Chapter 25 – Intent

Sacramento

Around twelve months earlier.

He sought an escape route immediately. Smoothly, "You're a beautiful woman, Teresa. What man wouldn't react in that way when he takes the time to admire you?"

"Still trying to make me believe you're on that desert island of yours?" she remarked with a smile that was half playful, half smug. "That all you see when you look at me is that I'm a vaguely attractive female?"

When he didn't respond she added, "Is that why you looked afraid of me earlier?" she asked, pinning him to the spot. "Am I...am I dangerous to you, Jane?"

He inhaled sharply. "No."

He went to move off the bed but she kept hold of his hands, made him look at her. "Am I?" she asked again.

"No," he repeated, his face calm and composed, contrary to how his voice shook when he spoke.

"Your pulse is telling me something different."

"Lisbon," he said, shaking his head. "Please."

"Please what, Jane?" she said with more assurance, gripping a lapel of his jacket and holding him in place with her left hand. She trailed the fingers of her right over the rough material of his jacket upwards, stopping when they reached his bicep. Still maintaining eye contact she moved it across to his heart. She placed her palm on it firmly, could feel the gentle thump thump under his shirt. As she moved her body closer towards his it quickened for a brief moment before it slowed down again considerably.

"You're trying to control your breathing," she said gently, edging closer to him still. "But you're taking it too far. Your heart rate is much slower than it should be considering these circumstances."

"Since when are you so familiar with biofeedback and pulse points?" he asked, offering her a cool facade.

"Like I said, I've picked up a few things from you all these years. And now you're trying to distract me and make me believe something I know isn't true."

"I don't want you to make a fool of yourself again, Lisbon." He looked down at her hand bunched up in his lapel. "Now let me go. This has gone far enough."

"I would if I really thought that's what you wanted."

"It is-"

Fiercely, "No, it isn't. This is what you want. I can see it in you, Jane. I can feel it in you. You just won't admit it, though, will you?" She pressed her hand harder against his chest. "You could release yourself from me if you really wanted to; I'm not exactly strong at the minute, am I? You could leave. But you haven't and you won't, will you?"

Weakly, "Just stop." He placed his hand on hers over his chest to remove it, given up on controlling the frantic beat of his heart. He could practically hear it pounding rapidly in his ears. "Stop this," he pleaded.

She ignored him and moved forward, his eyes on stalks as she leant in, breathed in his scent at the base of his neck. Her breath licked his skin and he closed his eyes, giving in to the blissful yet torturous sensations, his blood rushing red hot, his nerve endings set alight.

Instead of kissing him she drew her mouth upwards slowly, short pants expelled as she made her way to his ear, warming his flesh, further warming his blood. "I know what living in darkness is like too, Jane," she whispered. "Especially lately. And...and do you know what I came to realise?"

Any words in response caught in his throat. He shook his head with an audible swallow.

She kissed his earlobe with the lightest of touches. "That you're where I find my light. And if I am where you find yours...if...if that's what you were trying...well, trying not to say...then I can't understand why you wouldn't want to take comfort in that."

She kissed him just below his ear gently, could feel his heart echo loudly beneath her hand, his still on top of it, grasped tightly to hers now. She felt the fight for control leave him, his breathing becoming increasingly erratic as she kissed his neck gently. She opened her eyes and saw his firmly shut, his mouth slightly parted as she kissed his cheek with small pecks.

"That's why you're still here, isn't it?" she continued. "Because you do want that comfort. You do want that light. Maybe...just maybe, like me...you need to hold onto it sometimes to survive the dark."

He opened his eyes and gazed at her, undisguised and open. Tears pooled as his eyes circled her face. "I'm not anyone's light, Teresa. I never have been. I'm the darkness, a curse - not light."

She stroked his cheek lovingly and he exhaled as a tear fell onto her hand. He sighed and shook his head, placing his hand on hers as he closed his eyes again. He took her hand and pressed a small kiss to its palm. He whispered, "I'm sorry."

"Jane-"

"I'm sorry," he repeated, louder.

He released her hold on him and stood up, took a long step back. He watched her as she knelt on the bed, defeat in her posture, her face. Then he saw her sit up straighter again, regard him with a defiant tilt of her chin.

"If you don't want this...okay, I can accept that. But don't tell me how I feel about you. Don't tell me how I see you is wrong. Because it isn't. You asked me a long time ago why I put up with you. You want to know why?"

