Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter Eight) by Lexikal
Rating: M for graphic violence and language
Fandom: The Mentalist
Summary: Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.
Author's Note: I am going to try and change the summary slightly and see if that yields more story-views. Thanks for the reviews. I wasted quite a bit of time hunting down images of the CBI attic space Jane lives in to make it not only true to the show but to show the reader just how aware of her surroundings Charlotte is, how she always remains on guard.
"Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive."
― William S. Burroughs, Ghost of Chance
"Who's they?" He wanted to know. "Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?"
"Every one of them," Yossarian told him.
"Every one of whom?"
"Every one of whom do you think?"
"I haven't any idea."
"Then how do you know they aren't?"
"Because..." Clevinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration.
Clevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all."
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
"I told myself: 'I am surrounded by unknown things.' I imagined man without ears, suspecting the existence of sound as we suspect so many hidden mysteries, man noting acoustic phenomena whose nature and provenance he cannot determine. And I grew afraid of everything around me – afraid of the air, afraid of the night. From the moment we can know almost nothing, and from the moment that everything is limitless, what remains? Does emptiness actually not exist? What does exist in this apparent emptiness?"
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Works
Thursday, November 1st, 2013 2:16 P.M. P.S.T.
"Would you... should I go check on her?" Lisbon asked, darting a look at Jane. He was sitting on the couch, eyeing the hallway his daughter had disappeared down. Charlotte had been in the bathroom at least ten minutes, and Jane had a look of anxiety growing on his features. He didn't want to crowd her. He also didn't want to let her out of his sight for more than a few minutes. Tough position to be in, for both of them.
Jane caught her eyes and nodded.
"I'll come with you," he said, and got up off his couch.
Lisbon pushed on the bathroom door. It caught. Locked. She knocked lightly. Nothing. Shot Jane a look. Jane sighed, tried knocking himself.
"Charlotte?" He said, and his voice suddenly sounded like the voice of someone on the verge of a panic attack. Someone trying, and failing, to keep their anxiety under wraps, keep their shit together.
There was no answer.
"Charlotte?!" Jane repeated, a little more forcefully. There was the sound of running water.
"Uh... yeah?" The voice behind the door said. Still with the traces of upset, but more in control now.
"You okay?" Jane said. Stupid question really. Who could possibly be okay in a situation like this? What he really meant is: are you ready to rejoin us? A beat.
"Yeah."
"Okay. Do you want to come out?"
"Just a second..." Charlotte mumbled. There was the sound of paper towels being tugged out of the paper towel dispenser. The sound of paper rustling, then paper being (almost certainly) thrown away into the garbage. A beat. The sound of the deadbolt being unlocked. The door opened. Both Jane and Lisbon could smell cigarette smoke.
Jane seemed not to notice, but of course he had noticed, he noticed everything. Lisbon was mentally reminded of herself in the ninth grade, smoking a cigarette in the girl's room during lunch. First and only time she'd tried smoking. She'd felt dizzy, puked in the toilet.
Charlotte was looking at them with bleary eyes. Lisbon wasn't sure if she'd been crying or not, but she'd obviously wiped her face. There was water soaked into the neck of her t-shirt, but pastry crumbs around her lower lip. So... she'd eaten since washing her face?
"I need to get more clothes. My shirt is starting to stink," Charlotte told Jane, a totally earnest proclamation. Jane nodded.
"Do you want to see the CBI attic now?" Jane asked. Charlotte darted a look at Lisbon and Lisbon smiled at her, the same, awkward smile she found herself smiling whenever the girl looked at her. Charlotte's eyes were intense, like laser pointers, like gimlets, like something that could burn you if they rested on you for too long. Charlotte smiled back at Lisbon, and Lisbon was eerily reminded of a robot mimicking body language. The girl turned her attention back to Jane.
"You live up there, right?" Charlotte asked, not for the first time.
"I do. But... we still might have to go back to a motel. There is only one bed."
"Can't we get a camping cot?"
"We could. If you want to do that, we'll do that."
"What is more secure? A motel, or the CBI attic?" Charlotte asked.
"When it comes to Red John, you mean?" Jane asked, even though it was obvious that Red John was the only real security threat on the horizon. Charlotte nodded.
"Yeah."
"I'm not really sure. You'd know better than I would. What do you think is the best idea?" Jane asked, meeting Charlotte's green eyes.
"It is hard to say. Red John is hard to predict. I don't know what he will do in this situation."
Jane could only nod at that.
"No matter where we go, he might kill us, you know. Maybe he will today. Maybe tomorrow. Do you think so?"
"Do I think Red John will kill us today?" Jane said carefully, voice more neutral than he felt.
Charlotte nodded. "Yes."
"No, I don't think he will kill us today. Do you think he's going to kill us? Or try?"
Charlotte shrugged. "Who knows? I am not exactly on script anymore, am I? If I ever was."
