I can't believe another weekend is already upon us soon. So here's a new chapter to keep you busy until next week.

Dead Ringer

Chapter 26

Low Tech Info

Teresa left the hospital and hailed a cab to take her back to the cabin by the pond. It seemed like forever ago that she was here with Anika and Jane, eating breakfast and teasing each other. What did someone call such times? The magic of ordinary days? She yearned for those ordinary days to return and stay for good. Teresa felt so much older and so tired after everything that had happened this week. She entered the house and smiled wistfully at the first thing she saw, the old knitted throw that Jane used to keep on the back of his sofa at the CBI. It had rows of boomerangs all over it, dark/light, dark/light. He told her he got it from a Aussie he met on the Carny circuit. He had kept it out of a dream of going surfing one day. Now it went wherever he went. As she ran her fingers over it, inhaling his scent, little feet thundered through the kitchen and Anika appeared in the living room, closely followed by the tired babysitter Benita, whom Kiki insisted on calling Benny.

"Mummy!" she yelled, happy to see her mother after so long. She gave Teresa a big wet kiss then asked the question most on her mind all these days. "Where Daddy?"

Teresa held out her arms and scooped the little girl up, smothering her in kisses. "Hello pumpkin. Daddy isn't feeling very well so he went to the hospital to get better. Do you want to go and visit him tomorrow?"

"Daddy got a boo boo?" Anika asked, always assuming sick meant you needed a bandaid.

"Yes, Daddy has a big boo boo. One on his tummy and one on his head. We have to be very gentle with him when we kiss him, OK sweetie?"

"OK. I kiss him better!" KiKi told her mother. Teresa had to laugh at Anika's simple solution to life's problems.

"He'd like that. Maybe we can make him a get well card and take it with us tomorrow" Teresa suggested, happy to keep Anika busy and doing something to help her Daddy. KiKi ran off to find her art supplies and left the sitter to speak to Teresa.

"How is Mr. Jane?" Benita asked, reaching for her jacket.

"I can't say too much with you-know-who listening" Teresa said quietly, knowing KiKi might overhear their conversation, "but we found Patrick and he needed surgery for a knife wound to the abdomen."

"Oh Lordy no!" the older woman said, shocked at what had happened to that nice man.

"He's recovering and will be home in a day or two. Got a big bump on the head, but we are mostly concerned about his stab wound. Don't say anything to Anika, OK?"

"My lips are sealed. Say hello from me. Let me know if I can do anything to help when he gets home Teresa" the woman said as she waved goodbye to KiKi.

"Bye sweetie. Be good for your Mummy!" she called before she stepped outside and got into her car.

"Bye bye Benny!"

Teresa could finally take a big breath and relax. She was home. Patrick would live, and Anika would soon be in his arms. 'Thank you God' she prayed silently, before KiKi ran back to her with crayons.

"Make card now?"

"Absolutely. I'll order a pizza and we can make a card for Daddy while we wait. Then, it's bedtime missy!"

Teresa soon had the supper order phoned in, then she and Anika sat side by side at the kitchen table, making cards that Jane would treasure forever.

(Blanchard County - Texas)

Far away in Blanchard County, cruising down a dusty country road in the dark, Mark Stockman pulled up to the gas station to see if the old pay phone was still there. He needed to find out just where his cousin was hiding, and a single call might tell him exactly what he wanted to was still wearing his civilian clothes instead of a jail uniform. His play acting about being unable to walk had paid off so well, he had hardly spent long enough in the Markdale jail to get changed into a prisoner's jumpsuit. He went inside the small office at the gas station and looked around for someone to come out from the garage. The older man who ran the place was under a car, his feet sticking out as he worked on the oil pan. Smiling at his good fortune, Stockman stepped around the counter and opened the cash register, taking out all of the paper money and coins. As soon as he had it all, he ran back outside and dropped coins in the phone, calling a familiar number.

"Litchfield Psychiatric Home, how may I help you?" Mrs. Rogers said, annoyed that someone had prevented her from leaving. She already had her coat on and her purse over her arm. These days, the staff were staying later to keep the place going until someone took over the management of the Home again.

"Oh hello, I was wondering if I could speak to Dr. Litchfield? I have an uncle who needs treatment and I've heard such good things about the Home" Stockman said with a heavy Texas twang.

"I'm sorry, but we're about to close and Dr. Litchfield can't come to the phone. You'll have to call back" Mrs. Rogers said, eyeing the time.