"I close cases," he shrugged, attempting to lighten the mood.

She smiled, "Yeah, you do. But we both know that's not why I put up with you."

"Lisbon-"

He shook his head as panic began to set in but she continued, unafraid. "Because you bring happiness into my life. With all your crazy shenanigans, your refusal to follow the simplest of instructions, your plots and schemes and half-truths..." She smiled again and shook her head. "Every day I wake up and you're in my life I know I'm going to smile. Every. Single. Day.

"So don't tell me you don't bring light into my life. Even with how you've been treating me lately, you've still managed to do it. I don't know how the hell you have but you still manage to brighten a moment of my rotten day even if I'm mad at you for the other ninety-nine percent of it. If you want to leave then leave but don't tell me what you mean to me."

He said nothing for a long moment as he stared at her. His gaze drifted to his shoes as he sighed loudly. He brought his eyes back to her again slowly, ran them over her slowly before he spoke. "I-I don't know quite what to say to that," he finally admitted.

She coloured and shrugged. "You're not required to say anything back, it's alright."

To her surprise, he sat down on the bed next to her again and spoke softly but assuredly, "You have no idea what you mean to me too, Lisbon. No idea. I can't find the words for how much I care for you. And I'm...I'm sorry if you've ever doubted that."

"Thank you," she replied with a blush, "and now I'm not quite sure what to say."

He smiled warmly at her. "No one's ever said anything like that to me before," he said.

She shrugged, awkward now that she'd run her mouth in such a fashion and his rejection of her pass. "It's okay, Jane. Look...no harm done, right? I took a shot. You're not interested. It's okay. Just...just go. I'm gonna go eat a tub of Rocky Road and pretend I didn't just make a fool of myself."

"I should," he replied, nodding, staring at her like she was a puzzle he couldn't figure out. "But you were right. I-I don't want to leave. I just know that I should."

His eyes darkened and her pulse skyrocketed. Still kneeling, she took his right hand that was lying in his lap and moved it across to her hip. Took his other hand and pressed it against her opposing one. She moved closer to his body, looked up under her eyelashes as he continued to gaze at her. Sensing both fear and desire in him she began to unbutton his vest slowly, saw his Adam's apple bob as her fingers went to work. Anxiously, she unbuttoned his shirt and placed her right hand over his heart. She leant into him and kissed the centre of his chest, slipped her hands around his waist as she peppered kisses on his abdomen. She pressed her forehead against his bare skin and sighed as she hugged him tightly.

He said nothing as she continued and made no movement to initiate contact nor extricate himself from her hold on him. Frustrated, she pulled him further into her embrace and looped her arms around his neck. She began kissing him harder as her lips travelled upwards, nipped at his ear. After a minute she drew her head back, frowned at him until he opened his eyes. They were glassy and clouded and gradually he focused on her.

"Is it because of what happened to me?" she asked shyly, looking at her arms as she withdrew them to rest on his chest. Any confidence she had was shattered as he'd done nothing to encourage her. "Is it...is it because I'm so damaged now? That you really don't see me as the woman you've known all these years? You don't see me as someone who brings you light anymore, any form of happiness or comfort? That I'm not the same woman I was-"

"No!" he interrupted fiercely, catching his breath. He exhaled, his fingers flexing on her hipbones. "I just..." He licked his lips. "Well, you seem set on a course of action here and I..."

Nervously, "You don't want to?"

A short chuckle. "Precisely the opposite."

She smiled, linked her arms around his neck again. "So?"

He moved a hand to caress her face, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Tenderly, "It would be taking advantage of you."

Irritated, "Jane-"

"Lisbon, you cannot say that this is normal behaviour for you. It is absolutely not. You would never have done this if you hadn't been kidnapped. Not in a year of Sundays."

She opened her mouth to argue then shut it again. "Okay...okay...you might have a point. But I can say that I wanted this to happen before I was taken. So, what was your plan? To just sit there and...take it from me?"

He managed a smile. "I'd expect at some point soon my composure would run out and I'd be forced to engage."

She laughed, despite not wanting to do so. "Wow, well thanks for making a girl feel wanted."

His face changed from amusement to desire in a split second. His voice deep, "There is not a part of me who doesn't want you right at this moment." His fingers instinctively grasped her hips tighter, his pupils dilated.