Jane looked over at Lisbon. She seemed uneasy, had seemed uneasy and unsure of herself since Charlotte had first appeared, but more-so now. The teen's words were chilling, not only because of the content but because of the relative ease with which she uttered them. Scared and cavalier at the same time. His daughter had spent so long being terrified of simply existing that her own paranoia was an offhand mockery of terror. Terror and not-terror in one neat little package. Dizzying horror and emotional detachment which made it possible to continue to function.
"What if we set foot in the CBI attic and it is primed to explode, Patrick?" Charlotte said then and dropped her voice. The bullpen was more or less empty, but it was still sensitive information they were discussing.
"I don't think that will happen," Jane said, voice equally low.
"Why not?"
"Because," Jane said, darting a reassuring smile over to Lisbon, "where's the fun in that?"
They were in the attic of the CBI, outside Jane's digs. Jane motioned the sliding steel door that marked the entrance of his living space. Pulled a key from his pocket (he'd had the good sense to pocket it before giving his suit to Rigsby to be cleaned) and popped open the padlock. Pulled the door open. Charlotte winced as the door was slid open, as if expecting a physical blow. She waited a beat. Jane motioned she should enter with a nod of his head.
"Home sweet home," Jane said, and entered first. Then Lisbon. Finally Charlotte stepped inside. She gazed around in the gloom. Jane promptly slid the door shut again and locked it from the inside.
"You live here?" The teen asked uncertainly, wandering into the large square space. Dark red brick walls, interrupted by a duo of ochre windows to her left- each of these was segmented into squares, a 3 by 3 grid.
Stairs behind the orange windows and the rest of the wall was covered in old words, white, the fading remnants of another time and place, a nautical supply company's white wordage left on the brick, as currently topical as the ancient hieroglyphs of Egypt.
Front and center, directly parallel to the sliding steel door, was a desk made of an ancient wooden crate. A lamp on it, chrome it looked like, bendable neck, half-sphere shade, older wiring, probably from the 60s. Went well the unintentional rustic look of the place. An decrepit water heater clotted with rust to the left of the wood-plank makeshift desk. A teapot, stainless steel, with an elongated, curved spout.
A hot plate on the floor, unused.
A wooden box crate with another lamp, equally vintage. A huge bank of windows, or rather, one large window segmented into squares, clear, a 3 by 10 grid, north facing.
A semi-dividing wall of... what looked like cedar, a bed mattress with white sheets, a gray pullover fleece blanket and a blue throw with tasseled ends resting atop pine sawhorses that looked liked they'd been knocked together when Roosevelt was first sworn in.
Above them, two fluorescent lights in the brick ceiling, covered in cages. Charlotte walked over to the bed, took in the neatly made sleeping area. Blankets like those given to inmates, really. A small, flat white pillow. Sad.
A lonely yellow lamp, equally as "retro" as the one on the desk, nestled in the cedar plank of the dividing wall. A few books resting on the plank wall's "shelves".
And then, of course, there was the rolling pin board. Gray material. like the kind used in office cubicle dividers. Covered in maps, photographs, handwriting samples, push pins.
"This is a little John Nash, isn't it Patrick?" Charlotte said softly, pointing to the makeshift pin board. Her eyes scanned the documents, the photos, the info Patrick had seen fit to pin up. Obviously his way of trying to find Red John, piece together his location, his identity, from these clues.
Jane smiled, didn't answer.
Charlotte nodded in the direction of the north-facing window.
"That isn't secure. Someone could shoot you while you sleep. A sharpshooter, maybe. You should have put up blinds, at the very least."
Jane didn't say anything to this either.
"Really, Patrick. You have to take better care of yourself. This world is full of danger," Charlotte said, shooting her father a pointed look. She walked over to Jane's bed, hopped onto it.
"Not exactly a posturepedic, is it?"
Jane shook his head, smiled wider. "No, I guess not."
"You no longer have a penchant for Texas hold 'em?" Charlotte asked with faux innocence and pulled one of the books out of the little shelf space created by the planks.
"I've had other things on my mind," Jane allowed tolerantly.
"Fair enough," Charlotte murmured, and lay down on Jane's bed. First the couch downstairs, now the bed- as if, by adopting her father's position on these objects, she might gain entrance into his mind, his thought processes. She paid no mind to her father, now, watching her carefully, to his partner watching her awkwardly. Let them watch if they wanted. Charlotte kept her eyes open and on the ceiling. Then, in the same position, searched the room visually, no part of her moving except her eyes. Jane couldn't take his eyes off her, his child still so undeniably little-girl-Charlie and, at the same time, so worn out and tired, like her soul itself was screaming for peace, her green eyes seeking out threats anywhere and everywhere, if not outright danger. He studied her as she studied his domicile. This entire situation still felt utterly surreal to him, like a waking dream, only marginally more "real" than the hallucination-Charlotte, the pert and confident eidolon he'd dreamt up after that belladonna episode. This Charlotte was really nothing like hallucination-Charlotte, though. She was smaller, shorter, more wiry and both younger and much, much older in mannerisms and body language, not so much teenage girl as stunted little hobbit borne of horror. She still had the book she had pulled off Jane's bedside "shelf" in her hands and now she sat up and looked at it.
