A phone rang just as they pulled into their driveway back in Salt Lake later that evening.
"Are you going to get that?" Lisbon asked as she put the car in park.
Jane frowned. "I thought it was yours."
Lisbon pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at the dark screen. "No. It must be you."
"The burner," Jane said. "Where's your burner?"
It took Lisbon a moment to remember where she'd put it, but she managed to find it just before it stopped ringing. "Hello?"
"Hey, boss," Cho's brusque voice came from the other end of the line, betraying no emotion, as usual.
Emotion welled up in her chest. "Hey." She swallowed. "It's good to hear your voice." She glanced at Jane reflexively. Wordlessly, he reached over and squeezed her hand.
"You, too. Listen, there's something I need to tell you."
Lisbon instantly went on alert. "What's wrong?"
"Put him on speaker," Jane instructed.
Lisbon put the phone on speaker and set it on the dash. "We're both here. What's going on?"
"Red John killed again," Cho said. "I wanted to tell you before you see it in the papers."
Jane tensed. "Was it Lorelei?"
Lisbon watched him, worried.
"No. It was a guy named Benicio Rubin."
Jane blinked. "Who's that?"
"Low level thug. He'd done some work for Scalzi in the past."
Lisbon frowned. "Why would Red John go after one of Scalzi's guys?"
"Rubin tried to torch your apartment last night."
"My apartment?" Lisbon repeated blankly. Then realization dawned. "Oh, my God," she said in horror. "Are the tenants okay?"
"Nobody's staying there at the moment. Property owners hadn't gotten around to subletting the place yet."
Lisbon exhaled. "Thank God."
She became aware that her hand was hurting. She looked down to see Jane still had hold of it and was clutching it with a white-knuckled grip. "What happened?" he asked tersely.
"Near as we can figure, Red John had somebody staking out the place," Cho said. "When Rubin showed up with ten gallons of kerosene and a lighter, Red John's guy knocked him out and called Red John. Red John came and finished the job. He left Rubin on your doorstep and his mark on your front door."
Lisbon felt ill. "Jesus."
"Yeah," Cho said. "We think Red John killed him to send a message."
"What message?" Lisbon said, still reeling from the news.
"To mark his territory," Jane said grimly. He let Lisbon's hand go and raked his hand over his jaw.
"His territory?" Lisbon said, frowning.
Jane looked over at her, his eyes tortured. "He wanted to let Scalzi know that he's not to touch you, because Red John intends to keep you for himself."
Lisbon felt as though her mind was operating outside her body. "Oh," she said, her voice distant. Great. Two notorious killers fighting over who would get to murder her. Just what every girl dreamed of.
Jane took her hand again.
Lisbon snapped back into focus. She cleared her throat. "Any leads?" she asked crisply.
"Not yet," Cho answered. "We're working on it."
"Okay," Lisbon said. She threaded her fingers through Jane's. "Did you let Montrose and Soren know yet?"
"Not yet," Cho said. "I wanted to let you know first."
Lisbon was touched by this evidence of her team's loyalty. "You'd better call them. They shouldn't know we've been in touch."
"Yeah," Cho said. There was a brief pause. "We miss you around here, boss."
Emotion threatened to choke her. "I miss you, too." She glanced at Jane. "We both do."
"Jane's not driving you too crazy?" Cho asked, as though Jane weren't sitting right next to her.
Lisbon smiled despite herself. "The usual. But he makes up for it with baked goods now, which is a nice perk."
"Plus, Bertram isn't on your ass about him pissing off a judge or something," Cho agreed.
"Exactly."
There was another pause. "I shouldn't stay on the line," Cho said finally. "We don't know how secure these calls are."
"Yeah, of course," Lisbon said sadly. "Say hello to the team for us."
"Will do," Cho said, and hung up.
xxx
Once inside, Jane ran his hand down her back. "I'll put the ski equipment in the garage," he said quietly.
Lisbon nodded her assent, not trusting herself to speak. She turned into the bedroom and began unpacking, subdued.
When Jane came into the bedroom a few minutes later, she glanced up briefly, then returned her attention to folding the red snowflake sweater.
Jane came over to the bed and started taking his own luggage out of his bag.
"Jane…Patrick." Lisbon kept her eyes fixed on the snowflake. "Why'd you ask if it was Lorelei?"
Jane sat down heavily on the bed, abandoning the luggage. "Because he'll want to punish me for leaving," he said, his voice flat and remote.
Lisbon looked up at that. "Punish you?"