"I won't be but a minute Ma'am. Is the Doctor there?" he asked again.

"Dr. Litchfield isn't in. He's away, for a while. Can't say when he'll be back. Like I said, you'll have to call back."

"I really need to talk to him. Can you tell me how to reach him, maybe a cell phone number?" Mark begged.

"Well, no, actually, I couldn't do that. Where he is...he can't be reached…" Mrs. Rogers said evasively. "Please, call tomorrow and you can speak to the Head Nurse. Goodnight Sir" she said with finality and hung up. Two minutes later, she was out the door.

Mark hung up and mulled over what she had said. The Doctor was out, mysteriously away, unavailable. Can't be reached...Can't say when he'd return. If he had gone back to his own facility, she would have said so. But no.

The fucker was in protective custody! It didn't matter where he was now, he was untouchable!

Stockman ran back to the ugly beige car in a foul mood and pulled away before the old guy in the garage noticed he'd been robbed. Where to now? He drove conservatively, just in case anyone passed him by. He didn't want to do anything to arouse suspicion. Patrick Jane was dead, David was safely hidden somewhere he couldn't find him...what did that leave him to accomplish as far as personal vengeance was concerned? He needed to hurt someone, ruin someone, destroy a life the way David had destroyed his… An idea began to take shape in his frustrated mind.

He reached down into his sock and pulled out a photo. It was the photo of that FBI Agent Teresa Jane and her little girl, KiKi. What kind of name was KiKi? Must be a nickname. Huh….he took his eyes off the road to stare at the little girl. There was no way to tell where the photo was taken. A park somewhere...but other than that, he had no clue where they lived in Austin, how they lived. Then he saw it. The clue he needed to fulfil a promise he had made to that asshole Patrick Jane just before he suffocated him to death.

The last thing he promised Jane before he killed him was that he would take his little girl away from the safety of her home, abuse her, use her, then drown her, just like he did with Lynn Michaels.

He ran his finger over the wrinkled photo and smiled. There was everything he needed to know, right there. Anika was in her mother's arms, wearing a bright yellow T-shirt with 'Unicorn Preschool" emblazoned on the front of it. They lived in Austin, and that kid went to the Unicorn Preschool.

Perfect.

Stockman picked up his pace and set his goal on reaching Austin as soon as possible. He had a date with a young girl named KiKi!

(Austin General Hospital - 2 A.M.)

Jane had been sleeping peacefully since he got out of surgery, thanks to the sedation the doctor had prescribed, but the medication was no longer deep enough to keep him completely insensate. As it began to wear off, Jane's brain woke up, long before his body did, and what his mind conjured up was ugly, dark, nightmarish in its labyrinthine twisting of time and memories. The past was the present, images of Charlotte playing with Anika filling his mind. What should have been a sweet image of sisterly love instead felt like a foreboding, a warning that all was not what it seemed to be. As he saw the two girls playing, his heart rate began to pick up, a darkness descending on this happy scene. Angela was there, as was Teresa, two happy mothers standing side by side, seemingly unaware of the impossibility of them being in the same place at the same time. Jane called out to them, to look up, 'I'm over here...take the girls and run...he's coming...coming for the girls...he'll kill them...look up!'

For years, he had been one step behind Red John, fighting to capture him before he killed either Teresa or Jane himself, and now, now his girls were in danger from a predator who knew no boundaries. But who was the predator? The danger was ill-defined, a wisp of evil drifting on the fall breeze, floating ever closer to his beautiful family. As much as his brain fought to put a face to the encroaching danger, Jane's thoughts were too disjointed to connect the dots and just remember. But the emotion that fear evoked was real.

'Look up dammit! Run!'

The cardiac monitor showed a spike as Jane's breathing picked up, sweat breaking out on his forehead. He tossed around the bed in agitation.

'Go! For God's sake he's coming for her!'

Even though his eyes were screwed shut Jane's face grimaced in fear and anguish, the anguish that no one was aware of his attempts to tell them that his beautiful daughters were in imminent danger from a man who had no scruples, no problem with taking a child to her death. He felt he knew who it was, but did Angela and Teresa?

He could see his enemy, knew that face so well. As the name came to him, his heart pounded out a staccato rhythm, the lines on his heart monitor climbing ever higher with each beat.

Mark Stockman was coming for Anika!