She flushed with the heat of his gaze. "So take me." She shook her head. "I'm yours, Jane. You know I am. I have been for a long time."

His expression fought between wonderment and displeasure. "You were never meant to be mine. I'm...I'm the worst person in the world for you, Teresa."

"No, you're not. I meant what I said earlier. You know what I thought about in those nights I was in that room? You. Not always...not all of the time. But mainly."

She placed her hands on his cheeks. "I began to wonder if I'd ever see this face again. Began to wonder...wonder if I'd ever get the chance to tell all the things I kept inside. Began to wonder if you actually knew how I felt about you. Did I do too good a job at covering it up? Or was I too obvious? Did you think of me in the same way? Were you embarrassed for me? Were you just using me as a convenience? Was I part of your plan all along, just to make me feel special enough so I'd go along with your plans-"

"Believe me, you-you were never part of any plan," he cut in roughly. "This wasn't supposed to happen." He shook his head wildly and she moved her hands to his shoulders. He sniffed loudly. "But I-I couldn't help it," he shrugged. He let go of a breath. "I couldn't help myself," he said, softer. He gazed into her eyes. "I hate you a little for that sometimes, you know," he said, chuckling lightly.

She smiled back. "Well, I hate you sometimes too."

He caressed her cheek as he stared into her eyes. "But we can't do this, Teresa. We can't. It's something we can't come back from."

"I don't care. I don't care anymore, Jane. I could have died in that room. Or today. You could have too. We both could have died a hundred times since we've met. Neither of us knows what's in our future. Neither of us knows when the clock stops ticking."

"So, we just say to hell with the consequences further down the line and throw the rulebook away? That's your suggestion?"

She raised an eyebrow. "That's pretty much how you've acted since we've known each other, Jane."

He laughed through a sigh. "Not with us. Not...not with something like this."

She wrapped her arms around his neck, moved closer into his arms. He took a deep breath as he felt her breasts against his chest. Without another word, she closed her eyes and kissed his mouth, a soft press against his closed lips.

"Did that feel good?" she asked, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

"Just because it did-"

She kissed him again, surprising him before he closed his mouth. Her tongue darted inside briefly, fluttering against his own.

He moaned and engaged his tongue, brought his hand up to her face as she deepened the kiss further. He pulled back, breathless. "This is..."

"Nice?" she ventured with a smile, kissing him again.

He smiled against her lips as he parted his mouth willingly. He pressed his lips against hers and initiated a kiss in return, angling his head to explore her hot mouth. She gasped and reciprocated intensely, bringing his face closer and her body almost in his lap.

"I was going to say wrong," he said, drawing back again with dark hooded eyes filled with lust.

His eyes lingered on her before him, all plumped lips and tousled hair. "Shit," he added hoarsely.

Sacramento

Present day.

"He's really not getting a deal?" Lisbon asked as they sat on the couch in the living room drinking tea.

Jane smiled as he sipped from his cup. "Nope. Well, not the one he wanted."

"How'd you manage that?"

"Let's just say he overreached and my patience ran out."

She nodded slowly. "He threatened to come after me, didn't he? Charge me with assault or something like that?"

He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. It's settled now. He gets immunity, protection until any trial testimony and after that, he's on his own. Still too much if you ask me but less than he wanted so guess it'll have to do."

"Thank you," she replied with a small smile. "Have to admit it feels good knowing he won't get everything he was hoping to get. So, what did he say exactly?"

"Brief synopsis? He met this General person at a gun show in Vegas as he stated before. He gave us the name of the event and who organised it. He said the General was a regular attendee by the impression he got as some of the people selling there knew him already-"

"So we have a name for him?" she cut in with some excitement.

"Hm, theoretically, yes."

Her shoulders slumped. "It's an alias."

He nodded. "We assume so. And Medina assumed the same and that he always preferred to be called 'General' when being spoken to. He made that clear from the outset." Jane rolled his eyes. "But the name he gave him initially was James Smith. And that's who the people from the show who recognised him knew him as too."

Now it was Lisbon's turn to roll her eyes. "James Smith, seriously? That's-"

"Just about the most common name you're going to find? Yeah, afraid so."

"All right. Can we get any further information from the stall holders about him? Did he make any purchases? Maybe there's a financial trail? And what about security footage from the event?"

