A/N: Not much Jane in this chapter but lots of Lisbon and lots of answers. More Jane in the next. Thank you to everyone who's got this story over 500 reviews. I feel like eating a huge bar of chocolate & a glass of wine to celebrate.


Chapter 29 - Tori

Before they reached the top of the stairs Jane tapped George, who was following John single file, on his shoulder with his gun. Both men turned around. 'What's behind that door?' Jane asked quietly, gesturing to the wooden panelled door at the top of the stairs in front of them. Both men looked anxiously at each other.

'Before you even think about lying to me remember Dawson will blame you for letting me break free. You two have no problem killing people but you don't quite have the artistic flair for it that he does, do you? You've helped him place the bodies over the last few days, you've no doubt heard or been involved in the sick game he played with Lisbon. You saw what happened with Powers when he wasn't quite up to the challenge he'd been set. Now, what do you suppose he'll have in mind for you? Because, whatever it is that just sprung to your mind it'll be a blessing compared to what he'll actually do.'

He stared from one man to the other. 'Look into my eyes, you know I'm telling you the truth. Federal prison will be a holiday camp compared to what torture he'll dream up. Your best bet is to help get me out of here.'

After a small nod from George John spoke. 'Leads to a small study. Then a door leading to a hallway. Three doors off it. Bathroom and two bedrooms. At the end of the hallway open plan kitchen diner/living room, whatever. Big room.'

'And that's where the front door is?'

'Yes, there's a back door off the kitchen but back garden's enclosed. No way out of it unless you can scale a twelve foot fence. Only way out is through the front.'

A vision in his mind recounted his attempt to jump over a fence at an airport months ago. Not a total success and a bum ankle would certainly slow down his attempt to escape a crazed lunatic. 'How many others in there?'

'Two more.'

'Like you, security?'

They nodded.

'Your phone' he demanded.

'Don't have one. Dawson took them off both of us.'

Jane studied their expressions. The truth. Damn. 'Where is he? Obviously not in the study where I assume the monitors are placed or he would have come down before now.'

'He...he was in the kitchen when we went downstairs. He was making himself a sandwich.'

Jane shook his head and smiled thinly. Guess pathological serial killers had to eat too. So the only way through was to perhaps engage with Dawson once again.

'Move on' Jane commanded.

As they reached the top of the stairs he took a deep breath. 'Remember what I told you' he said coldly to both men. 'You know enough about my history that I won't hesitate to kill either one of you. And that was before what you participated in over the last month.'


'What do you want to know?' Tori Reynolds asked Lisbon.

'First of all, where's Patrick Jane being held?'

'That I don't know. I wasn't privy to that information.'

'Convenient' Abbott butted in, suspicion in his tone.

'So tell us what information you were privy to then?' Lisbon prodded.

'It's a long story. I'll share some things with you now but...well some I won't. Not until I know for certain it's safe for me to do so.'

Lisbon gestured to the empty room. 'How much safer do you want it?'

'Let me tell you what I can for now. Then...you'll understand better my reluctance.'

Lisbon shrugged, clasping her hands to stop her temper flaring.

'You don't remember me, do you?'

'You don't think I would have mentioned it if I did?' Lisbon replied, rolling her eyes.

'We met in Austin. At the gun range there. A couple of times.'

Lisbon frowned, trying to dredge up the memories but she came up blank. 'Go on.'

'Well we talked a little. I was hired to investigate your patterns, your routine. It wasn't easy sometimes as you're not exactly a creature of habit and you can see a tail a mile off. But once I got to know where you'd inevitably end up each night, either your house or Patrick Jane's Airstream it was a little easier to keep track of you without you noticing.'

Lisbon frowned. Jane had an Airstream? She filed that information away for another time.

'Who hired you and why did we talk if all you were supposed to do was watch me. Didn't that defeat the objective?'

'I was hired to watch you. But that was their agenda, not mine. Mine was to talk to you.'

'Who are 'they'?' Abbott sighed. 'We're done running around in circles, Reynolds.'

'My contact is a man named William Dawson.'

Lisbon and Abbott glanced at each other at the familiar name from the Visualize files.

Lisbon continued, 'So you say that their agenda was to watch me. Why?'

'I wasn't given the reason.'

'And you didn't ask?' Lisbon asked incredulously. 'You must have known damn well they were planning on either killing me or abducting me!'

'Yes, I admit I thought it was something like that. But...I thought I'd be able to intervene before that happened. I thought I had more time. And then after it happened, well I thought that...well maybe Dawson would hire me to help with it.'

'But he didn't, that's what you're saying?'

'No, he didn't. Powers and some heavies took care of that instead. I didn't know where you were until you showed up at the hospital. It was only then I learned what they'd done to you.'

'You could have gone to my team with what you knew well before then! Gave them a place to start looking.'

'Like I said, I don't trust the Feds.'

'You could have went to Patrick Jane. He's not a FBI Agent. Far from it.'

'Yeah, but he was surrounded by Feds all the time. I think they must have had him on suicide watch or something. And he barely left Headquarters in Austin. I couldn't get to him.'

Lisbon glanced at Abbott, her eyes wide as he nodded imperceptibly. She had no idea he'd fallen apart as much as all that.

'You could have called him.'

'I could and almost did but...but what was I going to say? That I'd been following you for weeks and the people who hired me to do so had kidnapped you. I looked into him, Agent Lisbon. He's not exactly rational where his loved ones are concerned. If anything, I feared what he would do to me more than the Feds.'

Lisbon looked down and shook her head. It was hard to argue with her logic. After a moment she continued in her questioning, 'You said it was their agenda to watch me but your agenda was to talk to me. What about? I'm presuming it wasn't the weather.'

