seemed the best place to stop. So I hope you will forgive me. I hope you like this.
Jane tells himself he had every intention of going back to the CBI as instructed by Lisbon but somehow he found himself outside his motel room with no idea how he got there. He parks the car and heads towards his room, he absent mindedly rubs his neck. Opening the door he throws his keys on the dresser and sits down on the bed. He closes his eyes but Angela Poulson immediately forces herself to the forefront of his mind, he quickly opens them. A deep sigh escapes him. He never imagined that someone else would get killed because of him. Red John had researched his victim thoroughly. Not only did she share his wife's first name but her husband had a connection to him. Red John obviously wanted to reiterate the reason for his punishment.
As soon as Poulson had screamed at him about his mother while he was strangling him Jane had known who he meant. She had not been his finest hour. Her husband had died just a few months before she contacted him after attending a show. She missed him fiercely and soaked up every lie Jane told her, each lie costing her hundreds of dollars. She had stopped coming after she was getting low on funds and moved to Arizona to live with her daughter.
Had he ever questioned what he was doing? Had he felt even a twinge of guilt pocketing the cheque? He just kept feeding himself the same old lines of 'giving them hope', 'he was only telling them what they wanted to hear', he was filling a service'. Lisbon should have let Poulson finish the job. He had been a leech all his life. Taking from people whether they had it to give or not - it didn't matter to him. All he wanted was money, fame and adulation.
When doubts would worm their way in like a rivulets of water he would turn to his wife and daughter for vindication. If the two best people in the world could love him as fiercely as they did then he must be alright. Sweet Angela would not give herself to a worthless fraud, cheat, lowlife. But he had been wrong! She had loved the man she saw he could be. Yes she knew his faults but she had faith that her love could eradicate them, did she ever know that it was doing the opposite.
His angel, Charlotte looked at him with faith and worship. She saw only the man who would play with her, sing to her, make up stories with her. Her daddy taller and stronger than she, who always made her feel safe. But she had been wrong. Her daddy toyed with a serial killer, put himself first again, blinding himself from the danger that Angela could see so clearly. Charlotte paid dearly.
Now they were gone, victims of his selfishness. They suffered horrors that he can only imagine - horrors that should have been his. He grabs a pillow and throws it across the room. He sinks to his knees, his face in his hands:
"It should have been me. They were innocent. They shouldn't have paid the price. It should have been me. it should have been me."
Jane is weeping and rocking back and forth on his knees.
When Jane returns to his senses he is lying on the floor. He turns over and looks up at the ceiling. He feels exhausted by his emotions, an empty sack. He wonders if he can just lie there until death over comes him, how long will it take? Will it be painful - he hopes so.
His thoughts turn to Red John and the note. He never thought when he started on this quest that others would be dragged in to it. Never thought there would be others that would pay the price. Would there be more? Perhaps he should give up? He knows he can't. vengeance is why he can take a breath, without it his guilt crushes him, he can't move, his lungs can't inflate, his heart can't beat. The weight of vengeance balances the weight of his guilt. What a man he has become: where there was love there is hate, where there was be joy, there is despair, where there was light, there is darkness.
"Angela save me from this hell. Let me feel your strength. Show me the way to carry on."
A knock.
"Jane open the door."