"The Lucifer Effect... understanding how good people turn evil," Charlotte read aloud. Jane said nothing to that. She wasn't mocking him, but the tone of her voice let him know, let Lisbon know, that she found the idea of good people turning evil utterly ridiculous. Charlotte narrowed her eyes, read some small print on the cover: "Creator of the landmark Stanford Prison experiment. Cute."
"I try to keep up," Jane said benignly.
"A little light bedtime reading?" Charlotte murmured, and flipped the book open. "Do you think you are a good person who has turned evil, Patrick? Because... I can't imagine you could ever view Red John as being good, at any point in time. Do you?"
"The book interested me. It's not about Red John," Jane said, but of course they both knew that was not really true.
"So...?" Jane said finally, not sure he enjoyed being scrutinized this carefully. "What do you think?"
"Of your bat cave?" Charlotte shot back, not unkindly, eyes still on the words of the book. Lisbon watched the two interact. Wondered just how hard this was for Jane. Wondered how hard this was for Charlotte- was this easier for her than it was for Jane, or just as painful but in an entirely different way? Had Jane's child always had this cocky, cavalier banter with her father, or was it new, or if not new, more pronounced? Was some part of her angry that Jane had never realized she was still alive? Lisbon tried to put herself in the girl's shoes, found she couldn't do it easily. This case was just too extreme, and there were too many variables to be able to intuitively figure out much.
But Lisbon felt, in her gut, that if she were in Charlotte's shoes- whether it was fair to Jane or not- she'd feel angry. Betrayed. He had never seen her corpse because she had never actually been dead, and realizing as an adolescent that Red John was a master manipulator was still no guarantee that the girl felt Jane had really sought to understand her death, sought to understand her fate. It would be hard to be six years old, perfectly alive and terrified, living with a monster and able to sympathize with a father who, as far as you knew, didn't really care about you. Even though that was not what had happened, emotionally it must have felt like what had happened. And that anger wouldn't just skip away with time.
If anything, Lisbon felt, that bitterness must have mutated and deepened over the years like spores attaching to a body and burrowing into it. Alien rage, anger created out of almost preternatural viciousness, almost non-human abuse. And if she- Teresa Lisbon- had figured this out, was intuiting this after a few short hours... then what was Jane picking up on right about now? Was that why the lines around his eyes, what Lisbon had almost subconsciously come to think of as his pain lines- was that why they seemed just slightly deeper?
Lisbon had long felt that murdering Jane's wife and child had been the zenith of the torture Red John had inflicted, but how much worse was this sick plan of his: to steal Jane's little child and raise her with blood-shed and madness while her own father failed to put the pieces together, failed to realize that she had been out there all the time, terrified and alone, crying in the dark of Red John's calculated Hell? How much worse was Jane's already-monumental guilt since coming to know that Charlotte was still alive? Did Charlotte even realize how tormented her father was, or did she assume he didn't really care? How much of her upbringing had she internalized, how much was now her emotional, undeniable truth?
"My bat cave, sure, if you want to call it that. Do you like it?" Jane said, in response to her words.
"It's a little Phantom of the Opera-esque, isn't it? Quasimodo on steroids?"
"I think you're mixing up stories, there," Jane said, smiling gently.
Charlotte shrugged, turned her gimlet eyes on the mentalist who had given her half her life. "It's cool, I guess. A little dark, though."
"That's what the lamps are for," Jane said, and nodded toward the lamp on his desk, the lamp nestled in the corner of the planks on his "wall".
"Even still..." Charlotte said, and leaned over, turned the yellow lamp near his bed on. "This place looks like a breeding ground for ghosts."
Jane nodded. Shot Lisbon a look that said Be cool, Lisbon. She looked out of place, unsure of what she was doing here, but rooted to the spot.
"I don't believe in ghosts," Jane said, then, hoping to lighten the conversation. He walked over to his desk, pulled out his chair. Looked at Lisbon and smiled, inclined his head. What he was saying, without saying a word was: Here, Lisbon, have a seat. Lisbon nodded, crossed the room. Sat down. Jane walked over to the old water heater, pulled a wooden crate out, came over to the bed and put the crate down on the floor. Sat down on it. An overgrown kid in a ramshackle club house sitting on somebody's old odds and ends, that was Jane.
"Of course you don't," Charlotte murmured, and darted a look over at Lisbon. For a second Lisbon was sure she saw pain in those dark green eyes, deep emotional upset, almost as if Jane had just personally insulted her. Mocked her or been cruel. But why? Why?
"Lisbon? You believe in ghosts? Or... at least that they're a possibility in this great, unknown universe of ours?" Charlotte asked, turning those laser eyes to sweep over Lisbon now. Lisbon smiled awkwardly, had the sudden, insane delusion that Charlotte could actually read her mind, read it in a paranormal, alien way. She felt as out of place as she had felt the first time Jane had really spun her head around and defied social niceties on a case, except this situation was much more intense. Charlotte's very existence made it more intense.
