Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter 36)
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: Going to try something new- uploading a shorter chapter, but without such a lag between this one and chapter 35. Just a little experiment I am running. Please review. :)
"I'll be a story in your head, but that's okay, because we're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know." -Doctor Who
"Mystery Man: We've met before, haven't we.
Fred Madison: I don't think so. Where was it you think we met?
Mystery Man: At your house. Don't you remember?
Fred Madison: No. No, I don't. Are you sure?
Mystery Man: Of course. As a matter of fact, I'm there right now.
Fred Madison: What do you mean? You're where right now?
Mystery Man: At your house.
Fred Madison: That's fucking crazy, man.
Mystery Man: Call me. Dial your number. Go ahead." - Dialogue from "Lost Highway" (1997)
"Right now I'm having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before." ― Steven Wright
48 hours later...
Monday, November 6th, 2013 7:08 pm PST
They were back in Sacramento.
The flight to Tucson had been to get Charlotte proper medical attention. Sometime after Red John had abducted Charlotte but before burying her, he'd beaten the shit out of her.
The bloated, rounded, hard curve of her stomach Jane had noticed when he'd checked her over for injuries during that seemingly endless drive to the hospital in Hermosillo had, indeed, been internal bleeding.
Hermosillo hadn't had sufficient facilities to deal with her injuries, so they'd helped with the collapsed lung and given her IV fluids and she'd been flown to Tucson.
The FBI had tried to get Jane to speak and he had probably said more than he'd actually intended. Red John's skeleton hadn't gotten up and walked away by itself. Cho and Rigsby had secured it and flown back with it to California for testing.
The CBI wasn't in charge of the Red John investigation because Red John's crimes had crossed not only state lines but national borders.
However, because everyone wanted a piece of the Red John case but in deference to Jane and Lisbon and the "familial situation" (and more to the point, everyone wanted to pick Jane's brain) the California FBI office had claimed official custody of the remains.
They allowed Cho and Rigsby and Van Pelt full access. Genetic tests proved, conclusively, that Red John was Jane's brother, and his fraternal twin brother at that. Not identical. A fact Jane seemed to obsess about, which seemed to soothe some anxiety in his mind that hadn't been fully apparent until the DNA tests had come back.
They'd looked enough alike to fool people who hadn't known either of them well, but, as Jane was eager to point out, most human beings were horrifically unobservant. Due to the fire, nothing but skeletal remains had been left from the fire. Several other bodies were found on the premises. Young kids who had been slain in a manner consistent with Red John's kills.
Felix had been brought back to the USA and assessed by a psychiatrist for his part in Red John's crimes. Because he hadn't intentionally committed any crimes and had been acting under duress, he wasn't arrested but he'd been analyzed and questioned multiple times by the FBI and CBI, by Cho.
Charlotte was recuperating in a childrens' hospital in California. Jane hadn't left her side. She had woken up from a series of operations to put pins in her arm and stop her internally bleeding organs from bleeding with a dazed, slightly vacant expression on her face. But she had nodded at her father in recognition, and that got a huge grin out of Jane.
Lisbon had watched her carefully but she seemed more or less sane, if not a little less talkative than usual.
At one point a doctor had gone over Charlotte's injuries with both Lisbon and Jane, since they were both involved on the case and Jane was her father.
The doctor had disclosed that aside from the physical injuries sustained during the latest attack (collapsed lung, two broken ribs, moderate concussion, broken fingers, broken left wrist, internal bleeding in the intestines, liver and spleen which had caused a series of slow bleeds which had taken several hours under the knife to correct,) aside from all that... Charlotte had sustained and healed from repeated sexual assaults over a course of years.
Probably beginning in prepubescence...
Jane had gotten up and left the room at that point. Charlotte had still been unconscious and in recovery.
Lisbon had continued to listen, taking in the information, knowing that the information was crucial and feeling obligated to hear it but filled with a growing rage, a growing horror.
Red John's depravity was apparently endless.
Jane had already guessed about the sexual assaults based on Charlotte's comments and behavior, but hearing a doctor confirm his suspicions brought it all back to life and made it undeniable. It was no longer just "likely". Now, it was certain. There was medical evidence- scarring- to prove it had happened.
And not just once, either...
Whatever she was feeling she could only imagine Jane felt it a thousand fold. And Charlotte? Charlotte was disturbed, her mind had shut down processing certain things over the years because it was all just too much to bear.
