Lisbon found Patricia still sitting at the dining room table, flipping through old Sunset magazines. She knew Patricia was making herself as available as possible—she'd been hanging out in the living room and dining area all morning—and Lisbon hadn't spoken more than pleasantries with her since hearing the bombshell of her having a second son. Lisbon had contacted SFPD immediately and told them to hang on to Ryan Steiner until Cho could get there to bring him back to Santa Clarita. Cho had orders not disclose anything other than that Patricia Steiner was in protective custody. Lisbon figured she had five or six hours before that explosion would arrive and she needed to use the time wisely.
She went and pulled a chair out and sat across from Patricia.
"How is he?" Patricia asked.
"He's okay. Considering."
Patricia nodded.
"I'm going to be very frank with you, Patricia. I think your concern for him is genuine and it matches mine. His memory loss is alarming. And Jane is not someone who trusts the kind of professional who might help with this sort of thing. I have gotten him to agree to talk with you more to see if it can jog some memories. But you have to understand that he believes you are somehow connected to Red John and part of a … larger plan."
"What?!" Patricia cried out. She flung herself back in her chair.
Lisbon waved her hand out like these things can't be helped. She had meant to alarm. She was being Jane in his absence, looking for any cracks in the façade, hitches in the emotions.
"That's crazy," Patricia said.
"You have not been chasing Red John for almost ten years," Lisbon said. "You have not had your spouse and child viciously butchered because of something you said. You have no idea what crazy is in this case."
Patricia went quiet as she took in Lisbon's words. Lisbon watched a shadow of fear and sadness pass over her face. These moments were what convinced Lisbon that Patricia was not working for Red John. Patricia's emotions were natural and apparent and on the surface. Normal.
"You're right," Patricia said apologetically. "I don't really know anything about him or his situation. And I feel so… selfish for insisting on staying here. It's…" Tears welled up in her eyes. "I see how … lost he is, and I'm trying to be careful."
"I appreciate your situation," Lisbon said. "I think you can be helpful and I've gotten Jane to agree to continue talking to you."
Patricia looked relieved.
"I'm specifically looking for you to help him remember his life before you left. That is a definite dividing line in his memory. He does not remember that your sudden disappearance happened at the same time that this Ricky Streeter disappeared."
"Okay," Patricia said, as if she were a part of the team.
"He is obviously very emotional when he is with you. From now on, I want you to do everything you can to make your presence here as self-effacing as possible. Can you do that?"
"I… I don't know. I am obviously emotional too."
Lisbon considered this. "We'll have to see how it goes. I'm reserving the right to stop the whole thing if it gets out of hand."
"Okay," Patricia said.
"I've asked Jane to talk to you. Nothing more. You will have to drive the conversation in a way that will not provoke him. Can you do that?"
Patricia looked a bit confused. "I think so. But, you seem to have an idea of how this will all play out."
Lisbon half laughed. "No. I don't. I have known Jane for a long time and I cannot say I know him or how his mind works to any definitive degree. And he is clearly not himself now. But I can say that he will probably try to provoke you at every turn. It's what he does to flush out the truth."
"Okay," Patricia said.
"It would be best to just be honest and open with him. He suspects you are hiding something."
Lisbon saw Patricia frown slightly and look down. "Okay," she said with less confidence than the last time.
"Are you?" Lisbon asked.
Patricia looked up, surprised.
"Because you seem like you are."
Patricia considered Lisbon in her Jane-like way, searching her face, assessing. And then she stopped. Lisbon could see her visibly shut the reading down.
"I'm sorry," Patricia said. "I … I can see you are trying to help him and protect him at the same time and I'm very glad for that. To answer your question, I have made decisions that I am ashamed of now, and I don't know how or if I should explain them to Patrick."
"Well, again, I think honesty is the best avenue to take with Jane."
Patricia nodded reluctantly.
"I'm going down to check on the team, but I'll be back. Jane should be out shortly."
"Okay."
Lisbon went down to the rec room. Van Pelt was working on Ryan Steiner and Lisbon wanted to know what she had so far. Rigsby was processing the evidence from the latest crime scene that Stanton's team was sharing.