"I... I'm not sure," Lisbon said honestly. "I don't know enough about them to make a decision either way."
Charlotte grinned at that and Lisbon caught a flash of silver amalgam fillings in her back molars, just a flash, catching the ambient light and shooting it back to her in a wink of gun-metal-gray and incandescent yellow. She shot her father a pointed look.
"You could learn a lot from her, Patrick. Never say never. When you know everything, that's when you can believe in absolutes. And since you'll never know everything..." Charlotte tapped on her scalp with her right pointer finger, grinned madly. Lisbon had a sudden image of the girl as a human reincarnation of the cat from Alice in Wonderland. Wondered what Jane was thinking right now. He was unusually quiet, unusually subdued. Very studious, all attention on his adolescent child.
"So... you believe in ghosts, I guess?" Jane said lightly, finally. Charlotte shrugged and hopped off Jane's bed. Laid the book down gently on top of the covers with undue care.
"Non omnis moriar- not all of me will die. I am fairly certain of that. But I don't believe in anything. Not with any absolute confidence."
"That seems like a very uncertain way to live," Jane said, his pupils huge in the gloom. The pain lines around his eyes etched themselves a micron deeper.
"It is, I suppose," Charlotte confirmed, walked over to Lisbon seated at her father's desk. Reached past Lisbon to the atomic-era chrome lamp on his desk. She turned that lamp, on, too. She walked over to the wooden crate used as a make-shift table beside it and turned the lamp on top of it on, too.
"Still dark in here, Patrick."
"I suppose it is."
:If you're going to dig around inside the minds and souls of monsters, then maybe you should have a bit more light. Monsters like darkness."
"They do?" Jane said. He knew he sounded patronizing, but he didn't really know what else to say to that comment. Lisbon, for her part, was silent.
Charlotte blinked hard then. Some expression had moved over her face like a shadow falling over someone on a sunny day at high noon, a time when shadows shouldn't really exist. It was now gone, but Lisbon was pretty sure she had seen it and the sight of it had made her blood feel cold. Or was it all this ghost talk giving her the jitters? The sum enormity of the last day and a half?
"You like to drink tea, Lisbon?" Charlotte said then, turning her attention. Lisbon nodded.
"Tea? Yes. Tea's good."
"Everyone likes tea. Even Red John likes tea," Charlotte informed them. "But I don't see any sink around here for water."
"Would you like some tea?" Jane asked dutifully, "I have some bottled water up here. I could make us tea easily."
"Red John likes tea. And four year old girls like tea. The Asians like it, and the Brits, too. If there are aliens visiting this planet, they probably also drink it."
"Do you want some tea?" Jane asked again, voice slightly more neutral. "Charlotte?"
"Tea would be lovely. Thanks, Patrick."
Jane just nodded. Disappeared behind the wall made of cedar planks and came back carrying a 12 pack of bottled water. Charlotte hopped back up on his bed. Picked back up the book she had been looking at earlier and smiled down at the cover, amused.
Jane poured three bottles of water into his electric kettle and turned it on, disappeared behind the wall again and came back with two coffee mugs in his right hand and a box of sugar cubes in his left. He put the sugar cubes and mugs down on his desk next to his own blue teacup and pulled a box of chinese gunpowder teabags off the crate-table. Silently, he ripped the paper off each teabag before carefully putting the teabags in the cups. The teabag wrappers he dropped into a little wire wastepaper basket.
"Do you have to pay rent to live up here?" Charlotte asked from atop Jane's bed, where she was sitting cross-legged.
"No," Jane said, smiling a little at that. The idea of that.
"What's behind that wall you keep disappearing behind?"
"Tea. Some food. Water. Random stuff from time immemorial that the CBI doesn't want to part with."
"Do you have to go back to that floor we were on to use a bathroom?"
"No. There is an old bathroom up here. I can show you where."
"Behind the yellow windows, there?" Charlotte asked, and motioned her head. Jane nodded.
"Yes."
"Where do you shower?"
Jane looked at Lisbon. Grinned.
"There are locker rooms downstairs for agents. After five they are more or less empty."
"You're still wearing those over-sized clothes from yesterday," Charlotte informed her father, apparently already bored with the current line of inquiry.
"I have more clothing, too," Jane said. "Should I get changed?"
"If you want to. You're wearing Rigsby's clothes. He'll want them back eventually."
Jane nodded, looked over at Lisbon with a small, knowing smile on his lips. "How'd you know they are Rigsby's clothes?"
"You think you're the only one who can pay attention to things?" Charlotte asked and grinned at her father, but there was no smile in her eyes.
Jane nodded. Point taken. Walked back behind the partition.
"What are you getting now?" Charlotte questioned from atop Jane's bed.
"I'm getting changed, like you suggested."
They'd had their tea. Charlotte had watched Jane and Lisbon carefully. Jane took his tea black, no sugar. Lisbon took 1 cube of sugar. Charlotte waited for them both to take a sip first, then doled six sugar cubes into her cup, so that her tea was almost more syrup than anything else. She ate it with the spoon.