Jane banged against the railings of his bed and flailed anxiously, still asleep but desperate to get up and run to his house, to save KiKi and her mother. He could feel Stockman's presence, feel him observing Anika. There was nothing Jane could do but watch as his lovely girls played, oblivious to the deadly threat hiding just around the corner. Why didn't anyone hear him calling? As his heart pounded in his chest, he cried out in desperation, finally finding his voice.

"Run Anika! Run! He's coming! Hide!" he screamed before cool hands reached for his hot face and jerking arms and held him down.

His cardiac monitor had set off an alarm at the nurses station and sent three nurses running into his room to find him trying painfully to climb out of the bed, almost falling to the hard floor in panic. He still wasn't really awake, but in that nightmarish twilight zone of sleepwalking. He finally had his eyes open but he only saw his reality, his house, his babies, his beautiful Teresa and Angela, not the hospital room or the nurses hovering over him. As the nurses called for a doctor they restrained Jane, holding him down to prevent him from falling out of the bed completely and hurting himself even more than he already had. His bandage was covered with fresh blood. Surely some stitches had been ripped out of his incision. He fought off the nurses as well as he could but he had no idea he was doing it. He just couldn't seem to get moving, get up and over to his girls...something was holding him down.

"Mr. Jane! Wake up! Mr. Jane! You're having a nightmare!" one of the nurses shouted at him.

The pull of the sedation was still too strong, he couldn't wake up from this vision. A cool cloth was placed on his forehead while another nurse reached for restraints to tie Jane's wrists and body to the bed, to protect him from further injury. Finally a doctor arrived and after a cursory examination, injected a tranquilizer into the IV line to calm the poor man down. As the drug coursed through his veins, the memory of Stockman's threat to Anika faded, as the memory of Jane's family faded, their cries for help getting fainter and fainter, until, mercifully, his mind shut down and all thought dimmed to nothingness.

As his face slackened and he stopped fighting them, the nursing staff stood back and gave Jane room. The nurses filled the doctor in on what had happened, and he took notes on his ipad. While the patient slept, the doctor took the dressing off the stab wound and cleaned the incision, repairing the stitches that had opened up. In the morning, Mr. Jane would be none the wiser about his terrible nightmare.

(Austin Texas)

Stockman was lying low in a scummy, run down motel on the edge of the city. He had arrived hours ago, after taking a very circuitous route to reach his destination. He bought some beer and was reading the phone book helpfully deposited in the drawer of the broken desk in his room. What he needed was a laptop, but that had been abandoned when he had to ditch his car in Blanchard County. The phone book was so low tech...but it would do. Under the heading "Preschools" he ran his finger down the page seeking the Unicorn Preschool. The list of schools was long, but after dismissing all of the Montessori 'Unicorn' schools, he finally found the one he needed. There was but one Unicorn Preschool close to the downtown Austin core. Its advertisement showed a smiling child in a bright yellow t-shirt with the Unicorn logo on the front. That had to be it. Now all he needed to do was go there and put a plan in motion. Sooner or later, that little rugrat had to show up for class.

Stockman tore the page out of the phonebook and put it into his pants pocket, then he lay down on the bed and let himself relax in satisfaction. Tomorrow...he'd finally have his vengeance tomorrow. So what if that asshole Patrick Jane wasn't alive to suffer the loss of his precious daughter, again. Agent Teresa Jane could do the suffering instead.

(Jane Household - 7 A.M.)

Teresa had slept so well she almost overslept. All of her cares and fears had slipped away the previous night as soon as she laid her head on her pillow, her final thoughts being prayers of thanksgiving for Patrick's safe return to Austin. As soon as she got Anika off to preschool she'd go and visit Patrick first thing. Anika could come in the early afternoon once Teresa knew Patrick was well enough to handle a visit from his rambunctious daughter. She'd ask Benita to pick Anika up from school and bring her to the hospital where Teresa would meet them. Anika wolfed her breakfast down in happy anticipation of going to see her Daddy later, just like Mummy promised. But first, she had to spend the morning in school, to get extra smart. That's what she had told Teresa over breakfast. She would be extra smart for her Daddy today.

"I think that's a very good plan sweet pea" Teresa smiled as she put her empty coffee cup in the sink. "I'll see you after your lunch when Benny brings you to the hospital, then we can both go and see Daddy together. Come on, wash your hands and face, brush your teeth, and then it's time to go" she reminded KiKi, who was always in a hurry to rush out to start her day with breakfast all over her chin.

Ten minutes later, washed and presentable, Teresa buckled Anika into her car seat and drove over to the school just 20 minutes away. Many hugs and kisses later, Teresa waved bye bye to her little girl and got back into her car to go and see Jane before he woke up and wondered where she was.