Jane had come back 15 minutes later, white-faced, knuckles bruised and torn and Lisbon had known better than to ask him if he was okay.
Who could possibly be okay hearing something like that?
At that point Lisbon made a decision to check into a local motel and get some sleep. Jane needed time to himself to settle down, Charlotte was still unconscious and recovering from surgery and she was unable to process anymore.
She'd suggested Jane go home or rent a room somewhere nearby and get some sleep, but despite the police guarding Charlotte's door (despite the fact that Red John was dead there was a threat of press sneaking in and other trespassers) Jane had refused to leave his daughter's side.
The nurses had tried to get him to leave, to no avail. So a folding cot was brought in for him to sleep on and then he crashed, and slept.
And slept.
Black, exhausted sleep. No dreams.
But more importantly...no nightmares.
He woke to Charlotte's bright, strangled scream of alarm. A low, guttural shout of "Nooooo!"
The scream lasted four, maybe five seconds, but it woke Jane and he went to her immediately, pulling a chair over to her bedside, eyes searching her face for information, already knowing why she was screaming, already knowing the sorts of horrors she was probably reliving.
What could he do to make any of them better?
He didn't have a clue.
Right now, when it really, really mattered, he was out of ideas.
Charlotte blinked at him wearily. She was breathing hard, a gaspy sort of whistle. Her face was discoloured with bruises Jane hadn't really noticed back at Hermosillo. Her eyes were haunted and lost.
"Charlie, hey," Jane said finally, tenderly, leaning forward and gently covering one of her hands with his own, hoping to ground her a bit. She watched him with a distant, spacey sort of expression. Jane smiled at her, tried to reassure her.
"Were you having a bad dream?" Jane asked after a moment. Charlotte shook her head no. Jane nodded. Lying worked. He could do lying. He could do denial.
"I'm here, okay? I'm not going anywhere." Jane said a moment later. Charlotte was still, watching him. She looked much younger than her age, and her eyes held a depth of emotion which made Jane feel weak and hollowed out. Finally she spoke.
"You don't look like him, you know. Red John. You don't. He was a wolf. You are a fox. You have a different energy about you and you don't scare me at all."
Jane smiled at her, nodding. He would take any interaction with Charlie he could get, and more than that, he knew she was telling him the truth as she saw it, and it pleased him. Her eyes rolled a bit in her head then and her eyelids fluttered.
Her body was exhausted and recovering, trying to shut down for sleep but her scarred psyche was resisting. At that point she had still been recieving whole blood transfusions. Her body needed to sleep but her mind was terrified of the void, what maybe lurked down in the void...
"It's okay, Charlie. You can go to sleep. It's okay," Jane soothed. Her eyes fluttered open again, determined to fight that horrible tyrant known as sleep.
"Do you think Stanley Kubrick filmed the moon landing?" Charlotte asked then, eyelids heavy, still treading water and afraid to go under. Jane watched her sadly.
"I think we can talk about that later. I think you need to sleep right now."
"You need to sleep," Charlotte parroted back to him, and Jane felt an uneasy stirring in his gut. Charlotte blinked. "You need to shower, too."
"Okay, Charlie. I'll get a shower and come back. And sleep, too. Okay? Is it a deal? We'll both try and get some shut eye?"
That got a nod from his daughter. "My arm is in a cast," Charlotte said plaintively. Jane looked down at her. MRIs had shown her brain was okay. Moderate concussions often led to temporary amnesia and disorientation, but considering the gravity of trauma Charlotte had suffered Jane was concerned her behaviour was more psychological than neurological.
"I know," Jane said, nodding at her cast.
"How did that happen?" Charlie asked, looking drowsily up at him. Jane wasn't entirely sure, but knew he didn't want to delve into hypotheticals with her.
"I'm going to go shower and come back," Jane said instead, getting up off his chair. "I will be back as soon as I can. There is a police man outside the door, okay? And I'll ask Lisbon to come back and sit with you. Okay?"
"I like Lisbon," Charlotte said tiredly.
"That's good. I like Lisbon, too."
Lisbon had gone to the motel and come back 12 hours later, still fatigued but no longer close to dropping. She was going over forensic reports and files pertaining to the last few days, talking with various agents, never far from Jane, stationed in a small room just off the waiting room. Charlotte seemed uneasy around almost everyone, though, so Lisbon had decided to limit her time in the girl's room.