"Are you hungry?" Jane asked as his daughter spooned the mixture into her mouth. He was finally dressed in one of his own three-piece suits and aside from the tired look on his face and his rather disheveled hair, looked more or less "normal". Charlotte shrugged, and kept eating. Eating, not drinking. Not with 6 sugar cubes in the cup and water that drizzled.
"We can go out and get something to eat?" Jane offered again.
"I have food in my backpack," Charlotte said, and nudged her head towards the bag at her side.
"Okay. But, if you want something besides pop tarts? Something that doesn't come in a box?"
"I can buy my own food, Patrick," Charlotte said guardedly. Lisbon caught Jane's eyes. Jane just smiled pleasantly back at her, then pleasantly back at Charlotte. Lisbon felt tense, but Jane looked smooth as silk, as if this conversation was common place, normal.
"We'll have to go out again, anyway-"
"Why?" Charlotte said, and spooned more sugar water into her mouth.
"Well, as you can see, there is only one bed. If you want to stay here, we'll have to get at least another bed. And one more for Lisbon?"
"We can't just stay up here forever," Charlotte said. Ate more of her tea.
"I thought you wanted to stay here?" Jane responded, smile fading a bit.
Charlotte, in typical teenage fashion, sighed. A long drawn out sigh.
"I didn't know it would be so dark up here."
"Does that bother you?"
"No."
"Because if it does, that's okay," Jane said, and his voice softened with gentle concern.
Charlotte glared at him. Took another spoonful of sugar-water.
"Why would the dark bother me?" She said around the spoon in her mouth.
Jane held up his hands in a don't-shoot gesture. "Obviously it doesn't. My bad. But if it does-"
"I said it doesn't. But there is not enough room for all of us. We need more space."
"Agreed," Jane said diplomatically.
"Lisbon isn't going to want to stay up here," Charlotte elaborated. Lisbon gave the teen an uncomfortable smile.
Charlotte was watching her carefully. Now Jane turned to look at her, too. Lisbon's smile faltered. She knew her words were important, but what words were the right ones?
"It would be pretty cramped in here," Lisbon allowed slowly, testing the waters. Charlotte was nodding in agreement.
"See? It's too cramped," Charlotte told Jane. She held the spoon, drank the rest of the tea mixture and looked towards the teapot longingly.
"More?" Jane said, picking up the teapot. The girl nodded and Jane reached over, refilled her cup with hot water. Jane got up, grabbed the box of teabags from his desk and passed them to his daughter. She took one, ripped the paper off with her teeth and sunk the teabag into the cup.
Lisbon's cell went off then. She pulled it out, lowered her voice. Got up and walked towards the door, voice low. Stepped outside and into the hallway outside of Jane's "attic".
"Who is she talking to?" Charlotte asked her father in what was almost a whisper, eyes trailing back to the door Lisbon had just departed through.
"Probably her boss. You'll be okay her for a few minutes?"
Charlotte gave Jane a pointedly annoyed look.
"Right," Jane said in response to that look. "Well, I am going to go check on her. Be right back."
Charlotte just nodded. Jane crossed over his threshold, closed the door behind him. Lisbon held up a finger to him when she saw him, a signal to keep quiet.
"No, sir. I was with Jane until about an hour ago," Lisbon said into the phone. Jane watched her sharply.
"The girl? I don't know, sir. Yes, Jane thinks so. Well... I believe he'd recognize his own child, for one thing." Lisbon's tone of voice was bordering on incredulous now. Lisbon sighed. "Yes, when I see him, I'll tell him. Yes. No, of course not. No, he hasn't left the state. Yes... I'm quite sure." Lisbon looked at Jane with dark eyes. Finally said goodbye to whoever was on the phone and clipped the cell closed. Swore under breath. Jane looked at her expectantly.
"Our friends at the FBI. They want to ask Charlotte about Red John, about the murders yesterday-" Lisbon began, exasperated. Jane held up a hand now, to quiet her. His eyes darted back to the sliding door he'd just come through. He reached forward, tugged the door open in one fluid motion. Charlotte was standing a few feet away from the door, backpack on her shoulders, looking for all the world like she might run. She'd obviously been eavesdropping, heard Lisbon's words.
"I'm not talking to the FBI," she told Jane directly, before darting a glance over to Lisbon. "No way. And I am getting out of this pig building right now-"
Ordinarily, Jane would have said something about the "pig" comment, Lisbon knew that. But Charlotte was too wound up, and her fear was contagious. She looked to Jane with haunted eyes.
"The FBI get their hands on me? And I'm history."
"They won't get their hands on you," Jane said with unerring conviction. He was obviously attempting to be soothing, but Charlotte was having none of it.
"Never say never," she said darkly. "Is there a another way out of this building? Besides the way we came up here?"
Jane nodded.