He smiled briefly at the cop in her rising to the fore. "Van Pelt checked with those who organised the event. No footage exists anymore - they don't hold records that long. But Medina has given us some names that he remembered from the event. Rigsby and Van Pelt are going to check with them, see if they can shed any further light on what they know of Smith, how they met him and so on, anyone who might be close to him. They're also going to contact any weapons dealers registered there on that day too."

"Some of those people don't trust cops. It's possible they won't tell us anything even if they do remember him. It can be a tight community."

"Possible. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it if it looks like someone is holding back."

He slipped his hand into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of white paper. He looked at her with concern. "We got a sketch of him according to Medina's description. You want to take a look?"

She nodded as she stared at the paper in his hand. "I-I never saw his face. At least...not that I recall."

With a slight shake of her hands, she took the sheet of paper off him and unfolded it slowly. Her eyes circled the image on the page before she frowned. "He looks..." She laughed faintly before she grimaced. "He looks a little like Paul Newman, doesn't he?" She shook her head.

Jane smiled. "There's a likeness. Towering Inferno era not Great Escape, certainly."

Absently, "He looks...kind if anything." She looked at Jane again in disbelief.

"We both know monsters come in all shapes and forms, Lisbon," he replied sympathetically. "Would make the job a whole lot easier if they had horns and carried pitchforks but also make it a whole lot less challenging, yes?" he smiled. More seriously, "He doesn't look familiar to you, then?"

She shook her head. "Just around the eyes. I'd know those eyes of his anywhere." She swallowed and folded the sheet again, placed it on the coffee table and pushed it away from her. She raised her cup to her lips and sipped her tea with a deep breath as she looked ahead again, lost in memories and nightmares.

"What else?" she said a second later, coming back to the present and turning her head towards Jane again.

"Ahm, Medina did mention that Volker would stop by to...to see you." He sighed and licked his lips, took a deep breath to keep the scorn from his tone. "Each day you were there he visited the observation room to..."

He reached for his cup to take a much needed long sip.

"To observe progress of my decline-" Lisbon finished for him.

Teeth clenched, "Yes."

"What else?"

He swallowed and shook his head. "Maybe you should read the statement yourself, Lisbon."

She nodded. Softly, "I'd rather you gave me a heads up on the bullet points. Not so clinical that way, you know, when I do read it."

He nodded and took a breath. "Okay." He looked at her again in such a way she raised her eyebrows and said, "I can take it, Jane. Whatever you tell me, it's okay."

"Volker removed the tapes and took them with him daily. So, there's that."

"Hardly a surprise, I'm sure the bastard watched them over and over. I take it when he was arrested-"

"No tapes of you were found, obviously. So he's stashed them somewhere safe, I assume."

"Or loaned them out to some other sick friends of his. Surprised he didn't just post them anonymously on the internet."

Jane pursed his lips at her comment and she nodded. "Of course. He still might do that when we talk to him depending on how hard we go after him."

"There is that possibility, I'm afraid. But if he did then he might leave some kind of digital trace that would lead us back to him. Presently all we have is Medina's testimony against him, he might determine it's not enough to get charges brought. Plus those tapes are like a secret treasure trove to him, Lisbon, they may be deemed too important to him personally for just anyone with a computer to watch."

She wrapped her hands around her cup and nodded, attempted to conceal the shake in her voice as she cleared her throat as she tried not to think about the mindless masses who could watch her fall from grace by merely clicking on a search button. Thinking about what Volker might have done while he watched them was disgusting enough.

She knew they could be deleted easily from mainstream viewing with some assistance from the FBI but the dark web was a place that was becoming ever more popular for perverted individuals' more twisted fantasies and viewing pleasures and was much harder to police. "Well, there's nothing that we can do about it if he does decide to release them. So, anything else?"

"Something interesting. The night that you...asked for the heroin. Medina states that Volker and Smith had some kind of disagreement."

She frowned. "About what?"

"He didn't know exactly but that he was certain it was about you. He said that the two of them were going at it in the observation room shortly after Smith injected you. He didn't hear much but he said it sounded like Smith was having some kind of issue with Volker's orders."

Surprised, "Really? But why?"

"The more I think about it the more it makes sense. Let me ask you this. If you knew all along this was Volker then what is the reason for him letting you go?"