Jane, of course, wouldn't leave her room and wouldn't leave her alone without a member of the team with her and Rigsby, Van Pelt and Cho were all dealing with the FBI at present.
Charlotte nodded again, eyes unfocused, not following Jane's comments. "I think Stanley Kubrick filmed the entire thing. No way they could've gotten through the Van Allen radiation belt. NASA is lying, for sure. NASA is covering it up."
"I'll get Lisbon," Jane said, getting up, trying to keep the look of concern off his face. "I'll be back soon. You try to sleep, okay?"
There was no response from Charlotte.
Lisbon had brought both Jane and Charlotte a change of clothes and toiletries. She got up when she saw Jane stagger into the waiting area, looking for directions. He thanked her with weary eyes and was directed to a shower and bathroom he could use.
Lisbon had gotten a call a half hour or so earlier that a young, local boy in Hermosillo had been found dressed in a magician's suit, walking barefoot along the highway in a state of shock, hands and clothes bloody.
He wasn't talking much, except to answer when asked his name, which apparently was Elian.
He'd been taken to the local clinic and was being processed. By the time the FBI and CBI had gotten wind of the development, the kid had been allowed to shower and was dressed in hospital scrubs. Mute. Even though he'd been covered in blood, there hadn't been a mark on him, except for some bruises around his throat and a black eye.
His clothes had seemed to disappear so the blood couldn't be processed properly, but because he didn't have any open wounds or sores, the blood on him couldn't possibly have been his, and there had been so much of it...
Jane came back to Charlotte's room 20 minutes later. In that time he'd showered, shaved, gotten dressed, and gotten himself a black coffee from the vending machines and gulped it down in three or four swigs. He came back to Charlotte's room feeling somewhat revived, somewhat more human again.
Lisbon was sitting on a couch that had been brought into the room, going over files. She looked up at Jane when he entered, smiled at him uneasily, looked back at Charlie. The girl was lying on her side, blanket pulled up to her neck.
Jane went around to face her. Her eyes were shut, her thumb corked in her mouth like a very small child.
"So we're not even playing at being sixteen anymore, are we?" Jane said softly, looking over at Lisbon, looking back down at his daughter.
Jane watched her, darting a look back to Lisbon. He stood, staring down at her. She wasn't sleeping, but she wasn't exactly "awake" either. He walked over to his cot, sat down on it. Pulled his suit jacket off. Looked over at Lisbon.
"Will you stay while I sleep, Lisbon?" Jane asked her in a voice that sounded genuinely forlorn. Lisbon nodded. Jane lay down on the cot, placed the suit jacket over his eyes to block out the light and tried to rest again.
Red John was dead but there was still a huge journey ahead for all of them.
Monday, November 6th, 2013 9:15 pm PST
Jane had been "napping" for a few hours, dead to the world.
Charlotte had been on her side the entire time, and more or less silent, back to both of them. Lisbon went over files, read as much as she could, highlighted pertinent information and worked on her own statement.
She tried to piece together the days and hours, the series of events and what she remembered. It was tough work, even if it "only" involved reading files and writing, remembering...
Charlotte wasn't up for being interviewed by anyone and when a hospital shrink had come into her room the day before to "ask questions" Jane had fucked with his head like he was playing a high stakes game of chess and the man had left, shaking his head, confused by the interaction and irritated with Jane. Charlotte had watched him go, waved at the shrink almost smugly as he closed the door shut behind himself. When she did things like that the fact that she was Jane's kid was undeniable.
Nobody had bothered them today except for the odd nurse, checking on Charlotte's IV drips and dispensing pain medication, a doctor who had come in to check a small surgical incision while Jane paced outside her room to give her some privacy, an orderly bringing breakfast (scrambled eggs and sausage links Charlotte would never eat, apple juice and toast with jam) and lunch (meat loaf, mashed potatoes that looked like they'd come from a box, runny gravy and wax beans and milk in a little cup).
Jane had slept, been awakened by Charlotte shouting, gotten a shower and come back.
Crashed again while Lisbon kept watch.
After everything that had happened, it was nice to have a pocket of hours just to sit and know Red John was dead, that Charlotte and Jane were both alive, that Charlotte was expected to make a full physical recovery and had no brain damage according to the neurologists. Just to sit and do paper work and recreate an objective timeline and field the occasional phone call from Cho or Rigsby, try to process everything that had happened and catch up...