"There's a fire escape, if you don't mind climbing down and dropping about four feet to cement pavement-"
"Don't mind at all-"
"Jane!" Lisbon said, trying to be rational. "Running away right now? It's not a good idea. It won't help you, and it won't help Charlotte-"
"How do we get down? Now?" Charlotte prompted, and the anxiety in her voice ratcheted up another notch. Jane reached out and closed the door to his attic, went to his desk and came back with a padlock. He locked the attic from the inside (that would surely piss off anyone in an official capacity who wanted to enter, but too bad) and pulled a key from the back of the wooden crate, taped in place with silver duct tape. Pocketed it and showed Charlotte around the wall and through a loop which led to a fire door. The EXIT light above the door had long ago died, leaving the area in virtual blackness. He unlocked the door, and pressed it open with a creaky screech. Bright afternoon sunlight caught his eyes and he half-winced, half-squinted. He walked out, and Charlotte followed. Then Lisbon. They were on a small metal platform, grated, with a staircase looping down for about five storeys. Charlotte held tight to the metal railing, leaned over and squinted. Her face in the direct, white sunlight of mid-day was incredibly young.
"Not afraid of heights?" Jane prompted. Charlotte shrugged. If she was afraid, she certainly wouldn't voice that fear now. Lisbon glanced toward the cement a good 50, 60 feet below, stern as ever.
"Jane?! This is a really bad idea!"
"You can come with us, Lisbon, or you can stay here and keep out of trouble. The choice is yours. But... I hope you'll come with us," Jane said firmly, no ounce of playfulness in his voice. Lisbon stared at him, obviously dismayed, before nodding. Some sad resolution in his voice had caught her attention, made her heart skip a beat. Charlotte was already clambering down the staircase at quite a clip, intent on her escape. She turned and saw their face-off and narrowed her eyes with annoyance.
"Hurry up!" She hissed at her father. He turned back to her and started down. Lisbon sighed, and followed. Jane had known she would.
They were in a back alley which smelled of old takeaway and dust and Jane nodded the direction to go and began to jog. Charlotte raced after him, cheeks already pinkening up. When they reached the street Jane ushered them across, jay-walking, and into a little cafe. Charlotte eyed the place distrustfully, but came inside after a long handful of seconds.
"We'll order a taxi from here, okay? To take us to a car dealership?"
"Jane-" Lisbon tried again, but Jane just shook his head.
"She is not talking to the FBI until we have some sort of deal in place which ensures her safety-"
"You want protection from the FBI? From who, Jane? Who do you think can protect you from the FBI?"
"Not sure. They'll come to us, maybe. Given the severity of this case and the fact that we know Red John has inside people, well... I am sure they'll understand."
Charlotte was eyeing her father appraisingly, as if trying to get a read on him.
"Ask to use their phone here. Don't use your cell phone, Patrick. They'll trace it- and Lisbon, if you come with us? Throw out your phone here-" Charlotte said, then, fast and tight and voice moderately quiet.
Jane was nodding. He had already, obviously, come to a similar decision about the phones.
"Jane, this is just going to escalate. Do you even have an end game here?"
"We'll think of one on the road," Jane said tightly, and his tone of voice told her he would not debate it anymore. His first priority was keeping his child with him and keeping her safe. Everything else came second to that.
"And Cho? Rigsby? What will they-"
"They'll figure it out," Jane said softly. Something dark and sharp in his eyes lightened just a little. He knew what he was asking of her. Just pack up and leave. Defy the rules of the job, leave her home. Just... go. Because his daughter had come back, and because Red John was still out there. And because he'd be damned if he'd ever be in a position where he might lose his child again. But, he didn't want to lose her, either. She knew that.
Charlotte was sitting at a table, had slumped into it within seconds of entering the cafe, the bell above the door tinkling lightly. She now laid her head against the top of the table tiredly, on the faux-wood formica. Jane slid across from her, took in the pale face and the flushed cheeks, the beads of sweat, the sunken eyes. Something akin to worry nipped around in his stomach and he pushed it away. Already a waitress had appeared, a latino woman in a blue dress and white apron and hair net, carrying a pad and pen. She smiled a huge smile when she saw Jane.
"What can I get you, Patrick?" She said in fluent English, and Jane grinned back at her. He ordered tea and a chicken salad sandwich, a side of home fries with gravy. Lisbon stared at him, trying to work out his angle. Charlotte looked somewhere between annoyed and disbelieving. She'd clearly been planning on escaping instantly, and this delay had her head up and off the table, eyes burning bright with what was almost anger.
"We'll eat something and then order a cab, Charlie," Jane said softly, but there was a sternness in his voice. Charlotte opened her mouth to say something but Jane spoke again before she could protest.
"I want you to eat something. Real food. Not whatever you're carrying around-" Jane motioned her bag, "-in there."
"I'm not hungry, Patrick," Charlotte said, and at that moment she could have passed for one of a million teenage girls who was trying not to roll their eyes at an overprotective parent.
"You might not be hungry, now, but you'll be hungry later. You need calories to function," Jane remarked casually. The waitress was watching the exchange, politely waiting for Charlotte to order.