Jane nodded, his eyes distant. "He knows if he goes after Lorelei, I'll feel responsible."
Lisbon looked down at the snowflake again. "I see." She stared at the sweater for a minute, then turned her back and walked over to the closet.
"Teresa," Jane said, pained.
She put the sweater away and turned to face him.
He held out a hand towards her. Reluctantly, she walked back over to him and gave him her hand. But once he had it, he used it to pull her towards him, burying his face against the front of her shirt. "I should have known something like this would happen," he said hoarsely.
She threaded the fingers of her free hand through his golden curls and brought them to rest at the nape of his neck. "Yeah," she said glumly. "Me, too."
Jane closed his eyes and rested his forehead against her stomach. "We did the right thing, coming here."
"You think?" she said, surprised.
"Yeah. If you'd been there—" he swallowed convulsively and turned his cheek into her t-shirt, his fingers fisting into her shirt at her back to pull her closer.
They stayed like that for a minute, taking comfort from the shared closeness.
After a moment, Jane lifted his head and dashed at his eyes. "I suppose it's the best outcome to be hoped for, when you think about it," he said with false heartiness. "Red John and Scalzi killing each other's goons instead of innocent people, for once."
"I suppose," Lisbon said, unconvinced. "But Patrick—" she swallowed. "What if they do go after someone innocent next? What if he takes Lorelei after all? Or a new victim who isn't connected to any of this?"
"Lorelei's hardly innocent." He looked down. "But if he goes after someone new—I agree that would be bad." He gripped her hand. "But Teresa, we have to be prepared for that. It's not just possible, it's likely." He swallowed again. "Inevitable, even."
"What if they go after the team?" she whispered. "My family? What if they decide to punish both of us for leaving?"
"Well, hopefully Scalzi's gotten the message that he's not to mess with you and yours after this," Jane said darkly. "And as for the rest—" he sighed and raked a hand through his hair. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we have to trust the feds on this. They'll keep them safe."
"But what if he turns someone in the protective detail? He had O'Loughlin. What if he has more people in the FBI? In the marshals' office—?"
"I know," he said soothingly. "But think about it, Teresa. Why would he go after them now?"
"You said it yourself." She thought of Rebecca and Bosco and shuddered. "To get you back."
"It's possible," he allowed. "But I think…" he trailed off.
"You think what?" Lisbon prompted him.
He sighed again. "I think he'll want to punish me, but not—not too much."
"Not too much?" Lisbon repeated blankly. "What does that mean?"
"If he goes after the team or your family, we'd be more likely to come out of the woodwork, yes?"
"Yes," Lisbon said, knowing she wouldn't be able to stay away if someone she loved was in danger.
"And if we come out of the woodwork before the trial, there's a greater risk of Scalzi coming after you himself. Red John could task more minions to protect you, but that puts him at greater risk of exposure. Plus, that's a lot of man hours. It would be inconvenient for him to have to manage that in the long term."
Lisbon stared at him. "You really think Red John would dispatch his people to protect me from Scalzi?"
Jane shrugged helplessly. "He knows if something happened to you I'd be out of commission."
"So you still think he wants to punish you," she said slowly, still processing this. "But only a little bit?"
"He wants to punish me enough to make it difficult to stay away from California," he said. Away from Lorelei, Lisbon translated mentally. "But not enough to actually go back before the trial. Killing an innocent person would be a nice, elegant way to torture me from afar."
"Unless he gets tired of waiting and just decides to come after us here," Lisbon pointed out.
"Yes," Jane said heavily. "There is that."
"But you don't think he's going to do that," she said, hoping for reassurance on this point.
"I can't be sure," Jane said. "But as I said—I think he'd like the idea of letting us get closer to one another, but making sure we still…felt his presence. This feels like that, doesn't it?"
"Worst third wheel ever," Lisbon commented.
Jane chuckled mirthlessly. "Just so."
"So what do we do?" Lisbon whispered.
"We wait," Jane said without enthusiasm. "Coming out of hiding now would be a mistake, I'm sure of it. All we can do is bide our time until the trial. Once we get through that, we can re-evaluate our game plan."
Lisbon leaned down and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. "Okay."
Jane tilted his head back and searched her face. Wordlessly, he slid back onto the bed and pulled her down with him. She went willingly, curling up against him. He locked his hands around her waist and arranged her so she was half on top of him, her head against his chest and one leg thrown over his. They lay there a long time in silence, Jane stroking her hair. The half-unpacked luggage lay strewn about them on the bed, forgotten.