At 9:15 pm Lisbon's cell phone began to vibrate. Lisbon answered it immediately, spoke her name softly into the phone by way of a greeting.
It was an FBI agent calling to inform her that a suspect named Felix Morales had attacked one of the agents asking him questions. It had been completely unexpected and unprovoked. One minute he'd been answering questions in a soft voice in a gray room flanked with video cameras, the next moment he'd flung himself over the interview table and lunged at the interviewer, biting and snarling "like some sort of dog or something".
He'd been hauled away, laughing and crying and babbling about Hell and damnation and spirits which roamed the earth looking for bodies to slip into, fallen angels, giants, nephilim...
He'd been put in a private room to calm down while the agents on the case decided how to proceed and before anybody knew what was going on he'd bitten his own wrists out, pulled out the clot of veins and arteries bundled just above his forearms and opened them up in vicious, sawing motions with his teeth.
The freed bits of his circulatory system had actually flapped at his wrists like purple loops of string and rope, grotesque and horrible, something out of a Hollywood horror movie.
It was so savage and unexpected- so extreme- that seasoned agents had stared open-mouthed, not quite believing what they were seeing, as blood geysered from the young man's wrists and puddled over his shirt and jeans in viscous streams of deadly red.
He'd began to bite out chunks of his own arms, then, while they were opening the door to his room, snapping crazily at anyone who tried to grab or subdue him. More beast than man.
Two agents had managed to wrestle him down to the floor and restrain him.
It was already too late, though.
One agent managed to pull off his own belt to make a tourniquet and looped it over one of Felix's arms in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but he was slippery from all the blood and fighting with tremendous energy...
The blood was pouring out of him, just pouring out... so much blood...
And they hadn't been able to save him.
He'd bled to death gnashing and snarling in a pool of his own blood.
His last words before his eyes had gone blank, had gone out?
The soul of Red John can never be killed. Red John is not what you think he is.
The agent on the other end of the phone was obviously shaken. Young and shaken and sounding overdue for a vacation. Lisbon listened, knowing she should feel horror at this current turn of events and the insanity that had just taken place, knowing she should feel something, but unable to feel anything.
She had gone numb to this sort of thing.
Lisbon thanked the agent instead and hung up the cell phone. Thankfully Charlotte was still resting and Jane was still asleep.
She could tell Jane this newest little bit of craziness later.
Jane woke up around 10 that evening. Sat up, stretched, looked over at Lisbon and smiled.
Lisbon nodded back at him, couldn't quite bring herself to smile.
"Jane," Lisbon said softly, sighing.
"What?" Jane asked concernedly, getting up off the cot and sitting next to Lisbon on the little roll-in couch. Lisbon lowered her voice, began.
"Felix Morales is dead. He attacked an FBI agent and when he was isolated in a room he..." her voice dropped even more and her eyes tracked over to Charlotte's still form, turned away from them, not moving, "bit out his own wrists." Lisbon's voice sounded flat and drained even to her own ears, despite the forced hush.
Lisbon saw Jane's jaw clench.
Felix had been integral in getting Charlotte back before she'd suffocated in her coffin. Without his help, she very well may have perished out there. The young man had helped dig at the rocky earth to free her...
Jane stared ahead hollowly for a moment, features haunted and guilty and Lisbon saw a shadow of the expression he must have worn in the days and weeks following what he had perceived to be Angela and Charlotte's murders.
Even though he was dead, Red John was still claiming victims. It took a true master to pull that sort of thing off, someone who had tried to make serial killing into an art form, and had succeeded.
Could torture ever be so creatively planned out that it was worthy of admiration? Not the acts or the depravity itself, of course, but the cunning and the intelligence behind the planning?
Lisbon felt herself suddenly ashamed of her own thoughts.
"Some sort of triggered response," Jane said aloud to Lisbon, voice little more than a moan, shutting his eyes and running back through his memories.
Felix had had so many symptoms of someone programmed with trauma-based mind control that he was almost a walking cliché; the dissociated stare, the excellent hypnotic suggestibility, the history of severe trauma and what Jane knew was the body language of a mind-controlled slave.
Jane sighed heavily. If he hadn't been so focused on Charlotte he would have spent time trying to make sure Felix didn't self destruct.