"Lisbon can order first if you want to look at the menu?" Jane said, and pushed Lisbon a laminated menu, handed Charlotte a menu. Charlotte mumbled what was almost certainly "Jesus Christ" under her breath and glared at Jane again, but took the menu. Lisbon took it, stifled a sigh, and opened it. Decided on the California burger (it was basically a mushroom cheddar burger with guacamole and chipotle mayo) and side salad, a Pepsi. It looked good, but more than that, it looked safe, food that wouldn't alienate Jane's kid.
Finally, realizing that Jane would not budge on the issue, Charlotte ordered a grilled cheese on white bread with fries and gravy. A strawberry milkshake. She shot her father a pointed look.
"Thank you," Jane said softly, as if she had just done a whole lot more than order food on his dime. The look of resentment in her eyes eased just a little and she managed what was almost- but not quite- a congenial nod.
"We'll eat fast, though," Charlotte said. Almost an order, really. Jane smiled back at her. Didn't quite nod.
Thursday, November 1st, 2013 3:38 P.M. P.S.T.
Jane ate slowly. Lisbon picked at her burger, took a few bites of salad. She knew Jane had a point about eating: if they were going to be on the run in a few minutes, it might be wise to fuel up now. Jane was trying to make casual chit chat and Charlotte was having none of it. Her sandwich had come with a little toothpick on the top and a huge dill pickle, and within 5 seconds she'd wolfed down the pickle. Lisbon tried not to stare. Next, Charlotte pulled the grilled cheese apart, so that the cheese stretched between the slices of the toasted bread, and began to line up french fries (covered in gravy) on one of the she had two layers of french fries, she put the sandwich back together. Picked up the bottle of Heinz ketchup and smacked a huge dollop of ketchup onto her plate. She began to eat the sandwich (now stuffed with french fries) quickly, dabbing it in the ketchup between bites. She had an immediate pattern: huge bite of her "grilled cheese", five quick chews, eyes on her father, then a gulp of milkshake to wash it down. Every so often her gaze shifted to Lisbon, but she obviously didn't consider Lisbon much of a threat.
Jane continued to chew slowly.
"Can you even taste any of that?" Jane asked her gently. Charlotte shrugged. Finally nodded. Said something that almost sounded like "tastes good", but it was hard to tell for sure. Lisbon continued to eat at a normal pace, taking her cues from Jane.
Less than five minutes after her meal had arrived, Charlotte was finished. Jane was still working on one half of his sandwich. He reached over and pulled Charlotte's ketchup-streaked plate towards his, pushed the fries with gravy off his plate and onto Charlotte's with his fork and pushed the plate towards her.
"Eat," Jane said simply, and nodded at the plate.
"I'm not hungry, Patrick," Charlotte said.
"So? I'm a slow eater. This will go faster if you help me."
At that, Charlotte just snorted. Picked up her own fork, and begun to eat french fries. Lisbon tried not to watch her. Focused on chewing her burger. A few bites of salad. A sip of soft drink. Charlotte looked at Lisbon's soda, narrowed her eyes.
"You got Pepsi?"
Lisbon nodded. "Yeah."
"Pepsi is gross. Do you know they- Pepsi-Cola- used aborted fetal cells to create flavour enhancers? There aren't actually dead baby cells in your drink, but they used them in a lab, for research, to create flavour enhancers which are, actually, in your drink? I boycott Pepsi."
Jane, despite himself, was grinning.
"Where'd you hear that?"
"Everyone knows about it," Charlotte informed her father.
"Everyone? I didn't know about it. Lisbon?"
Lisbon had already decided that Pepsi was off-limits. Shook her head.
"You can look it up on the internet if you don't believe me," Charlotte said, and there was no light in her eyes, no banter in her voice.
"I never said I didn't believe you," Jane said calmly, and the smile on his face melted a bit.
"No, you didn't say it, but you don't. It's why you were smiling like that. You think I am a full-of-shit teenager trying to get a rise out of your friend."
Jane, calmly, took another bite of his chicken salad sandwich.
"Is that what I think?" His tone wasn't unkind, but it wasn't playful anymore.
"Yes," Charlotte shot back, not intimidated in the slightest.
"Were you?"
"Was I what?"
"Trying to get a rise out of Lisbon?" Jane said calmly, and took another bite of his sandwich.
"No, not anymore than you were trying to get a rise out of me by ordering food right now," Charlotte said, and her eyes, if possible, seemed to turn even hotter. Jane shot Lisbon a placating look and shrugged.
"You needed to eat. And, before you deny it... even if you didn't, I needed to eat. I can't think when I am hungry."
Charlotte didn't say anything to that. Her eyes softened a bit and she stared at her plate. Put away another forkful of fries. Head down, eyes burning angrily at the french fries covered in both gravy and ketchup. Her movements were more mechanical now, a flush of red on her cheeks like Jane had just publicly shamed her, which, of course, he really hadn't. Lisbon felt sorry for the kid. Wondered if all interactions were power games in Charlotte's mind. Probably.
Fucking Red John.