"Van Pelt, you got anything yet?" Lisbon asked, coming in and leaning her hip against the pool table.
"It's a little sketchy," Van Pelt said. "Ryan Steiner works at the medical research center. He was more than likely the one calling Patricia every day, though the phone calls came from a shared line in a break room and were paid for with a phone card. But here's the weird part: he's not a US citizen at all. He would qualify for dual citizenship, but there's no record of any attempt to secure that right. He's been mostly in the States since he started college at Harvard at 18 on a student visa. When he leaves the country, he mostly goes to Brazil, but there are trips to Europe and China and Iceland. He's here on a work visa now. He has a passport from Brunei and they are refusing to share records, citing privacy rights and lack of criminal charges."
"Why would two US citizens not want their son to be one?" Lisbon asked. "And where the hell is Brunei?"
"It's a sovereign state on the island of Borneo. His age and Patricia's timeline suggests he was probably born there. It's kind of interesting. Brunei is a tiny country on the island and considered fully developed. The population is less than half a million, but it's a wealthy country due to oil and natural gas development."
Lisbon frowned. She was starting to think Patricia was becoming more of a pain in the ass than Jane.
"Did you tell Jane?" Van Pelt asked.
"No. And I'm not going to for the time being. I want to see if Patricia fesses up to it before Cho gets back. Where is he now?"
"Left San Francisco about thirty minutes ago."
"How are you doing, Rigsby?"
"Nothing has popped yet. It's all pretty standard Red John," he said grimly.
"All right, keep working. We're going to start sleeping in 5 hour shifts starting tonight. We need to stay alert. This may end up being a long haul. I'm going to be upstairs refereeing that situation. I hope I won't need back-up," she said with a grimace.
"How is he?" Van Pelt asked.
"He's holding it together. Barely."
"What do you think happened?" Rigsby asked. "I mean, to Jane."
"I don't know. But I sure as hell am going to do my best to find out," Lisbon said. She grabbed some case files and headed back upstairs.
She and Patricia were both reading at the table when Jane finally emerged from his bedroom in a fresh suit, his hair clean and coifed, and a look on his face that Lisbon could only describe as a showman's face. He cleaned up well, and Lisbon had the sudden thought that all his three-piece suits were like body armor, a visible reminder of the layers of protection he wrapped himself in and the formal distance he kept from the rest of the world.
He passed them by wordlessly and went to the kitchen. Lisbon followed him.
"Chinese is in the fridge," she said.
Jane had the kettle under the faucet. He raised his eyebrows at her and smiled. "Okay." After getting the kettle on the burner, he leaned against the stove to wait.
"Seriously, when was the last time you ate?" Lisbon asked.
"I'm not the one with questionable weight issues," Jane said.
"Don't deflect."
"Don't smother. Or is that mother?" Jane smiled ironically. "You got me to shower. Be happy, Lisbon."
Lisbon sighed. Jane had that glint in his eye that meant he had decided to turn this all into one of his dramatic games. The problem was she was pretty sure he had no end game other than to completely discredit Patricia. She considered her options before landing on one that might work. She walked over to him, getting so far into his personal space to knock the glint out of his eyes and see it replaced with surprise and uncertainty and maybe even a little fear.
In a low voice, she said, "You are the strongest man I know, Jane. I work with a lot of tough guys with big guns, and I know they would not have survived what you have and been able to go on and do what you have done. I know this is hard for you, but you can do this. I know you can. If you put that brilliant mind of yours to it, you can do this in a way that makes you better for it."
By the time she finished, she saw his eyes open to a place of vulnerability she had only ever seen the briefest glimpse of over the years, usually after some act of violence he had just witnessed. He swallowed and said nothing.
She turned and went back to her seat at the table. Patricia had obviously been watching them and she had a look of confusion on her face as she watched Lisbon sit down and open up a case file. All her looks of confusion over the last two days were another reason Lisbon was pretty sure she wasn't working for Red John: the woman had no idea what she was stepping into when she decided to drive over to CBI HQ the day before. No idea whatsoever.