He'd dropped the ball on that, and now Felix was dead. Felix had helped to save Charlotte's life... Felix had helped saved Lisbon, too. And he was dead. And it was because-
"It wasn't your fault," Lisbon said then, cutting into his anguished mental flogging. She put a hand on his arm, gently, and Jane let her rest it there. Jane nodded sullenly.
"I know that. But I was the only one who reasonably could have predicted he might do something like this, and I didn't put the pieces together fast enough."
"You were more than a little preoccupied with Charlotte," Lisbon reminded him gently. "You're still human, Jane."
"Yeah," Jane said, gaze going over to his daughter again. "Yeah."
Lisbon stared at her shoes. Telling Jane about Elian at this point seemed like kicking someone who was already down, but keeping it to herself was clearly not an option.
"Lisbon?" Jane prodded.
"And..." Lisbon began, attention returning to what she had been told about Elian, sorting through the hurried phone call from earlier that evening, wading once more through the gory little details.
"Lisbon? And what?"
"Did you meet Charlotte's little friend Elian?"
"Yeah, I think so. Black eye? About 13?"
Lisbon nodded solemnly.
"He was dressed like a magician outside the shed when I arrived," Jane said, looking to Lisbon for confirmation. Lisbon nodded again.
"Yes."
"What about him?" Jane prodded.
"He was found wandering the highway barefoot and spaced out. And Jane... his hands were covered in blood. They didn't take samples before they allowed him to shower-"
"Of course not-" Jane interjected, clearly annoyed.
"But he didn't have any injuries that could explain the blood. And they found the bodies of several children in the field out back beyond the Chicken Man's house, recent kills," Lisbon said softly, glancing back over at Charlotte's still, sleeping form before looking back at Jane.
Jane shot a look at Charlotte, motioned for Lisbon to step outside the room for a second. He didn't want to risk Charlie hearing any of this, even if they whispered. Lisbon followed him and he gently shut the door. Looked at Lisbon with angish in his eyes.
"So either the boy snapped and killed those children, the victim of some post hypnotic trigger and some sort of mental programming by Red John or he was made to look like he did or he found the bodies and touched them and got the blood on him that way, which is the most likely scenario."
"Made to look like he did? By whom?" Lisbon asked, eyebrows raising.
"I don't know. If the bodies were already on the property and bloody, it would have been easy enough for the kid to get that blood on himself. A child might not realize if they were dead, might try to help. He might stop, try to stop the bleeding, realize they were dead only after getting his hands dirty. If he found them or tried to help them, the blood makes sense. What's he saying?"
"He's not saying anything. He'll only say his name, if asked."
"That's interesting. Can he be flown to Sacramento?" Jane said, leaning forward. "Because that needs to be arranged as soon as possible."
"Okay," Lisbon said, nodding in agreement. She didn't have the energy to tell Jane that she'd try, but she had relatively little control over that sort of thing.
"The bodies of the kids? How old?"
"A few hours," Lisbon said.
"Red John's m.o.?"
Lisbon nodded. "From what I was told." That meant the bodies had been gutted. There would have been a hell of a lot of blood.
Jane rubbed at his eyes tiredly, squeezed the bridge of his nose as if he were developing a headache.
"Why take his shoes off?" Jane queried himself, voicing the thought aloud. Lisbon stared at him, unable to answer that.
"I don't know," Lisbon said, blinking. Her mind couldn't deal with anymore. She needed rest. This case never seemed to die. Why couldn't it just be over, now that Red John was dead?
"The boy was found wandering barefoot. Which meant he took his shoes off. So why did he do that?"
Jane's eyes were tracking images in his mind, hypothetical realities. Lisbon watched as his eyes tracked across an imaginary Mexican landscape, as he tracked the movements of one small boy in shock staggering around in the heat, dressed in a magician's suit too big for his malnourished frame, a suit which reeked of sweat and smoke...
"What if he didn't see one of the bodies, was in shock from the explosion and stepped on a corpse? Or rather, into a corpse? If Red John gutted them, it's conceivable he may have even tripped on the innards. That might be one reason the kid would take his shoes off."
Lisbon said nothing. Her mind was running multiple scenarios too. None of them were the types of thoughts that people who stayed sane their entire lives were wont to think.
"What are you thinking?" It was now Lisbon's time to prod him for answers. When Jane spoke, her own brain shut down and listened.