Lisbon ate quickly after that and Jane got a doggy bag for the other half of his sandwich. Purchased three saran-wrapped slices of apple pie to go in a brown paper take-out bag and asked to use the phone. The young latino woman quickly nodded and brought out an old salmon-pink rotary phone, something so outdated it almost looked like a movie prop. Jane dialed the cab from memory, gave the name "Stewart" when the cabbie on the other end asked for a name and hung up. He leaned over, whispered a few sentences to the young woman who had served them, and smiled at her when she smiled back, nodded.
No doubt she would never remember they had been there. Is that why Jane liked this place? Was she easy to hypnotize?
They sat at their table, waiting, watching the street and the life outside the restaurant's windows. When the cab pulled up Charlotte was the first on her feet and the first to reach the door. She said nothing to the cabbie, obviously, just pulled the back door open and crawled in.
They'd been dropped off at a Toyota car dealership just outside Sacramento. Jane strolled in, made some small talk. Lisbon watched Jane, then glanced over at a rather bored looking Charlotte. The salesman seemed to know Jane, and Lisbon's hunch was confirmed when Jane called the man by his first name, "Ricky".
Ricky nodded at something Jane said. He nodded in Lisbon's direction, looked at Charlotte and smiled at her, the type of smile people ordinarily reserved for much younger children. Charlotte ignored him and wandered over to the little coffee maker in the corner of the showroom set up for lookey-loos. Poured herself a styrofoam cup of coffee and dumped an unnatural amount (at least 5 seconds worth) of coffee mate into the dark liquid, a handful of sugar cubes. She stirred the entire mess with a brown plastic stir-stick and sat on one of the bucket seats, drinking her coffee (with clumps of coffee mate floating on the top) through the stir-stick and staring at her converse all-star shoes with drooping eyelids. Lisbon watched her, fascinated by this young, odd girl who was Patrick Jane's child. Charlotte, feeling herself being watched, darted a look up at Lisbon.
"This coffee tastes like shit," she informed Lisbon with annoyance, no ounce of sarcasm in her voice. Lisbon nodded, tried not to laugh.
"You can have a coffee, too, if you like," Charlotte said generously, and nodded to the machine. Lisbon smiled in earnest at that, shook her head.
"It's free, you know," Charlotte reminded Lisbon.
"No, it's okay. I'm not thirsty."
Jane came over to his daughter a few minutes later, shook the keys like they were a baby rattle and Charlotte looked up. Ricky-the-salesman was nowhere to be seen.
"Ready to go?" He said to her, then looked over to Lisbon, who had taken a seat next to Charlotte. Lisbon nodded. Charlotte got up, quickly drank the rest of her coffee and held onto the empty, sugar-coated styrofoam cup. In the parking lot, with the stir-stick speared through the side, she tossed the cup onto the ground and purposefully stepped on it. The flattened styrofoam she kicked under a gleaming red 2013 Toyota corolla.
Jane had already unlocked the back door of the car that was obviously "his" (Lisbon didn't know cars but she thought it might be a Camry) and ushered Charlotte inside. He then unlocked the driver's side and got in. Reached over and unlocked the passenger side for Lisbon.
And then they were off. Jane pulled the car back onto the macadam of the highway, began to accelerate. Lisbon glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was quarter to five. After a few minutes Jane caught Lisbon watching him curiously.
"He owed me some money," Jane said by way of explanation. Lisbon nodded. She had suspected something like that.
From the backseat Charlotte mumbled: "Too bad he didn't work at a Porsche dealership." Then she was silent again. Ten minutes on the road, and Lisbon risked a glance over her shoulder. Charlotte was slumped with her face against the glass of the window, apparently fast asleep.
"You're going to want to get rid of your phone, now, Lisbon," Jane told her. He rolled down his own window, pulled his phone out of his pocket and tossed it out into the late afternoon heat. Lisbon sighed. Removed her phone. Rigsby had left a text message, begging to know where she and Jane were. She could almost see the worried expression on his face as he had thumbed in the message.
"They can be used to track people," Jane insisted. Lisbon nodded. Wondered what she was becoming, right now, if she threw her phone away. Legally, was she becoming a fugitive? Not really, since Charlotte was merely wanted for questioning and involvement with Red John and nothing else. But legally, how would this be spun? Jane, as if reading her thoughts, caught her eye. Sighed.
"If you want me to drop you off somewhere, Lisbon, I will understand. This has to be your decision." The understanding in his voice cemented it. Lisbon rolled down her own window and threw the phone out onto the long expanse of road. They were now on Interstate 5, heading south. The early November air was hot and dry, charged with electricity. Overhead there were thunderclouds.
From the backseat, groggily: "We on Interstate 5?"
"Yes," Jane told his daughter, and glanced in the rearview mirror. Charlotte yawned and forced herself to sit up.
"Good. You can stay on it south, all the way to Tijuana."
Lisbon shot Jane a look. Tijuana? Surely, they wouldn't be crossing the border.
"Right now we're just going to keep moving," Jane told Lisbon lightly, purposefully pitching his voice low. "See what develops."
-Chapter End- Please Review