Reynolds pursed her lips into a thin line. 'I wanted to...feel you out. Check out what kind of an agent you were I mean.'

'Sounds like you had researched me before then.'

'I had. I wanted to find someone within the FBI I could trust. With the information I have it is vital I pick the right person. If I don't then I'll be dead and the last two years will have been for nothing. When Dawson hired me it felt like fate somehow that it was time for me to take that chance with you.'

'What information?'

'Let me tell you why I trust you first. Because of your history. Because of how you were treated when the CBI closed down.' Reynolds shot Abbott an accusatory look. 'You trust the man who helped them do it?' she asked Lisbon.

Lisbon blushed faintly and looked sideways at Abbott. If she was going to get anywhere with Reynolds she was going to have to sympathise with her to a certain degree and she had a feeling this woman was as almost good as reading people as Jane. 'Apparently I do. But I have no memory of it. So...at this precise moment in time I have some issues, yes. But Patrick Jane trusts him so that's good enough for me to work with him.'

Before Reynolds spoke again Lisbon thought for a moment and frowned. 'You're not part of Visualize, are you? I mean, you were there, you've been there for a couple of years but...you're not like them. You're not indoctrinated.'

Reynolds nodded. 'You're correct. I joined them to investigate from the inside.'

'Who hired you?' Abbott asked.

'No one. I did it myself. My sister-'

'You don't have a sister' Lisbon interjected. 'It's not in your history or your army file.'

Reynolds laughed softly before a sad smile graced her lips. 'I don't anymore. She was the result of a one night stand my father had. A mid life crisis I guess you'd call it. We didn't find out about each other until she was a teenager and I was in my late thirties. Quite a gap between us, it was almost like...well I don't have any children of my own but...I felt a kind of maternal bond with her instead of a sisterly one. She wasn't close to her own mother so she looked up to me I guess. We lived with separate families and in separate cities but we wrote to each other a lot. Especially when I was overseas with the Army.'

Lisbon could empathise. While there wasn't an age gap between her and her brothers she had certainly mothered them growing up. 'What happened to her?'

'She joined Visualize when she was seventeen. She had some...problems with her stepfather. He used to beat her and her mother didn't want to know. I was away and she felt she had no one to turn to so-'

'She turned to a cult who was more than happy to accept her and mould her into whatever the hell they wanted her to be' Lisbon replied, a bite to her tone.

'Precisely. Anyway...apparently she killed herself three years ago.'

'But you don't believe that's the case?'

'I did at first but then...well then I received a letter. When I was still overseas. Mail was sometimes a little tricky to receive so it was after her funeral. It was the last one she had written.'

'What did it say?'

Lisbon saw her tense immediately and softened her tone. 'Tori, you trust me, right? Whatever it is I won't...' She looked over at Abbott. 'We won't act on it hastily.'

Reynolds glanced around the shell of the office as she ruminated on Lisbon's last statement. 'You did good work here. If it wasn't for your team The Blake Association may never have been brought down.'

'What do they have to do with any of this?' Lisbon asked, a shiver going up her spine.

'That's what Laura, my sister, wrote to tell me. That it was starting up again. Recruiting new members through Visualize. She overheard Dawson and a few of them talking about it. About some master plan to fulfil McAllister's work.'

Lisbon swallowed nervously. 'Oh god no' she whispered.

'They must have killed her. Either for overhearing them or threatening to tell the police. So, once I was discharged I made it my mission to infiltrate them. Turned up as a lost soul after leaving the army. To be honest, it wasn't far off the truth. Took me a year to get close to Dawson. Another for him to trust me into his inner circle.'

'He's the one running it?'

'I thought so to begin with but I don't think so now. He's just a sick son of a bitch who enjoys murdering and manipulating people.'

'So who is in charge?' Abbott asked.

'That's the problem. I don't know yet. But I have a meeting with Dawson tomorrow morning to go over the next phase of the plan. Whatever the hell that is. He tells me nothing until the last minute. I figure the longer I'm there and the more he uses me I'll meet the person in charge soon enough.'

After a moment to take in everything she'd just been told Lisbon asked, 'Why did you shoot Cho?'

'To keep my cover intact. I knew he'd be okay.' She glanced at Abbott. 'To be honest I'd hoped he would come out of the door first so I could have nicked him instead.'

Lisbon rolled her eyes. If Jane were here he would have appreciated her dark sense of humour. 'Dawson's holding Jane?'

'That would be my assumption. My job was to allow him to run from the room where the FBI Agents were located. Dawson's good at reading people. He knew that Jane would assume he'd be coming for you and try to get to you.'

'How did you know we were at the motel?' Abbott asked.

'I don't know. I was just told to report there. But as I said, they're gathering recruits already. Safe to say they already have some local cops in their pockets. And maybe even FBI too.'

Abbott closed his eyes briefly. Dear god, not this again.

'Do you have any idea what Dawson's plan for Jane is?' Lisbon asked.

'No but whatever it is it isn't going to be good, is it?'

Lisbon jumped from her chair startling both Abbott and Reynolds. 'Okay, first thing we need to do is keep your cover intact.' She turned to Abbott. 'Can you get a press release issued that Cho was murdered? Try to keep a lid on the truth and only tell his mother, Rigsby and Van Pelt.'

She rounded to Reynolds. 'That was the instruction, right?'

Reynolds nodded, a smile of relief forming on her lips that she had picked the correct person to come clean to.

'And Wylie and Vega' Abbott nodded, fishing out his phone.

'Yeah, of course' Lisbon replied, not yet used to considering the two new people she apparently worked with now.

'One more thing' Reynolds interrupted.

'What?' Lisbon asked.

'Do you know anything about a flash drive that Gale Bertram had?'