"Maybe Red John killed those kids, but the time line feels off to me. If the bodies were several hours old when they were found by authorities than almost certainly they'd have had to have been killed after Red John was dead. If Felix killed himself and that was a planted directive in his subconscious, then Elian may have been likewise programmed to commit murder. It would be a particularly effective way to taunt me," Jane said. "Cover both angles."
"Both angles?" Lisbon said, not following. Jane's eyes were still tracking an invisible scene in his head.
"Homicide and suicide," Jane confirmed, looking over at Lisbon.
"He's telling me he can make her do either, and may have... set... her to do both." Lisbon had a sudden mental image of Charlotte as some sort of robotic life form being set like an alarm clock to go off at a certain time. Slack-jawed, hollow-eyed little Charlie ticking down the seconds to some big and bloody "surprise". How would they ever know?
They wouldn't.
And that was the messed-up "beauty" of it. Lisbon suppressed the urge to shudder.
"He's dead." Lisbon said instead. "What would he get out of taunting you now... when he's not even alive to enjoy it?" She didn't want to focus on what Jane had actually said right there, what it suggested about Charlotte's future. She couldn't deal with anymore. She just couldn't.
"He'd have had the satisfaction of knowing he could fuck with me from beyond the grave, before he died," Jane said, grimacing. "That would be reason enough for him." Jane caught her eyes. "You know that would be enough of a reason for him, Lisbon. You know that."
Lisbon didn't want to admit that Jane was right, but she nodded anyway. She closed her eyes for a moment, let out a long sigh. Took a deep, long breath. Let it out to the count of four. Jane watched her carefully.
"Wouldn't he have needed significant time to traumatize those kids? You told me before that a hypnotist can't make somebody do something they are morally opposed to do," Lisbon finally said. She hated what she was hearing, what it implied, hated the post mortem gas-lighting Red John was still managing to pull off. The fucker didn't even exist anymore except as a blackened skeleton, but he was still torturing them.
"It depends what he did to them. If he simply hypnotized them, then no, he wouldn't have been able to achieve these results. But who knows what he did to them. From what Charlotte said and alluded to, a lot more was going on than simple hypnotic suggestions." Jane's voice was relatively bland. He was reciting facts, details. Like on any other case.
"He's dead, though," Lisbon said again, voice a whisper. Clinging to that fact: Red John was dead. Dead men were no longer threats. That's what dead meant. That's what dead had to mean.
"This entire thing has been one giant chess game for him, and the game is ongoing. He's dead but he took care ahead of time to create a system where his pieces now move by themselves."
Pieces. Eyes. People he had manipulated and brainwashed. Stepford wives and Manchurian candidates. Lisbon had a sudden daydream of Red John-style killings continuing in the state, committed by his brainwashed minions. They would never stop, because when they caught someone acting under Red John's control, someone new might take over.
That was a truly nightmarish thought.
"I thought for him, the kills brought him pleasure, though," Lisbon said stubbornly.
Evil for evil's sake was beyond her ability to fully grasp. Greed, cruelty, impulsivity, rage... these things Lisbon could somewhat wrap her mind around, but she couldn't understand Red John. Not emotionally, and not always even intellectually.
He was something beyond human, at least psychologically.
Jane smiled at her sadly. What did it say about himself that he understood, in some sick way, what Red John was doing, understand the twisted logic of it? What sort of monster did that make him, at least potentially?
(It makes you a loyal twin, little brother-)
Jane shuddered slightly at the thought. Pulled his arms around himself in a slow hug.
"It doesn't matter, Lisbon. If he can manipulate and brainwash and implant commands in people, then he doesn't really die, does he? Those people become... agents... of sorts, of his even after he is dead. A sort of deranged form of immortality. He lives on through the actions of other people, who murder or do whatever he has set them up to do ahead of time. It would be an effective way to keep me on my toes and win the game at the same time."
"Win?" Lisbon said, still not fully getting what Jane was saying.
Who would think to try and win a game he'd never see the end of? The logic looped into madness.
It was like packing a picnic lunch to be enjoyed at ground zero of a nuclear blast.
"If the people he's had close contact with can be programmed through whatever... techniques... Red John was using on them... to kill themselves or murder others or lose their minds or whatever madness he dreamed up, if they were programmed to carry out certain actions after his death, at set times or in response to certain external triggers, say... then I'll never know if Charlotte is in the clear. She wouldn't know herself, because the part of her affected would be dissociated from her conscious mind. She'd have no memory of it, perhaps not even while hypnotized. She could be a walking time bomb waiting to go off..." Jane trailed.