She shrugged. "I-I don't know. I've been thinking about the same thing myself. He hates me enough to kidnap, inject me with heroin and then...and then he just lets me go? It doesn't make sense."

Jane nodded. "Precisely. Makes more sense that Smith released you against Volker's explicit orders."

She drew her head back. "So you're suggesting Smith actually saved my life in the end?"

"I wouldn't go that far – he was responsible for drugging you daily, Lisbon. And by your own account, it sounds like he had no issue with doing so. If anything, it sounds like he enjoyed his work a little too much. And he didn't exactly run into the ER with you in his arms, did he? It was mostly luck you found your way there. Medina said that Smith ordered him to take you there and that you were still pretty out of it by the time you arrived and that you could barely walk in a straight line. He also told him to drop you off before the hospital's security cameras could track the vehicle that was loaned to him. So Smith was still protecting himself and his team. He gave you a fighting chance of survival, that's all."

"I still don't understand why he'd want to give me even that."

Jane shook his head as his shoulders slumped, "Neither do I, presently. I was hoping perhaps you might recall something that night that made him go up against Volker."

She exhaled loudly as she pondered. "I-I can't remember any more than I've told you already, Jane. But Volker would have wanted me dead, that makes sense," she stated after a moment.

"And more than that he'd have wanted you to know that he was the one responsible for it. Why else go to all the trouble of setting this up and then miss out on the final coup de grace?"

She nodded. "That I agree with. Nothing he'd have liked more than to see me brought to my knees and for me to know he was the one who'd accomplished it. He'd have most probably wanted to toy with me for a while more after that night, watch me beg again and again for my dose like a starving dog before finally putting me down and watch the lethal injection being pumped into my veins."

Jane closed his eyes at the imagery. "Yes," he admitted feebly.

She got up from the couch and paced back and forth, a line between her eyes. "If Smith let me go for, I dunno, finally finding his conscience or whatever...then why is he still killing these other women still?"

Jane picked up their cups and took them to the kitchen to wash them out. "That's the question, isn't it?"

"One of them," she said with an eye roll. "This whole thing is making less and less sense."

He chuckled faintly. "Well, there is one good thing that might come out of it. If Volker and Smith had a falling out-"

"Then Volker may be willing to roll over on him now."

"Mhm...although-"

"He'll want an immunity deal if that's the case," she finished for him.

He put the cups on the drainer and turned to face her. "Or worse."

"Worse?"

He ran his tongue over his lower lip. "You never asked how long Volker's sentence is."

"Well, I assumed with all those murders he had carried out-"

"All that could be proven against him was kidnapping Marvin Pettigrew, Lisbon. Everything else..."

He shrugged, "Everything else he'd covered his tracks too well. And Marvin's mother was too afraid to allow her son to testify against Volker when it came to trial. More than likely she'd been threatened by Volker's people. But no one was able to prove it. And...and to be perfectly honest, the boy was traumatised enough when she got him back. I-I couldn't blame her for her protectiveness of him."

Lisbon stumbled forward to face him. "So just how long did he get?"

Jane looked at his shoes. Quietly, "Three years."

"Three years?!"

He faced her again. "It was all that could be proven against him. And I-"

"You were so goddamned busy hunting Red John you didn't give a damn how long he got!" she bit back.

"That's not fair," he snapped. "If I'd known he was responsible for kidnapping you-"

"That shouldn't matter!" she yelled. "It shouldn't matter how personal a case is! Being in Law Enforcement means you go after everyone equally! You should have gone after him for everything you could!"

"Chrissakes, we did! And where the hell were you when all this was going on, huh?! Off licking your wounds somewhere under a rock?!"

She stepped back in shock and he shook his head a second later. "I-I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean that. Lisbon, I'm sorry."

Angrily, "It's okay. If that's how you really feel-"

He stepped forward. Softly, "It's not. Of course, it's not. It's just you made it sound like I didn't give a damn and, believe me, I did. We all did. And you of all people should know that."

She breathed deeply as she nodded. "I-I know. I'm-I'm sorry too. I just can't believe that he only received a few years after everything he did..." She drew another deep breath. "When is his parole date?"

"Still a year away currently. But if he helps us catch Smith and the AG agrees to immunity for anything he tells us in relation to that-"

"Then he could get released immediately."