(Austin General Hospital - 7:50 A.M.)

The sound of meal carts rattling down the hallway roused Jane from his deep sleep. The tranquilizer had finally worn off, as well as the initial sedation, so his mind was suddenly very alert and listening to the hospital slowly wake up. Jane lay strapped down to his bed, his body stiff and uncomfortable from being in one position for hours and hours. The noise in the hallway increased as the staff began their morning tasks, and at the sound of a loud crash down the hall, Jane's eyes flew open and he jolted awake.

Gazing around the room in confusion, Patrick realized with chagrin he was in a hospital. The last thing he could remember was staring up into the crazed face of Mark Stockman as he laughed at Jane's imminent death. Then, a heavy plastic bag was pulled over his head and everything faded to black. He had no recollection of being found, transported to the hospital or being treated for his injuries. Jane tried to reach down and pat his stab wound to see if it had been stitched up, but his wrists were tied to the side bars of his bed. A flush of panic raced through Jane as this scenario was eerily similar to his time spent in the psychiatric home after his wife and daughter were killed. There too he had had to be tied down as he raged at their deaths. As his heart rate sped up, he suddenly feared the worst. Was he back in a mental institution? But for good this time? He wrestled with his restraints, only making his distress worse until he resorted to crying out for help. He screamed for someone to come and release him and let him go home. The monitor showed his heart banging away in his chest as his worst nightmare was being played out, yet again.

The door slammed open and a young nurse raced in.

"Help! Help me! Get me out of here! I don't belong here! I want to go home!" Patrick cried, not thinking at all now, just reacting from panic and a heavy shot of adrenaline.

"Shh! Calm down Mr. Jane! You'll rip open your stitches again like you did last night" the nurse warned him, hitting a call button for more help.

"Let me go...I gotta go home" Patrick cried, dissolving in tears as his life spun out of control, just like it had so very long ago. "Please…" he begged softly now, trying to get the nurse to stop her work and just look at him.

"It's alright Mr. Jane. You're safe. No one will hurt you again. You're in a hospital in Austin Texas. You had surgery last night and you already tore some of those stitches out in the middle of the night. That's why we had to tie you down" she explained, finally talking directly to him.

"Take them off...let me go…" he whispered, not listening, scared. He was so damned scared.

"Jane?" a voice called, fear in her voice.

"Teresa?" Patrick replied, trying to look past the nurse who blocked his view of the doorway.

Teresa jogged across the floor and almost pushed the young nurse out of the way.

"Teresa. Tell them to let me go! I can't move!" he cried, begging her to be his saviour.

Turning to the nurse, Teresa pointed to the restraints and took over.

"Please remove those right now."

"I'll have to wait for the doctor to order it" the young woman started to say but Teresa cut her off.

"Take those off my husband this instant. It's panicking him! Can't you see that? Take them off and he'll calm right down, I promise" she barked. Without waiting for the girl to do as she was told, Teresa reached for Jane's left wrist and unbuckled the cuff encircling his wrist. As his hand fell to the bed, he could have kissed her right there and then with relief. She got busy with the second cuff while the nurse silently unbuckled the band going around Jane's midsection. Just then the Doctor came into the room and and saw what was happening.

The nurse was about to protest but the Doctor just waved her away, allowing Teresa to set her husband free.

"Teresa….thank you" he sighed as she bent down to kiss his lips. She lingered, letting his warm lips savour her kiss as he inhaled her special scent.

As she straightened up, the Doctor came forward, a slight smile on his face.

"I'm sorry you were still tied to the bed when you woke up Mr. Jane. I was hoping the staff would get to you sooner."

"Why?" Jane asked, not hearing what the nurse had tried to tell him a few minutes ago. "Where am I?"

"Austin General Hospital, surgical unit. We operated on that knife wound last night Mr. Jane. It was pretty badly infected, but with antibiotics and plenty of rest, you'll soon be well. Just don't keep ripping out your stitches, OK?" the Doctor informed him.

"OK" Jane said softly, never taking his eyes off Teresa. Just a hospital. Not the mental ward. Just a stab wound. His fears were eased, one by one.

"I'll take good care of him" Teresa promised the Doctor.

"In that case, you're in good hands Patrick. Just try to relax, those nightmares won't do you any good while you recuperate" the Doctor said on his way out of the room. He had no idea how prophetic those words were.