He looked over at Lisbon, who had gone very still. Looked back at Charlotte's closed door and opened it immediately.
Walked over to his daughter, still in the bed, back turned to them.
"Charlotte?" Jane said softly, approaching her still form. His heart was already beginning to race. But there was no blood.
She was alive.
But her eyes were open and empty. She still had her thumb corked in her mouth. But her eyes were open. Not asleep. Not even close. The pupils were huge, but equal. She wasn't blinking.
Jane stared down at her, his own expression unreadable. Lisbon looked down at Charlotte, back up at Jane.
"Should I get a doctor or-" Lisbon began. Jane waved her off.
"A doctor won't be able to help with this. A doctor might even prolong it."
Jane leaned over and waved a hand in front of Charlotte's face slowly to see if she would react. She didn't. He sighed audibly.
"Charlotte," Jane said again, and stroked her cheek. Nothing. He pulled one of her hands into his, felt for the pulse on her wrist.
"Pulse is very slow," Jane murmured to himself, nodding. Like it made sense.
"Is she hypnotized?" Lisbon asked, looking down at the small teen worriedly.
"No, I don't think so. This is something else." Jane hadn't let go of her hand. He pulled a small bit of skin between his pointer finger and thumb. As Lisbon watched, he pinched his daughter, eyes never leaving her face.
She didn't react.
"No response to pain stimuli," Jane said, looking up at Lisbon.
"What's wrong with her?" Lisbon said.
"She's in a fugue state," Jane said simply. He was still a moment. Lisbon could see the cogs and wheels turning behind his eyes.
"I've got to get her out of here," Jane said after a moment, voice resolute.
"Out of here? Out of the hospital? Jane, you can't be serious-"
"Yes," Jane said, nodding. "I'm definitely serious."
"Jane... she's clearly not in any state to be released," Lisbon argued, motioning down at the catatonic teenager. But Lisbon knew her protests were useless. Jane was convinced he was right, and statistically he probably was. No doubt he'd have his way no matter what.
"Staying here is going to compound the mental trauma," Jane said, eyes scanning Charlotte's face for any flicker of activity. There was nothing. Her mind had spirited her away to somewhere safer.
"Why?" Lisbon asked.
"Lisbon... Red John had doctors, too." Jane trailed, looking up at his best friend, his partner. Waiting for her to connect the pieces. He saw the light go on. Lisbon's expression filled with intense concern, compassion.
Jane knew in that moment what she must have looked like as a kid when she'd comforted her younger brothers. When her father went too far and someone was left hurting and needing protection. He knew Lisbon understood, that she would back him. She had that protective fire in her eyes, now, what Jane had come to think of as her "mother bear" look.
"You're going to need to hire a nurse," Lisbon said softly, and this got a quick nod from Jane.
"Right. Of course. But I've got to take her home first," Jane continued. "And sooner rather than later."
"Home," Lisbon repeated. "As in... back to the beach house? Malibu? That home?!"
Jane had never sold the house. He'd even kept most of the stuff- the furniture and Charlotte's stuff- packed up in the attic.
Jane kept starring at Charlotte's blank face. Her face was almost like a death mask, unlined and devoid of personality. The essence of Charlotte was missing. It was incredibly eerie to witness for Lisbon, and she couldn't imagine how Jane was keeping so calm.
"Yes," Jane said, nodding. "She needs to go back home. Will you stay with her a minute? I need to go talk to her doctor. I'll be right back."
Lisbon nodded, just like Jane knew she would and this earned her a great big grin from the mentalist. She pulled over a chair and sat down next to the young woman she'd almost begun to view as a daughter.
"Oh, and Lisbon, before I forget... call the California CBI and get them to fly in our little friend Elian before he decides to...you know..." Jane didn't finish the sentence, but he pulled his index finger along his neck in a highly symbolic gesture of suicide. Lisbon nodded. Shuddered.
"It shouldn't be too hard to get him out of the country, but if the locals give you any flack then get the big boys over at the FBI involved. Fill them in on what happened to Felix, too, so they understand the importance of keeping an eye on our little friend," Jane finished, opening the door.
Lisbon pulled out her phone as Jane closed the door behind him. But first...
"Charlotte?" Lisbon tried. There was nothing.
There was nothing.
'